gates and mr.itted underlying crimes, they have a separate problem. >> just like mike flynn, too, right? >> that's exactly right. >> frank, chuck, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. >>> stul ahead tonight, democrats are trying to pull off something that has not been done since the 19 80s, and may nay just do it. stay with us. we'll be right back. is this at&t innovations? yeah, wow..this must be for one of our new unlimited wireless plans. it comes with a ton of entertainment options. great, can you sign for this? yeah. hey, uh.. what's in that one? that's a shark. new and only with at&t, you can get unlimited data, 30+ channels of live tv, and your choice of things like hbo or amazon music. more for your thing. that's our thing. visit att dot com. these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com when you bundle you

. >> one person, rick gates. >> rick gates. >> why all of trump world is worried about rick gates. plus, 98 days out, facebook says another round of election sabotage is underway. and the trump official who says his warnings about the psychological damage of separated families was ignored. >> good evening, from new york, i am chris hayes. paul manafort is a shrewd liar so says the prosecution in the opening statement in the trial. opening statement and even the testimony of first witness hours ago, paul manafort facing 18 counts. bank fraud, tax evaluation, and conspiracy charges. work with should note which predated his duties on the campaign of donald trump. manafort a man who attended the infamous trump towers meeting. that man paul manafort faced the first of two trials today. in his opening statement prosecutor part of mueller's team portrayed manafort as greedy, a shrewd liar and three bank accounts in three countries. the evidence shows he placed himself and his money above the law and every year he lied. filed false tax returns, committed bank fraud, lied about his property

renato, you said rick gates was the most important gates in the manafort trial by far.here was an accountant in the last couple of days who testified. how damaging was his testimony today saying he lied at the direction of mr. manafort, and because the defense was going to bring it up, prosecutors wanted to get it out as quickly as possible from rick gates that he lied to manafort and stole from manafort and broke the law. >> well, very important testimony, anderson. there's no question that it was important. one of the key things that gates did is he said on the witness stand that he committed crimes along with paul manafort. i will tell you from my experience trying white collar cases, it is always very damaging to the defendant when a flipper, a cooperator like mr. gates takes the stand and says i committed crimes. so did that man, and here's how we did it together. so that's something very help to the prosecution. but as you point out, there is all of this baggage that comes along with gates. i think the defense's argument is going to be that if mr. gates was able t

gates, you knew how to hide things from mr. manafort, didn't you? and he's going to be stuck with that answer because it's the perfect cross exam question is he has no choice but to admit. it's got to be stuff like that. it can't just be generalities. >> right. greg, what would you do on the cross? >> i agree with shan. if the prosecution does its job, there will be nothing left for the jury to be surprised by. nothing that the jury hasn't heard in terms of negative information about rick gates, his crimes and past lying, so i think what the defense is left with is nothing more than reiterating and getting mr. gates to repeat over and over that he lied repeatedly, and in closing arguments, trying to emphasize to the jury that this is san admitted liar, that you -- this is an admitted liar, that you cannot believe him. if the prosecution does its job, and this is prosecution 101, the jury will not be surprised by anything they hear during the cross-examination. >> thank you all very much. shan, greg, jessica, an explosive day ahead. that's to say the

gates and manafort met in the 1980s when gates interned at manafort's lobbying firm. gates teamed up with his old boss again in 2006 at manafort's new firm to do business in the ukraine as lobbyists and political consultants. a decade later, in 2016, manafort joined the trump campaign and brought his trusted deputy along with him. >> paul manafort has done a fantastic job. and all of paul's people. paul brought on his staff. and we really do we have a great staff of talented people. >> reporter: eventually, manafort took over the campaign and gates became his number two. gates traveled extensively with then candidate trump, and together he and manafort oversaw trump's vice presidential pick and devised a general election strategy. >> i have to credit manafort and gates for putting so much of that together before we arrived. >> gates got caught up in controversy early on. sources say he oversaw the process of putting together the plagiarized speech melania trump gave at the republican national convention, which he denied. >> the only limits of the height of your achiev

gates had done. so what the government always does when they're putting on a cooperatator is introduce themselves up front and first all bad things. they draw the sting essentially. to your question, there are people at that intersection of conspiracy or collusion or whatever synonym you want to use. perhaps other crimes. financial fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud. and gates had a view of that, a perch, if you will, to see it in a way that a lot of other people might not have been able to. he was at the center of this for quite a while. does he know everything? was he around these people? these actors while they were committing crimes? he was certainly around manafort when he was committing crimes so he's valuable to the government. >> i don't want to put steve bannon in the same conversation as you but i was struck about his conversations of fury. how you get these guys was to go after money laundering. he said the mine for mueller, he talk about how andrew wiceman were money laundering guys. you go thr

