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ken dilanian, you were there at the manafort courthouse, and the expression of shock on the faces of all of the people on the ari melber show on msnbc when it broke, when he said 47 months. here people had been talking about the maximum could be 24 1/2 years, according to the sentencing guidelines. it just seems like a very, very lenient sentence. >> uponle reflection, with some more reporting, it really is, andrea. i've been consulting with experts today, andve people hav been contrasting the peoptreatm paul manafort got with what happens to poor defendants of color in drug cases. there's a case in south dakota of tax evasion where a person got nine years. >> $55 million was proved to the satisfaction of the jurors, and wesa even had the jury, one jur last night on lawrence o'donnell, on "then last word, saying it was 11-1 on the other ten counts. >> that's right, one hold-out. this was a complicated scheme that lasted tenth years. the reason the guidelines called for up to 24 years is because it met theus criteria for that. guidelines are designed so that federal sentences are fair

joining me, hans nichols and our national security reporter ken dilanian. and annie carney and former house intel staff, mica oyang. >> the new york times last night blew it wide open. donald trump did open that jared kushner get this clearance despite all of the concerns. how significant is this, ken? >> well, it is significant on a number of levels. one, there is a public policy issue here. career security officials flag concerns of jared kushner's background and his foreign entanglements. donald trump has cast that system aside. he has the legal right to do that. the other issue is he lied about it and instead of announcing i am going to by pass the bureaucracy and i am going to grant my son-in-law a clearance. he was actually involved. congress wants to know more details and they'll get their hand ons t hands-on the memo that mcgahn and kelly wrote. this is another scandal at the trump's white house. >> what sort of concerns would they have? if there are concerns that he may have too many contacts with foreign officials, potentially nbs over saudi arabi

>> i'm a poor substitute for ken dilanian, but i'll do my best. >> i apologize for that, mike. i know you and ken have been working on this together. mike, the list of names which we can put up on the wall there is extensive. what jumps out at you? >> believe it or not, ali, the committee sources tell me when they first drew up a list of potential targets as part of this investigation that the judiciary committee is launching today, they started with over 150 names. they realized they couldn't necessarily begin with that big of a number so they tried to narrow it down, came down to 81. of course there are obvious headliners there, the white house itself, the fbi, the justice department. this sets up potential battles over executive privilege and what kind of documents the white house will itself turnover. obviously we go to the family. eric trump, donald trump, jr., jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, although we should mention ivanka trump his daughter. then, of course, we have entities like the trump transition team. we know there's been a lot of scrutiny into that, the

nbc's ken dilanian is there. ken, the latest news we have that i want to talk to you about that is pretty interesting is mueller's prosecutors going into on paul manafort here. this is the last time they get to do that before the judge decides, as you know and for your analysis. we hear mueller's prosecutors saying they spent, quote, hours of him -- with him, but that was not reflective of any value. meaning don't credit him for the time they spent. indeed, they say he wasted the precious time of mueller's team. quote, 50 hours with us because he lied, he lied, so it took longer to provide the truth to him. what are you seeing, ken? >> reporter: it's fascinating, ari. another quote from prosecutor, hours of time spent with the special counsel are not reflective of the value of information we received. that solves a little bit of a mystery for us, ari, because we thought even though manafort ultimately was found to have lied, he spent so many sessions with the special counsel, it stood to reason he provided them at

nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. and elliott abrams, who lobbies for lawworks, an organization advocating for the importance of the certainly counsel. kristen, just for the latest from there, clearly this is what the president has been focusing on, walking out of the white house yesterday to that spray that i know you were at, saying immediately, not "hello" or "greetings," but "no collusion, no collusion." it's remarkable that he's been so silent today. >> that's what's been so remarkable for us, cakasie, the fact that he was so vocal on twitter, at the ohio event, going on a ten-minute rant about the late senator john mccain. he does have an event here later this afternoon, so perhaps we'll hear something from him then. just to set the scene, it is the waiting game at the white house, kasie. it's really reached a fever pitch. you have officials here huddling, trying to determine next steps, meeting with officials, reporters trying to determine if they know more than we know. everyone wants to know when this report

