nineteen sixty eight. the global evil start september first. this is due to be news live from berlin is it the worst hour for the presidency two of the president's close associates are looking at the possibility of a lengthy jail for games former lawyer michael cohen pleads guilty to a hush money scheme to influence the twenty sixteen election and campaign manager paul metaphor is convicted for financial crisis will have a look at the implications for the white house. also coming up the height of

desperation along one of europe's two land borders with africa t.w. goes to the spanish territory of say utopia the following migrants determined to get across. i'm brian thomas thanks so much for being with us dramatic developments in the u.s. where two of president trump's closest associates have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty of criminal offenses the most potentially damaging for the president the statements of michael cohen president transformer personal lawyer he pleaded guilty to multiple charges related to the twenty sixteen election campaign . some of those charges stem from hush money schemes toing worked out with a porn star and a former playboy playmate the two women claimed they had affairs with the president . he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed

would be detrimental to the two thousand and sixteen campaign and to the candidate and the campaign in addition mr cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting him for invoices to the candidates company which were untrue and faults they indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year two thousand and seventeen when in fact those invoices were a sham he provided no legal services for the year two thousand and seventeen and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the odd lawful campaign contribution from or in the sun joined now in studio by political analyst tyson barker of the aspen institute here in berlin good morning ties in the morning does this mean that cohen still to play does that mean the president broke the law it would seem that way i

mean you know when they were talking about these two where he pled guilty twice for illegal campaign contributions to a candidate the clear candidate was donald trump the payments were made in february twenty seven thousand from the trump organization it seems all directions all arrows point to trump himself ok does that mean that the president could be indicted well. the truth is that there's no precedent for and i know of a president in fact former special counsels including ten star have delayed indictments or pursuing criminal prosecutions of presidents until they've left office so the precedent set is that they don't indict sitting presidents ok we have though seen legal troubles for the trump team for the president before him talking about general michael flynn impregnated of course in a potential wrongdoing allegations at least is the cohen case different yes it is in some ways i mean when you talk about michael flynn when you talk about paul metaphor these are really associations and there's a. a lot of correlations there but there's no causalities with michael cohen you

have a direct causal relationship you know we have these tapes that cohen himself or at least where he's discussing payments to care mcdougall so we have much stronger evidence that there's a smoking gun here ok to get our viewers the background now on that second case that could put pressure on the u.s. president another former trump associate his former campaign manager paul metaphor has been found guilty by a jury on eight charges the judge in that case declared a mistrial on ten other counts amount of four was convicted of filing false tax returns connection with millions of dollars on lobbying for ukraine failing to disclose all sure bank accounts and two counts of bank fraud not a foolish prime's came to light as part of the investigation into possible washington influence on the u.s. election president trump commented on the verdict after landing in west virginia where he attended a rally of supporters. and you would

think if you were a lot of different people over the years. very sad that. it is it is me but it's still you know you know the right thing to have. nothing to do with religion really started rushing to look at you this is nothing to do so when did it just break. and give the president characterizing this all as a witch hunt tyson why has president trump defended matter for lengthily and not made any comments on my own i think the reason is because the the heat is a lot hotter with michael cohen i mean this is really lapping right up against the white house and could be grounds for impeachment there's been a lot of talk about impeachment including within the white house now with paul metaphor and again it's this association issue there's plausible deniability there he can honestly say i might not have known anything this is

a witch hunt this is completely ten gentle to our campaign this happened before the campaign etc so i think he feels much more comfortable using that as a point of attack than the cohen case ok a lot of people would say the indictment claim is a little bit too early because look at the political stakes for the president having the midterms there coming up in november just become a much higher stakes game for president trump and well i mean there's there's no question that the the question the atmospherics of corruption are starting to really permeate the election atmosphere right now and you already hear from democrats talking using trump's phrase drain the swamp you know pointing at this culture of corruption that exists that said this is going to have a great rallying effect on his base as well he was in west virginia ground zero for trump support you know basically saying they're attacking me for unfair grounds ok now let's look at how both these cases are likely to affect the miller investigation right that's still out there what do you think willis play. into that

at all well of course it's going to play into that this is a lot of forward momentum both cases although not prosecuted directly by miller and his team were out of that investigation that said the president still has a lot of tools in his toolbox he could fire mower indirectly or directly through a couple of firings or he could pardon these people when we have to remember the guilty plea and the guilty verdict or both held in federal courts or federal institutions that means he could pardon both metaphor and co and there's a record of presidential pardon so far during this administration correct i mean he's pardoned joe arpaio for his arizona sheriff exactly arizona sheriff many people found lacked grounds he pardoned. after the fact scooter libby so he's already setting the grounds for use of pardons liberally contests barker thanks so much for that from the aspen institute this morning. now for a look at some of the other stories making the news this hour facebook and twitter have removed hundreds of accounts they say were part of a distant from ation campaign targeting users social media giants claiming the

