Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in washington. Federal prosecutors in new york have accused the president of criminal violation of the federal Campaign Laws. They say trump directed thats the word Michael Cohen to cover up a Campaign Contribution in the form of payments with two women with whom he had sexual relations. This comes from the Southern District of new york, not Robert Mueller, not the socalled 17 democrats the president says are working against him, not the deep state, not from a witch hunt. Its from one of the two Sentencing Memos filed in the case of trumps former lawyer, Michael Cohen, today, which are shedding new light on the president s potential legal exposure. As trumps longtime fixer, cohen pleaded guilty in august to Campaign Finance violations and making hush payments to two women on trumps behalf. And now, tonights Sentencing Memo makes clear that with respect to both payments, cohen acted in coordination with and at the direction of individual
one. Thats the pr
there s a loved one, there s a family member or someone that they fear that they want to protect. so, that s the kind of thing, because it s in michael cohen s best self-interests to be fully cooperative. everything he tells them they re not going to used against him, they re going to use in the prosecution of other people. so the conclusions that come to my mind are either someone he wants to protect or there s someone he fears. well said. thank you, natasha bertrand, david and ken dilania nnk and barbara mcquade and ari melber for joining us from the beat. much more on today s breaking news. senator richard blumenthal with the senate judiciary committee, will join us next to discuss the court filings and what we learned today about russia, about criminality, about a president who s been, well, he s got his name mentioned. he s called individual one. and according to that filing from the southern district of new york, he directed the criminality in that campaign violation. in an
another russian offering to make this connection between trump and putin is also extremely suspicious. but i have to agree with david here. i think that the most pivotal point in that mueller filing about michael cohen is the fact that he has information related to the core of the investigation. does that have to do, for example, with michael cohen potentially going to prague to pay off russian hackers as the steele dossier said? remember, that put cohen at the center of these efforts of potential conspiracy between the trump campaign and russia. so i think that that right there just means that there s so much more left to cohen s cooperation, even though the southern district of new york is very unhappy with the extent to which he s cooperated with them, which may indicate that cohen is more reluctant, perhaps, to throw people associated with the trump organization under the bus. he does not seem to be shy about detailing the efforts between trump and the rest of the campaign to coord
the wall too high to climb in terms of criminality? in other words, as much as cohen tried to help nail trump, as much as he tried to help on the russia front, the business end and the synergy, all that stuff, it wasn t enough to make up for his own crimes, so he s still going to have the book thrown at him. or is he still able to climb that wall and get out of this thing? i think it s not about that he didn t give them trump, because he clearly did. look, if donald trump wasn t the president and was able to be indicted remember, justice department policy says you can t indict a sitting president it s pretty clear that he would be the target of an investigation about illegal campaign donations related to these payments of women, based on what cohen has given him. i think he didn t get the deal because had he refused to answer questions about his past criminal dealings. and you know, there s been rumors about ties to organized crime. who knows why he didn t want to answer question
what s called catch-and-kill. again, federal prosecutors write that cohen admitted with respect to both payments he acted in coordination and here s the word and at the direction of individual one. that s donald trump. in addition to the special counsel s filing seems to undermine president trump s claim that he had nothing to do with russia. according to page four of the special counsel s filing tonight, michael cohen made false and misleading statements concerning outreach to russian officials. cohen had, in fact, conferred with individual one, believed to be president trump, about contacting the russian government before reaching out to gauge russia s interest. in other words, they decide to get together, trump and manafort, to get together with the russians. the meeting ultimately did not take place. joining me is congressman ted lou, democrat from california, house judiciary committee, patricia bertrand and david is washington bureau chief with mother jones. congressman, thank