let's bring in ken dilanian, nbc news investigations reporter. we shouldn't be surprised that the president is already pooh poohing the importance of the report. he has very successfully muddied the waters across the media landscape for the last year abo about it. >> he really has, stephanie. it's calculated and it's worked according to polling numbers. he has tarred the investigation and suggested it was a democratic deep state plot, an illegitimate investigation, and there's a portion of the american public that believes him. but it's interesting that he is laying this kind of groundwork for the mueller report. obviously we don't know what the mueller report is going to say. and it may well say that there was no conspiracy with russia, in which case he will proclaim victory and tout no collusion. but the important question will be what else does it say? does it discuss the actions of the trump campaign with regard to russia? does it say, trump was negligent, for example, and allowed itself to be manipulated by russian intelligence operation. th

joining me, nbc news intelligence, ken dilanian, he's outside the courthouse in virginia. new york times chief white house correspondent and msnbc political analyst, peter baker. >> our eliot williams and he also lobbies for law work and organizations in advocating the importance of special counsel and michael caputo, ken, first to you, what's happening in manafort's sentencing? >> reporter: manafort will stand up. judge ellis is the guy who raised questions about the mueller investigation earlier in manafort's case. the only reason you are here is because you worked for donald trump. manafort will get a chance to speak for the first time since gag order was imposed on him in 2017. he'll get a chance to express remorse for his crimes if he so chooses and ellis will read his sentencing. he can end up with a sense of five or eight or twelve years. the real question is what happens next week in washington when that judge will pass a sentence in the d.c. case and decide whether those sentences are served at the same time or one after another. manafort is looking at a lot of ti

. >> i am joined by forme deputy chief of staff, ken dilanian and omica oyang. thank you for being with us. these memos are being reported from mcgahn and kelly. have our commit confirmed that at this moment, they still exist some where. >> no, we have not. it is one of the reasons we are seeking cooperation from the white house. failing that, we have to reach out to mcgahn and kelly to try to get their individual cooperation with the committee and ask them to produce those memos. >> the conversations and the communications between your committee and the white house, i say in this letter tonight that your chairman, elijah cummings, he makes effort to make this and not go public with this and so forth. have they been cooperative or any explanation or he's not confirming it? >> no, steve, they stone walled these requests. our concern about security clearances predates this incident by over a year. we have been concerned about the interim security incident. how did mr. porter get any kind of security clearance. this is not the president would say or try to get docu

we're joine by nbc news national security consider so consider so dend ken dilanian. so how much of the report are we likely to see? >> in the days ahead we're not doing to see any of the robert mueller report, that's confidential. what we hope to see is a summary by the attorney general. he's first going to brief key members of congress, the heads of the judiciary committee. things point we expect shll leak, that's the way it works in gton. at some point they'll release a summary to the public. to the democrats are going want the whole report. congressional democratlsaid they w this subpoena this report. >> is this what theoc dts on the hill have been waiting for, now we have the report out of the way, can we head in directions the more we know. >> the's a bipartisan investigation in the senate, they want the evidence that robert mueller has got -- >> can you speak up a little bit becausetr we're havinble with your mic. >> sure. in the house, adam schiff is leading a democrat-only investigation looking broad at the question is president trump under the influence of r

joining us now, nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian and barbara mcquade, former uss attorney for the eastern district of michigan and currently law professor at the university of michigan. >> ken, let's go to you first. the actual mueller report for a second. no one knows what it is. help us understand the other department of justice cases connected to the mueller investigation, because i think that the novice eye thinks it's all in the report and then it's over. >> that's a great question, stephanie, because these things often get conflight conflated. he investigated whether there were links between the trump campaign and the russia interference. that investigation is going to live on regard lgs of what robert mueller does. it is an investigation into the trump inaugural committee and some members of the trump organization. and michael cohen is kotbing in that investigation as is rick gates who hasn't been sentenced yet. there are other investigations we know less about. there's been reporting that a fund-raiser named elliott is in the crosshairs of federal pros

back with me, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian, and joining me, msnbchief legal correspondent ari melber. ken, what do you know about what went down in the days after michael cohen's home and offices were raided? >> i think the important thing here is there were discussions about a pardon. whether or not cohen's side raised it or the white house, it seems to be cohen's lawyer at the time raised it first, that's not really as relevant to congressional investigators. cohen was part of a joint defense agreement at the time. everyone was on the same team. cohen was telling a story that aligned with the president's story, which happened to be false. congressional investigators are saying if there was any implication cohen could obtain a pardon by simply maintaining his false story, that could add up to obstruction of justice. there's a lot we don't understand about what's happening here, and the biggest open question is whether prosecutors in new york in the southern district are also investigating this matter because remember, when michael cohen was asked d

