vance.forget how mueller went from basically a low-key former official to a sudden national prosecutor of intrigue. not only in politics, but in our culture, as well. >> i'm so in love with bob mueller. he looks to me like superman. like captain america. like justice has finally arrived. >> i think bob mueller is an american hero. >> mueller's like batman! putting together the flash, green lantern and wonder woman to create the obstruction of justice league. >> now, that superhero talk is a deliberate overstatement, but prosecutors can certainly inspire imagination. the harvey dent character in batman is based on the new york d.a., which is the office cy vance heads. and if donald trump's biggest superpower in the mueller probe is the potential use of pardons, a presidential power that cannot be checked legally by the congress or typically the courts, this real-life harvey dent then has a power larger than that in new york. vance's indictment of manafort is the first time throughout this ent

>> vance: oh, sure, sure. definitely had to defend this part of the world, had to defend some of the people who lived here. >> alfonsi: defend them from what? >> vance: i think, defend them from the assumption that they're all stupid, and that they don't know what they really want in the world. i think there is this presumption that the only people who live here are the people who are forced to live here. they can't get out, or they're too dumb to know that they should leave. and that's just not true. i think people are here because they care about their communities and they want to build something special here, just as folks in san francisco want to build something special there. >> alfonsi: kentucky native jonathan webb wants to build we met him in pikeville, kentucky. once a thriving coal town in the heart of appalachia, it's been hemorrhaging jobs and residents. one in three people here make less than $12,000 a year, living below the poverty line. webb thinks it's the perfect place to build high-tech green

watson, head of global fixed income strategy at blackrock, henry peabody, portfolio manager from eaton vance, and kevin giddis, head of fixed income at raymond james. let us begin with you, marilyn. how do you read that payroll report? marilyn: i agree that it was not that bad. when you look at the three months numbers, it was averaging about 186,000. over 12 months, north of 200,000. for an economy that has a very tight labor market, you are seeing an increase in hourly wages, which is great. it is good to see that come through. i actually feel it is a positive thing. it is something to be happy about. henry: i believe the wage pressure comment. whether you're talking politics or the economy, the takeaway is that we are bipolar. you are seeing the good data and bad data. that number was fantastic, but we are seeing most of the oecd leaders and leading indicators start to rollover. there is this period where the lack of clarity is striking. the market is in a challenging spot, and you have to look through that. that is a challenging job these days. kevin: in golf, they say every shot makes s

good for cy vance. i spoke earlier with the number two in that office for four years.says, it's one person's view, but he says he views the case against manafort as a slam dunk because of what manafort has already said and admitted in related materials. >> and glenn, the 25 years. this is a whole new ball game of sentencing in manhattan. as paul manafort faces the reality of that bearing down on him, if this case develops in a way that his lawyers think is pretty solid, that they're not going to be able to get past this on double jeopardy or on the evidence and they start talking to him about you've got to think about pleading guilty to this. at that point, at that point does there also become a shared interest? would you expect the manhattan district attorney to say what more can you tell us? what more can you tell us? what more can you tell us? what more can you tell us? in the hope that he's told something that he should then share with robert mueller. >> i will say that everyone i prosecuted in my 30 years, i looked for possible cooperation from that person. now, i

attorney joyce vance. joyce i've never seen one like this.kind of stuff that's so easy to be caught doing. it's the kind of stupidity, if true, that is hard to believe that any kind of alert lawyer would engage in. but take apart both of these cases if you can. the nike case of the $20 million in extortion and then basically a client abuse case in los angeles. >> the extortion case is in many ways almost self-proving because there was tapes of avenatti, and he's essentially engaging in a shake down, give me money or i'll tank the market value of your company. that would appear to be straightforward, of course, the devil is always in the details but the southern district of new york has a track record with putting this type of evidence and they'll know what they're about bringing this. the case in california is a little bit more sophisticated. these fraud cases always involve difficult issues of intent as we learned watching much of the trump-related work that's going on in the southern district of new york. but the key here is that that case

