john mitchell was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison back in 1975. mitchell ended up getting released from prison after serving 19 months because of poor health. today it was president trump's campaign chairman paul manafort and he'd beat mitchell's record today because he was given a much longer sentence that mitchell was. manafort today was sentenced to 47 months, just shy of four years in federal prison. no, there is no parole in the federal prison system anymore, so even though we don't know exactly how long manafort will serve on this sentence, you can sort of do a little bit of the math in your head. you can start at 47 months, which is what he got today. you should then substrategic nine months credit for the time he's already served in the alexandria federal detention center while he's been on trial and awaiting this sentencing today. then maybe i think you can subtract a little good time credit for that. if you do that math, again, back of the envelope and you never know how these things will go, but it's maybe a ballpark figure of three year

john mitchell was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in 1975. mitchell ended up getting released from prison after serving 19 months because of poor health. today it was president trump's campaign chairman paul manafort and he beat mitchell's record today because he was given a much longer sentence than mitchell was. manafort today was sentenced to 47 months just shy of four years in federal prison. now there is no parole in the federal prison system anymore so even though we don't know exactly how long manafort will serve on this sentence, you can sort of do a little bit of a math in your head and start at 47 months, which is what he got today. you should then subtract nine months credit. they are giving him credit for the time he served. he did get a little bit of good time credit for that. if you do that math, it's maybe a ball mark figure of three years realtime that he will serve on this sentence-ish. we'll get expert advice but this is a remarkable thing. this is history. it's the campaign chairman for the sitting president of the united st

but, again, john mitchell's 17 months is nowhere near the seven years that paul manafort is going to do. and at least in mitchell's case, the president who he got elected, richard nixon, was no longer in the white house when mitchell had 20 go to the crowbar hotel. nixon was long gone by the time mitchell was convicted and had to start serving his time. so manafort breaking this historical ground, it's not the way you like to go down in the history books. he is doing something that's never been done before in u.s. history, but i'm sure this is the type of infamy he is not happy to have achieved in american history. that said, there is one logistical advantage paul manafort has gained by being the first presidential campaign chairman in history to ever find himself going to prison in these circumstances. and that is that the guy who he got elected president, the guy whose campaign for president he ran just a couple of years ago, that guy is still president now, and as such, that president has the constitutional power to issue a pardon for manafort or to commute manafort's seven-year se

but, again, john mitchell's 17 months is nowhere near the seven years that paul manafort is going to do. and at least in mitchell's case, the president who he got elected, richard nixon, was no longer in the white house when mitchell had 20 go to the crowbar hotel. nixon was long gone by the time mitchell was convicted and had to start serving his time. so manafort breaking this historical ground, it's not the way you like to go down in the history books. he is doing something that's never been done before in u.s. history, but i'm sure this is the type of infamy he is not happy to have achieved in american history. that said, there is one logistical advantage paul manafort has gained by being the first presidential campaign chairman in history to ever find himself going to prison in these circumstances. and that is that the guy who he got elected president, the guy whose campaign for president he ran just a couple of years ago, that guy is still president now, and as such, that president has the constitutional power to issue a pardon for manafort or to commute manafort's seven-year se

if you think about john mitchell and a few of the others -- [laughter] so people would come to me and say, what in the hell are you doing? your candidate is an asterisk in the pool. john connolly will be our next president. why are you doing this? i say, he is my buddy, my friend, and i believe in him. and we started from there and we ended up not winning, we lost to reagan in the primary. but george was the last person standing. and we had delegates. and that is how he made it on the ticket and became vice president for eight years which of course led to his presidency. talmage: during the course of that campaign, i'm curious, was there any real friction between you as the campaign manager and your best friend? mr. baker: i have said it before, and i wrote it in my book it is hard to be , a campaign manager for a friend. it is easy to lose the friendship because you are the person who has to say no, you have to make another trip. no, you have to get out there. no, we can do this but you must do that. there were a lot of times when we could have lost the friendship. but we didn't. the

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. >>> today a limousine brought former attorney general john mitchell to court. they used to call him the big enchilada at the white house. he came to be sentenced as a convicted felon. for 64 days these men sat in the judge's courtroom. when a time came for a final statement, mitchell and his lawyer had nothing to say. all eyes were on the man who was nose an max mustn't john. the judge wasted no time on the speech. each must serve as long as 2 1/2 years in prison. john mitchell left, growling it could have been worse, he could have sentenced some he to live the rest of my life with martha mitchell. >>> it could have been worse for paul manafort, too, a lot worse. depending on how things go next week, he could still end of spending the rest of his life in prison, but this week it's how he ended up, an unusually light sentence. we know that t.s. ellis has been during this time cal of the mueller investigation, but it still was a shock when he handed down a 47-month sentence, which is one fifth of the guidelines. he said these guy are quite high. i think this sent

