roger stone was investigating into the probe and the 2016 u.s.lection and in search of her husband. what it means if you are married into a human rights activists who then disappears in china. our viewers in the u.s. and around the world, welcome. we begin right here in germany across -- germany. festivities are marketing 30 years since the fall of the berlin wall. you are looking at it right there. the announcement allowed citizens to safely cross the west for the first time in three decades. in all those years, crossing without permission was often fatal, but with the berlin wall down, friends and family could reunite without fear, paving fourth germans to do the same not long after. for more, let's go to david levitz. he is out and about in berlin at a very well-known church. what is going on? >> i'm in front of a church of what was 30 years ago in communist east berlin. there are some projections of what was leading up to the fall of the berlinale -- berlin wall. this whole week is commemorating the peaceful route to revolution. [no audio] at

so this is a case about roger stone. but the prosecution made clear there in their opening statement that the reason stone lied in the prosecutor's telling, the reason he's on trial right now for these felony counts is because he couldn't tell the truth because, and i quote, the truth looked bad for donald trump. this is a case about the president. i mean, it's about roger stone but it's about the president. and it's in part, you know, while the house is already in the midst of impeachment proceedings against the president, this case that started today in criminal court in washington is about in part whether president trump's sworn written statements about roger stone were true. whether his sworn written statements about what he knew about what stone was doing, whether he was any part of that, this case in part is about whether the president's written answers might themselves have been illegal false statements. back to zelensky here. quote, just after stone got this message about new expected dumps of stolen information a

history roger stone revels in attention whether it's good or bad. guy going to go with her wrong. a veteran republican strategist whose career goes back more than 40 years roger stone counts former u.s. presidents ronald reagan and richard nixon among his clients his affinity for nixon apparently strong enough for him to get this permanent reminder his ties with donald trump also go back decades in the eighty's stone turned trump the entrepreneur into a major donor for reagan's campaign and saw in him a potential contender for the white house. i have great affection for trump and the trump family i have wanted him to run for president since writing ideas but while dirty tricks and prince of darkness are among the kind of names his critics used to describe him stowe now faces a new one convicted felon indicted by special counsel robert muller who was investigating russian interference in the 2016 campaign stone was charged on several counts. oh the central question did stone want to call off the trump campaign that the wiki leaks website was about to publish hacked e-mails supplied

roger stone.hen steve bannon comes in. >> i'll bet. elie, i was asking that just because the idea of pardoning someone. people always ask me, and i say he's not going to be dragged out of the white house in handcuffs. someone is going to pardon him. people say, oh, it's state charges, but these are not. >> these are federal charges. he can pardon pretty much anybody he wants. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >>> jane fonda has been getting arrested pretty much every friday lately, and president trump is taking notice tonight. >> and they arrested jane fonda. nothing changes. i remember 30, 40 years ago. she always has the handcuffs on. oh, man. she's waving to everybody with the handcuffs. >> oh, boy. well, i'm going to ask her about those arrests and about this president. jane fonda is next. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any tim

all right he's a very colorful figure there was one story where roger stone defense team wanted to play a clip of a movie the godfather part 2 of course that led to a back and forth tussling with the prosecutors stone essentially wants to make the case that in a text message she sent to a witness he made reference to a character off that film so trying to defend himself by showing film clips which of course is quite unusual in the end he was not allowed to show the film clip only to hand the transcript to the grand jury another story is that he was banned from posting anything on social media while his case is pending because he didn't comply with a court order to not post of all that case and the russian investigation earlier so you can see is very contest of color fully discredits the court also has been close friends with president trying for about 40 years and that all certainly sheds a certain light on the president as well all right on a sonnet in washington thank you on the phone. and now some of the other stories making news around the world yemen's internationally recognized go

roger stone cannot be found guilty again. and did you ever imagine that on the day roger stone's verdict would come in and it would come in guilty on all counts, that it would be in my hour, anyway, literally the last story i'm going to be able to get to? >> exactly. you have to like squeeze it in among everything else that not only happened over the course of the day but that's been happening over the course of the night. this is crazy. at least a two-way tie for the most oimportant story of the night on a day when the president tweeted his way into his own impeachment hearing with a tweet that some say might be worthy of its own article of impeachment. we also have congressman erick swalwell racing towards us because we just got word that that closed door deposition just ended one minute ago. and congressman swalwell has been in it all the way and that of course has just taken over the number one position the way we'll begin tonight with new details about the cell phone call from restaurant in ukraine over heard by david ho

