this morning, it is kind of correct. it is not necessarily a crime to build a property in moscow. there are crimes that could be around that. lying to congress. lying to federal investigators. we saw michael cohen and donald trump jr. needs to worry. he testified. if his testimony is untrue, he could be charged too. it goes to the why, dave. why might trump have been compromised? why might trump be willing to collude? why may he have been aligned with the russian interests to interfere with our election? why did the russians lie on behalf of donald trump and michael cohen about their interaction? so many questions. including the timing. i want to know about the timing here. this is fascinating. tell us what mueller knows as this is happening just after the president submitted his written answers to mueller s questions.
berman. welcome to your new day. president trump waking up and going to sleep with the same thing on his mind, the mueller investigation. the president dangled a pardon for his jailed former campaign chair, paul manafort, saying it was never discussed but i wouldn t taeupbg ke it off the . why would i take it off the table? the president has cast manafort and other targets of the mueller probe as victims of prosecutorial abuse, calling them brave for not flipping. cnn has details about donald trump s written answers to mueller s questions. he said to the best of his recollection he did not know about the trump tower meeting promising dirt on hillary clinton and the russians and roger stone never told him about wikileaks and the hacked democratic e-mails. the washington post adds reporting saying that the
seven, in particular, 7 a, in which it references the fact that there had been the multiple discussions with individual one, of course, but also with family members who were inside the company. so that s, i think, very, very important. and then also in 7b sub-1, it talks about cohen having had discussions about the business travel to moscow with a senior campaign official. so, of course, curious who that might be, could it be paul manafort? very good points. stay with us. evan perez joins us again. let s talk about the significance of the timing here because timing always matters. it matters that cohen lied about the timing of discussions about this potential project in moscow and the significance of the timing of cohen s guilty plea coming after, after, the president submitted his written answers to mueller s questions. that s right, poppy. there was a great deal of paranoia close to the president in the week before thanksgiving, that s when he was preparing to
cohen s testimony alone. he s pleading guilty to lying on his taxes and making campaign contributions. he s not a fully trusted individual, unless what he says can be corroborated. this means he has texts, e-mails, other witness testimony, intelligence perhaps that substantiates what cohen is saying. and prosecutors and others are obsessed with cooperating witnesses. it s a big leap of faith to put a cooperator on the stand. you ride with that person now and you need to make darn sure you believe them. look at paul manafort. two days ago we learned that his cooperation fell apart because he lied to mueller. so they caught him in a lie, he s done. they ripped up his agreement. cohen now it seems they re ready to ride on. reporter: how about the fact that just last week we learned that trump had submitted his written answers to mueller and then flash forward to a week later and we see michael cohen downtown at the federal
robert mueller coming after trump submitted his written answers to mueller s questions in which he was asked about that very project and given that previous charges against cohen were by the u.s. attorney in new york city and not special counsel mueller, this also marks the first official step by robert mueller over what president trump has called his red line, investigating trump business dealings. this also comes after several days of wild trump tweets attacking mueller and his team. cnn s pamela brown joins me now. pamela, you re learning that the trump tower moscow project is just one of the many topics about which michael cohen has spoken with mueller. this is just the tip of the iceberg. a source familiar with michael cohen is said to have spent over 70 hours with robert mueller s team on a variety of topics, including russia. reporter: michael cohen dropping a bombshell in federal court pleading guilty to lying to congress about how much the