. >>> today a limousine brought former attorney general john mitchell to court.chilada at the white house. he came to be sentenced as a convicted felon. for 64 days these men sat in the judge's courtroom. when a time came for a final statement, mitchell and his lawyer had nothing to say. all eyes were on the man who was nose an max mustn't john. the judge wasted no time on the speech. each must serve as long as 2 1/2 years in prison. john mitchell left, growling it could have been worse, he could have sentenced some he to live thet

. >> today a limousine brought john mitchell to court. they used to call him enchalada. time came for a final statement, mitchell and his lawyer had nothing to say. all eyes were on the man k

can remember a campaign chairman for a president convicted and snenlsed to years in prison since john mitchellwatergate. s there wrr a lot of other people who have lied to investigators at some point. we're down to the president himself. i think to a lot of people who support him, it just looks like a deep state going after trump for political reasons, partisan reasons. they see this as part of a conspiracy to take him down and delegitimize these prosecutions. >> i can think of three east coast states where thaw have a criminality unoffice. people manage to get reelected over andover again because they get used to crooks and public life. have the american people gt used to crooks in the white house so much that all these sentencing is going on and they might reelect the ring master? >> i'm from illinois so i don't know what you're talking about in terms of krupgsz. >> you mean all those governors? >> the numbers don't lie. there are 34 individuals or entities that have been indicted by special counsel mueller. 17 outside investigations, not including those uncongress, eight cabinetsic are tars

eventually found out after about 10 or 12 weeks that that fupd was controlled by, among others, john mitchell's former law partner. and also by hr baldman, the white house chief of staff. so that us a pretty good idea of where this was going. but it also took awhile to understand what watergate, what the break in was about. and what we discovered and what we know was it was a massive campaign of political espionage and sabotage engineer ed from te white house, from the president's reelection advisers to ensure that the democrats picked the weakest candidate through this lit call espionage, sabotage and dirty tricks. >> you were a special assistant during the watergate era focusing on speech writing. what was that like during this challenging time? >> it was an extremely awkward period of those of us felt we had been through the marine corps experience together because we took a lot of bullets coming in. but i must say that the cover up worked better in the white house than anywhere else. you came into work and would read and talk about woodward and you hear stories from them where you curl yo

martha mitchell, the wife of the attorney general john mitchell for richard nixon was sounding the alarm during watergate. a lot of people dismissed her as kind of a cook and she turned out to be raising some significant points. >> thanks, guys. good to see you both. >>> coming up, president trump expressed confusion today that robert mueller would be able to issue a report even though president trump won the presidential election. that probably sounds confusing to you. that's because it is. the trump administration is also not cooperating with congressional investigators. former justice department official joins me next. and reports of disarray in executive agencies from the department of housing to the faa. former hudd secretary and presidential candidate will explain how to combat the reported presidential negligence of the government. in tonight's last word, two major barriers broken by a candidate in the primary. when you rent from national... it's kind of like playing your own version of best ball. because here, you can choose any car in the aisle, even if it's a better car class t

even the attorney general who succeeded john mitchell who went to jail and was convicted of obstruction of justice, pled guilty to lying to congress about his dealings with itt. >> about his intervention in their case on behalf of the president. >> exactly. so this is not something new. this is the exact same thing that happened 45 years ago or more. >> are you -- when chris murphy says that he already crossed the threshold for impeachment in the first few months, chris murphy is not a sort of wildly out there in his rhetoric. >> no. >> does that surprise you to hear that from a u.s. senator? >> no. i do think that people have been for the most part pretty measured. i personally don't think impeachment is a good thing. it's not good for the country, it's not good for the democrats. it's always better for a president to be voted out. >> why do you think that? >> in this case, in other instances it's maybe different. but i think in the way the speech trump gave at cpac, the way he tries to bait his base is dangerous. >> because why?he gets them all. he says that people who don't agree wit

