tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN December 18, 2018 9:00pm-10:00pm PST
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most ard ept supporters, did hope this would be the moment flynn would take a stand, play victim to unfair prosecution and back out of his plea deal. none of that happened. not even close. before all the surprises, the president tweeted this -- "good luck today in court to general michael flynn. will be interesting to see what he has to say despite tremendous pressure being put on him about russian collusion in our great and obviously highly successful political campaign." now we'll try to divine what he meant there and contrast his good luck and his gentle treatment of flynn with that of michael cohen, who was also cooperating with investigators. but before we do, keeping them honest, in all the noise you've been hearing today i just want to put up this presidential tweet from about a year ago. "i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. he has pled guilty to those lies." president trump himself a year ago saying he fired general flynn for lying to the fbi, acknowledging his guilty plea.
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and today flynn reaffirmed it. he did not complain, as the administration has, about fbi entrapment, an argument by the way that general flynn rejected when asked by the judge today and his attorneys. but if that weren't drama enough judge sullivan rebuked flynn saying with respect to other charges, "arguably you sold your country out." now, he later walked that back, and he put off sentencing until march. so quite a day. not a good one for claiming anyone claiming, as the white house did, that flynn was ambushed by the fbi. yet when asked about it this afternoon this is what sarah sanders said. >> those are facts, and certainly there may be other issues there, but that we don't have any reason to want to walk that back. >> wait, what? was that some sort of attempted jedi mind trick? because general flynn himself today blew a hole straight through the claim that sanders and those around her were making. flynn wasn't ambushed by the fbi.
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he wasn't trapped. he said so himself today. and sarah sanders, the sarah sanders who last week said she wanted her legacy to be honesty and transparency, said she didn't see any reason to walk back her false claims. those are not the droids you're looking for. anyway, that element was not the only intriguing part of the day. as you might know, michael flynn has been offering in robert mueller's words substantial cooperation. but the president has kind words for him. michael cohen is cooperating as well, yet as you also know the president is lobbing tweets like this at him. "remember michael cohen only became a rat after the fbi did something which was absolutely unthinkable and unheard of until the witch hunt was illegally started." now, you might be wondering why does one cooperator get good luck from the president and the other get good riddance? keeping them honest, you wouldn't be alone. >> he seems to be concerned that michael cohen is a liar. is he concerned that one of his top aides lied to the fbi and was working for a foreign government? >> not when it comes to things that have anything to do with the president.
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the activities that he has said to -- and again, we'll let the court make that determination -- to have engaged in don't have anything to do with the president. >> is the president concerned that michael flynn lied to a representative of his own government and was working for another government during the campaign? does that concern him or not? >> there's certainly concern, but that's something for the court to make that determination and we'll let them do that. >> he's made positive comments about this when he pleaded -- >> we'll let the court play that out and they'll make a determination about right or wrong. >> first off, the court has made a determination about right or wrong. flynn pleaded guilty. the judge accepted his plea. when sarah sanders was asked today again and again and again about what makes michael flynn different from michael cohen to her boss, she had no good answer, which did not go unnoticed in the briefing room on her way out the door. >> thanks, guys. >> ten-minute briefing, sarah. >> do your job, sarah.
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>> more now on some of those unanswered questions about why michael flynn seems to be getting kid glove treatment from the white house's inability to say why. joining us now retired army lieutenant general ralph peters. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you, john. >> what do you make of the president pre-emptively urging michael flynn good luck today? does that make any sense to you? >> i think he's dangling a pardon. but also if you look at the disparity of the treatment of cohen and the treatment of flynn it suggests to me as a former intelligence officer that flynn knows things that are even more damaging potentially to trump than cohen does. and again, looking at it, reading the externals, as it were, it would appear to me that flynn was the messenger boy. he was the conduit between igor, ivan x and the president. and we shall see what emerges from the mueller investigation.
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but there's clearly more to this, john, than we know and mueller is sitting on a volcano. >> your analysis from what you see based on your experience su think the president is treating michael flynn differently because he has to? >> well, he feels that he has to. president trump is not a dangerous man. you saw the decision in new york today about his charities. he doesn't give freebies to much of anybody. here's mike flynn, who in the past as you just pointed out, he called general flynn out for lying. and suddenly flynn's not so bad, flynn's okay. i they he may have had second thoughts, may have realized that there are probably conversations between flynn and trump, with nobody else there, and quite possibly conversations involving the russians. so, again, all this is speculation, john. we need to see where it goes, but i will tell you this.
