This is cnn blakicnn break im wolf blitzer in the situation room. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Were following Breaking News on the president s former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the russia investigation. Two Court Filings just released, one by the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, the other by prosecutors in new york, and theres new information about cohens cooperation. What it could mean for President Trump and for Michael Cohen as the feds in new york argue he should get substantial prison time. Right now, Robert Mueller also is set to file a secret document on Paul Manafort, the former Trump Campaign chairman, and why prosecutors believe manafort lied. Theres lots of news to unfold right now. I want to go first to our
political correspondent sara murray. Sara, muellers document makes it clear that Michael Cohen was cooperating but hes not necessarily suggesting he shouldnt get a substantial prison sentence. No, i think theres
take the fifth because i don t want to tell the real story. the question here is not whether people lied. it s about contacts with the russians. if they weren t significant, why does everybody lie? i think, yes, it is about context with the russians, that s what mueller is investigating, whether there was collusion but i think it matters that donald trump lied if you believe what investigators have laid out in all these documents when he was a kacandidate, he s koblted to lie to the american people when he was in the white house. and one of the questions that springs to mind is why? donald trump may still have won even if there were women that they had paid off, even if the american public knew he was working on this project in moscow. he may still have won. but you are left with this picture that donald trump and all of the people he surrounds himself with are willing to do whatever it takes to get power and then to stay in power. pamela brown, what do you think? how s the white h
credibility is taking another blow here. he s good at going out in public and speaking and saying, there s nothing here, of course not. remember, he went out and did that for the question of whether mike flynn had conversations with the russian ambassador before the inauguration, about relaxing sanctions. and that turned out to be false, too. supposedly, he just didn t know at the time. so i think the next time the vice president is trotted out to reassure us, there s nothing to look at here, folks, we are taking that with a grain of salt and it is the way to do it. and it may be that he really wasn t loop in on any of this. that s the argument that the white house would make. danny, let me turn back to you on that point. the vice president, other officials, very clear, look, there was no coordination. and donald trump jr. really downplayed this whole story. he said, look, there were three measly interactions. and they weren t significant. i mean, does he have a point in that regard?
days, in total. a not insignificant time. experts all say he will be seen as a transitional rather than a transformational pope. that is not to say some of his actions weren t significant, though. for instance, they say that his outreach to the muslim world, including visiting the blue mosque in turkey, was a very significant action, and, according to greg tobin, he was the first pope to truly face up to see sex abuse scandal. listen. he will bled as someone who did more than anyone else before him, that s foresheet. john paul ii left a legacy of inaction and avoidance, and benedict faced it head on and before he became pope he was aware of many of these cases, and he also engaged in a personal outreach to victims in a way that no one has very