Not russia, though russia looms large in the background as it seems to in Everything Else these days. Manaforts being tried in Federal Court in alexandria, virginia. He was, of course, Trumps Campaign chairman, ran the rnc convention. Its the first of two trials for him, and this one hes looking at 18 counts of bank fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy charges in relation to his work for a prorussian party in ukraine before he went to work for the trump campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. This trial is off to a lightning start. So far a jury has been seated. Opening statements have been delivered, and a witness has testified, all on day one. Manafort was a March To August Chairman back in 2016. He helped trump secure the nomination, make no mistake, and trump said so at the time. I have fantastic people. Paul manafort just came on. Hes great. He didnt need to do this, but he wanted to. Paul manafort has done an amazing job. He is here some place where. Is paul . However, more
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. And Donald Trumps name wasnt mentioned today. Robert muellers name wasnt mentioned today. This trial does not have to do with any connection to the 2016 campaign. Nor does rick gates involvement dovetail with what he did in the 2016 campaign, nor his work on the inaugural committee. Its a highly separate trial involving past clients of Paul Manaforts. I think if were reading between the lines, its the prelude to something that is supposed to be bigger. Obviously the prosecutors have a case that theyre bringing here, but it does seem like theyre looking down the road to try to get or compel Paul Manafort to participate in the larger mission, which is the investigation to collusion in the trump campaign. And were all sort of waiting to see what manafort does under this type of pressure. I do agree that the case the defense he is bringing seems highly uncompelling. Basically, he is saying my underli
Side, on the other stairways as it is here. But these people clearly are em bold boemboldened, they dont feel a urgency to move, and the real question here, jake, is when is Law Enforcement going to show up in force to try to get these people out . We do know the mayor has instituted a curfew for 6 00 p. M. , but thats a few hours from now. The question is when are they going to show up to try to move some of these people out . They may be trying to address the situation inside the capitol first before they move on these people, because we did see some Washington Metropolitan Police show up, about 20 of them, a short time ago and they moved around to the side of the building, seemingly to try to go inside. They may be inside dealing with the situation inside before they move outside and deal with this. But these people dont show any inclination at all to move, and right now theyre not being forced to move at all, jake. For months, the president and
his supporters on capitol hill and ma
Hillary clinton in the state of pennsylvania. In the new franklin and Marshall College poll. New hampshire, a smaller battleground state but those four votes can matter. 14point lead for clinton in battleground new hampshire. Three for three there. And the fourth one in Donald Trumps second home state as he likes to say, florida, a closer race here but a fourpoint clinton lead in florida. Why is this happening . Lets go behind the numbers a little bit. Lets start in pennsylvania. Pull these numbers out, take a look right here. One thing weve seen, postconvention, and this is pretty consistent, don, Hillary Clinton has largely consolidated the democratic party. Shes getting the votes of nerl 8 in 10 democrats. Donald trump still getting the votes of only 7 in 10 republicans so he has a problem in the Republican Party thats hurting him. Lets set this over here for a minute. Back to new hampshire. We see again, similar dynamic. More than 80 of democrats say theyre for clinton, but only 61
Testimony from mueller about Donald Trumps efforts to obstruct the fbi investigation into russian meddling and his associates nearly 150 contacts with russians. The president reacting to the news today with his standard lies about what the Mueller Investigation actually concluded. The mueller thing never stops. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. There was no nothing. How many times do we have to hear it . It never ends. It just keeps going on and on. And while weve heard that before, its important to point out that Robert Mueller did not say there was no obstruction. Nor did he say there was no collusion. Heres what mueller did say if we had, had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. The Longstanding Department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. But trumps rambling attacks did not stop there. He introduced a new line of attack that seemed to confound ev