why was he lying? what we learned is when they started asking michael flynn questions, detailed questions about his conversation with kislyak, whether or not they talked about sanctions, whether or not they talked about the retaliation by the russians against the u.s. for expelling all those russians. the obama administration in 2016, whether or not there were conversations about that, and kislyak denying that, essentially saying he didn't have those kinds of conversations with kislyak, flynn denying it. he also lied about the u.n. resolution issue and whether or not he had conversations about that. all things that are very puzzling to everybody. and i'm sure it was for fbi agents who, you know, while may have said they didn't believe he was lying at the time, it's clear based on what the special counsel has said, what the information has laid out, what the criminal charges all lay out, is that he was lying. >> and he pleaded guilty to lying, which is why he's here today. getting ready to be sentenced

we've been talking about the behavior of lying. the pattern of lying. but i want to dig deeper into the consequences of lying. it seems like one of them is that the president is now thought of to be individual number one. we know he's individual number one in this filing out of the southern district of new york and faces serious criminal exposure. >> yeah, his lying has been placed on a different and very difficult context for him. he's been lying without consequence for decades, to the tabloids, to the entertainment press, to congress, to voters. and now -- >> he even called and pretended to be his own publicist. he even lied about who he was. >> i don't want to call him a pathological liar. he's a serial liar. we know that. he's dealing with people who will not be swayed who have the facts he is lying about and so this is a major problem for him. >> and you've picked the biggest lie for us. what is it? >> i considered a few for the absurdity. i considered his lie that americans need voter i.d. or photo i.d. to buy cereal or groceries. i considered his

two, there is a reason they keep lying about these things. cohen was lying about a business deal.re doing a deal and being nice to russia because you were doing a deal, that's collusion. now, is it a crime. >> that's not true, chris. that's not true. >> of course it is. >> how is that collusion? if he was doing his job with a real estate company of trump reality or whatever it's called and that was his job and it had nothing to do with the campaign, that's not collusion. >> second of all, if the president didn't tell us the truth about him trying to get a deal done at the same time he was being soft on sanctions with russia, including some of the financial institutions, he may have needed to do that deal in russia. if he was being soft, which is so odd and out of contacter with him with putin because he didn't want to spoil his relationship, it is not collusion and interfering in the election, but it is still behavior that is wrong. that's why you need to know why they lied. >> you are talking about a real estate deal that was in the beginning of 2016. then you are talking about t

lying to investigators, lying under oath is a crime. did and had to plead guilty to. mueller told congress he lied to them in the sentencing proffer. this is a known liar. a snake who betrayed the president who secretly recorded his own client -- taping his client, unbeknownst to the client. it shows you what kind of character he is -- >> or it shows you how worried he was. he goes out of his way to name allen weisselberg. some part of him thought, this is some dirty stuff, i better cover myself because this man won't cover me, and he's right. >> as you know, as a lawyer he has an obligation to not do those things. the s.d.n.y. tries to say that he directed -- the president, then candidate trump then directed him to commit a felony. i would flip that the other way. he was relying on his lawyer for good legal advice. if his lawyer gave him what is an illegal path, i don't think it is. if the s.d.n.y. is right, his lawyer gave him an illegal path, that's as much on the lawyer as the client. >> anna, when you listen to the tape -- i knew i

he is lying about his lying. but the final point in this manafort filing today is perhaps more serious for people other than paul manafort. and that's because mueller's team says manafort has been lying to them about his communications with people in the trump administration. quote, the evidence demonstrates that manafort lied about his conta contacts. what the prosecutors are saying here is that manafort tried to downplay the fact of his ongoing communications with people in the trump administration. in at least one instance, he tried to secretly communicate with a member of the administration by authorizing, quote, a person to speak to an administration official on his behalf. they say he otherwise just didn't 'fess up to additional contacts he had with trump administration officials. he denied those contacts to prosecutors when they asked him about it. he said that he didn't have those communications, but he did. so, again, this was -- including a senior administration official as described by manafort's prose