i'm excited about our guest on this topi he was the jack mccoy to vance's adam schiff. thank you for coming on the beat tonight. >> my pleasure. >> what does it mean that you have the d.a. going at charges like this after someone has just finished getting their federal sentence? have you ever seen a case like th this? >> no. new york's double jeopardy lawyers are very strong. it would be very unlikely. also it's not like there was some obvious miscarriage of justice. i think probably what d.a.vance is thinking as you've said is that in case trump would pardon manafort that he would have these charges hanging over his head. >> you haven't spoken to the d.a. >> no. >> you worked with him for a long time. your view is he knows this is an extra step and he may be taking it in order to deal with and counter a potential abuse of the federal pardon power. >> stressing i don't know directly from the d.a., that would be my educated guess. >> when you look at this, how would you rate the likely lo llf getting manafort a conviction in new york? >> putting aside the double jeopardy

attorney and joyce vance. joyce, i want to start with you. of the work you've done, and you've done so much and the work -- with different agencies and task forces related to terrorism and as we now look at day two, what is happening in the united states and how are they interfacing with authorities potentially and reacting to had a happened in new zealand as unfortunately we do have a good amount of institutional knowledge here in this country. >> so the fbi does a really brilliant job of interfacing as do the intelligence community agencies to share information when an incident like this happens, to find out, for instance, if the gunman in new zealand was receiving financial support or other kinds of support from entities in the united states. this is helpful in understanding this phenomenon, the rise of white supremacist, during the obama era a group looked at this systematically across the united states and this begins to raise the specter this is a new form of international terrorism and much in the way we view the rise of radical islami

vance's office. joining me now is nbc's tom winter. tom, what does this case involve? >> andrea, this case involves and unsealed, a manhattan grand jury 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy around that. we're still going through the indictment and piecing through it if you will. the district attorney here in new york has purview over manafort's properties in new york and some of his real estate transactions, this investigation -- >> and tom. >> yes. >> tom, let me just interrupt you for just a moment, the manafort defense lawyer has just come to the microphone. let's listen in. >> conceded there was absolutely no evidence of russian collusion in this case. two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion with

. >> reporter: but in a surprise twist, just a half hour later, manhattan district attorney cyrus vance announced new york state charges against manafort for mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. manafort has been banking on a pardon from president trump, who today was noncommittal. >> it's not something that's right now on my mind. i do feel badly for paul manafort-- that i can tell you. >> reporter: but even if mr. trump grants a pardon for the federal crimes, his powers don't extend to state crimes. former federal prosecutor scott fredericksen: >> it certainly appears to be an attempt by the manhattan d.a., cy vance, to make sure that mr. manafort is prosecuted and perhaps serves prison time, even if he is pardoned. >> reporter: the 69-year-old former trump campaign chairman was one of robert mueller's first targets, and is heading to jail for a range of federal crimes, including bank fraud, witness tampering, and conspiracy against the united states. in court today, manafort appeared in a wheelchair wearing a dark suit and holding a cane. "i am sorry for what

an important week. >> joyce vance, let's talk about what happened next with manafort. there was frankly a lot of outrage over the sentence he got from judge ellis over the people following it closely and a lot of question whether there was a disparity there with others who committed different crimes. what's your take on the sentence he got there and how bad can it get in some of the other sentences he was facing? >> the sentence was shockingly low, about 75% what was the guideline range that the judge should have imposed for sentencing. but the who practice in the eastern district of virginia say that's one of ellis' habits and not to read too much into it, it seems particularly unjust given this defendant's conduct. what's ahead for manafort in d.c. is a very different scenario. here the statutory maximum he faces is ten years. and although federal sentencing is complicated and technical, it makes it very likely the judge will impose close to or at the maximum ten years. there's a question of whether he serves that after he serves the 47 months in virginia. i suspect

