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 a reason it was filed in tandem with the Southern District of new york, which took a much harsher tack on what Michael Cohen should serve in terms of prison time. They said they participated in seven interviews and he was not entirely forthcoming in the first one, but by the second one it sounds like cohen came around and continued to participate. He really did divulge some information at the core of what the Special Counsel is looking into, in particular his own contacts with russians and another contact from a Russian National we were not necessarily aware of before. This one was in november 2015, so very early in the campaign. It was a Russian National who was essentially trying to set up meetings between Vladimir Putin and thencandidate donald trump. This person said the campaign
could offer political synergy and synergy on a government level by syncing Up Russian Interests and american interests. This is really telling about how early the russians were trying to make inroads with the campaign, but of course we know the core of what Michael Cohen did to get himself in hot water with the Special Counsel was making these false statements to congress, lying to congress about the moscow project and insisting it was wrapped up much earlier than it was and down playing Donald Trumps role in the process. Well, mueller says cohen lied to investigators about the trump tower in moscow deal. So how damaging potentially could that be to the president . Well, i think we dont know the full extent of what the president knew. What is clear, what we know from Michael Cohen at this point is that he did keep President Trump in the loop, then candidate trump in the loop about the project longer than we realized. This was a project donald trump down played in the campaign. He said, i have no Business Interests whatsoever in russia. In reality, he could have made millions and millions of dollars
on this. What this latest Document Points out is that Michael Cohen provided this false testimony in front of congress because he wanted to protect donald trump. The document said he did it in the hopes of limiting the investigations into possible russian interference in the 2016 u. S. President ial election, an issue of heightened national interest. I think the other thing thats interesting about cohens lies around this moscow project is the filing from mule pellers oe notes there are a couple of ways cohen was helpful to the Special Counsel. One was talking about his contacts with people connected to the white house during 2017 and 2018, which gets into the question whether Michael Cohen may have helped with the Obstruction Of Justice probe. It also talks about how he was circulating his testimony, his plans to respond to congressional inquiries, with those in the white house. Of course, a Big Question Is, you know, who saw that and if they knew it was false at the time, that cohen was going out there and saying it. Sara, only three minutes ago the president issued this statement on twitter. It is unclear what he is
referring to. It says, quote, totally clears the president. Thank you, exclamation point. Youre laughing. Im not exactly sure what the president is referring to. You know, i would say theres nothing that totally clears the president because the document from the Southern District of new york continues to implicate President Trump. It says that hes the one who directed Michael Cohen to make payments to women during the campaign, so thats a clear implication. This latest one from muellers team doesnt directly implicate the president , but it also doesnt clear him. It says that Michael Cohen was out there making up a lot of lies to try to protect President Trump, and we know that donald trump not only went along with these lies but parroted a lot of them during the campaign and once he was in the white house in terms of the moscow project, but also his payments to women. So im not sure how this exonerates him. Im not sure maybe jim acosta, our chief white house chor correspondent understands what the president is referring to. You saw the tweet as well, right, jim . Reporter thats right. Individual one uses roughly five or six words here. Totally clears the president , period, thank you. It is very strange, wolf, to see the president tweet that. Obviously he is trying to send the message, you know and well probably hear other things from him as the night goes on or perhaps tomorrow morning. Hes trying to get the message out to his supporters as soon as possible that he feels what Michael Cohen is faced with, with this filing that went into the Southern District of new york earlier today, somehow is beneficial to him. As you guys were just saying over the last hour or so, you go through all of these documents and obviously it doesnt clear the president. As we saw earlier this morning, there was this blizzard of tweets from the president , a Tweet Storm Earlier today. He was obviously very frustrated, obviously very concerned about what was going to unfold later on today, and it seems his immediate reaction, his initial reaction is that he feels like theres nothing really in this cohen filing
thats damaging to him. Now, i mean if you as you have been saying a few moments ago, if you read through these documents, if you read through this filing, especially when you get to the part where Michael Cohen providing information to the Special Counsels office about contacts with the white house, individuals associated with the white house in 2017 and 2018, perhaps the president has not read that portion of these documents or perhaps his lawyers havent filled him in on that, but that obviously i mean i would think that would be worrisome to any white house, especially for a white house that is on the verge of bringing in a new Attorney General. You know, that is just a universe of worries i would think for a white house because they dont exactly know what specifically the Special Counsels office is referring to there, but they are very much talking about contacts that Michael Cohen has relayed to the Special Counsels investigators. Wolf, i think the other thing that is very important and somewhat damaging in this filing from the Special Counsels
