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to roll the dice and gamble. i think the question of a pardon is huge. and intimidating to the whole process here and the president is wise to step back and not do that because the act of that and interesting to see. the mueller team can look at that as destructive conduct. in these circumstances what is best for him and, honestly, the best thing to do is not to plead but to cooperate, as well. reverend al sharpton who is one of the few people that michael cohen has reached out to to discuss where his head is at but right now where his head is at but what about exactly is going to happen. he has come to an agreement with the prosecutors in the southern district of new york. that is not the mueller investigation. we need to figure out what role the mueller investigation is going to have in this agreement. in the end, this all has to be presented to a federal judge,
which we believe is happening in one hour fr
Finance contribution to or trying to silence somebody for donald trump? that is correct, ali. and i think what the prosecutors are doing here is often a common tactic which is we build the case on the most, the easiest made case. which here might be the tax fraud and the bank fraud. you re ready to roll the dice on the campaign finance violations. so clear on the first two cases that the defendant here, if it s true, michael cohen, pleads guilty to the whole thing and then he s able to give you the inside scoop on those campaign finance violations. who knew, who was involved. and that s really the key part. those violations are so hard to prove because it s so much wrapped up in the intent of the individuals. and the private conversations that they ve had. often you need an inside source to give you that information. in that instance, if michael cohen decides to coop raerate, could be that person. liam, stand by, danny, stand
4:00 this afternoon in federal court in southern manhattan in which, if there is a plea agreement, michael cohen is going to have to plead guilty to something. now, what we do not know whether it is a straight plea deal and by saving the government a trial, he perhaps gets a reduced sentence. that is something the judge would have to agree to. what we don t know is whether there is an element of cooperation and, reverend, that is the interesting part. you and i are both interviewers and ministers and you talked to a lot of people. what do you think was happening there? was michael cohen trying to come clean? was he trying to send a message to donald trump? what was the benefit of reaching out to a guy like you? you have never been on the same side of michael cohen? i left the regency saying whether he is sending a message to trump or he s sending a message to the prosecutors that
I left trump land and that i m serious about doing things. because stephanopoulos who he met with and hosting and also comes out of the clinton political world. and me who has marched on donald trump, you couldn t send more of a message to both sides than that. let s go to tom winter outside the federal court now. he has been covering this since it broke. tom, we re getting new details on the 4:00 p.m. michael cohen hearing. what do you know? ali, my understanding is this will last an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. michael cohen will say exactly what it is that he did and what he is pleading guilty to today. that is kind of our basic understanding at this point. obviously, once we get inside of the courthouse and the courtroom, which is going to be held on the 20th floor of the building right behind me here, we ll get a little bit of a better sense of kind of the run
And donald trump said something about paying cash on that tape and michael cohen said no, we can t pay cash. this is at the heart of this issue, right? the southern district of new york doesn t care that much about michael cohen s taxi medallion status. if indeed there is a campaign finance charge in this document cohen is about to made guilty to is enormous. all the other stuff is about his being a fixer. but this touches on the president directly. so that s a whole entire ball game change. i was talking to reverend al about the conversation when they had breakfast and michael cohen told him, my family and country is the priority. this is a guy who said i ll take a bullet for so and so. most people don t say that about anybody. he said he was the most loyal guy to donald trump. now he s going to make a deal. it s all about priorities. i ve seen people who have gone