gene rossi, former prosecutor of the eastern district of virginia.. >> already good to have you here. much more to cop tonight. stay with us. whoooo. tripadvisor makes finding your perfect hotel... relaxing. just enter your destination and dates. tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want for the lowest price. dates. deals. done! tripadvisor. >>> today, a trump enthusiast republican congressman from buffalo, new york, suddenly became very nationally famous when that sitting congressman and early donald trump devotee chris collins was arrested, indicted and arraigned for insider trading and lying to federal agents. our next guest is so close to this remarkable story today that our next guest is actually mentioned in the indictment that was unsealed as chris collins was taken into custody today. he's mentioned and not as one of the many unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment. that guest joins us next. stay with us. -morning. -morning. -what do we got? -keep an eye on that branch. might get windy. have a good shift. fire p

attorney, also gene rossi a former prosecutor, d.o.j.'s tax division. point is we've got this covered from so many different angles but let's begin with ken dilanian. kerngs eight counts guilty, ten counts mistrial. walk me through what more do we have on the ten counts that there wasn't a consensus and what's going to happen next? >> well, first, i'll tell you chuck that paul manafort showed no reaction. he was stone-faced. nor did his wife, after the verdict. prosecutors shook hands with one another and the judge admonished the jury that they did not have to talk to the press in the wake of there verdict. prosecutors got a little of everything here. not a 100% victory for the prosecution but they got five counts of tax fraud, they got one count of failing to file a foreign bank account report, and two counts of frank fraud, aban appeared that the jury went through meticulously through the evidence and they latched on to two of the stronger bank fraud charges where there are documentable lies. in one case paul manafort doctored a profit and loss statem

gene rossi, former prosecutor of the eastern district of virginia.ou. >> much more to come. stay with us. here's a trip tip: when you search hotels on tripadvisor... enter your destination and the dates of your stay. tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to find the best deal on the right hotel for you. tripadvisor. my dbut now, i take used tometamucil every day.sh it traps and removes the waste that weighs me down, so i feel lighter. try metamucil, and begin to feel what lighter feels like. i do. check out the new united explorer card. saving on this! saving on this! saving in here. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com >>> today, a trump enthusiast republican congressman from buffalo, new york, suddenly became very nationally famous when that sitting congressman and early donald trump dev devo chris collins became indicted. our next guest is actually mentioned in the indictment unsealed as chris collins was taken into custody today. he's mentioned and not as one of the many unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment. -k eegoing. st. a

joining us now, gene rossi, a former federal prosecutor and former assistant u.s.y in that eastern district of virginia where the trial was held, and ken dilanian, intelligence and national security reporter for nbc news. he was outside the courthouse today as the jury was returning that verdict. and ken dilanian, tell us about that anticipation today, the questions that the jury had sent indicated a little bit of confusion today of were they asking the judge about what happens if they can't reach a verdict on just one count? and then shortly after that it turns out the jury comes back with the eight convictions. >> yeah, lawrence, now we know what they meant is for any of the counts that they're deadlocked on they were asking the judge essentially what do we do and how do we fill out the jury form and how does it affect the final verdict? and it turns out they were deadlocked on ten counts. and the judge asked them to go back and distribute and they did that for about four hours and apparently they could not reach consensus. and i think what this tells us, a coupl

. >> joining me former federal prosecutor gene rossi. , we will get to what the president said there. first of all, what do you expect to happen on monday after the jury said it's 5:00, we've got to go home on friday? >> here's what i predict. in january 1969, joe namath predicted and guaranteed a super bowl victory of the jets over the colts. >> all right. >> do i predict a guilty verdict against paul manafort? i can't guarantee it, but i think the signs are pointing towards mr. manafort getting found guilty of multiple counts of taxes, foreign bank accounts, and bank fraud. i can't guarantee it, but i'll put a lot of money on it if i had it. >> since you are playing the joe namath here, what is it that you know about that team, your team in joe's case, but in this team, what's telling you this is going to happen that way? >> there are over 400 exhibits. there were over 20 witnesses. and a lot of those witnesses, including rick gates, corroborated, and that's the important word here. those witnesses corroborated one theme that the prosec

