the search warrant also says that they were looking for information that manafort might have relating to the very wealthy russian real estate family. that family worked with trump previously before he ran for office in efforts to host the miss universe pageant in moscow and also to have talks that never materialized but to have a trump tower in moscow. they were looking into whether manafort violated the financial -- ban on foreign investments in the campaign that would also squarely fit within the campaign. and so what we're seeing here is that mueller's team is looking into manafort for his role in the campaign and even saw last week, rod rosenstein, a memo released in another court filing, he authorized the special counsel to look at manafort in a potential collusion with russians. >> fascinating development. kara, thank you very much, appreciate it. >>> breaking this morning, the white house is saying that the president will skip an international trip scheduled for this weekend. they say he wants to stay at the white house and monitor the situation in syria. is this a sign that mi

paul manafort did go beyond russia. here is what the memo says? first it says the special counsel is authorized to investigate allegations that manafort committed a crime or crimes by colluding with russians. then it also says, and this is outside of the russia scope, perhaps, that mueller is authorized to investigate manafort for money he received while working for the pro-russian head of the ukraine. as we know now, manafort has been charged with the money he made from that work. his attorneys are arguing that mueller has overstepped his jurisdiction by bringing those charges because it has nothing to do with the russia investigation. clearly what this memo shows is that the special counsel was authorized to go ahead and investigate manafort for those issues. >> we have that part of it. the memo itself is heavily redacted, correct? >> it certainly is heavy, heavily redacted. we only see a glimpse of what the scope is. that is as relates to paul manafort. it's certainly notable for what we don't see. those parts, as yo

he worked with trump campaign officials paul manafort and rick gates in ukraine.the meantime, a late night court filing reveals the scope of robert mueller's investigation of manafort. the classified memo, which was dated last august, shows the justice department explicitly authorized the special counsel to investigate claims that manafort colluded with the kremlin to meddle in the election. shimon prokupecz with us here now to break all of this down. i want to begin with evan perez, outside of the u.s. district court. tell us what's happening there in court right now. >> reporter: the court hearing is still ongoing in the third floor here at the federal courthouse behind me. but alexander van der zwaan's attorneys have been begging for him to serve no jail time in -- no jail time as a result of lying to prosecutors. he has pleaded guilty to lying and conspiracy charges. in court, just a little while ago, the federal prosecutors said that alexander van der zwaan should serve as an example for what the consequences are for lying to investigators. now, a few moments

that's where manafort had connections. those were the early trump administration connections. >> people act like ukraine is this orbiting planet. he was working for the pro-russian government. >> that's right. russia influenced their election. there's a pattern there. what i think is also significant is manafort's arguments that collusion hasn't been authorized, that investigation, that's off the table. trump and manafort need to confront the fact that trump's own justice department has sanctioned this area of investigation, direct collusion. so that i think is really significant. in addition to the "wall street journal" reporting that they're looking at roger stone and potential connections with assange. >> they're hoping in the end to turn manafort. it's clear as day that mueller always thought manafort was the key to everything, to the russian connection. now manafort is facing the rest of liss life in prison. he could still turn and give information to mueller that might be helpful. that's what this press is about by t

when manafort -- when an indictment against manafort was announced last year, you'll recall that the trump administration said at the time, look, this is not about collusion this has very little to do with russia. this is about paul manafort's double dealing. the shady business that paul manafort did on the side that had very little to do with us. what i think we learned today or at least what was confirmed today in the doj filing that was released overnight, is in fact no, there is a collusion element in the manafort investigation. despite the white house's best efforts to distance themselves from paul manafortmanafort, pau manafort led the campaign at a pivotal time, during the national convention. if there is an element to any collusion that pamanafort had wh the russians, that is a huge deal. it's not something the trump administration can walk away from. >> ned price, danny, a big thanks to you. >>> i want to bring back geoff bennett. just a few moments ago, president trump, he gave his first public comments on embattled ed epa head scott pru. >> scott pruitt, sir, you support s

