Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. Deliberating three days after this. I think its very sad what theyve done to paul manafort. Thank you very much. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. The president appears to be terrified he has a quote rat in his midst. Inside the white house. That i should be clear, thats his word. Rat. Its not the kind of language we are used to hearing from the president of the United States who is, of course, entrusted by our constitution when suring the nations laws are faithfully executed and who is responsible for appointing our most senior Law Enforcement officers. Youd expect to hear that word in a very different context. Your uncle was a rat. Sit down, sit down. Your uncle was a rat and now hes in the witness protection program. Thats my fathers brother youre talking about. Now the president is assuring
the country not that he has obeyed and upheld the law but that he does not hire snitchs. Tweeting the naming North Korea Times wrote a fake piece today implying that because White House Counsel Don Mcgahn was giving hours of testimony to the special council, he must be a john dean type. Reporter i have nothing to hide the president referring to nixon white House Counsel john dean credited with breaking the whesle and ultimately leading to his undoing. Thats how the president responded to the new york blockbuster this weekend, don mcghan has been cooperating for months, participating in at least three voluntary interviews over a remarkable 30 hours. Its jaw developing news, a Huge Development in the probe, examining whether the president , himself, obstructed justice or might have done other this engs that exceeded his powers. Mcgahn, the president tut put i. He is driving trumps successful efforts to fill the courts with conservative judges. That, includes, okay, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh mcgahn escorted to capitol hill today. Though reporters were interested in a different topic. Why did you take so long to the Special Counsel, mr. Mcgahn. Were you afraid the president would betray you . Do you regret that decision . Will you continue to comploo i . Have you briefed the white house on everything you told the Special Counsel . Mcgahn has been involved in most of the key events in muellers Obstruction Probe as far as we know, including Michael Flynns early ouster of the white house and getting Jeff Sessions to recuse himself the firing of james comey. It was mcgahn you will recall according to times who
threatened to have mueller fired, in fact, ordered him to do so. The times lays out how se is controlling the investigation. He kaugsd investigators that he never saw the president Go Beyond Highs legal authorities. Its not clear past or present has a real grasp of what mcgahn toll muellers team. We have a good sense, obviously, of what mr. Mcgahn testified to i can figure it out. How do say that good sense . Are you debriefed until. No, mr. Dowd has a good sense of it. He talked to him at the time. You dont know 100 of what he testified to, mr. Mueller . I think that through john dowd, we have have a a pretty good sense, john dowd said yesterday, ill use his words, mcgahn was a strong witness for the president. I dont teed to know much more than that. This teams to be cleared up. While the president agonizing of
what he called a rat inside the white house, although he says he wasnt one, his former employee Michael Cohen is about to face charges for 20 million in bank fraud, his Attorney Says hes been in up the with, you guessed it, howard dean on how to flip on the president the jury deliberates over paul manafort, theyre still deliberating they ended deliberation today the president publicly defended manafort and attacked the prosecution, which certainly looks a lot like an attempt to taint the jury pool. Now, get this, the president threatening to go further, telling reuters, he has chosen not to be involved in the mueller probe, but is totally allowed to be if he wanted to ive decided to stay out, now i dont have to, i could do whatever, i could run it. I am joined be aformer associate white House Counsel under president obama and executive
director of protect Democracy Now and a reporter for the washington post. Carol, have you news about don mcgahn or what he has been saying to Robert Mueller what have you learned in. So im going to be a little contrary here, chris, say i see where the president is coming from when he says this is a bit old news, my colleague, bob costa and i wrote in november when don mcgahn went before bob muellers interview team, sat down with verdicts two days straight so people have known for a long time that don mcgahn was cooperating with the investigation, that everyone who was in the white house was encouraged to voluntarily be engaged in these interviews. Now what we do know now is that after the week stories, by the times don mcgahns attorney has alerted and assured trumps own legal team that don mcgahn provided no information that was incriminating to the president , did not incriminate him. In fact, don mcgahns lawyer was
