paul manafort is innocent. he is confident he will be acquitted of all charges the new allegations once again have nothing to do with russia an 2016 election interference/collusion. mr. manafort is confident he will be acquitted and his violation rights will be released. let me ask you, i see conflicting reports about. i don't know what to make of it. paul manafort's recommendation seems stable. rick gates' reputation does not. he had an initial lawyer that dismissed him. he had three different lawyers, now dismissed them. maybe. >> maybe. >> now then the third lawyer and some interesting reporter from betty woodriffe from the "daily beast." do you have any clarity on this? >> so we have not confirmed the daily beast reporting. we know that tom green was on the filing we saw tonight. he is now representing rick gates. he put out a statement saying i am rick gaethjes' lawyer. the daily beast is standing by it, reporting, i think this shows even jumping into three different lawyers whether or not it's a fourth, r

who doesn't need to be paid at all, in march 2016 manafort and gates try to get manafort yet another loan. for that one they have a false profit-and-loss statement that overcomes the company's income by quote more than two million dollars which is the amount the lender told manafort he needed in order to qualify for the loan. but at this point it looks like it's gone on too long. that cut-and-paste job for that profit pa profit-and-loss statement they were going to falsify, that one seems like a mess. maybe the scramble was going on for so long they were getting sloppy. quote when the document was first submitted to lender b, a conspirator working at lender b replied, quote, looks doctored, can't someone just do a clean excel document and pdf it to me? a subsequent version was submitted to the bank. they also ginned up a fake invoice for $2.4 million. they addressed it to "to whom it may concern." who promises to pay two whom it may concern $2.4 million? but they apparently ginned up this invoice to make it look like they were about to get paid $2.4 million. problem, though. quote, t

paul manafort. so talk a little bit about how this plays into the broader calculation for paul manafort. pick up where pete left off. what could this mean for paul manafort? >> it's very bad news for paul manafort because as pete was saying, there's this massive indictment against paul manafort. it's mainly a document case, though. now what the prosecutors have is a witness who worked with paul manafort for years who was involved in this conduct and is admitting it. even though he's only pleasing guilty to two charges, the criminal information the mueller team filed lays out this vast scheme with a $75 million paid by this russian-backed ukrainian oligarch and alleged money laundering, bank fraud, tax fraud. you have gates prepared to testify against paul manafort. paul manafort already was facing 15 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines in the first indictment. that does not include the latest charges. essentially he's facing a life term. he's 68 years old. it's putting enormous press

right before manafort joined trump's campaign, manafort was in hawk to this guy for nearly $8 million. now part of this scheme that was described in yesterday's indictment is that sometimes manafort and gates would call something a loan when it was really just money being paid to them and that was part of the tax evasion scheme. in this case with this $8 million, it really looks like that wasn't disguised payment. that looks like a loan or at least it looks like he expected to get that money back from paul manafort and rick gates and we can tell that because he tried really hard to get it back. in 2014, this terrifying russian oligarch sued. they were supposed to be investing in something together but they run off with millions of dollars of his money and in august 2015, he moved the lawsuit from the cayman islands to the u.s., to virginia. he was really going after manafort and gates for millions of dollars that he says they stole from him and they needed to pay back. again, august 2015, they depose paul manafort and rick gates and that case as deripaska is after them. he's not allow

gates for manafort is problems for indictment facing manafort. but gates is a guy, as you opened the segment with, transports himself through a very clear continuity of events. when manafort came on in april, gates went with him. when the nra, you were talking about the nra earlier in the broadcast with chris matthews, and when the nra -- when the deputy governor of the russia central bank was looking for an entrance at the nra convention to have dinner with donald trump in may, he settled for second place but rick gates was on the e-mails. at the same time that's happening, george papadopoulos is also sending messages to manafort, who's passing them onto gates about russians want to meet with trump. and papadopoulos at that point knows they have dirt on trump. so there are a series of dots that are going to connect, and barbara can speak to this at length i'm sure, but if it works out, gates can provide you the continuity that takes you through a lot of events. >> let's go through what of these are crimes. it appears in the indictment that the m

