See you soon. Welcome to the beat. I am ari melber. A lot going on. We begin reporting on two major Breaking News stories. Hamas is releasing two american hostages. They are safely back inside israel. Also, Breaking News from the trump coup rico case. A key architect of the trump coup plot Pleading Guilty in a georgia courtroom. This is the second trump lawyer in as many days to be convicted. We have joyce vance standing by as we follow this story, and we also have a reporter coming up from the mideast region on the major breakthrough on those hostages. First, we begin with what were learning in the United States in one of the biggest cases to ever come down the pike in any court, state or federal, accusing a former president and aided by his lawyers of a coup. So a Top Trump Lawyer who is linked to that coup for the first time today Pleading Guilty. We had begun our jury Selection Process this morning, but ive been informed there is a change of plea. How do you plea to count 15, consp
News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. Its something that i think the president and his lawyers know, the Special Counsel will be looking at. So interesting. Im really glad that you pointed out the similarity and language there, particularly since there are reports that the Special Counsel is looking at whether tweets can be used as obstruction of justice. Lets look at the trial. Whats happening in the manafort trial as we speak, shimon . Todays really been so two witnesses so far that have testified. One of them, i think, the important witness here, the fbi agent who entered manaforts home. They did a Search Warrant at his home in alexandria, virginia. Theyre talking about some of the documents that they found. And this really goes to the meat of the prosecutions case. These are documents about his loans, bank records, things they found with his name on it. Wire transfers. Goes to the meat, to the heart of the case and the evidence that the fbi has gathered and
it s something that i think the president and his lawyers know, the special counsel will be looking at. so interesting. i m really glad that you pointed out the similarity and language there, particularly since there are reports that the special counsel is looking at whether tweets can be used as obstruction of justice. let s look at the trial. what s happening in the manafort trial as we speak, shimon? today s really been so two witnesses so far that have testified. one of them, i think, the important witness here, the fbi agent who entered manafort s home. they did a search warrant at his home in alexandria, virginia. they re talking about some of the documents that they found. and this really goes to the meat of the prosecution s case. these are documents about his loans, bank records, things they found with his name on it. wire transfers. goes to the meat, to the heart of the case and the evidence that the fbi has gathered and now the prosecution is using in the case. signifi
oh, my gosh, they really are taking manafort to trial. he knows what dangers manafort may have and once this trial commences, the pressure is much, much greater on manafort and there are deals cut during trials. people have plead guilty midtrial. is this a signal to manafort that a pardon could be coming? just stick with me? i defer nobody wants to get into the head of the president on that one. you shouldn t. but he hasn t ruled it out yet. he s been asked time and time again. he s been quite snappish in his responses about potential pardons for them or pointed out they haven t been charged with anything. but he has not ruled out the idea of that. so it s still there. but i do think over the next few days as this trial is playing out, even though it has nothing to do with russia, russia is looming large over this. the more the president sees it as we saw from his twitter feed, it reminds him of jeff sessions
bad justice department, didn t really tell me about what was going on so don t try to blame me for anything. he s kind of like talking as usual about both sides of his mouth here saying he was kept in the dark. saying this is an unfair thing and yet being told the same type of thing is reoccurring right now. the one interesting thing about this in terms of the timeline is the manafort and gates indictments were first out of the box, we re now seeing a pattern with mueller of handing off some of these investigations to the southern district of new york. it s not inconceivable that had this come later down the pike, it was compartmentalized to being just tax issues that maybe wouldn t have stayed with the special counsel. first out of the box and now in the trial now. i know there s a lot you can t say because you did represent rick gates briefly. but knowing what you know if you re the white house and the president, do you have a reason to be concerned watching this trial? looking a