of dirt on hillary clinton, but sources tell me and my colleagues that cohen says he was in the room and donald trump jr. shared the information about that meeting with his father. and cohen is willing to tell all of this to the special counsel, robert mueller. if true, it means the president has repeatedly lied about an event at the very center of the probe into possible collusion with russia. i m going to get reaction from kremlin critic bill browder and democratic congressman jerry conley. our correspondents and analysts also standing by. first, to cnn white house correspondent abby phillip. the president s only response to this story has been his favorite venue, twitter. reporter: that s right, jim. the president not saying a whole lot with his own mouth about the controversies swirling around him and his administration. he left just a few minutes ago to go to bedminster, where his golf resort is, and refusing to take questions from reporters. the ruptured relationship with his p
testifying or who potentially will be called to testify against paul manafort in his trial that begins next tuesday. look, it really is offers a little bit of a road map for the government s case, which is focused on tax and bank fraud, financial fraud charges against paul manafort. there is also, obviously, his business partners, rick gates, who was his business partner and has pleaded guilty and has turned against paul manafort. there s tad devine, a democratic strategist who worked alongside paul manafort in his business in ukraine, the former ukrainian regime that paul manafort did business with. and then there s a long list of accountants and bankers and realtors, people who helped paul manafort accumulate a lot of property and essentially hide some of his money, according to the government. there s also a bit of a road map of how, according to the government, paul manafort laundered millions of dollars over the years, jim.
they are at risk, we know that from trump s own appointees and the fbi. dan coates, the director of intelligence, said the red light is blinking on the 2018 elections. the big question, though, is what in the world would possess a united states president to question his own intelligence community and accept the word of a russian dictator? what in the world wouldle make the american president accept an offer or seem to accept an offer from a russian thug, like vladimir putin, to actually put at risk american diplomats and ship them to moscow to be interrogated by russian officials? and this leads us back to the cohen question you began with, jim, which is, there is something there that s ugly and that trump obviously does not want us to see. we ll be speaking to bill browder, who russia wants to be brought back for these charges.
down at the moment. as you can see is, obviously, the streets around here quickly getting cleared by the police that are around really a one-block radius all around trump tower at this point. abundance of caution. thanks very much. if you re just joining us now, the nypd looking into reports of three suspicious packages inside, it appears, trump tower in new york. the white house north, as it s known. we should note the president not currently at trump tower but certainly a serious question there about security. we ll stay with this story throughout this hour. meanwhile, prosecutors from special counsel robert mueller s office have just released a list of potential witnesses in the upcoming trial of former trump campaign chairman, paul manafort. cnn justice correspondent evan perez has been following the details. evan, this list, it s long, almost three dozen people. that s right, jim. this is a list of 35 names that the special counsel has now released. niece are the people who
charge and charge juries we re not there yet but i m giving you perspective on how you evaluate credibility. one thing they talk about is motivation to lie. who would have a motivation to lie here? now, this might, you know, go to the benefit of president trump. you have, of course, cohen here, who is in a bit of a pickle. obviously, as a result of that, he is going to be prone to jump out of it. but it s more than motivation to lie. it goes to opportunity to observe. what person would have an opportunity to observe what the president did, his actions, the meeting, than a person who s around him, like this fixer, michael cohen. and so, to the extent he s around the president, he would know what the president said, who the president said it to and who said what to the president. quickly, jim, on that particular point and looking at what he knew, you know, that is, the president and michael cohen and whether he was there, the fact is, is it begs a question, if michael cohen s such a li