Playing well, theres concern about a potential recession. Stock market. Stock market. Thats when the people go wait a minute, im washing my hands of this guy. But when does donald trump ask him enough . When does that happen . Well, i have to say enough. I already stole a little bit of ari for a few minutes. Tom, mimi, frank, daniel, cornell, carol, the brady bunch. It does feel that way. Thank you all, well be back with more mpt daily. You know what sunday will be about. Meet the press on nbc. Ari melber picks up the coverage. Ari, good luck. Chuck, i want to hold you over if you have a second. Go for it, ill take it. Theres been talk about political synergy from this new mueller filing. We have new synergy and well pick whereupon youre leaving off. Thats my comment. My question is take a step back from the law. What do you think it means for america when you see a filing,
you see the news today out of new york, the feds are saying the president of the United States directed a campaignrelated crime by his lawyer . I think were going to learn in the next couple of weeks how much power the president has over this supposed 35 or 40 of the country. We know a good 30 to 40 of the country lives in another world, has an alternative reality at times of what facts are and what are alternative facts, to borrow a phrase. I will be curious. These are legal facts. These are done by a republican named bob mueller. Im curious to see how much it penetrates. Keep an eye, though, on some Senate Republicans here. The first ones to peel would be them. Keep an eye on folks like marco rubio in particular. Those would be sort of what i would call the center of the republican conference. If they start breaking from the president , watch out. Right. Well be watching all of that
and well watch you on sunday. Chuck todd nice to see you tonight. Thank you, sir. We have the breaking news that i was discussing with chuck. Bob mueller revealing Michael Cohens crimes as well as new details on his ties to russia with federal prosecutors in new york dropping the hammer and calling for substantial prison time. Lets get right to it. Two major Court Filings out tonight, one from bob mueller who said Michael Cohen has been helpful in his russia investigation and one from the prosecutors in new york who say cohen still deserves years in jail farce criminal mindset that allowed him to basically commit a host of crimes. All of this is a week before a judge sentences cohen for all the above. Lets look at the latest in the mueller filing which i was discussing with chuck todd. Bob mueller says hes not taking position on how much time Michael Cohen should serve but he does note that cohen first came into his office, to bob muellers investigators, and
lied to them. Not just about anything but lied specifically about money that cohen, trump, and we know Felix Sate Sater were trying to make in russia. Hes now saying that cohen has tried to mitigate those crimes and that he told the truth about russian attempts to reach the Trump Campaign dating back to 2015. Also russiarelated matters, as mueller puts it, that are, quote, core to his investigation. Mueller says cohen learned about all of these things because of his, quote, regular contact with Company Executives a tantalizing reference to unnamed people in the Trump Organization. It could be employees, it could be family members. While mueller says cohen has been helpful, these federal prosecutors in new york are not impressed. Moments ago and it is a thrashing. They say Michael Cohen only gave up basically at the end when he
had few other choices. They hammer him and they note he wasnt ever actually formally a cooperating witness, that he didnt do everything he could have done and new york prosecutors note he also committed four distinct federal crimes. They say in their version of the case that he was motivated by personal greed, that he used his own power and influence for deception and that his actions were all a larger pattern of deception that basically perm nated his entire professional life and they note where the law comes in, that federal guidelines would come for someone who committed the offenses about 63 months in prison and they say while he should get a little bit of credit for what he did do on cooperating, he shouldnt get much. They call for four years, what they call a substantial term of imprisonment. All of this as were learning about Michael Cohen, bob mueller, just now this hour, filing another big, big document you may have heard about. This is for paul manafort, the former Campaign Chair and the, quote, crimes and lies that mueller says justify them
exploding his entire plea deal. That document, i can tell you, has been filed under seal which means as of this hour we dont know whats inside it. But what we do know, its already a big day for bob mueller. I want to get to it with maya wily, a former counselor to the mayor of new york and a civil prosecutor in the same Southern District of new york. John flannery, a former federal prosecutor and as part of our Special Coverage, Nancy Gertner who served as a federal judge and brings that perspective to all of what were learning today. Shes a professor at harvard law school. Welcome to the panel. Maya wily, what do you think is most important in what mueller is choosing to say and why your former colleagues at sdny are coming down so hard on Michael Cohen and why they put in there that President Trump directed one of Michael CohensCampaign Crimes . I think you just said it, ari. I think whats relevant here is you have a one, you have a document that makes very clear that there have been significant
