With impunity. there s a second real problem here. the whole idea behind, you can t indict a sitting president, a large part of it comes from the fact that indictments are distracting to the president who is very busy. courts operate in the real world. and they know, for example, that donald trump has golfed 53 days out of his 482 days in office, more than 1 in 10 days. so it s a little hard to make the kind of distraction arguments that are at the core of presidents can t be indicted opinions when you re talking about this president. let me push you on that. because that was an issue in paula jones, and just about anyone can file a civil case. but i don t think it goes down just to the time and the golfing. i think it goes to the idea that a federal indictment of a sitting president would effectively knee cap their term and potentially their re-election, that you are taking the person charged with executing the laws and making
Street journal. nbc news now reporting for the first time this moment, paul manafort s former son-in-law being who also was in business with him has flipped and cut a secret plea deal with federal investigators. a matter of major significance to the open mueller case against paul manafort. panel stays with me, but first i m joined by phone, by nbc investigative journalist, andrew blank stee blanksteen. what can you tell us? we know from law enforcement sources that paul manafort s former son-in-law has reached a plea deal to plead guilty in connection with a real estate fraud case that s ongoing in los angeles. what we don t know is whether it involved local prosecutors in the central district of california, or it involves people on bob mueller s team. we also don t know the specific details or when a potential plea would be entered and when that
Agreement and statement of the offense. we see it in the papadopoulos one. so it will be interesting to look at this. there s nothing in those two or in the gates agreement that would indicate i mean, typically you ll lay your case out to let it be known there s very damaging evidence here. so i would say, wait, and look carefully at the language. with respect to your respect about the ronan farrow report, what s interesting to me, if i m not mistaken, it s a crime to do what this person did typically, yes. to leak it. i think he even says it. i haven t had a chance to look at the statute. those kinds of activity reports are highly protected. that means there will be a criminal investigation they re already looking at the leak, but there will be a criminal investigation of this. i think at some point, farrow, if he has a prosecutor as aggressive as patrick fitzgerald was with the press, that he can
Breaking news this hour, nbc news reporting paul manafort s former son-in-law has flipped, cut a secret plea deal with federal investigators which could have implications in paul manafort s prosecution and potentially in the mueller probe. i m joined by democratic congressman joaquin castro from texas. thank you for joining me. business news night. your view of this breaking news and any idea of whether it is connected to the mueller probe? i would suspect that it is. i think most of all, it s probably for bob mueller and his team, a way to put pressure on paul manafort to cooperate with them. and that can have a real significance for donald trump and his other campaign associates. you re on the intelligence committee, so you know more than most, and you know more than i think sometimes you are allowed to say under those rules. but how do you feel when you learn this information, that the reporting, starting with the wall street, alleges a secret
Plea deal from january. we ve been doing these discussions and reporting across the country, that would suggest the whole year, paul manafort s son-in-law has been secretly cooperating with somebody. well, personally, it makes me wonder if it s just coming out now, what he s been doing for them since january. how much he s been cooperating and in what ways. you know, when all of this started, when the investigation started over a year ago now, obviously year and a half, sortsort shortly after that i was asked what i thought the eventually outcome of this would be, and i said in march of last year, that i thought that many people would end up going to jail. and there have been 22 indictments, people are on their way to jail now. my sense is that this will continue, that more folks will be headed to prison. more folks headed to prison. that s an interesting statement from you, on the house intel committee. we don t want to just talk