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that today a judge in washington, d.c., stood up for our country. he spanked everybody in washington. he was telling everybody with those angry remarks -- yes, he had to walk some back. but he was angry, and it was refreshing to see someone in washington in genuine anger, not calculated anger. someone who really cares about this country and who reminded even robert mueller, whom i admire enormously, reminded even mueller of the seriousness, the gravity of flynn's offenses. here's a former three-star general who in the judge's words appears to have sold our country out. it certainly appears that way to me, but i have a very high standard when it comes to military officers. so i felt we should all be proud of our judicial system today, and also what happened in new york. but you know, the judges came through. you know the good news in all of this is although it can be frustratingly slow to some our
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system of government works and those who need to be held accountable will be held accountable. and i have to wonder about judge sullivan, who's my new hero. he's a d.c. guy. he went to howard university. he's seen the grave disparities in d.c. and disparities in treatment. i wonder if it didn't rub him the wrong way to know that a young punk steals a car, wrecks, it goes to jail. a three-star general sells out his country and walks. >> all right. let me see if i can get a few questions in and break down just a little bit what you said. first, to be clear, we do not know what michael flynn has testified he talked to the president about when it comes to russia. >> yes, of course. >> we may learn more about that. the judge may know more about that because maybe there's something in those large redacted sections of the legal documents that have been submitted. again, we simply don't know. to the issue of selling out the country, the judge, judge sullivan, the man you call your hero, he had to sort of back off that a bit.
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he had to back off that because it turned out michael flynn wasn't doing more for turkey when he was national security adviser. he didn't back off it much. he still said he was disgusted, but backed off a bit, and used the word "treason." there are some people who thought it went too far. when he asked if michael flynn committed treason. do you think he went too far when he raised the question? >> no, i don't think he went too far. we have gotten too blase about this. whether it's selling your country or giving away your country or lying about your country, defrauding the country. choose your words. there's a dictionary full of adjectives we can use. throw in some adverbs as well. but the bottom line is this. mike flynn betrayed his trust as an officer, as an intelligence officer, an army officer, a high government official, who aspired to be and briefly was national security adviser. everybody's focusing on turkey right now. that's a sideshow. the whole trump affair. at the bottom of all this. despite the other evidences of
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corruption in the trump mob and trump empiefr, trump empire, it all comes down to russia, russia, russia. mike flynn, for me as a former officer, who believes military officers must subscribe to a much higher level of ethics than you see in washington, d.c. on a daily basis, for him to have taken money essentially from vladimir putin, from russian television, which is vladimir putin, for him to have collaborated as he appears to have done with the russians, that for me is the grave concern. by the way, clearly as you observed, john, the judge today saw things we haven't seen, and it made him angry, and i trust the judiciary. >> very kickly, one unanswered question today from all the documents is why michael flynn lied about his conversations with ambassador kislyak. do you have any thoughts about perhaps why he lied? >> because he thought he could get away with it. because it was an easy way. because he -- he'd been a golden
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boy. mike was a brilliant soldier. he did terrific work in afghanistan and iraq. there's no taking that away from him. he can be proud of that. but he needs to be ashamed of what he did afterward and he needs to be punished for. and there's a saying in the military which i will clean up for the television audience. one aw shucks cancels 100 atta boys. >> colonel ralph peters, i appreciate you being with us. and thank you for cleaning it up. a bit more on judge sullivan's background. he's been appointed to several seats on the bench first by president reagan then george w. bush -- george h.w. bush i should say. and bill clinton. join k us now is cnn chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jeff toobin also "usa today" columnist and cnn political analyst kirsten powers. plus former senator and republican presidential candidate rick santorum. jeffrey toobin, this was not the day we were expecting. really. we were expecting it to be basic. robert mueller's team called for basically no jail time. we thought this would be short.
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that's not what happened. so what did happen? >> i think those of us who have been following these stories, we perhaps have become too cynical. we have become used to the fact that, well, of course people around donald trump lie, of course they get rewarded for cooperating by robert mueller. and judge sullivan, who is not involved in this day to day, said wait a second, this guy should not get away with lying to the fbi given who he is, given his background, given the stakes here, and robert mueller shouldn't be so quick to reward him for cooperating given the magnitude of his crimes. now, it sounds to me like at the end of the day he's not going to get jail time. but everybody minimizing his crime, both mueller and his own lawyers, who made a terrible mistake by saying, well, you know, he wasn't really prepared and you know -- i mean, making excuses about the surrounding circumstances.
