Eric former Deputy Assistant attorney Thomas Dupree will dig into all of it but we begin with rick leventhal. A stunning set of admissions in Lower Manhattan by a man who was one of the president s most trusted employees. He lied, paid women off he says to pay his boss. He walked out of the courthouse late yesterday free on 500,000 bond pled guilty to hiding income from his Taxi Cab Business and hiding debt to secure a Home Equity Loan and arranging payments to two women in the runup to the president ial election in coordination in and at the direction for a candidate to federal office to try to help him win. Mr. Cohen disregarded that training, that tradition and decided that he was above the law and for that he is going to pay a very, very serious price. He admitted he paid 130,000
to stephanie clifford, Stormy Daniels, because she was ready to go public with a claimed affair with mr. Trump. And he arranged to reimburse a tabloid to bury a story about Karen Mcdougal who also claimed
call, as vice president, with ukrainian and chinese leaders, while his son was conducting shady business deals in this country. biden s campaign reportedly slammed to this request saying it would be legal or even physically possible. i want to bring in rnc chairwoman, ronna mcdaniel. what is your response? it would be legal even possible? he can certainly ask for it to be released. he can certainly say, i want to be transparent. or to take questions, which he hasn t done. we have all seen the tape where he s saying, unless you get of this prosecutor, we are not giving a billion dollars in aid. when the prosecutor was prosecuting his sons company, that he profited millions from, he s on tape. it s on record. i won t be even ask for this to be release we can clear his name? harris: i was reading right before i asked were presented to pete king of new york, republican come about this.
telling our colleagues, who are critical of the move to move toward impeachment inquiry. they say you are days too soon on this. 212 democrats and a former republican in justin amash support having this inquiry. i will tell them we can t wait. there s an urgency here. i understand you have concerns about the mueller investigation, that that was the 2016 election. it was in the past. well, this this is the 2020 upg election, and the president has made it very clear in his own words in the notes that he put out that he wants another country to help him. we just don t do that in america. harris: you know what? lets visit on what congressman pete king of new york just told me a few moments before the commercial break. he said improprieties were suspected bite joe biden s son, hunter biden. had it been any other official, you would want to have it looked into. so he argues that the fact of
congressional correspondent manu raju, are either side feeling appreciate to back down? the leadership certainly is not, but impatience is growing on capitol hill about the shut down and about the fact there appears to be no end in sight. two republican senators up for reelection in 2020, cory gardner and susan collins, both have indicated they support reopening the government and continuing the discussion about border wall funding on a separate track. that s the same position that democrats in the house took yesterday, on the first day of the new congress, passing two pieces of legislation that would reopen the government, the shuttered agencies, and a separate one to open the department of homeland security until february 8th and punt on the issue of the border wall. now, on the house side, five republicans voted for the homeland security bill and seven republicans voted to open up the rest of the federal government. one of the republicans, pete king of new york, made it very clear
the homeland security department up until february 8th. seven republicans voted to reopen the rest of the government for this current fiscal year. one of those republicans, pete king of new york, told me earlier today that the president needs to stop listening to the house freedom caucus, the very conservative group, and instead try to cut a deal to get the government reopened. and on the senate side, two republican senators, cory gardner of colorado and susan collins of maine, both up for re-election in 2020, support the democratic position to reopen the government and continue negotiations over the wall separately. but they are very small in the minority, because a large majority of the republicans on both sides support the president s position. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell came back from the white house. and made it very clear, even earlier on the senate floor, he would not move forward on legislation until president trump addresses supports whatever deal is cut between