investigations, in the pentagon, in congress and in the department of justice. if you look in the dictionary under the headline worrying about legal bills, there is a picture of mike flynn right now. he s set up a public facing legal defense fund where anybody can give him money to help defray the costs of what are reported to be his seven criminal defense lawyers. we do not have any idea how much that legal defense fund has raised or from whom. we have contacted the people who are running that fund to inquire, they have not responded to our requests for information. and up until now, with this little bit of news that i m about to break here tonight, there has been some real profound ambiguity as to whether a certain billionaire might conceivably be able to help mike flynn out. a real human factor at the center of this massive national security scandal that the trump administration has brought upon it. a real human factor is the financial factor for anybody who is caught up in these
who appears to be in very deep and complex legal jeopardy, one who has set up his own legal defense fund, this is mike flynn, and according to ty cobb at the white house tonight, if mike flynn has been holding out any hope that president trump might personally help him defray his legal expenses, the white house is foreclosing that possibility tonight. quote, the president is not planning to contribute to mike flun s legal defense fund. so, the first dethennive statement after all this time. general flynn, you re on your own. happy thanksgiving. this turns out to be a really important decision, not just for the flynn family, at this thanksgiving, but also for what happens next here. more on that ahead. stay with us. can you fit in there? i got this. that s the new man, huh? yup. getting kinda close to my ride. wow. now, that s how you make a first impression. they re going to love you.
of billionaire, were having their legal fees covered by the republican party and the trump re-election campaign. this past week, shannon pettypiece was first to report that the president will now stop charging the republican party for his legal fees, and that goes for his re-election campaign, as well. he s going to start paying his own lawyer bills. we don t think that means he s going to reimburse the republican party and his re-election campaign for the hundreds of thousands oaf dollars, maybe over a million dollars already spent, but hey, you got to start somewhere. when it comes to don jr., shannon also reported this week that donald jr. will stop getting his legal fees paid by the trump re-election campaign. that leaves open the possibility that the rnc is still contributing to his legal fund. now, as to whether or not anybody else is going to get any sort of help in paying for their lawyers, the white house started to make vague noises this week that some mechanism may be
white house and campaign staffers have been facing these inquiries, right? giving testimony under oath and potentially speaking to grand juries. i said i had a little bit of news to break on this. ty cobb, the president s lawyer on the russia investigation does give us some news on that tonight. that fund they re trying to set up to defray lyle expenses for people other than the trump family, ah, first of all, we ve got clarity tonight, that that fund is not yet set up. but ty cobb tells us this. as of tonight, special thanks to kristen welker from nbc news who spoke to mr. cobb. he items us this, quote, once that fund is fully approved and operational, it will be for the benefit of witnesses, staffers and campaign workers forced to incur extraordinary legal expenses, merely because they were witnesses. that fund will not include any
indictee is or current targets. that contradicts what the white house said. it s not just for people that only worked in the white house, according to this latest news from the white house, ty cobb. that fund would also be for people who worked on the campaign, for campaign staffers. as long as they were witnesses. nobody will be allowed to tap that fund if it ever comes to exist if they are an indictee. so, that means gates, manafort and papadopoulos, nor are they allowed if they are a current target of the investigations. well, who that applies to, i don t know. we also do not have word from the white house whether or not our billionaire president himself will be contributing to such a fund for the legal defense of his campaign staffers and white house aides. as far as we understand it, it s not legally clear if the president can do that if he wanted to. here s a real piece of news that we got tonight, definitively from ty cobb at the white house. there is one former white house staf