asked gates on occasion how to add information to a pdf document, and when gates said that when he got the document back, manafort had actually changed some of the numbers, falsifying some of their financial reports. of course, rick gates was a close associate to paul manafort for 12 years, but now he's flipped, he pleaded guilty, and he's telling all he knows to prosecutors. so, it will be interesting when he is back on the stand for more cross examination this morning. christine and phil? >> jessica, thank you for that. >>> legal woes multiplying for michael cohen. the "wall street journal" reporting president trump's former lawyer and fixer is now under investigation for tax fraud. sources tell "the journal" the federal prosecutor in manhattan is looking into whether cohen underreported income from his taxi medallion business. the taxi licenses yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last five years. the "wall street journal" also reporting federal investigators are looking into possible fraud against the bank that financed cohen's taxi medallion business. cohen has not be

gates replied, yes. from there, gates went into remarkable detail about the alleged crimes and the people involved and a key road leads back to moscow. according to gates, manafort knowingly failed to report 15 foreign bank accounts and one of those was tied to a man named konstantin kilimnik, a man prosecutors say has direct ties to russian intelligence. he was the middle man between manafort himself and russian billionaire oleg deripaska. offered private briefings to trump to during the campaign. a putin insider so in the center of this he's now sanctioned by the u.s. treasury department. gates told the jury that manafort directed him to lie. and money wired to his bank account as loans rather than income. cut manafort's taxable income that left him with a whole lot of unreported money that he could use things to fund like that $15,000 ostrich jacket, a $130,000 mercedes, landscaping, millions on suits and even a cake yol karaoke setup. this is the pair that was so central to president trump's election

cara, gates is cross-examined by the defense. already there's been an explosive moment involving manafort and money and an alleged affair? >> that's right, jake. about 45 minutes into cross-examination here, manafort's attorney come out swinging, either bringing up sku discussions of gates stealing money and to fund the secret life of rick gates for a flat in london and european trips that gates was allegedly having with his mistress. gates admitted another relationship about ten years ago but now the two are sparring over what the source of that funding was. gates maintaining that it came from his bonus pool or from his personal accounts. but manafort's attorney is saying, no, this money came from the cyprus accounts, stolen from manafort and in a back and forth on that and an interesting development is alleging that gates stolen money from the inauguration fund saying filing for personal expenses paid by the inauguration. they haven't really fleshed that out. we don't know if he has anything to back it up but another way to try

gates said existed. they concealed the evidence of those from the united states government from the tax collectors, the internal revenue service. also important to say that rick gates has admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollar s from. >> with me crime and justice reporter and our legal analyst and former federal prosecutor laura coates. so much to go through and we're not done with the direct examinatio examination. >> here you've got paul manafort who's being accused of all these different crimes, even with his opening statement through his defense counsel said listen, you cannot believe this person rick gates. he's got a plea deal, he has every incentive to not tell you everything that is true because he wants to get a good prison sentence or none at all so we have this battle right now. while they have framed this in a battle of credibility, birds of a feather flock together and a jury will look at this and say we have somebody here who's admitted to lying, who has been in on this conspi

gates. all of the corroborating evidence tells you what he says is true. >> what has rick gates gotten for himself by agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors? >> lesser charges, a reduced sentence potentially. the prosecutors will tell the judge after his cooperation is done just how much help he provided, called substantial assistance. one of the things i'd really be looking for, the government has to tell the defense all the different charges that he did not have to plead guilty to, in other words, any benefits got from the government. the government has to tell the defense. typically what defense lawyers do is cross examination mr. gates on this. that may give us a window into the broader mueller investigation. all of the crimes that they may have rick gates and others on, those are benefits he got by pleading guilty. >> interesting. how long would you expect such a critical witness -- i know it's called the rocket docket and this judge is very fast. >> yeah. >> but just for our viewers wh

the letter that will keep gates out of jail? gates, they will.ll let your lawyer say you get probation unopposed? yes. lawyer, even if you lie? >> answer. but i haven't. and i'll here to -- question. and the jury is supposed to believe that? yes. because i'm here to tell the truthful i'm here because i made a decision to take responsibility for my actions. mr. manafort had the same path. i'm here. from rick gates. i'm here. unlike your guy. gosh was in court today and has been since court started. so today was rick gates' second day on the stand. i think we'll have him on the stand at least for tomorrow morning as well. what do you think was important about his testimony? other than the human drama? >> well, there were several hours of testimony this morning that was pretty dry before we got to the cross-examination. it became pretty clear that he is intimately familiar with manafort's finances, at least with respect to the overseas company. in places like cypress, they moved the accounts to a place in the caribbean called the glen deans. gates s