manafort. manafort's response today's? a backhanded swipe at his alleged partner in crime writing, quote, notwithstanding that rick gates pled today, i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface, he chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me. >>> gates becomes the third former trump campaign official to join what one former prosecutor and trump ally describes as team america. gates along with former national security advisor mike flynn and former trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos are all now cooperating with the investigation and providing special counsel bob mueller with any and all information, including testimony, documents, electronic files, or anything else it requests in return for leniency. as this news was breaking, donald trump addre

gates wasn't just paul manafort's deputy. after working on the trump campaign, he held a top post on the trump inaugural committee and went on to cofound an outside non-profit promoting president trump's agenda. later working directly for the president's long-time friend investor tom barrack. he is now the third member of the president's campaign to plead guilty to a federal crime and joins george papadopoulos who advised the campaign on foreign policy and michael flynn whom the president chose to be his single most important and powerful national security adviser at the white house, a job in which he lasted 24 days. three of the president's associates are felons. criminals. as part of his plea deal, gates agreed to cooperate with robert mueller whose team told the court they might let gates avoid prison time if they're satisfied with what he shares. and that is likely not very good news for one paul manafort. gates' long time boss and mentor accused right now in the scope of this is staggering and will hard to get your head

he's laid a new indictment on the table with manafort, m manafort struggled a little bit. he sent a message to manafort and gates that if they didn't tell the truth during the plea bargaining session, he's going to go after them. the other thing that strikes me, th this is this week, last week it was 13 people talking about the russian troll factories in petersburg. we haven't even had the conversation yet on the russian hacking of the election, we haven't seen roger stone yet, we haven't seen the people involved in the collusion yet. george popadopoulos pleaded guilty, he has nothing to do with manafort and gates in this particular story. so if i'm donald trump, i don't just see one superhighway leading at me, i'm at the center of a round about. there's six or seven or eight roads, i'm in the center of all of them and mueller's message is, i'm coming, i'm coming with both guns blazing and i am going to use every tool available to me to ensure that when i get to you, you're got. >> wow. and you know, rick stengel, and david rothkopf, that was this week, this it was a lawye

manafort issued today was telling. so many figures in the campaign facing liability or in the administration, they have an oddgence od audience of one in that message. and it was basically saying please give me a pardon. i'm not going to do what rick gates did. i'm standing by you, but he's obviously facing enormous liability, and now an insider cooperating. and i think the detail of those indictments show him as well as the country just what these guys were involved with. >> congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the intelligence committee joining us. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >>> we've got much more ahead on this friday night. i feel like we haven't even started. stay with us. ♪ i feel like fire ( ♪ ) the 2018 cadillac xt5. ♪ worship me beauty, greater than the sum of its parts. get this low-mileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around $329 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. ( ♪ ) ♪ worship me ( ♪ ) and sometimes, i don't eat the way i should. so, i drink boost. boost high pr

this is from manafort.thstanding that rick gates pled today, i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence for reasons yet to surface, he chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue, pild up charges against me. do the new charges change manafort's calculations? >> you bet they do. there's a very interesting phrase there. it says our innocence. he understands they are a unit. that their conduct is completely bound up with each other. if you look at the charging document today, they're mentioned together in virtually every paragraph. if gates is going to say, i was involved in a criminal ent enterprise with paul manafort, it will be difficult to argue to a jury that gates is just making this all up or trying to protect himself. this is devastating for manafort's future in the case. think given his age, the magnitude of the charges, he's going to have