office with respect to Michael Cohen is we have new information now about what was going on between Michael Cohen and russians during the campaign, that Michael Cohen is now talking more extensively, according to the Special Counsels office, about the contacts that the Trump Campaign, that thencandidate trump, his various spokes people said was not going on. So, you know, to me that would be somewhat worrisome to the president. But if you weigh this against what he was saying earlier this morning and it was just almost unhinged in terms of the tweets that were coming from the president , he was talking about all sorts of things. He was using his usual superlatives in referencing the Mueller Investigation. When you weigh that against this brief tweet from the president in the last couple of minutes where he feels, you know, that he has totally cleared in all of this, he must feel in some way relieved by what is in this filing. But as weve all been noting, wolf, over the last hour, he is certainly not out of the woods. Yeah, he certainly isnt. That explains why earlier in the day in these series of tweets he was really attacking Robert Mueller, trying to undermine the entire investigation. One line here, Robert Mueller and leaking and lying james comey are best friends, just one of many mueller conflicts of interest. He says, will his conflicts of interests be listed in the top of his republicansonly report. He is clearly going after mueller in a brutal way. Thats right, wolf. I think as everybody has been observing all day long, and he has been doing this for months now, wolf, he is obviously trying to soften up the perception among his supporters as to what Robert Muellers motives are. Hes been referring to 12 angry democrats and so on working on the mueller team, making very personal comments about members of Robert Muellers team. This is obviously all designed to weigh on the minds of his supporters and to sort of damage and soften up the way that his supporters look at the special
counsel, overlooking the president has overlooked on numerous occasions Robert Mueller is a republican and so on. So i think, wolf, this is all part of a Public Relations strategy that the president has been in the middle of for many, many months now. I do think it is odd to see this very brief tweet from the president , but my sense of it is that he feels relieved based on what he has read so far, what has been read to him, explained to him in this filing this afternoon, wolf. All right. Stand by because theres going to be another filing coming in from mueller involving Paul Manafort, the former Trump Campaign chairman. Let me bring in shimon. They were not lenient on Michael Cohen at all. What did they tell the court . They were not. When you look at what the Southern District files and what the mueller team filed, it is two completely different positions. Here is how they describe it, how the Southern District describes Michael Cohen. They say he is an attorney and businessman who committed four
distinct federal crimes over a period of several years. He was motivated to do so by personal greed and repeatedly used his power and influence for deceptive ends. They say he seeks extraordinary leniency, a sentence of no jail time based principally on his rosecolored view of the seriousness of the crimes. He claims to be sympathetic personal history and has certain information to law enforcement. The key here is that the crimes they say committed by cohen were more serious than his submission allows and were marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life. Theyre clearly calling him an outright liar, that he continued to do so. Really they are not asking for a substantial amount of leniency here from the judge. They want him to do a lot of jail time for the charges that they have brought against him, wolf. Which of these cohen filings do you read as more significant and possibly very damaging to the president . Look, i think we already know
what cohen has implicated in terms of the Southern District of new york, saying the payments that he coordinated with him. I think what is significant is what we see in the cohen filing. How they describe his assistance is that he has provided he has been useful in four significant respect. This lays out here what the Mueller Investigation has been. We hear of contacts that they are now aware between the company, that is presumably the Trump Organization. The president has talked about this red line, that if the mueller team starts looking into his business dealings, he will have some concern with that, and it is clear thats what is going on here, that there was contact between the company and russian interests during the campaign. Theres a line here in the ways in which he is helping the Special Counsel, where hes providing relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the white house during the 20172018 time period. Thats recent. Thats while the president is the president. Thats not the campaign. Thats not the transition. So theres clearly aspects of this investigation that are now deep into the white house. Really, i think the other thing thats so important here is they describe certain discrete russiarelated matter core to the Special Counsels investigation that essentially he is providing help on. These are contacts with Company Executives that russians have had during the campaign. Again, we are seeing a lot of terminology in these mueller documents about the company, Company Executives. Who are those Company Executives . This suggests to me that the Mueller Investigation is a little larger than just folks who perhaps were working on the campaign. This is now going into the company, trumps red line, his business dealings. We will see how he respond to this, but this clearly to me lays out exactly what the Special Counsel has been doing
and where Michael Cohen has been significantly helpful to them. Jeffrey toobin, he have had a chance to read what this 38page document that the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york filed, the sevenpage separate document that Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel, filed. What are your major takeaways . Three of them. The simple one is that the Department Of Justice, the Southern District of new york that reports to the Attorney General that reports to the president , accuses the president in the most explicit ways of committing crimes. This is specifically the money that went to Stormy Daniels and the money that went to Karen Mcdougal. The president says that the crimes to which Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, Illegal Campaign contributions, were committed by the president , then the candidate, as well. What anyone is going to do about that i dont know, but it is a pretty extraordinary thing to see the Department Of Justice make that accusation. Point two, the document from the Special Counsel makes clear, at least according to Michael Cohen, that there were a lot more contacts between cohen as a representative of the Trump Organization and the Trump Campaign and russians than we had known previously, more opportunities for collusion, some of them, according to the document, including candidate trump himself, that candidate trump was involved in this outreach to the russians during the campaign. Very significant. Third, the