remember, gates a part of the transition.he jury was shown evidence that manafort tried to get one of his lenders considered for a job in the white house. we'll head to the courthouse in a few minutes for more on this developing story, what it means for the president and the mueller probe. as big as that legal story is for the presidency tonight, we'll begin with a political development that might be bigger for him and his party because it is happening at the ballot box. you are looking live at people voting in ohio's 12 special elections where tonight's results could show a looming disaster for republicans in november. recent polls show this race between two generic candidates here, no real superstar, it's a coin flip right now. folks, in a district like ohio 12 which really is a district that straddles the suburbs and the exurbs out there outside of columbus, in play for a democrat like danny o'connor, the democrats are looking at a battleground approaching 80-some seats. if republican troy balderson can eke it out, the rep

and now gates is here, and gates has come in and said, look, i did some stuff wrong here.tell you i did wrong. >> but, michael, it's tough because gates worked for manafort for 20 years, and so do you think it's potentially a mistake for the defense to paint gates as a corrupt liar without even painting manafort with the same brush? >> well, i think they probably splattered paint on manafort through their cross examination today. and really what do they have? at the end of the day you've got these e-mails, these statements, the book keepers and accountants that say manafort told them what to do, so what other choice does the defense have? i don't think it's a winning strategy for them. i've said this and i have every expectation that manafort is going to be convicted. but they really don't have great facts on their side. the only thing they can kind of do is throw darts at gates and hope they can deflate him somehow. but it's hard to change some of the things manafort puts into e-mails and records. >> julia, i heard you say yeah when you said he's going to be convicted. it

so by putting gates they made gates now the centerpiece of defense.ere is how this works out in sum mission, it's very important. they'll argue, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, all that stuff they showed you about the accounts and bookkeeper, they knew that wasn't enough and that's why they had to put rick gates on the stand to prove their case otherwise they wouldn't put him on. you're going to convict my client, a guy who lied to the fbi, all the motive in the world to lie against him because they didn't need him, they wouldn't put him on. i think that is where they're going to go. of course the prosecutor retorts with that, who benefitted? and in the end, they're going to try to argue why would gates be lying about all this when most of the time when he wasn't stealing manafort's money, manafort was the one benefitting from it. i think it could have been a risky move to put him on given the case went in so well. >> if you're a juror sitting in this courtroom, there aren't any cameras, we go by bits and pieces we get, we know down to the color in

the government would not object to probation for gates.t his sentencing, but he hasn't been sentenced yet. the question is what kind of time is he going to get given the things he pleaded guilty for. some of the other things i think that are important is to say that there was also talk about paul manafort's direct involvement and apparent direct direction to doctor bank documents to make it appear that he had more money than he actually had. just follow me here for a minute. gates testified that he was asked by manafort to take a pdf computer document from an e-mail and convert it to word so that it could be edited. he did so. he testified that manafort received the document and when the document came back to gates to reconvert the pdf, it had $6 million more in income than it showed before he received it. the whole point of that is that they had to try to doctor income on certain documents in order to get loans even though they knew they didn't have information that a bank would accept in order to give them a loan. so that's probably sign

michael cohen, gates. this association of not just one person, a bunch of people committing crimes and being charged and confessing to crimes. these people rub off and looks like a cess pool. trump's desire to work with these people and embrace of them looks really bad. >> i have to ask you, is cess pool a fancy word than swamp? >> it is. swamp goes to business as usual. this goes beyond that, the illegal swamp, stuff not par for the course. above and beyond. it sheds a lot of light on -- remember a few days ago, i know it sounds like years president trump was saying, oh, paul manafort, what a great guy. why are they putting him through this? that's the president of the united states endorsing these guys. it reflects on trump's character and associations he makes and his judgment. i think americans will get an earful in the next few days and weeks and months. >> ken, coming out of the courtroom when this has been a drama series of events, this is still our lead story because it's so important, i wonder if

gates said in court.ice was, paul manafort would send me a list of wiry quests. gates admitted that he used information provided by paul manafort to create invoices for fake amounts of money for wire transfers. but the money never ak sthael went to the vendors. instead it went to the banks. the purpose of this according to gates -- so that the wire transfers would not be recorded on u.s. business records. nonetheless, monday. prosecutors, ee his nated testimony from mr. gates and one of paul manafort's accountants that tied him to russia. the kaccount antd testified in 2006, paul manafort received a $10 million loan from a russian oligarch close to president vladamir putin. she said she saw no evidence the loan was ever repaid. throughout, paul manafort's attorneys focus has been on, undermining the credibility of rick gates. saying, why should the jury believe him now, considering the fact that he has lied before. admitted to lying before to federal prosecutors. rick gates answer is that he is taking res