half years in jail so it'll be interesting to follow this case and to see how it turns out for roger stone stone and he has a flair for public drama that we know he has described himself as a dirty trick in the past and he signs of that flamboyance today i mean i guess the food poisoning was part of it well that was the 1st little detail brand of course but then in the run up to this trial there is one story roger stone's defense team wanted to play a clip of the movie the godfather part 2 and that led to a back and forth tussling with the prosecutors don't want to make the case that in a text message she sent to a witness and he made reference to a character from that film essentially trying to defend himself by showing film clips of cord which of course is quite unusual in the end she was not allowed to show that film clip only to hand out the transcripts to the jurors and then also roger still was banned from using social media from posting anything in fact on social media while this case is still pending before that he didn't comply with a court order to not post anything about the rus

roger stone cannot be found guilty again. did you ever imagine that on the day roger stone's verdict would come in and it would come in guilty on all counts, that it would be in my hour, anyway, literally the last story i'm going to be able to get to? >> exactly. you have to like squeeze it in among everything else that not only happened over the course of today but happened over the course of tonight. this is crazy. >> we have a two way tie, at least a two way tie for the most important story of the night. on the day the president tweeted his way into his own impeachment hearing with a tweet some are saying might be criminal and might be worthy of its own article of impeachment. we have harvard law professor lawrence tribe here to talk about that one. we also have congressman eric swalwell racing toward us because we just got word that that closed-door deposition of david holmes just ended, ended like a minute, one minute ago. and congressman swalwell has been in it all the way, and that of course has just taken over the num

the court orders that roger stone -- the court orders that roger stone kept defying during his pretrial proceedings and during his trial. those were largely related to this order that the judge had put on him, which we commonly call a gag order, which said that roger stone wasn't allowed to make any public statements or statements to the media about his case. that had been the rule that was supposed to govern his behavior in pretrial proceedings. and he broke it a couple of times and the judge kept yelling at him about it. ultimately he cooled on that sort of. the prosecutors are saying he broke those kinds of rules often enough that you should lock him up now that he has been convicted. the judge says, no, i think he can continue to abide by these rules. but even as she decided that she wouldn't remand him to custody, she wouldn't lock him up awaiting his sentencing date, she decided she was going to keep the gag order on him. she said, quote, ordinarily i would release the defendant from the media communication order at this time since it's primary purpose was to ensure a fair and imp

find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com. >>> there is another dramatic turn in the roger stone trialay. the former white house chief strategist steve bannon testifying that the trump campaign saw stone as, quote, an access point to wikileaks. but on his way out of the courtroom, bannon made it clear he wasn't happy about being there. >> i was compelled to testify like i was compelled to testify -- i was under subpoena by mueller. i was under subpoena by the house. i got a handwritten subpoena in my house testimony. i was forced to go to the grand jury, and i'm forced and compelled to come here today. >> well, joining me now to discuss is shimon prokupecz and anne milgram. good to have both of you on. shimon, bannon is the most high-profile witness to testify at stone's trial so far. he didn't want to be there, but what did he learn from him? >> he certainly didn't want to be there. i think it's really interesting that he's consistently made that point. he made that point on the witness stand. it's very significant. he was required to come in and talk about his contact and the e-mails

>> we are told that roger stone was stoic as the order was red. the gag order has been a contentious point for stone and his team. judge amy berman jackson put that gag order in place earlier this year, and has been very serious about it. roger stone is not someone who shies away from cameras or an interview. he was tweeting, she believed he was violating that gag order, she called him back in the court several months ago i told him, "this is your last chance to follow this guy gordon." at this point he has followed it. he has not given any interviews. we do know it's possible he might talk today, but it's unlikely because of what judge jackson just said. we are expecting raja roger stoo leave on his own recognizance, as you mention. he's been walking intentionally by cameras in and out of the courthouse all week. as we are talking, we don't expect to hear that. something else i want to mention, i was in court last week when steve bannon came in, and he was actually subpoenaed to come in and testify as a government witness. he called roger stone an