search warrant executed against paul manafort and this can't be reacted even though manafort's lawyerswant that because it relates to on going investigations. that strikes me as strange given manafort is in trail in two different jurisdictions. does this seem more typical for you as someone that's been through federal prosecutions? >> it would maybe be a little unusual if this is your standard simple case but in a complex white collar investigation or public corruption case, you'll often see this wave of indictment with on going investigation and although you can't continue to use the grand jury to investigate once you indicted a defendant on certain charges, you can continue to investigate other crimes on going crimes or as you point out perhaps even crimes that manafort is not the defendant or the target that they are investigating. so a couple different possibilities here. >> over the course of a criminal trial, does the defendant and his legal team have the right to see unredacted versions of the search warrant used to obtain evidence in the government's case? >> usually they do, b

paul manafort is not a veteran. the loans to him also represented almost a quarter of the bank's total loanable assets. why would you give away a quarter? the president of the bank turns out to be a trump campaign adviser. does that look a little odd? nbc news reported, though, that though the special counsel team looked at those loans, they didn't see any connection to their investigation in the special counsel's office. and so they referred that case to the u.s. attorney for the southern district in new york. they referred that case to the federal prosecutor in manhattan. it's not like the mueller investigation, mueller and his team stopped looking into manafort. they still then and are still going after manafort on a gazillion other charges. and in fact when evidence later turned up that those loans from that little chicago bank to paul manafort, they might have been a quid pro quo. they might have demand exchange for promises to the chicago bank they're he could get a big job in the trump administration. well, w

>> no, i think it's getting worse for manafort. i think that mueller and his team are now as a result of the rosenstein memo are probably unleashing dozens and dozens of new subpoenas. you know, once an indictment it returned you can still use the grand jury to investigate new charges. and i think that's what's going on here. these prosecutors know how to follow money. they know how to trace funds. and i think that's what what they're doing. >> michael i have a question for you. we reported that mueller is looking into trump's businesses. but tonight mclatchy is reporting that investigators are interested in michael cohen's role in business deals with the trump organization in georgia, kazakhstan and russia. what does that tell you? >> that they are investigating two things possibly. one is sort of ala manafort. independent financial crime by the trump organization. remember, manafort in some respects engaged in money laundering and tax evasion and failed to register as a foreign agent untethered to the collusion investigation dire

paul manafort? >> yes. >> sarah huckabee sanders said october 30th "today's announcement has nothing to do with the president, nothing to do with the president's campaign or his campaign activity." now we don't know about the first, but it's possible that m manafort is being investigated specifically for actions taken during the president's campaign or his campaign activity, isn't it? >> yes. so mueller's charge is to, number one, investigate allegations of collusion between russia and the trump campaign. number two, any other -- any other leads that come out of that first investigation, he's allowed to do that as well. >> crimes that he uncovers -- >> exactly. so ken starr, remember, started out with this failed real estate transaction, whitewater, he ended up focusing on perjury. so that's how these investigations always kind of flow and that's what's happened here. what mueller -- what mueller's emphasizing is it's, again, not just about real estate, manafort's real estate dealings, that they are

mueller cleared by the justice department to investigate whether former trump campaign chair paul manafort colluded with russia. >>> on the attack ripping democrats while not protecting dreamers and the fbi is an embarrassment to the country. >>> and villanova rolls to its second college basketball title in three years. the hero of the game came off the bench. >> he sure did. the big ragu they call him. >> good game. good morning. welcome to "early start." i'm rene marsh. >> i'm dave briggs. congrats to villanova fans. it is 4:00 a.m. breaking news. a classified memo revealing special counsel robert mueller is authorized to pursue collusion charges against the president's former campaign chairman paul manafort. the documents highlights payments to manafort from the ukrainian government which have links to russian politicians and operatives. the memo says the link compels them to examine russian efforts of interference in 2016. >> the payments from ukraine to manafort is the basis for financial crimes charges he faces. manafort wants the charges dismissed claiming beyond mueller's scope bec

authorization to investigate paul manafort as it relates to ukrai ukraine. this memo lays out what the special counsel was authorized to investigate by rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, and who is overseeing the russia investigation. but really the big piece of info here is there is an active collusion investigation relating to paul manafort, it shows this scope as it relates to manafort and there is two things here in this memo that is up on your screen now really that kind of explains it, this is an allegation that the special counsel is investigating manafort committed a crime, crimes by colluding with russians, and then also says that mueller is authorized to investigate manafort for money he received while working for the pro russian head of the ukraine, which are the charges he's now facing for that, for making that money, for not reporting it, from hiding it in offshore accounts. >> we're looking at all of that. there is also this wall street journal reporting about roger stone and wikileaks. we know roger stone has denied much of this. so -- w

