i'm john king in washington. hurricane florence tearing through the carolinas. first, here in washington a huge win for the russia special counsel. paul manafort moments ago pleading guilty in washington in a federal courtroom to one count of experience and one count of witness tampering in court. very significant. special counsel mueller said he now agree and is cooperating with the federal government. outside the courtroom in washington, the key question, do we know the details of that

cooperation? >> reporter: that's right, john. that remains the big question. we don't know yet what the cooperation agreement entails, about you a few moments ago paul manafort officially now admitted to the crimes he is pleading guilty to. the two changes he meaded guilty to. both are experience changes, but the first is experience against the united states and admits to everything he was facing here in washington. he is saying he essentially admits to the fact that he was receiving about $16 million from the ukraine yon governmeian gov working for them. he cheated the u.s. government out of $50 million in taxes. you have paul manafort standing up in court saying i did, admitting to everything the government laid out. one of the big surprises today

is just about 30 minutes ago. the prosecutor stood up and mentioned there was a cooperation agreement. we don't know the details of that. this is a cooperation agreement hammered out over the last few days. we have seen members of paul manafort's medical team at the special counsel's office. we saw people from the prosecution team that brought the charges over in virginia over at the special counsel's office. we knew something was coming. we have the fact that he has pleaded guilty. i will read you a statement we just got from president trump's legal team from rudy giuliani. he said in reaction to this, the fact that there is a cooperation agreement, he said "once again an investigation concluded with a plea having nothing do with president trump or the trump campaign. the reason is the president did not wrong." he was speaking on behalf of president trump and the legal team. they knew there was the talks and the big question was does

this implicate the president? we had conversations with members of the legal team and they expressed confidence that even if manafort cooperates with the special counsel and with prosecutors, they felt it had no impact or implication against the president. john? >> outside the courtroom, that's an important point to note. nothing in any of the court documents has anything to do with the president. we should note that with paul manafort pleading guilty. four people in the campaign worked in the trump white house pleaded guilty in this investigation. as the manafort news unfolds, live breaking news, sources tell us the president is watching the coverage from the white house residence and he was briefed earlier today by his lawyers. the white house issuing its official response moments ago from the press secretary sarah sanders. this has absolutely nothing to do with the president or his

victorious 2016 presidential campaign. it is totally unrelated. let's discuss this enormous development. cnn legal analyst and gloria borger. i want to talk about this with you because of your experience with these investigations. you get a plea from a man who said he would not plea. admits to everything. he is only charged with two crimes, but admits to everything. if you want to understand it, here it is. now he is cooperating. is he in if they were in cahoots, is this the cast of characters involved? >> we are getting an update. the judge explained what this cooperation agreement is going

to be. interviews and briefings he will give, they will be interviewing him again. he met with the special counsel and turning over documents. testifying in other proceedings. he waived the right to have his lawyers. bottom line, this is a huge deal. paul manafort is a major, major cooperator in this investigation. he will independently without lawyers meet with the prosecutors that told us he is no longer facing any potential prosecution. what effect will it have on his other case? does he get out of jail? what we have from the court and the judge who has gone over what his cooperation agreement will be, this is substantial and a game changer in this entire investigation. >> he was a hostile witness

skpreefl now is free of any future criminal liability and it's a whole new game. >> right. he has given up his right to anneal virginia and pleaded guilty to all of the counts in d.c. they will not bring the cases he got a hung jury on. even if he was not going to do so willingly. the questions you ask, what is he going to testify about. that includes the june ninth meeting he attended with kushner and don jr. what was going on there? who knew what and when? >> he was hired as far as a representation who themselves are under violation of the agent's registration act. what does he know about what they knew and how it impacts

their criminal liability. what does trump know about the overarching relationship with the russians financially and otherwise? i think mueller's interest will be specific and new york's investigation will be more interested in manafort if he knows more about it. >> they have immunity with the cfo. >> we know that roger sdpoen political partner to president trump helped bring him into that campaign in that role. we know they have been circling roger stone and called other people around him. it's possible and we don't know that they may have a back story about how he ended up in that place in the first place.

