Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Charge of grand larceny, a big stack of charges involving a large amount of money and potentially a large amount of jail time. The story they uncovered at the courthouse that day, for some reason, friedman had gotten this huge Criminal Liability he was facing winnowed down to almost nothing. All the prison time and felonies evaporated. Instead of being tried for evading 5 million in taxes, prosecutors let him plead guilty to one count of evaluating 50,000 worth of taxes. Not 5 million, 50,000. Instead of decades in potential prison time the deal he cut with prosecutors got him zero prison time. People do plea deals all the time they offer their testimony for prosecutors letting them off the hook and going easier on
them. This was like the mother of all plea deals. The amount he offered must have been very very valuable to the government given how sweet the deal was he got from them in return. That happened in late may.
Defending Michael Cohen without revealing it was his lawyer too . It was a showdown in the courtroom. Lawyers for Michael Cohen tried to block investigators from examining materials seized in an fbi raid. Plus, more mixed messages on russia. President trump has put a stop to a new round of sanctions just a day after nikki haley announced them. And james comeys book comes out today. Good morning, everyone. Its tuesday, april 13th. We begin with new developments in the fight over who should get to see the documents seized during last weeks raid of President Trumps personal attorney Michael Cohen. A judge has rejencted a request to allow investigation of the materials seized in that raid. A new turn in the legal fight over what should happen to the records the fbi seized from President Trumps embattled personal attorney Michael Cohen which include some materials related to porn star Stormy Daniels who was swarmed by photographers, cohen and the president dont want the government to decide
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein says he is prepared to be fired. Nbc news has learned rosenstein, who has control over the mueller russia probe, has been telling confidants that hes prepared to get the axe. With more details on that, Nbc News National Security and justice correspondent Julia Ainsley who broke the story. Matt miller with us as well, a National Security analyst for nbc news. Julia, let me start with you. What more do we know . I would imagine the distinction here is fairly important between rosenstein saying hes prepared to be fired and rosenstein saying hes about to be fired. He thinks that its coming. He thinks its imminent. Correct . This is more of him reading the same things were reading. Its just been a really sharp change in his mental state and his tone in the conversations hes had with people close to him over his tenure. They have said that this week they have heard from a very stoic Rod Rosenstein, that hes been repeating the phrase here i stand, thats
I dont think anyone will remember a time they blocked from a major News Organization in the United States from attending an open event in the rose garden. Whats been the reaction since then . Wolf, we havent heard anything else from the white house. We did send photographers and other reporters to that briefing. They said that open press availability. They said i could not go into that press conference. We have not had any other press availabilities here at the white house today. There was no White House Press briefing with any to take our questions in a public setting here in the Briefing Room where im standing now. I was simply doing my job asking about the news of the day. Some of the things the president already remarked on and it would make news when he issued the statement through the National Security adviser. Clearly the white house was not pleased with those questions we had for the president today. At that open event in the white house which we have coverage of that, the pres