Transcripts For MSNBCW The 11th Hour With Brian Williams 201

Half a Million Dollars from a russian oligarch. Much more on that in just about 30 seconds. But first we want to catch you up on tonights primary races across the country. If youve been watching, you know weve been keeping a close eye on that West Virginia Republican Senate primary. President trump weighed in on that contest, urging voters to choose anybody but Don Blankenship. It appears they have done just that. Nbc news has called this race for Patrick Morrisey tonight in West Virginia. Blankenship, the coal baron excon came in third. We have complete results from Steve Kornacki at the big board coming up a bit later on in our broadcast. Back to our lead story. More on this bombshell news that the Company Michael cohen used to pay 130,000 to a porn star also received massive sums of money from an Investment Firm with ties to a russian oligarch, who was in turn close to vladimir putin. A document first released tonight by Stormy Daniels attorney, Michael Avenatti, laid out the allegations this way. Mr. Viktor vekselberg and his cousin, mr. Andrew intrater, routed eight payments to mr. Cohen through a Company Named Columbus Nova llc beginning in january 2017, continuing until at least august 2017. According to the documents, those payments added up to approximately 500,000 and it, quote, appears these funds may have replenished the account following the payment to ms. Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. The documents also reveal payments from corporations like novartis, the pharma giant, at t, korea aerospace. Here is Michael Avenatti on this network in just the past hour. Theres no question that this has all the markings of a pay to playtype scenario. This is a president who ran on this whole candidacy of draining the swamp and how the lobbyists were going to be closed out of the process, and they werent going to be allowed into the white house anymore. Meanwhile, now we find out that you have Michael Cohen, who had an office next to donald trump in trump tower for many, many years, and this guy appears to be selling access to the president of the United States. Nbc news has also reviewed financial documents that appear to support avenattis account of this transactions. Of note, these transactions would have taken place after the election and while trumps ties to russia were already under investigation. Former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, preet bharara, talked about what we know thus far tonight on cnn. At a minimum, its a very strange look for the president s personal lawyer, knowing all these allegations, knowing that any connection certainly between folks who have ties to putin and, you know, deposits of large amounts of money would look suspicious. Maybe there was no crime, and maybe there was nothing necessarily untoward about it. But it sure looks mighty fishy, and you shouldnt be surprised that there may be two different offices looking at this. Critical part of that statement there at the very end. Shouldnt be surprised that there may be two different offices looking at this. The company in question issued a statement late tonight reading, in part, Columbus Nova is a Management Company solely owned and controlled by americans. After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a Business Consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that Viktor Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false. The claim that Viktor Vekselberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Novas engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue. Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else other than Columbus Novas owners were involved in the decision to hire cohen or provided funding for his engagement. From the very effective law firm, Latham Watkins tonight. Here to help us make sense, our leadoff panel, frank figliuzzi, who in past has worked for, among others, one Robert Mueller. John heilemann, coauthor of game change and double down as well as cohost and executive producer of the circus on showtime. Sam stein, veteran political journalist. And jill colvin, White House Reporter for the associated press. Frank, youre the former fed here. We read the statement by Latham Watkins. Well let that speak for itself. What do you make of tonights development . Brian, i think were much closer tonight to seeing what collusion looks like. I think were much closer to the original core of the special counsels purpose, which is to determine the extent to which foreign powers have influenced this campaign and influenced this presidency. And i think that Michael Cohen is much closer to criminal charges tonight, and our president is not going to sleep well this evening because its going to be very hard for him to assert that he did not know that cohen had this firm setup, that money was flowing from Columbus Nova, whose biggest client is a russian oligarch, who has written checks to the campaign, who has signed on with Columbus Nova, whos been interviewed by the fbi at a new york airport, and were supposed to believe that the president knew nothing about this. Tonight its quite possible that mueller is looking at cohen as an unregistered