you flip gates and ultimately you get to manafort and you see what manafort has on a bigger fish like the president. >> and it is important to emphasize that there were issues that paul kblan fort and gates purportedly supported that ultimately made their way to then candidate president trump, you know, on policy, particularly with the issue of ukraine. and if you explain us to if you can, the significance of that. what is it that paul manafort and rick gates in terms of their lobbying practices on behalf of pro russian ukraine elements how that factored in to the big picture that people are saying that the president even as candidate was pursuing policies favorable to russia and not necessarily the long-standing traditions and practice he of the u.s.? >> great question. let me first start by answering this. in my experience with russia, there are two types of people that russia seeks to recruit. one are what is known as intelligence as pepts they can provide information to them. second is people in a position of trust and confidence. this is a universal statement. but the yiidea for

it gave manafort what he was paying for. there was a face-saving rebuke, maybe not being up to western standards, but it basically excused the whole thing. freedom house called the report utterly baffling and quote down right pwrong. that's the first thing to know how this worked out. well done. well-regarded, big law firm that will forever have this big bloody asterisks next to its name because of the inexplicable dance with paul manafort's pet ti dictator. that also looks great for the firm. they threw that in as a sweetener. i don't know. but here is the second thing to know about paul manafort's real life lock her up adventure that he had in e cranukraine. that report that has just produced the latest criminal charges for special counsel robert mueller's investigation. special counsel bingo cards and really not on anybody's bingo card. not on anybody's radar. we know until recently last year he worked in the london offices of skadden and pled guilty to today and special counsel's office said he did. quote, in all relevan

why did manafort want to join the campaign? that question could be asked both ways. >> he then worked for ukraine who has since left ukraine. >>> the president calling the former deputy who stayed outside the parkland, florida rampage a coward. we have new details in that investigation. >>> also, the governor of florida rick scott announcing some dramatic new proposals after the shooting, including age limit in florida on buying any kind of firearm. selection of audiobooks. for just $14.95 a month... you get a credit good for any audiobook ... and you can roll your credits to the next month if you don't use them. audible members get free no hassle exchanges ... and use the mobile app to listen anytime, anywhere. start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free. listening, is the new reading. text audio22 to five hundred five hundred to start listening today. jardiance is the only type 2 diabetes pill proven to both significantly reduce the chance of dying from a cardiovascular event in adults who have type 2 diabetes and h

and we know the trouble that paul manafort is in. but there are clearly other people known to mule are and his investigators and whose identities are known to the prosecutors but have not been made known to the public. that brings us to the issue of the federal savings bank, which is called lender d in the pending indictment against paul manafort. right before manafort and gates joined the trump campaign in 2016, when they were scrambling to get their hands on millions of dollars in cash, including resorting to doctored documents and other illegal means to get those loans, there was this federal savings bank that talked about doing loans with paul manafort and coughed you up an enormous amount of money to paul manafort, $16 million. despite the fact they were a small lender and despite the fact that other banks were turning down paul manafort because his paperwork wasn't passing the smell test. the gigantic loan was about a quarter of total assets that bank had available to loan, which makes it an unusual set of loans in the first pl

is it about the manafort case?t is already facing, you know, a series of charges in what experts call a powerful case. why would muller still be pressing on that, in this area? and some speculation is mueller really wants to press the case against manafort to convince him to plead guilty and flip and give information, tell what he knows about the trump campaign. >> yes, ken, can we -- can you explain a little bit about what is our sense of how independent the investigation and charges into manafort and gates have become, vis-a-vis the president of the united states and potential collusion? in many ways we seem to when we talk about manafort, we talk about the ukraine, about a series of events, things that don't necessarily seem totally related. what in your view or in your reporting -- you touched on a little bit, but how does mueller bring those two things together or does he? >> it's a great unknown. but one theory a lot of my sources talk about is that mueller is approaching this like a racketeering case. he's m

