time. you fight until we can continue to achieve what is right and just for everyone of all backgrounds, all religions and all genders, and ways of life. that's what the great people like nelson mandela stood for. we can't just choose to be good. we must aspire to try and be great. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "the beat" with my friend ari melber. bob mueller revealing michael cohen's crimes, as well as new details on his ties to russia with federal prosecutors in new york dropping the hammer and calling for substantial prison time. let's get right to it, two major court filings out tonight, one from bob mueller who says that michael cohen has been helpful in his russia investigation and, from these prosecutors up in new

york who say cohen still deserves years in jail for a criminal mindset that allowed him to basically commit a host of crimes. all of this is a week before a judge will sentence cohen for all the above. let's look at the latest in the mueller which i was just discussing with our own chuck todd, because bob mueller said he's not taking any position on how much time michael cohen should serve, but he does note that cohen first came into his office, to bob mueller's investigators and lied to him, and lied specifically about money that we know cohen, trump and felix sater were trying to make in russia. mueller said in the new filing that cohen has now taken steps to mitigate those lies and other crimes. he gave crucial information about the trump campaign in russia, this was after he started lying he started telling the truth, mueller said, and he told the truth about russian attempts to reach the trump campaign dating back to 2015,

also russia-related matters core to his investigation. he knew about these things because of, quote, his contact with company executives, a reference to unnamed people in the trump organization, could be employees, could be family members. while mueller said cohen was helpful, the federal prosecutors in new york not impressed at all. it was a they sharashing. they say michael cohen only gave up at the end when he had few other choices. they hammer him. they note he was not actually a cooperating witness, he didn't do what he could have done. and he committed four distinct federal crimes. they say in their version of the case he was motivated by personal greed, he used his own power and influence for personal deception. and it was deception that permeated his entire professional life. they note where the law comes in, the federal guide line would

call for someone to serve about 63 months in prison. while they say he should get a little bit of credit for what he did in cooperating, he shouldn't get much. they call for four years what they call a substantial term of imprisonment. all that and bob mueller filing another big document, this is for paul manafort, the former campaign chair and the, quote, crimes and lies that mueller said justified his plea deal. that document i can tell you has been filed under seal so at this hour we don't know what's inside it. what we do know it's already a big day for bob mueller. i want to get to it with maya wiley, a civil prosecutor in the same southern district of new york. john flannery, a former federal prosecutor, and nancy gerdner, a

former federal judge. maya, what do you think is most important in what mueller is choosing to say and why your former colleagues in the southern district are coming down so hard on michael cohen? >> i think you just said it, ari. what's really relevant here is you have a -- one you have a document that makes very clear that there have been significant contact between those in trump's sphere and russia. we actually already knew that. what we see now is the reverse side of it. meaning we have a long history between george papadopoulos -- beginning with george papadopoulos in march of 2016, who understood his job as connections to the russians. and in april and may communicating up the chain with the trump campaign about meeting with russia. but we also find out that trump

moscow tower deal was happening at the same time and back in november 2015, the russians were also directly reaching out to the trump world. so we already knew that there was lots of contact with russia, even before this document. what we're seeing is that there's a lot more that we did not know about. that we also know that there's going to be a continued investigation into it. that's quite clear, both from the michael flynn filing as well as from the fact there was a lot redacted in that and the fact that the manafort filing has been redacted. in terms of the southern district it's all quite clear. what they're saying, quite frankly, is look, this guy didn't do the right thing. and by the way, he was a lawyer. his obligation to do the right thing was heightened. and he came in, he was not really -- he didn't formulate a cooperation agreement. he didn't agree to talk to us about things that may be crimes

that he was not already pleading guilty to, and that should bring us right back around to the trump organization investigation that they're still conducting. >> nancy, i'm thrilled we have the benefit of your expertise tonight because this is now going right into judge lane. how does a judge take these two very different recommendations? mueller saying basically he lied but he helped, you figure it out. and the sdny saying this is a bad dude. he is a criminal, he's a liar, he thinks he's, quote, above the law and should get about four years. what does the judge do? >> the judge will have two alternatives. on the one hand, this is going to be driven by -- this is a train driven by the prosecution. because it's the mueller part that is the big question mark. right, if it were just the sdny part, then, you know,

essentially cohen would get time and the question is how much. the mueller part is what's driving it. the fallacy of all that we're talking about is that even if cohen were sentenced tomorrow to, you know, four years, three years, or whatever variation that is, he'll continue to cooperate with the government. the government has the ability to file, as you know, what's called a rule 35 motion after the fact seeking a reduction in the sentence. so while this didn't happen in a very orderly fashion with him being a cooperating witness, the rule 35 will continue to hang over him and will lead to an adjustment. >> do you think a judge would give him years? >> you know, i mean, i've been speculating all day. i think a judge will give him years in the face of the -- in the face of the sdny recommendation. i don't think a judge would give him four years. he's before a very tough judge, actually. judge pauly is not someone who's been lenient on white collar

