was trying to frame me. >> sam nunberg saying that mueller asked him questions about you, about this e-mail that you sent him about dining with julian assange. we have to take a quick break. more with you in just a moment. we will talk more about roger's relationship or lack thereof with julian assange. was it face-to-face at a crucial moment of the campaign for the candidates and the hostile foreign power trying to shape the outcome. >>> just one place to start, we we believe in a fit for all. maybelline's fit me foundation. fits skin tone and texture. blurs pores. controls shine. our most diverse shades ever. maybelline's fit me matte + poreless. only from maybelline new york. janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads. janice, look. i'm in a meeting. -janice, look. -[ chuckles ] -look, look. -i'm looking. it's easy. you just answer some simple questions online, and you get coverage options to choose from. you're ruining my workout. cycling i

>> no i did not. >> the e-mail that you sent sam nunberg where you said you had dinner with assange. said it was a joke. i just, i am just wondering, of all of the things to joke about, why that? how does that get you off the phone faster. if anybody said to me i am having dinner with julian assange, i would stay on the phone longer. >> it was being played on in the political media around the edges of the campaign. it was a hot topic. sam is somewhat neurotic, he would sometimes call you 30, 40 times a day often with nothing to say other than what is going on. when you let his phone calls roll over to voice message, i would becoming annoyed with you. demonstrate no such trip was made. i did produce airline tickets and so on. here is the one thing i got right. when i was in west hollywood, i stayed at the london hotel. >> have you been in communication with others who have been in touch with as -- assange. >> no i have not. >> as i was writing the question, i knew that was going to be the answer. you revealed public tweets and private messaging communicating with gucifer 2.0. i know y

here's what sam nunberg told ari melber last week. >> he'll say i was joking. the joke is essentially on me because that's why i got called in, i think one of the primary reasons by mueller. >> was it a joke? >> i don't -- that's not the way i recollect it. that's not the way i recall it. >> is that a no? >> was it a joke to me. >> was it a joke? >> i don't think so. >> in response to that, roger stone called sam nunberg a psycho and a lying a hole in an interview with the daily beast. tomorrow alex van der zwaan is to be sentenced tomorrow. this is the first to reach the sentencing. alex van der zwaan was aware of conversations between rick gates, who also pleaded guilty, and a person with ties to the russian intelligence service. joining us is rick booth, evelyn farcus, and harry litman. and harry lit man, i want to start with you on the last point, which is roger stone's e-mail saying i dined with julian assange last night. that obviously gets the interest of the special prosecutor, sam nunberg is brought in to testify about that, he has revealed, possibly a

he was trying to get out of a dinner with sam nunberg and sam nunberg took it seriously and he says, i think, reported that to bob mueller. bob mueller is looking into whether this is possible. is it possible that roger stone actually had dinner with julian assange who was holed up in an embassy? >> most likely not, but i think it misses the broader point here, which is that mueller is looking at the counterintelligence investigation with two aspects. one is the social media one. we saw the indictment. the second is the hacking of the democratic national committee and podesta. and then as to each, whether there was collusion or coordination with respect to the first social media it's going to be cambridge analytica and the kushner analytics operation and with respect to the hacking it will be roger stone and don jr. and their conversations with wikileaks around the dnc podesta hacking. so whether or not roger stone had dinner, whether he was kidding with sam nunberg, whether nunberg misunderstood is beside the point of i think that mueller has in his sights the hacking from the count

wall street journal" said it saw is day-to-day august 4th, 2016, and it is from roger stone to sam nunberg, both of them were informal advisers to then candidate trump. and in the e-mail, roger stone says, quote, i dined with julian assange last night. wolf, the problem with this is we've had multiple different stories from roger stone as to whether or not he had any actual contact with julian assange, the founder of wikileaks. in the past, he said that he did have contact. he also has said that he had contact with julian assange through an intermediary. and just in the last couple of days, we've talked to him at cnn and he now denies that he ever had any contact with julian assange. he told "the wall street journal," for instance, that he could provably show that he was not in the ecuadorian embassy having dinner with julian assange during the time of this e-mail, simply because he was flying somewhere and he produced the receipt from delta airline fars for a flight. so we don't know what his story is, but it's a very significant thing if this e-mail is true. again, it goes to the central

