There. A woman who was working at the lorraine motel. The story for the very first time, 50 years later. What she remembers about the final moments. But we start with that breaking news on the first prison sentence handed down in a Mueller Probe. Alex vander swan, a londonbased lawyer. Worked with Paul Manafort, robert gates. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison, a 20,000 fine. He pled guilty in february to lying to federal investigators who were probing russian interference in the 2016 election. White house lawyer ty cobb declined to comment on that sentencing. All at this hour, the president will face the appreciation taking questions when he hosts the leaders of three baltic nations. Theyre asking for the United States to provide military protection against what they see is a growing russian threat along their borders, as reports of tensions swirl around the president s relationship with Vladimir Putin. Nbcs jeff bennett is at the white house. Our justice correspondent Pete Williams is at the u. S. District courthouse in washington. Also with us, Msnbc National Security analyst ned price. And our legal analyst Danny Cevellos will join us in a moment. President trump there just a few moments ago it sounded like to a lot of folks that the president was proposing militarizing the border. Is that an accurate assessment . It appears to be an accurate assessment, craig. Ill tell you this, though, the president was saying a lot about a lot this last hour. In the cabinet room. To give you a sense of what was happening behind the scenes, our colleague Peter Alexander was in the room and white house hand handlers were trying to issue him and other reporters out of the cabinet room and every time they did, someone would ask a question and the president would engage. Clearly the president had a lot on his mind there. A snapshot of just a few of the things. Top of the list, this issue of illegal immigration, the thing that hes been talking a lot about ever since this weekend. Take a look at what he had to say on the specific issue of militarizing the border. Our laws are so week and so pathetic. You would not understand this because i know how strong your laws are at the border. Its like we have no border. Were going to be doing things militarily until we have a wall and proper security, were going to be guarding our border with the military. Thats a big step. We really havent done that before. Now, a team of producers has been looking into this to see if this is actually new, if the president is suggesting a new policy proposal, lets say. In the past, it appears he has referred to rounding up of undocumented immigrants as a military operation. As you well know, hes at least floated the idea of having the construction of the border wall that hes promised all these months funded in part through the pentagon budget. But look, the question of why the president is talking about immigration now, well, we know he spent this past weekend at maralago surrounded by aides and allies friends who were conveying to him the message that it appears his base is softening, getting angry, impatient, perhaps, about the sense that hes giving in on immigration. Having just signed that spending bill that didnt contain the money for the border wall he says he wants. The other issue is trying to neutralize this issue of daca, these protections for the 700,000 or so dreamers across the country. So in the absence of having a deal in the midterm elections, he doesnt want democrats to be able to pin the blame for him on that. Hes trying to head them off on the pass here. Geoff, what did the president say about russia . He said probably nobodys been tougher to russia than donald trump. That is of course debatable. Of course the reason why he mentioned it is because he was sitting across the table from the leaders of the Baltic States who hes about to hold a press conference with. They want him to do more to deter russia, especially by supporting nato forces in the region. Thats an issue that has been talked a lot about talked about a lot today, and of course the president saying that hes been the toughest yet on Vladimir Putin. Pete williams standing by for us as well. Mr. Williams, lets turn back to the Mueller Probe here. What happened in court today . How does alex van der zwaan, how does he fit into the mueller investigation. Peripherally i think is the best answer to that. What he lied about is not the question of whether the manafort and gates were helping the russians and the campaign. What the government says he lied about is work that his law firm did for the government of ukraine, a report commissioned by the former president about the about the prosecution of his predecessor, his law firm wrote that report. Representing ukraine at the time. Thats what the government says he lied about. His lawyers said, look, he initially lied to them. We admit that. He came back in december and tried to set the record straight. You have to give him credit for that. The government says yes, he came back, but he had a grand jury subpoena. Thats why he came back. And he came clean only grudgingly. At the end of the day, the judge said i have to send a message with this sentence. I have to make sure that it promotes respect for the law. It eliminates sentencing disparity so he doesnt get a