. >> today a limousine brought former attorney general john mitchell to court. big enchilada at the white house. he came to be sentenced as a convicted felony. when the time came for a final statement, mitchell and his lawyer had nothing to say. all eyes were on the man who is

has been delivered on the fribst anniversary of the secret watergate tape in which nixon tells john mitchellt you all to stonewall it. let me plead the fifth amendment. richard nixon would have finished out his term had it not been for the tapes. he probably wouldn't have resigned without the tapes? >> he may have been impeached as he was by the house, but would you have gotten 2/3 of the senate without the tapes? i'm not sure. keep in mind the evidence robert mumer has brought with the indictments has been very direct slam dunk evidence. if you look at the roger stone indictment, it's on tape. there he is in text messages. take the fifth. ubstrubt, lie. manafort, all kinds of documents show that he lied and it's all right out there. you're not seeing a lot of surbsal cases being brought and so the question is is what we have on the rest of this surbsal such that mueller didn't feel comfortable brining criminal charges? that may be the answer. i'm just speculating. i don't know what's in that report. but that may be one reason there's so many unanswered questions. >> and beyond a reasonable

has been delivered on the fribst anniversary of the secret watergate tape in which nixon tells john mitchell i want you all to stonewall it. let me plead the fifth amendment. richard nixon would have finished out his term had it not been for the tapes. he probably wouldn't have resigned without the tapes? >> he may have been impeached as he was by the house, but would you have gotten 2/3 of the senate without the tapes? i'm not sure. keep in mind the evidence robert mumer has brought with the indictments has been very direct slam dunk evidence. if you look at the roger stone indictment, it's on tape. there he is in text messages. take the fifth. ubstrubt, lie. manafort, all kinds of documents show that he lied and it's all right out there. you're not seeing a lot of surbsal cases being brought and so the question is is what we have on the rest of this surbsal such that mueller didn't feel comfortable brining criminal charges? that may be the answer. i'm just speculating. i don't know what's in that report. but that may be one reason there's so many unanswered questions. >> and beyond a reaso

he's been delivered on the secret watergate tape in which nixon tells john mitchell, i want you all tonewall it, let them plead the fifth amendment, cover up or anything else. if it will save it, save the plan. >> richard nixon said that on tape on this day 46 years ago? is it just a coincidence the mueller report is delivered today or could this be a deliberate historical echo in his possible obstruction of justice by a president? joining our discussion now. also joining us is david corn who literally co wrote the book about the russia portion of the mueller investigation as he knew it. russian roulette by david corn and michael isikoff. michael, we don't know exactly what robert mueller's historical fluency is in the watergate investigation. but here we have a president trump who most likely told robert mueller through his lawyers that he would bleed the fifth amendment if questioned and subpoenaed by robert mueller. and there's richard nixon advocating pleading the fifth amendment, doing whatever they had to do to stonewall it and cover it up. a cover-up presidential tape on the sam

report has been delivered on the 46th anniversary of the secret watergate tape in which nixon tells john mitchell you all to stone wall it. let them plead the 5th amendment. cover up or anything else if it will save it, save the plan. [ inaudible ] richard nixon said that on tape on this day 46 years ago. so, is it just a coincidence that the mueller report is completed today, or could this be a deliberate historical echo by robert mueller in his investigation of possible obstruction of justice by a president? joining our discussion now, nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss, also joining us is david corn who literally co-wrote the book about the russia portion of the mueller investigation as he knew it. russian roulette by michael corn. michael beschloss, we don't know exactly what robert mueller's historical fluency is in the watergate investigation. but here we have a president trump who, most likely -- we don't know this yet, but most likely told robert mueller through his lawyers that he would plead the 5th amendment if questioned and subpoenaed by robert mueller. and there's ric

we all remember john mitchell, who was richard nixon's first presidential campaign manager in the 1968 campaign, became the president's attorney general. he ended up going off to prison for his service to richard nixon. but you have to go back that far to find something like what we're reporting on tonight. >> well, he went to prison actually, he only served about 18 months. he was eligible for up to 30 years and got something like 2 1/2 to 8 years. so it's not as far off as one would think from today. but that was 45 years ago, and the sentencing guidelines have changed dramatically. and i think people are upset because of the divergence between what would happen to any other defendant and what happened to this defendant. his privilege and his wealth clearly made a difference in the sentencing. and his crimes are quite serious. and they were a cumulative set of crimes for which he was eligible rightly so for quite a long sentence. i think the leniency is something that will hurt in terms of deterrence of future criminals but also just shows the lack of equity in our justice system, th