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none of them understood the basic moral outrage that judge sullivan was going to bring to the proceedings. >> he may ultimately get no jail time, but judge sullivan all but told us that if he were to sentence michael flynn today he would have given him jail time. he didn't do it but he may have. you heard colonel peters earlier, who sound equally disgusted as judge sullivan told the world, that he was today. are you disgusted by michael flynn's behavior lying to the fbi? >> you know, if you take michael flynn at his word in front of the judge, that he knew he was lying and deliberately lied -- again, i don't understand why he would have, it doesn't make sense, but if you take the face value of what michael flynn said, i think the judge had every right to be upset. well, i don't think it was treason, but i do believe it's a serious offense.
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if you did that knowingly, you obviously should know better, so i can understand the way the judge reacted. >> can you understand, then, if the judge reacted that way, and you say you shared that feeling, not the treason part, do you think the white house is taking the right attitude here, which is to wish general flynn luck? >> i don't know. i mean, this is one of these things -- i listened to ralph. i like ralph, but the conspiracy theories are continuing to fly all day long around here. we don't know. i wish i knew the context of why general flynn did what he did. on the face it just doesn't make any sense that a man who probably knew that they listened to the conversation and probably knew that he said what he said, would lie about something like that when the other side knew the information. maybe there's more context, the white house knows that and is trying to influence somehow. i don't know. none of this makes sense. i just can't wait for the mueller -- this mueller report to come out so some of the
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pieces start to fit together. >> you want to see the next chapter in this book. one of the mysteries that senator santorum was bringing up kirsten is why michael flynn lied. no one has a good answer for that. and we don't have an answer for michael flynn on that yet. the other odd question today is why the president is treating michael flynn like his, you know, long lost friend and pal and hero? good luck, pal, you're going to plead guilty for lying to the fbi. wish you luck. why he's treating him like that and why he calls michael cohen a rat. why the discrepancy? >> well, the president's always self-motivated. so he must believe that he's going to get something out of doing that and perhaps he's dangling the idea that there could be a pardon. it's unspoken. but you know, that's the only reason he would do something. there's nothing else that motivates him that i can think of. when we say why would he lie about these things? well, people lie usually for one
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reason and that's to cover up something they don't want people to find out about. and they usually do it because they think they're going get away with it. so i'm just going to go with that. i'm going to assume there's a reason that he doesn't want to be honest about this and that there's probably some pretty damning information here and that for some reason he thought he could get away with it. and then you add in that they were attacking the fbi, they walked that back, but to me that's clearly sending a message to the president, who loves to attack the fbi and to claim this conduct on behalf of the fbi, no matter how absurd it seems, that we were supposed to believe that this general wouldn't know that you're not supposed to lie to the fbi. nonetheless, they made that accusation. >> senator santorum, you disagree? >> look, it just -- it's inconceivable to me that general flynn, as an intelligence officer sitting down with the fbi, as you read these -- the 302, the report that the fbi did, i mean, they were sort of coaching him. you remember this. sort of prompting his
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recollection. because they knew what the conversation was. i mean, and he had to know. and i think he even made a comment that you probably have heard this or something. so that's why this doesn't make any sense. i mean, why would you lie when they know that you're lying? again, the only thing that makes sense to me on the face of it was, well, maybe he forgot. but now he stepped in front of 'judge and said nope, i lied and i intended to. none of it makes sense to me. >> you know, i share rick's mistification about why he lied. but it is worth remembering what is it that everyone involved in the trump campaign keeps lying about? russia. dealings with russia. justify sessions can't remember who he dealt with with russia. you know, jared kushner can't remember. there's this constant failure to acknowledge the relationship between the trump campaign and russia. is that because something improper went on there?
