Saga. After a week of legal pounding for the president , arguably the biggest news broke today. The man at the center of the trump organizations finances was granted immunity to work with the government. But what beans did he spill . Were joined by a man who predicted a week like this might come. The ethics watchdog who took on his own bosses at the white house. So after his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said under oath that trump ordered him to commit crimes, it begs a serious question. How much legal jeopardy could the president be in personally . Cuomos court in session tonight. Plus, why is trumps inner circle talking more about the potential for impeachment than democrats . Were going to get the inside scoop. You know, you cant start the weekend until you make sense of all that happened today. Its going to take us two hours to do it. So, what do you say. Lets get after it. Tonight, serious new implications for the president , another close ally of trump and his family granted immunity. Talking to federal prosecutors. His name, Allen Weisselberg. He is the trump organizations chief financial officer. He is assisting the governments investigation into hush money payments made to two women who alleged affairs with trump. What else could he be talking with them about . We dont know. We do know hes worked for trump and his family for decades. He literally started with trumps father as an accountant. Walter schaub is the former director of the office of government ethics. Welcome to prime time. You have been saying there was exposure for the president , that there was more to learn, that wed have to see how close they got to where the money was. You believe there was a reason the president was shy on disclosure. Did you imagine anything like this . Well, you know, ive been out of the business of predicting the future since this administration started. Were seeing one unprecedented event after another. But theres only so much you can do to deviate from the way people do things in washington before the chickens come home to roost. And thats because the ways people do things have evolved as a result of a lot of hard lessons. And one of the first things i told the president s attorney a couple of weeks after white House Counsel don mcgahn, a few weeks after the election was decided was that you dont have to follow the traditions and norms of washington. But those evolved as a result of a lot of hard lessons people learned and a lot of pain that people went through. When you play games and deviate from that, youre taking a big risk. What did you see this week that gave you an aha, thats why he didnt want to sign the disclosure statement, thats why they gave me a tough time about the ethics disclosures forms . Yeah, well, you know, the strangest moment of my entire career is when im sitting across the table from an attorney for the president who tells me that shed like to have the president be the first person ever to not sign that his Financial Disclosure report is true. And then with this criminal information were learning that the payments definitely started in february of 2017. Until then wed had Rudy Giuliani making a lot of inconsistent statements and hinting that they started then. But now we know they started then. And the president himself came out this week and says that he repaid them. So he had to have known about them. Well, a few months later he filed a Financial Disclosure report in which he omitted his debt to Michael Cohen to reimburse him for the Stormy Daniels payment. That omission is significant. A lot of us out in the Good Government community have complained about it since we first learned of it and have made a lot of noise about it. And the office of government ethics, the acting director at the time in may this year wound up referring the president to the department of justice for this omission. He did this year finally admit in that form that he made this reimbursement to Michael Cohen and that it was, in fact, a liability that he owed. Technicality . Or is there criminal exposure . There are two criminal statutes violated if it was willful and knowing. The first is the ethics and government act, not the first one that comes to peoples mind, but it includes criminal penalties for knowingly and willfully filing a false Financial Disclosure report, and then the other is 18usc1001. Which everybody talks about. False statements on a federal form. Weisselberg, the man at the center of it, one of the puzzling things is here, immunity for what . Is it just cohen . If its just cohen, what is the minimum exposure and what is the more protracted sense of what they could do now that he took an immunity deal . He didnt have to take it. You have to ask yourself that because a person doesnt need immunity if they dont have criminal liability. Right there is a very disturbing statement about a person whos very close to the president. I think the minimum that we know is that the prosecutors are now talking to two, maybe three individuals, if you throw in david pecker, who may be able to corroborate the president s knowledge of Michael Cohens activities. And we dont know for sure what theyve said to the prosecution. So were speculating at this point. But why would they give them an immunity deal if they didnt have anything to offer that furthered their understanding of the situation . Well, thats it, prosecutors dont give immunity unless theyre trading it for very valuable information and they perhaps dont have enough evidence against the individual theyre granting immunity to to necessarily convict them. And so it gives them access to people at the core of trumps life who know absolutely everything, and its the old follow the money, this is the money. These are the guys who know it, and particularly weisselberg. So at a minimum thats very serious. At a maximum, its possible that weisselberg also traded information about the president. We cant know. And we shouldnt speculate that thats necessarily whats happening. Right. But at the far other end of the extreme, if i was President Trump id be having trouble sleeping. As he appears to be with these late night tweets hes doing. It is reported that david pecker, the second man who popped up on the radar this week from trump world, has reportedly corroborated what Michael Cohen said, that the president knew what they were doing on his behalf. Weisselberg, hes the third check in the box, the next question becomes, who wants to talk to him . Is it relevant he got an immunity deal from the Southern District . Not from muellers prosecutors. Does that mean mueller cant have access to him . The new York District attorney cant have access . How doesic it work . These prosecutors will work in tandem. This potentially opens up these as witnesses to these other possible investigations. Now, again, we should caveat that with we dont know that thats the case. And well have to wait and see. Its very hard to predict the future in these times. And we do have to remember that an immunity deal does not immunize you against perjury. So, everybody who makes a deal like that, essentially, if they lie, they did. That deal dies. Walter, you said to me a long time ago, you keep talking about collusion, remember, the narrative that it must have to do with russia is greatly minimizing what the potential for illegality is out there if youre looking just at Donald Trumps finances. Well, sure enough, it has nothing to do with russia but that doesnt mean its not wrong. Thank you for your perspective. Well check back in with you when we know more. Thanks. All right. The problem with the partisan divide is extremes, a lot happened this week. Unfortunately, depending on your stripe, it means everything, or nothing. So heres what we do. We crunched the facts and laid out what we can now show that we know. All right, so we have a friday night magic wall for you next. Ron soh really . Going on at schwab. Thank you clients . Well jd power did just rank them highest in Investor Satisfaction with full Service Brokerage firms. Again. And online equity trades are only 4. 