in their story they had seen an e-mail that roger stone wrote to former trump campaign adviser sam nunberg, back in august of 2016, and in the e-mail, he wrote to sam saying that, quote, i dined with julian assange last night. obviously julian assange, roger stone, all under sort of the cross hairs here in the cross hairs of the mueller investigation because they want to know if there was any collusion, any coordination, between the release of the wikileaks, the e-mails of the dnc and the eventual e-mails that were released, john podesta e-mails, all of that is part of the special counsel investigation, roger stone has denied having any contact, having any dinners, with julian assange, but certainly the idea that he sent this e-mail to sam nunberg is of interest to the special counsel. roger stone claims he was joking with sam nunberg when he sent that e-mail. >> appreciate it, as always, thank you. >>> joining me to break all of this down, cnn chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jeffrey toobin. starting off with this new memo we have in the filing here, and paul manafort's a

now, roger stone denied that he had this dinner, said he was joking to sam nunberg. nonetheless, these questions about roger stone and his connection to julian assange keep coming up and certainly from everything we know is part of the mueller investigation. >> shimon, thank you so much. thanks to evan perez as well. joining me now, cnn legal analyst paul callan and senior politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza with us. paul, alex van der zwaan is really the first figure in this russia investigation expected to be sentenced. how does this play into the larger russian investigation? >> of course, he's a young lawyer, who got jammed up in this case because he lied to federal investigators. of course, mueller likes to send that message out repeatedly. you lie, to one of my investigators. and you may go to prison. but he's important as well, because he's really central to this russian connection that seems to run out of the ukraine. and, remember, manafort's political consulting business was focused on a russian supported ukrainian government, but had ties

you see that, robert mueller, you'll never crack sam nunberg. who then told the a.p., "i'm going to end up cooperating with them. ( laughter ) that was really quick. i think we have footage of nunberg's spine. ( explosion ) ( applause ) of course, of course-- that's the spine on the river kwai, i think. of course, the big story continues to be trump's trade war. on thursday, he slapped a 10% tariff on aluminum and a 25% tariff on steel. it could spark a trade war, especially after trump's trade advisor said there will be no exceptions made for allies. mr. president, please, we can't lose any more allies. at this point, it's israel, the u.k., and whatever country your wives are from. ( laughter ) it's wife-sylvania, i think. and now, the e.u. has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on harley-davidson motorcycles, bourbon, and blue jeans. wow, that is a real blow to america's midlife-crisis industry. ( laughter ) all that's left is electric guitars and 25-year-old yoga teachers named dawn. ( laughter ) she's an old soul. ( laughter ) but a very yo

sam nunberg comes to mind about saying is publicly. it is a lot of loyalty to give up your life for you. he says he would take a bullet for the guy, but when push comes to shove, we don't know if files a charges are going to be filed. >> also, it appears that the government has actually had access to michael cohen's e-mails for some time. >> yes, apparently they have secretly had access to a bunch of e-mails. they are in position of a trove of materials. a number of things investigators asked about in the search warrant was specific communications between, they named hope hicks and corey lewandowski specifically. and it is worth remembers that for a time before the president declared his candidacy, it was michael cohen, sam nunberg, corey lewandowski and hope hicks and that was it. and they are clearly going back to the beginning to look for us. >> incredible. coming up next, our legal panel of alan dershowitz. and later we asked if they have seen anything from this white house from just this week alone. g a wall to life. because you a