than anything else if he was trying to get people away from thinking those sort of ways leaving roger stone to prison is probably his better bet honestly the 2nd is in many ways the. conviction of other stone is sort of tying up one of the loose and last ends of the mueller investigation. in effect there's probably not much else to. that much more damage this can do trump in many ways so leaving him to leave him stone to prison is probably a wise bet the 3rd being that i doubt that this are going to be political damage in terms of if he doesn't pardon him will other people think well my gosh we're on our own most likely they may be looking at waterstones case of saying ok the president is going to pardon him but on the other hand they may look at other cases of say other individuals who have spoken to the f.b.i. who at least the accusation from say the trump side of that is that they are every time they talk to the f.b.i. or criminal investigators they're affectively walking into perjury traps that even if they may not if they'd like the president to pardon them they're better off just sayi

roger stone will now be facing statutorily up to 50 years in prison. however, the federal instancing guidelines will come in with a much lower sentencing range than that. we're waiting to hear now the date that will be set for roger stone's sentencing hearing. they will do a lengthy presentence report to see where stone ends up in those federal sentencing guidelines so everybody can go into the sentencing hearing knowing exactly how much time roger stone is facing. >> glenn kirchner, lying to congress, one of the crimes that donald trump's oldest political adviser was convicted of today, has an eerie echo, when we're looking at witnesses in an impeachment proceeding into donald trump. there's at least one who has been accused by at least one house democrat of perjury, that's gordon sondland. what is your take on how seriously, even the barr doj, is taking the crime of lying to congress? >> you know, nicolle, i think you just put your finger on exactly what the issue is. how will attorney general barr respond to what would ordinarily be an easy call, if

statements like i do not recall discussing wikileaks with roger stone, and i have no recollection of onversations i had with mr. stone between june 1, 2016, and november 8, 2016. well, mr. gates is testifying he actually knows within that very period of time, nine days after the first release from wikileaks, roger stone called donald trump and they talked. gates was right there in the car with trump who got off the line and now i can report to you told him more information would be coming about clinton's e-mails. and a lot more information did come out. now, the legal issue in the roger stone trial is to be clear relatively narrow. did he corruptly obstruct the probe? did he criminally tamper with a witness? but the evidence that is now being overturned in pursuit of those answers, i could tell you it is getting broader and broader and broader. and now it's even speaking to leads that bob mueller's own investigators apparently pursued right up to the edge of testing whether there were any potential charges related to those famously hacked e-mails as well as how wikileaks did what it d

your defense, on behalf of roger stone is that randy credico tricked roger stone?y defense is, i heard randy credico admit to it in my own apartment, in 2017. he told myself and a film producer named david lugo that he was the back-channel. so, i mean, by his own accord, he was, in a time where it wasn't as heated an environment, he was taking credit for it. >> do you have any records of that? >> i mean, david lugo has gone on the record. he's a potential witness in the case. >> so you both attest to that? which goes to whether, beyond a shadow of a doubt, reasonable doubt, whether mr. stone is going to face this jury or go to jail potentially, you were saying at one point, they agreed on this story and that story itself wasn't true, because he wasn't really a back-channel to wikileaks. >> i don't know whether they agreed to the story, because i thought roger thought he was talking to or at least trying to contact him. though nothing ever came from that. but i think that randy was embellishing his relationship with assange. also, evident in this fake picture, this

trial of donald trump, today marks the first day of a trial for trump's longest serving advisor, roger stonel home in january in this footage that went viral because stone himself released it. the arrest came by agents acting under the authority of the mueller probe at the time. stone has been fighting those charges ever since, even arguing that this routine handcuffing and escorting him out of his home was a violation of his rights. no judge has agreed with that. today stone walked into court for jury selection for this new trial where he faces charges for lying to congress, witness tampering and obstructing justice. now we turn to someone who was inside that very courtroom today, political reporter darren samuelson. thanks for joining me. >> good evening. >> good evening. what did you see inside the courtroom today and what does it tell you about this trial? >> sure. well, this morning got off to a pretty abrupt start. roger stone came into court and only about 20 minutes in, after the first questions with one of the very first jurors, roger stone got up and he left with his wife, apparent

