A spokesman for manafort says its 100 false to suggest this meeting including any discussion of contributions to the Trump Campaign or the Republican Party. When donald trump jr. Talked about the meeting he called it nothing and manafort said he was on his phone most of the time. The whole contact took how long . 20 minutes or so. 20 minutes. And jared left after five or ten. Yes. Like she said and paul manafort. On his phone. The whole time. Like i said it was pretty apparent this is not what we were in there talking about. It does appear manafort was on his phone to take notes. Nbcs reporting says manafortses notes typed on a smartphone described by one source as cryptic were turned over to the house and senate
think you know. Im not answering about any particular eggs vexes. I cant talk about that in a classified setting. I want to be careful in open setting. I carefully chose the words. Like look ive seen the tweet about tapes lordy, i hope there are tapes. Jeremy theyre making the case this guy who chooses not to comment publicly in front of congress is somehow reckless and a leaker. James comey is cautious, he is a professional, a career Law Enforcement z officer and a career prosecutor. He of course served as assistant u. S. Attorney. The idea he is unreliable i dont think goes far with, particularly with bob mueller. After all of course comey replaced mueller as fbi director. Theyre sort of similar on the outlook op Law Enforcement. Just coming back to the original point about undermining the argument about obstruction. The statute says who ever by threat or by force tries to
impede a federal investigation. It doesnt say who ever in brackets unless youre the president , no president is above the law. And of course the firing was not the only basis upon which someone might investigate the president for obstruction. He osk took jim comey to the oval office and said please drop the investigation. Is wasnt just the firing. There are multiple avenues to pursue with respect to obstruction of justice. Michael they are pursuing multiple avenues. We know your last by line reported that muellers team is interested in talking to Senior Trump Administration officials. We have seen reporting that mueller is working with the irs. We learned last night that he is working possibly with new York Attorney general Eric Snyderman to have State Charges brought that cant be pardoned by the president. In your opinion what thread of the investigation are they pulling the hardest on . I think what we are seeing is a very aggressive prosecutor, especially on the manafort front. We saw him last month execute a Search Warrant to go into manaforts house. That is a very thats a big
move for a prosecutor to take, especially at a time when manafort said or was trying to say publicly that he was cooperating. So i think what we are seeing a a lot of a lot of things here. Well see a lot more of this in the weeks and months to come. The president is going to have a lot of stories come out about subpoenas, about interviews, about people going before the grand jury, and there is just going to be a lot of these as we go forward. The interesting thing will be when does new information that moves our understanding of what happened changed . Its one thing learning about a subpoena or someone being interviewed. Its another thing when we learn of actually new information about things that we didnt know. And sometimes were able to do that. And sometimes were able to break through and provide new context to things sometimes we dont. But i think this will go on some sometime now. Jill, to michaels point, the pressure that has been brought to bear on paul manafort, his
business associates, his family, there is some sense that the the investigation is leaning on him heavily. And there are others who think that the pardoning of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio might have been a sending a message to Paul Manaforts or Michael Flynns saying hold tight ill pardon you if it goes wrong. What do you make of the fact that possibly Robert Mueller is working with new York Attorney general eric schneiderman. I think it is a message. I was appalled by the pardon in and of itself. You are forgiving a Contempt Of Court which cannot enforce judicial proceedings if it cant hold a witness in contempt or a defendant in contempt. And it was for violating civil rights. Its bad in and of itself. But i heard it definitely as a message, hang tight, dont worry. You may lose the fifth amendment privilege because ill pardon your original crime. But ill also pardon you if you
refuse to testify. I think it was a very bad thing. I think it is a very good thing that the State Attorney General is now involved because that is something the president cannot obstruct. And he cannot impede it because he has no power against the state. So thats thats a good thing. And i think that they should Work TogetherZbloolgts Jeremy thats really the first salvo of that sort. Because there are a number of states that can claim some sort of harm if this is still having to do with the russians attempting to intervene in american elections. There are a number of states targeted by the russians according to reports weve seen. So Robert Mueller has a lot of ammunition if he wants to start partnering with State Attorneys General in guaranteeing donald trump either cant fire him out of this thing or cant pardon his way out of it. This is clearly as my knowledge said a sprawling, rideranging and aggressive
