Im leaving this set and going to get a latte because i will be here tonight at 9 00 for my good friend rachel maddow. There will likely be no shortage of breaking news from now until then. For now, my thanks to jonathan, doug, matt and elise. That does it for now. Who do we blame for no cameras in federal courtrooms again . You can blame me. Boy do i wish we had a camera in a courtroom right now. Thank you, nicole. If its tuesday, Paul Manaforts trial is officially under way. Tonight, collusion confus n confusion. The wild evolution of the president s alternative explanations with yet another dimension of denial. Plus, midterm sabotage. Our democracy itself is in the cross hairs. Facebook you have . S snuffs out coordinated attempts of Election Interference but as the u. S. Government done you have no protect the integrity of the vote . Mark my words, america wont tolerate this meddling. And day one of trial number one for the special counsels office. How the Paul Manafort tax evasion
saying he may hold out for a pardon. he will be the last man defending trump and betting on a pardon. expressing confidence after day one of the trial. any chance he may decide to flip and cooperate? no chance. today prosecutors plan to call to the stand an fbi agent along with democratic strategy dan rayban who worked on political campaigns. then another well known person in politics, ted divine, was brought up. thank you very much, let s bring in john avalon, lauren
government done you have no protect the integrity of the vote? mark my words, america won t tolerate this meddling. and day one of trial number one for the special counsel s office. how the paul manafort tax evasion and bank fraud case has nothing and everything to do with the russia investigation. this is mpt daily and it starts right now. chuck todd here in washington, welcome to mpt daily. you are looking live at the federal courthouse in virginia where the criminal trial against former trump campaign chief paul manafort is now under way. the prosecution has just called his first witness, ted divine, democratic consultant who worked with paul manafort on the ukrainian project. moments ago, the jury heard opening statements, mueller s prosecutors basically argued
first witness on the stand. let me is you this. i m not a lawyer, i swear i don t play one on tv. it seems like things have gone in a standard way, is that a fair take? for someone not playing a lawyer on tv, you re doing a fine job. this is white collar 101. i wondered if we might not see a little bit more nuance, frankly, of a story about gates that they might not have portrayed him as down on his luck and being forced to plead because of his financial situation rather than turning on him. but here they have today he ll be the bad guy and this will be the boss trying to put it all off on the underling. that s a strategy that only
and so for a defense lawyer, there are only a number of techniques that you can use. it s this guy and this guy is a proven liar. okay, that s you know, that s an issue. it s a challenge for a prosecutor. he is a proven liar. i didn t realize what was going on. the suite of defenses when a reasonably clear cut case like this is pretty limited. i hadn t put that together. their whole defense is to discredit a witness. it s not a witness case, it s a paper case. we ve been saying it, it might be more boring than we want it to be because it s just documents. all rick gates is there to do the best way to use rick gates, questionable, did you sign that? he s there almost as a so you can authenticate that piece of paper too. right. and now tad devine, who we last saw when he was advising democratic presidential candidates that s not good for your pitch meetings for 2020. by the way, our principles of