what does that achieve for him? what does firing jeff sessions, special prosecutor, what does that achieve for him now if he chooses to do that? well, it was a very dramatic day, and hearing the words at the direction of did bring back the memories that jon has just mentioned. a pardon is a dangerous thing. it is a totally unlimited power of the president as long as he s not paid for it. president ford pardoned nixon while he was still looking at the fact he was no longer a sitting president and he could easily be indicted. he got pardoned for all crimes he might ever be charged with. we were, therefore, unable to indict him. so the president could go ahead with the pardon, but in this case, he would have to pardon him, not just for the crimes that have been charged and in the case of manafort to which he was convicted, but he would have to pardon him for contempt of court for failing to testify because otherwise he has no fifth amendment privilege left. both of those men would hav
the 330 million people who now live in a country where the president was accused today in federal court of conspiring to commit two crimes for the principal purpose of influencing the election? there is no campaign finance violation in history that comes close to the enormity of the crimes that michael cohen confessed to today and accused the president of the united states of ordering him to com t commit. leading off our discussion now, john heilemann, co-host and executive producer of showtime s the host. jill wine-banks, former assistant prosecutor. they are both msnbc contributors. we knew michael cohen had something to say but we did not know we were going to hear the words today right from michael cohen s moith at the direction of donald trump. we did not. and i think one of things that there s a thought say about today obviously and we re focused on michael cohen
we had in the watergate case, but this is a dramatic day. it s a thrilling day for anybody who wants to see the truth come out. this is clear evidence that the president committed crimes. and that is grounds for impeachment. there s no question of it. i know he will defend in saying well, this isn t rush. well, i don t care that it s not russia. it s not russiagate, but it s still trumpgate. this is crimes by the president of the united states, and it affected the election. that is a terrible thing, is that we have that happen in our country. and your opening is quite correct about the millions of people who might not have voted for him had they known the truth. and we can t get restitution for that. there is no way. but we could get some relief from this presidency. and we re joined now by phone by mimi rocah. she s a former federal prosecutor who worked in the southern district of new york, the office that is prosecuting michael cohen. and mimi, as to smoking guns, in the testimony
so is that an indication that the federal government, the prosecutors have recordings of michael cohen and donald trump discussing these two particular crimes? i think it is. and i also think that there s additional recordings i know there s additional recordings relating to conversations that michael cohen had with keith davidson relating to these two payments. there s a lot of recordings out there. and keith davidson was stormy daniels original lawyer, and he was involved in the other payoff through the national enquirer. that s correct. keith davidson served as counsel for miss mcdougal and for the counsel for miss daniels before i took over her case. and so i think that this notation is a reference to those recordings. lawrence, again, we re in the second quarter of a four-quarter game. this president s in trouble, and we re coming for him because i m going to take his deposition under oath. we re going to get michael the president s deposition. the president s dep
no, don t ask michael cohen the facts because he doesn t know what he s talking about. and i want to go to a very important point that the prosecutor made. i mentioned it earlier in the program. about the evidence that the prosecution has to prove michael cohen s guilt on all of these counts. and on the two counts involving donald trump ordering him to commit the campaign finance crime, they said that their evidence includes audio recordings made by mr. cohen. you have been saying for a long time that there are a lot more michael cohen recordings and that they are a lot more problematic for the president.