Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. A source says Michael Cohen is prepared to tell Robert Mueller that donald trump knew about that meeting before it happened. He did not participate in any meeting about the russia transaction. The president . The president did not. Im happy to tell him, he wasnt there. He wasnt at the meeting. The meeting with the russians. How can you be sure that the president didnt know beforehand . Youre saying its just a he said, he said. Nobody can be sure of anything. Earlier this evening, a long time former Trump Organization employee said this about the possibility of such a meeting occurring without trumps knowledge. Based on my experience working with trump and everybody that worked for trump, something major, something newsworthy, something press worthy, would always go before trump. Always. I think that he would have told donald about the meeting and then if it didnt amount to anything, it would have
The 11th moThe 11th Hour gets on a monday night. Good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 557 of the Trump Administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. And this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. On the part of the trump team. Its about something Rudolph Giuliani has started to say, and tonight, mark at the New York Times has put it this way. In the days after the 2016 president ial election, Donald Trumps advisers had an unequivocal message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. There were none. In the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. There was no collusion with russias effort to disrupt the election. On monday President Trumps
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Which was four of the six. That meeting never ever took place. It didnt happen. Its a figment of his imagin
he was the chairman he was, but he really wasn t jared and the sons and bossy and these other people were really running that. note that he was the chairman of the campaign but he really wasn t. here with us to talk about it we welcome barrett berger former u.s. attorney with the eastern and southern district of new york and ken delaney is back with us, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter who will be inside the courtroom tomorrow covering the trial. ken, i would like to begin with a headline from the new york times tonight. and it reads russia is not on the docket at manafort s trial but it will be in the air. what would they mean? that is well put. one prosecutor said he did not expect the word russia to come up at all in the trial. it is not clear that the jury will be told explicitly that paul manafort worked for donald trump.
correspondent pete williams points out if manafort is convicted, prosecutors would have powerful leverage for attempting to compel his testimony before a grand jury about whether he knows of any improper dealings between the trump campaign and the russians. the trial itself is not expected to shed any light on russia s meddling. meanwhile, president trump s attorney, rudy giuliani who we might have mentioned in the previous segment, said today he is sure manafort has nothing on president trump. he has no information incriminating of the president. i know that for a fact. they can squeeze him, paul manafort does not know anything nor could it possible he did. he was with him for four months. i was there when paul manafort was there. paul manafort was a brilliant gatherer of delegates. he was the chairman he was, but he really wasn t jared and the sons and bossy and these other people were really running that. note that he was the chairman of the campaign but he really
another provable subject in which he would not the meeting so i m clear, the meeting with the russians, who was in there? i have to jared. it was with donald jr., jared and two to three other people. i m not sure exactly who. and the one who came and four russians. the one who told the president about it was donald, which donald denies and president denies and no kroks of and cohen never said this at any time up until now. when don jr. made that day before the meeting and i think after calls to a blocked number. was that the president? i don t know. this meeting that cohen is talking about took place before the meeting with the russians but the other thing that s contradicted is cohen also now says that he says too much that two days before he was participating in a meeting with roughly the same group of people but not the president,