was it embarrassing, utterly pointless, a shameless exercise in narcissism and other. that's what we call very official and a very good question on the ridiculist. i want to hand it over to chris cuomo. >> thank you. i am chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. we have new information. the special counsel says that trump's then campaign chair meeting with a russian operative during the campaign is at the heart of the investigation. new details show that paul manafort was lying about meetings that matter. the president all day today crying harassment and even theft of his staff. why he has reason to worry so much about the questions that democrats want answers to. and a key member of congress, staunch defender of the president is here to explain the fears of harassment and his role in an ugly scene at a hearing on guns. and did the president's pal really try to blackmail jeff

besos in writing? i have the letter. i'll read it for you. friday adjacent. what do you say? let's get after it. all right. so this comes directly from the office of the special counsel. they say that paul manafort's 2016 meeting while he was campaign chair with an alleged russian operative named constantine kilimnik. they say it's not a throw away. it's not a detail. it's at the heart of their investigation. and there is new evidence emerging tonight. mueller's team says it has proof that the president's former chair continued doing work related to ukraine in 2018 after he was indicted. think about that. he continued to keep in touch with kilimnik and discuss ukrainian politics through last year. ukrainian politics means russian

politics because that was the context of the discussion. how to do things through ukraine that would be good for russia. where does this come from? a transcript of a closed door hearing on monday. the big question, did the president know about the manafort meetings? that's what democrats want to know, so does mueller. all right. let's bring in one of the president's top defenders in congress. judiciary committee member matt gates. always good to have you on primetime. >> thanks for having me chris. >> do you share the concern about the manafort meetings? why he was doing this and why he would lie about it and whether the president knew? >> a little early for us to tell. we need to see what the special counsel is able to produce in terms of evidence, but as you know, there's a lot of foreign agents that interact with candidates and campaigns and a lot of those were making donations to the clinton foundation. it's part of washington. it's an ugly part of washington and i think that we look forward

to testing the evidence that's presented by the special counsel and whatever proceeding is available just like you like to test people's assertions on your show. >> i have a question about what you just said, but do you agree that whatever that special counsel puts out should be delivered to the american people in the majority of substance? >> i do, chris. i'm a transparency guy. and frankly i think it's silly to suggest that this wouldn't be leaked anyway. most of the information -- >> we don't want it leaked. >> i have no problem with that. it's a silly fight to be arguing about whether or not the full context of the mueller report is going to be made available. i believe you let everybody hash it out. >> but you know what william barr says. he said to at least one democrat, i don't know, the law may kind of handcuff me a little bit in terms of what i can do. that's not what he said at his nomination hearing. he said that's my priority is to get it to the american people. there's some stuff i may have to

do. seems like a reversal? should we be worried? >> there's always exemptions to the law but what you're talking about is whether or not there's going to be any evidence or any conclusions of law or fact that the special counsel comes to that would be hidden from the american people and regardless of what mr. barr says i am just not someone that believes that you ever enrich the discussion by shielding information. >> that's good to hear. now, one of the counters that you used in there, the deal that became known, they looked at it and they wound up running it down and leaving it alone. we don't have any of that certainty. >> that's not true. >> you had a whole look at it. >> that's not true. you're saying things that aren't accurate. the little rock field office that the fbi right now has the case. it's an on going investigation and they're analyzing it. so for you to say we have -- >> almost two years. >> special counsel robert

mueller has had his investigation for about the same amount of time. >> and tons of people indicted and all of this information without him -- >> right but those indicts largely are ghost inindictmedicf russians that aren't appearing. if she showed up and utilized our criminal process for discovery that would be de devastating for our counter intelligence mission in the united states. you can't say positively that it was clean. i said there were a lot. >> that was the ukrainian donations. >> how do you know that? if you already know they were given money then you're making my argument, not yours. >> i'm saying that's the speculation that comes -- >> i'm not speculating. what i'm saying is russians and ukrainians gave a lot of money to the clinton foundation. there's argument that they got favorable treatment. you'll recall the friend of bill designation that would appear on the ledger for large donors of the clinton foundation. so i'm only putting that in the context of the manafort information because it is an

