Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Seated, the judge will give fairly long explanation. On. Reporter after the jury is seated, the judge will give fairly long explanation. Were not going to hear Opening Statements today. Its possible we could hear them tomorrow or thursday. Got it. Pete williams. Thank you very much. Let me bring in National Political reporter for the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst. Two msnbc contributors. Charlie savage. Let me go over briefly this reminder about Paul Manafort and why the Special Counsel is interested in him. Starts with donald trump. He hired Paul Manafort to run his president ial campaign in march 2016. Prior to his work on the Trump Campaign, manafort did political work overseas. Some for the prorussian
highlights which as you indicated, rick gates, all eyes will be on him. He was the right hand man to manafort. What hell have to do in order to fulfill his cooperation agreement, for the government
could be some serious implications like if he s found guilty. it could embolden the special counsel investigation. it could let mueller squeeze manafort. allow him to gain cooperation for other defendants. not guilty could undermine the credibility the special counsel investigation. i might give president trump some anti-talking points and open the door to let gop supporters soften support of the investigation. the president is looking at mv manafort s trial and looking to see how far this goes. if he s found guilty, he s facing hundreds of years in prison. you have what the president s attorneys have said this morning and over the last 18, 24 hours on this. i ve never been one to give dates on when this thing wraps up but i ll say it needs to wrap up for the good of the country. he has no information incriminating of the president. i know that for fact.