offenses and if you looked only at the four corners of the sdny stuff you would say because of the amount of money involved this guy would get some years, but i say that's speculating because what will happen is the court can impose a sentence and basically stay is sentence, he continues to cooperate with mueller and there can be a subsequent adjustment. >> sure. but this is real stuff. this is not george papadopoulos time. this is the contemplation of real time, real felonies -- >> absolutely. >> we're going to cover this in a couple ways throughout our show tonight, john. but it is not normal, an everyday event to have federal prosecutors go into court and say, we proved this campaign crime -- >> right. >> -- this person admitted to it, and it was done at the direction of the sitting president of the united states. your view of that piece of this tonight? >> that's significant. i mean, there's almost nothing comparable since watergate with

this. and to have a lawyer coming forward, also follows that parall parallel. the thing that's interesting here, is you have a good guy, bad guy presentation by the special counsel versus the southern district. and the southern district gave tough language, like sometimes happens in a labor decision, but then the result of five years, looking at his exposure and what he did, and it could be much more substantial than that. and i agree they could come back and revisit it. they don't want to reward somebody who cab ined off what he was prepared to do there. on the other hand we have the statement by the special counsel basically praising the cooperation despite his lies, despite who he is. how do we justify that as a justice system? they group together. this is the lawyer -- >> sounds like you don't know. i thought you had an answer, john, then you said -- >> birds of a feather.

>> -- how do we? >> i think of birds of a feather. not eagles perhaps, but birds of a feather. that's my answer in this case. if you look at his history of lawyers, mr. trump, we go from roy cohn, to mr. cohen and we don't have as good a lawyer as roy to do as good of the evil things he did in the past -- >> i would revise your remarks. i think what you have is someone as clearly criminal and deceptive as roy cohn. >> yes. >> but less effective in getting away with it. >> yes. >> fascinating narrative here that goes beyond what we knew two hours ago, i'm reading from the documents. i hope people bear with me it's interesting. bob mueller's investigators explain the first time they spoke to him was august 7th at, quote, cohen's request. and he did provide relevant

information to other parts of the probe. then because they knew what they were doing when they asked him questions in the moscow project, quote, he later provided false answers in an effort to not contradict his congressional testimony, which we know was perjury. what does that tell you about the way they gathered and squeezed michael cohen and why are they revealing it now? >> i think they're revealing it so we know what we're dealing with, and they have the advantage to press him to tell the truth by taking his tape recordings and all of his letters and e-mails and the other witnesses they had to talk about him and to confirm what he had to say. also in there they say that we have, by other means, confirmed what he's tilling us, and they were helped and he made some corrections even as he was talking to them about matters, which gave him credibility as a cooperating witness ain the special counsel investigation. i think that's substantial.

i think the real question here, is what's going to happen when we move from whitaker to barr, we have a similar problem. barr is the same person who when they had the iran. contra investigation he said to pardon people -- >> you're talking about news on any other night we would have mentioned but we haven't yet, for those coming home from work on a friday, president trump announcing a new pick for an attorney general, william barr, who served as an watergaattorne general in a republican administration, and who is considered a main stream voice. you might say matt whitaker is as low a bar as can you get when it comes to credentials. he's certainly no matt whitaker. but what interests donald trump about this nominee is that he went along with a group of political pardons in the bush

administration. we're going to get to that later in the show. but maya i want you to weigh in on the same question as john, why are we learning about the way cohen was brought in to the special counsel probe tonight in your view? >> we're getting a strong, public signal that there is corroborating evidence. that's the way i read it. i read, we don't have to just rely on michael cohen. he walked in there, the mistake he made, which is not one that a very, very accomplished lawyer would make, by the way. is he walked in assuming he knew what the prosecutors knew. and that's the thing you never want to do. he walked in, he was surprised, he wasn't expecting to be asked those questions about the trump tower moscow. he then lied, which was dumb. after that lie, and in the remaining six sessions that he

had, he came clean. that's the kind of complexity of the story. here's a guy who's a career liar cheat, he was willing to do it again, but like any solid prosecutorial team, they had solid information, they knew they had facts he didn't enjoy they had, that also means they can prove it without him. even if his credibility is somewhat impugned, they have additional evidence. >> when you put it like that and we just got all of this so we're just making sense of it. so you're saying it's an elegant implicit rebuttal to the donald trump claim that well, michael cohen is saying anything to get out of trouble. so he brought this seemingly bad stuff to mueller and now they're all chewing on it. what you're saying is this footnote shows no, here's the time line of we had the bad stuff, that's how we knew he was lying. now he's an extra witness but not a primary one on moscow

trump tower. >> cooperate with us and you're going to be in a better position than if you don't because we're going to get you. >> i want everyone to stay with me, john. stay with me everyone. there's a whole different filing from paul manafort tonight. nbc's ken delaney has been leading the filing on that. >> here's what we learned, it is significantly redacted. we did learn that the special counsel is saying paul manafort lied about his interactions with a man named konstantin kilimnik, that's important because the special counsel said kilimnik had ongoing ties to russian intelligence. there's a reference to a meeting between kilimnik and an individual whose name is blacked out in the filing. paul manafort lied about that.

