legal signifier. it s like bob mueller went out of his way in that filing to refer to an alliance a synergy between trump and russian officials without using the word collusion, do you read it that way? i think that s fair. i think there s something important going on here, and i guess i d say it s three things i would look to. number one be the trump tower meeting in june of 2016, which there have been so many shifting stories about and today it was reported that at least former mayor rudy giuliani is saying that they believe that mueller believes that manafort lied about trump s knowledge, and that trump actually had knowledge of that meeting before it took place. you know, the chronology there was june 3rd, trump s son was contacted by the russians and said if this information is what you say it is, i love it, and so on. and the claim by some has been that trump has said i never knew
trump tower. cooperate with us and you re going to be in a better position than if you don t because we re going to get you. i want everyone to stay with me, john. stay with me everyone. there s a whole different filing from paul manafort tonight. nbc s ken delaney has been leading the filing on that. here s what we learned, it is significantly redacted. we did learn that the special counsel is saying paul manafort lied about his interactions with a man named konstantin kilimnik, that s important because the special counsel said kilimnik had ongoing ties to russian intelligence. there s a reference to a meeting between kilimnik and an individual whose name is blacked out in the filing. paul manafort lied about that.
southern district is not satisfied is because cohen cooperated extensively about the russia collusion, i don t think we should lose sight of that. in fact, my colleague just flagged one part that said he cooperated about contacts within and around the trump white house in 2017 and this year. that s the first mention of really the mueller investigation reaching into the modern trump white house as opposed to the campaign. it also this document makes clear that donald trump lied. i don t use that term lightly. when he said at his first news conference as president that he had no contacts with russian during the campaign, no dealings with russia. we had a hint of it. but this document says in december of 2015, trump conferred with michael cohen about reaching out to the russian government and it seems to be related to the trump tower project because it seems to be the same individual who offered the campaign political synergy and synergy on a government
moscow tower deal was happening at the same time and back in november 2015, the russians were also directly reaching out to the trump world. so we already knew that there was lots of contact with russia, even before this document. what we re seeing is that there s a lot more that we did not know about. that we also know that there s going to be a continued investigation into it. that s quite clear, both from the michael flynn filing as well as from the fact there was a lot redacted in that and the fact that the manafort filing has been redacted. in terms of the southern district it s all quite clear. what they re saying, quite frankly, is look, this guy didn t do the right thing. and by the way, he was a lawyer. his obligation to do the right thing was heightened. and he came in, he was not really he didn t formulate a cooperation agreement. he didn t agree to talk to us about things that may be crimes
york who say cohen still deserves years in jail for a criminal mindset that allowed him to basically commit a host of crimes. all of this is a week before a judge will sentence cohen for all the above. let s look at the latest in the mueller which i was just discussing with our own chuck todd, because bob mueller said he s not taking any position on how much time michael cohen should serve, but he does note that cohen first came into his office, to bob mueller s investigators and lied to him, and lied specifically about money that we know cohen, trump and felix sater were trying to make in russia. mueller said in the new filing that cohen has now taken steps to mitigate those lies and other crimes. he gave crucial information about the trump campaign in russia, this was after he started lying he started telling the truth, mueller said, and he told the truth about russian attempts to reach the trump campaign dating back to 2015,