or did not think he was lying. flynn struck strzok, the fbi agent as bright but not profoundly sophisticated. what's interesting about this is that flynn's attorneys are arguing had it was the fbi agents who went in there under false pretenses. they were acting like they were friends with him, we're just allies trying to get information and in essence tricked him into lying. that's why they wanted this information released. it is very rare we get to see these kinds of documents. we're getting an inside view now of the interview, of what it was like at the white house when the fbi agents went there to talk to michael flynn. there's more here obviously we're going through, talked about when they received a phone call from michael flynn, how all what went down. this is fascinating because we never get the chance to look inside the room of an interview. that's what we're getting here. and just the perception of the fbi agents at the time. we heard all this. no one thought at the time that flynn was lying. it's perhaps

the reason lying is important. if michael cohen was lying or donald trump were lying. it's just that they weren't lying that they were expolesed in a russia deal. the lie, itself, exposes the president of the united states and the decision-making on matters of foreign policy. you know who knows that michael cohen lied before congress, the russians and the russian versus known cohen lied. so if donald trump has been lying the one party that knows donald trump is lieing is vladimir putin. -- lying is vladimir putin. it can shape the reason why americans shake their head. >> you are right the former soviet union of russia which is acting like the former soviet union has got him by his shorts. anyway, trump publicly applauded jerome corsi for not cooperating with mueller. when he praises somebody, he thinks he has them on the hook. mueller already has everyday that corsi had advanced only in of the hacked e-mails wikileaks planned to release, information passed on to roger stone. corsi's draft plea agreement shows he was in contact with then candidate donald trump. we know

one about lying about his conversation with the russians. and the fact that he did not register as a foreign agent for the government of turkey. now, he was registered lobbyist until he went into the white house. clearly, the judge misspoke when he implied or said that that activity continued. but the reality is, you had michael flynn, he was the incoming national security adviser. and throughout the campaign, he was like the national security adviser in waiting. and yet he failed to disclose that he was, in fact, working as an agent for the turkish government. that's why we have disclosure requirements. so nobody can be confused about who -- where your loyalties lie on a particular issue. >> if flynn eventually is sentenced to a lengthy -- or lengthier prison sentence than the prosecution recommended, basically zero time, does that hurt mueller's ability to win people's cooperation down the road? >> wolf, i don't want to speculate about what this judge is actually going to do in terms of a sentence down the road. i think what he was saying

you're lying. you are lying incontrovertibly when you say a wall. instead of border security. >> i want to get back to this -- >> so the president today -- no, no, the president today had the governors in, democratic and republican governors who were just elected. >> great. >> he had them in to the cabinet room. you're like great, oh, no. the governors. >> keep going, use the time. >> i want to talk about the government working. >> it's a little bit of a distraction from what i'm asking many. >> how we can all work together. >> he should work with governors. >> for an unusually odd reason. you're not looking at the cnn polling, the polling doesn't say that michael cohen and david pecker are yesterday's news, and even russia and all that, that's not top of the list in the cnn polling. why do you ignore your own polls. >> the midterms were a call for guardrails on this white house. >> for what? >> people want this president checked. >> is that what it was, really? i heard they're running on medicare for all. >> that's why i'm asking you these question

was prosecuted for lying.vil cases people lie in depositions all the time prosecutor. i tried bring a case recently against people who lied. prosecutorss laugh at you. lying in a deposition? that's like gambling in casablanca. it's just done all of the o time and it's tragic that it's done. i testified in front of congress about this when they were going after bill clinton. i had a whole session where i talked about how many lies are told and how many different places and how selective they are in going after people. that's one of the problems of not requiring an oath, you have an opportunity to live at this pick people to prosecute of lying not under oath if is a lie, rather it is a crime too t lie to federal investigators. but it's not a crime for them to lie to you why? >> no.y not only that the supreme court has said it'spe perfectly okay for police and fbi agents to lie to you and that happens every day. you have two people who they suspect of a crime, they will bring one person in and say oh, by the way,

lying to investigators. now, this despite fired fbi investigator james comey, fired fbi director andrew mccabe and even peter strzok interviewed him saying that there was zero indications that, in fact, flynn ever lied. actually lied when they were in charge of the investigation. we begin tonight with a report in washington with our own catherine herridge. catherine, i actually have a report that you did, if i can put my glasses on i will find out the date on this thing. may 4th. in it house intel report, comey testified fbi agent saw no physical indications of deception. >> that's right, um-huh. >> sean: by general flynn. >> that's right, that came, sean, from testimony given by the house intelligence committee by the former fbi director james comey as well as his deputy andrew mckaine cabe. and that testimony was given several months apart. they both reported the same thing that agents saw no signs of deception. in other words, they didn't think flynn was lying to them when he tried to relate his conversat