ugly part of washington. >> i think you're doing it a little bit out of convenience to distract from the questions. >> i answered your questions. >> we have never seen people go down like they have gone down around this president. let's be honest. we have never seen a campaign with people they should have known to leave alone. >> the hillary clinton campaign -- hillary clinton was interacting with a lot of foreign actors and foreign agents. she knew a lot of those people. >> very different context. and she's not president. >> you remember covering the trump campaign. they were from one rally to the next. >> they sure had a lot of time to lie about who they met with. >> what are you talking about? the president hasn't lied about anything. >> it's amazing that you jump to him. i'm talking about all the people that have been convicted of it, matt. let's not hash this out too much. i have two other things i want to talk to you about. matthew whitaker. i don't understand what's going on here. i get being afraid of a

subpoena, but the letter sent to the acting ag is, hey, let us know if the president wants to exercise immunity or privilege on any of these questions so we can hash it out before you come. don't come here and surprise me with i'm not answering those questions. that's all they asked for in the letter. whitaker doesn't do that. but then the doj says he's not coming there under threat of subpoena. well, then just answer the question about whether or not you're going to exercise the immunity. what's all the huff and puff about? >> it's a lot of washington gamesmanship. the reality is matthew whitaker is going to be a private citizen next week. so it seems ridiculous to be conducting an oversight hearing with a guy out of a job in a week. the real reason democrats want whitaker in is they want to hurt barr. is if whitaker provides answers and barr deviates in anyway then that's problematic for barr down the road. i don't think this is going to go well tomorrow. i don't find matt whitaker to be

a very compelling issue. i think he's largely an emissions volcano and this is a bad idea and it's probably not going to be a great day. >> let me play what happened at the hearing. sound from you and one of the parkland parents and make your case to the people about why it was worth it. >> i hope we do not forget the pain and anguish and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of silence at the hands of illegal aliens. hra would not have stopped many of the circumstances i raised but a wall, a barrier on the southern border may have and that's what we're fighting for. is there a process in the committee whereby if the very same people are repeatedly interrupting the time of the members that those people will be asked to depart the committee? >> he started saying that we should never forget those victims of gun violence that

were attacked by illegal aliens and how that is a big issue that we need to solve. and the solution is the wall. so that's when i was able to stand up and say, what about us? don't forget about us and our kids. so i guess, the only option that you have as a father is make sure that the shooter of your son is an illegal alien, so they can mention him. >> matt, what is your response? what were you trying to achieve there and what do you think of how it went down? >> first let me say how sorry i am to mr. oliver that he lost his son. these are senseless acts and we're all on the same page to try to make them less likely. there are disagreements as to how to make gun violence less likely. he brought his pain and his anguish to our committee, but he wasn't the only one. savannah is a 24-year-old rape survivor. she told the story of how she was violently raped in a gun free zone because she couldn't carry her firearm with her and mr. oliver was less than ten feet behind this rape survivor

yelling and screaming repeatedly and i looked at her and she was scared. so i know people react to trauma differently, but i was not trying to get mr. oliver thrown out or removed. i simply was asking the committee chairman what you're supposed to do in a circumstance where one person who is like two or three times the size of this young lady seemed to be doing things that were -- he didn't mean to intimidate her but they were intimidating her. she actually complained to some of us on the right that that was an uncomfortable setting for her. so i want to commend the democrat chairman. i think he did a good job of giving mr. oliver a final definite warning that you don't just get to show up in washington and because a terrible thing has happened to you that you get to jump up and scream and yell. >> i hear you about that. >> but it looked like you were taking on the victim's parents. >> that's not true. it looks like that -- >> and something that had no bearing on the situation. nadler feels the same way. >> i'm sure he does. he wanted to have a hearing about gun violence and i wanted

to highlight the fact that there's victims of gun violence that would be in a better position today if we did not have illegal immigrants using guns to kill people. like they did with rocky paul jones when he was killed. >> we know the stats. >> but those are important, chris. >> i'm not saying -- >> why is it that those people that were killed by guns from illegal aliens -- i know you're not saying they're any less relevant. so why is it that your network tries to creatively slice and dice that audio to make it look look i was trying to throw a guy out. i didn't want to -- >> i had you on to make your case but i'm making a bigger point now. i accept your answer about it. you take it up with the parents and see if they're okay with it. that's part of being a congressman. what i'm saying is a wall has got no business in the discussion at a hearing about what to do about these mass shootings and crimes that maybe, maybe can be prevented. it looked like grand standing because it has nothing to do with the solution.