. >> they're reporting that in august of 2016, julian assange sent an e-mail to sam nunberg who as we know was his former campaign adviser to the trump campaign. in it, the "wall street journal" says that this e-mail he said that roger stone said, i quote, i dined with julian assange. >> this is from roger stone to nunberg. >> that's correct. the importance is that part of this collusion and interference, the conspiracy the special counsel is looking into to defraud our election process. this will be a significant piece of information. we know at this point, julian assange was dealing with perhaps some of the dnc hacked e-mails. we know that certainly based on some of our own reporting, that he is in the cross hairs of robert mueller, the fbi, and the department of justice for a long time have been trying to find ways to bring charges for the various hacks and things that he's been part of. so this could give them a window. the department of justice, the special counsel, to bring charges. and then this is roger stone. and we keep hearing about wlor he met with julian assange. he says

sam nunberg whether he came on msnbc multiple times said they have roger's e-mails. which means there was likely evidence of a crime if they had to obtain a search warrant. >> if they want have roger stone's e-mails makes me think about the fact that stone says, there's no evidence to the contrary which strikes me as significant. the certainly. you'll recall that stone refused when his congressional appearance, refused to say anything about the wikileaks thing. if and when he's interviewed by mueller, he can't use that as an excuse. but you know, one of the things here that by any reasonable analysis, this increases the fear of president trump. you have to know that the fear is on the rise. because he sees and hears what we have and he knew it a long time ago and saying he's got to be saying to himself, listen if they're pressing in in on roger stone and they're going to get him if they haven't already under oath, i've really got to be afraid. >> i keep coming back to this seeing it with michael cohen and the stormy daniels case. donald trump has operated with a lot

i don't know for sure who the president is talking about right now, but sam nunberg is quoted inside maggie has been berman's article. should a president, should anyone be talking about addiction issues in that way? >> of course not. the president shouldn't be talking about a special counsel investigation, an ongoing federal criminal investigation into his personal lawyer. shouldn't be talking about any of these things like this on twitter. none of this is okay. none of it is normal. it is ill advised, even legally. i don't know any lawyer worth their salt that would approve of a client discussing a case that they're potentially involved in this way, never mind the president of the united states and then, yes, the insensitivity of drug addiction or especially from someone that is claiming that the opioid crisis is a priority, in his administration, to be so cavalier about that, i saw the sam nunberg series of interviews and it was clearly someone who needs help. and to minimize that, it just seems -- just goes to show you, excuse me, either he doesn't care or that he's just so self-a

sam nunberg has said that himself.learly what started out as one thing has now expanded with the special counsel, with bob mueller referring these cases to the u.s. attorney in new york. >> the president, i was told this morning by a source close to the president, what he's most upset about this, obviously michael cohen is a good friend and has been his personal attorney since 1996, but he sees this as a clear violation of attorney-client privilege. on air force i, the president went out of his way to say michael cohen is my personal friend and attorney. he had him at mar-a-lago, and you heard him say in no uncertain terms that he was furious about this because of attorney-client privilege. and the question we all have is, of course, where does this leave things? does he blame rod rosenstein, does he blame jeff sessions, does he blame bob mueller? what does he do with that? we know he's furious. >> and we know bob mueller is the one who ultimately approved this, so the pressure kind of falls there. he could definitely

it was an e-mail he sent to sam nunberg about dining with the wikileaks head, julian assange. what's notable about this is he says this happened in august of 2016, august 4th. and on july 22nd, as we know, is when wikileaks published the hacked e-mails. certainly all of this is very important to the mueller investigation. roger stone denies it, says this e-mail was a joke. again, all of this goes into the larger investigation, the conspiracy investigation that bob mueller and his team are now investigating. >> never a dull moment. shimon, thank you. to that point, now to the sentencing hearing about to get under way for alex van der zwaan, a dutch lawyer with ties to both manafort and rick gates. cnn's evan perez live outside the courthouse in washington. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, erica. as you mentioned, in the next hour we expect alexander van der zwaan to walk into the federal courthouse behind me and expected to be sentenced, facing zero to six months in prison. we expect closer to zero, no time in prison despite the fact he is now admitting to lying and to