rick gates is on the stand. the government's star witness and watching it all nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. the defense team has got to be licking its chops here. they say you've already confessed to lying to the feds. why should the jury believe you now? walk us through the highlight. >> reporter: they are licking their chops but they'll have to wait. prosecutor who put rick gates on the stand said hooee's three to four hours left of direct testimony. he began by walking gates through how these ukrainian politicians paid manafort through these overseas bank accounts beyond the reach of the irs. yesterday was the summary. gates got up to the stand and said i participated in these crimes. we hid millions of dollars. by the way i was stealing from mr. manafort during this time. he said he embezzled money through padded expense accounts. this is something that prosecution didn't know about. gates volunteered that information as part of this effort to sort of purge his sins, come clean. the p

i know yesterday gates was loath to even make eye contact with his former boss. >> reporter: today gates when he came into the courtroom his eyes were darting all across the defense table. he was looking over there. manafort, he was studying documents, he had his glasses on. he was closely paying attention. during cross-examination gates seemed a little more on the defensive. he was speaking to the attorney then. i did not see any eye contact between gates and manafort as the day unfolded. we're xpth cross-examination to continue tomorrow when court begins. that could go for about an hour, erin. >> all right, kara, thank you very much. kara will be in that room again tomorrow. and now let's go to harry sandek, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. ann milligram former prosecutor and former new jersey attorney general. and garrett grapher author of threat matrix inside bob mueller's fbi and the war on global territory. the manafort attorney who questioned gates today, he was aggressive and he did a good job. his name is ken down sxug know him. you used to w

gates responded, "i do." they also tried to paint him as someone who had a, quote, separate secret life with a mistress in london. "there's another rick gates, a secret rick gates in london," the defense asked. gates admitted the affair and said his wife was aware of it. >> so, let's get to jon karl live from washington. and the defense really trying to paint rick gates as a liar here, but gates himself saying in that courtroom he's trying to take responsibility for what he did? >> reporter: in a dramatic moment, david, gates told the court, quote, i'm here to tell the truth, i'm here to take responsibility. and then, he added that paul manafort had the same opportunity, the implication is, of course, that he did not take it. >> jon karl leading us off. jon, thank you. >>> we're also tracking the dangerous heat and massive flight disruptions at this hour on both kohs. more than 400 flights canceled so far. thunderstorms triggering ground stops in baltimore, d.c. and at the airports right here in new york. and

friends manafort and gates be in the same vicinity together since gates pleaded guilty. there was tension. manafort staring him down. gates averting the eye contact and very measured, careful and matter of fact describing the scream he pleaded guilty to being a part of. today on cross-examination manafort's attorneys were peppering gates with questions and seemed uneasy responding to them, argumentative in which he lied or made a mistake. he was taking issue with some of the words they were using and we're in the middle of the cross now and manafort's team is upping the pressure and the ante on gates to show he was dishonest with the special counsel's office, dishonest with the own affairs and went through a bill that he -- that showed he was falsifying loan documents to pay himself and attacking him and wanting to show he was stealing from manafort. a whole back and forth where manafort's attorney pressed gates repeatedly until he finally used the word ' embezzlement. we have the expected tension in cross-examination right now. >> pretty ugly, undeed. thank you very muc

gates made his plea deal. politics reporter for the daily beast, and ken dilanian who was at the alexandria courthouse today. ken, in terms of the basics, the meat and potatoes here, what exactly is it that gates was admitting to today? >> to everything, steve. it was really rather remarkable. i mean, we knew most of this was going to happen, but still, to see him walk into that courtroom, paul manafort's protege of ten years. worked for him from 2006 to 2016 and sit down at the witness stand, just feet away from paul manafort, was something incredible. and manafort was staring him down, and gates tended not to look at manafort's direction. nonetheless, he was a pretty calm and compelling witness. a little nervous, but he testified that he had been charged with paul manafort in these bank and tax fraud indictments, and he admitted he was guilty of all those charges. and that he had cut a deal with the prosecution to plead guilty to a lesser charge, a charge involving lying to the fbi, in exchange for a reduced