manafort and gates, manafort and gates. gates is going to disclose it to the jury. i don't see any way that part of with take there to trial. he can go to trial. he can say that gates is lying. they either paid taxes or on they didn't. they're supposed to defend the activities. i don't see how you defend that. i think the pressure on manafort will be so enormous plead guilty that i would be shocked if he actually wound up going to trial. let's say he does what rick gates has done. plead guilty, cooperate and hope for a light sentence. >> manafort has a problem now because he doesn't have anything to give up. that's why it benefits the people had decide too cooperate early. it is always better in terms of sentencing to plead guilty and admit your misconduct and then go into sentencing. even if you don't have people to give up. the conspiracy charge continued throughout the time that they were working on the campaign. they were also engaged in a criminal conspiracy. what we want to know is was anyone else involved. not just the one coming out of all their money. >> i

manafort would arrange some p.r. evident to say, yes, he's whitey bulger but he's very nice to stray cats and he's very clean and tidy and also we've given him a hair cut. paul manafort's job has been all over the world to put a shine on dictators while he was looting his country and running it as a l low-rent, violent syndicate. one of the things that paul manafort did to shine up victor janocovic was to hire u.s. law firms and p.r. companies to sell this guy in the u.s., to sell him like a product in washington, to make him seem kind of legit. and paul manafort's a life long republican and his connections are all in republican politics, but at the time his client in ukraine was walking to tim shen co and manafort was trying to make that seem okay. he in the u.s. it was the obama administration that was in power. and for manafort that put a premium on him trying to sell janocovic and put a premium on him that had democratic credentials or bipartisan credentials so they could try to get a better hearing from the demo

manafort's response today's?anded swipe at his alleged partner in crime writing, quote, notwithstanding that rick gates pled today, i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence.

manafort, but it was a paper case. it was mainly documents accusing him of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, accusing him of bank fraud and tax fraud. now you have this very compelling witness who can say that he was there every step of the way with mr. manafort as they committed those crimes together. and that is putting enormous pressure on manafort to plead guilty, which seems to be what robert mueller wants, because at the end of the day, this is not really about bank fraud and tax fraud. this is about whether the trump campaign colluded with russia. and it seems like robert mueller believes that paul manafort has information relevant to that question and wants to get that testimony. kasie? >> to that point, you have worked with robert mueller and seen him operate under high stakes, high pressure. what can rick gates offer to him and if, in fact, he wants to potentially get away without serving any prison time, what is he giving mueller in exchange for that? >> yeah, so look, bob mueller is extremely focus

we now have new indictments against manafort alone. they incorporate all the charges he and gates used to be facing together plus a few new ones. we are expecting paul manafort to be arraigned in federal court in washington, d.c., on wednesday of this week, the day after tomorrow, and then we're expecting him to be arraigned again in a different federal court in virginia on friday because he is facing dozens of felony charges in both jurisdictions. the dozens of felony charges that are now pending against the trump campaign chair paul manafort obviously represent a significant legal challenge for him, himself. the way the charges are laid out they may indicate potential problems for other people as well. there was, for example, a bunch of reporting over the weekend quoting former european heads of state all denying that they knew the source of the funds they had been paid from when manafort spent 2 million euros to lobby for his clients in ukraine. the indictment mentioned co-conspirators at banks and lending institutions. people who w

i think they want manafort's testimony, and i think it is going to be hard for manafort to withstandhe multiple-front pressures he is under. >> lynne, i wanted to ask you about kind of the political spotlight on what manafort has revealed in his investigation so far -- i mean what mueller has revealed in his investigation so far. if it does come out that this really is all about paul manafort and money laundering or some kind of fraud, is that going to be a win for the president essentially? >> well, no, because this is still unfolding. like i said, there are different buckets. so the manafort bucket might go to financial fraud. we have the indictment of 13 russians this week that speaks centrally to russian meddling in the campaign. my bottom line point about gates, because he straddles both of these worlds, which is why his flipping is important, he could talk to the political operation and he could talk to manafort's personal financial situations. that's why i think it is a very significant get for the government, and even though he's not a household name in this drama, he's a thr