the numbers don't match up and the politics don't match up. >> do you realize that one out of every five people that the federal government charges with murder is an illegal alien. >> no, i don't know that. >> that comes from the bureau of crime statistics. that illegal aliens are three times more likely to be incarcerated than people that come here legally. >> they're incarcerated for coming in illegally. you know the spin on these numbers. the data shows that citizens are more likely to be criminal than illegal entrants unless you talk about the illegal entry. >> i'm not making the argument that illegal aliens are uniquely like more inclined to commit gun violence. i'm saying that it's clearly a very preventable form of gun violence because if you end illegal immigration -- you made your point, i want to make mine. if you end illegal immigration and you had a wall some of these people that were dead at the hands of illegal immigrants that shot them -- >> if you had universal

background checks. >> no, no, no, chris. i did not just talk about that wall. that's just how you edit it. i specifically in my time talked about the fact that the state of florida had red flag walls that we converted our mental health system so people don't come out of jail and back to their arsenals. just because that's what is in your clip, that's not what i said. >> why would you bring it up at all. >> the reason you bring up the wall is because if you have the wall, fewer violent illegal aliens will come into this country and more americans will not be the victims of gun violence. that is a perfectly reasonable argument to make and i'm not trying to shutdown democrats that want to make a robust background check argument. in my state of florida we have background checks and i believe -- under the tenth amendment, those are the things we would leave to the states to be able to have those solutions, but the inference that somehow, if you're talking about guns and violence, you in no way can talk about illegal immigration, that you just have to have that off the table for discussion is ludicrous and it's not the

reality that our american families live. >> but it is the reality because if you're going to talk about stopping the mass shootings that seem to be the only kind of gun crime that anybody cares about in this country -- >> that is outrageous, the only gun crime people care about are mass shootings? a whole lot of people care about the fact that when he was just arresting someone at a traffic stop got killed, a lot of people carried about him and for you to gist that all people care about is the mass shootings is so irresponsible of you. >> i'm talking about politicians and responsibility to do something about it. >> i'm trying to do something. >> these mass shootings keep happening and you do nothing except go on tv and say we're not a lou away and now you say in front of a room of victim's parents and you talk about the wall. that's an issue. >> i advocated for the red flag laws in florida. i worked with republicans and democrats. >> well then why bring up the wall at the hearing. >> because the wall will help have fewer violent illegal

immigrants in this country killing people. that's obvious. >> so will access to mental health and universal background checks. >> so we're not allowed to talk about illegal immigration at a gun hearing but now all of a sudden universal access to health care -- >> you're attacking a little slice of the problem. >> it's not just about the mass shootings, chris. it's your premise that only the mass shootings matter. >> the only ones you guys will even discuss. >> i discussed three other shootings. >> they're an article of convenience for you. >> you think it's convenient for us that people are dead at the hands of illegal aliens. you think that we are -- >> yes. >> that is so irresponsible. >> it's irresponsible of the people that are doing it. you put a premium on certain lives and not others. >> that's like saying democrats want there to be more school shootings so they can have gun control. >> that's what you say all the time. >> absolutely not. the democrats must be so happy

there was another mass shooting. i see it all the time. >> i have never heard that. you put on your show any member of congress saying that democrats want there to be mass shootings. >> no, i'm saying people on the right. not elected leaders. i never had anybody on this show -- >> well, i'm talking about the politics around it that give birth to the kind of cynicism that allows you to go into a hearing about guns and mention the law. >> i will do that every single time i get the chance because i wall will mean fewer people will die at the hands of guns and illegal aliens. >> where do you think a wall is on the list of reasonable moves to stop gun violence in this country. >> it's below red flag laws. it's below mental health conversion and by the way i mentioned all of those. i did mention those things. we did in the state of florida. that's precisely what we did. we went after the root of the problem in mental health care and a broken system that just cycles people around like nicholas cruise was cycled around and we're trying to fix the problem rather than have a basis to deny law abiding

