Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. New york. Day 579 of the Trump Administration turns out was the day the president was placed in real legal jeopardy. Here is the story from tomorrows front page of the New York Times. Cohen pleads guilty implicated president. The president s former personal lawyer turned himself into the fbi today and stood in Federal Court and pleaded guilty to eight charges including two related to rush Money Payments to women which he admitted were at the direction of his boss, donald trump, for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and lying to a financial institution, as well as two Campaign Finance violations. Again, both involving trumps quest for the white house. The payoffs described match the cases of Karen Mac Dougall and stormy daniels. This case is being brought by the feds. Attorney for the Eastern District of virginia. Also happens to be a senior official
The latest Political Developments of the day and interviews with top newsmakers are featured. Its not like somebody former president got to report, somebody gave a little more than the minimum, some pac didnt follow a small regulation. This is a fundamental thing. The nominee at the closing days of the campaign, when he thought his campaign was on the line and a story or two stories potentially threatened his nomination went be and said, i have to make this story go away, according to Michael Cohen and said, go make this go away and pay for it. I think that goes not in a resistance way at all. A much more dramatic and more accurate way of stating what happened there. And, yes, it implicates the president in the commission of a felony, but it also implicates the president in what is now a growing sense that a lot of people have and not just resistance people, that this is one more way in which the 2016 election was facacta. Harry litman, were in dangerous territory here. Two nonlawyers
it s one of those things that seems pretty simple. well, ill-gotten gains, you got to get out, you know? if you did anything else this way, if you stole a car, you got to give the car back when they catch you. yeah. this is a tougher call than that. it will be interesting to see if you allow it to happen, you keep perpetuating this sort of bad behavior. so, i m going to talk to jemele hill, the great sports journalist and writer for the atlantic. she s going to be on to talk about the rigged system. also we re going to talk to mr. michael isikoff on everything russia, including paul manafort today. strong. strong. see you in a second, handsome. no singing tonight, though. we couldn t do better than we did. the president s still crying no collusion today after the manafort sentencing, even though it had nothing to do with that subject. he keeps saying it because he wants you to believe it. you need to get ready for what is to come. this is no joke, and i have an argument
with manafort. you gave polling data that wound up placing the same places and faces as the campaign. the rnc and the president not you. did not do that. the president s campaign did in the form of his chairman. i m not going to totally go along with that. you don t have to. it s a fact. the president didn t collude, the president didn t force hillary clinton to avoid michigan, the president didn t say and the russians didn t do that, either. true. i think people want to see a resolution to this investigation. they want to see it stop. why can t you have both? they don t want endless investigations in search of a crime. one thing to say here s a crime that was committed and we re going to investigate the steps that led up to this wrongdoing, but it s different to say let s have this open-ended without scope investigation looking for a crime. and i think that s the difference. but this was a special counsel that was called for by the person that the president
minority members, came out and said they heard it very differently than nadler did. and there s apparently no transcript. so i m not sure this is going to go anywhere other than continue things and they need to put this man under oath in another forum. so we re going to have to do it again. let me ask you this. something, elliot, that really kind of tweaked me today. minutes after manafort gets sentenced, new state charges from the manhattan d.a. office in new york, they say they ve been looking at it since 2017. but, boy, does it stink of a political move. how do you see it? right. they need to insulate themselves from the politics, if they wish to have their prosecution taken seriously. now, look, very well might be, they are legitimate charges and minutes after he gets sentenced? but, again, look, the timing of it isn t great. manafort could potentially face state court charges in virginia,