. >> seth: i want to talk about sam nunberg real quick.iod when he melted down maybe is a little unkind. but he was off the rails as far as somebody talking about his time in front of the mueller investigation. nunberg was the one who brought you to mar-a-lago. he was the one who thought it was a good idea for you to travel with trump then. and so, then you wrote this unflattering piece and trump was not happy with nunberg. >> yeah, trump fired him because of the piece. then rehired him later and then fired him again. the thing about sam nunberg that i realized when i was kind of stuck in mar-a-lago with him, was that he is part of this kind of rotating cast of, like, kind of weird characters that trump has always liked to have around him who are all sort of aspiring mini trumps, you know. >> seth: yeah. >> you know? like they dress like him. they kind of take on his affect and his like, his linguistic stylings. like they'll use the same words as him. and they all try to mimic his kind of performance. and it's funny because, like, you know

stone told the journal the e-mail to former sam nunberg was a joke which is absolutely hilarious because he claimed to use the same joke to nunberg on the phone as well. >> got him off the phone when he said do you have plans for the weekend? i said yeah, i think i'll fly to london and have dinner with julian assange. it was a joke. >> and he is wearing the beret in the fictional dinner. natasha bertrand of the atlantic. this has now been a repeat shtick of roger stone. i met with julian assange, no, i haven't. it's a joke. >> it's huge. if he was writing in an e-mail to sam nunberg who was are a very close friend of his in august 2016 that he had dinner with julian assange on august 3rd, that no one knows where he was on the 3rd. he says he was in l.a. he sent to "the wall street journal" but the screen shot said roger and delta wouldn't confirm he was tilly on the flight. >> you don't book your flights with just a first name? >> it's not a products that i adhere. to but on august 8th, then, five days later, he see him speaking, kind of bragging to this group of florida republicans abou

i didn't think it was a joke. >> and remember, sam nunberg, a massive defender of roger stone. what is mueller's team looking for? >> they have to sort through the complexities that may or may not be true. we saw the e-mail, we don't have it in our possession. roger stone sent an e-mail saying he dined with julian assange. he sent us a flight booking. there's no way for us to verify it. but it showed him being in miami and l.a. dining doesn't physically mean being there. mab he caug maybe he caught him on the phone during dinner. prosecutors say there's no fine print there. >> if i had dinner, if i dined with you last night, it means we broke bread, it means salad, soup, advertiseppetizer. are you kidding? >> there has not been any sort of prove. delta, for privacy reasons, won't tell us whether he was on this flight he said he was on. the big picture here, if you look at the timeline, the e-mail came days after president trump called on russia to find clinton's missing e-mails and it also came days after paul manafort's contact with constantine calemnic. and days after this, r

he has to be talking about sam nunberg. nobody else fits the description of being anyone who would be connected to any kind of problems with addiction except for him and again, maybe it's speculation, maybe it isn't. but that's true. should he be held to account, the president of the united states, for referring to somebody as a drugged up drunk when he says he wants to give attention to addiction, treat these people with respect, treat them as sick, help with the problem because he identified the problem he is the problem. stigma is a big part of the problem in change how long we deal with it. i know all the other stuff is great political intrigue but should we focus on that? >> we should. this is somebody, a huge driver for his election in the primaries and in the general election was concern about the opioid crisis, the spread of addiction, lack of treatment, lack of options. he was very good at going to events and sort of sounding a note of compassion, calling someone a drugged up loser on twitter and especially creatin

the note to former trump adviser sam nunberg adds to a growing number of times mr. stone claimed during the campaign to be in contact with wikileaks. the next day, mr. stone publicly praised mr. assange via twitter. mr. mueller's team has asked about mr. stone's e-mail during testimony before a grand jury, according to the person familiar with the matter. stone told the journal that the e-mail to former protege sam nunberg was, quote, a joke, but he has frequently claimed some kind of contact with wikileaks and then later issued some kind of denial. the president's legal team has been hunting for additional lawyers to help represent him in the russia matter. joe digenova and his wife and frequent co-counsel victoria toensing had agreed to act as counsel then declined because of conflict are still very much in contact with trump and his attorneys. here is what digenova said this morning on wbl radio in baltimore. >> i can tell you victoria and i are playing the role of lawyers on television and in real life. we have spoken with the president several times since our r