the special counsel also alleged that paul manafort lied about another separate department of justice investigation that manafort offered information about. and lastly the special counsel counsel said manafort lied when he said he wasn't in contact with anyone from the trump administration. turns out he was until may of this year. and because of all of that, the special counsel has cancelled manafort's plea agreement and he's now facing up to 15 years in prison. >> when you look at that line, does that relate in your view or is it possible to say, to obstruction or potentially collusion related things since capitol hill ne kilimnik is one of the, potentially, russian-linked handlers? to ken. >> i'm sorry i thought you were talking to someone else. >> i'm sorry, i'm the anchor i'm supposed to use names, that's on me. to ken dilanian.

>> i think kilimnik has always been a mystery figure in terms of collusion. we don't know exactly his role. it goes to the question of paul manafort's role in any contact with russians during the campaign. because of the redactions we just don't see the full picture here ari. >> copy. i appreciate your precision on that. bringing back nancy, our resident judge, i want to go to sum up more of what mueller has said basically through the cohen filing because he's getting into the trump tower deal more than we have before. he said the moscow project was, quote, a lucrative business opportunity required the assistance of the russian government and the company could have been received hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources. nancy, do you view this as an indication that finances may be at the heart of bob mueller's probe of what a collusion conspiracy looks like? money and not just where it

started, which we knew publically was about e-mail hacking? >> i think that's how they followed manafort. in the litigation over whether or not the special prosecutor had a right to go after manafort, one of the things they said was what they were doing was following the money. following the money that the ukraine sources to manafort. and i think following the money is what they are doing throughout. getting back to the sentencing issue, i am reminded that john dean, for example, when he testified before congress, i believe he did some time for his role in nixon's obstruction of justice. so the notion that cohen would get some time, i think that this is right, would make some sense. that was the other question. but the other thing, with respect to the russian issue, we have to step back. there's almost like it was -- we thought this case was about flynn, michael flynn lying about his contacts with the russians. which when, if you recall, sally

yates said that was an issue -- concern about the russians might be willing to extort from donald trump, or it was a way of influencing them because people were lying about russian contacts. so even a failed trump tower project opens the door to the russians, basically, exercising influence on all of the trump players, because they were lying about it. and the more significant the contacts are, the more significant and the more substantial the financial dealings were, the more the russians had on him. and therefore, that raises a whole host of other questions about russian sanctions, et cetera. so it's a -- we've now opened the door much broader to russian influence, not just by lying but by the financial transactions. >> john, you almost get the feeling that they're good at

this and people with more ethics or more government experience may have better resistance, and this crew clearly didn't. >> i think that's true. and, you know, nothing can overcome the greed motive. until the recent disclosures, i didn't appreciate how much the trump hoped to profit from lifting the sanctions, as well as the russians, as well as putin. but because of his investment in this moscow project and because that he was being blocked by the same sanctions that were compromising the auto cats in russi russia, he had that. not just the white house he wanted to achieve but the sanctions lifted benefitted putin and himself. that's really significant. it's interesting to read the manafort document that's been produced. i only had a second to look at it, i apologize for looking down. basically where they say he lied, that tells us what they have that's true and can be proven.

and so that's interesting. they also say on a couple of occasions that he said something, and then when he was confronted with the fact he changed it. we can't ignore he is at the same time sending information back to the trump team as to what he's being questioned about in this investigation. so you have him lying, and you have obstruction and cooperation with the west wing's team representing trump. that's significant. >> that's such a significant point you raise because there's been a lot of this that's boiled down to black and white where people wrongfully think, well, do you go after a sitting present for obstruction or not if that's the only thing and where does that go? but, in fact, as you eludegh bo into the record and into court, the two keep people, the campaign chair and the long-time personal lawyer, both actively came in and lied to him. one of them got blown up over

it, paul manafort, the other tried to dial it back, michael cohen. then the question becomes, who knew about it at the white house, who knew about that? did other lawyers know about that? fraud is going to come into play if you had lawyers or others at the white house committing new criminal conspiracies. that's implicated in here. to say nothing of the campaign finance crime. i want to thank nancy very much. i may come back to each of you in our rolling coverage. i want to bring in neil. a striking deal that federal prosecutors in the southern district do bring up dump in these filings tonight. they say michael cohen not only made illegal payments, we heard about that, but they say in court he made them, quote, in coordination and at the direction of individual one. that is donald trump. i'm thrilled that as part of our special coverage neil joins us

