Inauguration committee knew about it. With me nbc Investigative Reporter kennedy lanian, evelyn farkas, Deputy Defense secretary kim lee, associate counsel during Whitewater Association and former u. S. Attorney guy lewis. Great to have you with us this friday. Ken, let me start with you. Tell us about this guilty plea and what unfolded. Ayman, this case appears to have come out of the investigation of Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, running this massive lobbying on behalf of russian backed ukrainian oligarch. Sam patten comes in after the oligarch,ian kovic had fled in exile to russia and manafort trying to reconstitute political party, known as party of regions, formed something called opposition block. According to the documents, patten was lobbying for the opposition bloc. Inside the United States he was being paid by this foreign political party, thats illegal because he never registered with the Justice Department. He gave a media interview saying he was no
Inauguration committee knew about it. With me nbc investigative reporter, evelyn farkas, Deputy Defense secretary. Kim lee, associate counsel during Whitewater Association and former u. S. Attorney guy lewis. Great to have you with us this friday. Ken, let me start with you. Tell us about this guilty plea and what unfolded. Ayman, this case appears to have come out of the investigation of Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps former campaign chairman, running this massive lobbying on behalf of russian oligarch. He comes in after the oligarch had fled in exile to russia and manafort trying to reconstitute political party, known as party of regions, formed something called opposition block. He was lobbying for opposition bloc. Inside the United States he was being paid by this foreign political party, thats illegal because he never registered with the department. The more interesting part of this plea agreement, he was not charged with this conduct but admitted to fudnneling a straw donation from
the president was asked about payments to stormy daniels in a new interview. he said, i don t want to get into this because it s been covered so much. there s no campaign violation whatsoever. the timing of when the president learns about these payments is of great significance, sir. what is your reaction to what the president said today. in march of this year. excuse me, i should say that was yesterday. so in march of this year, congresswoman rice and i wrote a letter to the fbi to investigate large payments to stormy daniels and katherine mcdougal to silence them. we viewed them as campaign violations. they were criminal. mike cohen pled guilty to two felonies. the president is on tape with michael cohen talking about these payments in advance. so for the president to try and change the story shows again he s misleading the american people. congressman ted liu, sir,
the president was asked about payments to stormy daniels in a new interview. he said, i don t want to get into this because it s been covered so much. there s no campaign violation whatsoever. the timing of when the president learns about this is of great significance. what is your reaction to what the president said today. in march of this year. excuse me, i should say that was yesterday. so in march of this yeerp congresswoman rice and in wrote aler to the fbi to investigate large payments to stormy daniels and katherine mcdougal to silence them. we viewed them as campaign violations. they were criminal. mike cohen pled guilty to two rms felonies. the president is oppose tape with michael cohen talking about these payments in advance. so for the president to try and change the story shows again he s misleading the american people. congressman ted lieu, thank you for your time this evening.