sam nunberg got a subpoena. the only people that it's been publicly confirmed that they've had an fbi raid on their office is paul manafort and michael cohen. manafort's home was raided. 97 days later, he was indicted. michael cohen is a lawyer. he knows what it means when the feds raid. it means they convince adjudge there's either evidence of a crime or criminal concern that key evidence could be destroyed. and i can also tell you tonight, this is historic in a bad way. you know during the entire watergate scandal, which toppled a president, the fbi never raided any of president nixon's personal lawyers. that's according to watergate prosecutor, nick ackerman, who asked about this tonight. and finally, the other reason why this matters, bob mueller doesn't get a criminal referral for something up in new york, potentially outside of his jurisdiction, without going to rod rosenstein, which reportedly he did, and tonight rod rosestein didn't say stop, red, he didn't say, yellow, slow down. he said green. and he s

. >> every person i spoke to, i mean, sam nunberg who was a former trump aide who also has been calledmueller said to me the irony now is the relationship is switch and it is michael who has the leverage in the relationship. whether he would use it is a different question, but he does have it. >> you have been reporting michael cohen approaching melania trump. do you know how that went? >> my understanding was that was brief conversation. i think that it is an uncomfortable conversation and brief. >> again, a fascinating article. thanks very much. i appreciate it. >>> up next, mr. comey says president trump told him twice that he never spent the night in moscow, keeping them honest there is evidence that he did. discover card. hey, i'm curious about your social security alerts. oh! we'll alert you if we find your social security number on any one of thousands of risky sites, so you'll be in the know. ewww! being in the know is very good. don't shake! ahhh! sign up online for free. discover social security alerts. accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violat

he was only joking with sam nunberg.her way of whether or not roger stone knew in advance what wikileaks was going to do? >> you know i've said this from a very long time ago that the trump campaign did not have one dirty tricks team related to this effort. i think there are multiple dirty tricks teams. i think roger stone set himself up and may have promised people he could work with other people and get information that he probably couldn't. the significance is he is now net deep in the mueller investigation. if he thinks he's not going to be questioned again, that his coherts, like i said nunberg is not going to tear his life apart, he's going to end up being a perjurer or a phenomenal liar. >> congress passes legislation. they disban a key state department and all of a sudden this past week they do some pretty serious sanctions. among the list of individual targets, seven oligarchs. 12 companies owned by oligarchs. we were just talking about roger stone. let gee let's go to paul manafort. he offered to privately brie

you have sam nunberg, another witness before the grand jury of mueller who has appeared on televisionntly drunk or drugged up. you have george nader, another witness for mr. mule whoar i mua convicted child molester. wouldn't a grand jury throw this case out if these are the only witnesses it can muster? >> which is why you saw today the dnc filing its publicity stunt lawsuit. the handwriting is on the wall. the mueller thing is collapsing in slow motion. they're frantic and desperate to keep this crazy rush rush nair tiff and conspiracy going. democratic narratives have telegraphed over to their pals in the party, file a civil case to drag this thing out forever. david: there's no there in terms of collusion. therefore you got to make it a political case which is what the dnc lawsuit is all about. >> discovery runs in both directions. you'll hear tom perez huff and puff about taking depositions. guess what, it flips the other way too. david: we can find out more about the relationship between fusion gps and is whole lot of things. >> what ever happened to the dnc servers. david: the

stone tone the journal that the e-mail to sam nunberg was, quote, a joke, but he has frequently claimed some kind of contact with wikileaks and then issued a denial. joe digenova who had agreed to act as counsel and then declined because of a conflict of interest are apparently still very in contact with trump and his attorneys. here is what digenova said this morning. >> i can tell you victoria and i are playing the role of lawyers on television and in real life. we've spoken with the president several times since our response, respective statements last week and we continue to chat with his lawyers and with him. he has a complete understanding of the legal battlefield that he is facing. i believe that he has been victim sized by an incompetent justice department led temporarily by rod rosenstein, who i think is a disgrace. >> so there was that. while digenova declined to reveal exactly what he and the president discussed, one major issue yet to be resolved is whether trump will sit down with mueller for an interview. former new jersey governor chris christie, who for a brief time ran

