Manafort faces. The judge told them to get back to work though. So could it mean we are any closer to a verdict. But we start with some Breaking News. An nbc news exclusive. Former trump personal Attorney Michael Cohen is discussing a plea deal with federal prosecutors. One that could come as early as this afternoon. Thats according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with nbc news. Tom winter is the nbc news investigations reporter who helped break the story. Our guest is a former u. S. District attorney for the Southern District of new york which is conducting the cohen investigation. Let me begin with you, tom, lay this out. What else did the sources say . How close the possibility of seeing some kind of deal emerge today . Sure. So ayman, as ellie can probably well tell you, no prosecutor counts their chickens and counts a plea deal until they have it. Then insigned. And the person is in court. I think were still a little a ways away from that, based upon
Coverage of nati
them. flynn has switched to a different legal team, a fox news pundit legal team. the legal team has made over the top allegations about the evil justice department and evil fbi and innocent mike flynn being targeted by deep state, and the fbi themselves being the real criminals. sentencing was delayed again because his new lawyers said there was this inspector general report at the justice department which would shed important new light on the bogus case against mike flynn. the judge in flynn s case, the same one who sent him away a year ago and said you might want to help yourself more before you hear the sentence. that same judge agreed to once again delay flynn s sfentencing until after the inspector general s report came out so everybody could see what the inspector general concluded about the propriety of the case,
different legal team which is a fox news pundit legal team. that new legal team has made overthe top allegations about the evil justice department and evil fbi and innocent mike flynn being targeted by some deep state cabal and the fbi being the real criminals. just a couple weeks ago mike flynn s sentencing was delayed again because the new lawyers said there was this inspector general report coming out at the justice department which would shed important new light on the bogus case against mike flynn. the judge in flynn s case, the same one who sent hum away a year ago who said you might want to try to help yourself before you hear the sentence, that same judge agreed to, once again, delay flynn s sentencing this time until after the inspector general report came out so everybody could see what the inspector general concluded about the propriety of the case
so when i saw flynn s sentencing memos, that jumped out at me right away, this is not going to sit well with judge sullivan. but then i tried to put myself in flynn s lawyer s shoes and you figure even the government is not even the government is not recommending my client go to prison. so maybe if i go in and i flick at this conspiracy theory, maybe i can get president trump s attention, maybe i m playing for a pardon here. it s sort of a gamble and i think what you re seeing today is the jij wudge was having non that. thank you for your analysis, ken dill annian and matt ka puzo with the new york times. what s clear in all of this is the president is watching very closely. trump spent his event-free morning tweeting furiously a series of taxes on the mueller problem and big tech. his key tweet was well wishes for his former national security
get to come in and just say the government tricked me. on one handed it may have been sullivan getting something off his chest or expressing disdain for what the flynn team did. worth noting flynn walked that completely back. flynn said i knew you are not supposed to lie to the fbi and i accept what i did. but it seemed like it went further than that for the judge, it seemed having gotten that off his chest, he didn t just resume normal operations. he implied what would possibly be a probation sentence new york city jail time at all, he could impose a greater sentence. it s almost like he s saying it doesn t matter the deal you cut, i m still the judge. and ken got it absolutely right. the judge has the final say here. judge sullivan has a reputation for being a sort of compassionate guy when it comes to sentencing, but as ken notes, he s got very little patience for government misconduct, and in this regard, michael flynn is the government.