For many years. Hes a very trusted aid. If you walked into trump tower, you could sometimes see cohen sitting at the starbucks on the second floor there. This is somebody who was by the president s side very much in some ways could often speak on his behalf. The things that he is aware of and the entanglement he will understand is very deep and broad as far as the president s Business Affairs is concerned and that tells you a little bit about the direction this investigation is headed and the things they are interested in learning and theres also quite a bit of opportunity for the committee to learn a lot from Michael Cohen and one thing thats been in the news recently that Michael Cohen has touched is this question about potentially branding a building in moscow with the trump name. I think you can expect some question along those lines and i think more broadly in the context of the investigation, the fact that theyre ready to talk to Michael Cohen also tells you some about how far along they are. We know that the Senate Intelligence committee wanted to finish this investigation by the end of the year but the last i spoke to the Intelligence Committee chairman he was suggesting that, if they found new information it might push beyond that but hes been very emphatic in saying, we want to bring in top name officials until weve talked to everybody else underneath them to get the fullest picture that we can before we start to ask the top marquee names the tough questions. The fact that theyre ready to interview Michael Cohen tells you the investigation is farther along. Go ahead. Let me pick up on that point that you just raised. Its a very significant one that a lot of people are probably going to look at and say, where does this advance the investigation . You mention that people like Michael Cohen would be considered top tier witnesses or top tier individuals that the Senate Intel Committee wants to talk, you laid out the case for why they would want to talk to him. But in specifics, this business deal that Michael Cohen purportedly emailed a russian adviser to president putin asking for help on the trump tower building, what does that tell us about where this investigation now stands in terms of the Business Affairs of President Trump . Right. So the question here remember, this is broadly an investigation into potential collusion or coordination between russian officials and Trump Officials during the campaign, but what weve learned is that as these, frankly, news reports have unfolded as the special counsel muellers investigation has unfolded and as the committees investigation has unfolded, they have broaden into looking at things including the business ties of the president that were unfolding, if you will, during the time that the campaign was happening and so the incident that youre talking about where essentially Michael Cohen sent an email and ultimately the president signed off on this letter of intent to potentially build a building in moscow that was coordinated by another person that then become a person of interest on the part of the congressional committee, its a very tangled and expanding web. I think what everybody should think of this as, is, okay, weve moved from strictly campaign related or Even White House official related into web of the Trump Organization, so the president s business before he became president of the United States and how the affairs of the Trump Organization were potentially impacting the campaign and potentially posed conflict of interests or criminal questions. So this is really explain how the president s personal finances and this is a place that has a lot of Trump Associates its a wider net than we originally than it was originally when the investigation started. You bring up a very good point about the fact that this testimony on tuesday would at least signal that the investigation has moved beyond Just Campaign workers or Campaign Members of the Trump Administration. I know that you know capitol hill very well, you probably know washington better than anyone, but how do you see this playing out in the investigations that are taking place both in the senate, the house, as well as the reaction that we could possibly expect from President Trump, the white house and his surrogates and supporters on capitol hill . Sure. So look, i think that the special counsel investigation is the primary concern for the president for members of the staff in the white house for any potential criminality or any serious repercussions. I think that that is the top line here and the Senate Committee that Michael Cohen is going to be talking to is staying out of bob muellers way. So keep that in mind. The Senate Investigation is not one that is going to determine whether there was a crime committed. Its fundamentally different than the special prosecutors investigation. Now what it does center on is russian meddling in the u. S. Election and it could touch on a variety of the things that the president is concerned about in the context of muellers investigation and clearly there are some politics at work here. Both sides obviously politicizing it one way or the other. The Senate Investigation has been over the course of the last six months less political than the house investigation for a variety of reasons and i think that underscores the importance of Michael Cohen talking to the Senate Committee, but at the same time, you know, i think the last i spoke to the chairman richard burr about this he suggested that the Senate Committee will ultimately release a list of findings and they might not vote on the release of those findings. So thats a potentially new way of doing business for the Senate Committee. In past instances where youve had a very politically charged topic, the torcher report is one that comes to mind when they investigated enhanced interrogation techniques, they voted on putting out that report then democrats were very unhappy because it was heavily redacted, this long drawn out argument about it. When i talked to burr, the Senate Committee in this case it sounds like they may handle it differently and there may not be a precedent for it in that regard. He suggested there wouldnt be a committee vote. He suggested they would put out a fact finding. So i think there are still a lot of questions about what the outcome of this investigation is going to be and what the public is going to learn about what they know. So let me ask you really quickly, looking ahead to tuesday, based on some of the previous reporting that has come out prior to today, Michael Cohen apparently sent his lawyer sent a letter to the Intel Committee trying to, i guess, prevent or perhaps restrict or perhaps even try to slow down any targeting of him or investigating of him in terms of his Business Affairs with the Trump Organization or how he carried those affairs out. Lets look ahead to tuesday. What do you think well expect on the hill in terms of his potential cooperation . Do you think theres any chance that on tuesday we may see Michael Cohen not cooperate or is any legal he mechanism that he has that could prevent him from disclosing information to the Senate Intel Committee search as attorneyclient privilege. To our knowledge this is a voluntary situation. This is not one where youll remember in Michael Flynns case, there was a lot of subpoenas that went back and forth. He invoked his fifth amendment right. It seems as though hes moving along and cooperating with the committee. Any time Something Like this happens, there are very strict often rules of engagement, so its likely and we know that the committee in august expresses interest in talking to Michael Cohen so this will have been preceded by weeks of negotiations between the two sides, between and among them, so unless there is an agreement or