jeremy bash, joyce vance, frank figliuzzi.ey, and tonight, much obliged to your help on our broadcast tonight. thank you, the three of you. >>> coming up on this consequential friday night, a pulitzer prize winner who is pretty good with words himself is here to h us put everything into perspective when we continue. you should be mad at airports. excuse me, where is gate 87? you should be mad at non-seasoned travelers. and they took my toothpaste away. and you should be mad at people who take unnecessary risks. how dare you, he's my emotional support snake. but you're not mad, because you have e*trade, whose tech helps you understand the risk and reward potential on an options trade it's a paste. it's not liquid or a gel. and even explore what-if scenarios. where's gate 87? don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. ♪ with venus, you're in charge of how your skin feels. so, when the world expects you to follow the rules, write your own. ♪ because no one gets an opinion on how you live your life, why you shave, or how

joining us once again is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney in alabama.oyce, thank you for sticking with us. i'm wondering what you think about this idea that the state prosecutors are sort of taking aim at the president here and showing the way that state law might produce a prosecution even out of those felony campaign finance charges we already saw against cohen. >> it's very interesting that we're talking really about three different prosecutors' offices, at least three, the southern district in new york. that's federal prosecutors. today we've got charges filed by the manhattan district attorney. that's a second office. and then the third office that also appears to be quite interested in the functioning of both the trump organization and the foundation is the new york attorney general's office. these are the folks who've previously caused the foundation to dissolve and who issued subpoenas that were reported yesterday for trump organization deals with deutsche bank. so i think it's a safe assumption. i don't know anything specific about this particu

joining us once again is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney in alabama.k you for sticking with us. i'm wondering what you think about this idea that the state prosecutors are sort of taking aim at the president here and showing the way that state law might produce a prosecution even out of those felony campaign finance charges we already saw against cohen. >> it's very interesting that we're talking really about three different prosecutors' offices, at least three, the southern district in new york. that's federal prosecutors. today we've got charges filed by the manhattan district attorney. that's a second office. and then the third office that also appears to be quite interested in the functioning of both the trump organization and the foundation is the new york attorney general's office. these are the folks who've previously caused the foundation to dissolve and who issued subpoenas that were reported yesterday for trump organization deals with deutsche bank. so i think it's a safe assumption. i don't know anything specific about this particular case,

and in alabama we have joyce vance. joyce vance, i'd like to start with you, in terms of the thinking behind not deciding to prosecute this obstruction of justice question. we know that mueller himself didn't make a determination on this point. in fact, barr says that the report cites evidence in both camps. that there was possibly obstruction or that there was not. how unusual is it, and does it cast suspicion on this letter from william barr as democrats are insinuating? >> you know, this is a sort of 15 on the richter scale, i don't know how high the scale goes, but this is a big earthquake, because prosecutor's central jobs is to make decision about the evidence and about the law in the hard cases. and barr's letter, which is a summary, it's not the actual conclusions of the mueller report, tells us that mueller laid out evidence on both sides of the issue. acknowledged that both legal and factual issues were difficult but never came to a decision about whether or not obstruction should be charged. that is very unus

attorney joyce vance, betsy woodruff, daily beast political reporter and with us at the table nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla and associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire. let me start with you, joyce vance, and take us through this framework laid out in politico about what these final chapters, if that's where we are in the mueller probe, could bring in terms of revelations and if not mueller sort of pulling back the curtain, then what we might learn in the court dates and deadlines this week. >> so i think it's always important for us to remember that prosecutors know a lot that's not public about an investigation. so we're reading their tea leaves, sometimes we're successful, other times not so much. but i would be cautious about what we can expect to learn in the coming days. doj policy is not to reveal the existence of let alone the progress of investigation, so when we learn that investigations are in progress, in the southern district of new york, typically that's because somebody had been subpoenaed to a grand jury and that witness chooses to ta

so, yes, as a matter of fact, in the last couple of minutes the manhattan district attorney, sy vance, has returned through a manhattan grand jury a 16-count indictment. a lot of this, if you read through the indictment, it's going to look very familiar to people that have been covering paul manafort for sometime. why is that? this has to center around residential real estate mortgage fraud. it has to center around falsifying business documents and conspiracy around that. and basically what the manhattan district attorney here has done a really good job of going through and laying out exactly what we've seen in paul manafort's trials, exactly what we've seen in the public exhibits presented in the -- excuse me, it's just been one trial. in the trial that was presented last summer in virginia, and really public documents that all of us have been clued into whether it be through lawsuits before paul manafort was ever indicted or through public documents available in the new york city property -- property and tax databases here. so a lot of this is very familiar to us. a lot of it, inter