for lying.neither one faced even suggestion of the prosecution because they are immune from that. not in the service of breaking up drug rings. they just lied. it doesn't bother you? >> i'm trying to figure out what the lie was to michael flynnment i don't believe they lied to michael flynn. they were asking him questions and he lied to emthis. i don't know what you are talking about. trying to follow you. >> hold on. slow down. i'm saying in the case of andrew mccabe, you don't know if you follow the news but he had to lead the f.b.i. for the dishonesty. >> sure. >> is he is prosecuted for that? should he be? flynn, they threatened his son. are there standards that are universally applied or only to the people whose politics we don't care for? >> again, i would like everyone to be honest all the time. >> not under the threat of prosecution. >> but sometimes we have to go after the bad people and you shouldn't lie to law enforcement. when you are a national security adviser to the united states,

speaking of lying is that lying or the truth. tim fitton of judicial watch joins us tonight.d to believe the department of justice would lie about something like that. are they or are they not? >> we don't know the truth. we have got these two categories of text messages. text messages the doj had or the fbi had back when page and strzok were not members of the mueller special counsel team and there was a gaffe in terms of capturing those text messages. there were about 19,000 subsequently recovered supposedly by the ig. then they go work for mueller's operation. they get removed because of these text messages that think were sending around talking about insurance policies against trump and being pro-hillary and ig asked for their phone because he wants to look at more of these text messages. and their phones have been wiped. have been re-set. unrecoverable. we don't know how many text messages were erased by the mueller special counsel operation. they remove him from -- remove strzok specifically for misconduct and bias that was found in his text messages but no one looks at

we're going to learn who's been helpful to the special counsel, who's been lying. there is a pattern to the filings by mueller, and we're going to show it to you and show you why it suggests that the president has good reason to be worried. >>>-happ happy hanukkah to all jewish brothers and sisters. let's get after it. >>> now, before we start tonight, let me say god bless the soul of president george herbert walker bush. my condolences to his family, my gratitude for their and the president's service. his passing would always be too soon for his loved ones. but for the country, it comes at a perfect time to remember a very different type of leader and leadership. we have more on that later in the show. >>> first, it is another big week for the russia investigation. the special counsel is due to make three crucial court filings, sentencing memos from michael flynn, michael cohen and with paul manafort. with manafort, we'll likely learn what he's been lying about with flynn and mueller. with cohen, we will get a sense of how they have been helpful. we already know t

lying about contacts with the russian ambassador during the transition period and lying about his workith the republic of turkey. what we can't know at this point is what is in those redacted sections and how it may relate to other individuals and any future criminal prosecution in the coming days or weeks, sean. >> sean: catherine herridge in washington. we will get back to her later in the program tonight. >> sure. >> sean: when weam talk about process crimes, wouldn't it be normal, when you look at the date, december 2016 incoming national security advisor talking to his russian counterpart. this is way over the line. look, i'm going to go through this slowly. if you believe in this constitutional republic, equal justice under the law, application of the laws you ought to be very concerned tonight and outraged. general flynn's entire life has been put in limbo for an entire year for this? i have read the entire report. they even used the logan act.e and actually rarely ever used or invoked. but hillary and the espionage act? he has lost his house because he couldn't afford the attor

and yes, lying itself is bad. it's a bad thing. you have to answer for that at the end of the day, but lying isn't necessarily a counterintelligence emergency for the country. the reason why mike flynn was a count counterintelligence emergency for the country right at the start of the trump administration was because he wasn't just lying about his contacts with russia in the abstract. he was lying about those contacts. he was denying those contacts while russia knew the truth. i mean, the russian government knew exactly what he had been talking to them about. russia knew that he was lying about those contacts publicly, that he was trying to keep those contacts secret. and so that of course gave russia something that they could lord over mike flynn, something they could use to coerce him or blackmail him or just threaten especially him in order to get him to do what they wanted. so already in the first calendar week of the new presidency, we had a national security emergency in the white house unlike anything that has ever happened