we do know that sam nunberg and stone are now in a very sort of public confrontation fight, calling eachinteresting about the story today is just taking us back a week, because sometimes we can forget these things. it was a week ago ted mallich, taken off the plane in boston and set to go before a grand jury, he said he was asked specifically if he had ever visited assange in the embassy. and that just seemed really strange to me at the time. it was so specific it was as if mueller's team actually knew someone, someone had visited julian assange. that someone we don't know who it is. but it does appear there was some focus on whether there was a direct visit between someone with ties to the trump campaign and julian assange who we all well know was in cahoots or is the equivalent of russia's anti-hillary campaign. >> how do you shift through and find the truth? wikileaks denies it had any contact with stone, but how do you sift through all these to find out what's truthful? >> what you do when you're a prosecutor is you look at the hard evidence that you have. so for example most likely

further, another quote from trump, former trump aide, sam nunberg, he says when ever come plaps to me b about trump screwing them over is my response is that person has nothing to complain about compared to michael. just two sources, one of several who told "the new york times" that they believed it would be b possible for michael cohen to ultimately flip against the president because of previous mistreatment allegedly by trump. again, according to these sources. one other note about the president's tweets that i wanted to point out. he talks about someone who's a drunker and drug user. there's been a will the of speculation about who the president was talking about. cnn has reached out to the white house to clarify. they have not responded. >> all right. thank you. let's get perspective from our panel. white house reporter for broom be bloomberg new, steve moore and steven levine, a former frl prosecutor and assistant u.s. attorney. he worked with rod rosenstein. so everybody, thank you. privately, how concerned do you think he has about that possibility? >> you have to imagine the p

alluding to sam nunberg, what's your sense of the audience for those three tweets? it's an opportunity -- she's interviewed him perhaps more than any other reporter. what do you make of the arguments, were these -- >> i think this is classic donald trump. he's at one part bullies, the other part trying to sweet talk his way into order things. where donald trump would sort of say, hey, also rocket man in one sentence and then in the next praise him for diagnose so effective a leader in north korea. he does the same sometimes with putin. that's just his style. you get the sense he's doing the same with cohen, the same thing actually with michael flynn, practicesing him on twitter, basically trying to sort of hint on twitter, don't flip on me, i think you're great, and hint hint there's a potential pardon down the road there. so i think it's a bit sweet, and a bit sour, and that's sort of the art of the deal for the president. >>> i mentioned epa administrator scott pruitt, there's a new piece in "new york times," and on this issue met with the lobbyist personally. how

every other individual, from sean spicer, sam nunberg who had subpoenas, they get requested, give us documents, e-mails or a grand jury subpoena. no one else, except manafort who's indicted and now today michael cohen had his door kicked in. it's a huge deal period. you add to the extra bar when you're dealing with a lawyer instead of a civilian. >> your interpretation of what the president said today when he got down to that conversation, which was really a conversation with him, about should i fire robert mueller? >> the phrasing is wrong because donald trump as so often is working not off knowledge of the situation but off his own ignorance. it might be willful ignorance, strategic ignorance. but the question is not whether he can fire robert mueller, he cannot. and the question is not whether rod rosenstein can fire mueller out of the blue. the act treats the rules as law and state that a special counsel can only be removed for cause in writing by the acting attorney general. so what trump was doing was imagining a fan fiction where he is king but he's not. whether there's increa

remember in march, former trump political advisor sam nunberg said mueller was seeking information regardingichael cohen's payments, you got it, tr stormy daniels. so much for russian interference. >> did mueller's folks ask anything about payments to women? >> they asked if i had heard anything about it it.. my answer is i never have. i don't know anything about it. >> sean: sadly, tonight what is happening is mueller's runaway train of an investigation is something we have now been warning you about for over a year. i have told you there are five forces actively working againsto donald trump. they have from the beginning. it's your corrupt media, the corrupt democratic party that doesn't care about the american people. weak establishment republicans, never trump-ers. they want to be proven right and what we describe as the deep state. tonight you have those forces working together to malign the president you elected. we did some digging. what did we find? there is a lot of reports you been hearing about about the inner workings of the mother investigation. they include a lot of anonymous s

