mueller has all that. that includes the money to cohen, that includes the money to mistresses, et cetera. manafort was at the famous trump tower meeting. he knows who knew about that meeting. he knows who talked about that meeting and he knows who got reports about that meeting. mueller has all that. manafort, i also think, a huge contribution he makes to mueller is that he is going to corroborate a lot of what flynn and gates and papadopoulos and other people are going to say and have said. that is huge. he has made every single witness that mueller has stronger. >> david corn. >> well, you know, the way i look at it, paul manafort had a choice. he had two guys. he had to decide who to trust. one was donald trump who count be more explicit who says i will give you a pardon or bob mueller who said cooperate with me, you'll probably still have to do time. you'll have to give up millions of dollars in your assets and cooperate and tell me everything. he had to decide which way to go. he ended up trusting bob

mueller with rosenstein's assistants has been smart. if mueller die, mueller lives. he has passed off the sensitive investigations to new york. maybe this is not as significant in terms of investigations as it would have been six months ago where they took over the michael cohen investigation. if robert mueller quit or was fired today, those investigations continue in the southern district of new york. >> that's a great point and you are right about that. the fbi is the fbi. there are investigations ongoing. they are going to find prosecutors if they want to prosecute, they are going to find prosecutors to do the cases. the only other thing that i think because we don't know how much noel francisco who is the solicitor general would take over, how much he has known about this investigation and if he has been in on the briefings. what would have to happen is that robert mueller would have to meet with him and brief him on everything and noel can say no, i don't like what you are doing here. you shouldn't be doing this or stop what you are doing. go in this direction.

is there a mueller ruling or a mueller indictment or a mueller written statement on that? not yet.o ahead. >> no, i'm just saying that e-mail will always stand out. you know, the russian government is interested in offering the campaign some dirt. if it's what you say, i love it. you're welcoming something that is illegal. not cash but material assistance from a foreign government to a campaign. that is a conspiracy. i mean i don't know how don junior gets out of that. >> we'll see if it's a conspiracy. >> by not taking anything at all -- >> can i comment? >> -- from the russians. >> can i comment real quick? >> michael, you have ten seconds. then i've got to give bakari the last word. >> does bakari go now or i? >> you go, it's eight seconds and then bakari. >> i'm going to hand my time over to bakari because i like him a lot. >> all right. bakari. >> so i just wanted to push back on the fact that this has nothing to do and no tie to russia whatsoever. you had 13 russian nationals who have been indicted. if all of these things -- >> nothing to do with trump. >> you have to ask why

rosenstein overseeing the mueller probe as we know. the office of the special counsel, quote, declining to comment on any of this. not surprising. again, that coming in a few moments ago from the office of the special counsel. i want to bring in legal analyst, former u.s. attorney joyce vance now. again, joyce, for folks who might just be joining us, rod rosenstein at the white house, at this hour. pete williams reporting that according to the white house rosenstein is coming to resign. sources close to rosenstein saying he's not going to be resigning. he is not going to be quitting. if they want him out, they will -- pete wants to jump in. go ahead, pete. >> reporter: i can't imagine that robert mueller or any of his staff have any idea what's going on. i've been talking to several senior people at the justice department here in the last half hour or so, and very few of them know anything about this. i'm sure -- i would guess that robert mueller and his team will be among the last to know how this is shaking out. nobody very few peopl

they need mueller's report. they need mueller's evidence.can't be even investigated then there won't be any information to supply to the house. that's what happened in the nixon investigation, the grand jury turned over a satchel of evidence and tape that led to the three articles of impeach men against president nixon. >> you mentioned how kavanaugh said the decision to release the tapes may have been quotely wronged decided in that decision, 8-0, supreme court saying that president nixon had to turn over those tapes. do you think john dean will speak to that very specific issue of brett kavanaugh saying the decision may have been wrongly decided? >> well, i hope he does. because without the tapes, there is a real question whether president nixon would have ever been impeached and resigned from office. the tapes were the evidence. and here it's critical that the president comply with the subpoena. interestingly, you know, the u.s. versus nixon was decided 8-0. a few years before that, the supreme court decided a case, same journalist had to

the last point i would make, with respect to the mueller investigation, whether or not mueller is firedl not be, a lot of barns were -- a lot of the cows were already out of the barn, to use a farm analogy, even though i've never lived on a farm.