let me switch gears if you don't mind, the roger stone thing. >> i know roger real well.for him. neil: could be in prison the rest of his life. do you think the president would intervene and pardon him? he already tweeted his outrage at hem. >> i think he should. this will annoy people for me saying this, roger stone didn't make a lot of friends over the years. i happen to like roger a lot you know. but i will say this, look at his crimes. they were process crimes. he was not, he did not help wikileaks break into the database of -- neil: big no, no, if you lie. >> he lied, he -- neil: a lie is a lie. >> not saying it is bad. it isn't good. bill clinton is not in jail. you have to put it in context, he lied about stuff that wasn't a crime. martha stewart did the same by the way. she went to jail for what, 18 months? neil: is there any risk if the president were to pardon him? >> i don't know. neil: if you think about it, february 6th is the actual sentencing date. so, you could argue that president waits this out, sees what the winds are doing. >> i think, can he pardon hi

i mean, if they're talking about trying to get roger stone on lying to congress and roger stone was sayingng evidence that it was jerome corsi. this was just the opening argument, we're going to see e-mails, communications. the justice department indicated they've got hundreds of e-mails and text messages between roger stone and both individuals and are going to explain. we're going to see randy credico on the stand too in the coming days, and randy credico is going to talk about how he was trying to argue to roger stone, look, i wasn't your intermediary. i don't know why you're pinning this on me and the back and forth that led to and ultimately to the witness tampering charge that follows where roger stone is urging randy credico to plead the fifth. >> and briefly, who do you think is the potentially most damaging witness to stone? >> gosh, the most damaging witness to stone, i think randy credico could be someone that certainly we'll be watching. he will provide a lot of that testimony. steve bannon will be coming up in the coming days. unclear exactly how much steve bannon's going to w

and this is defendant roger stone today facing possible prison time from charges stemming from robert prosecutors in the stone trial say that he so wanted to become part of the trump campaign in 2016 he told anyone who would listen that he could help trump win the election because he had a relationship with wikileaks founder julian assange. >> i actually have communicated with assange. i believe the next traun ch pertain to the clinton foundation. >> he touted that relationship saying he could get dirt about hillary clinton. one problem, stone testimony appears to show the trump campaign believed him. a witness in stone's trial, former white house chief strategist, steve bannon, who testified stone never directly told him he could obtain information from wikileaks, but implied it. although it appeared as though presidential candidate trump welcomed the release of e-mails that could hurt hillary clinton -- >> wikileaks, i love wikileaks. >> the fact is stone didn't have the back channel to wikileaks founder and didn't have access to those hacked democratic e-mails. shortly after bannon

this was outside the roger stone trial today.on's star witness, steve bannon, leaves the courthouse. >> yes, i was compelled to testify like i was compelled to testify, i was under subpoena by mueller. i was under subpoena by the house. i got a hand-written subpoena in my house testimony. i was forced to go to the grand jury and i'm forced and compelled to come here today. >> steve bannon speaking to reporters today about his reluctant witness. yes, i'm a really reluctant witness. i was under subpoena. i was forced to be here. he neglected to mention in that answer that, in fact, before he was subpoenaed, he voluntarily spoke for -- spoke with prosecutors in this case and even though he was under subpoena by robert mueller to speak to the grand jury, he also without a subpoena spoke to mueller's investigators for hours and hours and hours. he doesn't want to talk about that, though. he wants to talk about seeming very reluctant to testify. i definitely wouldn't be doing this. steve bannon was donald trump's campaign chief. roger

and the roger stone conviction, does the president pardon roger stone?not, what kind of message does that send to other people? rudy giuliani is counting on this as the weapon of last resort, maybe gordon sobdlandlas ninging about a presidential pardon. if roger stone is sentenced to years in jail and the president doesn't help him, speaking of intimidation, that's the opposite. the president is failing to intimidate. >> they'll be felons, disbarred and they'll be wasted. anyway, my guests are going to stick with us. trump released a phone call with the ukrainian president but bears little resemblance of that phone call. that's next. you're watching "hardball." one l that's next. you're watching "hardball. fine, we'll sleep here. ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. can you tell me the story again? every family has their own unique story. give your family the chance to discover theirs this holiday season, with ancestry. and thchin up guys!good! everything's gonna be okay. you guys remember how to tap, tap, right? you guy