) >> reporter: but in a surprise twist, just a half hour later, manhattan district attorney cyrus vancennounced new york state charges against manafort for mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. manafort has been banking on a pardon from president trump, who today was noncommittal. >> it's not something that's 'sght now on my mind. i do feel badly for paul manafort-- that i can tell you. >> reporter: but even if mr. trump grants a pardon for the federal crimes, his powers don't extend to state crimes. rormer federal prosecutor scott fredericksen: c it certainly appears to be an attempt by the manhattan d.a., cy vance, to make sure that mr. manafort is prosecuted and perhaps serves prison time, even if he is pardoned. >> reporter: the 69-year-old prmer trump campaign chairman was one of robert mueller's first targets, and is heading to jail for a range of federal r imes, including bank fraud, witness tampering, and conspiracy against the united states. in court today, manafort appeared in a wheelchair wearing a dark suit and holding a cane. "i am sorry for what i ha

. >> joining me right now are joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the district of alabama and happens to be in the house. intelligence and security reporter, ken delaney. i want to start with you, ken. you have done a lot of reportering on what according to the existing rules the attorney general is meant to do with this report once he gets it. we will have an interesting discussion about the rules versus the law versus tradition and practice. fundamentally, what's the bare minimum that's going to happen? >> the rules say he is going to make a report to congress, but scholars disagree on what that report should say. some people say he only has to report where the attorney general blocked him and not on any aspect of the investigation. others think they have to in make a minimal report on the decisions not to prosecute. the rules do not envision a broad narrative were written in conflict with the independent conflict counsel. they thought there was too much information disclosed. a huge report on the conflict. these ruleless were designe

he's supposed to be the people's lawyer. >> much to joyce vance and jeremy bash and bennett. thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> one of our big confrontation of capitol hill this week. later, president trump warns he's not playing games, he threatens to close down our southern border. we'll have our two best journalists tell us what they are feeling about this political strategy post-mueller as "the 11 11th hour" is just getting started on a friday night. gence? in crossing harsh terrain... or breaking new ground? this is the mercedes-benz suv family. greatness comes in many forms. lease the glc 300 for just $479 a month at the mercedes-benz spring event. going on now. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. it's nice. ♪ you got this! ♪ woo! ♪ ♪ ♪ straight from the world's best plant scientists, comes miracle-gro performa

joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor.nd frank figluzzi, fbi, assistant director for counter intelligence. i'm going to ask you all the same questions so fair warning. what was the biggest moment or revelation. do any of you have a lingering question from today that you would like answered? and home field advantage being what it is, counselor, joyce, you go first. >> i think the most significant thing we learned today there had been no request from bob mueller that was denied. no request to indict. that was important for the attorney general to say. but with that said, there are an enormous number of lingering questions. so many loose ends for this investigation. both those that involve russia and other cases. this is unlike any other special counsel case. there are lingering investigations all over the country and on the hill. more questions left to ask than have been answered. >> jeremy bash, same question. >> it was significant to me, there is a report that there is detail in bob mueller's findings, he's presented that

cj vance is not our friend.nd so when you look at these charges, my first read were like okay, these are sufficiently different than what he was charged in federal court to avoid a fifth amendment total jeopardy issue. but in new york state's double jeopardy law is much more district than the federal standard. new york state is actually better to defendants than the federal standard requires them to be. and so really it is difficult to charge people for acts arising out of the same set of circumstances. and it is unclear if each of these 16 charges would survive a double jeopardy appeal. there is talk in new york state when changing that law to whatever, but even if we change the law -- >> it won't pertain. yeah. and you didn't know if he did the homework it make sure that the charges will sd will stick was like look at me, look at me. >> and you also have rick gates whose sentencing was put off for the umpteenth time which makes you think he is just giving more and more stuff. anyway that key give more to get m

