her name is barbara underwood. you probably remember the previous attorney general very high profile who was turfed out of office in a very ugly scandal involving allegations of sexual misconduct. his name was eric schneiderman and he aggressively pursued a national profile. but when he imploded new york state lawmakers decided they would have the solicitor general from the state of new york slide over into his office and become the temporary acting ag. i think they were they were thinking, we need a legal, legal, we need a legal official. solicitor general, she argues cases. can she take over for a second? i don't even know if the new york state lawmakers knew what they had done when they picked barbara underwood. i don't know if they understood who this was they were putting in the attorney general's office in their state. she is a bigger deal than any of them. she is freaking impressive, argued 20 cases before the supreme court, magna cum laude at harvard, first in her class at georgetown law school. she was a c

that brings us back to barbara underwood. a month after she flipped gene the taxi king friedman securing his cooperation with prosecutors in return for lean jens that led to the -- leanence for guilty pleas of michael cohen, she filed a civil lawsuit against president trump's charitable foundation, people of the state of new york, by barbara d. underwood, attorney general of the state of new york, against donald trump, donald trump jr., ivanka trump, eric f. trump and the domnald j. trump foundation. for more than a decade the donald j. trump foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law. this pattern of illegal conduct by the foundation and its board members includes improper extensive political activity repeated and wilful self-dealing transactions and failure to implement formalities required by law. alleging the trump foundation that before trump ran for president he used his charity as a fake charitable enterprise that only benefitted himself. once he started running for president he basically

barbara underwood brought this really critical, civil action in june.he donald trump foundation, but we already know enough to know that we need investigations into the organization as well. this is like you have to follow the money. that's corruption 101, follow the money. >> zephyr, the only person who has not pled guilty in the mueller probe is paul manafort and many people including me think he is aligning himself for pardon and some of the language the president has used in relation to paul manafort is similar to language he used before pardoning other people. can you explain what kind of state charges you think may be brought against paul manafort if he does receive a pardon from the president? >> well, it's a very fair question but since i may be in the position of actually bringing such charges i don't want to name particular kinds of charges that might come. but the key thing to understand is that new york state has a broad array of criminal statutes involving financial crimes, false statements, a whole range of crimes that we should investigat

report" is about how cyrus vance, the district attorney of manhattan and barbara underwood, the attorney general of new york should be going after these issues because some of the crimes that cohen has confessed to are also state crimes and this is an opening to get into these matters in the event the mueller investigation is shut down. but we clearly now have from michael cohen statements about the manipulation of this election for a foul purpose and think of john edwards who was convicted of just that sort of crime. >> he was charged, he was not found guilty of that crime, although there are a lot of people who consider this to be a much stronger case here because there is a witness who will testify in court, michael cohen, that this happened and there also might be a paper trail. >> wire transfers and such. >> and documents. they've indicated there are documents in this case from the raid on his homes and offices. >> david gregory, we're getting reporting from our white house unit that says that president trump, while he always was fearful of what michael cohen might say, what kind of

. >> led by new york's barbara underwood condemned proposed change noting plans to sue.hey want to reduce carbon pollution, save drivers money on gas, improve air quality separately today, the term administration moved to -- representing 40 million americans. california sued inmate in anticipation of today's actions. california would do whatever it takes to maintain today's clean car standards. both sides in this fight argued that saving lives is their primary concern, opponents noting to meet tougher standards. >> the light of the vehicle, the higher the risk for the driver. >> indeed, the institute of highway safety admits that two-thirds of the vehicles with the highest death rates were small cars, or many cars. but proponents of the change site childhood asthma, wildfires of manifestations of climate change brought on by increased co2 levels spewing in part from auto tailpipes auto tailpipes. >> the earth is not flat, and climate change is real. can someone please inform the folks at the white house? >> if the rule becomes finalized, it will not change the availabili

that's how barbara underwood was able to flip the taxi king, which gave us, i think, basically most of the criminal charges against michael cohen already this week. if she is going to put the same kind of squeeze on cohen at the state level, nothing what he pled to at federal court will help and that will be a whole new level of hell for him. >> and as you have been pointing out this week, donald trump can't pardon his way out of new york state charges with any of these people, including himself. >> exactly, exactly. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks, lawrence. >> here is something you have never heard a president say before: if i ever got impeached. the word impeach has not crossed the minds of most presidents. there is no reason to even mention the word during most presidencies, and there has been much media debate this year about whether it is too soon to discuss impeachment in the trump presidency. that debate ended today when the president of the united states discussed his own impeachment when he was asked about it on fox news. >> hard to believe. if the democrats take back power,

state attorneys general like new york's attorney general barbara underwood who just subpoenaed michael cohen as part of an investigation into it. a yale law professor says the idea of a state attorney general trying to indict a sitting president, if a case went forward that would -- it would be up to the courts to decide whether the president is immune from criminal prosecution. up to the courts, not the department of justice. so if you were looking for a trap door in the office of legal counsel's opinion on indicting a sitting president, the trap doors are there -- if you know where to look. joining us now is matt axelrod, a former justice department prosecutor and senior department of justice official under president obama. matt, thanks for joining us. you have been looking into this. you have been thinking about this and the provocative argument mere is that even if we assume rural's hands are fully tied by the olc opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted in 1973 and in 2000, there might be other people who can step in, namely state and local prosecutors. can you think of