sam nunberg. he initially said he would not work with the special counsel. he testified anyway. and george nader mixed up in all sorts of stuff. he allegedly facilities a meeting with erik prince, the brother of the education secretary. now to those charged but pleading not. paul manafort opted to go to trial rather than plead guilty. he's charged with conspiracy against the united states and money laundering. there are 13 russian individuals and entities. the russian businesses and oligarchs will likely never face trial but the charges stand as a statement point by the special counsel. there's raids. last summer the fbi raided the virginia home and storage unit belonging to paul manafort. this week the fbi under the direction of the united states attorney for the southern district of new york searched the office and hotel room of president trump's personal attorney michael cohen. and here's a look at all the people in the president's orbit who have been interviewed by the special counsel. just to bring you up to speed with where this is. joining me now, national security report

i want to get your take on this, on the same day that roger stone said, told sam nunberg, he had dinner with julian assange, he claims he was joking, he predicted on info wars that wikileaks would release this devastating disclosure about hillary clinton. take a listen. >> clinton campaign narrative, russians favored donald trump and the russians are leaking this information, this is inoculation because, as you said earlier, they know what is coming and it is devastating. let's remember that their defense, all of the clinton foundation scandals, has been that we didn't do it, you have no proof. yes, but you have no proof. well, i think julian assange has that proof. and i think he's going to furnish it to the american people. >> what do you make of that? >> it is certainly sounds to me like he knows something. and, you know, there is no -- he's a very confident speaker obviously. no hesitation in his voice saying, julian assange has something and the american people are about to know it. so i think the mueller team is probably looking into -- looked into what did he know, when did he kn

i spoke with sam nunberg a long time ago, who was part of the debate prep for the president during the campaign, who basically said, trump really didn't feel like he needed to get ready for those debates. he was ready as is. so why do you think he's agreeing to this prep now? >> well, because in a presidential debate, if you make a misstatement, it's just a political event. in a deposition or under oath, grand jury appearance, if you make a mistake, which is a material misstatement, it can land you with a felony charge of either perjury if you're under oath or making a false statement if you're not under oath. each of which carries criminal penalties. and could lead to an indictment if the president is indictable or an article of impeachment if the house was so inclined. the stakes are much higher in this context. the president knows that he's been deposed in civil actions, and i expect his lawyers are telling him the big difference here is robert mueller has the power of prosecution, and that's not what you want to run afoul of or the power of referral to the house for articles of imp

and the drugged up loser appears to be referring to sam nunberg, remember him? a former aide who fell out with the president and spent all day on cable television saying he was going to defy muellers a grand jury testimony and recently gave grand jury testimony in the probe. along with a handful of other on the record sources including trump confidante roger stone. we have come to expect this kind of outburst and vitriol from the president. but it is really stunning to watch in realtime as the president sends what appears to be a signal to michael cohen calling him, quote, a fine person with a wonderful family, insisting he has always liked and respected cohen, and claiming cohen is not the type of guy to flip. it's a very clear message for the president of the united states to a potential witness against him right out in the open for all of us to see. now, the president's press secretary was asked about those comments not surprisingly this morning in a session with reporters. >> president trump tweeted over the weekend that he doesn't expect michael cohen to fl

messages and all the things that people are saying, they would have called him in there before sam nunbergthat. i think it goes back down to the scope. the scope of what they want to talk to him about. i think they could be just trying to find more evidence about things well beyond russia because there's nothing there with russia, and there's nothing there with wikileaks. it could be something other than that, but that's the problem with the scope of this investigation. it's too broad. >> scott? >> he tells a very specific and faithful story. >> it's been the same for like two years, i got to say. >> he doesn't equivocate. he's got his time line down. for his sake, i hope he was telling you the truth tonight because if he is, i don't think he has a problem. if he's not telling the truth, he's got a real problem. i think this wikileaks connection to stone is ultimately going to be not as important as the wikileaks connection to cambridge analytica. we're not talking about that right now. roger stone is obviously in the news. but i continue to believe they are more problematic than this ston