manafort isn't the last one, right? >> the case against manafort was a rock solid case. the same thing against mr. gates. if you look at the most recent paper that mueller's team dropped with tax charges, they brought the tax charges in and another scheme that they uncovered with respect to bank fraud, now you went from maybe a ten years to closer to 15 for mr. manafort and similarly for mr. gates. larger number of years. a lot coming at these two gentlemen right now. doesn't stop with mr. manafort. >> shepard: with mr. manafort, he's not your target and we have to reason to believe he would be. this is an investigation into russian meddling and possible team trump collusion. it would behoove him to fall on the mercy of the court to fight this or to turn. he's saying he's going to fight it. you've seen the detail. it would take quite a defense attorney on this matter, would it not? >> i don't care who the defense lawyer is. the facts are the facts. i saw the statement that mr. manafort put out. take it with a grain of salt. doesn't matter once you go to trial. the facts

manafort, at least. one thing i think is worth explaining, andrea, it looks like he's pleading guilty to two separate counts, each count carries a maximum statutory penalty of five years. >> they could be concurrent, though. >> they could. in theory, he has ten years of exposure. but in reality, sentences are determined not by the statutory max, but by the sentencing guidelines. so what prosecutors routinely do is have someone plead to enough counts with enough statutory time that if everything goes bad and they don't cooperate and they lie and they mislead, you can still give them a large, or recommend a large sentence at the end. but if they cooperate and with no criminal history, they have a relatively small sentencing guideline exposure. that's all you need. that's all you need here. >> the carrot and stick approach. there's a very big carrot there, if you like carrots. >> there's a big carrot and a big stick, but this is a well formulated plea. it holds mr. gates' feet to the fire and mueller will b

you get gates, gates flips on manafort, you get manafort, manafort flips onto trump.and you'll understand the inner workings of how the russians were working the campaign. that's what this is about. you'll continue to see charges until there aren't any left to charge on manafort and gates, and eventually one of them or both of them is going to break and cooperate or, as i said, die in federal prison. >> and something a u.s. attorney said to me, reminded me last night, you're not still doing deals unless you have a bigger target in sight, as frank said. so, you're not still interested in doing a deal with someone like gates if all you want is manafort because they've already charged him with 12-inch diem i plus -- so manafort is not the target. who should be worried today? >> well, look, first of all, these charges are very serious and i think it is important to point out this is tax evasion, number one. it's based on apparently tens of millions of dollars in unreported income that manafort and gates were earning. this is back in their representation of ukraine's basic

manafort, jeffrey toobin pointed out, is 74 years old. convicted on all of these charges, he could end up spending the rest of his life in jail. he wants manafort to cop a plea, to cooperate, because there are others he's going after as well. >> no, that's right. and i agree with the comments earlier. i don't think we're close to the end of the investigation. we may be months away from concluding the investigation itself, but the number of people who might be implicated over those months is pretty broad. i don't think this is just about manafort and gates. this is about following a money trail. if you look at both the russian indictment, but look at both the gates and manafort indictments that includes many millions of dollars. one more thing i would say about this, going back to the creation of the team that's around the special counsel, mueller, some of those folks are involved in very complicated previous investigations like the enron investigation. anybody who's facing that team ought to know, when they walk in that room, those lawyer

both manafort and koch have not commented. koch did not get a spot on the cabinet, but was a member of candidate trump's economic advisory council in august 2016. manafort who served as the trump campaign chairman, until he stepped down three months before the election, sought in the past to distance candidate trump from russian money. >> to be clear, candidate trump has no financial relations with any russian oligarch? >> that's what he said, that's what -- that's what the position is. >> reporter: manafort left the campaign for the payments he received. when it comes to rick gates, he is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. that relates to his lawyer's efforts to withdraw from his case. in the meantime, after weeks of working with rick gates, prominent white collar criminal defense attorney, tom green, he has officially entered an appearance as gates' attorney. that happened today. now, this is significant, because tom green has been talking with mueller's team about a potential plea deal for gates more than a mont