much sweeter deal than somebody else in his position would get. It reflects the seriousness of the offense. Now, his lawyers had said they wanted him to try to be back in london wherein he lives with his wife, whos having a problem pregnancy and is expecting their first child in august. So at the end of the proceedings, the judge sentenced him to 30 days in prison, pay a 20,000 fine, so it seems quite clear hell be back in time for prison. Its interesting that just before pronouncing sentence, the judge noted that several members of alex van der zwaans family wrote letters to the judge, his wife, his mother, others, attesting to his good character and urging leniency. But the judge said that van der zwaan himself never did. His own expressions of remorse have been muted, craig. Pete, lets also take a look at this newly released document that seems to underline the Deputy Attorney general rod rosensteins role authorizing mueller to look into manaforts connections. What more can you tell us about this document . That i think is the part that seemed pretty unsurprising. We all assumed thats been muellers job is to look at connections, whether any americans were helping the russians meddle in the elections. Whats interesting about that document is two things. One is, it lists people by name. Now, we only saw the manafort part of it. Most of it is blacked out. But its interesting that muellers commission was to look at specific people. So they were already starting to look at. Because of the fbis work. Bac basically giving mul earl his homework assignment on what he should be teed up to do. Secondly, its the commission from rosenstein to mueller specifically mentions this whole ukrainian business. And, remember, it had been manaforts contention that mueller was going beyond his brief by prosecuting Mueller Manafort and gates for the work in ukraine. No, no, the special counsel says, this is the order we got. Pete williams for us there, pete, thank you, sir. Jeff, stand by for me if you can. Ned price is with us as well. And Danny Cevellos. Ned price, National Security analyst. Danny, let me start with you, van der zwaan, 30 days, 20,000 fine. How unusual is it to send an attorney to jail for lying to federal investigators . Attorneys are treated just the same as anyone else. The only major difference would be most attorneys arent going to have a significant criminal history. Sure enough this is an attorney who would have been what we call a zero, no prior criminal history so his sentencing guidelines were 0 to 6 months. A onemonth sentence is squarely in the guidelines. I would have liked to have seen a probation only sentence if i was his attorney, and i think he had grounds for it, but this sentence was within the applicable guidelines. Van der zwaan not just any attorney here. What more do we know about his family ties . Well, not just any attorney indeed. He was charged and sentenced for lying to federal investigators. The interesting part of his case is something we know relatively little about. Van der zwaan apparently knows about conversations between Donald Trumps former Deputy Campaign manager rick gates and identified russian intelligence officer, someone with ties to russian intelligence. We dont know precisely who that person is, but at least speculation suggest its a man named constantine calamanic, who has tied to Russian Military unit, the same unit that was behind the attack in our democracy in 2016. There was another interesting part of the court filing issued today. In that andrew wiseman, one of the chief prosecutors, asked the judge to be very careful about access to Records Associated with this case. Precisely because there seems to be a lot this individual has told prosecutors or that this individual knows that is not yet public. And so i think the full history of the van der zwaan case is yet to be known publicly. But there seemed to be some additional interesting nuggets in there. Danny van der zwaan, one of five people so far to plead guilty in the special counsels probe. Paul manaforts been indicted along with 13 russian nationals. Three russian corporations as well. We dont expect these russians to ever appear in court. What about Paul Manafort at this point . What does his future look like . This is a big revelation for me at least because manaforts argument, his complaint, that the mueller team exceeded the boundaries of their directive, was an interesting legal argument. It had some valid points. That may no longer be the case in light of the news of today. That maybe mueller always had that directive, that authority, go after manafort. But the fact that these that manafort is choosing to take his chances at trial reflects what a lot of criminal defendants often decide, which is im looking at so much in terms of sentencing there really is no point in not rolling the dice and seeing what happens. In addition, theres always the possibility of a president ial pardon. Maybe thats something that manafort is holding out for. If all of the roads so far, if they appear to lead to Paul Manafort, and i think weve got an interesting graphic here that illustrates some of the players and how they are all int interconnected. If all of the roads that the point appear to lead towards Paul Manafort, where does manafort lead, ned . Well, thats the question. When