New york. Day 553 of this trump administration. Theres breaking news yet again tonight and its this. A source saying Michael Cohen asserts the president knew about the june 2016 trump tower meeting in advance. Was told it about by his son before it happened. The source also goes onto say cohen is willing to make that assertion to robert mueller. You may recall that the june meeting between donald trump junior and several different russian nationals including an attorney with reportedly close ties to the kremlin in that meeting. Russians were expected to provide damaging political information on hillary clinton. Lets listen to what the president himself told three journalists from the New York Times about whether he knew about this trump tower meeting. I didnt look at it very cloesl l closely, to be lons with honest with krou. I read there was an email. I said, thats standard political stuff. Did you know the time they had the meet something. No, i didnt know anything about it. I must have been very unimportant because i never heard of that. No one told you . No one told me. Nobody told me. I didnt know that. It sounds like a very unimportant meeting. Here now donald trump junior speaking to sean hannity about that june 2016 meeting. A lot of people will want to know this about your father. Did you tell your father anything about this . No. It was such a nothing, there was nothing to tell. I wouldnt have remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff. It was a wasted 20 minutes which was a shame. The president s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told nbc news tonight that Michael Cohen is not credible and cant be believed. Rudy giuliani added he spoke to the president about this at length before as well as other witnesses and he says its not true. Here is Rudy Giuliani talking about Michael Cohen on cnn tonight where the story first broke. Number one, he lied to people about taping them. Both the president and other people and not only that, he went to subterfuge in order to do it like a whole little game. Theres new reporting about the president s prefer mode of messaging. Robert mueller is examining the president s twitter postings. Michael schmidt writes that mueller is scrutinizing tweets about jeff session and james comey. Mueller is examining whether the actions add up to attempts to obstruct the investigation by intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior Law Enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry. Mueller wants to question the president about the tweets. Trump has been prolific in his attacks on both sessions and comey on twitter and in Public Comments and thats just the start of it. The times notes the president s written and verbal criticisms and actions could be woven together. The wall street journal reporting that the Trump Organizations chief Financial OfficerAllen Weisselburg has been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in new york in the Michael Cohen investigation. In the name sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because we heard his name earlier this week. Ive spoken to allen about how to set the whole thing up with funding. Yes. All the stuff. You never know where hes going to be. Michael cohen talking to donald trump about allen. Sharp eyed Television Viewers may remember Allen Weisselberg from the apprentice. He was a judge that aired on the show. A democratic senator described weisselberg as holding the keys to the trump financial kingdom. Others have said he knows about every incoming and out going dollar going back years to when Donald Trumps father ran the business. Good place to bring in our lead off panel on a busy thursday night. Rebecca davis o bryan and saul weis weisenberg. He was chosen by ken star to conduct the grand jury questioning of president bill clinton. A big group tonight but a lot to talk about. Welcome to you all. Tell us even though it has to do with tonights late development, well get to your piece of this story in a bit. Why would be so important for the president , if it turns out to be true, to have had advance knowledge about the trump tower meeting beyond the fact it would mean his answer to your question was false. A basic level he made false statements to the public about this but that wouldnt be that different than many other things that have gone on during his presidency or candidacy. The difference would be on a legal area. If mueller ploobelieves that th meeting was conspireing with the russians theres a legal problem with it, it brings the president into that area. It brings his knowledge and this role into more scrutiny. If mueller really doesnt like that meeting and wants to do something about it, its more problematic. A source connected to the cohen camp told me tonight what we have witnessed is a set up. What have you learned . Speaking to mayor Rudy Giuliani a few minutes ago, he believes that cohen is lying. Hes going to question cohens credibility in the days ahead. I asked him if he believes cohen is playing for pardon. He said if he is, hes doing it in a sptupid way. The president is not considering a pardon for mr. Cohen. You see these sources talking to cnn and saying that cohen is willing to talk to mueller. The question is will mueller call cohen to do an interview. To sit down and talk about that meeting in 2016. Lets talk turkey here and a lot of reporters are pushing and chasing down a narrative that here is news that cohen can put donald trump in possession of knowledge about that meeting. The narrative is that the trump camp leaked the story because its bad to own it in advance. What it also does, it diminishes the value of mr. Cohen as a potential flip target for the feds, the Southern District of new york. Can you speak