gates will be back on the witness stand in just a few hours.will face what promises to be a withering cross-examination from the defense, who is trying to paint gates as the real criminal here, not manafort. we have this all covered. let's go to joe johns in alexandria, virginia. joe? >> reporter: good morning, john. star witness back on the witness stand today. he got about 45 minutes in front of the jury yesterday before breaking for the evening. he is laying out what the prosecution says are years, years of financial crimes that occurred before these two top political operatives assumed the helm in the presidential campaign. block buster testimony in the trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort, as a one time apprentice turns on his mentor. manafort's long time business partner and former trump campaign senior aide rick gates, not holding out any punches. he opened 16 foreign bank accounts to hide money from the government. cheated manafort out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing false expense reports. testifying some

gates said he had. he explained he helped manafort file false tax returns and fed 15 overseas accounts used as part of the alleged crime. gates offered a twist. saying he defrauded manafort, his mentor and long-time boss. he had stolen several hundred thousands dollars from him by inflating his expense accounts. gates' testimony is expected today. prosecutors intend to question him for another three hours. christine and phil. >> another big day for rick gates. >>> don junior is dismissing the trump tower meeting and accusing the russian of bait and swift. djsz cla don junior claiming that russians wanted to give dirt on hillary clinton, but when they got there, it was about adoptions. >> it was nothing relevant to any of these things. that is all it is. that's all they got. that's not the premise that got them in the room. it was a bait and switch to talk about that. everyone has said that in testimony already. so this is nothing new. >> the president's son said all of the media scrutiny of the meeting

s outdated fare gates. rob malcolm joins us live from san francisco with more on the plan. >> reporter: good evening. we are at the powell street station in san francisco. this is a $25 million problem for b.a.r.t. with a $100 million fix. the issue and challenge for b.a.r.t. is how to replace these fare gates and come up with something which will deter fare evaders. one by one with our cameras rolling in less than no time, fare evaders made quick work of the entry gates. in 20 minutes, close to a dozen cheaters slept through, oblivious to our cameras and the $75 fine. for law-abiding riders, this is a problem. >> we are all trying to get to the same place. and, we all have our fair share. >> this isn't fair to the customers that pay. everybody needs to pay when they get on board. >> reporter: it's a bigger problem for b.a.r.t. systemwide. hurting their bottom line. >> fare evasion has become a $25 million problem. we are beginning the study. how can we go about replacing the fare gates in a way that preven

trump and cohen, gates and manafort. as this investigation plays out and more people are put under stress from legal fees, from questions from mueller, from grand jury subpoenas, we're going to see alliances just like this one crumble and break down and i think anything goes. all loyalties are off the table as this progresses. >> midwin, how much is on the line here? if this case is successful in getting paul manafort what does that do to mueller's investigation? if they're unsuccessful, where do they go? president trump is going to be on the witch hunt mega phone. >> which is surprising he could be any more. from what we heard thus far. i think that -- >> he can stand on top of the wall. >> i think this prosecution would bode well for mueller if he's successful. what it will say is listen, i've done the work and i've done the digging and i think that trump will be very nervous. when you look at rick gates' testimony, that's one of the things that trump is concerned about. people flipping. we have to remind everyone here

gates said he did and throughout wolf gates saying that now, he is doing his best to take responsibility for all these things, that in a sense in essence is his argument to the jury as to why he should be believed now as the accounts what he says are paul manafort's alleged crime. >> jim sciutto, thanks so much for that report. president trump meanwhile is hosting a group of ceos at his new jersey golf club later tonight while his lawyers weigh whether he should talk to the special counsel robert mueller. let's go to our chief white house correspondent jim acosta, he's in new jersey for us. "the washington post" now reporting that giuliani's lawyer is reluctant to let the president be questioned about obstruction of justice. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. a lot of concerns insides the president's legal team as to what questions could be asked. the president is expected to draegs those ceos at that dinner at his golf club within the next hour or so. that event has just been opened up to the cameras so we may get to see a bit of what the president has to say. we can expect him to talk up

sure, gates was in the mix.l be a witness and potentially a powerful one for the government, but it will be difficult for the jury to set aside the testimony that they heard last week and lay it all off on gates, which is what manafort needs them to do if he is going to be acquitted. >> joyce, develin puts this very well. whom to believe? the accused liar or the admitted one? what is a more, i guess, trust both source? the person that you are trying to point as a liar or the person that has already lied but at the least has admitted to it? >> prosecutors never get to pick their own witnesses. i mean, if we did, we would not pick someone like gates as a witness, right? you would pick a priest or a teacher or a choir boy. in reality, it's manafort who chose gates as a witness, and that says a lot about the fact that the two of them were in league together. the prosecution's job here will be to support gates' newly found credibility either with documentary evidence, with other witnesses, with circumstantial guarant