manafort when an indictment against manafort was announced last year, youll recall that the Trump Administration said at the time, look, this is not about collusion this has very little to do with russia. This is about Paul Manaforts double dealing. The shady business that Paul Manafort did on the side that had very little to do with us. What i think we learned today or at least what was confirmed today in the doj filing that was released overnight, is in fact no, there is a collusion element in the manafort investigation. Despite the white houses best efforts to distance themselves from Paul Manafortmanafort, pau manafort led the campaign at a pivotal time, during the national convention. If there is an element to any collusion that pamanafort had wh the russians, that is a huge deal. Its not something the Trump Administration can walk away from. Ned price, danny, a big thanks to you. I want to bring back geoff bennett. Just a few moments ago, President Trump, he gave his first Public Comments on embattled ed epa head scott pru. Scott pruitt, sir, you support scott pruitt . I hope hes going to be good. I hope hes going to be good. Among a wave of negative headlines, it seems the white house not cutting off ties, at least not yet, to Administration Officials, telling nbc news that both the president and chief of staff gave pruitt a call to offer their support. The president reportedly told him last night, quote, weve got your back. They urged him to keep his head up and to, quote, keep fighting. Jeff what more do we know and would it seem that scott pruitt is safe now . It certainly seems that way. At the current moment. Although one wonders what its like to be scott pruitt, to hear the president say i hope hes going to be great. Its not quite a resounding endorsement. Look, we know the president doesnt like cabinet members drawing negative headlines. He doesnt like unforced errors. Whats different about scott pruitt is that people close to the president describe him as being one of the most effective members of the trump cabinet in terms of executing the trump agenda. Hes of course overseeing the rollback of a host of obama era environmental regulations and policies. He supported the president s decision to ditch the paris climate agreement. Hes an effective messenger. He pops up in conservative media all the time, talking about how great the president is. As you mentioned, raj shah, who is the Deputy White House press secretary here, told us that the president spoke with poout yesterday. John kelly spell with pruitt today. Another Administration Official says those calls were meant to be calls of support to pruitt. It would appear scott pruitt is standing on firm ground here, of course with the caveat that everything i just said is true, until it isnt true, because we know trump is the ultimate arbiter of this, and he can be described as a mercurial boss at best. Before that exchange we just saw there with the president , with the three heads of states, lithuania, latvia and estonia, we saw the president doing what hes prone to do, hopping on twitter, tweeting this morning and over the past couple of days about a number of topics, illegal immigration, the media, his poll numbers, and amazon, hes spent a fair amount of time over the last few days talking about amazon. We heard that diatribe there as it relates to the post office and amazon. Why is this happening now . Especially this attack on amazon . How much of this is about jeff bezos . How much is about reenergizing his base . Thats a great question. The president often conflates jeff bezos dual role as owner of amazon and Washington Post, even though those are two separate entities. Hes attacking amazon as a proxy for attacking the Washington Post for the coverage of his administration which he doesnt like. In reporting the story, ive reached out to amazon and theyve made clear when the post office writes deals for Package Delivery, by rlaw, those deals have to be written in a way that it is profitable for the post office. Postal Service Officials say yes, they are losing money year over year in part because of the huge retirement obligations they have to pay out, but that one of the bright spots of its financial picture is actually Package Delivery of which amazon contributes a great deal. On the merits, the president s arguments just dont hold up. So what were left with is what you suggest, that hes trying to find something here to energize the base, again, as we head into a midterm election. Amazons even got the post office delivering on sunday which is, you know, thats a separate matter. Geoff bennett. Were all grateful for. Right. Geoff, thank you. Right now, we continue to keep a close eye on the white house. The president in the middle of that meeting with leaders of three Baltic States who are facing pressure from russia. Were expecting a News Conference to get under way were told roughly 15 minutes or so. When it happens, well take you there live. First, a witness to history. I spoke to a woman who was working at the Lorraine Hotel in memphis that day when dr. King was assassinated. Its the first time shes sharing her story. She couldnt believe the moment she was witnessing. I didnt think he was going to die. You didnt . No. Why not . He cant. 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