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that's certainly a reasonable implication. when people lie about things they're not supposed to do. that is the best explanation i can come up with. but certainly michael flynn's behavior when he was talking to the fbi is deeply inexplicable. >> kirsten, i'd like to say i was surprised -- >> jeffrey -- >> go ahead, kirsten. >> i'm just wondering, though, isn't it possible that they're lying in the hopes that they're going to get pardoned by donald trump? by trying to cover up for him. >> well, i don't think in january of 2017, last year, sitting in the white house, a newly appointed national security adviser, michael flynn is thinking, well, i'm going to lie, plead guilty and then get a pardon. i don't think people think that far in advance. that's very hard for me to believe. today he might want a pardon and today i would say he's a pretty good bet to get a pardon. but i don't think that was the
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original motivation to lie. >> the other thing, kirsten, is he's lying about something they already know. he said did you say this to the -- to kislyak. and the answer is no, i didn't. but they knew he did. so he's not withholding information. i mean, they had the information. that's why this doesn't make any sense. >> i want to get one last question in to kirsten here. given all of this and given the fact that if you read the 302 it's pretty clear that flynn wasn't ambushed, given that mike michael flynn himself wasn't ambushed and his lawyers said he was not ambushed by fbi agents. i'd like to say i was surprised that sarah sanders continued that line of attack today. but i guess i'm not. >> i love that you can still be surprised. i think that's amazing. that's just -- i mean, this is kind of what she does, isn't it? i'm not even remotely surprised. >> at a certain point, though, i mean, are we going to start seeing higher mbship of the senate judiciary committee rise
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up and say wait a second, mr. president, michael flynn told us he wasn't ambushed, you shouldn't be saying this and sarah sanders shouldn't be saying this from the press room? >> i don't think so. i think it's pretty clear that people aren't -- at least republicans aren't interested in particularly challenging this white house and that's why i think that sarah sanders can keep doubling down on these kinds of things, because there's no accountability. and i'm totally serious when i say i'm glad you can still be surprised because i think it is important to still hold people to standards but this is just kind of the way it is with her. >> you may not be surprised. kirsten may not be surprised. but judge sullivan was surprised. and that's what's different, is that he doesn't have the cynicism of dealing with this every day and he was uncynical enough to be appalled by general kelly's behavior. >> i think all four of us -- >> general flynn. >> i think all four of us saw
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judge sullivan was looking at this much differently than people have on television and elsewhere. jeffrey toobin, kirsten powers, rick santorum, thank you very much. next stop at the white house. more on how this is playing out there. later the end of president trump's charity and some of the truly disgusting al waigss surrounding it.
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more now on a pressure packed day from jim acosta who joins us from the washington. what does it tell you we actually haven't heard from the president himself since michael flynn left the court? >> reporter: john, i think that's interesting, though he did tweet about the wall and how he wants a wall on the border, despite the fact that they seem to be giving up on getting funding for the wall in this showdown with congress over a possible shutdown. but yes, i do think it is notable that the president didn't weigh in when he started off the day wishing general flynn good luck. obviously, the luck did not turn out the way the white house had hoped when they heard michael flynn -- or at least heard tweets coming out of the courthouse that michael flynn basically said he knew he was committing a crime when he was lying to federal investigators and that his legal team said no, their client was not being harassed and entrapped when he was being questioned by federal investigators. that ran completely contrary to
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what the white house was saying. john, we should point out the briefing with sarah sanders lasted only about 14 minutes. that was four minutes longer than a segment she had on a conservative news outlet earlier today. there wasn't a whole lot of time for answers but at the same time they were trying to make the case that it was essentially okay for michael flynn to lie in this investigation whereas michael cohen is a rat. that is obviously tough sledding any day in a white house briefing, especially this white house. >> yeah, it's hard to understand that distinction. it's one of those areas we've been asking as much as we can to try to figure out what's going on there. when it comes to michael flynn, i believe the white house legal team, just like everyone else that he would go into that courtroom, probably get no sentence, and walk out. now no sentencing for at least three more months. what kind of pressure does this put on this white house? dealing with so much. >> my guess, john, is what you're going to hear over the next three months. we did not get a chance to ask this question today. but i believe this question will come and it's going to come over
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and over again for this president. that is whether or not he's contemplating a pardon for michael flynn. what we saw from michael flynn today and it was surprising coming out of the courthouse, that essentially the white house had no plan b from a messaging standpoint. they said okay, we believe michael flynn was bullied, he was entrapped and so on. and then when that blew up in their faces, now they're left with the pressure that comes from looking at redacted court filings from the special counsel's office and so on. i would have to expect that that is going to weigh down on people inside the white house, most notably the president. but when i talked to a source close to the white house earlier this evening, an outside adviser, there is still a strong belief inside trump world that michael flynn does not hurt donald trump, that the crimes that michael flynn is pleading guilty to have to do with lying to federal investigators, that collusion with russia was not proven and even though there are all those redacted sections in those court documents at least