that's not mueller's interests. mueller wants to be finished before then.'s not in the president's interests, either, to have this kicking around. so there's a game of chicken going on. >> a subpoena could wind up at the supreme court. you're absolutely right. caitlyn, in the new bob woodward book, there is a dramatic moment described by bob woodward, whether the president's lawyers felt there was no way the president should sit down with robert mueller. the president's former lawyer, john dowd, told the president, quoting from the book, quote, don't testify. it's either that or an orange jumpsuit. now today dowd is denying that. but what does it tell you about what's going on inside that white house? >> well, we've seen the strategy change over the last few months of going from the president really wanted to sit down with robert mueller and speak to him. and now the president has expressed hesitancy in recent days and weeks over sitting down with him and whether or not that would be a good idea. and that has been a big battle with the president and his leg

if mueller lets him plead without cooperation, that tells me that mueller doesn't need him, doesn't want him, and probably already has enough evidence to proceed against everybody else that bob mueller is investigating. so if this is with cooperation, it's bad for the president, but i have to tell you, if it's without cooperation, that may mean mueller's hand is even stronger than we all suspect because he's decided he doesn't need paul manafort's cooperation. >> wow, chuck, what's your take? >> well, i'm going after two really smart guys here, stephanie. but i mostly agree with what glenn just said. i'm not absolutely convinced that if it is without cooperation that bob mueller's hand is even stronger. look, prosecutors and dan and glenn were really good prosecutors, always want as much evidence as they can get. there's no such thing as too much evidence. if this agreement is without cooperation, it could just mean that mr. manafort doesn't want to cooperate. he's willing to acknowledge what he did. he's willing to plead guilty. he's happy to put the charges in virginia that still linge

>>> trump versus mueller. the president's personal attorney said he may block the public release of the special counsel's final report. just the latest threat from the white house which continues to battle robert mueller every step of the way. >>> flipping al flipping alo ga. there's a top target of president trump's attacks aimed to discredit the entire russia investigation. >>> and hurricane warning. a hurricane warning has just been issued as did gulf coast braces for tropical storm gordon to intensify over the next 48 hours. we will have the latest on the storm's track. wolf blitzer is off today. i'm jim sciutto and you're in "the situation room." >>> this is "the situation room" special report. president trump attacks attorney general sessions for prosecuting two republican lawmakers ahead of the midterm elections. congressman collins and hunter, the first two house members to endorse the trump candidacy are charged with financial crimes, serious ones. president tweeting, quote, two easy wins now in doubt

mueller got his man. with cohen as everyone said, he has been auditioning for a sitdown with mueller. mueller hasn't seemed all that different. what is different? first of all, millions of documents were uncovered in that search warrant of cohen's apartment, his law office. so now the investigators have had a chance to go through that. they probably have questions. i think about two things. one is cohen has gone back and forth about whether trump knew about that infamous meeting with the russian lawyers. so mueller wants to hear from him. and again there is also exposure or questions about other kinds of dealings that trump may have had with the russians. you know, the infamous steele dossier says that cohen was the go-between between the trump campaign and the russians, that mysterious prague trip, did cohen go to prague, didn't he. mueller already knows. but cohen again as with everything said two different things. >> betsy, what is more damaging when it comes to the president, cohen or manafort? >> mue

that mueller -- i'm sorry, that manafort had. and with trump. so if the president suggested anything about a pardon to manafort during the course of preparing their defenses, that's obstruction of justice. the president has wide exposure there. >> right. >> and the other thing is that today manafort admitted to many crimes that would also expose him to state prosecution. the president does not have the power to pardon anyone for a state crime. >> mimi. >> just on that timing question, we're talking about manafort pleading, why would mueller cooperate him at this point? right, i mean -- >> that's the big question to me. >> but i think that does have to tell us a lot about how valuable his information must be. >> and we just got through -- the cohen thing was fascinating. cohen is in there, basically his lawyer is going all over cable news being for the love of god, please, we'll talk to anyone, what do you want, we'll give it to you. phone doesn't ring. they put the screws to manafort with the intention of getting cooperation. the