ironically, michael now holds the leverage over trump, said none other than sam nunberg, adding cohen should maximize that leverage. joined by the author of the upcoming book on trump/russian. a chapter of his book focuses on what michael cohen is up to. it was published in "rolling stone" last week. joyce vance back with us. when you look at all this, seth, what do you think is real, separated from the hype of the sparring in the civil case? >> well, ari, i think cohen's team is bracing for an indictment. that's pretty clear. i just had an e-mail exchange with michael avenatti before i came in here. he told me from the courtroom that's what cohen's legal team expressed. he also separately has knowledge that there's an indictment coming, although he wouldn't tell me how he -- >> let's break that into two. number one, cohen's team didn't say there's an indictment coming immediately. what they said was the exposure of a potential indictment should give him a cop out of the civil case. number two, what sounds more significant is you're saying that michael avenatti is attesting to you tha

sam nunberg who seems to be used by president trump by hiss own admission. nunberg said the softer side of president trump, whenever anyone complains to me about trump screwing them over, my reflexive response is that they have nothing to complain about if you're not michael. >> we now see that comey has been a minugnon for president trump. he paid top dollar for. which in donald trump world is the biggest insult you can give someone, so basically you're a sucker, that has paid market price. so now we see the president unraveling in real time, you know on saturday and sunday morning, tweeting about this idea of flipping, you cannot flip if you are innocent, right? but we do know that cohen is used to these sort of low levels queens deals of hustling people in different buildings and like small time potatoes. this is now the federal government government. and i think donald trump has been replaying the situation over the year when he has belittled cohen. when the feds knock on the door, they already know what you know, they just want to know are you dumb enou

sam nunberg, former campaign aid, and roger stone associate who turned up drama with a slew of cableews appearances last month. you'll remember nose. nunberg initially said he wouldn't work with the special counsel but testified anyway. george nader, adviser to the united arab emirates leadership. he allegedly set up a meeting between erik prince and russian contacts. now, to those who were charged but not pleading guilty. paul manafort. he's opted to go to trial rather than plead guilty. manafort is charged with conspiracy against the united states and money laundering, among other things. he sued to get the charges thrown out, both in washington, d.c. and virginia courts. there are also 13 russian individuals and entities. the most symbolic portion of the mueller probe was the charging of the russian businesses and oligarchs. they'll likely never face trial, but the charges stand as a statement point by the special counsel. >> serious statement. >>> while those russians are not going to face trial any time soon, we know who will. paul manafort. he chose to fight, and his trial is s

that's the same day campaign adviser sam nunberg testified before the grand jury.atasha, seven times this guy's been searched. this does seem like something out of "homeland." they're roaring in and clearing out every drawer in his whatever. chest of drawers looking for under the socks. i mean. >> paul manafort's entry into the campaign coincided with the most pivotal russia related moment of the entire election which, of course was the dumping of the dnc e-mails right before the democratic national convention. so paul manafort, of course, he was in touch with his long-time business associate constantine cla california him nick. now we know gates and manafort were still in touch with him through the entire election. on top of that, paul manafort has been working with russian and ukrainian oligarchs for decad decades. he was always at the center of whether or not the campaign colluded with the russians if not just because his entry into the campaign coincide with all the russian elements of the campaign. >> manafort looks, if i don't know, a croupier or weather is.

sam nunberg neurotic personality when i worked with him for donald trump he would sometimes call youthe calls roll over to the voice message and not talk to him because it's usually what do you know, what do you hear? i'm a busy man. he called late one friday. trying to get him off the phone. he asked what i was doing for the weekend. i said i thought i would fly to london, have dinner with julian assange. the "washington post" by the way misquotes me on that. sam evidently believed this were true and i would later milk the joke in an e-mail to which sam responds when i said sam, pardon me, sent me an e-mail showing donald trump trailing by hillary by 15. trying to stick it in my face. because after sam was fired he was anti-trump. i remained a strong supporter of the president and will continue to do so. so this is the continuation of the same joke. the important thing here is to understand that my passport, airlines records, customs records, surveillance cameras at the ecuadorian embassy where assange has to be one of the most watched people in the world would demonstrate this meet