Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. After his ukraine work dried up. And that is important because thats when he went to one of trumps closest friends and said i really need to get to trump. And then offered to work for trump for free. How and yes became the Campaign Chair is still a weird so far unexplained thing. Today in Court Prosecutors began laying out the evidence for the Dire Straits Manafort was in when he joined one Trumps Campaign for free. Thats something to keep an eye on as the trial goes forward. Joining me, senior white house political reporter, a close observer of the manafort case cynic it began. He was in the courtroom today. And i get to announce that as of today, he is an msnbc contributor. Ive seen some of the early reporting that there were audible gasps. Take us through some of the more audible moments. Well, this reference as having embezzled from manafort was something that grabbed my
was there a sense in the courtroom today that
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Their way to keep trump out of the trial. Abc news reports that prosecutors have been coaching their witnesses not to mention trumps name or even that manafort lives in trump tower. The judge in the case has warned that bringing up manaforts ties to trump could unduly influence jurors. There is at least one thing about this trial that is important to the relationship between Paul Manafort and donald trump. The first witness today was tad devine, chief strategist for Bernie Sanders an president ial campaign who worked with manafort on political campaigns in ukraine. The prosecution called him as their first witness to have him describe how much work manafort was doing in ukraine and how lucrative it was. Before we came on the air, we got a rush version of the transcript from todays hearing. Im not going to be able to act out a whole conversation but heres one little bit of the prosecutors Opening Statement worth hear. Th
today four other european leaders traveled to the ukrainian capital by ukraine in a show of solidarity amid the back drop of these russian atrocities. the president of poland, lithuania, estonia and latvia meeting with volodymyr zelenskyy is kyiv as the ukrainian leader pushes for more western military support. the meetings about russia come amid news that ukrainian pro-russian precision victor was arrested this week after escaping house arrest during the war. zelenskyy offered to release the putin friendly oligarch who was captured wearing a ukrainian military uniform, but only under certain conditions. well, chose a military union for for himself he falls under the rules of war time. i exchange this guy of yours for our boys and our girls who are now in russian captivity. russian called dangerous as same officials continue to support russian president
friendly oligarch. mueller s prosecutors have described manafort s ukrainian business participant as having active ties to russian intelligence services. a memo written by rod rosenstein last summer laid out mueller s authority to the investigate whether paul manafort specifically committed a crime or crimes by colluding with russian government officials. we also know mueller s team has questions for the president on this very subject. mueller wants to ask the president what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign including by paul manafort to russia about potential assistance to the campaign. the president s lawyers said they were willing to let the president answer questions on possible collusion but not on obstruction of justice. but now with michael cohen reportedly alleging the president knew about the trump tower meeting in advance, democrats say the president may be on the hook for both. there is credible evidence
there was no focus russia in the opening statements today at paul manafort s trial. but the specter of manafort s deep connections to russia and to cell lynn linked oligarchs hovered over the proceedings. manafort was heavily in debt and owed millions. once he became chairman of the campaign, he offered private briefings to one of the creditors, a putin friendly oligarch. mueller s prosecutors have described the ukrainian business partner as having active ties to russian intelligence services. in fact a memo written by rod rosenstein last summer laid out mueller s authority to investigate whether paul manafort committed a crime or crimes by clueding with russian government officials. we know his team has questions for the president on this very subject. mueller wants to ask the president, what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your