and he argues as a legal matter prosecutors have concluded that donald trump is on the hook for that felony. our viewers may recognize you. of course you served in many high profile legal positions at the justice department, including as acting solicitor general. so i know when you speak of what constitutes a at the lfelony yo do it lightly. >> to me the big news tonight is not about michael cohen, it's not about paul manafort. it's about one person, donald trump and the filing you just started to highlight that was made today in the michael cohen case really does, for the first time you have federal prosecutors essentially saying that donald trump committed a felony. and here's the way that works. first of all, this is not a document by mueller. this is filed by trump's own justice department, by the southern district prosecutors in new york. there's three pieces to the

claim, the first piece is page 11 of the filing that says michael cohen made these campaign finance payments at the direction of trump. we're talking about payments made to two women for their silence for having alleged affairs with trump and they were going to go public. what happened was cohen paid those folks and did so at a time you're only supposed to give $2,700 for a campaign and that's for an important reason. congress said we don't want rich people buying elections. we want transparency in our election process. at page 11 the southern district prosecutors say that was done at the direction of trump. the next key, page 12, at page 12 the prosecutors say, quote, the agreement's principle purpose was to suppress this woman's story so as to prevent the story from influencing the election. so they're taking away the trump defense, which was there in the edwards case, i was doing it to protect my private life or something like that, these payments. they're saying, no, this was

done with the purpose of influencing the election, that's what the campaign finance laws are all about. lastly, page 23, a long description by the prosecutors of just how serious this violation of the campaign finance laws are, how it strikes a blow to our democracy, there's soaring lang uage in there. put all three of those together the southern district prosecutors are alleging the president committed a felony. they're not indicted him. but that's the document they filed. that's a document i have not seen in my lifetime. >> you say you haven't seen that in your lifetime. what you're speaking to is that language of direction. you're saying legally makes donald trump in the eyes of these prosecutors culpable for the criminal campaign finance violation that cohen has admitted to? >> correct. >> is that the end of it or anyone watching is going to think, okay, counselor, that

sounds like a big deal, you said you've never seen anything like that in your life, do they do more with that? this is separate from the mueller probe, do they do more with that? the idea that trump -- >> if this were any other person, prosecutors would be entitled to bring a case, they have reasonable grounds to bring this they said, they have some corroborating evidence besides michael cohen's statements, to suggest this happen, and they could under those circumstances indict an ordinary person. the justice department has said, in two opinions, you may not be able to indict and try a sitting president. maybe indictment, bringing the charges is different. so there's one question about what can mueller do? what can the southern district do in terms of can they indict the president? then there's that separate realm of what happens in terms of impeachment, the standard is

high crimes and misdemeanors in our constitution -- >> right. and before we even get there, i want to pause on that piece of your analysis because some of it gets into, as you say, uncharted territory. are you basically telling us tonight that if donald trump had lost the election, this is the kind of thing that as a citizen he would be indicted for along with michael cohen and it's because he won the election which this new files argues was part of what michael cohen thought would help him, that there was a reward then? a bonus? >> exactly. those three statements that i isolated from the prosecutors' memo established a felony. and we have a principle in america that no person is above the law. right now, the thing protecting the president from indictment appears not that he's a law-abiding person. there's a lot here to suggest that there is a crime that has been committed and the only get out of jail free card he seems

to be holding right now is the one that says i'm a president, you can't indict me, go home. >> you're saying that it's a huge deal, it jumped out to me earlier in the filing, i pointed it out and i'm happy to have you here. i want to make sure we explore the other side of this in fairness. this is an explosive thing on a friday night, we're talking about a filing that talks about the president being an unindicted coconspirator of not just a felony in concept but a felony michael cohen has literally confessed to, which makes it worse for the president. on the flip side, aside from the constitutional arguments on indicting, isn't there a defense to the president that someone was overzealous and did it the wrong way? he didn't direct quote/unquote, the criminal intent, meaning hide it, mislead the fec to that kind of stuff that it's not a

crime. any defense for him there? >> sure. the president is going to try to say something like i didn't intend it for campaign finance violations, i intended it to protect my family and personal life, this and that. what i'm saying is what the allegations are in the filing at page 12 when they say the principle purpose of the agreement was for campaign finance violations, if it's true, it knocks out that defense. now again it has to be proven up in a court, just like any indictment has to be proven in a court. but what we're look at today is something that seriously implicates the president directly in federal felonies. >> i would ask you how the president might understand this, but i'll go ahead and share and spoiler alert. it's not much but he's posting tonight. totally clears the president. thank you. kne neil? >> i'm not sure he's read the filing.

i think if you read just those three pages of the filing, add them up, it's a pretty damning document and i can assure you no one i know would want to be cleared in this way. >> i got to tell control room, someone is holding down the button, i'm not hearing neil. the audience is getting more of you than i am, neil. say something else or give some analysis while we fix my audio. >> great. look -- >> now i hear you. >> so i think what the president is, like many people, willfully reading things that he's seeing and saying, oh, you know, this isn't a big deal, i'm totally cleared. but the words are the words. and the words are really darn damning right now and if i'm the president tonight i'm beside myself and frightened. i know the president has a capacity for self-delusion, but this one is a hard one. those words are black and white on the paper.

