school classmate and the powerful connection these girl scouts share that s inspiring america. this nbc news nightly news with lester holt. good evening and thank you for joining us we are on somewhat of a legal watch tonight vo involving former president trump somewhat in that the growing expectation has been fueled mainly by mr. trump himself with his unverified claim over the weekend that we be that he would be arrested on tuesday. the office has not commented on the timing of a decision on whether to prosecute. in the absence of news, key republicans have been rushing to mr. trump s defense and vilifying democrat prosecutor alvin bragg. but tonight even many of his loyalists are discouraging trump supporters from taking up the former president s call to protest. it s where we start tonight, with garrett hake reporter: the manhattan d.a. s office tonight on the verge of a fateful decision, whether to indict a former president for the first time in history, a case c
Did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. i never directed him to do anything wrong. whatever he did, he did on his own. president trump and his defenders are trying to draw parallels to another case involving another politician, john edwards. the former senator was acquitted on one count and the jury hung on five others. john edwards indicted on six felony charges, four of them for collecting illegal campaign contributions. hundreds of thousands of dollars were funneled to his mistress covering her travel, housing and medical expenses. the defense said those payments were intended to keep an affair secret from edwards family, not from voters. help us understand how well this argument works. you ve seen it made by the president. you ve seen it been made by rudy giuliani. does this hold water? i think you re elevating it to call it an argument. it s a tweet at this point.
Russian spy maria butina is working with federal prosecutors after agreeing to a plea deal. she is said to have koez eid up to powerful figures. even asking president trump a question at a campaign event in 2015. her appearance in court tomorrow is one of several events this week that could shed more light on the russia investigation. here is a look at some of them. today former national security adviser michael flynn will ask a judge for no jail time in a sentencing memo. a hearing in paul manafort s medical case as prosecutors explain the lies they say he told. then tomorrow michael cohen will learn his sentence for his campaign finance and business crimes in new york, you know, the one where he says the president ordered him to pay off a porn star to keep their alleged affair secret. new this morning a cnn poll shows that 50% of americans think that the mueller investigation is likely to implicate the president in wrongdoing. overall the president s approval rating now stands at
President obama absolutely has a man it is date from voters to raise taxes on higher wage earners. but what if republicans don t play ball? congressman chris van hollen on whether the two sides can strike a deal. plus, who edited the word terrorism out of the c.i.a. talking points used by ambassador susan rice to explain the deadly september 11 benghazi attack? we ll talk with congressman frank wolf who is pushing for a special select committee to get some answers. and attorney general eric holder s role in the petraeus scandal is under fire. holder says it was right to keep the investigation into general david petraeus affair secret until after the election. alberto gonzalez will be weighing in on that one. [ forsythe ] we don t just come up here for the view up in alaska.
Affair secret. what was his motivation then and maybe a little more on his motivation now, jonathan? reporter: the motivation seemed to be two-fold n court yesterday he said basically the reasons why two-fold. first of all he believed that edwards would make a great president. he believed in his candidacy but there was also a level of self-interest as he put it, quote, i wanted my friend to be president. being friends with the most powerful person on earth, there are benefits to that. jenna? jenna: jonathan serrie with more out of north carolina as we get it. jonathan, thank you. rick: well the government s been saying for some time now that its bank bailout program will actually make a profit for taxpayers but a new report says not so fast. fox business network s liz macdonald joining us now. liz, good to see you. taxpayers are they going to get any of their money back from the bank bailouts? they may not. just a week and a half ago, rick, the treasury