listen carefully right now to what nixon told his attorney general, john mitchell, back in 1973. >> i want you to stonewall it. the president's son now agrees that everybody should plead the fifth, yet the president himself has previously made clear that he thinks -- what he thinks of people who ever take the fifth. >> there are five people taking the fifth amendment. like you see on the mob, right? you see the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why you taking the fifth amendment? >> well, this comes as the house judiciary committee under chairman jerry nadler appears intent on fulfilling its oversight responsibilities. as "the new york times" notes, that investigation could seek to gather -- together, tied together, the scheme to pay off miss daniels, the firing of james b. comey as fbi director, mr. trump's attempts to remove the special counsel, robert mueller. the president's apparent dangling of pardons and threatening of witnesses to the investigation and other events. to no one's surprise, the president today slammed the house judiciary committee, calling their investigat

has been delivered on the 46th anniversary of the secret watergate tape in which knicks on tells john mitchell i want you all to stonewall it. let them plead the fifth amendment. cover it up or anything else if it will save it, save the plan. that's the whole point. richard knicks on said that on tape on this day, 46 years ago. so, is it just a coincidence that the mueller report is completed today, or could this be a deliberate historical echo by robert mueller in his investigation of possible obstruction of justice by a president. joining our discussion now presidential historian and david corn who literally co-wrote the book of the russian portion of the mueller investigation as he knew it. "russian roulette." michael, we don't know exactly what robert mueller's historical fluency in the watergate investigation, but here we have a president trump who most likely, we don't know this yet, but most likely told robert mueller through his lawyers that he would plead the fifth amendment if questioned and subpoenaed by robert mueller. and there's richard knicks on advocating pleading the fifth ame

burn," you know a similar dynamic played out in watergate when the president's campaign manager, john mitchelltorney general, and wife, martha mitchell, wound up in the same place with martha mitchell being a principal leaker against president nixon putting evidence out there about him and nixon tried to have her offed basically and locked up in jail and so on, so forth. i think the challenge here is -- >> wait, wait, you can't -- i didn't know this story until i listened to the "slow burn" podcast. we will devote more time to this, play some of it. you reminded me of this. i wish i pulled it. this is so important because we make these nixon parallels loosely, but this is a nixon parallel in the specific. i mean, they -- she was physically threatened by secret service. she was locked in a hotel. i mean, hopefully with twitter and everything, george conway will call for help. this is someone with a window into trump through his wife's experiences who is literally using twitter to sound a four-alarm fire day after day. >> that's right. it is important to know that george conway is, first of all,

eisenhower nominated brennen and nixon gets on the phone with john mitchell who is the attorney general to see if there is an alternative, someone conservative but might satisfy ethnic political design. >> can i guide you to -- no, that's what i mean. >>> it will mean more to the catholics than the protestants. >>> this is not a reassuring conversation about an administration looking for high qualifications for the court. mitchell concludes there are no acceptable conservative contact let me know to nominate. of the four nominees, renquist closely fulfills his vision. he is strong and smart and comes to washington in the 1960s and will remain on the court through the bush two years and elevated to be chief justice by reagan and we will encounter him over and over the course of the semester. we have transformation of the court from a liberal court to a closely divided court and renquist is a fairly conservative chief justice and blackman who will become liberal although in the '70s is more center and drifts to the lefts in the late 1970s. liberals discover they had assumed in the '60s th

remember who john mitchell was? the attorney general but also the campaign chairman for richard nixon re-election campaign. he went to jail for watergate. he was sentenced to one to four years, served 19 months and got out. >> david, i'm going to let you continue, but i didn't know you were going to quiz. we'll quiz with you. we remember him. we also remember john dean, haldeman, ehrlichman, we'll put these up. their original sentencing, to your point, were in the range of four to eight years. >> i mean, we're looking now -- >> look at what manafort's looking at. go ahead, david. >> i was going to say, paul manafort is on the verge of setting a very not wanted record. you know, the prosecutor's asking for 19 years. even if the judge gives him half of that and he still has to be sentenced for another set of crimes next week, he may way beat the record of any former campaign manager who goes to jail. i mean, this is really historic. i don't think, you know, we get lost in the day-to-day, but donald trump's top campaig

john mitchell, h.r.haldeman down to one of the burglars, james mccord who got just four months. what would be the reasonable expectation of the sentence maufpaul manafort may get in the second round of sentencing? >> paul manafort is facing sentencing on two different conspiracy counts each carrying a maximum of five years. judge jackson could give him up to ten years. she cannot go above that. that's different from the guidelines. that's a statutory maximum. will she give that much time? hard to say. the other discretion she has is whatever sentence she imposes she can make all of it, some or none of it run consecutive to what manafort got from judge ellis, meaning on top of it. or in parallel with it. now, look, here's the thing. as we all know, judge ellis' sentence had nothing to do with russian collusion. that's the problem. trump is reading into it saying judge ellis affirmed that manafort had nothing do with russian collusion. that's not true. it had nothing to do with it. he didn't say anything one way or the other. the case where judge jackson is sentencing him gets clo