>> while i have you, the other big news is william barr appointed to be the new attorney general taking over from whitaker. you are in a position to know him and a lot of the people around him and know how doj works. what is your view of that appointment? >> first of all it's a relief. we have a fake attorney general right now someone who i don't believe is empowered to do the job. so anyone that the president nominates and gets through senate confirmation is a step up from what we have right now. number two, barr is an enormously divisioned qualified person who served as a great attorney general two decades ago. the question to me is not what did he do a long time ago as attorney general, but what are his views now? he's taken some views that i think some have found troubling, about the uranium investigation, calling for the president's targets to be investigated and the like. we have to see if whether or not

he's changed. donald trump himself used to be a democrat. so people change in two decades. so i think it's his current record now that we've got to evaluate. and, you know, i think on the special counsel stuff i can tell you back in 1999, when we were drafting the regulations. i think he saw eye-to-eye with the way we saw it. which was the independence council act, the old statue after watergate was too strong a medicine and had dangerous constitutional ramifications. and the special counsel ramifications struck the right balance because they allowed an independent prosecutor. and he went to the hill and celebrated the idea of an independent prosecutor. so if his old views are still his view today, that's a heartening step, it's not like what matthew whitaker has said about the special counsel. so my judgment is kind of reserved at this point because i want to see what he said today,

but certainly his old views were good. >> that's interesting coming from you, particularly at a time where there is a rush, i think with some reason, to criticize a lot of what this president does no matter what. you're clearly looking into the depth of this individual. his record on these issues, and, of course, he's going to go through a confirmation process. which as we all know we learn new things. i want you to stay with our rolling coverage as well. but i want to show the audience russia parts of this. there are key parts of the filing that go not only into how the trump tower project in moscow was being developed and being sold, but also why it was such import to donald trump and his company. robert mueller writing, it was a lucrative business opportunity that sought and likely required the assistance of the russian government saying cohen was approached to set up a meeting between individual one and vladimir putin.

according to the filing cohen was told this meeting would have a phenomenal impact not only in political but business dimensions as well. and there was no bigger warranty in any project, and the consent of, yes, that would be putin. here's cohen in september 2015 talking about a trump/putin meeting. >> there's a better than likely chance trump may even meet with putin when he comes here for the united nations. people want to meet donald trump. >> yes, they do. bringing in former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfall, who we asked to call in so we can have the benefit of his knowledge. ambassador mcfaul, this is a legal document but it's also in many ways a peek into the national security and counterintelligence premises of the special counsel probe, something we don't often see. in your view do they check out

and what's your reaction to what we're learning? >> i think we're learning that michael cohen wanted to get rich after the elections. and he had been focussed on that. he had been being guidance from various people about how to do that, that's why he had the theory he needed to secure the meeting with putin. if you're trying to do a big business deal in russia, it's always good to have president putin as your partner. i think it's really important to remember they didn't think they were going to win this election when all these contacts and conversations were happening. and michael cohen probably never thought he was going to go to the white house. he was always looking to cash in on his personal relationship with the president to do this big deal in russia. >> it's such a great point. i wonder if you would build on that ambassador, because you've served in government you have a sense how normal government officials and diplomats run and michael cohen is anything but. this was a man who, according to

the evidence we had, didn't think donald trump was likely to win the campaign, although he took all sorts of acts on trump's behalf and didn't think he was going to end in jail either based on the reckless conduct and both of those things are on the table, donald trump having won and prosecutors recommending four years. how does that contrast to say the way it's supposed to be done when people who might be in your position are advising presidents and campaigns get into this world of becoming targets or becoming of interest to foreign officials? >> well, you know i worked on barack obama's 2008 campaign. let's just be clear, you said normal, right? to the best of my knowledge, nobody was trying to do business deals with foreign governments during that campaign. that's just crazy. it's absurd, nobody would ever do that. number two, let's be clear also, we need to learn more, but it sounds like the candidate himself was also involved in

this. and is -- that would be very consistent with other kinds of negotiations and conversations he's had that he would be involved. and number three, i just kind of want to keep reminding people, ari, you talked about it before, the same interlock or thes that they had, in talking about doing what they're calling in these documents, the moscow project are the same people arranging the meeting in june 2016 to help trump win -- allegedly, let's keep adding that adverb -- providing something on secretary clinton to help him win. it's the same group of russians we're dealing with. >> ken dilanian, your view? >> the reason that special counsel robert mueller has said they're satisfied with michael cohen's cooperation, whereas the

