russia, no matter how you look at it, especially to his kids. >> let me get a quick one to you, paul butlered the latter. you said at the beginning of your comments there are not that many people above michael flynn and paul manafort. i mean, there is the family. >> yes circumstances there a legal strategy to leaving the family for last because of the impact it will have on donald trump's very fragile emotional state when it comes to this investigation? >> yes, but it also could be huge leverage for mueller. we saw mueller do this with michael flynn's son. prosecutors use family members, the threat of prosecution of them as leverage, as a means to coerce subject or target to do what the prosecutor wants them to do. so i think what mueller wants to hear from manafort has to do, of course, with that infamous meeting with the russian lawyer. now mueller has an inside man, somebody who is obviously there. manafort also was the chair of the campaign during the wikileaks dump of all of that e-mail that was damaging to hillary clinton. and the last thing, nicole, is if the president made any kind

paul butler will tell you this. he's probably done it himself to defendants, but this is how it works. you see the one person who up until this week stood fast and did not take a deal was paul manafort, what ich was a clear signal to trump. if you're going to pardon anybody, pardon me. i am steadfast, i held my ground, and i'm not a snitch. which leads me to believe he may not be a snitch to trump, it may be to the russians, but he's still holding out that hope. >> to that point i have as a prosecutor stood up in court many times and take rn guiln gu pleas. there was a moment yesterday during paul manafort's guilty employee where mueller's deputy got up and said this is what we would prove about manafort if we had gone to trial. he talked for 40 minutes. then the judge said that's got to be a record. i never heard that kind of statement of proof in a guilty plea. mr. manafort, did you do it? mr. manafort said yes, i did. >> can we see all the people now cooperating or willing to cooperate with robert mueller. they h

that's what's going on here. >> paul butler, does any of that apply here?ndidate for office here, his name won't be on the ballot. of course it's all about his party, do republicans hold the house or senate for that matter. but trump is not a candidate. the investigation, the folks who seem to be involved in this aren't candidates themselves. do you think anything of what guy was saying there will apply in terms of mueller and this investigation right now? >> i think so. so the memo you referred to is from attorney general eric holder. and what he says is that prosecutors should avoid actions that might impact an election. so it doesn't necessarily have to be targeted against a candidate. i think that mueller will respect the spirit of that guideline. but i don't think he's counting off the days until september 7th, as giuliani fantasizes. we've got to push back against giuliani's hype and spin that mueller is dragging his feet. far from it. you know, most special counsel investigations don't result in any indictments. so far, year and a half, mueller has i

and paul butler, an msnbc legal analyst. elie, what jumped out at you? >> the most important thing we saw in the documents is this is all or nothing. that's the way federal cooperation works. i have experience in state system. sometimes in state system cooperation can be selective. in federal, it's everything. >> meaning what? >> manafort has to come in and tell the prosecutors everything he knows about what he did and everything he knows about what everybody else did from the lowest ranking person all the way up to don jr. all the way up to kushner, all the way up to the president. >> and he has no leverage here. what's striking to me is he's already been convicted once. he's facing sentencings there. he pleaded to these two crimes that were going to be in the next trial in d.c. but there's a lot of time hanging over his head. am i wrong? >> there is a lot of time. i mean, the way this is structured it is now limited as to these charges that he pled to, to ten years. that's the maximum. >> these two today, right. >> now, today, they notified the judge i

congressman of pennsylvania and paul butler former federal prosecutor and msnbc analyst. what a day, i think he started today saying he's going to vote i to get it out of committee. a lot of things happened. tell me how the sequence worked that led to this over time in the game, if you will? >> chris, it was really remarkable. we in the morning got this statement from jeff flake that said i'm going to vote for judge kavanaugh, and we all thought, you know, that was potentially that. that was potentially going to put more pressure on these other republican senators who were still on the fence. we thought the hearing was going to go forward. the mood was going to remain con ten, -- contentious. something changed. that elevator confrontation happened as he was on his way to the committee room. reporters told chris coons that the statement had been put out, and coons became visibly emotional. he's not a guy who typicalip sw. he used swear words in a tone that was more sad than angry. that was what proceeded what then played out in the hearing room. they were in there for hour

paul butler and mia wildly and malcolm nance.the founder of the me-too movement. agent beekman was one step ahead of them. because he hid his customers' gold in a different box. and the bandits, well, they got rocks. we protected your money then and we're dedicated to helping protect it today. like alerting you to certain card activity we find suspicious. if it's not your purchase, we'll help you resolve it. it's a new day at wells fargo. but it's a lot like our first day. your hair is so soft! did you use head and shoulders two in one? i did mom. wanna try it? yes. it intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. manolo? look at my soft hair. i should be in the shot now too. try head and shoulders two in one. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. kayak compares hundreds of travel and airline sites so you can be confident you're getting the right

and paul butler, former u.s. attorney. paul, i want to start with you.good is a client that won't talk to his attorneys? >> so no defense attorney expects the client to be completely forthcoming. what you do hope is they'll tell you what evidence they think the government has. and that they'll follow your advice. president trump is a lousy client for a lawyer because he doesn't heed his own lawyers' advice and in this case, the initial lawyers that the president had, i don't want to use the word, malpractice, but there's some things that they absolutely should have done. for example, they mayde this decision to cooperate with mueller. they let white house staffers talk and they did not debrief them. so a lot of -- they didn't know what they were saying. that's, again, outrageous. >> when you read bob woodward, who was just sitting here a minute ago, he had the sense a lot of them are telling bob woodward stuff they never told the president. >> yeah. clients lie to their lawyers. they just do. and, you know, we saw a perfect example of that when jay sekul