so this morning, trump's adviser roger stone was convicted. he was convicted of one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements, and this is an important one, one count of witness tampering. it's a federal crime. it's in the federal statute. he was tried for it and he was convicted then. the crazy thing about the world in which we live is the very moment we learned about that verdict the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine was testifying publicly in the impeachment inquiry of donald j. trump, her name, maybe you saw this today, her name was marie yovanovitch. an ovation for marie yovanovitch. she goes by masha to her friends. she speaks different languages, spent over three decades in the foreign service. most recently she was bullied out of her job by the president and his henchmen for lack of a better word. she had assignments all over the world. she was in places like somalia and armenia. most recently and relevantly she was in ukraine where she focused especially intently on a kind of anti-corruption program. in fact, she wa

he received a call from roger stone. there was a conversation. and after that conversation, trump indicated that more information was coming from wikileaks. and what they were talking about was the july 22nd release of information. that was the first release. this phone call taking place on july 31st, because roger stone had been indicating to the campaign that more information was coming and we know then that in october more information was, in fact, released by wikileaks. the other thing rick gates painted was a picture of a campaign that was excited by the information that wikileaks was going to put out. they felt that it was going to help them. they were trying to learn more information about it so they could learn how to react to it, building a media campaign, perhaps, rick gates talking about how the campaign was brainstorming, having meetings about how they were going to respond to this. but most significant in all of this, the prosecution essentially ending rick gates' testimony by connecting everything directly to donald trump. brianna?

believing that roger stone had direct access to information that had not been yet public that had to laiming h was getting inside information. a, you have a campaign that's really happy that roger stone is getting this information and the other thing is that you have now donald trump who was talking to roger stone and keep in mind this is something that the mueller team had asked in written questions to the president. they asked did you have any of these conversations with roger stone. if you remember donald trump said i don't recall. >> thank you. also tonight, house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff is speaking out about tomorrow's impeachment hearings and possibility that democrats will accuse the president of bribery. our chief political analyst is looking at all of what has led up to this historic moment right now and schiff finds himself center stage. >> it feels like being in the why of the hurricane. you can never tell when you will step out of the eye. >> it's a sure bet this week adam schiff will be at the center of the storm leading a historic public inquiry on im

there was contact with roger stone and then candidate donald trump.ll in the middle of laying all of this out. they used the flowchart today to show the number of contacts with paul manafort, steve bannon and rick gates. rick gates will turn out to be a very significant witness for the prosecutors. they're in the early stages of laying all this out and showing how roger stone lied to congress, they say, when they asked him, when they were investigating the russian interference, how roger stone lied about his contacts with the campaign and the president. >> what are they saying? >> they're extensive and many. there were several. at least three when it was revealed the dnc had been hacked and continuation of contacts of roger stone claiming he can help the president win, claiming he had contacts, had an intermediary who could help him. there was a lot of funny moments, also, when randy was on the stand. and there is a lot going on today, funny moments. the judge reminding one witness, this is serious business, you're comedians but this is serious. we ha

on this late night laugh line, roger stone gets the attention of bill maher. >> roger stone threatened that he would take away his dogs. trump keeps calling this a witch hunt, and yet it's roger stone who literally says i'll get you and your little dog. (burke) at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. even a- (ernie) lost rubber duckie? (burke) you mean this one? (ernie) rubber duckie! (cookie) what about a broken cookie jar? (burke) again, cookie? (cookie) yeah. me bad. (grover) yoooooow! oh! what about monsters having accidents? i am okay by the way! (burke) depends. did you cause the accident, grover? (grover) cause an accident? maybe... (bert) how do you know all this stuff? (burke) just comes with experience. (all muppets) yup. ♪ we are farmers. ♪ bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum what is that? uh mine, why? it's just that it's... lavender. yes it is, it's for men but i like the smell of it laughs ♪ man 1 vo: proof of less joint pain woman 1 oc: this is my body of proof. and clearer skin. man 2 vo: proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... woma