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mitchell. real clear markets editor john tami, and katherine rooney veer a.i noticed, no one cares about the debt, response and questioning, very little to do about the debt because no one cares. i'm wondering how can we possibly address a problem folks collectively don't view as a problem or dismiss? >> right, neil. let's ask paul ryan how that went for him. he was only one who tackled issue. only one to talked about it. he is out. neil: as you know, you're so good at it, he was just talking about curtailing growth of medicare, not cut it. slow its growth. he was flinging granny off a cliff. >> he was crucified. that wheelchair throwing granny off a cliff in the cartoon. that was to reform programs completely out of control, effectively a ponzi scheme. i don't count on social security. i am no one in the audience should count on social security. it will not be there. this is 2/3 of spending goes to mandatory spending. almost a joke to me when we talk about the budget battles. the budget battles we're fighting over insignificant portion of the massive governm

john stewart. and jack gardner and margaret. i always want to say margaret mitchell, but you did not write that book. margaret miller and catherine epps all. i want to thank rick divine and andrew berman, and i want to thank everybody in the room for being supportive of affordable housing, and i want to thank everyone for allowing us to partner with you and be part of this. thank you. [applause] >> i am taking a lot of notes. no repayment to wells fargo. we will let the federal government give you tax credits. that works for me. so, anyway, it is two limited partnerships building three buildings of the five blocks that are part of phase two, but we will geek out on that later. we will keep it on track here. but last but not least of our financing came from another major community development lender, city community capital, which provided over 100 million. i hope nobody is adding up these dollars because u.s.a. how much does this thing cost? prided over $100 million in construction loans and over $8 million in a long-term financing for hunter charge of you. in fact, o

- well, john, to look inside his body, we took x-ray of mr. mitchell's back with and without the belt on. then we had a back specialist analyze the structure improvement. his results were extraordinary. with the x-ray on, look at this, his x-ray shows there's an increase in the disc space. and when we look at this smooth line, it indicates it improvement in the spinal alignment. and down here, we see there's an improvement in the stability of his lower back. - so your belt helped him with his mechanical deficiencies. - [dr. ho] that's right. - and that's why his back, his legs, they're all working better and feeling better. - mm-hmm. you know, that's right, john. you know, i test my belt on many people, and i'm confident that my belt will help you relieve your back pain like nothing else. and i can assure you all my testimonials are from real people just like you, people who suffer chronic back pain who get relief using my belt. now i want you to try my belt to see how it works for you, and i guarantee that it will work for you. try my belt for 30 days,

john hickenlooper. i'm running for president because we're facing a crisis that threatens everything we stand for. ♪ ♪ >>> and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchellwashington where house democrats are flooding the trump zone with requests for documents. a dramatic expansion of their investigations into the president, his family, his business associates and of course, the campaign. judiciary chairman jerry nadler clearly working off leads for michael cohen's testimony is expanding his list demanding that 81 individuals and entities deliver documents dating back to 2015. in just one example, nbc news has obtained a copy of the committee's request to former trump associate sam nunberg seeking any documents related to a range of critical topics including trump tower moscow, the june 2016 trump tower meeting. russia sanctions and wikileaks. white house press secretary sarah sanders has responded saying the counsel's office and relevant white house officials review it and respond at the appropriate time. will they also claim executive privilege for white house officials? joining me now nbc white house correspondent, kristin welker and nbc intelligence

john , the national security adviser has said if nukeson't give up their and dismantle, that the u.s. is prepared to of the en the economic sanctions instead of lifting the as north korea wants. >> andrea mitchell in d.c., thowk you. >>>o the long road ahead when it comes to the 2020 presidential race. more big names on the democratic side are bowing out, raising the question . >> reporter: this morning michael bloomberg is bowing out. the billionaire, former new york city mayor announcing hejoon't the rapidly expanding 2020 democratic field, ending months of deliberations about a white house bid. in a column for bloomberg news, the three-term mayor acknowledges his path to the nomination would have bee narrow, writing, i believe i would defeat donald trump in a general b election, i am clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the democraticon nominan such a crowded field. now bloomberg says he'll devot hisnergy and vast fortune to defeating the president with a focus ons battleground state and issues like combating climate change and gun violence, urging democrats to rally behind a nominee who can beat mr. trump. bloomberg's decision could clear a wider path for former vice president joe bid