Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. To get manafort loans. We hear one thing after another listed and as i say, a very plain, kind of matter of fact fashion, although what did seem awkward was the fact there was a certain part of the courtroom that gates didnt seem to want to look at. The manafort part of the courtroom. Right. Let me ask you how they deal with explaining to a jury that someone is a cooperating witness, that theyve already pleaded guilty to committing some crimes. Does that change or could you detect any change in any of the Body Language from the jury . Did they seem to to listen less intently or did they lean in as this was someone who had traded something . How does that go over in a jury . So, i was watching the jury as they were describing, or, as i said, as the prosecutors were leading gates through a description of his deal with the government, and the jurors were watching that very intensely. I saw a number of them taking notes on
to get manafort loans. we hear one thing after another listed and as i say, a very plain, kind of matter of fact fashion, although what did seem awkward was the fact there was a certain part of the courtroom that gates didn t seem to want to look at. the manafort part of the courtroom. right. let me ask you how they deal with explaining to a jury that someone is a cooperating witness, that they ve already pleaded guilty to committing some crimes. does that change or could you detect any change in any of the body language from the jury? did they seem to to listen less intently or did they lean in as this was someone who had traded something? how does that go over in a jury? so, i was watching the jury as they were describing, or, as i said, as the prosecutors were leading gates through a description of his deal with the government, and the jurors were watching that very intensely. i saw a number of them taking notes on the different provisions of the plea deal and i was struck
talking about manafort, they re also talking about trump. he thinks it s sort of a white-collar crime and it wouldn t be this way without manafort s connection to him, which is correct. it seems to me that these spears are all pointing in towards the oval office. you have the cohen legal shenanigans with cohen now trying to get some sort of deal with the southern district. you ve got not just the manafort trial, but the gates testimony. as we talked about with barbara and chuck, gates is a cooperating witness that anything that bob mueller is investigating. it s not just what gates says during the manafort trial that he s going to be annoyed by. trump s bad behavior is afternoon animated by fear. what s the central fear? that s the great question. and people that are close to him say they don t know what they don t know, what we don t know. part of it is the president has made a decision. he truly believes and i m not saying this is correct, but he truly believes that he did nothin
own, you know, fortune, their own liberty, right, their own freedom, to lie on behalf of another person. and so, as the president continues to reach out, he s increasing his own risk, and as long as the people to whom he s reaching out when they re questioned about it, they should be okay. of course, like mr. gates and mr. manafort, if they have committed underlying crimes, they have a separate problem. just like mike flynn, too, right? that s exactly right. frank, chuck, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. stul ahead tonight, democrats are trying to pull off something that has not been done since the 19 80s, and may nay just do it. stay with us. we ll be right back.
case for us. thank you, nicolle. let s bring in our legal power team. first of all, josh just reported, barbara, that russia was front and center in some of the testimony from gates today. what is the larger picture look like and how does gates help us understand not just the manafort piece, but the trump campaign piece and everything that happened afterward until the point where gates left the scene after he was indicted alongside his former mentor, paul manafort? well, one of the pieces of evidence that the prosecution was trying to get in today and the judge was being a little bit difficult about how much detail he would allow them to go into was when paul manafort and rick gates were working in ukraine, they were working with these oligarchs. because they were making enormous, enormous campaign