this was outside the roger stone trial today.h what happens as the afternoon star witness, steve bannon, leaves the courthouse. >> yes, i was compelled to testify like i was compelled to testify, i was understand subpoena by mueller. i was understand subpoena by the house. i got a hand written subpoena in my house testimony. i was force today go to the grand jury. and i'm forced and compelled to come here today. >> steve bannon speaking to reporters today about he's a reluctant witness, i was under subpoena, i was forced to be here. he said in court today he would not have been there if he'd not been forced to be there. he neglected to mention in that answer in fact before he was subpoenaed he voluntarily spoke with prosecutors in this case. and even though she was under subpoena by robert mueller to speak with the grand jury, he also spoke to investigators for hours and hours and hours. he doesn't want to talk about that, though. he wants to talk about seeming very reluctant to testify. i definitely wouldn't be doing this. steve

and so far just a few days in it does not look great for roger stone. ng the circuit of this trial is legal analyst glenn kirschner. it's good to have you. you've been watching the trial. stone is being prosecuted for witness tampering and lying. what's the government's case basically? >> so the government's case is built largely on e-mail traffic and text messages, written communications between roger stone and randy credico or roger stone and steve bannon, for example. and basically what those written communications do is they squarely contradict and undercut the testimony that roger stone gave to the house intel committee. so as a former career prosecutor, i only wish i had evidence like this at my criminal trials. it's a little like shooting fish in a barrel. >> well, so the specific thing here, right, is everyone has sort of wondered about did the trump campaign have advance knowledge of wicky leakileaks, there's a lot of flirting between the two. they're kind of in touch and there's these intermediaries where he's trying to get to assange. and the

funny, perhaps, he called roger stone an expert in opposition.nterestingly enough he did say, this is a guy who knows how to do dirty tricks, so when you're down in a campaign, this is the kind of information you would want. a key witness certainly for the government. it gives us the first and the government the first opportunity to have someone understand that was attached to the campaign to say, yeah, we were interested in what wikileaks was doing and interested in what roger stone was doing, and important part of the government's case. >> steve bannon did not show up voluntarily? >> he did not. he made it a point. that was the first question the government asked him and he said he did not come there voluntarily and this is what he said outside court. >> i was compelled to testimony like when i was under subpoena by mueller and the house. i got a handwritten subpoena in my house assume. i was forced to go to the grand jury and forced and compelled to come here today. >> this is an important point for steve bannon to make. people close to him ke

you and roger stone have known each other for a long time. you're very close. y back in 1979 by roy cohn, right? trump's famous lawyer. he tried to get trump to run for president for decades. look, because of what happened in this campaign, okay, the trump campaign, roger stone could go to jail, and he could spend many years in jail. you talk to him. does he think it would have been worth it to have been part of this campaign if that happens? >> well, i think roger stone is on trial for his political association for trump, but he also believes in trump, and he has for decades. so, you know, i think that he could have maybe tried to cooperate like some of these other people have done, and he did not. so now he's towing the line. i think that's something he is going to continue to do. >> and he knows he'll get a pardon? >> i don't believe he thinks he'll get a pardon. i think he is taking this like a champ. from the minute he was arrested, i mean, everybody was saying he was going to get arrested. you guys were reporting every week, roger stone is going to be arre

and it's a story of roger stone in close touch with then candidate donald trump. d on those phone calls, but they have e-mails from stone to paul manafort and steve bannon that just proves that the campaign was closely involved in stone's efforts to figure out what julian assange had, how he was going to deploy those e-mails, how he could use those to the benefit of the trump campaign. he even said, i can save donald trump's you know what, but it ain't going to be pretty. that was his message to manafort and bannon. >> so, ben, one of the, to me, the recurring mysteries. when the russians first shot these e-mails, they kind of dumped them around. they didn't know what was useful, what wasn't. at some point, somebody helped them figure out what they had. and that's to me been one of the mysteries. is it wikileaks that did it, is it somebody that helped them? we don't know. and this is all part of it. there seem to be some group of people who had a lot of awareness about what was happening and what was in them. and that seems to be a mystery mueller never solved. >>