the last point i would make, with respect to the mueller investigation, whether or not mueller is firede will not be, a lot of barns were -- a lot of the cows were already out of the barn, to use a farm analogy, even though i've never lived on a farm. >> clearly, you have shown your farm knowledge. >> how does that go again? the cows are in the barn and go out of the barn. and one of those cows is the southern district of new york. and there are investigations that have been parceled out to other places, and we also know that the new york attorney general's office that does not have to answer to any pardon that trump may issue is also on the case in various ways. so there are lots of things that are out there, because mueller has been in business for a year and a half, that no matter what happens at the justice department, i don't think there's anything they can do about them, really. >> i was going to respond to that, but i know preet has to get up early to start milking, so i'll just leave that alone. >> that's the last farm analogy i'm going to make. >> yeah, farmer bharara, apprecia

that's under bob mueller's investigation. that's not the southern district. >> that could have been the name of his firm. we've seen public reporting on the fact he was essentially selling access to donald trump. >> which is not necessarily illegal. >> no, but you're talking about a quid pro quo in the context of a criminal investigation. that could be of interest. >> absolutely. >> let me bring chuck back to something we talked about weeks ago. we noticed michael cohen's silence in contrast to a very public phase of this investigation for him. do you maintain your observation from a couple weeks ago that that silence was probably a sign that he was continuing to effort to cooperate with the mueller investigation? >> i do. i think what it meant and what it continues to mean is that he was trying to sell what he had. now i think dan makes an important distinction between, and you did, too, between cooperation and communication. and it may be that the prosecutors don't need, don't want, don't like, but probably don't need or do

what happens to mueller himself? >> one would hope mueller would continue on., it's not just -- we've been talking about rosenstein overseeing the mueller investigation because of the recusal, he's also the point person on the case against michael cohen in the southern district of new york. we have that possibility that that case could also go away. i think the likelihood isn't that mueller gets fired but that obstacles are put in his way whenever he wants to pursue a particular path or question a certain witness or even indict someone. it could be -- instead of -- you know, it could be a slow-motion saturday night massacre of mueller as opposed to just firing him immediately. >> you're the second person made that reference today. did you want to jump in? >> it's important to note, the only person on the face of this planet that robert mueller reports to is rod rosenstein. if you replace that person, and the two people who could replace rosenstein, according to the order of succession here, neither of them has ever touched a criminal case from a prosecutor's st

mueller has fact. just like paula duncan concluded in the manafort trial, although she is a loyal trump supporter and says the investigation is a hoax and a witch hunt, but the evidence against manafort was real. those were facts and i voted to convict him on 18 counts and i am hoping that the american people will start to see the facts once mueller either issues an indictment that names higher ups or issues a report that names them and spells out in detail ba they have done wrong. that's when people will see the truth and will turn their opinion and vote in the way that they should against the trump team who has mitted these crimes. >> rudy guiliani and the trump team forgive michael flynn completed guilty to committing crimes in the white house. thank you both for our discussion too. when we come back, paul manafort is the latest trump team member to plead guilty. but the first one who was in that trump tower meeting the first one to plead guilty wolves in the trump tower meeting, what happens now to

we don't know. >> the way bob mueller -- i have worked with bob mueller. way he's looking at it is i'm now looking to getting to the bottom of the original natsinatissue of collusion. what paul manafort was doing in his representations and violations of federal law are all prior to the trump campaign and so forth. there's ancient history to what he has plead to. now he was of course the campaign manager. this is a very helpful thing for the american people. i know that the nation is so divided. we should want the truth. let's get the facts out. let's not have fake news. let's just have the truth. i think mueller is in a situation to help us do that. >> manafort has been in the joint defense agreement with the president's team. how does that complicate things? does that go away? >> the joint defense agreement does go away now. joint defense agreements are founded on common interests. the interests have diverged. what doesn't go away is privileged information that was shared by the president and his lawyers with manafort and his lawyers originating from trum