joining me now, ken dilanian, and bradley moss, welcome to both of you. ken, tell us what the story is, nbc news reported white house security officials initially rejected jared kushner's application after a background check which raised concerns about a potential for foreign influence. so, i guess if donald trump can legally arrange to get him clearance, why would he deny having done that? >> the only reason that makes sense to me, ali, is that they were trying to avoid embarrassment. you know, the notion that there was nepotism at play here, that donald trump was going to cast aside the rules and the bureaucracy for granting security clearances and simply give one to his son-in-law and his daughter. but that's what happened, because as you said, we reported that the career officials took a look at jared kushner's security clearance application and said he didn't deserve one. they were overruled by their boss at the white house. that man did that because donald trump ordered it done through his chief of staff and his white house counsel. and both of those

morning joe economic nsd and anchor for bbc news america katty kay and national security reporter ken dilanian. >> we got ken? >> yeah. >> how did we fare so well? >> okay, you're punchy. it's friday. >> no, i'm still focused on seth good morni gorkin. i was a right wing cold warrior for a very long time. that's why dr. brzezinski and i got along very well. i know it would be a shock to dr. brzezinski, though, were he still with us, god rest his soul, to find out he spent hissin tihis entire life trying to defeat stalinist russia when he thought it was about tierney when in fact we learned that it was about hamburgers. when is your speaking lot at cpac? >> mine i think got lost in the mail sadly. but i would attend if i was offered. i would probably explain that the quota system in the old soviet union was about production and less about destroying your capacity to intake protein. >> the stupidity, though, that's being exhibited right now is breathtaking. it's just breathtaking. >> well, he is playing off a foil that is a very convenient one for republicans in the form of alexandria ocasio-cor

ken dilanian is joining me and natasha bertrand here with me in washington. ken, your view? >> ari, look, i think after covering this investigation for two years, we have to just take note of the fact that this massive federal investigation, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 50 pen registers we learned today found no evidence of conspiracy by donald trump or anyone around him. that's oa huge deal, huge win for the president. on the obstruction question while he wasn't cleared, he's in the clear legally because the top law enforcement official in the land has decided not to bring a case -- a charge, leaving aside the president of whether the president can be indicted -- >> i'll stop you there, ken. just to make sure we're not moving too fast. you said leaving it aside, i'm not -- but he doesn't leave it aside. footnote two on page three -- >> right. he said -- >> he says that while there is that issue, our determination -- i'm reading from the barr letter. because i think it's very important that folks understand we're in a whole new ball game tonight. we are not in the t

and obviously we heard from ken dilanian mueller issued a comprehensive report to -- ken dilanian. >> he might have. >> but he issued it to bill barr. what exactly do we think? >> i would imagine barr has assembled his team. he's got a team of attorneys looking at it and trying to go through and it and assess what's in there, whether or not there are actually any conclusions and any things that are still open. are there any other investigations that perhaps mueller has handed over to the southern district of new york, to the district of virginia and a variety of things. and what he's looking to do is synthesize that information and put out a report. but we already know from the democrats that they're not interested perhaps in a summary. they want the full thing. and i think that as americans we should want that. as taxpayers we paid for this investigation. it's been over 22 months. there's no reason we should not see it, particularly since this investigation goes to the core of our democracy. we already know that russia has meddled with our investigation. the question here is to what

. >> let's bring in harin harry l and ken dilanian can. ken, have you had a chance to look not to this? >> reporter: yeah, i'm looking at documents on line. and it looks like cohen is saying that he hasn't paid his legal bills since may 2018 and he's saying that as of january 25th, 2019, he's incurred $1.9 million in legal bills that he is going after the trump organization for aend wants them to pay another $1.9 million that were forfeited as part of his criminal sentence. so really an interesting argument. he has essentially flipped on the president but he still wants the president to pay his legal bills even while evident coopera evident coopera he was cooperating with the special counsel and southern district. >> and mike, you have covered this closely. how do you think that the white house will take this? >> well, we can tell from the language of cohen versus trump org here that this is essentially a divorce document. that it memorializes the fact that for 11 years he probably worked for the trump organization and in michael cohen's la

ken dilanian and ari melber. most of "the beat" at 6:00 p.m. eastern every day. judges questioning claims that president trump is violating the constitution by profiting from domestic and foreign officials who are staying at his washington ho tell. one of the people that filed the suit and drew that september schism. plus new details on beto o'rourke's fundraising haul in the first 24 hours after his 2020 presidential announcement came from. his 2020 presidential announcement came from. if your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potent