southern district is not satisfied is because cohen cooperated extensively about the russia collusion, i don't think we should lose sight of that. in fact, my colleague just flagged one part that said he cooperated about contacts within and around the trump white house in 2017 and this year. that's the first mention of really the mueller investigation reaching into the modern trump white house as opposed to the campaign. it also -- this document makes clear that donald trump lied. i don't use that term lightly. when he said at his first news conference as president that he had no contacts with russian during the campaign, no dealings with russia. we had a hint of it. but this document says in december of 2015, trump conferred with michael cohen about reaching out to the russian government and it seems to be related to the trump tower project because it seems to be the same individual who offered the campaign political synergy and synergy on a government

evangelical. obviously we don't know from this document what was said, but it looks like michael cohen was a target of recruitment here by the russians who were trying to infiltrate the trump campaign. the last thing that's important is cohen talked about the circumstances why he lied to congress. how and who he told and the circumstances of how he gave false testimony to congress. the implication is it wasn't just michael cohen's decision to tell the lies to congress. i think there's more to come on that, ari. >> that's right. that's where the filings both have clues about the notion that other people may have been involved in these things, other people involved in obstruction, conspiracies. neil i'm curious about what you think of this odd use of the word synergy, those in regular life think of that as a meaningless world, thrown around in corporation meetings. i'm not aware of it as a huge

legal signifier. it's like bob mueller went out of his way in that filing to refer to an alliance a synergy between trump and russian officials without using the word collusion, do you read it that way? >> i think that's fair. i think there's something important going on here, and i guess i'd say it's three things i would look to. number one be the trump tower meeting in june of 2016, which there have been so many shifting stories about and today it was reported that at least former mayor rudy giuliani is saying that they believe -- that mueller believes that manafort lied about trump's knowledge, and that trump actually had knowledge of that meeting before it took place. you know, the chronology there was june 3rd, trump's son was contacted by the russians and said if this information is what you say it is, i love it, and so on. and the claim by some has been that trump has said i never knew

anything about this and so on. we don't know exactly what he told mueller in his statement last week but that's one thing to think about. the second thing to think about, this report that evidently there was going to be a $50 million penthouse for putin that was going to be paid for my trump which would be a violation of the foreign corrupt practices act. and number three, why is everyone lying about this? there's so many different lies. lies from cohen, from manafort, lies from people all over. and then they say it's no big deal. it's just russian business and so on. this is people who were -- you know, these campaign officials and trump's personal lawyer dealing with the russians and then lying about it. not just ordinary russians but the russian government, the kremlin itself. that's a very, very -- the american public should have known that before the election, and this was hidden from them. >> right. and that again goes to some of the connective tissue here which is the southern district

prosecutors say there were things hidden from the american public by michael cohen's acts. certainly some of the incriminating information about donald trump's lifestyle was out there. then in the manafort filing which we are just die jegting, some of it i'll hold up because it'll remind viewers what we've been doing all week, some of the hottest stuff is redacted. what's not redacted for your analysis, i know you're doing it live with us, is the idea there's an obstruction conspiracy mueller's term, between kplilimnik and manafort. manafort provided different information about a different investigation. so mueller is saying here's a trump witness going to maybe help us with something else and then mueller changed his story with that and finally -- what's

the legal significance of this, do you think -- that manafort saying he didn't have any type of communication with anyone in the trump administration and he never asked anyone to try to communicate a message with anyone in the trump administration on any matter. that, of course, is contradicted by rudy giuliani and others publically boasting about their communications and then this, i'm reading from the new filing, a text exchange from may 26, 2018 of this year, manafort authorized a person to speak with an administration official on manafort's behalf. how do you view that, neil? why is it in the filing? why is it unredacted? >> i think i don't want to speculate on that yet. i want to think about it more and study the filing. i don't want to punt on that one. so maybe ken and others have views. >> this is what we do around here. no, i'm kidding. i appreciate your precision. ken and john flannery, if he's in the chair, i'll put the

question out, bob mueller, to put it in plane english is saying, john? paul manafort lied to us and he wasn't touched with trump people. go ahead. >> the plot continues. you said it for me. i would say ditto. the thing about the obstruction here is so strong, all the lies and everything we're talking about, what are they? they're consciousness of guilt, we did something we covered it up, covered it up till the cooperate, we lie and then run away. the fox is going to ground. and mueller is as close as he could be to ramming speed. i just -- i don't know that we're going to have a seasonal present but he looks ready to me. and i think a lot of people are going to be very unhappy. and the question is, is it going to be a family plan? do we start with the trump family and the moneys they have? are we going to look at the old gang? are we going to have manafort again with his former partner