that's sort of strange at a certain point and especially if you are asking about the trump tower meeting. this shows you the swampiest of the swamp. you are 100% right. this is one quote that stuck out. an employee of one of these pr companies said or called it, you knew they were working for ukraine and weren't allowed to say it. he said it's a fig leaf on a fig leaf. >> there is nothing in any charges that allege any illegal activity by the president. rick gates was the deputy chairman who has pleaded guilty.

michael flynn and then the national security adviser to the president of the united states, one of the most sensitive jobs pled guilty. george papadopoulos, the coffee boy pled guilty. two others not involved, but if you put paul manafort, four people hired by this president or his team and brought into the campaign have pled guilty to federal offenses. these cases by mueller so far have nothing to do with any misconduct by the president, but the meticulous nature, some of the charts that are included in this new filing today, you don't need to understand the charts, but manafort got away with the overseas transactions and moving money back and forth. if you can see the level of denail this information. the level of the forensics, criminal, digical work they have

done. my question is if they have the cfo of the trump organization and they're looking at any other record involving the president's campaign or the president's business, that has to scare you. >> and keep in mind that many of those transactions are international transactions. many of them come from cypress. it is incredibly time consuming and difficult to assemble records like that. the fact that this is done is an extraordinary tribute to the success of the mueller office. sarah sanders can say, as they have, this has nothing to do with the and the on its face, it doesn't. this man was the cam pair chairman for six months. giuliani and sanders are saying well, only six months. six months. that's a long time.

that's meeting every day and knowing how the campaign was structured. they have a window into the campaign and into the highest levels they never before. it may be that they find out there is nothing that went on there, but they will now have an entire new perspective. >> now to the point you made about the infamous trump tower meeting. he is worried about his son and focussed on the trump tower meeting. someone with a history with the russians who was nauls that meeting, if you are trying to figure out what happened in the days and weeks before and what happened in the days and weeks after, he's a central witness. >> and also the years. we are talking about russian influence that goes back years. paul manafort had a seat with

the ukrainians, the russians. he knows a lot. the special counsel from all the reporting we have done, we know that paul manafort was an important piece in this investigation. more for his cooperation than anything else. that is why this special counsel went after him and with such charges. when you think about everything he must about, they're going have such a window into years and years of politics. >> rick gates has also cut a deal and worked in the campaign longer than manafort and still there after manafort left and is cooperating. >> they are waiting to see what flute is born. >> like the lego they are building. >> we wonder how they will handle president trump. how they subpoena him and the

notion that they walk away from this and he had is not indicted. you leave this aftermath where everyone surrounded himself with something dirty. the man who ran this campaign and the deputy and his long time lawyer and his national security adviser and the aftertaste that this guy who ran on draining the swamp surrounded himself with those who would not play by any of the rules and looking to enrich themselves. >> it's a different swamp. >> we have two timeouts for hack and social media. we have the indictments unknowing american participation. does manafort fill in the blank on whether or not there was knowing participation with the russians and either of those indictments? that brings it back to the campaign. >> the important thing is a huge

win for the special counsel. more proof this investigation is going nowhere any time soon and to michael's question, the question is how is the ark built? we will follow the developments and we are going very important news stories. anderson? . >> this is the calmest woo we have seen in the last several hours and the last 24 hours or so. the winds have died down and the rain has died down. this is a lull. we are expecting a lot more rain in the coming hours, but it's a little bit of a break from what we have seen. very windy and record seth wind gusts here earlier this morning. the wind gusts they haven't seen that strong since 1960.

the speed is up to 90 or 92 miles an hour. we want to go to miguel marquez who is in carolina beach. you have a lot of water on the ground. >> what is stunning is that you were about 20 or 30 miles from where you are. this is the intersection in carolina beach. flood clearly. what is significant about this, this water has come up in the last half hour, 45 minutes or so. quickly. it's surprising. this is the marina that often floods, but the speed at which this water has come up is what they are concerned with.