bush lying in state at this hour.resident trump paying respects as funeral details are revealed. >>> after a year of silence, we're about to hear how much michael flynn knows about the president's ties to russia. critical details expected today from the special counsel. >>> cia director briefing on the jamal khashoggi case. her absence last week drew scorn from lawmakers. >>> and another assault allegation against former nfl chiefs running back kareem hunt. one nfl announcer is saying enough is enough with the second chances. the washington redskins are in need of a quarterback. colin kaepernick remains on the sideline. they put a waiver claim on the domestic abuser a week ago. i'm dave briggs. >> i'm christine romans. it is 4:00 a.m. at this hour. george h.w. bush is lying in state in the capitol row tun der. his body -- rotunda. his body will remain for viewing. mr. trump saluted the 41st president and mrs. trump held her hand over her heart. >> they will visit the bush family across the street today. lines stretche

about the discussions. >> lying -- >> shepard: not accidentally lying. saying he was away on holiday and at the same time calling people, reportedly k.t. mcfarland of the transition team at mar-a-largo saying hey, who do i say to kislyak? nobody directed him to tell a lie. >> flynn is an army guy a chain of command guy. i don't think he's a rogue person that way. when having those communications at mar-a-largo and he's now in contact with the russian ambassador talking about the sanctions that were issued that day, that's a problem for anyone. anybody would see that's an issue here. to lie about it, the cover-up is worse than the crime. >> shepard: what does this mean for flynn and the president? >> i'll tell you, what i was surprised at -- i have the plea agreement in front of me here with flynn. he didn't enter into the 11 c 1 plea. if the judge accepts the agree, the prosecutors can agree to a determined sentence and the judge cannot deviate it from. that's not done here. the judge can add relevant conduct, which is the stuff that he's bringing up. th

michael flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi.ergei kislyak and bringing up the fact that he lied in conversations and lied to the fbi about the resolution votes. we are just waiting for more updates here. john king of course. we will number minute to minute updates as we get them. this is an active fluid situation. not as we expected this to go. >> perhaps we should expect the unexpect and stunning developments. correct me for taking the hint from the judge, but you want to delay this. in part of the conversations, emmet sullivan brought up the comparison from the papadopoulos to other cases. the sentencing has been delayed and michael flynn was supposed to be sentenced today and his lawyers accepted the hint that it be delayed. the judge wants to see the full extent of his cooperation, a clear indication that he was prepared to send michael flynn to prison if he wanted to go ahead with it. the judge talking about the papadopoulos and van der swan cases where both of those defendants convicted of lying served prison time. short p

about lying.ateline" continues. "dat? cascade platinum does the work for you, prewashing and removing stuck-on foods, the first time. wow, that's clean! cascade platinum. i need a new book for my son. stories. stories or quotes? time for a rhyme? or not rhyming's fine. no rhymes. skivvies. gadgets or skivvies? boxed set? perfect! nobody knows young readers like we do... barnes & noble if your moderate to severeor 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, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be poss

he is lying about that. he is not mentioning his personal stake in the sanction issue when he is talking about sanction. so russia has him compromised on that too. i mean the secret moscow deal is damning enough. it's damning enough that a criminal cover-up effort is launched that includes the president's lawyer lying to congress under oath about the deal. congressman jim himes from the intelligence committee was here last night and told us it might not just be michael cohen who was in on the cover-up. there were not a lot of inconsistent 70s the issue of trump tower moscow, meaning a lot of people under oath before the intelligence committee told the same story as michael cohen, and michael cohen just plead guilty to a felony because his story was a lie. if other people were telling the same lie about the secret moscow deal, if other people were organized so that they would all tell the same lie, all of those people will not only be in trouble themselves and soon since the transcripts of their testimony are

the fbi and admitted to lying?>> i've set before, i think it's inappropriate for the president to be dangling pardons in front of manafort, and calling michael cohen names and complimenting michael flynn. it's just not appropriate, particularly when these people are involved in an investigation of the president or his administrati administration. it just doesn't have the right feel. but i do think there's around pont point. there's a fueling that somehow the mueller investigation is on its own, that it's moving as a separate engine of the united states government, and what we saw today was checks and balances. for example, if there's -- to raid michael cohen's office, it required a warrants signed off on by a federal judge. that's the way our system is supposed to work. it didn't go exactly as michael flynn opened or mr. mueller, but the judge was an independent party who interposed his decision. he decided to delay the sentencing, as you know, and i think it could be an important development, because i think it gi

