possibly come to the table about an agreement. the sentencing potential for their charges, particularly the money laundering conspiracy, is so high, it s going to be close to the statutory maximum of 20 years. the only thing that can drag that down to a reasonable level is substantial assistance with the government. so they have a tremendous incentive to come forward and cooperate and that means giving other people up, up the chain of command. ideally, the biggest fish they can think of. okay, john, danny s talking about what could drag down manafort s sentence. let s talk about who this could be dragging in. and how about wilbert ross? are we going to hear his name? he owns a big stake of the bank of cypress. the bank of cyprus, where we know at this point, according to the document, where some of this money was laundered through. that board had five russians
close to papadopoulos. they do very different things. obviously from the plea agreement that papadopoulos signed, he was communicating with higher level people on the campaign. these guys know who he was. pictures of him at the table with trump. it will be difficult to convince the american public this person has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign. the idea of a volunteer, that just means that somebody who didn t need to be paid. sort of like john kelly last night. sarah huckabee sanders said you should never question a four star general. john kelly said on another network last night that paul manafort barely knew the president. paul manafort has known president trump for years. he has an apartment in trump tower. he could go up and borrow a cup of sugar. so that is just untrue. he probably doesn t. danny, wasn t to ask you our legal eagle here, we learned mueller initially wanted the plea agreement for papadopoulos to stay sealed because he was
president spoke to his attorneys multiple times in response to press inquiries and questions about the process but never revealed any angst or anger. the president was focused on diplomatic preparations ahead of his trip to asia. he wanted the country to understand he s fully committed to continuing his course with the special counsel which is one of full cooperation. so that s just a sort of simple look at where the president stands right now. it s no surprise he d be watching tv and fuming certainly on the issue of russia. it was striking that the chief of staff was so open about the fact that it s been very distracting to the president and it s something they talk about each morning multiple times, stephanie. president trump, you said it, in his tweet, called george papadopoulos a liar. he lied to the fbi. that s how they got him to cooperate. i want to get my panel in here. nbc national political reporter john van allen, nbc legal analyst danny cevvalos.