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inside trump world there's not -- panic has not set in in thinking oh, my goodness, michael flynn just gave up donald trump, they've now proven collusion. there is some confidence, at least tonight, can't say this moving forward, but at least tonight that they haven't made that link just yet. >> jim acosta for us at the white house. great to have you on. thanks so much. >> you bet. so kengts staneth starr no r to moments like this. led the investigation which led to the impeachment on president clinton. now his comments on fox news about a few of the multiple investigations of the president have goent at tension of the president. judge ken starr former solicitor general independent counsel just stated that after two years there is no evidence or proof of collusion and further that there is no evidence that there was a campaign financing violation involving the president. thank you judge. now, ken starr i should note has a book out contempt a memoir of the clinton investigation and most importantly he joins me now. judge, thanks so much for being with us. >> good to be with you, john. >> i've had the chance to talk
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to you a lot. usually in the morning not at night. nice to see you without the bags under my eyes. >> after sunset. ? yes, after sunset. you have not seen any evidence of collusion yet. i also know, which maybe the president has missed, you've also said there may be a lot that you haven't seen. >> absolutely. >> and you've also said that robert mueller is a man of high integrity and you trust him to conduct a thorough investigation. >> yes. and i haven't changed my position. no, i've known john, as i think you know, bob mueller for a long time. i have questioned his judgment in terms of some of the people around him, but i know him to be a person of absolute integrity and he's going to be out to get the truth as quickly, as efficiently as he can. so what happened today in washington, d.c., those dramatic moments in judge sullivan's courtroom -- and by the way, i know judge sullivan. i know him to be a man of great honor, tremendous experience, very high integrity. is in its own way a testament to
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the bob mueller investigation even though, even though sentencing didn't occur today. that's a huge setback. obviously above all for general flim. but in a way it's a setback for bob mueller as well. you've got a deal and you want to go for it and you want it to go smoothly and it did not today. >> why is too tha a setback? what impact does it have going forward? >> it shows the judge was not prepared to go forward or at least there was fear that he was not going to september recommendation. prosecutors look to judges to listen to their recommendation with respect, and the judge apparently may not have been ready to accept bob mueller's recommendation. >> i guess i was trying to figure out why it would be a setback for mueller. would it be because if mueller's trying to dangle a deal in front of someone else they'll be like you know, what you promised me no jail time but all these judges, they're not believing you. >> i think that's a little remote. you just work these cases so that you have a deal and you want the deal to be consummated and you want it to go smoothly
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in correlate. that means that the other people who you're working with, other witnesses, can have confidence in you and that the judges have confidence in you. you didn't have that today. i'm not saying there was a vote of no confidence. i just said the thing did not go today the way bob mueller wanted it to go. and that's a setback. >> back to the idea of collusion and the president referencing you in his public statements on twitter. to be dlaer, he's using you to claim exoneration. you don't think he's been exonerated. >> right. we have to get all the evidence. i've been consistent on this. let's gather all the evidence, which i think bob mueller is doing. let's assess it, evaluate it. i think what has been proven, at least in charged indictments, and there's a presence of innocence, sen orms russian interference. and the more the data come, in the more we see that the russians at very high levels were interfering with the american democratic process. and that's unconscionable. but what we have not seen then is that next step of collusion
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or conspiracies between the trump campaign and these russian operatives. >> do you think the administration has taken the russian interference, the russian attacks seriously enough as a citizen? >> oh, no. i think -- well, the administration -- there's been a difference between what the administration has done including imposing sanctions, and i have said publicly i wish the president would stop in any way sulging there's the slightest doubt about what our intelligence agencies have concluded and what the mueller investigation is also pointing to which is russian interference. >> so you've been in the legal business for a long time, a lot of time as a prosecutor as well. when the president keeps referring to michael flynn as a rat for cooperating with federal prosecutors, how does that term strike you? >> i think it's unwise and unfortunate. the president is there in his official capacity to uphold the law. i think using those kinds of terms which are shall i say not typically coming out of any
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white house is unwise. >> unwise politically or unwise factually? >> no, unwise in terms of his duties to enforce the law and to be an example of we have a rule of law country. we're not like russia. we have a rule of law count. we saw that today with the checks and balances of judge sullivan. i do think judge sullivan got, i will say, this a little carried away. but he's a very wise man. he brought himself back. he used the t word. he used treason. i don't think i disagree with what was said earlier in the program, i don't think this was called for at all. in fact, i was stunned by that. but going back to the chambers, the judge caught himself, i think he was so offended by this very high-ranking official doing what he did do, which is lying to the fbi and also then violating the law with respect to his representation of turkey. he was deeply offended by what the general had done. >> judge kenneth starr after
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sunset, great to see you. great having you meerp appreciate it. >> thank you, john. >> this could be breaking news. the fight over president trump's tax returns. last minute gift ideas in stores and online. like savings of 35% on natural reflections ladies' chenille cardigan sweaters. plus bass pro and cabela's gift cards make the perfect gift!