someone who obviously involved in the campaign, knows roger stone very well.rt and rig -- rick gates in this trial he's cooperating with investigators so we may hear from him. we'll hear a lot about julian assange and wikileaks that will come up a lot. and then randy credico who is a comedian, someone that the government has charged roger stone with trying to intimidate during the congressional testimony during the congressional investigation. that is someone that roger stone, the government said, tried to intimidate and tried to obstruct justice to get him not to cooperate so we'll hear from him. he certainly is a colorful character. so it is going to be interesting. we may hear from a manhattan madam. she's a close friend of roger stone. she had come in and testified in the grand jury. so we're going to have quite a list of characters come in and out of this courtroom in the next few days. the trial is expected to go on for about three weeks. >> okay. well, lucky you. we'll be talking a lot. day one is any indication, we'll be talking a lot. shimon prokupecz

more on roger stone in a minute. >>> there's more. this from a meeting price to the inauguration of president zelensky, when with you asked why rudy giuliani had so much to stay to the media about ukraine. i quote here again -- my recollection is ambassador sondland stated, damn it, rudy, every tile rudy gets involved and goes -- -- oops, i can't say that -- effs everything up. all of that on the same day who was abruptly removed from her post, by the way, from president, president trump in may. the white house claimed that he would be too busy to watch anything more than devin nunes' opening statement, right? it seems that he watched a bit of what maria yovanovitch had to say. just a little after 10:00 a.m., this came out. the president tweeted -- an attack on the former ambassador while she was testifying on live television, talking about being attacked and smeared by this position. this is what chairman adam schiff said about that. >> as we sit here testifying, the president is attacking you on twitter, and i'd like to give you a c

staying in the us and roger stone — a longtime confidant and advisor to donald trump — has been convicted over false statements to congress related to the whistleblower website, wikileaks. mr stone was on trial in washington on charges of lying to congress, witness tampering and obstruction, over his remarks about wikileaks‘ email releases in the 2016 presidential campaign. our correspondent alem maqbool says roger stone was found guilty on all seven counts. we are not going to find out the sentence that roger stone receives for a while yet but it is certainly going to be a jail term. it seems he could get up to 50 years, he is unlikely to get that much but for one of powerful lobbying figures campaign political figures in washington, it is quite a hard fall. but this all relates to that massive rush investigation. robert mueller‘s investigation into russian attempts to influence the 2016 election. during the investigation, roger stone was seen as someone, a close friend of donald trump and adviser to donald trump was trying to get in touch trying to get in touch with wikileaks, he was tr

stone's rules came into the trial. in fact i'll put this on the screen. the gore i'll quote that rogerphy in a clip played for jurors quoting the writer gore viddal, never pass up an opportunity to have sex or appear on television. now the next line says, not one juror smiled. maybe a humorless bunch. i'm not sure. what do you make of that? >> yes. as i just said, roger is trying his same old tricks. he's pulling out his jokes. he's pulling out his lines. but that doesn't actually matter in this case. because he just straight-up said things that could be demon strably proven not true and there was no spin he could give to the jury. now he's trying his spin. now he's trying it to an audience of one, which is donald trump. and he is going out there big and public and putting out there that he directly wants a pardon for donald trump. and this is going to be the test case as to what loyalty really adds up to for donald. because nobody has been more vocal and loyal than roger at least in the past few years. >> put that tweet back up. now they convict roger stone of lying and want to jail h

and then all of a sudden he was asked you know roger stone, and you had frequent conversations with rogere about his access to wikileaks and julian assange. and all of a sudden bannon backed up and said, nah, no, i don't know about that. the prosecutor said, really, let's go to your grand jury transcript when you testified in the mueller investigation. and then the prosecutor did what was textbook impeachment by a prior sworn statement. he took bannon through his statement to the grand jury where he said, yes, i had frequent communication with roger stone about his access to julian assange and wikileaks. and then, chris, the testimony moved forward a few minutes and everything was back on track. and then came the money question. that question was, did the trump campaign have an access point -- that was the term that was used -- an access point to julian assange and wikileaks? and you would have thought bannon would have learned his lesson by that little impeachment episode a few minutes earlier, but, no, bannon said -- here was his answer. i don't think we had one. let's go to the grand j