citizens their second amendment rights. >> second amendment rights. you have them. they're secured in this country like nobody else in the world. >> i intend to keep them this way. >> you have more of this type of violence anywhere in the world even if you hold consistent for mental health. we don't have more mentally ill than other places in the world, not per capita but we have more of these shootings. >> we also have a lot of externalities that lead to violence. i'm in total concert with you on attacking those things but it's outrageous to suggest that you can't even talk about illegal immigration in the context of gun violence. >> you talk about it in a hearing about illegal immigration. and by the way, when you do it, you defend the president. he has created a brown menace. people exaggerating their criminality and the incidents of drugs and the incidents of

terror and how it enters this country and how they get into this country. he has exaggerated all of it and given the solution that none of the people at the dhs or cdp would ever confirm as a top priority. >> that's not true. >> that's cynicism. that's bad governance. >> chris, more brown people are working and more prosperous under this president than at any time previously. >> including those that are here illegally and he hires them too. he tries to say you should hate the same people he hires. >> he's not saying you should hate anybody. he says you should follow the law. >> he calls them rapists and killers and gang bangers. >> the democratic party had in their platforms provisions that said illegal aliens were coming in and committing felonies and sent back and right back across the border to do the same thing. this new view of the left that we should be borderless -- i have to own every argument everybody makes on the right but the people on the left that say we should abollish i.c.e., that

border are immorale. >> they have to answer for those. >> those arguments are the ones i have a right to challenge and when we have a hearing on violence, i have an obligation to point out the extent to which some of that violence, not all of it, maybe not even most of it, but some of that violence is preventable if we stopped illegal immigration. >> the kid is coming behind you, let's not mess him up. thank you for coming on and making your case. >> say hello to the kids. they're waving behind you. >> hi, guys. good to see you guys. thanks for coming. >> our thanks to congressman matt gates of florida. you have to have these kinds of debates. it's better to have these things out in the open and discussed than just festering in their little silos. crazy story, the owner of the washington post, jeff besos, richest guy in the world, says he has evidence that the national enquirer tried to blackmail him in writing. i have the letter, next.

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>> stunning allegations of

extortion made against a key figure in the one crime we know directly implicated to president trump. the target is jeff bezos. you know him. founder of amazon, owner of the washington post, wealthiest person in the world and someone president trump hasn't been shy about attacking, right? bezos made a gutsy move today. he published the e-mailed threats from executives representing david pecker, you know him too. he is the head of ami. the parent company of the national enquirer and they tell the motivations behind what they publish. why would they ask that? last month, the national inquirer obtained and published embarrassing text messages between bezos and another woman. he launched his own private investigation into how the enquirer got the texts. ami is worried about what they could uncover. ami is tied to the saudi

government hence that the enquirer's work crossed into peck areas political connections. he says mr. pecker and his company have been investigated for various actions they have taken on behalf of the saudi government. bezos points to trump's contempt for him and the washington post. he says it's unavoidable that certain powerful people will wrongly conclude i am their enemy. president trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. that's what bezos says. then he says several days ago an ami leader advised us that he is apoplectic about the investigation. that's when they had more of the text messages and photos and they would publish if we didn't stop our investigation. in writing. apparently, that was followed with an e-mail laying out the specifics of the pictures in graphic detail. we don't have to go into that here, but trust me, it's not the kind of stuff that you would

want made public about you. so ami lays out demands. spelled out plainly in e-mails, telling bezos to state that ami's coverage of the saudis was not politically motivated or influenced by political forces. that's when he said he made a decision. rather than capitulate to exportion and blackmail i published what they sent me despite the personal embarrassment they threatened. i prefer to stand up and roll this log over and see what crawls out. now keep in mind, this is all happening while david pecker, the head of ami, the friend of trump, is cooperating with the u.s. attorney on a investigation into exactly this type of catch and kill practice. here becomes a question. what is this? is this just political intrigue or is this a crime? is it extortion? you can google it in the break. we have two of the sharpest legal minds to take through what