where manafort is claiming that mueller overstepped his authority in the russia probe by indicting manafort for financial fraud and other charges. but according to a senior justice department prosecutor, mueller's team was entirely justified in investigating manafort because of his role in the campaign. he had long-standing ties to russia backed politicians. did they provide back channels to russia? this is the second time prosecutors have mentioned the possibility that manafort was serving as a secret liaison for the trump campaign to russia. court filing a couple weeks ago noted manafort's ties to russian associated political operatives, russian-backed politicians, and russian oligarchs affirming the investigation would naturally look into any interactions they may have had before and during the campaign to plumb motives and opportunities to coordinate and to expose possible channels for sur up -- in a memo last august approved two separate tracks in the manafort investigation. possible financial crimes related to manafort's work in ukraine and potential collusion with the russian governm

manafort is resisting.the president suggests he might end up pardoning people, that obviously makes it easier to kind of play not making a deal. but the wealth of evidence that exists as david corn was saying earlier in this case that's already been made public is astonishing. > david, what do you think of the theory, david ignatius just mentioned, david corn, the theory of the idea of the pardon of scooter libby and floating the pardon as some kind of communication to michael cohen or paul manafort or both? >> you know, trump in previous years showed no interest in the scooter libby case. scooter libby, important to note, was convicted, prosecuted successfully for lying to the fbi and obstructing justice. now here comes trump to say you know, doesn't bother me so much if people lie to the fbi and obstruct justice to protect people in the white house which is what scooter libby did. i mean, it seems to be not a dog whistle but a bullhorn to people that i may have your back. you still have to accept guilt if

manafort has been very staunch. he has been aggressive.e part of his defense attorneys, i can't fault them for, this look, they tried to dismiss the indictment. this is a bombshell on the part of robert mueller in terms of what they responded to, his memorandum to dismiss all the counts in the indictment. they basically said -- they called his bluff and basically said no. the special counsel has every right to do what he is doing to investigate crimes potentially committed in this arena. so, the argument that manafort had been sort of gripping to with all of his life was that the special counsel maybe had overstepped his bounds because everything, of course, came in that indictment didn't really have anything to do with his time on the trump campaign or with russian collusion, it had to do with his efforts involved in ukrainian lobbying efforts. so, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. this is a classic pee pyramid scheme. used by the mural team. tried and true. looking at facing the rest of his life behind bars. this man is going to flip. m

it's still on going, specifically as it relates to paul manafort. now, the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who is overseeing this investigation, who oversees bob mueller, in this memo was basically written, this memo was written to basically laying out the scope by which mueller and his team could conduct their investigation. now, this memo authorized them to investigate, according to the memo, crimes committed by manafort collusion with the government russian officials. it also then which authorizes bob mueller and his team to look at some of the ukrainian work that paul manafort has done including the fact that he had been charged with some of the money laundering, the government claiming that some of the money he received from the ukrainians that he was working for and hid it in offshore accounts, didn't pay taxes for it. this is a controversy here in terms of on the side of the manafort team. they've been claiming that mueller has overstepped his boundaries and that his scope in the investigation of manafort and his past money dealings an

we're continuing to hear news about paul manafort another search warrant for paul manafort. a major focus for this investigation? julie, i'm sorry. >> i'm looking at the camera. >> work a lot with carol, that's a compliment. paul manafort continues to be a focus and it's funny, thinking back to the fall, we saw paul manafort as the first person to be charged. it's been a really long time, we've tried to figure out why manafort hasn't agreed to cooperate in the same way that rick gates has. it seems that we're getting more information of why mueller is continuing to go after manafort, and why he's continuing to generate these headlines, a lot of this came this week when we heard about person a rick gates communicated with. and rick gates knew was a russian intelligence officer in 2016. there are more dots that be being connected as this case goes on. it's becoming clear why manafort is so important to this case. and why manafort was someone who came in and out of this campaign really didn't have his hands in this that argument is not standing up, as we're seeing how closely t