david: we have been dealing a lot with mueller.hen you think of what happened and the testimony of bruce ohr, sidney was on with some extraordinarily good points. primarily that prosecutors often will use bad witnesses to prove a case that is not provable by corroborative evidence. do you think there is enough information about how poor most of of the witnesses for mueller are so that he won't be able to make his case, or could he still try to do it. >> the points made by sidney are excellent. there are incredible witnesses in the sense that they are not credible. look at the fisa warrants. we just released today important information about, you know, there were no hearings, zero around those fisa warrants related to carter page. since there are no hearings, the judge realized there is no defense there. this is just the government talking to the judge saying we need this. but now we have judges who know they were lied to, a fraud was perpetrated on the court. what do you think the judges are going to do? it's a rhetorical question.

mueller just like mr.tleman ajaworski does nor authority on his own to send evidence that he has been gathering to congress. the only clear authority he has is to make a report to his supervisor which is currently rod rosenstein. but trump maybe could fire rod re ro rosenstein to not transmit that to congress. already rudy giuliani has hinted that trump might excerpt executive privilege if the democrats would suddenly want to investigate these things. so it still might never reach congress. so the notion is here is a little used mechanism by which the prosecutor can harness the power of a grand jury to make a report and invoke that historical precedent to send the information directly to the house judiciary committee without going through the deputy attorney general, without giving the president the opportunity to order his subordinates to keep whatever that information is secret. so they are trying to draw attention to that and show it as an alternative model that mueller could use. and i would say the mo

i don't think robert mueller is going to be -- bob mueller is going to be concerned.ere is a possibility we end up not with a kitchen of the mueller probe, but hamstringing the mueller probe. how will the president take advantage of the situation? >> he would have to do it through the person that would replace rosenstein, which would , who is moreisco of a partisan type then rosenstein. rosenstein of course was a republican. what he should do is say everyone carries on business as usual. this is a doj investigation that needs to be carried through to completion. whether he does that, that would be quite a departure from what we have rbc from the president -- from what we have already seen from the president. see him shut down the ongoing investigation, i think we will see contentions of obstruction of justice. vonnie: i want to point out, going down the rabbit hole of who might be taking over if this were to occur, and we are reporting that it has occurred according to axios, he said that this solicitor general has had nothing to do with criminal prosecutions, and he

does mueller want to talk to him, is he a part of the mueller investigation?ext step here? >> it's pretty clear he's probably already cooperating. interesting that they did farm it out to the u.s. attorney in it d.c. but they still have their hooks into him, in a sense. he's required to cooperate with mueller. and the plea agreement also says that he lied to the senate intelligence committee about some of his work for these ukrainians and about his efforts to buy these tickets to the inaugural committee. they, the senate intelligence committee, made a criminal referral to mueller, the chairman and the ranking member said in a statement today. that was interesting, we hadn't heard that before. but look, it just shows that mueller, his investigation into this whole russian interference effort and the tentacles and the foreign lobbying and the manafort stuff, continues. it's ongoing. it's not ending anytime soon, steve. >> and eric tucker, you have that reporting, we mentioned it, bruce ohr at the justice department, we know donald trump has been publicly going a

>> manafort can give a lot of information to robert mueller. i mean, he can really link together all the pieces because he was the campaign manager. he knows everything. he knows who was at the meetings, he knows who had knowledge of dealings with russia, dealings with the ukraine. he could put jared kushner at that meeting with the russians. he could put trump jr. at that meeting with the russians. he could also link the president to knowledge of what was happening with russia and efforts to collude to affect the election. he is a very vital, very vital piece in this investigation. i think sfashs tas far as the e we might see something as in watergate where there's a memo and the grand jury puts together pieces of the evidence, evidence built over month and there's a legal analysis as to how this could actually affect the president. what the legal ramifications are. what he could be subject to if he was criminally prosecuted and what all the evidence is that they've actually accumulated. >> we're going to talk about watergate in a second. the