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now this is some whacky

stuff. the world's richest person is making claims of extortion. it raises serious legal questions, especially when the person involved is david pecker, the national inquirer, head ami the parent company who is close to the president and this moves into the president's life as well. it involves foreign governments. the saudis and them going to the white house with pecker and then him getting in with besos that the president also hates and threatening him in writing telling bezos if you don't report certain things we're going to release things we have on you. all of this is complicated by the current campaign finance investigation going on. the catch and kill thing that involves pecker and the president. let's discuss. cuomo's court. let me try to streamline a little bit. thank you for coming in on short notice. appreciate it. the audience appreciates it and will benefit from it as well. let me have this one line from what's going on with the feds and ami in terms of what they're not supposed to do under their cooperation agreement. it gives us some context.

do we have a line? that agreement does not provide any protection against prosecution for any crimes except as set forth above which is talking about a situation that has nothing to do with this. you play prosecutor. can you play defense. is this extortion by definition for the audience, you're asking somebody to do something of value and if they don't, you're going to do something bad to them. >> chris, thanks for having me back on. as you know, the definition of extortion is you're getting somebody's consent through -- to take some property from them through fear. here the fear factor is revealing these salacious details and photos and texts. but i have to tell you, that as a prosecutor, if you want me to play prosecutor, this is not a case that a prosecutor, there

may be more. it's a very tough case to charge because there's so many complicating factors. there's the potential legal dispute. there's the effort to settle the matter. there's the fact that lawyers are involved. there's advice of council issues. and chris, i tried to get prosecutors to look at things like this. in these very murky circumstances, as much as it smells and wreaks to high heaven, very tough to get a prosecutor to charge it. >> he did you a big favor there. even though they put it in writing everything is in writing because this is an on going legal dispute. that makes it much less than just coming up to somebody and saying i have pictures on you.

>> i suppose less legally threatening because of the lawyer involvement. you're running a business proposal which is arguably extortion, through lawyers to try to give it the venere of settlement and prelitigation settlement and all of these other things that provide protection against the argument that it is extortion. in a totally different context, a lot of us used to complain about how the clintons would flush through their lawyers and then claim privilege and essentially fabricated it. that may be what's going on here. but i would also add that as slimey an outfit as this is, they still practice some form of journali

journalism, a low form of journalism, but that would also give prosecutors pause about hearings. but you do have the quid pro quo with duress. an argument can be made. >> i hear you. thank you for that. the political overtones. pecker. who is pecker to trump? he's his buddy. he's implicated in helping out with the payments to at least those two women. catch and kill. doing them favors. that's being investigated. then there's the saudis. is there anything relevant to you about that because jeff bezos was laying crumbs out about that. he was saying he brought the saudi guy to the white house which was a favor from the president and he was trying to do business with him. is there anything there? >> like so many of these stories -- and i have been privileged to be on your show in the middle of a lot of them when they're breaking. those are hints.

the bezos blog post is full of hints that there were larger political connections. but that's all they are. they're just crumbs. the dots have not yet been connected and i think as is always the case, we need to see how the facts unfold, where the evidence leads. i admit it is insen y, but he d come out and say it. >> maybe i'm too cynical, but i have to tell you something, when i read this, it's not a bad move to reduce the chances that they release the photos and the texts. you do it the way bezos did it, he's already been dealt a big blow by them? he's going through the whole divorce and thing. he's taking a hit. >> this was gutsy. >> it was. >> but it also might be self-serving, right? because if i say ken's going to put out more pictures of me, i