to that possible strategy. When you look right now at Michael Cohens legal situation hes not been contacted by mueller thoo at we can report a the moment. His path ahead is challenging. His offices and hotel room have been raided. The Southern District of new york is looking into his business dealings. Now you have this float of information to different sources tonight that he has more information about President Trumps activity and contact conduct and a candidate. Whether he is looking for a pardon or looking to cooperate with federal investigators. Theres a debate inside of cohens orb about whether he is making smart moves at this moment if he is trying to save himself legally. All right counsel man, what would be the legal implications of learning that the president knew in advance about this meetin meeting . The crime involved here would be theres a Campaign Finance law that says you cant accept aid from a Foreign Government during the campaign. Under that law is not a criminal violation unless you act willfully which means you knew you were violating the law. Mueller would have to prove, first of all, that cohen is telling the truth. That President Trump knew about the meeting. He would have to prove that President Trump knew it was a violation of law to accept aid from a Foreign Government and he would have to prove that anything really happened after this meeting. This was a quick meeting where they didnt have any dirt that they were willing to talk about based on what we have been told by the trump camp and that was the end of that. I think there is potential legal liability but i think its incredibly speck la tiulative a point. The interesting thing will be if mueller can tie it to any later efforts by the russians and any later evidence of collusion which so far, we havent seen at all. Saul, is ignorance any defense . We had a ton of people come on this broadcast and say people came up traditionally through politics. Say i would have called fbi right away if i had known about this, anything about this meeting. Were talking about an administration of political neophytes. They didnt come up through the classic channel. Would ignorance of their obligation to notify the fbi be any defense in hindsight . They dont have an obligation to notify the fbi. Your question is general ignorance of the law is no excuse. There are exceptions to this and this Campaign Finance law is one of those exceptions. Theres one person in that meeting who was not a neophyte and thats paul manafort. All the others were. President trump during the campaign talked about Justice Elito signing bills rather than opinions. Youre talking about somebody whose knowledge of American Government and civics was on the level of a fifth grader. Its quite possible he didnt know this was a violation of the law. Campaign finance, hacking law, laws about Hacking Computers dont require willfulness. You got to keep in mind what law were talking about. Here with the trump tower meeting youre talking about a Campaign Finance law that a person would have to know its illegal to accept aid from a Foreign Government. This button another the end of the sentence for our viewers. Tonights story is the president was told by his son don junior all of this according to what cohen is prepared to share with prosecutors that this meeting was on the docket. Donald trump junior in Senate JudiciaryCommittee Testimony said i wouldnt have wasted his time with it. I never spoke to my father about it. That w that was september 2017. All of this brings us to rebe a rebecca. Welcome to our time clock. Tell me the importance of this man to trump the person, to trump the head of family business. How far back does he go . What would he know about, what kinds of things . Allen weisselberg is more than just a cfo. He was also been the financial gate keeper for donald trump himself and for his family for a long time. Hes been around in the orbit of this man and his businesses for decades. I think one question hes surfaced in a number of issues that have come up in the he was involved in foundation and hes been linked to payments related to the two women who alleged sexual encounters to donald trump. This is a reminder that beyond behind this volley of back and forth between the trump camp and the cohen camp thats going on right now, there are two investigations going on right now. The fact that mr. Weisselberg was asked to testify before a grand jury, we dont know what he was asked but the fact this man who has access to the intermost sanctum has been asked to testify cig ny cig signifies something. Cohen investigation is being handled by feds. Signifies something. Cohen investigation is being handled by feds. Signifies something. Cohen investigation is being handled by feds. Signifies some. Cohen investigation is being handled by feds. Signifies somet. Cohen investigation is being handled by feds. They are separate and apart from the Mueller Investigation. If in the questioning of weisselberg they stumble across the keys to the financial kingdom, can you reemphasised that information can be shared on realtime basis with the Mueller Investigation . Correct. They are all under the same um umbrella. Rod rosenstein sent it to new york. Umbrella. Rod rosenstein sent it to new york. Umbrella. Rod rosenstein sent it to new york. We dont know why it did that. It insulated mueller accusations about a witch hunt. Looking at obstruction but its harder to say hes on a wild goose chase looking at Michael Cohen when hes not. The best and the brightest folks that do this work in the country in new york city looking at that. That has insulated mueller on that front. At the end of the day, what cohen wants is a global deal with the justice department. He wants any exposure in