roger stone? the possibilities all seem reasonable and the question is will they all be together? i thought this would be the third act in a three-part act, here's the equipment we put in place, this is how we dispense it, and three these are the americans who betrayed their country and compromise us in foreign policy so they could fulfill their greedy inclinations. that's what i think this is about. a lot of it goes to what ambassador mcfaul and others mentioned. manafort claiming he had no contact with anybody anything about, that's a claim to make. you can have a friend in government and talk about baseball or policy if that's your passion and it won't go anywhere near what your lawyers are telling you not to talk about. so he makes this denial and mueller busts him, you were doing it in writing -- the

arrogance -- a text message in may to the administration. i'm sure there are going to be nervous people in the white house tonight. manafort also said he'd been in communication with a, quote, senior administration official through february of 2018, and review of documents demonstrates additional contacts with, quote, administration officials. who are they? did they ever lie? john? >> this is the trojan horse approach. everything else, he was in a corner. he's facing a big prosecution in d.c. and so he makes a false agreement and a plea figuring at the end of this trail, if he does it right, he'll get a pardon from a questionable source, mr. one, mr. trump. so what he does is he cooperates, he lies when he can, and he conveys the information back to the trump people so they can prepare a defense and an attack on the investigation. pure obstruction. now i don't -- i can't remember seeing a trojan horse strategy

like this, certainly at a presidential level, certainly in such a visible place. but the reason we're able to get at these guys is because they're not that good at it. they're terrible liars. they talk publically all the time. they have strategies kids in the streets wouldn't have. and because of it, the republican may be saved. some republican senator may find the backbone -- >> you only have to get through the first few episodes of season one of "the wire" to know not to send the text messages. >> stay with me, john. we're not taking any breaks we're in breaking coverage here. when you look at the filing from the southern district of new york. it hammers michael cohen not only for laws but doing the opposite of what you may have heard about on tv that he was quote cooperating. but prosecutors basically say he wasn't cooperating enough thus

they represent he should get substantial prison time. they detail that, the willful tax evasion, statements to banks, illegal campaign contributions, and false statements to congress. the prosecutors also rebuke cohen for what they call a criminal mindset. at his own option he is above the laws of the united states. we've got all our experts back for this. and i want to go to maya, who has basically worked in that office. this looks to a lot of people like a stronger rebuke than you might have expected from the federal prosecutors there and they also go out of their way to say it wasn't full cooperation. maya? >> i think it's an understandable rebuke, quite frankly. because as i said earlier, number one, this is an attorney. this is someone who took an oath when he passed his bar exam that said he was going to uphold the laws and that he was going to hold the highest level of ethics

as someone who was charged with the law. now, that -- what he also did was walked in, as we've said and, you know, he didn't walk in and cooperate. he pled guilty and then started to try to cut a deal for himself that would help him out. there was some indication in some news reports that suggested that he was, in fact, holding out for a pardon and then kind of felt like he was getting thrown under the bus. so maybe it was in his best interest to paint a different picture of himself. so i think what you're hearing from prosecutors is look, we don't like people who violate the law, particularly when they do it over a course of years, and then come in and try to play us. i guess the dmx argument on sentencing didn't fly so well with them. they actually make a reference essentially to that argument that somehow he hasn't done anything as bad as some others. and then finally, finally i think they're making quite clear, while he has cooperated,

it really does seem like he's done it in a way that was really about his best interests. let me say one other thing about why it was in his best interests, because the district attorney of manhattan, as the s attorney general, are also investigating what we're calling campaign finance law violations. they're looking at estate tax felonies and possibly misdemeanor crime in falsifying business records at the city level. so, what that is really saying is you're not going to get a pardon if they find reasons to indict you in this at the level of the city or at the level of the state. >> sure. and look, maya, we discussed the dmx defense earlier on the broadcast. it says where my dog's at. no. it doesn't say that, but what it does say is, neil, that other celebrity types and prominent

types have been delinquent on their taxes and avoided jail time. maybe michael cohen should get that light a sentence, that slap on the wrist. and as maya alludes to, that was wholly rejected in this filing today, starting with the fact that they lay out that this was not a choice of full cooperation, he was dragged to it by his decreasingly optimistic outlook of what he could get away with. >> i totally agree with maya, who is a great southern district prosecutor and has done this before, but i think i'd add one more thing to what she said and what you're asking about, which is prosecutors went out of their way to say this campaign finance visi violation is really severe. they didn't have to use all the language about the threat to democracy and things like that. so, it's pretty powerful language. and to me, it suggests that they are really stealing themselves

and laying down a foundation to say these campaign finance violations of which there were two people involved -- two to tango -- michael cohen and donald trump are very, very serious. and so, i think there's a second piece, a second move on the chess board that's going on when you look at that filing today. and again, it's not a filing by mueller. it's a filing by federal prosecutors in the southern district of new york that's extraordinarily significant. >> and i want to bring in jennifer reuben and also go to a broader point, jennifer. jennifer is a "washington post" columnist, a conservative and a critic of trump. i don't want to be too poetic, but i wonder if we can begin by noting, jennifer, that this is a president that's taken extraordinary measures, identified by his own lawyers, some of them as potentially impeachable, to try to shut down and undermine the doj and prosecutors and rule of law. so i wonder if having gone through all the details, it's