accounts are part of coordinated propaganda programs that originated in both russia and iran. thousands of anti corruption protesters of broward in front of argentina's national congress they call them lawmakers to strip former president cristina fernandez to care of her congressional munity amidst the bribery scandal she's accused of leading a corruption scheme involving officials and business leaders during her time in office. a powerful earthquake shook venezuela's northern coast and parts of the caribbean tuesday seven point three magnitude quake was the largest to hit the country in more than a century but occurred so deep below the earth's surface that it caused only minor . laws italy and malta close their ports to migrants crossing the mediterranean many are now desperately looking for other ways into europe one of europe's most heavily fortified land borders is one of their last resorts thousands

have descended on a tiny strip of land in africa the border between morocco and the spanish territory of say uta but getting across is no easy feat a six metre high fence barricades eight kilometer long border debby's all over solid falls a group who have spent years trying to reach europe and say they'll never give up salif and his friends have to make their way to the high note carefully it's in the mountains of morocco near the border with see. they say the police could show up at any time and destroy their camp the group have thousands of kilometers behind them now just a few hundred meters separate them from europe that fence this man from guinea shows as deep cuts there from his attempts to storm the border.

my father is dead my mother has nothing not even food i'm the oldest son and i want to try and make some money to help my mother that's why i left. they have been travelling for two years since leaving guinea. with some fifty thousand others all hoping to make the journey from morocco to euro. salif has been waiting six months for this chance saves us fans is this final hurdle. i have many friends who have made it to europe so many have recently crossed the border we trust in god that we will also make it someday. on. the fence or to stop them it's eight kilometers long and fitted with razor wire along with the territory of this is the only other border in africa on the other

side is a. deal it's his job to secure this border but lately that hasn't always been possible. over six hundred migrants managed to storm the fence at the end of july the police are helpless and talk of unprecedented levels of violence makeshift flame throwers quicklime and grappling hooks are the migrants weapons of choice but i am we have to put out those we are going to they were very well prepared and organized. but what small there was so violent that we could not get to the fence. and in fact threw acid at us and did all they could to prevent us from closing the holes that i had cut into the fans. up on out the. boss of bosses victory over the fence it's taken years for them to reach their destination. the

temporary reception center in c.u. to is fit to burst they have to stay here for one year then they can continue on to spanish main lent only a few of them apply for asylum since hardly any of them have any chance of asylum in europe it's putting pressure on the city of eighty thousand people the number of arrivals is barely sustainable council representatives say the situation and see you to is becoming untenable. that you have to respect the food is it's not same cane that the migrants are attacking off fence in this way we do not have the capacity to accommodate everyone here that would be impossible but at the would seem from data. that's another reason why tough border checks are part of everyday life in sale to as well as hours of traffic jams some twenty thousand people travel in an alt over the course of the day many moroccans make a living out of trading with the spanish and played. for alfonso crew sato

and the guardian monitoring this border is a mammoth task six hundred employees work around the clock they use camera. to control the various sections of the fence and also the coastal area around the strait of gibraltar it's a well rehearsed team but it's reaching its limits. stopping large groups of people is very complicated you need good cooperation between the moroccan authorities and our. usually both sides organize themselves well and everything goes well then we reach our goal. the young men in the mountains of morocco believe in strength in numbers and his friends are already planning their next attempt to storm the fence they're tired of the brutality of the hands of the police. they only find

food at a nearby rubbish dump a soft drink a cucumber. amole potato life here is unbearable. morocco is teeming with police offices. all of my friends who left guinea with me made it to syria to. what am i supposed to do here i'll stay here until i can get in. their sense of desperation is what drives them for salif and his friends it's europe or nothing. and we have much more on europe and migration our website e.w. dot com it's to the skies over lower austria now where was sometimes difficult to actually see the sky because of the world hot air ballooning championships one hundred fifty balloons involved in that week long event they've come from thirty eight countries now the blueness go up twice a day and the pilots compete in

a number of events like flying their craft closest to certain targets or on thing a chase balloon this is the first time the by annual event has taken off. that's all we have time for our. entire team thanks so much for being with us and readers with you again at the top of the out. good. books do we really know about the man behind the. biggest moments in the life of a great designer. that starts september. w. .