feet away from manafort at the defendant's table staring at rick gates, rick gates avoiding the gazeuting attorney but manafort staring at him with arms crossed a as gates listed a series of alleged crimes that gates said he performed along with manafort at the direction of manafort including setting up 15 foreign bank accounts that they deliberately kept hidden from u.s. authorities to avoid taxes, filing fake tax returns of course to avoid taxes. also things we did not know about prior to his testimony today including gates admitting that he stole money from manafort to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing false expense claims. so a whole series of things there. and the key, gates saying not only did manafort know about it, not only did we do it together but gates saying that he did these things with manafort to rather under manafort's direction, don. >> listen, rick gates is expected to take the stand tomorrow and be cross examined by manafort's attorneys. how do you think the defense will counter gates' testimony? >> they'll come at him really hard, and this is

poke holes in the credibility of gates.ne way they went today, as you mentioned, anderson, they bing up an affair from ten years ago where gates was using money. he says none of the money he stole from manafort or elsewhere, but had an affair. he is spending a lot of money on a secret life. the defense attorney trying to focus on that. but again, a powerful moment happened when gates said, listen, yes, i did all those things and i lied. i'm taking responsibility now. that's a choice that manafort had, and he's not taking it. it was powerful moment in that courtroom because gates was in effect saying i'm taking responsibility. he is not. >> jim sciutto, appreciate it. thanks. >>> joining me now two cnn legal analysts who are both former federal prosecutors. sean was an attorney. also with us renato mariotti. the detail of the extramarital affair, his embezzling money from manafort's own offshore account for what the defense claims was to pay for the affair, how effective a defense strategy do you think that is? clearly prose

gates is admitting to everything. he said that he was indicted with paul manafort on bank and tax fraud charges and he is guilty of all those charges. and then he said he'd guilty of other conduct, including this embezzlement that the government didn't know about. he talked about writing a false letter in an investment scheme and some other lies that he told in unrelated situations. he even talked about violating the terms of his bail when he was 15 minutes late for a curfew. why is he doing that? because prosecution does not want one thing that the defense can raise that the jury doesn't already know about from direct. they don't want any surprises when gates gets up there on cross. they're trying to build his credibility. they introduced him and pointed out that he worked for paul manafort as a protege for ten years. he actually started as an intern right out of college with the former firm of black, davis and manafort. and he took on increasing responsibility until he was essentially doing mr. manafort's bidding in

we do not know if there is anybody after gates.s is essentially now the third major act of the manafort trial. act one would be last tuesday when the mueller team gets up and they allege that paul manafort lived a very lavish lifestyle and ostrich coats and flower beds snand an m for manafort. act 2 was when the nurl team brought a bookkeeper and two accountants to the stand to explain how and why the court was able to get away with it three the inside man rick gates is next. shep? >> shepard: peter doocy live at the courthouse. we will go back there for updates should be there. at this time a.b. stoddard is here and editor at real clear politics. good to he so you. >> good to see you, shep. >> shepard: rick gates, what might he provide? >> this is going to be dramatic no matter. what have you former friends and colleagues turning on each other. this used that doocy has reported on that the manafort team is alleging that rick gates embezzled money and hid that from paul manafort and was on the take and as they say had his hands in

rick gates may not testify later said he didn't mean to suggest that rick gates would not. so you have a little bit of double speak there occurring in the court. fascinating development and we don't know what it means. >> okay. joe johns, thank you. let's bring in shimon prokupecz who can help us explain what it may or may not mean. rick gates, long time right-hand man to paul manafort, both in business and in the trump campaign, i should say, was and has been somebody who the prosecution was relying on, frankly, to take down manafort and to convict him. if he does not testify, what does that say about the prosecution's case? >> that means they believe in their case and their case is likely much stronger than we think and that they don't need rick gates to make their case. i think what happened in this case, and this is where the quite honestly.nd of screwed up- when they went with their opening statement and try to pin everything on rick gates. they were the ones that introduced rick gates into this trial. not the prosecutors. prosecutors don't ever promise something to a

if they don't take down gates, it's all over. gates essentially lays out the prosecutions's case, goes through the evidence. he is telling the jury, i worked with that man, we were criminals, we worked together. here's how we did it. so you can expect a lot of fireworks today. this is going to be the most dramatic part of the trial. in the defense opening, they said, the opening statement, that -- that rick gates is the real bad guy, he's the real wrongdoer. and you can expect that a lot of fireworks here, particularly focusing on the fact that he embezzled money from manafort. the defense will argue that he fooled manafort then, and it goes to show that he fooled manafort as to this other stuff. >> part of what one of the big things that's come out, jennifer, is that rick gates says that -- admitted that he basically stole money from paul manafort over the years, like in the process of all of this nefarious stuff that rick gates is admitting to. why did he admit that? >> he had to admit that. you have to tell the truth about eve