we were in the eye of the storm and it was calm. the wind was coming from the west and now coming up from the south. it upon hasn't let up. the waves are getting bigger and we are just high tide at this point. the one of the at the moment will have another high tide to go across new hanover county. 95,000 people or so are without electricity. carolina beach has no electricity right now. no sign of serious issues. the one problem is so many people are calling 911 about downed trees or downed lines. they are calling 911 only if you have a life-threatening

emergency. the emergency signals are going off and a lot of water. they are not sure how much more is coming. the town is bracing. anderson? and up there, we are going to show you some of that coming up. we will take a short break. our coverage continues hereof hurricane florence and more with john king in washington. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run.

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still a lot to come, but the scene in wilmington is the calmest we have seen it all day today. a little bit of drizzle and a few wind gusts here or there, but i'm not sure if this is the eye or close to the eye. there is certainly a lot of relief so far over what has been taking place. brian todd has been driving around and getting a sense and a look at trees on the ground. there have been calls to authorities for help. what do you know about any efforts by police to check up on

people? >> anderson, police are checking up on people, but we have come up on the scene. this is a house west of downtown where a tree fell on top of the back of them. the fire chief of wilmington. tell us what's going on. are there victims inside? >> we have something on the scene here. we had a very difficult extraication. a very large tree tack off the back of this house and it took about three hours to rescue a victim out here. >> you can tell us how many people are inside? >> i can tell you that we have work to do here.

we have task force one from indiana and i want to make sure they know my firefighters have been out here and hurricane winds trying to save that one person that was transported and very, very difficult. >> was it an elderly person? >> it's a bit offing operation that we had to do the way the tree fell. the tree is so heavy and there was a lot of leverage involved. there was a canopy in the tree and trying to figure out a way to lift enough of the tree to get the victim out. a number of air bags and we had a process where the tree was rotating as we were lifting. >> can you tell us what injuries that person suffered?

>> it looked like lower extremities, but i'm not aware of the condition. >> people are in there now. give us a sense of what they're doing to effect it. >> we are formulating a plan to lift the tree. we think the tree is about 30,000 pounds. we are going to try to lift it and the second plan b is we are going to disassemble it. >> give us a sense of how difficult this has been for your people to get here. >> this has been crazy. 50 miles an hour sustained winds we haven't been able to get into the policy. they have been out here all during the return.

we had rescues of people being blocked by trees and this event right here. >> there you have it, a rescue being undertaken. no sense of how many people are inside, but we will keep on top of it for you. >> i want to go to ed in new bern where overnight there were hundreds of people being rescued by volunteers in boats. ed has been seeing that situation unfold. i'm told we have lost contact. let's go to jennifer gray to get a sense of where the storm is. let's talk about what you are seeing on the radar and what we should expect over the coming hours. it seems calm right now here in wilmingt wilmington. >> you are in a lull. the eye is well to the southwest

and pushing into portions of south carolina or the center of the storm. not an eye anymore. around wilmington, you are getting a band of rain etting is up where depending on where you are in you may be in a dry spell. otherwise you get a downpour. we get incredible totals. this is a hurricane with gusts of 100 moving to the west at six. this storm is going to be in across southeastern sections. moving off by the end of the weekend. we will be talking about this and winds are still very strong. about 50 miles per hour gusts and we are seeing those winds

still peak out very strong. we are seeing impressive totals. we are getting the rain totals reach and we are in this for another day, day at least. here are the wind gusts. the winds continue with it sitting over land. that will continue when we get to the offshore wind because they are on the southside or the

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hurricane florence, last time we checked in in new burn, there have been hundreds of rescues overnight in the morning hours. he was in a boat with volunteers and going to find a woman and her child. ed, explain what happened there and where you are now. we lost them and found another man who had shown up as a retired marine and had a high water military style vehicle with a big open space in the back and we jumped in with him and they went to a neighborhood where they met up with a swift water rescue and they pulled out

seven people in new burn. one of the people i have here is felix fisher. he is 22 years old and can you describe what the scene was like in your neighborhood? it happened fast. one empty there was no water and the next we were preparing for water to come in the house. it got real heavy real fast. when we saw the water coming in the house, we tried the best we can do to get out real fast. we waited on help. we called help about 2:30 in the morning. >> how chaotic was it? >> my family really stayed focused. we knew it was a flood zone. you are happy help came?

