michael zeldin, thank you for bringing your analysis. as we wait to learn the fate of former national security adviser michael flynn. we'll be right back. howdoing great dad!r does this thing got? looking good babe! are you filming. at booking.com, we can't guarantee you'll be any good at that water jet thingy... but we can guarantee the best price on a hotel, like this one. or any home, boat, treehouse, yurt, whatever. get the best price on homes, hotels and so much more. booking.com, booking.yeah >>> welcome back. we are getting brand-new details of what is happening inside the courtroom and michael flynn's sentencing. jou the judge making it clear. what do you think about this offense? >> a lot happened since we last went to commercial break. the judge said this was a very serious offense. he said that a high ranking official of the government making false statements in the white house is a very serious offense. but the judge did say that he will consider the significance and usefulness of flynn's assistance to the justice department a

cnn reporter david and kim and michael zeldin on the legal side of the panel. , michael flynn still has this hanging over him now for months. i wonder going in he must have thought this is finally coming to an end. i have robert mueller in my corner saying no jail time. he is leaving with a very differently sense of things. >> very different. he had the best backing by special counsel robert mueller's team and they said he cooperated substantially and we saw the fruits of that cooperation yesterday with the unsealing of the indictment and acting as foreign agents for turkey. flynn thinks his work is done. he has done everything he can and the special counsel's team said he is different than george papadopoulos. the lawyer who had pled guilty and received some jail time, saying you have to give him a break and taking into consideration his 30 plus years of public service. the judges saying that's against you. judges don't like it when people who should know better and people in authority violate the law. we saw the same message or tone being sent with michael coh

of course it does. >> michael zeldin, does it?> well, i'm not suggesting that the issues to be investigated were not unusual and were at the highest level of, you know, anxiety within the justice department. all i'm saying is that in the ordinary course, this is the way the justice department and the fbi proceeds. >> there is no ordinary course. this is not ordinary. >> you're conflating the unusualness of the issue to be investigated with the ordinariness of the process. i think the process was more normal than you do, but we both agree that the circumstances of the investigation were unusual. >> how can you separate one from the other? what are they talking about? >> john dean? >> yeah, i would just like to expound on what michael said and about the fact that they were investigating a president. this was not the first time, it was the second time. you had an independent counsel both -- actually, several independent counsels. so this was not as unusual a move for the fbi as is normal procedure. having a president a target is not

of course it does. >> michael zeldin, does it? >> well, i'm not suggesting that the issues to be investigated were not unusual and were at the highest level of, you know, anxiety within the justice department. all i'm saying is that in the ordinary course, this is the way the justice department and the fbi proceeds. >> there is no ordinary course. this is not ordinary. >> you're conflating the unusualness of the issue to be investigated with the ordinariness of the process. i think the process was more normal than you do, but we both agree that the circumstances of the investigation were unusual. >> how can you separate one from the other? it's a process but what are they talking about? >> john dean? >> yeah, i would just like to expound on what michael said and about the fact that they were investigating a president. this was not the first time, it was the second time. you had an independent counsel both -- actually, several independent counsels. so this was not as unusual a move for the fbi as is normal procedure. having a presi

michael zeldin, how significant is this? is significant inasmuch as it says there is a pattern of illegal activity that the trump organization has engaged in. that pattern of illegal activity we see again in the lawsuits that involve the inauguration, domestic and foreign contributions to the inauguration for the trump benefit, and also for the emoluments case where they are saying that they're profiting off of their time in office. so you see a pattern here of lawsuits, some by the government, some private sector, which says this essentially is a corrupt group of people running their operation for their own financial benefit. >> you know, jeffrey -- >> i have a somewhat -- >> go ahead. >> i have a somewhat different view. i think it is significant because the evidence makes you want to puke. i mean this is -- i mean think about this. this is a charity. you know, he gets tax deductions for putting money into this charity. this is like giving money to the red cross or the american cancer society which give money to solve dise

