Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. 2016. He was a very close ally of tom price, instrumental in price being chosen as Hhs Secretary. You know price has since left that post. Collins attorneys have released an official statement saying quote, we will answer the charges filed against Congress Collins in court. And will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name. It is notable that even the government does not allege that congress man collins traded a single share of innate therapeutic stock. We are confident hell be completely vindicated and exonerated. The complaint also alleged that collins was at the white house attending the Congressional Picnic when he conducted some of the activity that led to the Insider Trading charges. This one is extraordinary for me. Hes nots just being investigated. Hes not just being charged. He was arrested. They knocked on his door and arrested him. A serving congressman. Wow. Joining me now nbc news
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congressional picnic. that s what s stunning to me. called his own son on his own phone. calls him six times. you don t call somebody six times unless the house is on fire or you re trying to save him a million bucks on insider information. that s exactly the question here. why would collins do that, knowing that those phone calls can be easily traced. all the text messages captured by the prosecutors. collins lawyers say because he personally never sold any shares of innate, the stock in question, therefore he s going to fight this. he s no the guilty. he s ultimately going to be exonerated. hold on then. the question is whether he tipped his son and the prosecutors are saying he did do that. okay. so it doesn t matter, though, if he didn t trade the stock. he is the one who shared the information as an officer of the company. he can t do that. then what position does that put the son in? he s in trouble and the son s soon to be father-in-law is in trouble too. i d a
for a bank fraud violation. these were serious criminals. you re right, bob, in 2007, there was one in particular who is actually akarasul, he leaves gitmo under assurances similar, goes back, and ends up perpetrating some of the worst atrocities afterward. president obama maintains that he s going to have explain this. he maintains that closing gitmo will make us safer. i don t understand where the connection is that he feels so reassured. and if he is so reassured, could he share it with us so we don t worry, as well? bush gets a lot of heat from the press, why is it that he didn t get heat for that release, and yet obama he did. the gives there s bob, there s so many differences, how do i begin? he didn t trade anybody for those guys. he didn t trade a prisoner of war for they re like lower level people that were caught up in the in the battlefield. if i could sayama has declared o
they re saying he may have broke? i say this in this respect. i hate to be this cynical of politics but take away the four-letter words, okay, and some of the crazy things he said, did he actually do any of these things he said he was going to do? chuck, you have just framed his defense. it is that behind closed doors, politicians say a lot of stuff. there s an awful lot of horse trading, whether it s explicit or implicit but he didn t trade any jobs, he didn t stop any legislation. so you re right. his defense is exactly how you expressed that. carol, let s talk about some of the folks on the defense witness list. of course, washington is watching because there s some household names including the chief of staff rahm emanuel, valerie jarrett, senior adviser to the president. what s your best guess as to whether they ll be called? does the prosecution try to