foreign agent, that hes looking at crimes like Money Laundering and bank fraud, but that most importantly, its possible tonight that the president is being looked at as either an accessory after the fact if he knew that money was coming from russia to cohen, and if, in fact, it was for nefarious purposes, or that he might be looked at as a coconspirator with cohen. John heilemann, when our friend frank speaks, i tend to listen for reasons like that. That gets your attention. Yeah. When the story broke tonight, it was just an unlikely place. The attorney for Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, this was not in the form of a press release from the Southern District of new york, for example. And there promises to be more of these type developments. As it happens, i was sitting with Michael Avenatti in his hotel when he sent the tweet that launched all this news coverage, and hes a little bit hes being quite cagey about the source of how he came to this knowledge. What i think we know is that over the last few days, some pieces have fallen into place. We saw the New York Times write about vekselberg, a story that talked about how Robert Mueller was looking at him. We also saw the New York Times roughly around the same time do their big take on Michael Cohens businesses. One of the most striking things about that in addition to the kind of questionable nature of some of them is the number of times that the word russia occurred if you did a search through that story. The connections to russians, to russia, to russian money, to potentially businesses that have the whiff and sometimes more than the whiff of russian mob business, Money Laundering, and so on, things like the taxi medallion business in new york city. Before there were russian mobsters, there were italian mobsters in the city that used it to launder money. I dont know what youre talking about but youre a babe in the woods on this. So now we have this, which is sort of like has brought together the vekselberg story, which we know mueller is looking at, and the cohen story, which we know mueller looked at enough that he referred it to the Southern District. And youve now got the crossing of the streams in some sense. And its true that Stormy Daniels is a peripheral character in some ways in this story except for the fact that she received money from Michael Cohen, from this account that was set up, that looks now to all the world like a hush money like a slush fund for paying out all kinds of payments. Theres a lot of money flowing in and out of that one account. It may not be the only account. And i will say as much as were focused on vekselberg correctly, the interesting thing as we go forward is going to be where did the rest of that money go . What else was Michael Cohen, who was the selfdescribed fixer, fixing problems only had three clients. One of them was the president. Political and legal problems mostly for donald trump. Millions of dollars flowing in and out of a slush fund. We know 130,000 of it went to Stormy Daniels. Where did the rest of it go . Sam, i have so many questions for you, including kind of a devils advocate thing. Pay to play is its kind of a white collar thing. Theres no evidence that these payments violated any laws. Lets take the case of at t. Sure. At t is trying like hell to merge with time warner. Yeah. Its held up in the courts. They knew that donald trump was said to be against the merger. So theyre looking to find friends of donald trump, how do we get around this. They have admitted tonight that thats us, and the payment ledger, we received, according to their statement, they received zero in services for their money. Sure. But whats wrong here . Well, i guess technically its not illegal, but it is underhanded. It is rather unethical. It is the swamp that trump talked about. And while john is right that it is very interesting to know where this money went once it was in the slush fund, for me, the more interesting is how do they know to put it in there in the first place . This is not some well known llc. In fact it was not known at all until about a month ago. Someone must have told them, hey, if you want to curry favor with us, go to essential consulting or whatever its called, llc, thats run by Michael Cohen. No ones going to Michael Cohen for real estate advice. No one is going to Michael Cohen for lobbying help. Business consulting. Or business consulting. No offense to Michael Cohen. Theyre going to Michael Cohen because hes close to the president , but someone had to direct them to this place to begin with, and who was it . How harrowing must it be to be Michael Cohen and know what the feds have. Well, he was with Michael Avenatti when the story broke. I was in a hotel room with Michael Cohen when no, i was not. Its probably petrifying. His life is unraveling before his eyes. It brings a truism to the surface, which is that Donald Trumps presidency has been a virtual and actual disaster for everyone closely associated with donald trump. Their lives have been upended. All their business dealings have been exposed and a lot of the nefarious underbelly of it all has been brought to the surface. Which brings us to jill colvin, an honest to goodness deadline