can manafort tell us? >> in the case of michael flynn, we are told he was under investigation for a lot of things. in the end he admitted four crimes but the document only charges him with one crime, which is what the prosecutor does as essentially a gift. you are now a witness who is cooperating who i believe has high information, therefore you get a gift. so what we see in the rick gates filing will give ace lot us a l information about how he was viewed. >> the shoe might drop later or the shoe might just stay up on the wire. so if nothing else were to come out of this, if they can squeeze gates for manafort but they can't squeeze manafort for anything except for himself, you still have, ironically, president trump promised to drain the swamp and you have a really strong signal to lobbyists or to people who should be foreign lobbyists about the way they should do business and the way they've done business. tax evasion, all that stuff. >> i don't mean to interrupt but shimon porcupesz has the charging do

manafort or mr. gates, as the matters between them and the office of the special counsel are dated and have nothing to do with their service to the campaign. >>> nbc white house correspondent kelly o'donnell has all details on this. a good saturday morning to you, my friend. what more can you tell us? >> well we have seen from the white house an emphasis on the fact that this indictment against manafort and the one that involved gates, who has now pled guilty. is more on their business life. the white house wants to position that to make a less attention about what their activities were during the time they were serving then-candidate donald trump. that is an argument that they repeatedly make, it's one that has to be seen in the larger political context, we don't know where this investigation will ultimately go. one of the things that's notable is last fall when both manafort and gates were indicted, the focus of those allegations was money-laundering and a failure to sign up as a foreign agent. doi

with gates pleading and flipping, it puts more pressure on manafort. will manafort plead? i don't know. he may be stubborn, may insist on his trial. one way or another he's going to end up a convicted felon. >> cluck is a warm person but that has the ability to chill the blood on your bones. the expression indictmeed and convicted in federal court is something you want to keep off your resumÉ. >> aside from the fact that a vast majority of federal defendants end up being convicted is he's facing a great deal of time in prison if he is convicted because of the amount of money at stake here. and he's 68 years old. he has to make the decision whether he wants to go to trial. he has a very good trial lawyer and they believe they have a defense, but a rational call could be that he would want to plead guilty, which raises the question of whether president trump would consider pardoning him and whether that might figure into the defense. >> ashley, before we go, update us on security clearances, please,in side the west wing, which for all i know is this titanic struggle, a stare

now you have gates and manafort. that all -- it makes a very difficult job in the white house even harder. >> alice stewart, what message do you think the special prosecutor is sending? >> first and foremost is tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but, you know, keeping in mind that all of this manafort and gates charges up until this point have been, as you've indicated, about nefarious financial activity they did well before this campaign and they're going it pay the price for that. but the key with this now moving forward is that all signs are indicating that mueller and the team are trying to get information about what they know about activities that happened when they were on the campaign. and whether or not they may cooperate. and flip and provide information. so i think that's where the concern lies with what information they're willing to give up in order to save their hide with their financial dealings. the question remains whether or not president trump will offer any pardons for any of these people an

as to whether he. >> -- >> manafort excuse me. >> manafort, right. >> right. >> i think manafort wouldpardon. i think he is holding out. maybe that's why gates never cracked a deal, that he thinks he will get a pardon too. they're playing -- a dangerous game. >> go ahead, ken. >> one -- one of the things that should be kept in mind is that these are tax indictments as well as bank fraud. and i think we can expect either from new york prosecutors or virginia prosecutors state charges as well, which will take manafort and gates outside of the pardon power of the president. so manafort and gates now have to wait and expect really a third shoe to drop on them, which may well be state charges, which will take them oud of the scope of a presidential pardon. >> wow! . thank you, gentlemen. i appreciate it. when with he come back president trump says he is considering gun control measures while at the same time praising the nra. will he take action or side with the nra? and how will the rest of the republican party react? when watching what you eat is causing a whole lot of food envy, try new