fitting to turn to you and look at what is working. career prosecutors doing their job, career prosecutors identifying individual one for directing this, because that's what the facts show. apparently, they're not afraid of what that means or that donald trump will get in there. they don't have the same buffers that the mueller prosecution team does. and that, i should note, is the southern district of new york, where donald trump famously invited then u.s. attorney preet bharara to trump tower for the rare and unusual step of having a meeting with a person who is the prosecutor for his jurisdiction, trying to cultivate him when that didn't work out firing him. preet bharara has gone on to detail all that. gosh, it looks pretty different now that we know that was the office that was going to go forward and give a four-year recommended jail sentence to trump's then lawyer cohen and recommend that trump directed it, jennifer. >> right. i think there are about four or five key reassuring things that we can draw from the events over

the last few hours. the first is that facts matter. and the facts in this case do not turn on the credibility of a single individual, whether it's cohen, whether it's manafort. obviously, the special prosecutor has a wealth of information. the southern district has a wealth of information -- documentary, other witnesses, e-mails, texts. and so, facts do matter. we've gotten used to saying facts don't matter because trump makes stuff up it. that doesn't work in court. the facts are presented to a court, the judge will rule on sentencing. this is the real show, so facts do matter. second secondly, you have a slight difference of opinion here, which shows how independent that southern district of new york is. remember, the southern district of new york is only involved with cohen on the issue of the campaign finance issues. mueller with everything else. he has perhaps been more helpful with mueller, which is why mueller is willing to be more lenient, but he really hasn't given enough, or in the opinion

of the southern district, enough to justify a significant reduction in penalty. and so, you see these two branches of the justice department, which are all under the executive branch, taking slightly different positions. that's not bad. that's reassuring. that's saying people are exercising their independent judgment based upon the specific case before them, which is different, and based upon the facts before them, which is different. so, that should be reassuring, that all this bullying of the justice department has really amounted to nothing, because people are doing their job and proceeding. i think the third point that we should have is that it is going to be impossible, i think, at this point to either withhold a final report, if we ever have a final report, and/or fire mueller, because what he is doing and what the southern district is doing are now creating a parallel report, if you will, in the public domain, through the courts, through these filings.

so, we are getting to know in realtime the extent of that information. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube once that's out there. so, in some ways, they've created some protection for themselves. and i think the final thing we should keep in mind is these people who have been enabling trump, whether it's rudy giuliani, whether it's people in the white house who think it's fine to lie for this guy, it's fine to lie to the public, you can do whatever you want because your only client, your only responsibility is to trump -- those people are in a heck of a lot of trouble, because those people may now be involved in actions which constitute obstruction of justice. the fraud exception will be making it possible for lawyers to hide behind the attorney/client privilege. >> right. >> and this should be a warning to people who work in government and to lawyers that you must conduct yourself within the confines of the law. >> right, that you have ethical and legal obligations. >> obligations, exactly. >> i want to do a lightning round with my large mueller

friday "brady bunch" panel here. yes or no -- lightning round -- yes or no, do the events and filings of today increase the legal exposure of individual one, donald trump, yes or no? john? >> absolutely, yes. >> nancy? >> absolutely, yes. >> maya? >> oh, yeah. >> neal? >> 100%. >> jennifer? >> oh, yes. >> ken delainan? >> the answer is yes because this has been the most consequential day yet of the mueller investigation. >> that is quite a statement, given how many days there have been. i want to give a special thanks to our entire panel and the legal analysis here. and if you are joining us right now, you've been watching "the beat with ari melber" on a day when bob mueller spoke through speaking indictments and the southern district of new york spoke. and what we heard were two different stories that intersect with criminal activity,

confessed as well as alleged. in the case of cohen, confessed, and alleged with manafort. and obstruction of people tied to the united states. individual one, donald trump, identified for the first time for directing a campaign-related felony. a big day, indeed. thank you for watching our coverage. that does it for me. you can check out "the beat" 6:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc.

good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. federal prosecutors in new york have accused the president of criminal violation of the federal campaign laws. they say trump directed -- that's the word -- michael cohen to cover up a campaign contribution in the form of payments with two women with whom he had sexual relations. this comes from the southern district of new york, not robert mueller, not the so-called 17 democrats the president says are working against him, not the deep state, not from a witch hunt. it's from one of the two sentencing memos filed in the case of trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, today, which are shedding new light on the president's potential legal exposure. as trump's longtime fixer, cohen pleaded guilty in august to campaign finance violations and making hush payments to two women on trump's behalf. and now, tonight's sentencing memo makes clear that "with respect to both payments," cohen acted in coordination with and