everyone chooses mueller? >> besides the big four cooperators, there's so many other sources of information. weisselberg and pecker and sessions and comey. he's really sort of from the start completely covered the waterfront. and i think he does. number one principle is, we just don't know a fraction of what mueller knows. >> that's a great point to end on. we know he's also spoken to every member of the national security team and donald trump had asked them to be fact witnesses for him saying he hadn't colluded with russia. mueller has access to all those people. harry, thank you. >>> up next -- a president about to blow as we've been discussing. new reporting describes the situation inside the west wing as the walls close in on multiple fronts this afternoon. that's next. ...and built a career in construction. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor righ

paul manafort has now pleaded and proffered something to robert mueller that mueller thought was worth not throwing the book at him. >> glenn, let me turn to you. i will quote another former federal prosecutor. this one was quoted in "the washington post." the quote is, this is a big win for mueller's team, gaining manafort's cooperation has been viewed as the holy grail of this investigation, said robert mintz, a former federal prosecutor. do you agree with mr. mintz? how big a deal is it for robert mueller? >> well, holy grail maybe a bit of an overstatement but it is an important development. following up on the excellent points john maybe, i will pull back and take sort of a 10,000 foot view. mueller -- manafort, rather, is the bridge to russia. we know that he was involved in illegal lobbying on behalf of pro russian forces in the ukraine. so there are going to be all kinds of facts and features of the russian back story that manafort is going to be able to provide to the mueller investigative team. and then the other thing that i guess i would comment on is when you look at the t

and so it's a very important time for mueller. and as you pointed out, it is 100% win for mueller and zero for team trump. >> glen kirschner, your perspective on what we saw in court today? >> so, lawrence, i think, yeah, it's a hugely consequential turn of events for both the mueller investigation and for the president and his administration. when i got a hold of a copy of the plea agreement in the manafort case earlier today, i was looking for one phrase, and i found it on page 2, paragraph 3. let me just read the legalese and talk about what it actually means. it says that no other charges will be brought against the defendant, paul manafort, for his heretofore disclosed participation in criminal activity. in layman's terms, what that means is the following. when we meet with a defendant who is an aspiring cooperating witness, we interview them over and over and over again, and we frankly try to wring dry every drop of information that the cooperator has about the criminal conduct of others. but equally important, the criminal

he isn't stopping mueller. rod rosenstein isn't stopping mueller.pushing ahead, and the president wants to control department of justice, which he's discovering, as laura knows better than anyone, that he really cannot do. and all of this, of course, has more momentum, as you're heading into the election. and, you know, this just isn't going to be over by november. i don't think. >> you can see how angry the president is, how frustrated he is by all of this. guys, everybody stand by. more news. a huge stockpile of bottled water at a puerto rican airport raising troubling questions about president trump's claim about the response to last year's deadly hurricane was, quote, an incredible unsung success. >>> and later, vladimir putin changes his story on the nerve agent poisonings of an ex russian spy and others in britain. but is it any more believable than his original complete denials of any russian involvement? for a liver transplant, it could cost you your life. it's time to get out of line with upmc. at upmc, living-donor transplants put you firs

they would want people in the streets for days to protect robert mueller and robert mueller's work.re's historical pres decedenr that. i think the other thing is the price that would be paid to get anyone el confise confirmed in united states senate. it would be difficult to get anyone through the senate in the event the deputy attorney general was fired on thursday. >> thank you so much. >>> let's bring in a democrat. congress jim hines. thank you so much for being here. it's been a while. today was a bit of a wild cry this morning. no one knew what was going on. where is your head right now? >> well, my guess is that the white house realizes they are playing with fire. this is, to put it nicely, unpredictable, random, angry president. he's been handed an opportunity to very clearly and very publicly obstruct justice. you can imagine him demanding that rosenstein and going on tv as he did with lester holt to say i finally got these guys off my back. the investigation is over. that would be pretty clear obstruction of justice. my guess is the staff is thinking that through. there's