have already been hurt. people already have that on me. i'm already dealing with it in my personal life. maybe if i shame you this way and expose it, there's less chance you put them out because now there's this shady context around it. could be a brilliant play. >> well, that is certainly true on a strategic level. but i read through all the material and if you're jeff bezos that's not an attractive thing for the world to have in it's hands. it's gutsy to confront them publicly, because of how shady this looks, the process looks, even though it was washed through lawyers. this falls in the old gerald ford quote, 90% of the lawyers give 10% of us a bad name. these guys are among the 90%. it is dirty. it makes them look very bad. very low. and if you're bezos, later on,

if they lob pictures at you they undermined their own credibility and you used their own words to do it even further. but because it's so painful personally i thought it was pretty gutsy. >> this is really intriguing because of the players involved, especially when they have this agreement hanging over their head, that you better not break any laws, but people are looking at their behavior with extra scrutiny. i couldn't ask for better minds on this. i appreciate it. what a crazy story. now to something all about fact and not fiction. this probe about russia has been real. we don't know what the outcome was going to be. but there's some questions. why was the president's former campaign chair talking about the russian operative about a

backdoor in 2016? why lie about all of these things if there was nothing to worry about. why does the special counsel say it goes to the heart of their investigation? former solicitor general says he knows. next.

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>> we just got word from the supreme court. it blocked a louisiana access this will be a temporary victory to opponents of this louisiana law that's been out there since 2014. they argue it would decimate safe and legal abortions in louisia louisiana. now the interesting part of the dynamic is chief justice roberts joined the liberals. justice kavanaugh wrote a vigorous consent. he gave the same talk they always give in the confirmation hearing. roe v. wade is the law of the land and now we see a sense of aggression there. where will it wind up? we'll see. is this good news? that's about your personal

feelings and politics. it's not over. the justices could eventually agree to take up the case and uphold the law. what is the law? what does it mean? how does it fit into existing juris prudence. we have the perfect guest. it's good to have you. you know this area of law. we'll talk about other stuff as well but this is a big deal. 2014, louisiana says has to be a doctor who performs the dnc, the abortion, and they must have rights at a hospital within 30 miles of the procedure. opponents say you're limiting access. this was argued in the state of texas about proximity and access. what happened then, what was the precede precedent? what does it mean now? >> in 2016 the supreme court upheld the texas challenge and said you can't do that. it takes away women's rights to choose and so on. so the key thing that we have all been on pins and needles

today because we wanted to know is that 2016 decision of the supreme court going to be good law or not and in order for it not to be good law, the chief justice would have to say i believe this louisiana law is okay and kavanaugh would have to do so too making it five votes to strike it down. >> how could the law be okay if the texas law is not okay? >> because the supreme court is generally bound by precedent but they're not absolutely bound by it. and when you have changes to the competition of the court, and that's why these confirmation fights become so vitrialic, they can change the ultimate law. >> the unspoken incompleteness of what we say is the thing is decided. until they decide to decide it differently. >> exactly. one of the things about the chief justice is, yes he's a brilliant conservative but also an institutionalist. he will sometimes vote to uphold precedents even though he doesn't agree with them.

so he believes in that and the question everybody was asking today for the whole day was, does he believe in it enough on something like abortion? and the answer, and of course this has just come out ten minutes ago, and the answer is, yeah, he might. >> although they didn't say this case is dead? >> absolutely not. it can be heard on the merits. >> could they have? >> they couldn't really because the procedural posture. >> that's all they could do is what they did. >> there's something to read because the four dissenters are saying look, we think these laws are okay and the chief justice pointedly did not join that. >> where was roberts on the 2016 texas law? >> he voted with the conservatives there. >> so it's not a given where he's going to be. >> he does that sometimes. he'll actually vote one way and lose and then continue to vote the way, against what he did before because he believes in it. >> here's two sides of the

policy. the louisiana side of the policy is if you you were to do this it would guarantee a higher degree of competency by the clinician involved in the procedure. is there a good argument to be made that having privileges at a hospital that is proximate to where you're doing this procedure will increase the level of physician competence? i wanted to get the language right? >> it was a really bad argument in texas. it was a smoke screen for basically restricting access and i suspect the same thing will be true in louisiana. we'll have a debate and find out in the court but in general these things are motivated not by health and safety but other things. >> this is a big deal for me to tell you about tonight because the idea that the roe v. wade battle is over is simply untrue. i know you hear it from any judge that comes up for confirmation from the left or the right. but that's the key. they are on the left and the right. you have to know that. these judges are not blind.