paul manafort legally seems to be in deep, deep trouble, as you say. these charges are very hard to mount a defense against. now rick gates, you have testifying against you, presumably. should manafort just throw all his chips on donald trump, the president maybe giving him a pardon? >> well, he can hope for a pardon. i think at this point, you know, it would be so politically incendiary, it looks so much like trump was doing it to protect himself, not to protect paul manafort, that i think even donald trump, who doesn't fear the consequences of a lot of what he does, wouldn't take the risk of the backlash that he would get if he pardoned paul manafort at this point and his white house has said all along pardons are not under consideration. >> i listen to you a lot on tv. you think it's inevitable at this point, practically, that paul manafort will cop a plea deal? >> i do, too. >> i don't see any way he can make this case go to trial -- he can take this case to trial. i think the enormous expense involved and the stakes for him is that if he's convict

paul manafort's spokesperson provided a statement to nbc news tonight that reads in part, paul manafort is innocent of the allegations set out in the newly filed indictments and he is confident he will be aquited of all charges. the new allegations once again have nothing to cowith russia and the 2016 election interference/collusion. mr. manafort is confident he will be acquitted. it's a further move from mueller, stepping up the pressure on manafort and gates. michael schmidt reporting it this way, mr. mueller's indictment is an effort to pressure him into providing information about mr. trump and his campaign -- a lot of mr.s here. but mr. manafort is adamant he does not have information that could hurt president trump. the allegations do not indicate mr. trump, but the man who ran his campaign. let's bring in jeremy bash, stephanie douglas, now a senior managing director at guide post solutions and peter baker back with us, chief white house correspondent for the "new york times." jeremy bash, a question for the lawyer in you. i know tax cases can be plotting and take longer than oth

so, that is clearly the target, manafort. beyond that, is manafort the ultimate target? only time will tell. >> danny, thank you so much for joining us on this saturday morning. great to have you. >>> and stalled. what to make of the new report that says there are issues with jared kushner's security clearance. e. but to help others, they first had to protect themselves. i have afib. even for a nurse, it's complicated... and it puts me at higher risk of stroke. that would be devastating. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. once i got the facts, my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®... to help keep me protected. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner... ...significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. it has similar effectiveness to warfarin. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor interacting with less of your body's natural blood-clotting function. for afib patients well-managed on

as this advice tightens on the president and people are coming pleas and going after manafort and manafort is squeezed to go after trump, they're going after him, feels that he can see what's being done by the special counsel. in though, he won't say a word against russia. what is keeping him from doing what would look good? he would look good feld take a couple shots at put fin. why doesn't he do it? >> what we've been talking about, he will not acknowledge anyway had even that much help from russia in winning the election. the other potential question is, what business dealings did he or the trump organization have with russians and who might have the funny money. we don't know anything about that. we know that robert mueller has some of the world's leading experts on money laundering in his crew. they're going to, if there's anything there, they're going to find it. >> is the number one star witness against trump vladimir putin? is that what he's afraid of? he's got pictures, documents, he knows it all. if trump has done any dirty business, putin knows about it. you look at the guy, he'

onto get manafort to flip? >> he's piling on. i don't really know if he's doing it to make him flip because he's already looking at guidelines that are as others have said, that will have him in prison for the rest of his life. i just think it's -- some of this is tidying up. i think i saw some of the this information in the virginia indictment from a couple of days ago. i think you're talking about the letter that gates sent. i wouldn't be real happy if i was bob muler with that letter. that's about as close as you can come to saying i'm really innocent but i'm going to go ahead and do this. and if i were manafort's attorney and i was going to trial, i'd have a field day using that in my cross examination of gates. he's clearly a reluctant pleader. if i could go back for a second to this idea of collusion. i think several people have said on your show before, as we know there's no federal crime of collusion. in mueller's investigation, what do we mean when we say collusion? we mean conspiracy. either conspirac