. >> but i was talking with gene rossi, former fortunately prosecutor, and he was like this is a doneprosecution. they're going to get ten convictions. they're going to lose maybe eight is what he had said. with all of these exhibits, with all of this information, it's looking good for the prosecution come monday. >> i've said from the beginning this was a case designed by the government for a win, maybe not a win across the board but at least a win. because he's charged with crimes like tax perjury, which is in the tax world a relatively easy crime to prove. did you sign it? does it have that little language about penalty of perjury, and was it essentially inaccurate? knowingly so. that's about it. that's about all you need for tax perjury. as to the other crimes, you just look at the government's 90-plus percent conviction rate. they're very good at what they do much the only thing manafort's team is going to hope for is the jury gets bogged down in the papers, in all the data, in defining what exactly and a fara account, exactly what is a tax fraud or bank fraud and things that may

period. >> gene rossi, thank you so much for coming on and walking us through this.lease come back again. we didn't even get into your relationship with judge ellis, but we will. >> some other time. >> some other time. >> this book is unblaefable. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >>> today breaking news after months of attacks on his credibility, condemnations for his behavior, personal insults and demands that he be fired by the president and his allies, and of course the mysterious dossier tape, peter strzok has been fired from the federal bureau of investigation. the fbi agent sent private text messages sharply criticizing the president along with other politicians during the 2016 campaign while he was acting as lead agent in the early stages of the fbi investigation of the trump campaign. once the text messages were discovered robert mueller dismissed him from the investigation, but many house republicans said that was not enough. they have tried to claim strzok's mere presence on the investigation means the whole thing is a scam. here is a reminder from las

let's bring in nbc news conversation reporter tom winter and gene rossi. welcome to both of you. the president continues to tweet. in one of the ten tweets in the last 24 hours he responded directly to the new york times report about don mcgahn testify where he said there was a story that made it seem like the white house counsel has turned on the president when, in fact, it is just the opposite. what are we to make of 30 hours of discussions between don mcgahn who worked for the president during the campaign as well and his white house counsel and when we think back to white house-type scandals, the white house counsel always knows where bodies are buried. >> well, they're kind of the person that's going to be closest to the president from a legal perspective. i think when you talk about 30 hours of conversations, the thing that's not clear from the article and the thing that hasn't been made clear so far is are those 30 hours of conversations of you want these e-mails? okay, we can negotiate about this. what time do we -- when do we expect to turn over the things you're asking

chuck rosenberg, gene rossy. robert, the former u.s. attorney who took up some of the hour. donald trump. my panel, eugene, sarah and howard. quick programming note. omarosa manigault newman will be on hardball with chris mathews. i have a feeling they'll talk about the book. they're going to be talking about the cohen plea deal. she has a lot to say about michael cohen. they're very close. that's all coming up at 7:00 eastern here on msnbc. the breaking news coverage continues right now on the beat. it it's ali velshi in for ari. >> great to see you. see you soon. i'm ali velshi in for ari melber. one directly implicated president trump himself in criminal wrongdoing. today the jury in the manafort trial delivered eight guilty counts and deadlocked on the other ten, but it's the michael cohen case that's shaking the political and legal worlds tonight. trump's long-time personal lawyer and fixer michael cohen pleading guilty to eight counts, including two criminal campaign finance violations he said occurred, quote, at the direction of the candidate, end quote. cohen did not

. >>> so with us now former prosecutor with the eastern district of virginia, gene rossi. cases before the judge presiding over the trial of paul manafort. he's among a handful of judges who know the deepest secrets of the russian investigation. thanks so much for being with us, gene. the first question i have to ask is what's with judge ellis' deep antipathy for the prosecution. it seems to come us just about every day in the courtroom. >> joe, we have a little bit of an audio problem so i'll translate your question to gene. joe's basic question what's the deal with this judge? he seems to be exhibiting hostility towards the prosecution, seems to be putting his thumb on the scale. there's been a lot of discussion about that. what's your view about whether or not that's the case? >> let me tell you how i know judge ellis. i appeared in front of him for 20 years. i had 20 trials -- seven trials and hundreds of hearings. and here is the scoop on judge ellis. he is not a potted plant. >> clearly. clearly not. >> he is very active. he wants to be engaged. >> yeah. >> he's not