. >> joining me ken dilanian and former attorney for rick gates,. how long is this report and have we gotten any idea from the attorney general? all we have seen is the four-page summary. >> we have not gotten any idea. >> why are they being so lucy-goosy of the time frame. i think they don't know how much process it will take of summarizing. here is the bottom line, katy, no matter what william barr releases or when, it is not going to sacrifice congressional democrats and a lot of the country wants to see the mueller report and not a summary by a trump's appointee who wrote memos before he was hired. democrats are strategizing whether subpoenaing robert mueller or demanding a classified briefing sell intense committee that mueller examines. >> this was not just a partisan desire, ted cruz h, has been on the record as recently as today saying he wants to see the full mueller report. he says the nation have gone through a trauma for two years and the nation deserves to see exactly what's in it. how much pressure is the doj feeling on that. i think w

hours ago, that was a pretty solid joke. ( laughter ) and in the first round, i'm up against nbc's ken dilanian's quoted as saying, "the trump tower meeting revelations present the first evidence of collusion." okay, i'm definitely going to win-- his joke doesn't even make sense! ( laughter ) of course, once i knock out dilanian, i could end up going against a big challenger from the cable region: my good friend john oliver, who's listed as a four-seed, while i'm a three-seed. audienceeacts )n. looks like i'm ranked higher in a fake "new york post" bracket. ( laughter ) i guess you'll have to be content with all those emmys, sucker. ( laughter ) we've got a great show for you tonight. keri russell is here, but when we return, more monologue. stick around! ( cheers and applause ) ( band playing ) nosy neighbor... witglad bag full of trashl. what happens next? nothing. only glad has febreze to neutralize odors for 5 days. guaranteed. even the most perceptive noses won't notice the trash. be happy, it's glad™. when i walked through a snowthat's when i knewtte, i had to quit. for real this time. th

ken dilanian, first of all on the cpac speech, does he create new problems for himself in context of russian investigation every time he goes out and does something like that in. >> one thing i noticed and others noticed two times he mentioned his wife in the context of knowing things about russia. he said he discussed the firing of james comey, and we wonder does that make her a witness? she would have spousal privilege. >> i'm glad you brought that up of the let me show our audience exactly that moment ken talks about. >> when i fired comey, i said, you know, first lady, i said melania, i'm doing something today, i'm doing it because it really has to be done. he's bad. he's a bad, bad guy. and i said to the first lady, i said but you know the good news, the good news is that this is going to be so bipartisan, everyone's going to love it. so i said to melania, melania, the good news, this will be a popular thing. and a fire a bad cop, i fire a dirty cop and all of a sudden the democrats say how dare he fire him! how dare he do this? >> by the way, first lady melania's trump three-st

up next nbc's ken dilanian joins us to break down these today. >>> plus caught on camera, a mother poisoning her disabled son. today she pleads guilty. find out whyhe says she did it. >>> campus safety. there's an app for that. i'm d idcolver. just ahead i'll show you the new features they're now using to keep>> at 5:30 we are staying on b top ofaking news. that same type of boeing jet that crashed killing 157 people on sunday is being dwrounlded across the united states. er>> that emergency ord happened so recently some of those flights are stillp in the sky. others are turning around on runways. ai are trying to rebook people as a quicklys possible. our transportation reporter adam tuss is working this story. >>> some sad breaking news in local politics. former maryld governor harry hughes has died. he served from 1979 to 1987. he took the office after scandals involving his two predecessors. the current governor larry hogan issued a statement maryland, quote, will give him the celebration of life he truly deserved. hughes was 92 years old. >>> tonight a fairfax county mother admits she in

first let me bring in outside the courthouse, paul manafort, our own ken dilanian. i'm also joined by sal wi wisenberg, bob bower, and car carol lee here onset, eugene robinson. ken, let me start with you, you're outside, we have reporting going on inside and outside, judge ellis, we know he enjoys moments in the sun. is this going to be a very drawn out process in the next hour? >> it appears so, chuck. two things have happened already at the starting of the hearing that i think set the tone. one is that paul administramana wheeled in in a green jump suit. his days of $10,000 suits are over. she going to prison for some time, most likely a long time. the judge started the hearing by saying to the courtroom that paul manafort is not going to be sentenced here for anything to do with russian collusion. that speaks to the unanswered question that's will loom over the proceeding. many of the key questions we have about where paul manafort fits in, if at all with any kind of conspiracy with russia, that is not what this case is about. he was convicted here in virginia. t