ashley parker, joyce vance, thank you for spending time with us. after the break, nancy pelosi's birthday gift, donald trump promising the 2020 election will be about the very issue that delivered big wins for democrats in 2018. >>> also ahead, barbara bush left the republican party before she died because of what donald trump did to it. that and other revelations from the bush family matriarch in a brand-new biography. and the 2020 taking their claim to the high road and generate enthusiasm among small-dollar donors. always a good sign. a good sign truecar is great for finding new cars. you're smart, you already knew that. but it's also great for finding the perfect used car. you'll see what a fair price is and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. mental health...hiv. patients with serious diseas

cyrus vance launched a collision government that common he would not allow.krasinski wants the military to shoot that the military and the shah won't . you can go home after that. why have another interagency meeting? >> i agree . >> what do you do after that if you are david errand and you are carter and then what? >> i would agree with that. i think the americans were deeply confused and the amount of leverage they had was highly limited. they didn't have many people on the ground and once it became clear, the americans i actually think the americans had a very hard time backing the use of force, something krasinski wanted to do . >> and they called the shot in november saying clear the street . >> it did not happen . >> because the shah wouldn't do it. >> right. >> and the united states military wouldn't do it. >> so you and i agree on that. >> i may very well defer to you but -- >> -- >> you never know. nobody knows exactly -- what i'm saying is that they could not, when it comes at that time when you are talking about, october, november, -- >> yeah, but

joyce vance, it's a footnote in this document. it is a footnote the president wrote nobody coordinated, tacitly or explicitly, with russia. >> and that's obviously an important top-line consideration that mueller reaches here. >> why would it be in this summary? that seems a weird thing to not lead with. >> yeah. and i think that that's part of the question that we all have that we're struggling with. i'm reading everything i can get my hands on, and the problem, much like ari melber said, we're seeing a book report. we're seeing the cliff notes, rather than seeing mueller's actual findings themselves. so i think this is in many case good news. it's not the news many people expected. but it's good news to know that mueller did not find any explicit collusion between the campaign and russia. but now we need to dig into details. and see whether that decision was reached simply because there was an evidentiary failure, couldn't get to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but a lot of suspicion that congress needs to consider

i think this looks a bit political on vance's part.there's not a -- >> clearly, it's political. >> the question is, is he wasting prosecutorial resources on a man that's going to spend likely the rest of his life in prison? >> why is he going to spend the rest of his life in prison? he's only 70. >> 7 1/2 years. potentially. >> he's going to get pardoned. it's likely he's going to get pardoned. >> if my parents are watching, who are in their mid-70s, i hope you're okay. seven years? come on. >> when you're talking about jared and ivanka and some of these other investigations going on in the southern district, they are great prosecutors. but the bottom line is they have the ability. they suffer the pardon power. and there's no question in my mind that that's what the president will do. so tactically as prosecutors, you give the crimes to the jurisdiction that bypassed the pardon power and that's the state attorney general and the district attorneys. the state attorney generals have already gone after trump with regard to the trump found

ashlee vance, thanks so much for joining us. latest story in "bloomberg businessweek" on newstands and online now. you can also hear from the magazine's top reporters and editors every weekend on bloomberg television, radio and bloomberg.com. still ahead, a sweeping criminal conspiracy of wealthy parents making bribes for college admissions is rocking many industries, from finance to entertainment and even tech. details ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: foxconn billionaire terry gou responded in outrage to a microsoft lawsuit tuesday. microsoft claiming foxconn owes royalties to devices. gou responding, saying it is a personal attack towards him and his company. >> i will say this now to microsoft -- you are afraid. if you have the guts, go and sue them. why push on the taiwanese contract manufacturer making such thin margins? why go after us? their goal is to go after public attention. why now? because the u.s. and china are about to sign a trade deal. emily: microsoft is claiming it is trying to merely enforce contractual com