new york and any exposure with mueller to go away. I look at my phone sunday night, theres a tweet in all capital letters from our president to the leader of iran, the president s twitter feed is an active and wild unregulated place. Your story this morning for the New York Times was that of all the things, this out put might be the case that their chasing down staring us in the face. I think were all not guilty of seeing these tweets as evidence. Imagine if the president was saying these things to jeff session or about Jeff Sessions to his aides about how he wanted to get rid of him at the same time that hes pressuring him to reassert his control over the russia investigation, unrecuse himself from it. Because the president is so transparent about the way that he communicates, he kind of get used to it and think its normal. If youre looking ining at the actions hes taken and trying to tie them all together and understand them, is there larger pattern of public and private pressure. Was he trying to use all the tools from the phone in his hand to calling up the fbi director to try to insulate himself from the russia investigation. You are so familiar with the inner workings of the trump family business, even the confines of trump tower to rebecca storys in the journal about mr. Weisselberg. What must that do to the head, the psyche of the president . Its crucial. To take you back a few years, when ever i have go to trump tower as a reporter, Michael Cohen would be there and he was the personal lawyer but also confidant and political advisor and was kind of boosting the president as we saw in that recording. Weisselberg is the opposite. He was trump or. He was old school lawyer. He was someone the president and then candidate and then a businessman would rely on for real legal advice about branding, about licensing out the trump name, who knew about the whole global operation. He did have and still has the keys to the kingdom. To understand beyond trump the brand and personality, how does the Trump Organization actually work. Saul, we have these competing version of the same news story tonight. A story breaks originally on cnn since confirmed by nbc news that trump may have had advanced knowledge of this meeting in trump tower and we know this because mr. Cohen, his former lawyer is ready to tell that to the feds. Does it matter to you, does it matter to the law who leaked the story tonight . Well, no, it doesnt. Theres either a crime or there isnt. Theres evidence or there isnt. I dont think it matters unle unless i dont think anyone suggested this particularly store is coming from mueller since cohen isnt talking to mueller. For a legal matter it doesnt. If i can speak to the twitter issue, an issue that people arent focusing on enough. I think its very unlikely based on what we have seen so far, there could be an obstruction case built on the twitter post by the president , but it could certainly go to motive, to intent if there were ever other charges brought against the president. White collar lawyers tell their clients all the time, keep your mouth shut. Dont talk about the case. Dont talk about it to anybody. Dont talk about it to your sister. Theres no sisterbrother privilege. Here is somebody who is constantly talking and saying inconsistent things about this investigation and his no, maam knowledge of things. I think its very dangerous for the president to do that. Whether or not they get an obstruction case out it. The president s sister happens to be a sitting federal judge. That would be interesting. Ive looked around the panel. A lot of us have interview eed president s. Youre the only member who interviewed a president in a legal matter. What do you think the chances are of trump versus mueller facetoface . I think that according to what mr. Rudy giuliani says they will only let him be interviewed about collusion issue and not about obstruction. I think thats a very wise strategic choice. Here is an interesting thing that nobody has commented on. Mueller and the president s attorneys have been doing this dance for months now where mueller says i want to interview you and the lawyers have been sayi ining Rudy Giuliani has be saying only if you do this and agree to do that. The question arises, why hasnt bob mueller brought him into court. Why hasnt he issued a subpoena and said this guy will talk to me. I think one reason he hasnt done it is i dont think he necessarily wins in court. I think a lot of people assume that nixon, u. S. Versus nixon t settle that issue. In order to ask about president ial commune kications s got to show the evidence needs is very important and got to show he cant get it from anybody else. If he goes into a court and says i want to talk about obstruction, Rudy Giuliani will say wait a minute, what evidence do you have of obstruction. Your view of the law of obstruction is wrong. Hes going to get tied up in court for a long time. I think mueller knows that he might not win on the executive privilege issue. Real quick. I asked Rudy Giuliani about this tonight. I said the president could offer clarify if he sat down with mueller and talked about this 2016 meeting. I said would the president be willing to do so. He said the mueller team is not credible. Theyre democrats. He said mueller hasnt brought up this 2016 meeting as part of the possible questioning. It seems like Rudy Giuliani is hedging very mump whether the president would sit down and talk to this meeting. Rebecca who is new. Welcome. Thank you. Theres Large Community of folks out there waiting to see the president s tax returns. Because a lot of people on the left regard things financial as kind of the original sin in donald trump land. Is it unfair to say that weisselberg, the weisselberg news