back to the trump organization and his long-standing connection to russia, to people like felix saider who is a long-time friend connected to the russian mob, someone who sent him an e-mail and had an e-mail exchange with him about trump moscow, while donald trump was running for the presidential in the presidential election. so there s no question that he has a lot he could potentially offer, particularly with regard to the business dealings, there s no question it s vulnerability for donald trump and he should be worried. but it s also a signal that there is no formal cooperation agreement. and, ron, one thing that donald trump knows tonight as a result of this reporting is that robert mueller now knows from michael cohen exactly how many women michael cohen arranged payoffs for to keep quiet about their histories with donald trump.
and part of the lanny davis role is to help him with his public image. at the same time, you know, mueller never gave him a cooperation agreement. so that raises a question about how valuable is the information that he has to offer? because generally what you get in exchange for the information that you re going to share when you cooperate is an agreement that says essentially, if you tell us, you know, the truth and give us things that are useful, you know, it will benefit you when it comes to sentencing on the things you ve been willing to plead guilty on. that s not what we have here. at the same time, all roads lead back to the trump organization and his long-standing connection to russia, to people like felix saider who is a long-time friend connected to the russian mob, someone who sent him an e-mail and had an e-mail exchange with him about trump moscow, while donald trump was running for the presidential in the presidential election. so there s no question that he
who has the length of history working for donald trump in multiple capacities, right, not just as an attorney, but also connected to some of his business transactions, including working on trying to get trump moscow, right, the trump hotel in moscow. there s no question that that s going to relate to the mueller investigation. that s also clear that he s going all the documents that he had, not just the tapes, but also documents, e-mail exchanges are all going to be significantly important into trying to understand what the communications relationships were between donald trump, close associates, business transactions, and even the possibility of whether there was any on donald trump. there was no question michael cohen was always going to be a relevant, if not someone who actually committed crimes, somebody who might be a fact witness or have documents or evidence. i think the fact that michael cohen was being asked, you were
negotiations conducted by michael cohen with plans for trump to make a mid-campaign trip to moscow, a great idea and another bombshell that relates to collusion, even before mueller was appointed special counsel, fbi agents learned trump was in frequent contact with foreign individuals about trump moscow and that some of these individuals had knowledge of or played a role in 2016 election meddling. that would be a big headline all on its own if we didn t have so many other things happening. just one exhibit in collusion issues around trump. now, this team is back with a new scoop. this one is about the accused spy, maria butina of acting as an agent accusing her of a covert influence with the nra and other conservatives and that she was aided by two persons from the u.s., paul erickson who
a restraining order request until later on in the month. join ming me right now, avery friedman, a civil rights attorney and law professor. good to see you. and criminal defense attorney richard herman joining us from las vegas, good to see you as well. hey, fred. avery, you first. in the past, michael cohen has said he would take a bullet for president trump. so why now contemplate, you know, flipping or at least even changing attorney teams? well, because he s standing there alone. whatever effort he s trying to get to get to is not happening. he s standing there twisting in the wind. the problem is the government has a bead on michael cohen in a couple of respects. he was supposed to have been involved with some of the election meddling. also another russian involving the trump tower/trump moscow. also possibly giving russian