joining me jonathan lemire and our law professor joyce vance. they plan to use this report? >> well, let's make two things clear up front. >> no one knows what's in the report yet. number two, the mueller investigation is far from a witch hunt. we know the totals of indictments and charges. having said that, people around the president have been saying recent days and weeks as we reported in our story that there is not going to be anything new or a smoking gun or some sort of bomb shell they're unaware of. the president is going to try to take that. instead of running from the port which i think most of us anticipated, the idea pointing out suggesting his claim would be there is nothing here. this has been two years and tens of millions of dollars. it obstruct my agenda. are they going to take it and look, this does not work. this is a proven fact. there is no collusion or conspiracy, you already had your shot at me, what is the house dems doing? >> he's going to don't tear down the justice department for his own political ends. >> he's going to

joyce vance, brian bennett for time magazine and jeremy bash, former chief counsel of the house intel committee. jeremy, what was the headline of that letter today? >> well, i think first of all, with respect to the materials that'll be withheld because it can compromise intelligence and sources and methods. the committee can't have access to that because anything in the possession of the intelligence community can go to the hill. congress will see that, i don't know how much of that will be made public. the other headline brian was a notion that the attorney general is going to make a decision about protecting quote, "peripheral third party." that can be anybody, don jr. or jared or ivanka or other campaign staffs and other people in the trump's inner circle. it will be more prudent -- public interest will be better served if bill barr was not doing the redaction. he was hand picked by president trump. >> joyce vance, i know the phrase in our language that it is -- mueller memoralizing. >> imagine how many attachments and appendixes this case has. >> a big part of the news today was

. >>> joining us is joyce vance. thank you for joining us tonight. i'm so happy you're here. >> thanks for having me. >> so i did not expect to get this news involving mike flynn and his potential sentening until tomorrow which is when the status report was due but come out ahead of schedule. we got a joint status report from defense lawyers and prosecutors. bottom line appears to be that flynn's defense is asking for another 90 days before that judge considers going back to the process of sentencing him. after we saw these dramatic, that dramatic hearing in december where we thought flynn was going to be sentenced and got called off in the middle of that hearing, what do you make of this development tonight? >> you know, i think general flynn was very frightened by judge sullivan's approach in that case. he was not -- he made it very clear that he wasn't interested in accepting the prosecution's recommendation that general flynn should serve no time in jail and made it clear flynn should take advantage of the cop -- opportunity to go back and cooper

they are prepared for this. >> joyce vance, we know building a political case which is what congress is doing which is much different than building a criminal case. the southern district of new york may continue beyond when we mueller completes his report. what's the difference between how congress will go about this and do they risk over lapping of the sdny case if they proceed? >> that's a risk. we have to assume they are being careful of the potential for any sort of bad interaction between congressional investigation which is meant to impose oversight on the executive branch and prosecutors who are strictly in determines whether crimes have been committed and if so, who's responsible. the example that i think most of us who are old enough to think back is ollie north. that tainted evidence that prosecutors needed to use against him in criminal cases. ultimately criminal cases was abandoned. prosecutors are in intteractingh folks who are up on the hill. that includes familiar names because prosecution is being given consideration by people who are running the investigation on the

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor.nselor, do you think in your view he has already violated the gag order? >> you know, his lawyers are hanging on a very slender thread here. saying it's okay he violated the gag order because it was before it was imposed when they didn't even both door mention to the judge it was going on. even if it was just that it would be pretty close. but the fact that mueller points to the online publication which precedes or which is actually up within the period that the gag order goes into effect i think is very damaging, and at some point judge berman jackson is going to have to tell roger stone she means what she says, and he can't continue to take steps that would prejudice a jury pool. >> i don't think we've had mention of roger rabbit on this broadcast yet, but that whole meme of who framed roger stone if that gets proven and if the judge doesn't like that he's in the hooscal, correct? >> i think that's one of the options. there's a pragmatic approach here. and that says what the judge sh