manafort's friends have said that mr. mueller's indictment is an effort to pressure him into providing information about mr. trump and his campaign. if so, thursday's indictment adds to that pressure. a spokesman for paul manafort released this statement tonight. paul manafort is innocent of the allegations set out in the newly filed indictments and he is confident that he will be acquitted of all charges. the new allegations against mr. manafort once again have nothing to do with russia and the 2016 election, interference, collusion. mr. manafort is confident that he will be acquitted and violations of his constitutional rights will be remedied. ominously for paul manafort and others facing possible charges, rick gates released no statement about the new charges filed against him. nothing about rick gates being innocent, nothing about rick gates being confident that he will be found not guilty of all of these charges. joining us now ron klain, former chief counsel of senate judiciary committee. and paul fishman, a former

if he flips on manafort that puts more pressure on manafort.he end game and the biggest fish that mueller will get. there's nowhere to go. this is just about putting manafort in jail until he dies. if he's not willing to plead for something else. to get that sweet deal, manafort has to be able to get information. what is that information? as we were talking about before. he was agreeing to work for the campaign for free. under foreign intelligence surveillance. the government had evidence that he was likely working on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. we know from the first indictment. receiving money from foreign. he broke his bail. this guy was the head of the campaign. whether or not trump knew about it. we need to be concerned that if he was sent there by the russians and he was there. that's a huge -- >> donald trump jr. about the meeting and jared kushner about whatever. other people that he was meeting. >> what was the purpose of that? again. maybe the other two people in the meeting were unwitting or innocent. what was the inten

use manafort against trump? >> i think a lot, chris. look, gates while he's only pled guilty to two charges, the criminal information filed in the case shows that he's admitting to this much larger panoply of conduct, criminal conduct with paul manafort. you know, basically illegal lobbying, bank fraud, money laundering. he looks prepared to go into court and testify against paul manafort, his long-time mentor. he was with him for years. and gates was -- remained in the trump campaign well after manafort left. we don't note exactly what he may be telling about the trump campaign. this is a horrible day for paul manafort. he is under now enormous pressure to plead guilty. before this had been essentially a document case, a very strong case. now he's got his former friend who seems willing to testify against him. it's just got to be a devastating day for him. >> ken vogel, how much does rick gates know about trump directly to him? how much can he rat out? >> he helps mulener three areas. number one with manafort a

so, again, this all ties to paul manafort and as you'll remember, paul manafort pleaded not guilty to a range of charges that relate to his work doing lobbying for ukrainian government, viktor yanukovych and alleged money laundering. though this lawyer, who is now charged in this two-page information, though he seems to be related, he has ties to paul manafort and rick gates. we know this information was handed down this morning. we expect this attorney will appear in court for a plea hearing this afternoon at 2:30. it is expected that he will plead guilty. but the broader picture of this is it really does show how mueller's probe has expanded here and it also raises the question does this further put the pressure on paul manafort. of course, we know that that alex van der zwaan, connected to paul manafort, and over the past month or so, rick gates has been involved in plea negotiations. so the question is, if rick gates eventually pleads guilty, if alex van der zwaan pleads guilty this afternoon, as we're expecting, what kind of pressure does this put on paul manafort and this could

these very detailed charges involving manafort and gates i think also tell manafort just how much special counsel knows, just how much liability he faces. >> now, these charges came at the end of what has already been an unprecedented week in the russia investigation. robert mueller has brought dozens of felony charges against more than a dozen charges this week alone. three former members of the trump campaign have pleaded guilty. the charges against paul manafort came just hours after former business partner rick gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to investigators. gates has an agreement with mueller to cooperate on all matters prosecutors deem releva relevant. here to explain this is danny a savalis. gates is cooperating with mueller. how is that a key to all of these potential impending charges? >> for gates to even have the opportunity to cooperate with mueller's team, he must have demonstrated in advance truthfully to the team that he has information that is helpful to them. in fact, it is so helpful to them, that the government is willing to enter into an agreement with s