this story . Well, one things thats challenging when you are a lawyer, in the white house for that matter, you essentially are trying to serve two clients at every given moment. Are you serving the office of the presidency and you are serving the american public. Youve got to balance those two interestsle. Now, Unmost Presidenunder most president , its you have to be challenging, theyre dealing with the president who serves neither necessarily the public or the office of the presidency. Hes trying to steve the interests of donald j. Trump personally and seems to be expecting his staff to do that as well. What i make of the mcgahn interview, mcgahn is recognizing the last time his staff send him personally was Richard Nixon and john dean served four months in prison. Mcgahn is what is the course for me that avoids that as the staff
staffers. Lets get all the documents released. Lets sends them all On Over To Mueller and let him sort through this there were two reasons they did that. One was they believed very strongly in a 1990 case a ruling, which a clinton era case, which basically said you cant force the president to sit down for an interview, if you have all information you need from other sources. Voilla, all the staffers, all those records. Well, now its looking pretty smart to have done what they did in the sense that, trump doesnt want to sit down or at least trumps lawyers at this moment dont want him to sit down for an interview, are petrified he will perjure himself by mistake or intentionally the strategy which was heavily criticized has this one nice wrinkle to it. This one nice layer. Now, that doesnt change the fact that don mcgahn hated this strategy from day one. He thought it was dangerous for
exactly the reason i has pointed out this rule has two special duties. You are representing the office of the president and are you representing the president. If you are sitting in all these private meetings and some investigator gets to quiz you about everything the president said to you, thats, you know, potentially exploysive. He didnt want that to happen. Quickly, let me ask you this, the word rat, it really is striking to hear the president of the United States use the word rat and john dean, the whistleblower of watergate. Think about the spirited effect it has on prosecutors around the country desperately trying to enforce the laws to protect us as American Citizens from people doing harm, looking to get witnesses to work with them to prevent people literally from being murdered. Heres the president backing up the arguments of mob bosses getting people out to testify. Heres why i think the president is going out with the all out
sort of attacking not just don member gahn. Hes weak and nervous. He has thought from the beginning everybody around him was there to protect him. He wanted loyalty fro james comey, he couldnt believe Jeff Sessions would recuse himself. Now he is lashing out to try to prevent the one person that can bring him down which is this generations john dean. Thank you. For more on don mcgahns rules. And what he may so told. I am joined by a former u. S. Attorney and sherry you know mcgahn. You moved in political structuries he was a fixture. I dont know him. My personal contact with him or my lawyers was when he was trying to get many tow sign an nda too shut me up and silence me about a soup you are pac, i remember going back during the primary. But look, i think that hes between a rock and a hard place. He wants to come off like the good guy. He probably did incriminate the president maybe without knowing he did. So he has been with trump, he was the count sell for the campaign. So its not just white house chief count sell. He goes way, way back, chris. He knows from the beginning. He could be there 30 hours, theyre trying to check raw data. Thats what the february fib does. They check raw data, he could be providing information that could, in fact, Incriminate Trump but mcgan might not even know it. Look. Hes a good lawyer. Hes not a genius or a wizard. Its not a realistic expectation to sit there 30 hours and give a lot of raw data. At some point he will be giving them something they need for this case or Something Else. Again he goes back on the company where they were very, very sloppy, nobody thought theyd win the primary. So they didnt care. Other republican president. Mcgahn was in there early. His uncle worked with him regard to the casino. So there was some Family Connection in trump world beyond mcgahn being a junior republican Establishment Movement guy. Maybe he has a foot in both camps. I think he might be trying to have it both ways right now. Thats how he strikes me. Early on, chris, i think he knew he better make a phone call to mueller real quickly and get on the right side of this, but again, hes still trying to have it both ways, that itself what i finds fascinate to go see him straddle the two worlds. There is this lean in the New York Times that mcgahn and his lawyer who started to grow suspicious, because theyre being encouraged to cooperate. So they thought that maybe they were going to be, mcgahn was going to be set up as a fall guy that was part of what prompted him to agree to so much of the interviews. What do you think of that . First, think of that in the context of the question you just asked me. If hes thinking he will be made the fall guy. He must think there is possible Criminal Acttist that has occurred that he needs to give his version of. Again, its hard to say that it would have been completely exculpatory. But then, you know, second, just this whole kind of dance between representing the office of the president and donald j. Trump. By the way, i think this representation by the president that he just let him go forward is wrong. He probably won wouldnt have had a choice under Executive Privilege or Attorney Client privilege. But i think the basic point, you know, he has been in washington. He has seen history. Right. Im not going to be the rat. Remember john deans statement when he told the press, you know, if theyre fitting me for this outfit. They got the wrong guy. Unlike some of these other people, mcgahn has a future a stand income town will go to