contact between those in trumps sphere and russia. We actually already knew that. What we see now is the reverse side of it, meaning we have a long history between George Papadopoulos beginning with George Papadopoulos in March Of 2016 who understand his job as connections to the russians and communicating with the Trump Campaign but we also learned that the Trump Tower Moscow deal was happening and in 2015 the russians were directly reaching out to the trump world. So we already knew that there was lots of contact with russia even before this document. What were seeing is theres more we didnt know about. That we also know theres going to be a continued investigation
and the fact the manafort filing has been redacted. In terms of the Southern District, its clear. What theyre saying quite frankly is, look, this guy didnt Do The Right Thing and by the way he was a lawyer. His obligation to Do The Right Thing was heightened and he came in, he was not really he didnt formulate a cooperation agreement, he didnt agree to talk to us about things that may be crimes that he was not already pleading guilty to and that should bring us right back around to the Trump Organization investigation that theyre still conducting. Nancy, im thrilled that we have the benefit of your expertise tonight because this is now going right into judge lane. How does a judge take these two very different recommendations, moou mueller saying he lied but he
helped, you figure it out and the sdny where where maya worked is saying this a bad dude, hes a liar, he deserved about four years. What does the judge do . The judge will have two alternatives. On the one hand this will be driven by this is a drain driven by the prosecution because its the mueller part that is the big question mark. If it were just the Sdny Part Cohen would get time and the question is how much. The mueller part is whats driving it. Now the fallacy of all that were talking about is even if cohen were sentenced tomorrow to, you know, four years, three years or whatever variation that is, hell continue to cooperate with the government. The government has the ability to file as you know whats called a rule 35 motion after the fact seeking a reduction in the sentence. So while this didnt happen in a very orderly fashion with him
being a cooperating witness, the rule 35 will continue to hang over him and would lead to an adjustment. Do you think a judge would give him years . You know, ive been speculating all day. I think a judge will give him years in the face of the in the face of the sdny recommendation. I dont think the judge will give him four years. Its before a very tough judge. This judge has not been lenient on white collar offenses and if you look only at the four corners of the sdny stuff, you would say, you know, because of the amount of money involved that this guy would get some years. But i say thats speculating because what will happen is the government can the court can impose a sentence and basically stay the sentence, he continues to cooperate with mueller and there can be a subsequent adjustment. Sure, but this is real stuff. This is not papadopoulos time,
john flannery, this is the contemplation of real crimes, real felonies. I just want to underscore, well cover this in a couple ways but i want to underscore its not normal, its not an everyday event to have prosecutors go into court and say we proved this campaign crime. This person admitted to it and it was done at the direction of the sitting president of the United States. Your view of that piece of this tonight . Well, thats significant. I mean, theres almost nothing comparable since watergate with this and to have a lawyer coming forward follows thapar electrical. But the thing thats interesting here is you have a good guy bad guy presentation versus the Southern District and the Southern District gave tough language. And i agree they can come back and revisit it, but they dont
want to reward somebody who sort of cabined off what he was prepared to do there. Now, on the other hand, we have the statement by the Special Counsel basically praising his cooperation despite his lices, despite who hessia is. How do we justify that as a Justice System . Well, they group together. Sounds like you dont know. I thought you had an answer, john, but then you said birds of a feather. Birds of a feather. I think of birds of a feather. Not eagles, perhaps, but birds of a better. Thats my answer and we see theres been if you look at his history of lawyers mr. Trump, we go from roy cohn and mr. Cohen and we dont have as good a lawyer as roy cohn to do the terrible and evil things he did in the past. I would revise your remarks and let you build on them. I think what you have is someone
who is as clearly criminal and deceptive as roy cohn but less effective in the sense of getting away with that. That goes to what i want to ask my prosecutors about. Fascinating narrative that goes beyond what we knew two hours ago and im reading from the documents. I hope folks will bear with me. The first time they talked to him was on august 7, quote, on cohens request and they said cohen provided relevant information to parts of the probe but then because they knew what they were doing when they sprung on him questions about the moscow project they write, quote, cohen provided false answers in what he later explained was an effort not to contradict his congressional testimony which we now know was perjury. John flannery, what does that tell you about the way they gathered and squeezed cohen and the way theyre revealing it now . I think theyre revealing it so we know what theyre dealing