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all right. this just in. cnn's dana bash just spoke with the president's tv lawyer rudy giuliani about democratic efforts to go after the president's tax returns. and he just told dana, giuliani did, that the administration is ready for a court fight on it. quoting giuliani, "they have to have a reason for wanting them and i fail to see a reason. they can't just look at them. it has to be linked to some wrongdoing." he continued, "we will fight it in court and i think we would win unless they have a specific allegation." look for much more on this. i want to dig deeper with someone who's prepared to seek answers from this administration. maine's senator angus king. he shared more than his share of time on it. senator, thank you so much for being with us. we just got this news. dana just talked to rudy giuliani, so it's new to me, new to you. >> yes. >> what do you make of this, of giuliani's argument that the
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democrats don't have a reason to get the president's tax returns? >> the first thing to say is i hope you never refer to me as a tv lawyer. i like that. that was a nice note there. no, i think -- i don't think anybody's talking about going after the president's tax returns just as a fishing expedition. i think there will be a number of investigations in the house, and there may be some rules under which getting the tax returns are appropriate. we'll just have to see how it plays out in the house. it is curious that this president is the only even candidate for president in the last 40 years not to voluntarily release their tax returns. it does raise the question what's in them. we'll have to wait to see how the process plays out 2349 house. >> there's a 1924 law that codifies that the house ways and means committee chair can get the tax returns if they have a
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reason. so i think rudy giuliani would have a hard time fighting it in court given that law. what happened if the courtroom today, michael flynn's sentencing hearing where there was no sentence. prior to that meeting president trump tweeted out "good luck." is it appropriate for the president to be tweeting "good luck" to someone pleading guilty to lying to the fbi and admitted to lying to the vice president? >> i've said before, i think it's inappropriate for the president to be dangling pardons in front of michael cohen names and complimenting michael flynn. it's just not appropriate, particularly when these people are involved in an investigation of the president or his administration. it just doesn't have the right feel. but i do think there's around an important point, john, about what happened today. there's a feeling that somehow the mueller investigation is on its own, that it is moving, you know, just as a separate engine of the united states government.
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and what we saw today was checks and balances. if there's a -- for example, to raid michael cohen's office required a warrant signed off on by a federal judge. that's the what i our system is supposed to work. and it's working. they went into court today. it didn't go exactly as michael flynn hoped or mr. mueller. but the judge was an independent party who interposed his decision. he decided to delay the sentencing as you know. and i think it can be an important development because basically it gives michael flynn a longer period of time to cooperate with mr. mueller. >> it's interesting, kenneth starr just noted michael flynn didn't want this today. it didn't go well for michael flynn. but also not robert mueller's team. they had suggested no jail time. they had suggested this be over today. >> but if you look at what happened today, and i wasn't in the courtroom but just seeing the reports of the judge's mood
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it would be an encouragement to michael anybody tone tirely forthcoming so mr. mueller will renew his proposal for no jail time when the sentencing comes up. you've got to remember, and i said last week there was all the to-do about michael cohen's guilty plea and his three-year prison sentence. i think the filings in michael flynn's case are really enormously significant. number one there, was a lot redacted. so he's talking about things we don't know about. number two, he's had 19 meetings with robert mueller and they weren't talking about the weather or the red sox. they were talking about significant developments in relation to this case. he's apparently already given a lot of information to mr. mueller. now there's going to be time for further cooperation. >> there was a bit of news he gave to the country today. the judge and michael flynn and michael flynn's lawyers, they all told us that claims from the president and some of the president's supporters that michael flynn was ambushed are simply not true.