this is lying on top of lying.t eventually after being convicted one time in regards to his financial dealings with the ukraine, he cuts a plea deal with the mueller team. and admits to lying about his interactions with the ukraini s ukrainians, not the russian ps. then we find out manafort has been back channelling information to the trump folks on the mueller investigation. you can probably put two paul paul manaforts here. rick gates. gates is the deputy campaign chairperson. gates has pled guilty to lying about the nature of his relationship with ukraine. this is a similar thing that manafort was convicted on earlier this year. let's go to the last one here. michael cohen. this is lying on top of lies in some ways, ana. michael cohen pled guilty to lots of things, including felonies related to campaign finance but he's admitted to lying to congress about the depth and extent of his conversations about trump tower moscow with the russians. now, this to me is hugely important. folks here at cnn keep this updated.

maybe because he didn't think he was lying.nn's downfall appears to have been engineered from day one. the feds chose the demand and then picked a crime to pin on him. >> it became a canned hunt. they put this guy in the cage and they shot him. >> tucker: they put him in a cage and shot him. just because there's still no evidence of russian collusion doesn't mean we haven't become a lot more like russia. a former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia joins us now. i just want to state at the outset, he lied and deserves whatever's coming to him. assess that claim. >> he did not lie and in fact the fbi knew it. there was a pretextual crime created by the fbi and yates, the attorney general. after the election hillary clinton needed a reason why she lost. enter russian collusion. part of that was to find somebody in the administration to frame for talking to the russians. they found general flynn. but in fact, all of general flynn's conversations with russian ambassador and everybody else were legal. so why did the fbi appro

people are going to jail for lying. they're pleading guilty to lying.hat's michael cohen, that's flynn, everybody is lying. most people, wolf, i don't think lie as a matter of course. they lie for a reason. of course, if you are lying to a federal official you're risking jail time. so, of course, the question is begged what are they hiding. that, of course, i think is what we may begin to learn in the coming weeks and months. >> yahoo! news is reporting that the mueller team has told house committees if they want to issue subpoenas on the issue of obstruction, it wouldn't be a conflict with their own probe. what does that tell you? >> well, the attitude here in the capitol is one of waiting on mueller. you know, i think we don't want to duplicate effort. we, of course, never wanted to be in the position when our investigation started of impacting mueller's investigation, but, again, that statement would suggest that they're pretty close to wrapping this up, that they've got a report and they're towards the end of this process. >> have you heard, you're

and lying publicly about the deal for trump, and lying about contacts with the russian government, it's all one thing. and it may have even all been run by the same guy, dmitri pescov in the russian government. and so on tuesday mike flynn will be in court, and we will learn what robert mueller has come to know in his dealings with mike flynn since flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi about sanctions a year ago. right before flynn comes to court, we have learned the answer about the biggest mystery to the case against him. why he bothered to lie about those sanctioned discussions in the first place, it wouldn't have needed to beer surreptici. but we all know they were all compromises by russia at the time. what russia knew the truth about is what turns out to be a fairly simple plan, compromise the candidate with promises of a secret deal. install the candidate and leverage the candidate to lift sanctions and free russia to do what it wants. now over this past week, we can see the full plan and how it was supposed to work. the question is whether it might still work now that it's out i

so you have all of these people -- manafort, gates, cohen -- lying, lying. >> yes, and this documenthat mueller has submitted, the government's submission in its support of its breach determination involving paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman -- and i have been going through it. parts of it are redacted, but in one participate they say manafort specifically lied about his interactions with his russian associate who mueller alleged has ties to russian military intelligence. the whole connection with russia right now brings up the issue of collusion, russia, individuals, trump campaign, trump presidency. >> every new piece of information i think really does deepen this story. it deepens the relationship between campaign individuals, russian officials, the ongoing communications, the substance of those communications, and then, of course, sort of the question of collusion or serving russian interests is central to the obstruction inquiry as it relates to the firing of jim comey. why did michael flynn make that representation to russian ambassador sergey kislyak that the i