. >>> now to national security and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian joining us right now. we got the letter from barr last night. what can we expect right now, but from the report itself? >> reporter: that letter told us something very important which is that, in addition to disclosing his declination desituations, he las has other information in the report which may or may not be made public. the special counsel regulations are sparse and only require him to explain to the attorney general who he decided not to prosecute and why. the big question with mueller, would he write a larger narrative, disclose all the things he found short of crimes. we cast judgment on behavior of the trump with russia. reading the tea leaves of this letter, it appears he's done more than just talk about who he didn't prosecute. he's also saying it's not clear all that stuff could become public. what would be the reasons for that? one, it could be classified. secondly, it could derive from secret grand jury information. no matter what barr reports to congress and what he sends in a second more

joining me tom winter and ken dilanian and yahoo news correspondent and the coarthur of right turn "roulette," rick gates' former attorney, anne mar marie mackeroy. we got a big story to get through. >> these are 16 counts that he's charged with specifically are tied to residential real estate mortgage fraud as well as false f falsifying documents. a lot of the under line facts of this and a lot of documents isobare associated with this. a lot of the kind of technicalities and the real details of this, we heard of before and it is going to be familiar to those watching us. the specific charges were brought today are different at the special counsel's office brought involving paul manafort. manafort if he's convicted of the highest offense today, facing anywhere from 8 to 25 years in state prison for those charges. those was handed up by a grand jury here in new york. these are very specific to new york city, real estate and specifically manhattan real estate charges and business charges. that's the core of what we are looking at today. >> he'll not be eligible for a presidential pardon. >> e

joining me now is ken dilanian, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter, barrett burger, former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york, malcolm nance, msnbc terrorism analyst and author, and jane newton small, time magazine contributor. let me go first to you, ken. tell us where we are right now. i know the democrats had a call at 3:00, which i'll talk about later, but there's been surprising silence from the president. where are we right now 24 hours after the release of this report? >> well, donald trump was playing golf today, reverend al. attorney general william barr and his deputy attorney general rod rosenstein were cloistered behind closed doors at the justice department reading and reviewing the mueller report. barr would not be releasing the preliminary conclusions that he promised to congress today, but they could come as early as tomorrow. to be clear, what that will be, we assume that will be a rather brief and terse summary of simply decisions that robert mueller made not to prosecute certain individuals and related matters. barr made clear

nbc's ken dilanian will be at the courthouse when manafort is sentenced later today. he's here on set. kelly o'donnell is at the white house. and ken, let me start with you. this is a lot for manafort today. it's a milestone in the mueller investigation. and it's the potential for manafort to spend the rest of his life behind bars. >> it's an epic tragedy and fall from grace. here's a guy who could have had very little prison time had he gone forward with his cooperation agreement and told the truth to robert mueller. he decided, for whatever reason, to lie to them. now he's looking at an enormous amount of time of. that 19-year figure is misleading. could be concurrent meaning the sentences could overlap. so he could end up with 5 to 8. then it depends on what he gets next week in the washington, d.c., case. that judge will really determine how much time he spends in prison. >> you think the d.c. case, that judge may be tougher than the judge in virginia? >> that's the tea leaves we've been reading. and judge ellis in virginia is known as a light sentencer on white-co

our own ken dilanian reports that by last april, mueller's team rarely asked probing questions about russia. instead, the special counsel's office wanted to know what was in trump's head when he fired james comey and what his intent was when he denounced the russia investigation on twitter. to find that out, mueller's team wanted to interview trump. trump's legal team resisted without ever saying no. and the subpoena never materialized. here to talk with us about it tonight. two former assistant attorneys for the southern district of new york. maya and jessica. welcome to you both. the trump lawyers worried more about obstruction. we learned tonight comey is confused, are you confused about what we know about mueller's work product and the decisions or nondecisions he came to. >> i find the part of the barr letter summarizing the mueller report on the obstruction question to be the most confusing part of the letter, and i find two parts of it confusing. mueller's apparent nondecision about whether to recommend a charge of obstruction of justice. the second part is barr's decision to