with and that they have the advantage to press him to tell the truth by taking his Tape Recordings and his letters and emails and the other witnesses they had to talk about him and to confirm what he had to say. Also in there, they say, that we have by other means confirmed what hes telling us and that they were helpful and that he made some corrections even as he was taking to them about matter which gave him credibility as a cooperating witness and the Special Counsel investigation. So i think thats substantial. I think the real question is here is if we have barr, whats going to happen . And when we move from whitaker to barr we have a similar problem in that barr is the same person who when they had the irancontra investigation advised the president to pardon those people that might lead to bush. Youre talking about news that at any other night we would have mentioned but i literally havent yet which is for those just coming home from work on a friday, President Trump announcing a new pick for an
attorney, william barr, who served as Attorney General in a Republican Administration and is widely respected, maya, considered a mainstream conservative legal voice. You might say Matt Whitaker is about as low a bar as you can get when it comes to credentials so im not interested in leaning into that comparison but hes no Matt Whitaker although as john mentions, its possible that what interested donald trump most is the fact that he went along with a group of political pardons, clearly selfinterested in the bush administration. Well get to that later in the show but maya, i want you to weigh in on the same question as john which is why are we learning about the way cohen was brought into the Special Counsel probe tonight in your view . Were getting a very strong, very public signal that there is corroborating evidence. Thats the way i read it. We dont have to just rely on Michael Cohen. He walked in there the
mistake he made, which is not one that a very, very accomplished lawyer would make, by the way, is he walked in assuming he knew what the prosecutors knew and thats the thing you never want to do. He walked in, he was surprised, he wasnt expecting to be asked those questions about the Trump Tower Moscow. He then lied, which was dumb. After that lie and in the remaining six sessions that he had he came clean and thats the kind of complexity of the story were being told. Heres a guy whos a career liar cheat. He was perfectly willing to do it again but like any good solid Prosecutorial Team they had more information. They knew that they had some facts that he didnt know they had. That means they can prove it without him. That means even if his credibility is impugned, they have additional evidence. Which when you put it like that and we just got this so were just making sense of it what youre saying is a very elegant, implicit rebuttal to the donald trump claim that, well, Michael Cohen is saying anything to get out of trouble so he brought this seemingly bad stuff to mueller and theyre chewing on it. Youre saying this footnote elegantly shows no here is the timeline we had a bad stuff. One extra witness but not our primary one. And cooperate with us and youll be in a lot better position than if you dont because were going to get you. I want everyone to stay with me, john. Stay with me, everyone. Theres a whole other filing from Mueller Raurdi Iraurd r manafort. Kende delainian has that. The Special Counsel is saying manafort lied about his interactions with konstantin kilimnik. In previous filings it was said kilimnik had ties to russian intelligence. Theres an individuals name blacked out in the filing and the Special Counsel alleged manafort lied about that. Robert mueller alleged manafort lied about a Wire Transfer to a firm linked to manafort, about another separate Department Of Justice investigation that manafort offered information about and lastly the Special Counsel says manafort lied when he said he wasnt in contact with anyone from the Trump Administration, it turns out he was up until may of this year and because of all of that the Special Counsel has canceled manaforts Plea Agreement and hes facing 15 years in prison. When you look at that line
does that relate in your view or is it possible to say to obstruction or the potentially collusionrelated things since kilimnik is one of the potential russianlinked handlers here . To ken. Oh, sorry. I mean, i think sorry, ari, i thought you were talking to someone else. Im the anchor, im supposed to use names. Thats on me. But to ken dilanian, can you glean what part of the problem that hits . I think kilimnik has been a Mystery Figure in terms of collusion and we dont know his role and it goes to the question of manaforts role in any contacts with russians during the campaign and because of the redactions, we dont see the full picture here. And appreciate your precision. Bringing back nancy and our resident judge. I want to go to what more of mueller has said through the cohen filing because hes getting into the trump tower
de deal. The company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources. Nancy, do you view this as an indication that finances might be at the heart of bob