lunches and be in future Federalist Society meetings, has done the heroic work with the Supreme Court. He doesnt want to go down with the ship. Ultimately, they ask is any guy worth going to prison for . He is saying no, Trump Isnt Worth it. Coming up, the former fixer Michael Cohen could face charges, over 20 million in bank and tax fraud. That story in two minutes. The fact is, there are over ninetysix hundred roads named park in the u. S. Its americas most popular street name. I know when did brian move back in . Brians back . He doesnt get my room. Hes only going to be here for like a week. Like a month, tops. Oh boy. Wifi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. Michael cohens lawyer says he has been talking with Richard Nixons former white House Counsel, john dean, who, of course, helped bring down nixons presidency, his lawyer lonnie davis telling politico, i reaped out to my old friend john dean because of what he went through with watergate and i saw some parallels. What Michael Cohen is experiencing right now according to New York Times is the threat of bank and fraud charges. Federal prosecutors reportedly
weighing whether to file criminal charges by the end of this month. To talk more about this, i am joined by the federal prosecutor in the Southern District of new york, u. S. Attorneys Office Investigating cohen and Andrea Bernstein cohost of trump, inc. Cohen gets raided. There is all this discussion about what is he being raided for . So then the times has a story saying its possible bank fraud and it has to do possibly with a Taxi Medallion Business . Right. This is something Michael Cohen has been dock for quite some time because in new york, these Taxi Medallions Pre Irish were very valuable. Gave you the right to pick up fares in new york city. That i could be worth more than a million dollars. Michael conheld a lot of them. You could kind of people and hoard and you make money off them . Exactly, like Real Staechlt can you trade and borrow money off of. Thats what he was doing. And his fornl former partner,
do with donald trump. Its a great way to flip one guy against another guy. We have done nit mob cases. You never know, you pull on that thread. You could start with a relatively obscure taxicab lawyer like gene friedland, roll it into michaelco zbln think about the Social Network if you were on the map, you start with the taxi king of new york, who the Taxi Medallion Business as you noted its a legitimate business. It tends to attract a fair amount of shadiness its fair to say. Your checker move to the president of the United States. The two checker moves from the short of shady offices in gene queens and brooklyn, the outer boroughs, he was dealing with people losing their licenses being indicted to being with the president of the United States. I think its worth keeping in mind like with Paul Microsoft he was allegedly committing these
crimes while working for donald trump. I think thats what makes him so interesting. He was a most intimate adviser, setting up deals aall over the soviet union. Thats what he is doing. So he is not some sort of random person. He is somebody right in there in the trump organization, while he may have been doing things. We havent heard yet, whether the Southern District is going to charge him. We should say, of course, cohen says, clear my family and country, not President Trump, its his first loyalty. What do you think about the time line as floated in the times article which is possibly before labor day. This is a Moment Of Truth for Michael Cohen. He has to get serious and quick. One he is in the process of cooperating. There is some evidence of that, he lawyer went from being out there to all of a sudden very silent. I noted that as well. If i was a prosecutor and
lanny davis came in i would say knock it off, silence, there is the other indicators the loyalty, he could be cooperating. If hes fought cooperating, What Todays Story tells him you need to get real and quick. You may just get charged. If you had him skating through as a witness, forget it. Its america, presumption of innocence. A million document given the Business Record of the people he has left in his wake. I would be a little stressed out if i were him. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Coming up, President Trump pitching himself as the Law And Order president while telling the world he thinks his former Campaign Chair is getting a raw deal on 18 criminal charges. Thats next. Visit enbrel. Com and use the joint Damage Simulator to see how your joint damage could be progressing. Ask about enbrel. Enbrel. Fda approved for over 15 years. We have one to two fires a day and when you respond together and you put your lives on the line, you do have to surround yourself with