and ken dilanian, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. ntlemen, thank you for being here for a very busy friday. ken, i want to start with you, because this bombshell report in "the new york times" billion on a report that you and our colleagues here at nbc news first had that there were serious concerns about how jared kushner's security clearance was handled. >> so what we reported was that two career security specialists in the white house take a look at his applications, looked at the foreign influence concerns, and said no, he shouldn't get one, but were overruled by a person in the white house who was acting on the orders of the president. the president has full authority to do that, he can grant access to whoever he wants. the question is why did he choose to lie about this, if this reporting is correct, and why did his reporter, if "the post"'s reporting is correct, why did she say there was no special treatment? >> on that point, this is what the president told "the new york times" several months ago. >> did you tell general kelly

i have kelly o'donnell, ken dilanian, yamiche and natasha in washington with me. i swear i was in new york recently. let me start with both of you here. we're in this town of d.c. everyone is very excited except for donald trump, who is unusually quiet. >> very weird, yeah. just the fact we've heard absolutely nothing from him when he would usually be tweeting up a storm on the weekend, especially when he's at mar-a-lago is a little odd. but i do think that come tomorrow when the results are kind of in, right, when the top line summary goes to congress and when we learn about it simultaneously, because we will, it will also be released to reporters to all of us. we may see some movement coming from the white house in terms of pushback. we don't know what it's going to say, but i imagine it's not going to be all good for the president. i imagine it's going to say why perhaps they declined to charge him for things like obstruction of justice, why they perhaps declined to bring a conspiracy charge, which is what a lot of people have been expecting and there's not goi

joining us now, nbc news investigative reporter ken dilanian, former federal prosecutor glenn kirchner, former assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, mimi rocah, nbc news investigations reporter tom winter, and way chen, former compliance counsel expert at the department of justice. we have a full house. >> i will say one thing that we can get to in a minute. mortgage fraud charges, one of the things we've been talking about with the investigations in the new york state investigations into the donald trump family has been about mortgages, about loans against properties and about that sort of fraud. >> misstating the value of his property. >> donald trump, that has to be going off in his head right now that new york state is onto a different line of attack than all of these other investigations. >> remember quickly, we hear it over and over again, you can't indict a sitting president. but do you remember who he is in business with? his daughter, his sons, his immediate family. you can indict them. >> this is interesting. we're going to talk about what paul manafor

ken dilanian, who covers intelligence and national security for nbc news. rick tyler, a republican strategist and cofounder of foundry strategies. jason johnson, politics editor at theroot.com. josh gottheimer, a democratic congressman from my home state of new jersey. which means, sorry, guys, josh is getting all of the time this morning. and malcolm nance, executive editor of the terror asymmetrics project. ken, i've got to go to you. you wrote that nbc news article in january that said, cukushner article got dinged out of the gate -- excuse me, his application got dinged out of the gate. walk us through why it was rejected and really, the path over the last year, because i remember, when he did get security clearance. i remember sitting in this chair and saying, people need to dial it back. if you're so concerned that jared is up to no good, he would never have gotten clearance if there was so much bad stuff there. maybe i was wrong. >> i think you might have been, stephanie. we all were wrong, because what we reported, stephanie, was that two white hous

to glenn kirchner and ken dilanian and franklin, stephanie cutter, and matt miller, of course harry litmanthank you all. we've had a lot of breaking news today, and there's a lot more to come. here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle for "velshi & ruhle." >> we're going to pickup where you left off, andrea. i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. we start with the breaking news of the hour. it is not over for paul manafort. the 69-year-old former trump campaign manager was indicted by the manhattan district attorney, but 30 minutes after his new sentencing in washington, d.c. there manafort was sentenced by two federal judges to a combined 90 months or 7 1/2 years behind bars. he is set to be there just over 6 1/2 years. >> but there is new indictment for mortgage fraud and conspiracy brings the long-time lobbyist's trouble to a local level. a new level where a potential presidential pardon, which is something we've been talking about for a long time about

i want to bring in ken dilanian who covers intelligence and national security for nbc. so walk me through it. is it clear whether or not cohen committed perjury last week and if he did, if he did reach out to rudy giuliani and ask for a pardon, and rudy giuliani said no, how much do we believe in michael cohen's testimony because sounds like if he asked for the pardon and he got it, he would be willing to lie to this day. >> stephanie, i don't think we'll see michael cohen charged with perjury out of this. but there is clearly a contradiction. he said i never asked for a pardon at that hearing under oath. and now we're learning that he did reach out to his lawyers back when he was in the joint defense agreement with donald trump to explore the possibility of a pardon. the way lanny davis explains that is that there was a time when he was cooperating with trump in the liar's club as davis puts it and then a time when he broke and came clean and that is what he is referring to this latter time in his testimony. we have some sound from lanny on that. let's take a listen to