thank you, david corn and paul butler. >>> coming up next, bands of drenching rain from florence and seawalls coming in. we're going to check in with that with al roker. you're watching "hardball." th that with al roker you're watching "hardball. this is an insurance commercial. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly likable. see, they know it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting, dennis quaid. that's why they're making it simple, man in cafe. and more affordable. thank you, dennis quaid. you're welcome. that's a prop apple. i'd tell you more, but i only have 30 seconds. so here's a dramatic shot of their tagline so you'll remember it. esurance. it's surprisingly painless. from capital one.nd i switched to the spark cash card so you'll remember it. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet? you shouldn't be rushed into

be betsy woodruff, kevin cirilli, paul butler, and also ghabe de debbetty. we're watching the president go through the tweet storm. he is not tweeting about paul manafort, but we have heard as we talked about the white house, sarah huckabee sanders, rudy giuliani have issued their statements saying it has nothing to do with the president. where does that stand on the truth meter? >> it is more complicated than they make it sound. geoff made an important point that some of the unlawful behavior that paul manafort pleaded guilty to friday was activity that he was engaged in while he was working for president trump's campaign. now, none of that activity has been tied by prosecutors to his work for president, but there was these two issues coincided. the work he was doing for trump and the work that he was doing that he now is potentially facing years in prison for. so to act like there is this huge amount of daylight between the plea deal that paul manafort has entered and his time on the campaign, certainly obfuscates some of the facts. the other piece that is

paul butler is with me as well, a msnbc legal analyst and former prosecutor.he op-ed as the skeleton from this interview. i will read some piece bs it. one line is although the process is deeply flawed and apparently designed to thwart the fact gathering process, the fbi is up for this. james comey continues it's not as hard and republicans hope it will be. your reaction to that in light of what we've seen in terms of reporting about what might be limited and possible in the course of a week. >> the fbi is an investigative body that has been doing investigations for over 100 years. they are certainly up to t they've done thousands of background investigations on federal judges for many, many years. i think the challenge here is to determine what the scope s we've heard the president say there is no scope, do what you want to do, we've heard other members of the white house say it's going to be limited based on credible allegations. this is not a resource issue. if you wanted me to do 1,000 interviews in a week i could do 1,000 interviews in a week, give me 100

my thanks to paul butler, charlie sykes, elisa and jonathan capehart that does it for the hour. "mpt daily" starts right now. hi, steve. >> hi. if it's monday, chaos over kavanaugh's confirmation. good evening. i'm steve kornacki in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to mpt daily. we begin tonight with breaking news as the confirmation battle over judge brett kavanaugh has been roiled by an on-the-record allegation of sexual assault. today we received word that judge kavanaugh's accuser is willing to testify. so is judge kavanaugh. but there appears to be little appetite among republicans to hold a hearing. just a short time ago, president trump spoke about delaying the confirmation. >> if it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay. it shouldn't certainly be very much. they had the information in july, as i understand it. that's a long time ago, and nobody mentioned it until the other day. it's very -- you know, it's very unfortunate they didn't mention it sooner. if they delay it a little bit just to make sure everybody is happy, they want to be happy. i can tell you

joining me now is msnbc legal analyst paul butler, greg bro br and clint watt., on this question of limiting the scope of an fbi investigation. once the fbi is tasked with investigating something, even if it's just reopening a background check, can they actually be limited and told to only work for a week? >> that's a great question, joy. so in the normal course in light of the agreement between the fbi and the white house that governs background investigations, the white house does essentially control and guide the investigation, the depth and the duration of a background investigation. as opposed to a criminal investigation which the fbi does with no white house involvement. so that is the way it normally works. of course this is not a normal background investigation in any way. and so here if the fbi in interviewing some witnesses develops other leads and feels as though it should interview additional witnesses and the white house is seen as trying to curtail that or limit that, i think that we're going to be right back to where we were yesterday, which is ma

in the sport, jose mourinho has denied suggestions of a fallout between himself and paul butler despitext britain have been awarded a wild card into next year's revamped davis cup finals. it means of leon smith's tea m cup finals. it means of leon smith's team will not have to go through the preliminary round. argentina got the other wild card. more on those stories just after 430 p. m. other wild card. more on those storiesjust after 430 pm. . the government has made an unreserved apology to the victims of the contaminated blood scandal which claimed more than 2,500 victims since the 19705. eleanor grey, the qc representing the department of health, told the public inquiry that mistakes had been made. an unreserved apology from the government? yes, the families would have been interested in what was said today. this is the third and final day of the preliminary hearings at the infected blood enquiry. this morning we had a great deal of criticism of the government, criticism about its lack of candour and its secrecy around official documents. lawyers saying their clients had pursued fre

tim butler will be our guest on the bus during "washington journal" starting at 9:40 a.m. eastern. >> house speaker paul ryan is retiring from fungus next year. he sat down recently for an interview with the president of was politics.com to discuss his tenure. [applause] >>? -- are you getting misty eyed? >> we are in the fourth quarter. was that not the best quarter you have ever seen? [applause] >> cheap applause lines already? we only have a half hour. i will jump right into it. signed anent executive order today to have additional sanctions against those who interfere in elections. there is bipartisan criticism of that. are you confident about election security in wisconsin, in janesville, in milwaukee? are you confident it will occur? are you worried? >> i have no reason to lose faith in a system. i feel good about it. first of all, our systems in wisconsin are good. inhave upgraded them back 2000 -- since the vote in 2000. the right to put out the friend -- to anyone who tries to meddle. the question is are you federalizing too much? this is something that states and localities are in charge of. t

tim butler will be our guest on the bus during "washington journal" starting at 9:40 a.m. eastern. >> house speaker paul ryan is retiring from fungus next year. he sat down recently for an interview with the president of was politics.com to discuss his tenure. [applause]