but they're not relying solely on rick gates.ve presented tremendous amounts of documentary evidences to corroborate their theory of this case. after gates is gone, after his testimony is concluded, we should expect other witnesses, e-mails, bank records, other financial documents to support the government's case. jurors aren't going to like rick gates. he was evasive today, combative, even. juries don't like that. they'll have to decide who was telling the truth between gates and manafort. >> likely, manafort won't take the stand. thank you so much. come back next hour, please. and ron, thank you, we preer appreciate you being with us. >>> a climate change emergency, warning global warming may soon cross a tipping point, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. that's next. me or office. panera. food as it should be. but climbing 58,070 steps a year can be hard on her feet, knees, and lower back. that's why she wears dr. scholl's orthotics. they're clinically proven to relieve pain and give you the comfort to move more. dr. sch

perhaps gates was late to disclose this. and so if that in fact is the case, the later that he disclosed the embezzlement to the government, that might give manafort's lawyers some opportunity to cross-examine him. the bottom line here, andrea, is the government will suggest to the jury the reason they can trust gates is because the deal he is getting from the government is contingent on his truthful testimony during this trial. if he is found to have lied in any way, even in small detail, then he will lose the deal he has with the government, the greatly reduced sentence that he will expect the government to recommend for him. and that will be the circumstantial guarantee of gates' truthfulness. >> so just switching gears for just a moment, another figure who reappeared over the weekend was hope hicks, traveling to ohio with the president and back. a lot of lawyers are suggesting that that really was not smart because she could subject herself to being reinterviewed by mueller. she and the president could have been talking

gates. we have other evidence. >> joyce, what are you thinking about that. what ken is describing, the prosecution has a star witness there. he has to admit to all of these things as we went through yesterday just to sort of have his testimony stand maybe he looks uneasy today. maybe he is hesitant to admit to certain things, lying like that so bluntly. does that have an affect on the jury. >> ken is right about the hits, the damage. but as a prosecutor putting a cooperating codefendant on the stand, you hope he is not openly bleeding. gates is somewhere between those two. he stumbled between the two. gates stumbled on the details. also the disclosure on cross examination that he had an affair in london during this time period. and typically prosecutors would bring that out on direct examination but the judge didn't give them a ruling on whether that would be admissible. as ken said, the heart of gate's testimony backed up by e-mails and documents was not impeached and prosecutors when they

rick gates carries a lot of weight. i think that his testimony and the information he shared with prosecutors is so significant that i even think that indirectly he had a role in the breakdown of the story on the trump tower meeting this weekend because when the fbi puts on witnesses they have to release fbi interview statements. and it seems that there may have been some further information behind the scene regarding some key discussions that took place before the trump tower meeting with don jr. which might have triggered a little bit of a change of heart from the president there are putting don jr. in jeopardy. i think the bottom line is that mr. gates is a significant witness that changes the dialogue and the narrative for many witnesses that are involved in this case. >> reminding everyone, gates was the third person in the trump orbit to cop a plea, he and flynn and papadopoulos cooperated. >>> let's move along. let's talk about the legal implications. we were just talking about the trump tower meeting. the legal

that was a story about rick gates over and over again. so keep an eye on rick gates.really is a fascinating character. >> that seems like a lot of people in trump land too. they never seem to go away. i think the other thing we see is it gives us some insider understanding of mueller's methodology. in addition to learning what we're learning about these two individuals, it shows the depth of detail we're hearing, the amount of evidence they have, the way that they're going after this. the big thing i think we've all talked about a lot and keep coming back to is we just don't really know the extent of this. we deponeon't know what mueller knows. this suggests a very deep process. >> to that point, we'll get to more a bit later, the preparation, the e-mail, the documentation that tell the truth or else we'll show you this that proves you're not telling that truth. >>> up next, president trump really doth protest too much. why his advisers think his tweets, especially about that trump tower meeting, are make things work. todd. hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game: fist p

