Well have a late live update ahead. We begin with a huge announcement that Paul Manafort, the man who offered to work for donald trump for free, is tonight working for the feds. The man who has enjoyed the good life after a lifetime of orbiting at or near the top of the republican solar system has been living in jail of late. Today he pleaded guilty to two federal counts and made a deal to cooperate in all ways with special counsel Robert Mueller. He has admitted to conspiring against the United States and conspiring to obstruct justice. He avoids a second trial in federal court. The deal he signed with prosecutors orders him to cooperate truly, truthfully, completely with the government in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant. You may recall President Trump was sympathetic to manafort praising him for not breaking under pressure from the feds. One of the reasons i respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial. They make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, i know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years i have been watching flippers. It almost ought to be outlawed. It is not fair. Tonight the wall street journjourn journal spoke to the president of the deal. They deny the case had anything to do with him. I got hit with an artificial witch hunt that should never have happened. The plea deal says manafort must forfeit several properties. He also will give up his apartment in trump tower. Manaforts attorney offered this explanation for his clients decision. Tough day for mr. Manafort, but he has accepted responsibility. He wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life. He has accepted responsibility for conduct that dates back many years. Interesting note about manaforts familys safety. As for reaction from the president s legal team, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannitys program earlier this evening. The plea agreement has nothing to do with the trump campaign. The reality is no evidence of collusion. The plea is to crimes that have to do with manaforts past, no involvement with President Trump, no involvement with the campaign. No involvement with russia. There is also this report in the new york times. John dowd emailed lawyers representing other clients that mr. Manafort, quote, has no info on president or campaign. We should be Crystal Clear here. No one has any idea what john dowd is basing that on. Earlier on this Network Harvard law professor who while not working for trump has been accused of being a cable news water carrier for the president of late says the white house should be alarmed about the manafort plea deal and adds that any possibility of a pardon now seems remote. He would have been much better off pardoning early rather than waiting. I dont think we will see any kind of a pardon at this point. As to what manafort can offer mueller at all. Lets remember he was present at the trump tower meeting with the visiting russians. Having done business in that part of the world for years and worked for a number of pow r er himself. Tonight nbc news is reporting manafort has already had initial conversations with the mueller team. Its a lot to talk about at the end of a long week. Lets bring in our leadoff panel. Senior White House Reporter for politico. Veteran former prosecutor. And jeremy bash, former chief of staff, former chief council for the house intel committee. Welcome to you all. You were in court for the entire first manafort trial. You were in the courthouse for what happened today. Put this in perspective. How big of a development is this . It is a pretty significant development. Manafort had put up such a strong fight up to this point. Remember at the first trial he had no fewer than five lawyers present fighting that case for him. So for him to make this about face with this trial coming down on him, we are going to hear three weeks of testimony, a lot of it probably having to do with issues of foreign influence, of his ties to ukrainian oligarchs. I think it could have been pretty unpleasant for mr. Manafort and for the trump campaign, Trump Associates and trump white house. So while the plea is definitely bad news for the president , a trial would have been pretty bad news for him, as well. Michael, looking back on your interview with donald trump, i think this was in december, the direct quote was i have always found Paul Manafort to be a very nice man. And i found him to be an honorable person. Paul only worked for me for a few months. His firm worked for john mccain, worked for bob dole and many republicans for far longer than he worked for me. Call this the very short period of time defense. The president is fond of using it. There is no one he is not willing to distance himself from. How critical is this news today, in your view . In a very basic level, mueller could not end his investigation without talking to manafort. So even if he does not have the goods on a lot of other people, he was in the trump tower meeting, as you pointed out. If you are mueller you need to talk to everyone you can that was there because you have to turn over every rock to make sure that when you close up shop you have looked at all the leads. So whether he has a ton of evidence that leads to other prosecutions or not, this is just an important thing to check off the box because he has to talk to him. He was running the campaign at such a critical time when there was contacts with the russians. And there are huge issues here about what the president knew about those conversations. I know you are not john dowds spokesperson. He seems to be filling that role himself. What is he talking about that mueller has no info on the president or the campaign . I dont know. I am not john dowds spokesman. I struggle to understand him sometimes. I do know he had conversations with manaforts lawyers last year about a pardon. And that is something that mueller himself is looking at, the question of pardons, and how they were using them to try to stop people from doing exactly what manafort has done here, cooperate. Now, the president is in a much more difficult position to pardon manafort because if manafort is talking to the government and the president comes in to give him this, that is clearly trying to impede an investigation. John dowd would take the argument that because the president is the head of the executive branch he can do whatever he wants. Put your former fed hat on. If you are a member of the mueller team, how significant is todays news . I think it is incredibly significant. Of course, mueller and team know a little more than we do about what has happened already. My guess is that there would have been some conversation with manafort already to assess at least the topics that he is able to deliver through cooperation before they secured this deal. You dont give away cooperation lightly. They have kept his sentence to ten years with the two fiveyear conspiracies. They have given something up. They didnt need to do that. They had a very strong case and likelihood of winning at trial. In order to give that up that means they thought they were getting something of value. Usually a lawyer will come in and say here are the topics they can talk about. There have been reports that manafort has had meetings with the prosecutors. They