medicare supplement plan from a company like humana, just might be the answer. >>> there he is, roger stoneo of his trial as we learn that former white house chief strategist steve bannon is expected to testify against stone. that, according to federal prosecutors. >> that will be fascinating. former top trump campaign aide rick gates also expected to be called to the witness stand. let's go to our colleague shimon prokupecz outside the trial with all the developments. any idea when bannon may come to court? >> no idea yet when he's going to actually appear and testify, but certainly as you said, it's going to be a big day. prosecutors here yesterday in their opening statement and, really, in the direct examination, there's an fbi agent that has just taken the stand. she was laying out yesterday's -- bannon's role in all of this. the president's role in all of this. and they are certainly billing him as a big witness. and his whole involvement and this really is communications, emails and text messages with roger stone about roger stone's efforts to get some of these emails, get information

better life. >>> the prosecution has rested in the roger stone crim na trin trial and stone's defenseam has no plans to call the longtime trump associate to the stand. indeed the focus of key testimony today from 2016 trump campaign aide rick gates. prosecutors zeroing in on a phone call zen president trump took at the height of that wikileaks stump. and our crime and justice reporter heard every bit of the testimony and is there outside the federal courthouse and sara murray our cnn political correspondent has more reporting about stone not taking the stand. shimon, start with you. what did rick gates say about the president's knowledge of wikileaks back in 2016? >> while he basically said that the president then candidate donald trump knew everything that was going on concerning wikileaks and what roger stone was doing and how he was offering what he was claiming was inside information on what wikileaks was doing and described excitement by the campaign, knowing that perhaps they were going to get information that was damming for hillary clinton, and all of this happening really at

more on roger stone in a minute. but you heard that mention of rudy giuliani and david holmes' opening statement. well, there's more. this from a meeting prior to the inauguration of president zelensky. when someone asked why rudy giuliani had so much to say to the media about ukraine. and i quote here again, my recollection is that ambassador sondland stated, dammit rudy, every time rudy gets involved he goes and -- can't say that -- he effs everything up. all that coming on the same day as testimony from former ambassador marie yovanovitch. he was abruptly removed from her post by the president -- president trump in may. the white house claiming he'd be too busy to watch anything more than devin nunes' opening statement, right? but it seems he found time to watch at least a bit of what marie yovanovitch had to say. and she apparently got under his skin because just a little after 10:00 a.m. this came out. the president of the united states tweeted, an attack on the former ambassador while she was testifying on live

roger stone has bragged about knowing something but of course roger stone brags about a lot of thingsat was the deal, who knew about what assange was going to do and how they were going to weaponize it to defeat hillary clinton? it took one day of the roger stone trial for an answer. prosecutors say roger stone was aggressively trying to contact wikileaks, that stone was calling the president directly. and stone emailed manafort to say he had an idea where to save, quote, to save trump's ass. and here with me now, rachel wineert. who was covering the first day of the roger stone trial. it was from what i can see more dramatic than i was anticipating. what did we learn today in the first day of the trial? >> so we learned that donald trump had multiple phone calls with roger stone on days when important things were happening with wikileaks. what we don't know is exactly what they said to each other, and i'm sure roger stone's lawyers will emphasize the fact that we don't know what was said on those phone calls. but stone called trump and trump called back twice on the night that the dn

nobody was talking about wiki leak anywhere. -- prosecutors argued that roger stone should spend up toyears in prison, the rest of his life. at the moment prosecutors made that case that stone's misstatements ought to be a death penalty offense adam schiff was lying to us. he was not worried. in washington dishonesty is a one way offense and roger stone was convicted and washington screamed rot in hell on twitter. the response to stone's case from the federal prosecutors and television, is how much more outraged it was that anything that greeted jeffrey epstein. do you think george stephanopoulos would have dinner at roger stone's house? no. that would be immoral. remember what happened when roger stone was arrested. dozens of agents with automatic weapo weapons and helicopters descended on their home and rousted he and his wife from bed at rifle point. they tipped off cnn which was there to capture the whole thing live. that's how our government treated a man facing perjury charges. jeffrey epstein was abused of molesting at least 34 under-age girls. how was he arrested? that's a tric