as ken dilanian told us last month, you may be disappointed. that's because the special counsel operates under rules that really restrict how much information can end up being made public. we're joined by nbc news justice correspondent pete williams and nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. pete, i want to start with you and talk us through the mechanics of this. how we're going to learn that mueller has, in fact, completed his report and what happens from there. >> well, our guidance here is the special counsel rules themselves. and what they say is when the special counsel has concluded his work, he presents a confidential report to the attorney general. so all signs are that -- and this is a picture of robert mueller demonstrating that he can actually drive himself to work today. this is an ap picture of him coming into work. but when he's done, he's going to present his report to barr. all signs point to that happening really any day now. we, frankly, have been expecting this for the last couple of weeks. and today is no differ

i want to bring in nbc's intelligence and national security reporter, ken dilanian. line polici, a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney, robert beyanke. ken, walk me through these new charges. >> it's a 16-count indictment, stephanie, involving mortgage fraud, falsification of business records. it involves transactions part of the mueller investigation. and many of them were entered into evidence in manafort's virginia trial. some legal experts have raised the question of double jeopardy. you can't be charged twice for the same crime in the united states but it's common, though, for you to face state charges on the same fact pattern as federal charges. but new york has a tougher standard of double jeopardy. nonetheless, manhattan district attorney believes he'll prevail. also these state charges, i think loom larger in importance today because we're learning the top prosecutor in the manafort case, mueller's top prosecutor, is leaving his office. >> how do we read that? >> i have just confirmed that with a source close to -- >> how should we read that? h

. >> ken dilanian, colorfully describes him as the lebron james of money laundering.ows his stuff. if he's moving on, it's tough to see any other reading of this other than this puppy is winding down. >> i agree. that's the most likely reading. i will say, though, mueller is perhaps content with where he has farmed other cases out to, including my old office, the d.c. u.s. attorney's office. we know there are a whole bunch of sealed cases sitting on the d.c. federal court docket that may -- may not be -- but they may be special counsel cases. we know the d.c. u.s. attorney's office is prosecuting the buttina case and russian bot case. he's farmed stuff out. >> he's ceded it into other -- >> the weissman departure doesn't signal the end of prosecutions but mueller is moving into a new phase. >> that's an important distinction. if he's farming out other pieces of the investigation elsewhere, you can look at that to read a couple of ways how he's wrapping this thing up. >> you could. i think we've already seen him farm out cases to sdny and the district of columbia. ther

. >> that's ken dilanian delivering the news on "the b t beat" in realtime yesterday. nd is back with you as well as. ken, were you surprised along with everybody else? >> i was. i was not surprised that the judge went below the guidelines. it was clear in the pretrial hearings that judge ellis had no patience for the special counsel, he questioned the legitimacy of the entire investigation. but to go that low without any seeming basis for it was really surprising. and the idea that he said that paul manafort had lived an otherwise blameless life suggested that he had never read a single article about paul manafort. this is a man who was the leader of something dubbed the torturer's lobby because he represented unsavory dictators in angola and ferdinand marcos and profited as a lobbyist. he invented that business with roger stone. he has not lived an otherwise blameless life. ellis acted as if this was a one-off. this was a ten-year fraud scheme. he was already being paid tens of millions of dollars and yet he decided he couldn't pay the federal taxes on that, will le i

that is where we start with nbc's ken dilanian. michael cohen returns for testimony on wednesday. the house and senate intelligence committees want to know whether cohen was offered a pardon. explain. >> that's right. my sources are telling me a number of new issues were covered by cohen in the closed hearings last week at the house and senate intelligence committees. one of them was this question of pardon discussions. he was asked in both committees whether there were discussions between his representatives and representatives of the white house shortly after his home and office were searched by the fbi in april about a possible pardon. this was when he was still telling the story that aligned with the president. now, the sources were reluctant to say exactly what cohen said. it is a very sensitive matter. let's remember, when cohen was asked in the open hearing about his last conversation with either donald trump or representative of the president, he said he could not answer because that matter is under investigation by new york prosecutors. craig, there's a lot more to be lea