new york attorney general barbara underwood suing the state for violations of law. bring you in since you've been writing about this. great to have you here. explain to me in which a state might work around this prohibition or this guideline against indicting a president? >> so as you mentioned the legal counsel memos are binding within the executive branch, but they're not binding on anybody else. and so a state attorney general for instance could bring charges against the president while he's in office and would not be prohibited from doing that by the counsel memos. >> and i would assume at that point the government would have to be in court and the court would have to decide. and why wouldn't the government point to this counsel memo in which it said an indictment would unconstitutionally undermine the power of the executive branch to perform its functionmism while barbara govee the same? >> it would be the same, certainly it would. and it would point to the legal counsel opinions and say, look, this has been decided twice by previous administrations. but that's

in june, new york attorney general barbara underwood filed a civil suit against the trump foundation saying it used charitable funds to illegally coordinate with trump's 2016 presidential campaign to settle lawsuits against trump family businesses and even to purchase a $10,000 portrait of donald trump hung at one of his golf resorts. beenry's government has accused of cutting off food to migrants living in transit camps in a bid to get them to drop their claims for asylum. on wednesday, human rights watch became the latest group to accuse hungary's anti-immigrant government of using starvation as a weapon, writing -- "it's completely outrageous and absurd that people have to turn to the courts to get a slice of bread. this disregard for people's well-being smacks of a cynical move to force people to give up their asylum claims and leave hungary." in more news on migration, naval ships in malta on wednesday brought ashore over 100 migrants rescued at sea, along with the bodies of two people who died attempting to cross the mediterranean. in italy, a ship carrying 177 migrants docked

we know barbara underwood in recent days was seeking -- the attorney general in new york was seeking a referral from the department of taxation and finance. that's a big deal. the new york state attorney general has the authority to look into persistent illegality, in the trump organization, which is based in new york. i think you'll see in the coming days the growing rule of states, states attorneys general, really resisting against this rampant illegality coming from the trump organization. >> tom, you and i talked about this at least a couple of weeks. which is that with everything going on, there's still surprises. you start to hear "vault" and your mind goes back to a lot of different places. but lay out the relationship between the president and david pecker and, in particular, leading up to the 2016 election. >> right. what we know from the -- just from the court documents that were filed this week in the michael cohen case, we know american media was involved in working with michael cohen. according to what michael cohen said, at the direction of the president in order to pay

the attorney general's office under barbara underwood, actually had imposed punitive measures on membershner, ivanka trump. it's a question whether this was not acting a as nonprofit. if it was acting in a for-profit way there be would be tax liability. >> shepard: that probe is under way, renew of the civil probe, now moving on to that. as for yesterday, michael cohen has known donald trump for a long time. under oath, implicated the. of the united states a melanie. what do you do with -- for a felony. what do you do with that? >> for mr. trump? >> shepard: how does the system react to that in challenging times? . under normal circumstances the person that he implicated would also be charged. obviously, there is a, it appear das -- >> shepard: if the president weren't the president under these circumstances he would be channelled. >> correct, correct. it would lead to a -- the indictment would be sealed so that mr. cohen could cooperate so that the person that he's cooperating against knows. this is a public indictment -- public plea agreement. the president knows obviously it's all ove

. >> 20 state attorneys general, led by new york's barbara underwood, condemned the proposed change,e would weaken efforts to reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and save drivers money on gas. separately, the trump administration moved to withdraw california's cafe waiver, who has stronger standards, representing 40 million americans. california sued in may in anticipation of today's action. california will do whatever it takes to maintain today's clean car standards. >> both sides sides of us mighe that saving lives is their primary concern, proponents noted, to be tougher standards, automakers reduced vehicle waste. >> the letter the vehicle, the higher the risk for the driver, obviously. >> the insurance gratitude for highway safety finds nearly two-thirds of those vehicles with the highest death rates were small cars were many cars. >> opponents of the proposed genes fight -- site california's wildfires by manifestations of climate change. >> the earth is not flat and climate change is real. can someone please inform the folks at the white house? >> of the role becomes

>> barbara underwood the a.g. is contemplating criminal charges in addition to the civil charges. the exposure for donald trump is as great as has been for anybody in the history of his office. >> or maybe lawyers' clients ever. to start to narrow it down let's look at taxes. because we've all really wanted to look at president trump's taxes since the time he ran for office. if his office, if allen weisselberg, who by the way, can you not picture him with a green eye shade and an adding machine? his old-fashioned way of doing business. every check is cleared by the president. let's say they misallocated the hush money payment as a payment to a lawyer, which you get to deduct from your taxes because it makes paying for lawyers easier. >> in the information that's what prosecutors assert. >> right. >> it was wrongly charged. >> guess what? potential tax fraud. how do you prove tax fraud? tax returns help. so there's a lot of cascading legal problems. but that seems to me one that isn't related to russia and is fairly easily carried forward by state authorities or federal authorities