process crimes like lying to the fbi. yet we have real russian lies that the other candidate paid for. nobody cares about that. why? how is that possible? >> you know if there is any collusion it was hillary clinton who paid for russian information, fed it to the fbi and the department of justice, to damage donald trump. the fbi and doj ran with that, they used this phony dossier and they knew it was fabricated. in the new emails that we'll get when they're declassified will prove that. >> sean: how many laws are broken? why do i think. >> six, six felonies. >> sean: you the couldn't get me out of yale. >> one of them is abuse of power, obstruction of justice, perjury, the list goes oh and on. when you deceive a court and conceal evidence you're lying to them. you're perpetrating a fraud. the chief justice of the us supreme court john roberts is in charge of the fisa court. he should order a show cause hearing. james comey and sally yates and andrew mccabe and rod rosenstein bring them before that the court to say explain

why was mike flynn lying to all those people? i mean, he has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about talking with the russian ambassador about sanctions. he and the special counsel are now tussling over the exact circumstances in which he lied, but we still don't know exactly why mike flynn and all those other trump transition and trump administration officials were lying about it. another mystery, just like the mystery sealed grand jury case unfolding behind closed doors this morning in washington, and all this comes at the end of a week in which we got the first guilty plea from a russian engaged in political influence campaign around the 2016 election. lawyers for trump's jailed campaign chair paul manafort told a federal judge that they just don't know yet how to respond to the special counsel's allegation that manafort violated his plea agreement by lying and committing additional crimes. the president's lawyer was sentenced to three years in prison, partly for crimes he says were directed by the president to commit. we lea

bush lying in state inside the u.s. capitol rotunda.e monitor their capital for the president's arrival and we will bring it to you live in about 1. local residents of tijuana getting fed up with posting the migrant caravan. this is new video that tells a story of what is it is actually like among the trash and contamination. members of the local government are angry and one joins us after the break. ♪ today... back pain can't win. now introducing aleve back and muscle pain. only aleve targets tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve back & muscle. all day strong. all day long. cohigher!ad! higher! parents aren't perfect, but then they make us kraft mac & cheese and everything's good again. like concert tickets or a new snowboard. matt: whoo! whoo! jen: but that all changed when we bought a house. matt: voilà! jen: matt started turning into his dad. matt: mm. that's some good mulch. ♪ i'm awake. but it was pretty nifty when jen showed me how easy it was to protect our home and auto with progressive. [ wrapper crinkling ]

everyone else is lying down the chain, including michael cohen lying to congress and people amendingheir statements and now manafort. and manafort's the one who's -- his crimes and lies are going to be documented on friday and he's the one who's been in some ways the most rogue actor in all this. >> yeah. you know, i know there's been some disparaging of these cases as mere process crimes, as if they are not serious crimes. but if there's one thing we've all learned, robert mueller takes the process crimes seriously and sending a message other people should too, with good reason. when people lie, it delays an investigation. anyone complaining about the length of this investigation should look no further than the lies that are at the heart of it. and also when you're talking about national security officials and dealing with foreign adversaries, the lies are incredibly consequential. because not only are you facing potential criminal prosecution for lying, but then you also put yourself that compromise situation, the situation sally yates talked about. if the russians know you have li

he's lying about that. he's not mentioning his personal stake in the sanctions issue, when he's talking about sanctions, so russia has him compromised on that, too. i mean, the secret moscow deal is damning enough. it's damning enough that a criminal cover-up effort is launched. that includes the president's lawyer, at least him, lying to congress under oath about the deal. congressman jim himes from the intelligence committee was here last night and told us that it might not just be michael cohen who is in on the cover-up. congressm congressmanhe himes telling us there were not a lot of inconsistencies on the issue of trump tower moscow. meaning a lot of people under oath on the intelligence committee told the same story as michael cohen and michael cohen just pled guilty to a felony because his story was a lie. if other people were telling the same lie about the secret moscow deal, if other people were organized so that they would all tell the same lie, all of those people will not only be in trouble them

michael cohen said his long time boss is lying again. he awarded hush money payments late in the campaign and he knew the scheme broke campaign finance laws. a poll ranks the 2020 democratic contenders. spoiler alert, joe biden tops the field. can you guess the order from there? holiday season smiles from the president's first and second white house chief of staff. he's close to picking a third. >> we are interviewing people now for chief of staff. five people. really good ones. terrific people. mostly well-known, but terrific people. >> we begin the hour with new details from the president's hatchet man and new reporting on the president's deepening legal troubles. sources confirm that federal prosecutors are investigating the trump inaugural committee for possible financial abuses for more than 1$100 million. we have confirmation through court documents and cnn reporting that the trump campaign, the trump transition, the trump inauguration, the trump administration, the trump organization, and the trump foundation are all under investi