95. I mean you cant have low cost and be full service. Its impossible. Its like having your cake and eating it too. Ask your broker if they offer awardwinning full service and low costs. How am i going to explain this . If you dont like their answer, ask again at schwab. Schwab, a modern approach to wealth management. Sharper vision, without limits. Days that go from sun up to sun down. A whole world in all its beauty. 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So what might the president have done wrong . Now, what do i mean when i say wrong . Im not talking about affairs, all right. Trump and his wife, theyre the judges on that. Ive said many times personal matters like that are not my concern, nor my job to scrutinize. My focus is lying about criminal conduct and related potential illegality on the part of the president. The president is lying to you, and thats wrong. Especially when its about criminal conduct, hence the donnybrook last night with kellyanne about this, the white house will do anything to avoid this reality. Why . Hubris . No. Because it leads places they dont want to go but we must. So where does it take us . We know the president lied and is lying when he says he only knew about these payments after they were made. How do we know . Well, first, cohen says it. One of his and now what do you want to say . He made the plea to the court. The president says, cant believe him. Okay. David pecker, one of his oldest friends, okay, who would know as one of the parties to these dealings as the head of the National Enquirer exactly what the president knew. All right, you want to dismiss him too. Now we hear that another player, who would definitely know what donald trump was a part of, with both of these hush agreements, and maybe a whole raft of other situations we dont even know about yet has also been given immunity. His name is Allen Weisselberg, the cfo of the trump organization. A little side note, giving immunity to these two but not cohen shows how intent prosecutors are. If theyre willing to jam him up for things that he did only for trump, remember none of it you know, a lot of youve got to look at the plea agreement, but a lot of it is what he did for trump. What does that say how interested they are in what trump knows . Even if you dont believe anything from anybody else, theres the tape of trump and cohen proving that he knew during the process, not only after. Remember. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david, you know, so that im going to do that right away. Ive actually come up ive spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with funding. He only knew about it after he says, this is obviously before, at best during. He lied. Does it matter . Yes. Why . Here. 18usc2001. What is that . Thats lying to the government, false statements to the government. What does that mean . The money that he fronted on the Stormy Daniels payment, that could be considered a loan, if trump knew about the payment, it appears he did, he knowingly omitted a liability that needed to be recorded in the personal Financial Disclosure, the 278 form. So what . Its a potential felony. Bad fact for trump here. He keeps saying he repaid cohens unreported loan. Youve heard him say that several times. Whats he doing there . Hes admitting to what he should have disclosed. One more reason, tweeting can be a problem. Now, this also goes for mcdougal. Why . It appears from the cohen Court Proceedings that ami, the Parent Company of the National Enquirer was not repaid for purchasing her story to help trump. So those payments by david pecker, the man given immunity, which means hes talking to the prosecutors, could be construed also as a loan or an illegal corporate contribution, neither of which was disclosed. What else . Conspiracy. If trump knew about, and even instructed or directed, as cohen says, the payments that were made to Stormy Daniels or the arrangement with the enquirer through david pecker to pay karen mcdougal, remember the tape, then trump solicited or conspired to commit a Campaign Finance violation. He could be personally exposed. So, that is what could be shown. The next question is what could be done about it. Trump is an apparent unindicted coconspirator with cohen by the Southern District of new york. Why do we know that . Thats what they were talking about by saying the candidate that he was working for. But they cant charge a sitting president , according to the department of justice guidance. Thats why he wasnt named. What about mueller . He could take the matter back from the Southern District, but taking this up would be a lewinskylike turn away from the main substance of the russia probe, and mueller cant file charges either, right . So, does the a. G. , the deputy a. G. , rosenstein, hes in charge, does he want that kind of political pressure . Lets assume no. What does that leave . Congress. Democrats are slow to talk impeachment. Why . They seem to think its not popular enough. But if they get control of the house, with any of this, would it meet the definition of high crime or misdemeanor . That standard isnt legal, its really political. Its about votes. Think about the irony. Democrats would be confronting an impeachment proposition they once attacked, lying about affairs and covering them up. So, lets take a break. Why did the man at the center of trumps money get immunity . Is it just about cohen . There are other possibilities. Cuomos court is in session next. Your brain changes as you get older. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Thethe more you know theme, commute is worth it. For all the work you pour into this place, you sure get a lot more out of it. You and that john deere tractor. So versatile, you can keep dreaming up projects all the way home. Its a longer drive. But just like a john deere, its worth it. Nothing runs like a deere. 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Theres probably no way for him to stay clear from Allen Weisselberg. He knows what nobody else does about what could be trumps money trail. Lets get after it. Weve got cuomos court for you on a friday night. Laura coates and jim schultz, thanks for being here. Laura coates, start with this. Allen weisselberg knows every deal, every dealership, knows every sale, anything and everything thats been done. He knows every membership, anything you can think of. Well, how about this, laura coates, i start with the opposite proposition, doesnt matter what he knows, they only asked him, as far a