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
collusion, he pivoted today, maybe it is a quince against it is the same day as the trial no, longer is he saying there was no collusion. now he s saying collusion isn t a crime. now does this fit into russian influence over the trump campaign? this case i think is the preamble to russian collusion. this is setting the scene for manafort s past dealings and past crimes. some of it may well sbleek his time with trump. it will clearly set the stage. and we ve seen mueller stage other cases this way. indicting russians in hacking. and we see the possibility that there may be americans who were involved. now we are learning more of
believe the evidence isn t coming in favorably to them. so i wouldn t say it s impossible that we won t see a late plea here, but manafort doesn t look like someone who is headed that direction. and i understand that this trial is about bang fraud, tax fraurksd things other than paul manafort s time and tenure as chairman of the trump campaign. clearly, this trial is on the president s mind. this cohen flirting with prosecutors in the southern district, just based on the president s new refrain on collusion, he pivoted today. maybe it s a coincidence it s the same day the manafort trial started. flowinger is he saying there was no collusion. it s collusion isn t a crime. how does it fit into the broader puzzle about russian influence over the trump campaign? this case i think is the preample to russian collusion. this is setting the scene for manafort s past dealings and past crimes.