robert mueller to say, you know what, mr. manafort, you have brought enough value to the process as a cooperator that we are going to give you a plea agreement even after you have been convicted in one of your criminal cases. lawrence, that leads me to conclude paul manafort must have blockbuster information. he's provided it to the special counsel and now we have to wait for the next very large shoe to drop. >> yeah. and, jill, the that point, in general terms certainly in all of these kinds of agreements that i have ever seen and witnessed in court, the person -- the thing of value that they tend to be giving over is someone bigger than themselves. it is someone above them in the chain of command of whatever enterprise they're in. it is of value still to hand over material on people who are kind of below you in that target list by prosecutors, but to glen's point given how good a deal as you could describe it, how good a deal this is for paul manafort at this stage, given how clearly guilty he is, you'd certainly get the fe

how soon will robert mueller make his final play? we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer you're in ""the situation room." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> we're following two breaking stories including michael cohen's cooperation with prosecutors. abc news is reporter that the president's former lawyer has been interviewed by the special counsel's team for hours and hours on the president's russia dealings, possible collusion and whether anyone from the trump camp spoke to cohen about a pardon. >>> also breaking brett kavanaugh's awe caccuser, christine blasey ford, wants to testify next week if the terms are fair, but ruling out a monday hearing. i'll talk to preet bharara and jake sullivan. first let's go to evan perez, and cara a nell. tell us more about the new report on michael cohen. >> abc news is reporting a pretty big development that michael cohen, the president's former personal lawyer and someone who for a long time said he was willing to take a bullet for th

>> because mueller has manafort. manafort is 69 years old and doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. he has now agreed to do everything he can to help mueller and to prove to mueller that he is aiding and helping him get to the bottom of all of this. that is just a dangerous place for the other side to be in. even if manafort is completely truthful, he can push things ahead to try to prove his worth here. that's just a dangerous spot. >> josh, i could not help but think of the young law associates whose have been working 12 and 24-hour shifts both with manafort's defense team and for the government of the united states preparing what was going to be a very document and display heavy trial. all that work was for naught. they knew that going in. is the one ray of sunshine if you are donald trump the fact that there is not going to be the drubbing of daily trial coverage? >> remember, brian, how deeply that earlier trial seemed to irritate president trump to his core. he seemed genuinely angered by the fa

>> mueller has manafort. manafort is 69-years-old and doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison. he has now agreed to do everything he can to help mueller and to prove to mueller that he is aiding and helping them get to the bottom of all of this that is just a dangerous place for the other side to be in. because even if manafort you know is completely truthful or he could even push things ahead to try and prove his worth here. that's just a dangerous spot. >> josh, i could not help but think of the young law associates who have been working 12 and 24 hour shifts, both with manafort's defense team and for the government of the united states, preparing what was going to be a very documented and display-heavy trial. all that work was for not. they knew that of course, going in, is the one ray of sunshine if you're donald trump the fact that there's not going to be the drubbing of daily trial coverage? >> right, remember, brian, how deeply that earlier trial seemed to irritate president trump to his c

i don't say that about mueller. mueller is the only guy in the country that i think can exonerate the president. i keep telling him that. but we're going to allow mueller to do his job. and hopefully sooner rather than later we'll know what he finds. >> so that was senator lindsey graham echoing the trump team's desire to have special counsel robert mueller's russia probe wrapped up sooner than later. the president and his lawyer, rudy guiliani, pushing a september 7th deadline for mueller. that's exactly 60 days before the mid terms. now, that unwritten 60-day standard is a general practice by the justice department to ensure prosecutors don't take action that could influence a federal election. however, to be clear, there is no indication that mueller is close to wrapping things up. and the president is taking to twitter and as you can imagine, unleashing a barrage of attacks on mueller, his prosecutors, the fbi and, of course, hillary clinton. joining me now, evan mcmullin, former cia operative and 2016 independe

mueller has all the answers. we gave him all the answers. >> mueller has all the answers from the myriad of witnesses he's been interviewing around the president. i mean, just look at the list, it's george papadopoulos, michael flynn, don mcgahn, paul manafort, rick gates. i mean, i think that this is really the root of the fear that they have in allowing the president to sit down with mueller. it's not just because he has a loose relationship with the truth, to put it generously, but it's also just because there are so many -- there are so many things he's probably going to contradict about other people's testimonies they've already told the special counsel. but i think that one of the most telling things about this book is the fact that trump was not only -- he was lying to his lawyers. i mean, why would you lie to your own lawyers if you really feel like you don't have anything to hide? and part of trump's m.o. for the last couple decades of being in the real estate business is he's always thought he's been ab