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they all said no. >> that's right. michael flynn -- the judge explicitly gave him an opportunity to withdraw his plea, and in effect argue that he was ambushed or perjury trap, something like that. he did not do so. i think that does underline the fact he was a general in the army, he was in the white house to argue that somehow he didn't know that he wasn't supposed to tell the truth to the fbi just doesn't pass the straight-face test. >> senator angus king, thank you for being with us. thank you also for mentioning the red sox. i couldn't help but smile. >> thanks, john. more now on the tax story. breaking news. on the legal ploefgs underlying it it goes back nearly a century in this 1924 provision in the internal revenue code. the chairman of the house ways and means committee are authorized to request the president's or anyone's tax
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returns from the irs to conduct an investigation. dana bash is on the phone. it sounds like you had quite a conversation with rudy giuliani. >> good evening, john. as you mentioned, the news of the evening comes from our colleague lauren fox, who was told by a source that the incoming ways and means chairman richard neil is going to start to move to get those tax returns because that law allows him to do so and he's made pretty clear that he's going to at least have a hearing after the first of the year. well, as you can imagine, this is something the president and his team are not thrilled about. i did speak with rudy giuliani, this evening, who said that his belief is that they have to have reason for wanting them, and he says that he fails to see a reason. he also said they will fight in court and think that they could win unless they have a specific
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allegation that's leading them -- and by them i mean the democrats -- to find a reason to make this request. >> i have a feeling the democrats will find a request. i also have a feeling this law aclear. this may be a hard fight for rudy giuliani and the president's lawyers. dana bash, thank you for your reporting. thanks to lauren fox as well. coming up, something ordinarily tax-deductible but now it could be a liability. the trump foundation has agreed to shut down what the -- the new york attorney general investigation found what it calls a shocking pattern of illegality, unlawful coordination with the campaign, repeated self-dealing and on and on. let's not ever forget they used other people's charitable donations to buy two large portraits of donald trump and a signed football helmet. the latest next.
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which means it will actually give some money to charity for a change. that's because the new york attorney general's office is going to approve where the foundation's remaining money goes. and as we've been reporting and as we are looking at all week, just about every aspect of the president's life is under investigation. the campaign, the transition, the administration, the trump organization. and yes, the trump foundation. the so-called charitable foundation has agreed to dissolve. but a lawsuit is ongoing acougs the president and his three eldest children of not operating as a charity at all but as a sort of personal piggy bank. the "washington post's" david farenthold has been covering this story for months. he found the largest donation in the foundation's history was more than $264,000 in 1989, which paid to restore a fountain outside trump's plaza hotel here in new york city. the smallest donation, $7 to the boy scouts, the amount to enroll the year his son don jr. was 11. and the list goes on and on. randi kaye reports. >> reporter: the trump foundation was originally
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created to donate money to charitable causes. but donald trump stopped contributing his personal funds a decade ago, instead relying on other people's money like wwe's linda mcmahon, who with her husband reportedly donated $5 million. but the new york attorney general alleges the money didn't go to charitable causes at all but instead helped pay off trump creditors and helped the then candidate win the white house. donald trump has denied the foundation did anything wrong. yet the lawsuit says during the presidential campaign trump allegedly used the foundation for his own benefit by using foundation money to settle a dispute with palm beach, florida over a flag pole he put up at mar-a-lago. the town agreed to waive $120,000 in unpaid fines if trump's club donated $100,000 to a charity for wounded veterans. the donation was
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the donation was instead paid by the trump foundation. according to "the washington post," trump's foundation also allegedly paid $12,000 for a football helmet signed by then defer broncos quarterback tim tebow. trump's foundation also allegedly paid for a six-foot-tall portrayed of trump painted during a gala at mar-a-lago, and another $10,000 for a painting of himself at another charity gala. >> he used it to buy things he should have paid for with his own money. he used his charity's money to buy it. >> reporter: the attorney general's lawsuit accuses trump and his three eldest children who are on the board of the foundation of persistently illegal conduct. that includes allegedly using foundation money to hold a campaign rally, disguised as a charity event, before the all-important iowa caucuses. it found so little oversight on the foundation spending, that's board of directors hadn't even