journalist who is up well past her bedtime to talk to us. Jill, two people who have been silent this evening trump and giuliani. Any guess as to their status . Yeah, weve heard nothing from them. Remember, this is the big day when the president is supposed to be announcing his big decision on iran. He probably expected to return to the white house residence tonight to turn on the television and see how people are reacting to that. And once again hes turning on the television to Michael Avenatti. What i think is so interesting here is to kind of go back to a point you guys were making a little bit ago, is this idea that this is a president who came in here saying he was going to drain the swamp, and yet you see person after person who really seems to be trying to profit off of the trump presidency. Youve got the president s children, who have certainly benefited, running the trump brands because of the trump presidency. Youve got other folks around like his former campaign manager, corey lewandowski, who have tried to use their connections to the white house and the president , their understanding of what makes the president tick, how he thinks, to enrich themselves. Frank, this oligarch were talking about tonight is one of the two oligarchs i think the New York Times had this story as a clean kill stopped by the feds coming into the new york area at the airport. The feds had enough reason to be suspicious, they apparently copied and imaged their electronics digitally to get everything they had, laptops, phones, and what have you. So lets just say they already had eyes on this oligarch. Oh, lets just say it because its probably correct. And heres how this works. First of all, you dont stop people at airports, question them, seize their electronics, and make mirror images of them without reason to do so, number one. Number two, lets understand and not forget that the oligarchs have been used as cutouts for the Russian Intelligence Service in this very investigation. Remember the social media propaganda case, the indictments of 13 individuals by bob mueller. Who were those people . They were rich, wealthy friends of putin who were bankrolling this whole Propaganda Machine that infected our social media. So this is par for the course. This is an m. O. Thats used by putin to fund and to help whatever he needs to do in the u. S. Campaign and elections. And we may be seeing that play out with this oligarch. John heilemann, back up to something we mentioned at the top of the broadcast. The backdrop here remains, is donald trump going to talk to Robert Mueller . Yeah, its i mean it remains a huge question. One of the things rudy giuliani, amid all of the madness and mistakes hes made, the thing that he said that i believe is true when he talked to stephanopoulos the other day was that most sane, cautious, discreet lawyers in america, if you hired the best ones if you hired the 100 best white shoe Defense Attorneys in the country, probably 100 of them would say that it would be a mistake for donald trump to sit down with Robert Mueller. But people who care about our democracy think the president should be accountable and that he should sit down with Robert Mueller. I think we all believe when he swore that oath of office, that he kind of that that put him in a place where when questions like this arose, he should go and be able to tell the truth. But given his history, his inability, his consistent relentless inability to tell the truth on a consistent basis, its not a perjury trap. Its just if youre looking at your client and see the way this client has behaved over the course of the last couple years, youd say that guys going to get himself in more trouble by going into that room. So i dont know whether hes going to end up talking to bob mueller. My guess is that the answer to that is no in the end because i think donald trump has a lot of bravado. But hes not quite as dumb as some people think he is, and i think he recognizes that the jeopardy for him would be high. And as frank says, as this story is unfolding, it is clear that the legal jeopardy for donald trump is getting greater by the day. And, you know, you look at the ways in which on both the obstruction front that weve seen already and now on the collusion front which now suddenly has all this new life, not that it was ever gone away, but were starting to see just a little bit of it. And someone i know who knows Michael Cohen very well and also has known donald trump for 30 years called me on the phone tonight and said, this is as weird as as weird as this is, as macabre, as bizarre as this story is, it is a small sliver of what were going to see over the next six to nine months in terms of understanding the scope of what is certainly a large Financial International conspiracy crime. And if thats true, Donald Trumps in a lot of trouble. Yes, he would appear to be. And, sam, how often do you reflect on the fact that the triad were talking about is trump, giuliani, and someone who was not in the american lexicon or discussion six months ago, avenatti. Yeah, a fixture of cable news at this point. I couldnt agree more with you. I think about the likelihood that trump will not talk. Two reasons. One, an amazing anecdote in the