will he tell mueller all he knows or will he tell mueller only what he thinks mueller already knows? the reality is i think only he can tell us. >> i think a lot of the speculation is exactly what obviously mueller will say, how deep he will go, how broad he will go. and it also speaks to maybe what kind of witness he will be where gates was not exactly stellar for prosecutors. what do you think is the end game here for manafort himself? >> he's going to jail skpeand h going to jail for quite some time, in fact. i'm not sure i agree with your predicate about rick gates. the fact of the matter is manafort was convicted of eight felonies and is already going to jail based in part on evidence that was provided that was corroborated. i don't think we'll find out much in the next 60 days until the midterms about what manafort has already shared or will share, but if i read the trajectory of bob mueller's investigation and the professionalism with which he's undertaken it to get to this point with this many fellow indictments and convictions, i think as jay said earlier in the program, chr

for example, we know that mueller's team right now, mueller's prosecutors are weighing the option ofing paul manafort again on those ten felonies where the jury wasn't able to reach a verdict in virginia. would their decision whether or not to retry him be part of what they put up in the negotiations? also, would it affect his sentencing from the first trial? if manafort agrees to plead guilty, presumably that would have a beneficial effect on the sentence he would likely get for the crimes he's charged with now, if he were convicted of them. but wouldn't it potentially reduce the sentence for the eight felonies he's already been convicted? judge hasn't sentenced him yet. would that virginia sentence get lighter for manafort just because he pleads guilty ahead of the d.c. trial or would he have to agree to cooperate with prosecutors to get a retro active deal from that virginia judge, lightening his sentence for the crimes which he's been convicted? these are answerable questions. we're going to get answers. but again, big bottom line here, per abc news, the president's campaign chai

i've always said that following the money is the essence of the mueller procedure and the mueller casee dollars, that's exactly what this is. there are lots of money transfers that buzz feed and others have looked at. if money was moving, in a suspicious way. why was it moving in that way for what purpose. these people were among the people goldstone said were helping provide russian government support for donald trump. you put together the meeting and the money, that looks like conspiracy. >> i don't know about you. reportedly li'l wayne's new album was supposed to come out, it didn't come out. anyone who's seen -- when it comes to the leaking and flipping. your own people. your own people could be your people. i'm going to play for you the view that this meeting was treasono treasonous. >> there was a campaign chairman in that meeting. jared kushner was at that meeting. people said to me, shouldn't i have known? shouldn't they have known. >> some of what steve bannon says obvious ly. >> there are going to be people that hear you say that and say, no one is that naive. >> i get that.

and robert mueller's pit bull, andrew weissman. in other words, it is like one big long was chain of connections. and we have a story that will make your blood boil, warrior colin kaepernick is now the brand-new face of a nike ad campaign. so sit tight, buckle up. it is time for tonight's breaking news opening monologue. it is one of the most important decisions that a sitting president can make. and that is the nomination of a u.s. supreme court justice that can shape this country for generations and decades to come. and senate hearings for judge kavanaugh are now underway. he is a strong, constitutional candidate and an originalist a long, serious intellectual track record as a federal judge. he deserves a deliberate to robust hearing, but sadly, as we predicted on the show, senate democrats are making a mockery out of what has been a very important process. and what is a coordinated show, a political grandstanding, democrats tried and failed to stall the hearing just seconds into the senate judiciary chairman's grassley's openin

the mueller investigation is moving along. rod rosenstein would probably like to see it through. but we don't know whether that -- >> i mean -- >> not to happen. and we know how the president feels about it. >> right. >> so particularly after cohen's office was raided, his lawyer's office was raided, that was it. i thought he was going to be done before then. >> what's this business about a time-out? you know, they're working. this is their job. >> and they're proceeding. >> and they're proceeding. like, you know, i know jay sekulow would like a time-out forever. but -- >> well, but it was also -- we need to hurry up, because it can't come after dates certain because it impacts the election. and now it's, well, we need a time-out. the other comparison i'll make, gloria, it's like you have a baseball manager. they get rid of that manager. you about i in a new guy who has never managed before. he might be the greatest manager ever for your interest. you just don't know -- you have no way of knowing. that is sort of where we are.