investigation by the special counsel. He has built a strong team, a large team, experienced team. And it appears from everything we are learning that working in a careful hurry to figure out whether or not charges ought to be brought and figure out what to report to congress which with will ultimately hold the impeachment decision in its hands. Michael is to too wide ranging . You know the president did warn that Robert Mueller will cross a line if he starts getting involved in Donald Trumps financial affairs. Well Robert Mueller is getting in manaforts financial affairs. One assumes about the moscow hotel in Donald Trumps moscow affairs. Theres been questions in the past about Special Prosecutors before. What we had before is the prosecutors were appointed for an indefinitely period of time and they had the Abilitying To On and investigate whatever he wanted. But based on the pliks Whats Going On in the Country Mueller could investigate a lot of things for a lot of times and there would be few things to
stop him. At the end of the day the acting the Deputy Attorney general acting as the attorney general because the attorney general rekuzed himself from this stuff will have the say in whether there are prosecutions to be made here. But mueller has the power to look at different things. And what usually happens with the special counsels is that they look at things and find things because they dig through a lot of things. They get a lot of information back. They subpoena things. Talk to people compel them to talk to them. When you are doing that youre going to kick stuff up. It happens. Let me ask you then because you made the point that we have to wait until the next thing that shows that we made progress in this investigation. What are you look for . Is there some direction in particular that you are looking for to happen next. No were just looking for new information that gives us a better understanding of things that happened before and a better understanding of you know database, look there was a
meeting that happened in june of 2016 between the Trump Campaign and the russians. We only know so much about it. We only know the emails we had about it and the differing explanations we got from some of the folks there. You know if we were to learn what other folks in the meeting, the russians had to say about that or what you know direction they got, or or anything like that that expands our understanding of things. We look for things that spa expand and can provide larger context to the facts. Thats what we are searching for. Jill back we we first learned of the meeting you said while we only find out what other people leak or what people publicly put out as donald trump jr. Did with the emails Robert Mueller has more power to get more information than what we are learning today about things found on Paul Manaforts phone indicate that he is using some of that power. Absolutely. And i want to point out in terms of the timing that we were appointed in may for the watergate case. And we returned indictments in
march of the following year. So thats about nine months. And we were looking at a very narrow set of allegations. I think here the mandate that mr. Mueller has is quite broad and can allow him to look at a lot of other areas. So it could take way more than the nine months before you would ever have any kind of an indictment. And also, i want to point out he has the power to give a report to the congress which request be as we did, a road map to impeachment. It was decided by our Special Prosecutor at the time that we should not diet, that impeachment was the correct procedure for the sitting president. Since then can be ken starr to a took years and went from a real estate deal to a blue dress, so showing how broad the investigation can be, he has ha memo that says it would be perfectly proper to diet a sitting president. So mr. Mueller might be able to do that. But he also has the option of rurpg a report to the congress to show how the case could be built for impeachment. Jeremy last word to you, what are you looking for next . Well when Michael Cohen the Trump Organization main lawyer and the one who was the architect to of the deal to billed the trump tower testifies in the House Committee youll sigh information come out about the financial ties. As we follow the money im looking at that testimony. Jeremy, michael and jill thank you all three of you for joining me. With congress set to return to washington next week how could the latest developments in the investigation affect this white house . Our Political Panel reacts when The 11th Hour continues. Hey youve gotta see this. Cmon. Deepening the rift with russia. The administration is not expelling any russian diplomatic personnel from the United States. Nor did it tough the staff at russias mane embassy in waekt. Of the Robert Costa National political reporter. Vivian salama, incoming nbc News National reporter. Our White House Reporter jonathan la mere. Vivian, let me start with you. In august earlier this month, the president said this about the russian decision to cut that the 755 u. S. Staff members in russia. Lets listen. I want to thank him because were trying to cut down on payroll. As far as im concerned im very thankful that he let go of a large number of people, because now we have a smaller payroll. There is no real reason for enemy to go back. Vivian there is a journalistic term for that. I think it might be weird. That was just a strange response