>> how many people needed to be rescued? >> i think we were the last group. they got the elderly first. >> that's kind of the scene. they all got out with a few belongings and the volunteers are trying to help them now. anderson? >> kudos to the volunteers who time and time again, we have seen this in so many places in harvey and houston and katrina saving people's lives and reaching out to help and i wonder how it is now. >> still getting worse.

about 10 minutes to go and we had a gust of wind that could have taken me clean off my feet. they are worried about the gusts that could rise to about 90 miles an hour sometime this afternoon. they are saying that it has to be life-threatening or close for them to risk sending responders out into the weather. this is just the start of the storm down where we are. about 50 miles south last time i checked. the storm had not begun. we will be somewhere between the eye of the storm and the water. this is all about timing. that will dictate how long it gets. this is two high tides.

there are about 2,000 people have decided to hunker down and so far, so good. we took a drive around a few minutes ago. a couple of downed power lines. no major damage idea, but we haven't seen anything idea. back to you, anderson. >> kathy, can you explain where you are and how things are? >> we are in north carolina where you see volunteers and the national guard behind me, working to fill sandbags. just two years ago in hurricane matthew is where water flooded through a gap behind them. it really devastated the southwestern part of the city. they had no water or power for a week.

the plant located close by. volunteers told me they saw a call put out on facebook and they starred filling sandbags. not sure how much time they will have until the rain and wind make it impossible here. >> there is a break in the rain right now which is good news. it allows people to regroup. we are anticipating rain coming back. how many national guard folks there? i see about 10 to 15 volunteers. you can see the national guard members frantically throwing sandbags and bringing dirt and gravel over. they started doing work around the water plant and filling in berms. you can see the ground is already getting really wet here.

this break under the ridge to the left is where the water came through before. this is where they are putting the effort right now. >> we're wish them the best. we will take a short break. more coverage from north carolina and south carolina and the region. we'll be right back. this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you

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washington, d.c. paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman, a lobbyist and influence in washington, d.c. entering into a plea agreement pleading guilty and entering into a guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with special counsel rob urt mueller. that is the most interesting part. not only pleading guilty to charges, could face up to 10 years in prison, but will not face charges now. he is entering into ongoing investigations. a dramatic day and hard to overstate in the sense that manifort held out and said he was innocent. first convicted in virginia and about to stand trial on a separate sed of charges in d.c. after the rodings, his attorney came out and issued a brief statement explaining why he decided now on the eve of trial

number two to cut a deal. >> a tough day for mr. manafort. he accepted responsibility and he wanted to make sure his family is able to remain safe and live a good life and he accepted responsibility and this is for conduct that dates back many years. everybody should remember that. thank you, everyone. >> two significant pieces to me. jump in if you find others. voicing publicly a person that he not only wanted his family to live a good life because he keeps some resources, but to be safe. to be safe. the second part they said this is conduct that goes back many years s. that a message saying mr. manafort pled guilty to things that predated the trump campaign. >> think the part about safety,

you don't hear when people cooperate that people talk about their safety. something is going on and perhaps that was part of the plea agreement that the government was going to offer him and his family protection. we know that paul manafort dealt with a lot of shady characters for a long time. that could be a concern that they may think -- >> including russian oligarch who is have a history of punishing his critics overseas. >> that was a concern. folks that i talked to was thinking why manafort didn't want to cooperate is because he was afraid for his safety. there could be something going on where the government ordered him safety. the other thing is the continuous cooperation that they are going to get. not just in the mueller investigation, but in the justice department. robert mueller sunday cases to the southern district of new york. the u.s. attorney here in