how did mueller get him to do it? >> that's right.s to be the toughest nut to crack for mueller's team of prosecutors. we know that paul manafort had started to talk about a plea deal even during the alexandria trial in august. some of the things fell apart. he didn't want to cooperate all the way. a lot of things were on the table but they kept falling through. they finally got this one now because their legal team, manafort's legal team is reading the tea leaves, and especially when they looked back how the jury voted in alexandria. remember, we had the juror that came on and said there was one juror, one member of the 12 who held out on those ten charges, which shows it was actually an overwhelming amount of evidence. it is really the strength of mueller's case is on display here. another reason he held out for some long, my sources have said, is that he was one of the wealthiest defendants in this case. he actually had the money to pay his legal team, unlike someone young like george papadopolous, unlike rick gates who worked unde

he said this was a big win for bob mueller.s new doors for bob mueller and his tone in terms of the implications, it seemed to me to be different than what we have been hearing from somebody who has been defending trump from a legal standpoint in the court of public opinion. do you view this as different in nature? >> well, i think nick has laid out a list of possibilities. i'll add another because paul manafort worked and collaborated for years with john podesta. knows a lot about the interactions of russians with hillary clinton when she was secretary of state. half a million of dollars went to hillary clinton. >> is there any indication that is where -- >> we don't know. it's endless. we have a situation which this investigation could go kind of anywhere robert mueller wants to take it. we don't know. we know every bit of evidence that's been made public to date does not support a claim that the trump campaign collaborated with, colluded with the russians. that's the most salient point. the walls are closing in on folks on t

mueller. point out concerns about the deputy attorney general matt whitaker. he wrote an op-ed, as you mentioned, that is factually wrong and legally wrong, suggesting that it would cross a red line, it would be beyond the scope of mueller's investigation to look at whether the russians were laundering money through the trump campaign. in fact, the clear language of that scope of authority provides that bob mueller can look into any connection between the russian government and trump or anyone else affiliated with his campaign. so he is wrong on the facts and he is wrong on the law, but if he is the deputy attorney general, then should bob mueller be investigated investigating that issue, he is in a position to say no, that's within my jurisdiction and i'm not going to allow that to happen. >> if mr. rosenstein is forced out, forced to resign, or if he resigns of his own accord or he is fired, we know he is due to speak with the president on thursday, if rosenstein is removed, would congress h

and i see that as mueller's effort to move this along.more than anyone will be aware of the fact that he wants to get this done. there is a time frame he is aiming for. and those are questions that i think i don't like written questions period, but i think those are questions that are easier to see. >> does that give you a window into mueller's -- that there is no there there? >> no, it's that trump is a witness. he is a witness. and i think he is an important witness particularly on the airplane with donald trump jr. so i do think there are important questions they want to ask the president about, what role did you have in crafting the statement about the meeting, the meeting in trump towers. the second part, the obstruction, i think they will try to sit with the president. i think they're just splitting it into two to get one piece done. >> jeff, do you see this the same way? >> i basically agree. these negotiations have again on longer than the reunification of germany. i mean, this is just absurd how many months they've been talking a

mueller i'm sure will be very careful. there is a lot of attention and awareness of needing to keep that investigation clear of any politics, but giuliani and trump are very concerned about the midterms, very concerned about how the public is reading the investigations and how that will affect them when they go to the polls in november. and even though for the most part the public has divided on this, taken a very partisan approach to the investigations, that might be beginning to change a little bit. so i think that giuliani is absolutely going on the offensive. >> this big headline that we led with around sam patten, the dooed.c. lobbyist pleading guilty to funneling money from a russian oligarch into the trump committee, giuliani says that has nothing to do with mr. trump, but with patten now cooperating with investigator, should it worry team trump? >> i think that everything right now is worrying team trump, anything that certainly regardless of what this leads to in terms of a direct connection, the optics again of a