the government knew what happened there, so they knew he was lying, lying to the fbi is a crime, theyave a criminal working as a national security adviser. it's also possible that the lies he told there, were material to what was then the open fbi investigation into russia's interference in the election, and their contacts with the trump campaign. he was lying to them in conjunction with a case in a way that was material to what was being investigated. the third problem had to be a counter intelligence problem itself. he was telling lies publicly about something russia knew the truth of. he had been in contact with the russian government, the russian government knew that, when he started covering that up, and telling lies about that, publicly to other administration officials, and also to the fbi, russia had something on him. threaten to out him, blackmail him. as national security adviser which is very dangerous. i wonder from your reporting, your understanding of how this all unfolded with flynn. what sort of alarms that would set off within the fbi. what else that would activate in

he already admitted to lying. he already pleaded guilty to lying. he already cooperated 19 times. why are they trying to have it both ways? >> that's exactly right. in a word, it was a blunder. he had been the exemplary cooperator. mueller had done exactly what he'd said. as ken just set out, there were really serious crimes here that mueller did not charge. it wasn't just the false statements. flynn was able to skate by those by cooperating early and in an unfettered way. he did -- he kept his deal. mueller kept his deal. he was looking at a noncustodial sentence. somehow he decided to embrace the suggestion out there that maybe -- a really ridiculous suggestion as he just had to admit in court that somehow he had been fooled or entrapped into it. it was only a stray paragraph or so in the memo, which they tried to say later was just, you know, a legal argument. but in fact, it was, i think, just a terrible mistake. >> glen, more broadly, what do you think this means for the broader investigation? is the special counsel happy with what happened in court today? >> you know, i don'

why is everybody lying about this all the time? the timing.pened a decade before the payments. the tape, again, we go back to the tape that michael cohen secretly made about the president. they are talking about we need to push this out a few more weeks until after november. they are focused on the campaign. the manner of payment. they made the payments through shell companies. why would you do that? with the falsified invoices. why would you do that? i think there's a strong case that it's campaign contributions. >> i got the feeling from michael cohen that there's more than just these payments to stormy daniels and mcdougal. we don't know what that is. >> yeah, when michael cohen plead for the second time a few weeks ago, he plead guilty to lying to congress about how long donald trump was trying to build the $100 million tower in moscow, and it went into june of 2016, well after trump was already the presumptive nominee. there were hints and suggestions in the paperwork in court that cohen vetted that false testimony through others in the w

to the feds, lying to the fbi. in response to flynn's sentencing memo filed tuesday, prosecutors said there was nothing about the way the interview was conducted in early 2017 that will caused flynn to lie about his meetings with the russian ambassador. in this court filing, they say flynn's decision to make false statements was voluntary and intentional. mueller's team goes on to say, quote, a sitting national security adviser former head of an intelligence agency, retired lieutenant general, and 33-year veteran of the armed forces knows he should not lie to federal agents. he does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth. the defendant undoubtedly was aware in light of his many years working with the fbi that lying to the fbi carries serious consequences. well, nonetheless, those same prosecutors also stood by their recommendation that flynn's sentence be at the low end of the guidelines range because of how much he has agreed to cooperate. flyn

michael cohen's history of lying to congress. is he lying now? >> the trump organization has no buildings in russia. >> it was in the works at a time when the president said he had no business with russia. no investments. not doing the deal doesn't excuse the president from trying to get a deal done. howie: are the pundits siding with michael cohen against his former boss. the media say the president has signaled a possible pardon as manafort's plea deal blows up. >> there is the president of the united states. there he is. committing the crime of obstruction of justice in plain sight. he is willfully obstructing robert mueller's pursuit of justice in the manafort case. >> robert mueller's prosecutors are threatening elderly men with life in prison. the whole thing is a grotesque joke. howie: is the media chatter justified? plus, the legacy of george h.w. bush. in the end, he was celebrated by the media. i'm howard kurtz and this is "mediabuzz." there is a lot to get to on' michael cohen's guilty plea. it was treated like a bombshell on televisio