virginia. he could be cooperating in those cases this. does go back many, many years. >> the investigations for years about russian oligarchs and the business dealings here. other firms are tied up in the investigation that he was essentially illegally hiding money because he was doing foreign lobbying and not disclosing it as such. they were cooperating with the southern district the new york. michael cohen is cooperating. if you are the president sitting in the west wing and the public statement is none of this has going do with my campaign, but the big but is you know that there are a half dozen or more other investigations going on about people around you and your organization, including your family. >> sure. nothing has to do with his campaign until it does. that's what we saw with michael cohen. there were lots of dealings with

his business and he implicated the president in these campaign payments. we don't know what paul manafort knows that he could offer information on. he is close with roger stone. he could have information about the infamous trump tower meeting between paul manafort and jared kushner and the russians. as they were pointing out, have years of information about how these are in the u.s. under the rad radar. that's that is important to law enforcement as well. >> this needs a comma and a word yet. we have yet to know what this really is going to mean for them. or others like the oligarchs that he may be providing important information on. >> this opens up a whole new

chapter in an investigation that is not ending any time soon. refusing to cooperate, but he will cooperate outside the presence of his attorneys. if you thought this was ending soon, this suggests dramatically that is not the case. our continuing coverage not only in washington, but the continuing punishing effects of hurricane florence. stay with us.

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as bad. you are beginning to hear words from county officials that they may be dodging a lot of the worst. the winds are strong and they are blowing behind me. it's the offshore flow that is helping things out. the ocean i showed you a couple of hours ago is blowing out to sea. we are at high tide and when the winds switch, i think that's going be advantageous high tide. a couple of cars are out. north of here, the police are no longer responding to emergencies. in the county you are in, they are reporting no major rescues and no hard core damage of any

kind. still waiting for the storm to come. this storm could pass without dramatic damage being done here. much more inland than along the coast anderson is in let's hope they do okay. we will check in with you and introduce you to tim who say local reporter here at the paper. >> the wilmington star news. >> you have been sleeping in your office. >> that's one way to put it. i got 1.5 to two hours of sleep. >> you have news on the curfew here. >> that's correct. they said they are instituting a curfew. the first time just to keep

people off the streets. >> ordinarily it's a five-minute drive. downed power lines. it's just a mess in wilmington. >> here there is not a lot of debris. not a lot of trees. outside and other areas, it's bad. >> nearly every street we passed had tree limbs laying across the road. we had to take several u-turns and it took a while to get down here. >> have you seen a lot of water on the ground? >> we did go through some batches of water. >> that's a big concern. the mayor was talking about a possibility of 20, 30, 40 inches of rain in areas. >> that's a catastrophic amount. >> the most rain they had in three days is 20 inches. we expect 30 in the next two

hours. >> months of rain over three days. >> that's right. that's on top of this year's record setting pace. we had drenching rains. we had dry patches and maybe there is a little bit where the ground can soak this up. we have river flooding and storm surge. we are not sure there was anywhere water can go. >> this water is moving out and it's also going. >> i can't imagine this is not going to soon wash over. >> you have been here for -- is this the first -- you had been here for two years? >> years. i was here for hurricane matthew, but i never experienced anything like this. i lived in cold climates and hot climates. this is the first real months. >> i appreciate your reporting. thank you very much. i want to toss it over to wolf

blitzer in d.c. who is monitoring the events. the storm and dramatic news about paul manafort. wolf? >> thanks, anderson. wolf blitzer in washington and we bring you special live coverage of hurricane florence as it batters the carolinas. more than a half million people without power as we speak. we will go in the middle of the damaging winds. we have major breaking news here in washington as well. paul manafort is a major government cooperator and a potential witness. just a little while ago pleaded guilty to one count of experience and one count of witness tampering.

manifort agreed to extensively cooperate with the government. we heard from manafort's lawyer. update him on what he said and how this is playing out. he is completing guilty to one count. that covers pretty much all of the charges he was facing here in court in d.c. it leads the admission doing work for the government. the pro russian government here that he laundered more than $30 million over the year cheated the u.s. government oust $15 million in