yet another search warrant for paul manafort.such a major focus or seem to be such a major focus for this investigation? julia? i'm sorry. i'm looking at the camera. >> i work a lot with carol. that's a compliment. paul manafort, of course continues to be a focus. it's funny, katy, thinking back to the fall, we saw paul manafort as the first person to be charged in this along with his partner rick gates. it's been a really long time where we tried to figure out why manafort hasn't agreed to cooperate in the same way rick gates has. we're assuming rick gates is cooperating because of his guilty plea, but it seems we're getting more information of why mueller is continuing to go after manafort and why he's continuing to generate these headlines, and a lot of this came this week when we heard about this person "a," this person who rick gates communicated with, who was a known russian intelligence officer, and who rick gates knew was a russian intelligence officer in 2016. so there are more dots that are being connected as this case

apparently he's been asked to ask whether mr manafort couuded asked to ask whether mr manafort colludedcials. mr ma nafort colluded with russian officials. mr manafort was mr trump's campaign managerfor a time. manafort was mr trump's campaign manager for a time. what manafort was mr trump's campaign managerfor a time. what is manafort was mr trump's campaign manager for a time. what is your ta ke manager for a time. what is your take on these developments? the sentencing, it is a congenital case -- it is sentencing, it is a congenital case —— it isa sentencing, it is a congenital case —— it is a tangential case. this all isa chain —— it is a tangential case. this all is a chain that leads back to paul manafort, who was donald trump's campaign chairfor manafort, who was donald trump's campaign chair for several months manafort, who was donald trump's campaign chairfor several months in the heat of the presidential campaign. as we found out from this information that was released last night, they are notjust looking at paul manafort because of what he did before he joined the trump paul

he also worked with paul manafort and rick gates. wile talk about what he learned today and what clues we might get on where robert mueller is going with all of this. we do know he's looking at collusion with documents saying he's focussing on paul manafort. we want to know who gave him the okay to go that route. >>> we also got our eye on stocks after another day back in the red. the second quarter, initially the worse sense the great depression. worries about a trade war now. the president's fight with amazon, raising interest rates, making shaking occupy your 401 (k). we. >>> we got our twitter alert set for anything new on scott pruitt. that's later in the show. starting with nbc's ken delaney whose outside of washington. explain who alexander vanderzwan is, what he's pleading guilty to. where he fits in to this thing and what comes next. >> reporter: alexander vanderzwan is a 34-year-old butch lawyer who was working on a project for the ukrainian government that was commissioned by paul manafort and rick gates. vanderzwan didn't

intelligence, manafort's business associate e-mailed manafort to saying that he had spent five hourswith several important messages that he need to do deliver in person to manafort. he said the message concerned the future of his country, meaning oleg's country, russia. so manafort and his business associate then met up in new york in early august, 2016, to discuss whatever those message with respect from oleg deripaska. at the time manafort was trump's campaign manager. oleg deripaska is now sanctioned, his big entire has just had an anvil dropped on it. and he is close to putin. nobody now how the russian government will respond. they say they'll respond in kind, but there's no russian equivalent to locking multibillionaires out of the u.s. economy. not when your country is economically weak. russia is the biggest country by land area, and it's so corrupt that they have to create oligarchs to do their work everywhere. nobody knows what russia means when they're going to retaliate in kind. hopefully they won't do anything until we get a new national security adviser in office on mon

i want to put up this document that has two paragraphs about paul manafort. it says, investigate collusion, possibly crime or crimes in the top, and then investigate payments from political groups in ukraine associated with russia. it's the black redacted part. if you're donald trump, that has to set a chill up your spine. if you see these documents, the tip of the iceberg is manafort. what does that say? we don't know about everybody else, but that is where robert mueller began. his charge from the deputy attorney general, the president's deputy attorney general. >> this document, as you said, was filed yesterday, i think sort of tells us there is a lot that robert mueller is looking at. because about where they start to talk about allegations, practically the entire page is redacted, is blacked out. if i was paul manafort, certainly i would still be worried that i could potentially face more charges involving collusion. that is where it's clear by this document that paul manafort still has exposure on, and there are other people that we know whose names hav