rather unless the committee compels somebody to testify, then usually the ground rules are relatively wellknown. Were still working on reporting what those ground rules are, but it says something that this is a situation where Michael Cohen, im going to go ahead and do this interview. All right. Casey hunt live in washington, d. C. With that breaking news. Thank you very much. Well be talking to you throughout the course of the evening but to help us now dig into this breaking news. Lets bring in erin mcpike chief white house correspondent. And malcolm nance. Great to have all of you with us on this busy sunday night. Erin let me begin with you if i can and well start with this breaking news that trump attorney Michael Cohen will be testifying on tuesday. What do you make of this news . We did hear last week that obviously that he was going to testify at some point. Its new that he is going to be testifying on tuesday. I think one of the largest points here is that we keep hearing the Trump Administration and supporters of President Trump continue to say that there is no evidence of collusion and they say that again and again, but specifically with Michael Cohen, you talked earlier in the hour about that email that he sent to try to get to putin through a spokesman and what Trump Supporters will tell you, he sent that email to a generic inbox so he must not have those kinds of ties that people expect. That was just one attempt to get to putin and through the testifying that hes going to be doing on tuesday and through the rest of this investigation, it is so clear that there are so many more details to come out and we only know a small sliver of that. So as this Investigation Continues a lot more of that will come out, they might come out with the findings, i think that would be really important for the public to see that theres a whole lot more here and just because theres no evidence of collusion so far in the press, doesnt mean that it could exist even though we havent gotten to it yet. What do you make of the fact that the testimony is scheduled to be on tuesday, the same day the president will be addressing the United Nations and arguably being on the world stage is going to draw a lot of attention perhaps away from washington, d. C. Although this is a very significant event . I dont know that theres anything you can read into it, honestly. Weve seen a lot of big news break time and time again. I think obviously the Trump Administration will get a lot of questions in new york, but i dont know that theres anything you can really read into that. Stay with us for a moment. Jonathan, i want to ask you as well. What is your take on the significance of this upcoming testimony and as the way casey hunt describes it weve now moved up a tier from Campaign Workers and those on the campaign trail to President Trumps inner circle . I think first of all you have to look at this as the Senate Intelligence committee in its role now as being sort of the public arm of these investigations, even though this testimony may be behind closed doors, the senators talk, their staff talks so it works hand in glove with the Mueller Investigation. There are going to be several buckets of this committee is interested in. The kind of leverage russia may have had with President Trump and with others in his administration or larger operation. Like the emails that casey was talking about and that erin was just talking about to russia trying to find out if a stalled negotiation over a trump tower in moscow could be advanced. You might look at that as Financial Leverage for russia. The other big bucket is this policy question of trying to work out a deal with some ukrainian politicians whereby sanctions on russia might be lifted in exchange for things. I think the larger thing here is that theyre looking at all these points of potential leverage with trump and whether theres more than is in the public record. Now Michael Cohen is a lawyer and i think lawyers generally would not like to be in the position of testifying in cases usually, theyre the ones advising clients and thats thats potentially troubling thing for the trump operation, the question of whether the lawyers may have information or may have even acted in themselves inappropriately. And malcolm, you know Foreign Policy better than anyone. From the perspective of the leverage that jonathan was just talking about, both in terms of Financial Leverage, maybe even political leverage, why is Michael Cohen such a critical figure in trumps circle . What information could he potentially have that no one else could have as his lawyer in that realm . Well, as his personal lawyer hes going to have an enormous amount of information. If you liken this donald trump to a mafia don, this is the guy who knows all of the secrets. Now, he may not be able to compelled to indulge the committee into revealing everything that he knows. He was a lawyer at the time and he does have privilege. But there are two points there which, you know, the previous speaker had mentioned which right now it appears the senate is going after these two points being bridges between the Senior Trump Campaign and the kremlin, the first one being the ukrainian letter which was supposed to lift sanctions, which cohen helped draft and get to the president and then the second one and most significant which was this letter about trump tower, this data which was supposed to have been, you know, done with the sanction of the kremlin which was going to enrich donald trump which was going to get a tower built there and a spa named after ivanka. These are critical pressure points that they can supply right now. Was he acting independently or was he acting as an agent for the president . There are obviously multiple investigations taking place in washington, d. C. Could the Senate Intel Committee and potentially this testimony on tosco the Senate Intelligence committee grant him protection or immunity if he cooperates with them to shield him from the Mueller Investigation . I suppose they could but i think weve seen that the Senate Intelligence committee is not willing to do that for any one who is tied to this investigation at all. They have shown that before. They showed that with flynn, obviously. I dont think well see that at all. Jonathan, you expect this testimony to compare to ones given by Jared Kushner and don jr. How do you think this will play out in relationship to those two gentlemen . I think it depends on what we find out and how fast we find it out. You mention about the coincidence. It could be that the u. N. Speech draws away from this testimony or it could be the opposite, that this testimony ends up drawing away from what President Trump is trying to do on the international stage. I think ultimately were looking at testimony that could be explosive depending on what the content is and if we find it out quickly but also maybe some time. The real thing to keep an eye on is the robert Mueller Investigation. The Senate Intelligence committee has a role in all of this but it is a minor one compared to that mueller probe. Malcolm, your perspective on the fact that this is happening on tuesday, should we be on the sceptical side and wonder why this is taking place on tuesday at the same time the president is speaking at the United Nations . This is a closely watched address or should we not make much of the scheduling conflict there . I dont think we should make many of the scheduling conflict. This could have been just been could have been coordinated but most likely wasnt. Its really bad coordination because if the president s going to be addressing the United Nations hes going to be on this world stage, the all the breaking news that well be coming out of that is whether his lawyer talked or not or whether he pled the fif