This is cnn blakicnn break im wolf blitzer in the situation room. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Were following Breaking News on the president s former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the russia investigation. Two Court Filings just released, one by the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, the other by prosecutors in new york, and theres new information about cohens cooperation. What it could mean for President Trump and for Michael Cohen as the feds in new york argue he should get substantial prison time. Right now, Robert Mueller also is set to file a secret document on Paul Manafort, the former Trump Campaign chairman, and why prosecutors believe manafort lied. Theres lots of news to unfold right now. I want to go first to our
political correspondent sara murray. Sara, muellers document makes it clear that Michael Cohen was cooperating but hes not necessarily suggesting he shouldnt get a substantial prison sentence. No, i think theres
been going through it. parts of it are redacted, but in one participate they say manafort specifically lied about his interactions with his russian associate who mueller alleged has ties to russian military intelligence. the whole connection with russia right now brings up the issue of collusion, russia, individuals, trump campaign, trump presidency. every new piece of information i think really does deepen this story. it deepens the relationship between campaign individuals, russian officials, the ongoing communications, the substance of those communications, and then, of course, sort of the question of collusion or serving russian interests is central to the obstruction inquiry as it relates to the firing of jim comey. why did michael flynn make that representation to russian ambassador sergey kislyak that the incoming administration, not the president of the united states at the time, was prepared to lift sanctions, sanctions that had been imposed because of
take the fifth because i don t want to tell the real story. the question here is not whether people lied. it s about contacts with the russians. if they weren t significant, why does everybody lie? i think, yes, it is about context with the russians, that s what mueller is investigating, whether there was collusion but i think it matters that donald trump lied if you believe what investigators have laid out in all these documents when he was a kacandidate, he s koblted to lie to the american people when he was in the white house. and one of the questions that springs to mind is why? donald trump may still have won even if there were women that they had paid off, even if the american public knew he was working on this project in moscow. he may still have won. but you are left with this picture that donald trump and all of the people he surrounds himself with are willing to do whatever it takes to get power and then to stay in power. pamela brown, what do you think? how s the white h
become public here, the special counsel has spent so much time corroborating it, gathering information. the evidence here is mounting, mounting, mounting. what you are seeing here is really one big conspiracy, a conspiracy to lie, a conspiracy to obstruct, a conspiracy not to allow investigators to get to the truth of what was going on here. what was going on with the russians and people inside the campaign? we are now seeing things about the company, the trump organization perhaps here. something was going on here, and mueller knows it all and it is only a matter of time. that s why the filings are so important. every time we gear up, we get ready for these filings because this is how we re getting a window, a peek into what is going on here, and every time information comes out it is a big deal, wolf, no matter how you look at this. there is so much information here and we have yet to know everything. when we do, we are probably going to be shocked even more than we are with each o
witnessed it earlier in the week and of course the documents released today, is that you do not lie to special counsel mueller s office. special counsel mueller already knows the truth, right? like a good fbi agent, when these individuals went in and were interviewed, the fbi did not ask them a question they already didn t know the answer to. it is clear when cohen went in for his interview, he voluntarily went in, he volunteered information that he thought the counsel s office was interested in, but as soon as they started asking him questions about the moscow project he started telling lies. that means that they already knew what they wanted to know about the moscow project. they just wanted to know where he stood on it. it is clear that he lied and it is now coming full circle. shimon, let me get your thoughts. you have covered this from day one. as you have gone through these documents, give us your big picture right now, the contacts