paul manafort.ichard pinedo pleaded guilty to selling bank account numbers and stolen american identities to the russians during the 2016 campaign. these are the cooperating and guilty people. there are more cooperating witnesses. sam nunberg, former campaign aid, and roger stone associate who turned up drama with a slew of cable news appearances last month. you'll remember nose. nunberg initially said he wouldn't work with the special counsel but testified anyway. george nader, adviser to the united arab emirates leadership. he allegedly set up a meeting between erik prince and russian contacts. now, to those who were charged but not pleading guilty. paul manafort. he's opted to go to trial rather than plead guilty. manafort is charged with conspiracy against the united states and money laundering, among other things. he sued to get the charges thrown out, both in washington, d.c. and virginia courts. there are also 13 russian individuals and entities. the most symbolic portion of the mueller probe

manafort had a bad week. roger stone obviously had a bad week. donald trump had a bad week with the news about him being a subject not a target. the oligarchs had a bad week and guess who didn't have a bad week. that was of course the special counsel robert mueller. he just continued down this path so that every friday he has a bunch of movement heading closer and closer to the white house. and a lot of scrambling by a lot of other people. i'll add one more thing. there is all the other names coming out now. shmitz today that jim was talking about with, people around the campaign that were involved. there are going to be all the people we never heard of before come out making pleas all sorts of things, as this case is really in a hot -- a hockey stick mode right now. it's ramping up very quickly. >> we got schmitz and who knew who vander swan was. no one did. >> i had never heard of papadopoulos before he pled. >> yeah, interesting. i was thinking about paul manafort. 305 years in prison. what do you say to that? i give up. i mean, that is- that

about manafort becoming trump's campaign chair. he asked if there was some way he could use that to get whole with oleg deripaska. he offered private briefings on the campaign to deripaska. manafort's business associates, someone who prosecutors assess as having current ties to russian intelligence, then e-mailed to say he spent five hours meeting with deripaska and had several important messages from deripaska that he needed to deliver in person to manafort. he said those messages concerned the future of his country, meaning deripaska's country, meaning russia. so manafort and his business associate then met up in new york in early august 2016 to discuss whatever those messages were from oleg deripaska. at the time manafort was trump's campaign manager. well, deripaska is now sanctioned by the u.s. government, and his business empire has just had an anville dropped on it by these sanctions today. and he is close to putin and nobody knows how the russian government is going to respond to this. they say they're going to respond in k

should he consider pardons for people like manafort and flynn? how much of a political firestorm would that cause? >> look, i don't think he should. i think the issues that paul manafort currently faces are from 10 or 12 years before, long before he ever joined the trump campaign for that brief period of time. he should be held accountable if pe didn't follow the rules he was supposed to follow. there is a number of charges against mr. manafort and his colleagues for what they did long before they ever came to the trump campaign. as it relates to mr. flynn, general flynn has to understand -- and what it looks like is general flynn had a conversation with former deputy director andrew mccabe who's how to since been fired, which is amazing because now we see -- and congress -- individuals from congress are saying that mr. mccabe has lied to the fbi on four separate occasions. if that's the case then mr. mccabe needs to be held to the same standard as everybody else which lying to the fbi is a felony and we need to open an investigation and see if c

is paul manafort right about it? and andrew mccabe's wife is speaking out for the first time sin her husband was fired from the fbi as deputy director. she's blaming some people for his dismissal. tom fenton is here to weigh in. stay close. toothbrush really clr than a manual. and my hygienist says it does but they're not all the same. who knew? i had no idea. so she said, look for one that's shaped like a dental tool with a round brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to gently remove more plaque, and oral-b is the first electric toothbrush brand accepted by the american dental association for its effectiveness and safety. my mouth feels so clean. i'll only use an oral-b. oral-b. brush like a pro. but he's got work to do. with a sore back. so he took aleve this morning. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that. aleve. all day strong. all day lo

prosecutors are now saying and apparently paul manafort is not contesting that the manafort raid wasnock warrant and it wasn't in the dead of night, even though that's what everybody reported in detail at the time, including me. i'm sorry. and this is yet another reminder that whatever you think may be going on with the mueller investigation, any reporting to that effect is probably not coming from people who are actually working on the mueller investigation. special counsel's office itself really doesn't leak. and when people talk to reporters about what the special counsel is supposedly doing or what the special counsel has supposedly done, we now know they often get it wrong. when the special counsel's office does speak, when they do have something to say, they tend to do so on the record through public court filing, and we saw that in this new filing from last night. and that brings us to the next thing. we've also all apparently been getting wrong that we can also now clear up. that's next. t. the northern percussion massage. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting?

