Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Whether a person is too close to the subject of the probe, whether Jeff Sessions would beak be more of a Trump Campaign surrogate who happened to be Attorney General rather than acting as an independent Law Enforcement officer. If sessions didnt recuse after that statement, it would have made him look even more like he was doing trumps bidding. And trump apparently didnt know that making that statement would also as just a general matter of embarrassment, make him look weak and out of the loop about a decision that was already done. Because there were reports that show the Internal Doj Process had already resulted in sessions accepting that nonpartisan Recusal Recommendation from the career staff earlier that week and that Jeff Sessions was already working with doj officials op writing the very rationale they would soon release to the public. In fact, it was barely an hour after trump put that public pressure on session
it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. now, to the trial. mueller s prosecutors moving fast in day two of paul manafort s trial which is what s generally required in this rocket docket. in fact, the prosecutors say they re way ahead of schedule on this trial and could rest their case as early as next week. many witnesses may be afraid of mueller s team but the judge there t.s. ellis is not. of course, he s not supposed to be. seconds after prosecutor an season yea starred delivering his opening statement, the judge
whether the prosecutors can use photographs of expensive suits as evidence. there were brand names that were greek to this judge. the judge said if it doesn t say men s wearhouse, i don t know it. that got something of a laugh. then what happened did not. we re showing you this because it matters legally. judge ellis hinting these pictures of manafort s very fancy suits may never get to the jury. the big curveball came when he starred questioning other evidence that pertained to rick gates. that s manafort s former deputy who mueller got to cooperate. gates testimony has the potential to be the most riveting pivotal portion of this trial. maybe of the whole mueller prosecution up to point. we re talking about the deputy campaign manager for donald trump who flipped. but look at this. judge ellis says you re going to offer up mr. gates, aren t you? . and mueller s prosecutor says your honor, we re not sure if we are. he may testify in this case, your honor.
when you put a name on your list it, is who you may call. but you don t have to call all of them. when you do call a witness, you re required to turn over all of their prior statements on the subject matter and required to turn over anything that could be used to attack their credibility like the plea deal, like anything bad that he has admitted to, any staps he s made about the russia matter. it may be that prosecutors would rather hold that information close to the vest for now and save him as a witness in the washington, d.c. trial that s going to occur in september. they can get through this one on paper and save him, think they ll view that as a good thing. they can make that call next week when they see how the case has come in and decide if they need to call him at all. josh, walk us through the color from taking just a few quotes. did you ever see eye rolling and how pivotal is this judge? i think some of the eye rolling may have come during the jury selection process when
they re trying to make paul manafort out like he s sean diddy coves and had fancy coats and fancy brands and that legally, there s not the problem. it s kind of unfair and what they really have to problem is that there was tax evasion. do you think the judge is hitting that right and fairly? i think he is. he does bring it up a lot. i d say roughly every hour or two, he makes a comment about manafort is not on trial for being rich or for having a lavish lifestyle or extravagant tastes and the prosecutors will often agree with the judge but they insys they need to show the value of these luxury goods and that manafort was getting them to really convince jurors that manafort s tax returns could not possibly have covered the lifestyle that he was living in addition to trying to prove his point of the very, very strange payment arrangements, nearly every vendor who came up said they were paid by overseas wire transfers from shell companies whose names they had never heard