>> michael zeldin and ryan, thank you so much.by a federal judge on obamacare can backfire on the gop. one of the architects of the affordable care act comes up next. >> joe biden sits on top of a crowded democratic field. we will give you all the rest of the details, ahead. duncan just protected his family with a $500,000 life insurance policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually, duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than a dollar a day. his secret? selectquote. in just minutes, a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly-rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncan's wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $22 a month. give your family the security it needs at a price you can afford. ♪ t-mobile believes, it's better to give than to receive. some may disagree. others won't believe it. and some just won't have the words. join t-mobile and get the samsung galaxy s9 free. right? but hurry offer ends soon. ♪ ♪ there's no pla

let's bring in michael zeldin. as you learn the details and there is more to be learned as she continues to koops and we see the court filings. is this run-of-the-mill spying? we do it, too. people try to infiltrate organizations overseas. let's not be naive, or in the context of the russianest to play the trump campaign. whether they can infiltrate elections and you have a young woman building relationships in the nra and other conservative groups. >> it's a little of both. we had that television series, the americans. they were russians who came here and assumed u.s. identities for the purposes of being foreign agents. we saw tom hanks's movie, on the bridge. she had a little of that, but i think in the broader context, to see her as part of a multi-pronged effort to infiltrate 2016. prong one, the social media efforts through facebook and twitter and the like. you had two, the hacking, which was a direct effort to steal information and district it through wikileaks. now you see the third part which is another el

michael zeldin, always good to see you. especially in person. >> thank you. >>> all right.g up, president trump and china pump the brakes on higher tariffs after talking at the g20. what other agreements did the president make after meeting with world leaders? more on that next. >>> we're following a significant breakthrough in the escalating trade war between the u.s. and china. the leaders of the world's two largest economies reaching a temporary truce. president trump and president xi jinping cooling tensions during a highly anticipated dinner at the end of the g20 summit in argentina. cnn's sara westwood joins us from the white house. president trump is back in washington after his busy week on the road. what can you tell us about his latest development with china, which he really promises could be big if it's confirmed? >> reporter: that's right, fred. both president trump and president xi are expressing optimism that they may have found a path forward for these trade talks that had for months stalled. they met for 2 1/2 hours over dinner at the g20 summit. president t

the june 9th meeting with junior, that is a very, very serious and easily provable crime. >> michael zeldinr putting your eyes and head to this very helpful, another big development. so another big story today. some democrats are open to compromising with the president on the wall. we'll see what that turns out to. one of them is not bernie sanders, okay? the senator from vermont came to tell us what he thinks about the wall, where that's going to go but just as importantly, he's got a huge vote tomorrow to force the administration's hand on saudi arabia. wait until you hear this. hi susan!hs) honey? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this new robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? new robitussin honey. because it's never just a cough. a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! >>> there's a new power dynamic in washington, and we got a taste of what the next two years could look like with schumer and pelosi's visit to the ov

as we continue the conversation, pam brown and michael zeldin at the justice department. let's come back to this. a lot of pieces and chat enjs in trying to cover the investigations. we will see memos filed about paul manafort. john kelly sits down as part of the obstruction investigation. john kelly has been good at giving us crumbs. it's hard to see the bakery, if you will. i want to stick with this for a second. they come to the president of the united states and the special counsel wants to interview your chief of staff. let me start with you. the president has every right, whatever your politicses, to have a small group of people. how do you make the case as a prosecutor that i have the right to this information? >> they have the right to deliver to process privilege. if the communications are about policy matters that the chief of staff is providing, the president, that's the base for the executive privilege. if it's not that, it's not easily established. evan said something interesting. they resisted the testimony, but said we will give it to you if you can establi

individual number one, president of the united states, and that's what the court documents say, michael zeldin. this is what the president says. >> we are very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever. there never has been. the last thing i want is help from russia on a campaign. i've not read it, but according to everybody who has seen it there's no collusion. >> if he read the flynn filing, the manafort filing and cohen filings it's clear that the special counsel thinks there's collusion. he may not use that word but what are the stake heers for the president? >> i'm not sure that the documents show conspiracy as much as they show a willingness to communicate. we need to go one step further to see if there was an agreement to take action before we have a conspiratorial engagement here. in all these pleadings that the president's team was receptive to interference, if you will. the last relates to the building of trump tower in moscow. they were clearly interested in doing that and the president wasn't transparent about what he was doing in moscow while running

joining me to discuss, former assistant to robert mueller and former prosecutor michael zeldin and rachel base. the president was tweeting out no collusion, down playing this, in your view how significant are the connections, are these sentencing guide lienlines, two crimes being connected to the president? >> well, the southern district of new york determined in its pleadings that michael cohen committed felonies at the direction of the president, and therefore by inference the president has likewise committed two crimes. whether they would ever be prosecuted by a prosecutor, leave aside whether or not you can indict and prosecute a si sitting president is unlikely. these are cases that require a lot of complicated proof about intent to influence the election. but that all aside, this is what southern district of new york says, the president instructed cohen to violate the law. there's no way that's helpful to anybody. >> rachel, his fingerprints allegedly are on it, but then the president tweeting that this news totally clears him. we heard him in the past imply that he is above the law