that the president had to another country ordering 755 staffer foss not do their work. The president has always seemed to do this tap dance with russia. Whether with the russian investigation, whether it has to do with the diplomatic relation was russia. He has never outwardly accused russia he has never outwardly embraced the Intelligence Community in the country that feel confident that russia was behind the hacking of the u. S. Election in 2016. He says that it was probably maybe russia but also probably other players involved. And so the diplomatic rift that weve seen kind of manifesting itself over the course of the administrations time in office has been fascinating but it hasnt coming from the white house. A lot of it is coming from the other members of the administration, whether The State Department, u. N. ,
ambassador nikki haley. Theyre the one who is have gone after russia tried to take the tougher stance while the president distances himself not touching the hacking thing except for shortly after the first meeting with President Putin of russia. And so its really fascinating to see all of this going on with the back drop of the investigation taking place where the president kind of gives a little bit of leeway to russia, not wanting to get involved but still insisting he had no collusion. A lot of people concerned about this. They say if he didnt collude if nobody in the Campaign Cluds if he is absolutely confident about it why doesnt he just come out and take a tougher stance. Thats what we saw with the clip is that he doesnt quite do that. He falls short of that. And that raises so many
questions where a lot of people say, well is there something he is trying to hide . What is the issue with the president not taking the strong stance. That is the question. Jonathan, let me ask you, to vivians point he is getting advice from somebody he had to do something, right there had to be a response to the 75 a american staffers. This is a small portion of that. Its a very measured small response to it. But to whose pressure did he bough on this . Is it Rex Tillerson, the The State DepartmentWhats Going On. Certainly the state has suggested that some sort of response was necessary. But the president , to vivians point, has never gone there. I was part of the small group of reporters traveled with the president when he made the comments. And later the Sarah Huckabee sanders suggested he was kidding. No one thought that. It was odd. What we know about the president is this when he feels pressure he goes the other which. He does not like the idea of being managed. We see that in the white house now with the new Chief Of Staff all the story lines the west wing staff in line but yet seems to have no control over the president himself. In fact, in recent weeks it feels like the twitter feed from the president has become more lively, as if to prove a point that he cant be controlled by the Chief Of Staff. And when it comes to russia in particular he seems to lash out particularly when there are developments in the investigation that seem to come close to home. Robert to vivians point that he is getting guidance from someone and to jonathans point that he chaffs at the control. You had a by line on the story pukd in the New York TimesWashington Post im sorry unless something changed since last i read it where it says donald trump resists being handled says roger stone, a former Trump Adviser and longterm confidante, no one tells him who to see what he can say. General kelly is trying to treat the mushroom keeping him in the
dark and feeding him expletive. Were seeing the generals around the president , General Mattis at the pentagon, trying and of course general mcmaster, Foreign Policy adviser. That includes russia. They adopt more of the traditional Foreign Policy view in the Republican Party and even in the Democratic Party when it comes to the hawkish position towards russia. You see in this administration a balancing of that traditional hawkish view with the instincts of the president and perhaps the Secretary Of State tillerson when it comes to having a bit of a softer touch with russia. All of these forces are combined in how the United States is responding to these types of questions. And vivian, to that point, this business of russia and sanctions on russia, and taking a harder line on russia, is the one area that the president splits so clearly with his own party on. When it came to the sanctions against russia and iran and north korea in congress, there was a veto proof majority. This is not even an area that the president had the smallest bit of influence amongst republicans and certainly zero amongst democrats. This is not a winnable road he travels. Thats right. Actually when the sanctions took place, he actually came out very strongly against them in a statement put out that day that was really surprising where he supported the actual notion of sanctions, the legislation itself but said that the bill was problematic. He was did he cited a lot of issue was it particularly the effort by congress to essentially clamp down on the executive power. He said that it gave them too much power and took away his power to have any authority on the issue of sanctions in particular. This