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met since 1999. and the foundation's pressutrea wasn't aware he was on the board. and about that tim tebow helmet and artwork the foundation purchased, the new york attorney general is saying the trump foundation will have to sell off the possessions, including the helmet and the paints of trump himself. he reportedly paid $40,000 for them. and they're now worth 975,000 combined. joining me mark owens, and former obama white house ethics czar, norm eisen. >> it's about time. i'm grateful that the attorney general of new york has arrived
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at this agreement. you know, john, it's a persistent pattern of taking cash for a charitable public purpose and using it to benefit trump himself. his political expense, his business needs, his own family. it's abuse of public interest for private gain. that's like the pattern in the white house. we can expect more of this accountability. i'm glad it happened to the foundation, finally. >> what do you go through this? $40,000 of paintings, tim tebow helmets. a $7 foundation gift to the boy scouts when donald jr. was joining. any ambiguity there? >> the foundation was used on
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investments. that's a pattern of behavior for state and charity law, and for federal tax law, as well. they tend to penalize the same sorts of activities and misuse of money, same sort of use of money for political purposes. trump was televised with a check from his foundation at a political rally. difficult to deny that. >> i read that you said this is more egregious than similar cases you've seen. >> that's correct. it has an element of frequency, of continuity, variety of expenditures, small and large. the use of money for personal or private purposes. it's not a one-off. it's a pattern over a period of years. ambassador, barbara underwood thought the foundation should be
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shuddered, an important victory for the rule of law. what is next? this lawsuit is not going away. >> no. there's going to be continued proceedings. maybe an order for reimbursement. trump and his three eldest children may be barred from serving on other foundations. there could be federal review of these issues here. but, john, the important point is, this is part and parcel of donald trump's m.o. abusing the public trust for his own personal gain. whether it's in monuments. whether it's the fact he spent a third of his days of his presidency at his own clubs turning the presidency into an infomercial or whether it's a shocking abuse of the rule of law that's now being investigated by robert mueller or the campaign finance abuses in new york. it's a larger pattern. we're just at the beginning of the accountability.
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and there will be much more like the shuddering of this foundation. >> marc, when you look at how this organization was run, they may be a euphemism, with the wild west in there, no oversight. no systems at all? >> that's correct. it's rare a state attorney general would take the steps that barbara underwood did to shut down the foundation. that only happens when a state attorney general concludes that there has been a total absence of governance, that it cannot be retrieved, that there is no public good that would be served by continuing the life of the foundation. >> marc owens, norm eisen, thank you for being with us. appreciate it. let's check in with chris cuomo for "cuomo prime time." >> a good conversation. it goes a step further. not only is trump settling, shuddering, he may agree to be shunned. one of the this things new york a.g. wants is for him and his kids to not sit on the boards of charities for different periods of time. can you imagine that?
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a sitting mr. president of the occupation, not allowed to sit on the board of a charity. we're looking at what happened in court today. major implications going forward the way this guy sullivan framed up with general michael flynn today. and i have a piece of paper here that proves that the president of the united states is changing the facts of a big part of the russia story. the question is, why? i'll take you through it. >> we'll see that piece of paper in about four minutes, chris, thank you so much. up next, more breaking news on a vote that could result in the biggest shaking up of the criminal justice systems in generations. y and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.
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more breaking news, it's practically the definition of news, when the unexpected happens. the senate taking bipartisan action on something substantial, overwhelmingly passing a prison reform bill. easing sentencing for non-violent offenders. aims to reduce repeat offending and expands early release programs. the vote was 87-12. all the votes against the bill were republicans. but major republicans voted for it. those that voted against said
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they could let dangerous criminals back into society prematurely. the bill was backed by the white house and negotiated with the help of jared kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser. the house is expected to take up the bill on thursday. the news continues. i will hand it over to chris cuomo. "cuomo prime time" starts right now. >> thank you, j.b. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." some big blows to the president's case he has done nothing wrong. first, a sitting president forced to shut down after a quote shocking pattern of illegality that involved his campaign. could the president of the united states really be banned from ever running a charity? and treason. the flynn sentencing postponed asking the attorneys if he was treasonous. the judge forced flynn to report in court that theories of entrapment were bogus.
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