these are -- paul manafort has been at the center of this. it would be unusual and bizarre if they weren't putting their best prosecutor in order to investigate this further. it goes back years and years and years and there's a lot there. >> may mondamon, i mentioned yo fired by trump. you have a sort of alternative fan fiction apprentice themed advertisement that just came out in your race. let's look at that. >> wouldn't you say you crossed a line in. >> i'd say i did what was right for nm. >> you're fired. when i'm in congress, your next to get fired. >> what are you saying there? >> what i'm saying is this president, president trump should serve no -- he should serve in office no longer than any day necessary according to the constitution. right now what we see is we have an investigation going on special counsel mueller. that needs to be respected an supported. also, it appears the evidence, there's enough there for impeachment hearings and in the house and looks like there's grounds for american people to vote him out of office. this pr

that time it was about paul manafort. it related to some unusual loans that extended to paul manafort right after he left the trump campaign, over $15 million in loans to paul manafort from a small regional bank in chicago that seemed to have no business making those kind of loans. that bank in chicago was set up. mueller's team reportedly started looking at those loans again themselves. so that one thing involving that little bank and those loans to manafort right after the election, that's the only other time we know of on a particular matter mueller's prosecutors came across something they thought was potentially criminal but not with their agreement with the special counsel's office so they kicked it out to a part of the justice department outside the special counsel's office for them to pursue. that appears to have happened for a second time today with michael cohen. that seems important. at least in terms of understanding the importance of what happened it seems like a helpful distinction to grasp. because there are

manafort. >>> and growing protests. schools in oklahoma and kentucky remain closed as thousands of teachers fight for better pay, pensions and crucial funding. >> we need textbooks and chairs and software and special classes and arts. i mean, all those things are gone. >> you hear that, she's asking for chairs. >>> we begin today on wall street. one familiar for me. where right now futures are up slightly after markets suffer add massive sell-off yesterday to kick off the second quarter. i have a great panel to break all of it down. but first, a look at how we got here. monday marked the first day of trading for the second quarter of 2018. and it was the worst start since the great depression in 1929. the dow plunging more than 400 points at the close. the nasdaq shed nearly 3%. the s&p 500 closed down more than 2%, falling back into official correction territory. right now, futures are showing minor gains. pointing to a mixed open. the market, as you know, tanked monday, in large part because investors are worried abou

. >> this came up after the raid of paul manafort's house. why not first request this information? why go in with a raid? >> search warrants are sought and obtained because there is some fear that the evidence may be destroyed. or that the target of the search warrant isn't being forth coming in the voluntary requests. what i as a prosecutor, when i was a prosecutor, when i'm asking for documents and say i want communications relating to x, y and z, there could be some subjective interpretation that goes on. to cut all that kind of maybe ambiguity out, you go get yourself a search warrant and you and the fbi agents involved get to look at it first hand and don't have to rely on the defense lawyer or the risk that a target may be destroying or getting rid of evidence. >> i read this in "the washington post" this morning, you can't get much worse than th this. this is not a good day for michael cohen. is this necessarily a bad day for donald trump? >> it is not a good day. you don't want your lawyer being subpoenaed or -- it is not what you want to wake up and hear. it is not a good

prosecutors are now saying and apparently paul manafort is not contesting the manafort raid was not based ontsz contractor on a no knock raid or in the dead of night even though everybody reported in detail at the time, including me, i'm sorry. this is yet another reminder whatever you think may be going on with the mueller investigation, any reporting to that effect is probably not coming from people who are actually working on the mueller investigation. special count sell's office, itself, really doesn't leak. and when people talk to reporters of what the special counsel is supposedly doing or done, we now know they often get it wrong. the special count sell's office does speak. when they do have something to say, they tends to do so on the record through public court filings. we saw that in this new filing from last night. and that brings us to the next thing, we all have been getting wrong. we can clear up. that's next. ways to lthe northern belly fat. percussion massage. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool. coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fa