likely know the areas he is able to cover. It will take many hours to sit down and really go over in excruciating detail all the things he knows. I think mueller knows that Paul Manafort has things of value. Jeremy, under the heading of manafort and the russians, our mutual friend said the following on the air with Nicole Wallace this afternoon. This certainly got our attention. He has the history with russian organized crime, intelligence service. I actually believe that there were russian Intelligence Officers who were promoted the day that manafort told them i got the Campaign Chairman job. Im in charge of the president ial campaign. Today those same russian Intelligence Officers are skirting for cover. You have Paul Manafort deep in Debt Offering to work for donald trump for free. Lets not forget his attorney today mentioning the safety of the manafort family. This is like a float full of red flags, jeremy. First, on nights like these we have to harkin back to First Principles which is why do we have a Foreign Policy visavis russia that makes no sense . It skews heavily in favor of the kremlin and looks to undermine n. A. T. O. Perhaps it is because russias agent of influence, Paul Manafort, who was doing the kremlins bidding ipadvancing the agenda of the leader and the political party. Paul manafort was in charge for a brief time of the trump campaign. He, of course, not only had a hand in the Republican National convention which had a platform that was mysteriously changed towards a pro russian position. He was present when the russian delegation showed up at trump tower. That trump tower meeting was not random russians coming off the street to offer dirt on hillary clinton. There was a russian government delegation coming to him saying we have already hacked Hillary Clintons email and the email of her campaign. We are going to operationalize it. This meeting is about what we will get in return. On that issue of the safety of the family, i think with Paul Manafort working for the u. S. Government there is concern that the russians might target him and particularly his family. Barbara mcquaid, if you are the lawyer for donald trump jr. Or Jared Kushner what are you thinking about this development tonight . It is concerning. Certainly those lawyers will already have talked with both of their clients about what happened at that meeting and will understand whether we have exposure. No doubt Paul Manafort will be asked many questions about what happened at that meeting. He will be shown documents and emails and notes and whatever they have to try to understand what happened. So if they have exposure about what happened there i think they may be in trouble. That includes false statements they have made in their testimony before congress. I would like to get your reaction to a tweet from harvard law professor. His political persuasion, i think he would agree is on the left. I think he has enjoyed his new position as kind of a commentator on our times. Anyone recall who hand picked pence as trumps vp . Paul manafort. Recall who led the squirrely transition, mike pence. Watch what unfolds as manafort tells mueller all he knows. What on earth could he be talking about there . This shows the difficulty place the president is in because mueller has manafort. Manafort is 69 years old and doesnt want to spend the rest of his life in prison. He has now agreed to do everything he can to help mueller and to prove to mueller that he is aiding and helping him get to the bottom of all of this. That is just a dangerous place for the other side to be in. Even if manafort is completely truthful, he can push things ahead to try to prove his worth here. Thats just a dangerous spot. Josh, i could not help but think of the young law associate whose have been working 12 and 24hour shifts both with manaforts defense team and for the government of the United States preparing what was going to be a very document and display heavy trial. All that work was for not. They knew that going in. Is the one ray of sunshine if you are donald trump the fact that there is not going to be the drupping of daily trial coverage . Remember, brian, how deeply that earlier trial seemed to irritate President Trump to his core. He seemed genuinely angered by the fact that it was getting so much press attention. We saw regular tweets from him and reports from the white house that he was obsessed with the attention it was getting. Who knows how the president would have managed to get through another trial. This trial would have been coming a few weeks in advance of a congressional mid term election. I do think that the issue of a pardon here is not completely off the table. We did see the way this deal is structured to try to reduce some of the incentives the president might have to try to move forward with a pardon. It makes it a possibility for state officials to bring charges against manafort if that 457e happens. I still think there is a chance trump out of spite or mercy or a desire to give the back of his hand to mueller and to his deputies and lieutenants might do a pardon. I know cia veterans can handle sarcasm now and again. Does this mean the chance of this being a witch hunt is greatly decreased . Near zero. I think it is clear that the president faces significant exposure because the individual who has the most knowledge about russian influence operations and who has the most knowledge about what the campaign was doing with that russian government delegation is now working for the special counsel. An embarrassment of big names to help start our broadcast after this busy day on a friday night. All four guests have agreed to stick around and come back. Coming up for us he has gone from being willing to take a bullet for this president to talking to the feds. The news today on Michael Cohen from the reporter who broke the story. And later the state of play for the kavanagh nomination. 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According to a new report, Robert Muellers team is talking to another associate. It is reported that President Trumps former long time personal lawyer Michael Cohen is talking to the team. It is a remarkable reversal from a year ago when cohen told me he would take a bullet for the president but he has been squeezed financially, emotionally and legally in a way he could not have imagined. Since last month his primary concern has been his family. He expressed to friends that he was willing to share what he knows both because he wants to be on the right side of history and to spare them. One friend of cohen said he doesnt feel he needs to go out of his way to protect trump particularly because trump has gone out of his way to hurt michael. Cohen pleaded guilty last month. During the allocution where he spoke for himself, cohen said he violated Campaign Finance laws at the direction of a candidate for federal office. The next day President Trump accused cohen of making up stories to get a deal. Joining our conversation tonight, emily jane fox, Senior Reporter for vanity fair who happens to be the author of born trump, inside americas first family. Still with us, michael schmidt. Emily, what has Michael Cohens life been like these past couple of weeks . It has been a much quieter existence for him both because he has had to stop talking af