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
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analyst dan yny cevallos. he s at the courthouse. let me play the now infamous tape. a recording cohen made with then candidate donald trump discussing what cohen says was a possible payment to a former playboy model. we should note the trump camps disputes the characterization. when it comes time for the financing, which will be no, no. no, i got it. so what are the implications for trump? where s his vulnerable exposure so to speak? it would mostly be campaign finance law. was he aware in contradiction to the statement he made on air force one, aware that these payments all right it seems like we re having some audio problems with danny cevallos.
prosecutor s offices. i think a big way the southern district got to cohen was by utilizing evgeny froeman who was a state cooperator. so if the question ultimately is can the southern district share cohen with mueller, absolutely. i would expect that to happen. if the question is what is your question as to what can cohen give mueller based on the reporting that s out there, we only have the sort of narrow view, but two things. one is the payments, the hush money to the various women who have made allegations about donald trump. that could be a campaign finance problem if those payments were not recorded as contributions. and the second, the big one to me is the trump tower meeting. and there was a reporting a couple weeks ago that michael cohen has information that shows donald trump knew about that meeting in advance. if so and, importantly, if it can be cooperated, michael cohen s going to have some credibility issues. the prosecutors have their work cut out for them. if that s tru
very quickly, from your experience in possible cases or at least working in the same office, how long would these negotiations have taken place? when would a conversation about a possible plea deal have been approached? who may have initiated it? both have to, you know, you need two to tango. cohen needs to be interested in cooperating. it seems clear he is. southern district has to be interested. they should be. and, you know, for what that process what i ll be interested to see is when they go into court today, where are they in the cooperation process? typically, the prosecutor will first debrief the person. and that could take with a guy like michael cohen, weeks, days on end. 9:00 to 5:00 days in a conference room until you re satisfied i know everything about this guy, i know what he needs to cooperate on. it s also possible they re going to put in this plea now as a place holder and then do the cooperation after. i want to bring in msnbc