rick gates is going to be next. dana? >> dana: supporters of president nicholas madeira are holding an rally assassination attempt on the nation's ruler. >> dana: fox news alert. on the fallout from the apparent assassination against the president of the venezuela. here is a live look at caracas where the president's supporters have having a rally. six people arrested in the failed drone attack with the socialist government claiming they conspired with others in columbia and in miami. national security advisor, ambassador john bolton insists the u.s. was not involved. >> it's the government of venezuela has hard information that they want to present to us that would show a potential violation of u.s. criminal law, we'll take a serious look at it but, in the meantime, i think what we really should focus on is the corruption and the oppression of the madeira regime. >> dana: joining me now is o'grady opinion columnist at the "wall street journal." you have your finger on the pulse of this region. what do you think happened

it's possible, gates conceded. as gates struggled to answer questions about wire transfers he authorized, downing pointed out gates' testimony was much clearer when the prosecution was dock the questioning. have they confronted you with so many lies you can't remember any of it, downing asked? earlier in the day the trump cam pape was discussed at length for the first time. after manafort resigned as trump's campaign manager in 2016, dpats stayed on and worked on trump's inauguration. paula reid, cbs news, alexandria, virginia. >>> well, as expected, the trump administration is going ahead with imposing a 25% tariff on an additional $16 billion worth of chinese importds. the list of 279 taxable items is heavy on industrial products like steam turbinen chinese pr. china has been retaliating in line. the trade dispute is dependent on getting trade secrets from u.s. companies. >>> and it's reported president trump's former attorney udcohen any crime. at issue is whether income from cohen's taxi cab business in new yor

all right, sorry, let's get back to gates' testimony. so, with gates-- one more thing, though.ow come i can see through the butt? ( laughter ) like, is it a ghost butt? how do you git rid of a ghost but. are there ghost-butt-busters? or is it pronounced ghost buttsters. i see butt people. sorry, where was i? what's interesting about this trial is it's not the russia investigation. don't forget, this is not the russia investigation, but it came from the russia investigation. and robert mueller is hoping it will lead back to the russia investigation. >> special counsel robert mueller had been hoping manafort would flip and offer to share anything he knew about alleged russian involvement in the trump campaign, but so far, he has not been regular throg cooperate. >> the trial has been to get paul manafort to flip. >> trevor: robert mueller is cold-blooded. he's catching the small fish to get to trump. this reminds me of a song my mother used to sing to me as a kid about the russia investigation. ♪ the gates bone is connected o the manafort bone ♪ and the manafort bone is connected

gates is now owning up to it. he says the invoices were made out to some of the vendors they did business with, but the money itself didn't go to pay those vendors. instead, the money went into the banks. gates said that was so the wire transfers wouldn't be recorded by the u.s. government. finally, gates has revealed today that he and paul manafort were interviewed by the fbi in 2014. it was part of a forfeiture investigation led by both the u.s. and ukrainian governments. investigators asked about their work for ukraine, but they were never charged in any of this case. afterward, paul manafort directed gates to meet up with one of the ukrainian business partners to fill him in about that fbi interview. the two actually met in france. of course, rick gates is not holding back at all here. we're into several hours of his testimony now. that's because he's at the mercy of these tprosecutors. he struck a deal with them. he's hoping the more information he gives, the more lenient eventually his sentence will be. >> h

manafort and gates were supposed to manage it. during the campaign, manafort offered deripaska a private briefing two weeks before trump accepted the nomination. all of the details behind these deals are fair game for prosecutors to probe gates on as part of the plea deal he struck this year. cnn, washington. >> very interesting. our thanks to jessica there. >>> just out this morning there is a new interview in the "new york times" magazine and it's with house speaker paul ryan, who rarely speaks publicly. at least to the media. in it he addresses his relationship with president trump and how he handles the commander in chief. at one point he references avoiding "tragedies" with the president. we have cnn political commentator and former republican congressman from pennsylvania charlie dent and ceo of the wilson center, jane harmon, a former democratic congresswoman. great to have both of you. hot off the presses, i'll read the passes, it's from the great reporter mark leibovich and he's gotten paul ryan to say things, jane. a lot

rick gates was a prodigy. rick gates was charged of serious crime.efense really did not go after him and paying him as a liar and just testifying against saving his own skin. rick gates admitted to lying to the fbi. to counter act that. prosecutors are going to have confront up front to the jury so by the time defense cross-examining him, the jury is going to know everything he did. >> this is a milestone moment if you will, what are we looking like as far as time line here. do we look at this is moving quickly as we have seen the last four days or so? >> i think we are ahead of schedule. it may finish up sooner than that. the prosecution have been telling a story. they started off with the luxury items that manafort purchased and they brought on some bookkeepers and tax preparers to give some hints. rick gates are going to take the jury inside the operation and talk about why potentially manafort needed to commit these crimes. they are desperate for cash when they are golden goose. and so yes, you are absolutely right. and we'll have to see what the