two sides, not one side. trump also said he views the mueller probe as an illegal investigation and insisting there should have never been a special counsel. today they said here. patten also admitted he made a $50 million illegal donation acting as a so-called straw donor for a russian and ukrainian banned for making a deposit. we have a panel here. thank you for being with us. tom, let me zart with you just on this news.
to do with the trump side. i think guiliani will say there is nothing to do with him. you never know where this will lead. patton was pedaling influence. you go out and use a straw donor to buy ticket for this oligarch. that s a lot of money, $107 million raised by the trump campaign for the inaugural. that s really dollar democracy in my view the time of my book is dollar democracy with liberty and justice for some. it s exactly what they re doing at that inaugural. i think pattop was a part of that. it seems to play right into your book. i want to talk about this name na seems out of the blue for many people, bruce orr. what do you continue to make from the president within the justice delaware though, he s not a part of the investigative team on the mueller probe, steame allegedly telling orr russian intelligence claim to have mr. trump over a barrel. look at the explosive nature
because, prosecutors say, he was working for the same ukrainian political party that paul manafort helped create in the ashes of the viktor yanukovych debacle where viktor yanukovych fled into ex piileexile. it s clear that patent came on the radar of the mueller team from the manafort investigation. they passed it on, though, to the u.s. attorney in washington, d.c. in addition to pleading guilty on these lobbying charges, he disclosed that he was a straw donor and funneled $50,000 to the trump inaugural committee from his ukrainian client. so the ukrainian client illegally paid $50,000 to get tickets and attend trump s inaugural, according to prosecutors. what we don t know is was this just the case of a wealthy ukrainian who wanted to go to the party or did he want to curry favor with donald trump? there are other examples where russians and russian-americans with ties to the kremlin attended trump s inaugural.
know about this, because this was a name that i think was not on folks radar. not a household name. it s a former state department official, old time washington lobbyist, comes from an old family here. he pled guilty today to failing to register as a foreign agent because, prosecutors say, he was working for the same ukrainian political party that paul manafort helped create in the ashes of the viktor yanukovych debacle where viktor yanukovych fled into exile. it s clear that patent came on the radar of the mueller team from the manafort investigation. they passed it on, though, to the u.s. attorney in washington, d.c. in addition to pleading guilty on these lobbying charges, he disclosed that he was a straw donor and funneled $50,000 to the trump inaugural committee from his ukrainian client. so the ukrainian client illegally paid $50,000 to get
lobbyist for a foreign party without properly registering with the u.s. government. there s also this straw donor issue, right? what exactly was the scheme? foreign citizens can t make political contributions in the united states, not to campaigns and not to inaugural committees. so patten was working for this ukrainian politician oligarch who apparently wanted to come to the inauguration. to go to the inauguration, you have to give money to the inauguration. so basically what patten did was working with kilimnick, he found an american willing to give or act as the straw donor and that american officially was on the paperwork for $50,000 but in fact the money came from this ukrainian businessman. they got four tickets and the ukrainian businessman and patten attended the inauguration. you know, whatever if taking aside the question of what the trump campaign did vis-a-vis collusion, what does seem clear is there are lots of