two months after mueller issued his second indictment against manafort. suggesting his team may be investigating new lines of inquiry against manafort. the timing of the warrant is significant in that it was issued a week after rick gates accepted a plea deal with mueller's team. joining us now are jill wine banks and msnbc contributor, joyce vance is a former federal prosecutor and professor at the university of alabama law school. and david corn is the bureau chief for mother jones and co author of russian roulette, the inside story of putin's war on america and the election of donald trump. he's an msnbc political analyst. jill, let me start with you, the idea that the president is getting ready to sit down with donald trump as early in the planning stages as that may be, first of all, would that be donald trump and his team's decision, and if so, what does that tell you? >> first of all, i think it's interesting they're saying its in its infancy in preparation and it's short and informal, which is exactly what you would expect from a president who doe

manafort agreed to provide private briefings when manafort was trump's campaign chairman.ctilexander torshin may ha used the nra to illegally funnel funds to the trump campaign. torshin reportedly played a role in an effort to arrange a meeting between trump and putin that same year. and viktorvekselberg as well. >> there may have been back channels used by oligarchs to fund the trump campaign and perhaps the inauguration as well. >> reporter: cnn reported that mueller has pinpointed at least three russian oligarchs whose identity was unknown. one was stopped when his private plane stopped in the new york city area and agents searched their electronics. >> now mueller is looking at the oligarchs directly and interviewing them in an effort to understand from their point of view what happened here. so it's a widening net for mueller and a tightening noose for manafort. >> reporter: manafort has pleaded not guilty to criminal indictments in virginia and washington, d.c. stemming from the mueller probe. now cnn learned mueller is using information obtained during the manafort

no wane manafort could win that.nd as renato said, this was the right call also in the cohen case. yet, both of these judges were extremely comprehensive and thorough. this 24-page opinion, as you say, and o'terra saying there's an indictment likely. it's the president's attorney. there's real consciousness on the part of both of these judges that could what otherwise look like pretty pedestrian matters are, in fact, really freighted with history, but certainly consequence because of the trump overlay. >> did it read the same to you, joyce? >> it did. i think theharry's analysis is exactly right. neither one of these rulings was a surprise. they were both pretty straightforward matters of law. but the judges do understand that these lawsuits are going to shape the course of history in a significant way. they were very careful. and it's important to note that judge berman was very clear that although she was ruling in the civil case, that the civil case wasn't the correct vehicle for this decision to be made. she wasn

manafort and him had a falling out and they said that he was pursuing manafort for millions of dollars and he thought he had stepped him in the ukrainian cable deal and there was all while manafort was taking over the campaign and is being hounded by this vladimir putin oligarch and how does he respond? e-mailing with his trusted beauty. [inaudible conversations] he is giving him -- >> think about what he is offering. he's not just offering information but offering information to vladimir putin. we give this information to [inaudible] you have to expect pursue it will go elsewhere and starting in june 2016 is a day that washington post reveals that the dnc has been hacked and right away the news reporting is that the russians are behind it. at that point in time any point that point on he talking about giving information or the depression or you reaching out to the russians way george topless was you are working with for agreeing to help people who or their strong evidence is not conclusive yet that these are attacking our campaign and election. it's not just giving information to a bu

we're continuing to hear news about paul manafort yet another search warrant for paul manafort. why is he still such major focus for this investigation? >> julie, i'm sorry. i'm looking at the camera. sdp >> i work a lot with carol. that's a compliment. paul manafort continues to be a focus. thinking back to the fall, we saw paul manafort the first person to be charged. we haven't figured out why he hasn't cooperated in the same way that rick gates has. we're assuming rick gates is cooperating because of his guilty plea. we're getting more information of why mueller is continuing go after manafort and continuing to generate these headlines. this person a. this person who rick gates communicated with who is a known russian intelligence officer and who rick gates knew what has a russian intelligence officer in 2016. there's more dots being connected as this case goes on and it's becoming more clear why manafort is so important to this case and why the white house said he just came in and out of this campaign and not close to the president and didn't have his hands in this, that ar

at the time, manafort was trump's campaign manager. well, oleg is now sanctioned by the u.s. government and his business empire has just had a drop today and he's close to putin and nobody knows how the russian government is going to respond. they say they will respond in kind but there is no russian equivalent to looking multibillionaires out of the u.s. economy. not when your country is economically weak. russia is the biggest question on earth. they got an economy as big as italy. they have to create oligarchs to do their work everywhere. nobody knows what russia means saying they have to retaliate in kind. they won't do anything to get a national security advisor in place monday morning. russia doesn't workweek ends, do they? that's before we get to the problem, the other big problem with the sanctions list, which is a problem for the new guy who is supposed to start as national security advisor on monday and that that will curl your hair. that's coming up next. stay with us. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. w

