and that was a productive summary for the president and bill barr who characterized for bill barr even though that wasn t what mueller was conveying at all. i think this was a conviction that bill barr has had. i don t know if it s because he agrees with the president on this or the president has convinced him that there is something more there to the origins of the investigation. but he hinted at this through the past year. and here we are. we know that he s also traveled overseas to italy to investigate and speak to people there about the origins of the investigation. the italians have denied any involvement at all. in fact, the president of the country at least said he had nothing to do with it and the italians had nothing to do with it. if it s about transparency that the republicans are arguing the democrats should be putting forward at this point with regards to the investigation, i think the same could be said and asked of this investigation as well. it s interesting that a lo
but if obama s top person went to jail even for one day, david plosser or david axelrod or something like that, we d still be hearing about it. we re hearing about it even though it didn t happen. the point is, all this stuff, while legal, has a political coloring of it as well and the republicans are saying this is proof that mueller was overreaching. and he just doesn t have what they think he has. do you think that s a fair argument? no, but i think it s one that maybe the judge bought. i mean, the crimes, it wasn t what mueller asked for, the 19 to 24 years, mueller took no position. it s what the guidelines provided for. i ve been in front of judge ellis and had my head handed to me. but nothing like this was an 80% reduction and the magnitude combined with the caprice of it, he really gave very little reason for such a slashing. and it did lead to the supposition, based in part on how he treated the prosecution during the trial, that he just didn t like the case. and, you
neil katyal, and harry litman. neil, am i wrong, i m saying manafort got it easy. i know there was a day where this type of time for these types of charges, but when they were asking for a quarter century, four years seems good. it wouldn t describe it as a victory. he obviously got a much lower sentence than what mueller asked. but as you point out they ve got next week before judge jackson because manafort committed so many crimes, he s being tried in two places, not one, and has already agreed he was guilty of those crimes this d.c. that s one thing. and then the second, and i think the most important thing, is i wouldn t think this is a victory for donald trump by any stretch. i mean, it s remarkable what happened today, a federal judge said trump s number one person, head of his campaign, is going to jail for 47 months. all right.
misadventures in the ukraine. but even so, he notably failed to cooperate and kind of stuck his nose out at the justice system and lied to mueller and got away with it. so i would think that could potentially encourage other behavior. it feels like we ve got to find out from one source or another. but one of the ones we were counting on, where mueller s charges in court. and you re right, this chapter ends with manafort having kept quiet and being able to not have given up anything of any significance. let me get one more thing to you and then i want neal to let me do this. neal, you button it up. harry, michael cohen, do you believe they have him on making a false statement before congress again? no, not it s not good enough. the they don t have materiality on the perjury charge. it s really kind of penny-ante, and anybody can refer, i don t see it going anywhere.
democrats, how are they looking heading into 2020? can the warring factions you knight? are they really warring? where does a democrat in a deep red state stand on all of the apparent tu multi-in their party? does he see a path together? we re bringing in senator doug jones on exactly that. and a joe biden alert, in or not? looks like we re very close. how close? he gave us a number. let s get after it. paul manafort may not spend the rest of his life in prison, even though that s what mueller asked for. he got a sentence far less than the 20 something years they wanted, he got 47 months and credit for time served, knocking it down to just about three years, maybe even less with special programs once he gets in. he still faces a lot of time from a judge next week in d.c. but this is, no doubt, a victory for him relatively. let s bring in cuomo s court,