one, cy vance must have thought this through. he is being aggressive in the charges.ecause he probably figures i lose some counts. >> but hang on. he ended up pleading guilty to the hung counts, manafort. >> well, yes, that would be a problem. that's true. i forget about that. but he's taking -- he's doing this as an insurance policy. >> right. >> if trump comes in and pardons manafort, there is an indictment there that then you at least have a legal battle over it. first of all, weather to be charged and whether a pardon does away with the double jeopardy issue. if it does because of the pardon, that's a legal question too that's very open. so i think he's being aggressive here. this is a case where you want a prosecutor to be aggressive if what you're guarding against is possibly the corrupt use of the pardon power. >> i imagine the new york supreme court is going to end up getting involved in this real quick. always good to have you guys on and sharing your knowledge with our audience. thank you. >>> up ahead, why i'm obsessed with the best words that we don't get

attorney joyce vance. thank you all for being here this evening. joyce vance, i would like to start with you in terms of the thinking behind not deciding to prosecute this obstruction of justice question. we know mueller himself didn't make a determination on this point. in fact, barr said that the report cites evidence in both camps that there was possible obstruction or that there was not. how unusual is this, and does it cast suspicion on this letter from william barr as democrats are insinuating? >> this is sort of a 15 on the richter scale. i don't know how high the richter scale goes but this is a big earthquake because prosecutor's central job is to make decisions about the evidence and about the law in the hard cases. and barr's letter, which is a summary, it's not the actual conclusions the mueller report, tells us that mueller laid out evidence on both sides of the issue, acknowledged that both legal and factual issues were difficult, but never came to a decision about whether or not obstruction should be charged. that is very unusual. it

attorney joyce vance joins us, daniel dale is at the table, as our vanity fair senior reporter mj fox and danny deutsch. jay sekulow, as i was reading that, i was reminded jay sekulow also crafted robertrobert's que. i'm sure if he had any hand in how michael cohen answered questions, robert mueller has known that for a long time. >> i'm sure robert mueller knows a lot of things michael cohen is telling investigators. i would like to see what those notes actually are. as you were saying, jay sekulow has denied that he participated and it's a little bit of a he said-she said situation here. what we're seeing of cohen, it's day after day of new revelations that he's making before congress. there was the extraordinary public testimony last week, but it's been so much more than that, and he is continuing to provide new claims and new pieces of information to these congressional investigators perhaps to prove his worth as a cooperating witness to the prosecutors up in new york. >> the person to whom he has already proven his worth is robert mueller. i was reminded today that he had a coope

i'm joined by natasha bertrand, joyce vance is a former federal prosecutor.yce, trump, i guess you have to use the word lied here. talking to people not following closely. the judge was simply ruling on a case that didn't relate to russian collusion by the trump people with russia. and trump used that as a statement as a way of saying i've been cleared. your thoughts? >> you're absolutely right. this is at best, silly, it's worst, it's defeatful. it's like you look at someone who had been indicted for bank fraud and said, well, no murder. you wouldn't expect prosecutors to prove a murder in this case involving manafort, you wouldn't expect porters to have put on evidence of collusion. so the president is again trying to appeal to his base, cling to some support here. >> this is what they call price discrimination in the market whereby you sell one story to another at a different price. he's telling people who don't want to hear what happened yesterday. who yesterday's trial was not about collusion. it was about all sorts of other bad things paul manafort did

. >>> joining us is joyce vance. thank you for joining us tonight.thanks for having me. >> so i did not expect to get this news involving mike flynn and his potential sentencing until tomorrow which is when the status report was due but come out ahead of schedule. we got a joint status report from defense lawyers and prosecutors. bottom line appears to be that flynn's defense is asking for another 90 days before that judge considers going back to the process of sentencing him. after we saw these dramatic, that dramatic hearing in december where we thought flynn was going to be sentenced and got called off in the middle of that hearing, what do you make of this development tonight? >> you know, i think general flynn was very frightened by judge sullivan's approach in that case. he was not -- he made it very clear that he wasn't interested in accepting the prosecution's recommendation that general flynn should serve no time in jail and made it clear flynn should take advantage of the cop tu -- opportunity to go back and cooperate. flynn makes it clear