certainly some of the allegations that mueller is investigating against manafort. one of those is allegations that he committed a crime or crimes by colluding with the russians. and then the second one is that it also says mueller is authorized to investigate manafort for money he received while working for the pro-russian head of the ukrainian government. as we know, mana gs fort was charged with some of that money, money laundering he made from that work. his attorneys are arguing that mueller overstepped his jurisdiction by bringing those charges because essentially it has nothing to do with the russia investigation. now this three-page memo is also notable for what we don't see. and that is parts of it actually most of it is blacked out and it appears to indicate other allegations and people that mueller -- that the mueller team is investigating. the memo's existence has been classified up until now, and it was released as part of mueller's response to manafort's motion to dismiss one of the indictments against him. guys, certainly this memo shows that any noti

in addition to that, none of the charges paul manafort is facing have anything to do with any of thatof course, that it's only half the story. washington times reporting that mueller investigated paul manafort on an allegation from the never corroborated, now known to be lies that clinton bought and paid for dossier, that came from a nonnamed russian source and sources. pretty shocking but it shouldn't come as a surprise. the special counsel mueller as corrupt as they come. he doesn't seem to care about truth. doesn't care about facts. he doesn't care about evidence. doesn't care about being fair, doesn't care that he's biased. look at the tvs assembled, a team of democratic donors that donated to hillary, obama, the dnc. we can't ignore that rod rosenstein, he's a guy that appointed mueller, rosenstein is giving mueller free reign to do whatever he wants. whatever happened, by the way, to this so-called collusion? turn out to be a witch hunt. rod rosenstein, you should be ashamed of himself and frankly, he's the same guy that signed the fisa extension against trump associate carter p

he authorized a criminal investigation of paul manafort a week after the federal agents raided manafort'sse. someone who did not over look that is the former whitewater counsel saul. does the timing brother you? >> no tdoesn't bother me. i think it's understandable. first of all, in the original order from may of 2017, rod rosenstein said you can look at anything that comey was already looking at. there is a current investigation. you are allowed to look at anything that comey was looking at when he testified about the investigation in march. in august, rosenstein clarified that comey's investigation included 2 things about manafort. number 1, did he collude with russians to throw the election in violation of the law? 2, the money he got from the former ukranian dictator. he did do not it after the fact as some people are saying. he clarifyed in august a week after the manafort raid. now, the question is: why didn't he issue the clarification back in may when he did the original order? i think they were worried. probably mueller was worried and maybe mueller went to rod and said we want y

plus, what paul manafort's big loss in court means for the mueller probe. and why the sudden pause in the stormy daniels suit? and the growing firestorm over paul ryan's decision to fire the house chaplain. >> may their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws. >> and as the president celebrates -- >> i get a big, big kick out of that. >> -- what to make of the historic peace talks between north and south korea. "all in" starts right now. >>> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. on the very same day the president took a victory lap over a republican report clearing him of any wrongdoing in the 2016 election, nbc news revealed that that lawyer who met with the president's son during the campaign has much closer ties to the russian government than previously known. today, republicans on the house intelligence committee released their final heavily redacted report on russian interference in the election, which you'll be shocked to hear, the president hailed as total vindication. >> yeah, we were honored. it

we also know from the search warrant that manafort -- that mueller's team was looking into manafort'sh the real estate development family in moscow. this family was involved with trump previously, helped finance the miss universe pageant held in moscow, and they had also had discussions that never materialized, but they talked to them about creating and developing a trump tower in moscow. the search warrants also reveal that mueller's investigators were looking at manafort for whether there were any violations of financial contributions from foreigners. so that puts manafort squarely in the mix of what mueller is looking at, whether anyone associated with trump campaign had colluded with russians in the 2016 election, john. >> that's the whole manafort side. kara, thank you very much. back to the michael cohen side of the president's rage over the raids and searches of his apartments. moments ago we heard from the republican chair of the senate judiciary committee with a warning really to the president. listen. >> i think it would be suicide for the president to fire him. i think the