renato mariotti, welcome back to the newshour. so, tell us how unusual is this for a special counsel in an situatke this to have worked out a plea deal, but then to turn around and say he defendant, the person we're working with, has lied, and we ink the plea deal is worthless now? >> it is extremely uual, judy. er my almost-decade as a form federal prosecutor, when i was in that job, i had never gone to the step of having a cooperation deal fall apart and having to go to the judge and make a statement like this. and i will tell you, i worked in chicagolarge office i with well over 100 other prosecutors. and i don't recall that everpp ing during the almost-decade that i was doing it. so it's very, very unusual situation because, typically, coordinators want to on the government's team. that's why they sign the deal. there ene huge intives for them to be truthful, to tell the government everything that they know. that is what they are instructed by the prosecutors and by the f.b.i. agents. and on the other side, the prosecutors are

renato mariotti is here as well as josh campbell. thanks for joining us. renato, what's your reaction to manafort sharing information from mueller with trump's legal team? >> i'm absolutely shocked. it's something that i have never heard of or seen in my time, both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. so i was a prosecutor for almost a decade. i've been a defense attorney on the other side. i have never heard of somebody flipping, in other words, being on the government side in a case, cooperating against everybody the government asks, and then sharing information with other people who are under investigation about what the prosecution is doing. it's highly unethical, and i think the communications between trump's team and manafort's team are not privileged. those are communications that mueller could obtain. >> was he essentially the president's spy? >> it seems so based upon the reporting that we've seen. essentially what he was doing was getting information from mueller's team when they were asking him questions and assuming that -- they were assum

. >> cnn legal analyst and former pral prosculator renato mariotti is here, and shan wu, he was the attorney for paul manafort's righthand man, rick gates. let's start with manafort, shan. i want to ask you about what happened in court and what that could mean. if manafort's attorneys want to know from the mueller team what they think he lied about to break the deal, and they want to see evidence of what that could be. that could mean discovery. is that a problem for mueller's team if that's what happens? >> it's not likely that manafort's team is going to get what they want. this is the problem for cooperators. when you cooperator, the prosecutor is judge, jury, and executioner. they really hold the keys. they can challenge it, as they're doing. saying, no, we did tell the truth. he was forthright, but it's the prosecutors moo make that decision. ultimately, it's very much a discretionary call. judge is not in a practical decision to second guess them as to every piece of truthfulness and withholding. the judge would have to have not a mini trial but an entire trial at the sentencing. as re

renato mariotti, it suggests to me that there will be a public event between now and november 26th that would permit mueller to comment in more detail. then there's rick gates, who also pleaded guilty this week, another mueller firing revealed gates is cooperating with prosecutors on -- and i quote -- several ongoing investigations, plural. he can't be sentenced just yet. trump himself has refused to sit down with mueller, despite proclaiming he would just love to do so. his legal team did agree to answer written questions. today the president was asked about their progress. the president did not take the question well. >> my lawyers aren't working on that, i'm working on that, i write the answers, my lawyers don't write answers, i write the answers. i was asked a series of questions, i've answered them very easily, very easily. i'm sure they're tricked up because they like to catch people, gee, was the weather sunny or was it rainy? he said it may have been a good day, it was rainy, therefore he told a lie, he perjuried himself. so you have to always be careful when you answer question

. >>> joining me now in all of this is cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, renato mariottim going to focus on whitaker and his impact especially as evan is reporting, they're starting to prepare the report. this could be coming to a close in terms of mueller wanting to wrap up the investigation. short of shutting down the mueller probe, how could whitaker impact the investigation here? >> well, whitaker has the authority to ask mueller to provide an explanation and justification for investigative steps he takes. and then, in certain circumstances, if he thinks that mueller is straying too far afield, going outside the bounds of justice department guidelines, he could overrule mueller. so you could imagine if whitaker really had in his mind that he wanted to impede mueller, he could start asking him to justify everything he does. because prosecutors exercise judgment and discretion, and they often make a whole bunch of investigative steps in rapid fire. so you could imagine whitaker slowing down mueller, questioning him, overruling him at times. he would be required to repor