joyce vance and erin banko and assistant to president trump chris lu and strategist and political analyst susan del percio. so susan -- rather, joyce, let's start with this. pose four bullet points, one through four, that will not be part of what will be released, so says the attorney general. how -- how much might that be? how big of a deal might those four bullets be? >> sure. it is the right question to ask because we don't know if it is voluminous or limited in scope. but i would suspect a lot of information will fall into one of the four categories, that doesn't mean it has to be excluded from the released report. it would be really unusual if mueller had not seen this coming and in fact provided the attorney general with what people in the justice department call a clean draft, a version sanitized for public release. so we'll have to wait and see, one would like to think that bill barr will take this seriously and release as much as possible. but the delay at this point now almost a week is troubling. >> erin, given what joyce said there, it could be a lot, it could be medium, we sh

attorney joyce vance and nbc news national security and justice reporter julia ainsley. she's live for us outside the department of justice. and that is where i start today with you, julia. are you getting any sense, it's been my impression all week long, that the department of justice was not unaware of the climate in which calls for transparency and accusations of a cover-up were building? >> that's absolutely right, nicolle. they're completely aware of that. that's what this letter tries to address, try to get inside some of the discussions and debates that are going on within the building behind me and the attorney general is trying to give us a little idea what to expect and i think has managed some of those expectations. big news, we can expect his version of the mueller report to come out by mid-april f. not sooner. he's also agreed to testify in early may on capitol hill. one thing i would call your attention to is the reasons he gives out for why he won't be able to be fully transparent. some of the things we were expecting, whether it's grand jury testimony or

also with me, joyce vance, msnbc contributor. paul butler, nbc legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, professor at georgetown law. and ana palmer, senior washington correspondent for politico. sahil kapur joins us too, national political reporter for bloomberg news. tom, you have had a good hour, i think, 50 minutes, at least, to look through these documents. bring us the headlines. what are we learning? and maybe, as importantly, what are we not learning from these? >> we'll just go right to what we're not learning. for anyone hoping these documents would give some more insight into how the fbi came upon the campaign finance scheme, that was the scheme to make payments to stormy daniels and to karen mcdougal, who alleged affairs with the president and affairs at the white house that the president has strongly denied. if you're looking for more information into the intricacies of that investigation, you're going to be a little bit disappointed today, because there's over a dozen pages of redacted information just in the search

joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama, and a professor at the university of alabama school of law. and yamiche alcindor, the white house correspondent for the "pbs newshour." all three are msnbc correspondents. thank you for joining me on this friday night. yamiche, let's start with you. what happened today was what was expected. the house will get this resolution now. they will hold a vote on march 26th. it will pass the house. it won't probably pass the senate. what is the net effect of this presidential veto? >> the net effect is that the president can say and put in a commercial that he defied even establishment republicans and fought for what he sees as a national emergency on the border, and as a result he can -- he can show that -- and argue that he alone was fighting for the american people. of course there is also this net effect, which is that the president has now gotten a message from at least 12 republican senators that, yes, we will back you on some issues of bor

attorney general mike vance and former campaign adviser to bushes, mccains, all kinds of people. and professor opinion proer of the glaud squad and jonathan lemire, all msnbc contributors. ladies and gentlemen, this was an skoesextraordinary thing we witnessed over the weekend. instead of taking them apart by one by, let's talk about first the totality of it and nobody understands the process of mental breakdown other than mike murphy. mike, when you're looking at what the president saw coming out of his fingertips over the weekend, what did you think? >> i thought oh, here we are crazy times demand a crazy president. if this isn't nuts, i'm not a clinical expert, but if you were to go back in time and one day switch with this kind of presidential behavior in normal history, people would instantly thing he lost his grip. there are these spasms he has where he starts tweeting this crazy stuff. i'm not sure what the cause is but we have become so dulled to trump's madness, i don't know what it will take. do we have to run around for the aluminum foil hat? he's clearly under psychol