that fight is not over. so you have to stay aware. now let's move on. manafort, we know he met with kilimnik. gru, the intelligence apparatus of the russian government and connected to russian interference and he did it while he was still chair of the campaign, august 2016, but then he had other meetings and other dealings that he lied about even after he was going through this prosecution. what does it mean to you? >> a lot. first of all we're talking about paul manafort that was the head of trump's campaign and we knew he was a bad guy. he had done all sorts of bad things. money laundering, bank fraud, conspiracy and the like. but we learned in november he had lied to prosecutors about the plea agreement and what we learned in this transcript that was revealed today is the extent of those lies. they're massive, there's many of them, and they're really

serious. >> this was like a saealed meeting or secret meeting, not so secret -- i'm not suggesting that the special counsel leaked it but it got out. this guy meeting with kilimnik goes to the heart of our investigation. now i would not have surmised that before this because the idea was, well, manafort has got these relationships. he's been with these guys forever. he's known kilimnik for decades. why do they say it's at the heart of the investigation? >> so the transcript is over 100 pages. a lot is redacted because it's an official version, but there's stuff in there that is incredibly damming and the most important thing is page 84 because at page 84, the prosecutors, this is mueller's prosecutor says that the reason why manafort lied may be to get a pardon from president trump. now that i think is the first time, at least in my memory, that anyone on mueller's team

has ever mentioned anything about pardons. now we, the media, and analysts have been talking about this for awhile because trump dangles out pardons sometimes. his lawyer famously dangled it out to mike flynn and indeed to paul manafort a year and a half ago according to news reports, but this is the first time that we actually had mueller's own team say this is what might be going on. >> now two points of clarification. first of all, i didn't mean to be clumsy about that. this is redacted but released. it's not about a leak. this was released. redacted but enough there to figure out. second point of clarification, what work does the special counsel still have to do on this? it's at the heart but there's a lot of dots to connect here. why do i care about this? other than the suspicion about why he lied about something that he didn't have to hide? what could it mean? what do they have to show? >> it means two things. one with respect to manafort. >> he's a liar. >> yeah and the question that we

asked, you and i many times on your show is why is manafort lying? all of these lies. and even after he has pled guilty he is still lying. what is going on? >> right. >> that's what mueller's really trying to figure out and doesn't lead to president trump. what did he know? when did he know it? >> it has to lead somewhere for it to be at the heart. if it's at the heart, let's just take it as a metaphor. if it's at the heart of your investigation, your investigation is to who did what with russian interferers. so it has to lead to something else if not someone else or no, is that rank speculation? >> it's going to lead to someone else. the question is is that someone else trump. >> let's say it's not trump. why does it have to be someone else. why couldn't it just be manafort, trying to keep him happy, trying to have give him polling data, talking about what he's going to get paid for down the road with his lobbying efforts and that's it. >> yeah, if you go to las vegas

and bet on the 1 in 10,000 chance, i guess you're right. but it doesn't make sense here. the idea that manafort, after he's already busted, already pleads guilty, continues to lie and lie about russia. and you know, you had your congressman on before, gates, who said, well, you know, everyone knows that russia, that russians are trying to infiltrate campaigns. ah, not like this. remember that the fbi went to trump in 2016, in august, and to the trump campaign. >> said, watch out for these guys. >> said, watch out, they're going to infiltrate your campaign and tell us. let us know when that happens. >> they never did. >> they always did that. ken cuccinelli was just on, talking about jeff bezos and david pecker and brings out the clintons, saying, they used to wash things like there all the time. matt gates, ardent defender of the president will say, there's a lot of questions about russia and clinton, too. that's part of the tactic of, is there too much examination of this only because it's trump. i just don't think you can say that and win the argument anymore.

