and what s your reaction to what we re learning? i think we re learning that michael cohen wanted to get rich after the elections. and he had been focussed on that. he had been being guidance from various people about how to do that, that s why he had the theory he needed to secure the meeting with putin. if you re trying to do a big business deal in russia, it s always good to have president putin as your partner. i think it s really important to remember they didn t think they were going to win this election when all these contacts and conversations were happening. and michael cohen probably never thought he was going to go to the white house. he was always looking to cash in on his personal relationship with the president to do this big deal in russia. it s such a great point. i wonder if you would build on that ambassador, because you ve served in government you have a sense how normal government officials and diplomats run and michael cohen is anything but. this was a man who,
but certainly his old views were good. that s interesting coming from you, particularly at a time where there is a rush, i think with some reason, to criticize a lot of what this president does no matter what. you re clearly looking into the depth of this individual. his record on these issues, and, of course, he s going to go through a confirmation process. which as we all know we learn new things. i want you to stay with our rolling coverage as well. but i want to show the audience russia parts of this. there are key parts of the filing that go not only into how the trump tower project in moscow was being developed and being sold, but also why it was such import to donald trump and his company. robert mueller writing, it was a lucrative business opportunity that sought and likely required the assistance of the russian government saying cohen was approached to set up a meeting between individual one and vladimir putin.
yates said that was an issue concern about the russians might be willing to extort from donald trump, or it was a way of influencing them because people were lying about russian contacts. so even a failed trump tower project opens the door to the russians, basically, exercising influence on all of the trump players, because they were lying about it. and the more significant the contacts are, the more significant and the more substantial the financial dealings were, the more the russians had on him. and therefore, that raises a whole host of other questions about russian sanctions, et cetera. so it s a we ve now opened the door much broader to russian influence, not just by lying but by the financial transactions. john, you almost get the feeling that they re good at
this and people with more ethics or more government experience may have better resistance, and this crew clearly didn t. i think that s true. and, you know, nothing can overcome the greed motive. until the recent disclosures, i didn t appreciate how much the trump hoped to profit from lifting the sanctions, as well as the russians, as well as putin. but because of his investment in this moscow project and because that he was being blocked by the same sanctions that were compromising the auto cats in russi russia, he had that. not just the white house he wanted to achieve but the sanctions lifted benefitted putin and himself. that s really significant. it s interesting to read the manafort document that s been produced. i only had a second to look at it, i apologize for looking down. basically where they say he lied, that tells us what they have that s true and can be proven.
started, which we knew publically was about e-mail hacking? i think that s how they followed manafort. in the litigation over whether or not the special prosecutor had a right to go after manafort, one of the things they said was what they were doing was following the money. following the money that the ukraine sources to manafort. and i think following the money is what they are doing throughout. getting back to the sentencing issue, i am reminded that john dean, for example, when he testified before congress, i believe he did some time for his role in nixon s obstruction of justice. so the notion that cohen would get some time, i think that this is right, would make some sense. that was the other question. but the other thing, with respect to the russian issue, we have to step back. there s almost like it was we thought this case was about flynn, michael flynn lying about his contacts with the russians. which when, if you recall, sally