>> and i don't even think you can make it a straight face argument anymore. at this point, there have been so many lies about russia and no convincing explanation for any of it. >> honestly, there have been more lies about russia than really anything else. if you take the president out of it, because he has a problem with mendacity. you know, he abuses the truth when the truth would suffice. that's him. but in people around him campaign, even with this inaugural commission that they're looking at now with the democrats, what are they looking for? foreign investors with straw donors, straw donor meaning they do it in my name, but it was actually a foreigner who gave me the money to donate. you're not allowed to do that. even that goes to this same principle of what they were hiding. >> no, exactly. it's like every time russia is mentioned, pinocchio jumps out of the bush, every single time. and that is, and you know, the question is fundamentally why. that's what mueller's trying to figure out. that's why i don't think this investigation wraps up all of a sudden, because there's a lot of questions still left to lirpg. >> i love to bet, as you know, about these things.

and i almost always lose, but i really did feel that this was starting to wrap up. when whitaker said that, i was like, why would he be wrong? >> he's always right. >> he's the acting ag, but we'll see tomorrow when he does that hearing if he actually shows up. but -- and i also believe, i don't see how mueller threatens the presidency. i think this is about lying, why they lied, who knew what and when and wrongdoing, not necessarily criminality, but we'll see. neal, thank you so much. you're a benefit to the audience every time. all right, the president is not happy tonight. what else is new? but this is a little different. he is talking about harassment of the president by democrats. get used to that phrase. you're going to start hearing it a lot. he claims president obama wasn't investigated by republicans. really? it is time for a closing argument that is going to put facts first.

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harassment. >> all right. now, the phrase means nothing. but get used to it and to constant hypocrisy on this point. because this president, at the same time, argues that he should be left alone and yet, we must all unite in the pursuit of justice. >> today and every day, let us pray for the future of our country, let us pray for the courage to pursue justice. >> unless it involves the president. or even if it involves hiring former administration staff. the example, today, the president was reportedly furious when he heard that the house intel chair hired former employees of the national security council. these are the type of people regularly hired by the intel committee. just like they were when republican devin nunes was running the show. but now potus says the committee is stealing people. doesn't he remember that he said to put aside these type of

attacks and petty political tactics two days ago? he should remember that and something else that blows his concerns about presidential harassment out of the murky water of the swamp he apparently inhabits. and now the strongest part of this argument, which is to examine the weakest part of the president's. quote, the republicans never did this to president obama. and nobody accuses this president of being a student of history, but surely he knows that during his first two years, republicans spent a lot of time looking at obama's administration. the uranium 1 deal, the fbi handling of clinton's e-mail case, the strzok and page e-mails, the steele dossier, produced no prosecutions despite being in control of the doj, but they looked at it. and let's look at when obama was president, the gop investigated almost anything it could. fast and furious, the irs reportedly targeting conservative groups, the obamacare website mess,

solyndra, benghazi, ten different agencies looked into benghazi. it took years. but then there is the most damning fact of all, which exposes not just that the president is wrong, but that he is actually part of the wrong he is pointing to. what qualifies as presidential harassment more than this bs? >> he was perhaps born in kenya. very simple. a lot of people are questioning the birth certificate, they're questioning its authenticity. >> his grandma in kenya says that he was born in kenya. >> the president doesn't have clean hands when it comes to harassment and he doesn't have a case that he's being harassed. what he has is trouble. business dealings and a list of past and present associates that is long and stained with lies and legitimate questions that will be investigated by

politicians and prosecutors. and do you know why? because justice demands nothing less. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with don lemon starts right now. i feel like i've got to change the toss to you, because we keep talking. so when i come to you, it's kind of weird, like i introduced you. >> well, you did introduce me. >> and i'm happy to. i love you and i'm great. >> the show actually starts right now, and people -- i love talking to you and people love hearing it, because they know it's authentic. kind of. it's -- at least my part of it. >> ahh. that hurts. right in my little heart. >> no, okay, let's talk about this. >> please. >> can you imagine, can you imagine if as many people under -- in the entire obama administration, had been caught lying to prosecutors, going to jail, lying to federal -- to the fbi, so many investigations would not divest