fbi raids paul manafort's house. they take the suits and ties and clocks or whatever, because they figured out where the money came from to pay for those things. and according to that indictment, that money turns up nowhere as paul manafort's taxable income from his legitimate overseas consulting company. so as moneylaundering cases go, it's not that complicated. as tax evasion cases go, it's not that complicated. and it all leads back to ukraine. and manafort's ukraine stuff is embarrassing and awkward enough for him that when it was first revealed in the american press, it got him fired off the trump campaign. but it remains of interest to prosecutors here in this country because of moneylaundering and tax evasion, and it remains of interest to prosecutors in ukraine because ukraine as a country and as a new post yanukovych government is trying to figure out what happened to all that money, what happened to their country's wealth when manafort's guy was in charge and stealing all the money. sure, a lot of it went t

when he eventually became a full-time paul manafort guy, though, that meant that paul manafort was running his business overseas with a guy from russian military intelligence, with kostya from the gru, which is remarkable, right? because paul manafort at that point was the chairman of the donald trump for president campaign. that profile for ken vogel, before the election, back in august 2016, that was the first we learned about kostya from the gru, this guy konstantin kilimnik. since then he has turned up over and over again. we learned that paul manafort for the first time during the trump campaign at the republican national convention, he met with kilimnik. kilimnik came to the u.s. and met with manafort during the campaign, during the rnc. after that meeting, kilimnik went home and bragged about having been involved in that mysterious platform change at the republican convention, where the republicans adopted really pro-russia language in the republican party national platform. and nobody could really figure out why it happened or why the trump campaign was pursuing it. that change to

yohai as part of their case against paul manafort or part of any future case against paul manafort that's yet to be brought? >> that's unclear. but it would seem to me that that would be the logical assumption you could make here. it's worth pointing out that they've already used yohai in a sense. if you look at the first indictment in october in washington, d.c. and you look at the second indictment in virginia, especially the one in virginia, a lot of that information about the bank loans and the bank fraud has to do with loans that were taken out in conjunction with jeffrey yohai. >> and so that implied that at least in the case of mr. yohai if not testimony and information from him may have already been used to in part build the case against manafort? >> right. i've spoken to legal experts who have speculated, yohai, as a witness might be slightly problematic. he's pled guilty. you're going to have a credibility issue there. but if you're going to trial, and as we know mr. manafort wants to go to trial, if you need someone to help round out the narrative, so to speak, or you need some

paul manafort's former son-in-law reaching a plea deal. what does this mean for manafort and the russia investigation? >>> the white house canceling its daily communications meetings. they're not going to do them anymore. after a staffer's cruel joke at one of them leaked about senator john mccain. is it really the right answer, to stop having meetings? >>> the racist rant heard round the world. a lawyer threatening to call i.c.e. on spanish speakers in a new york restaurant. let's go "outfront." >>> i'm erin burnett. "outfront," the breaking news, possible new legal trouble for president trump's former

i want paul manafort. there were three people in that meeting, kushner, don jr. and paul manafort. they are trying to get someone on the inside of that meeting to cooperate and roll them up on don jr., kushner, and potentially the president. be it an indictment in d.c., an additional indictment in virginia. which as i understand it, is about 300-plus years, and now they've flipped his son-in-law. >> let me go to the secret thing. i mean, it's hard to be afraid of a concealed weapon if you can't see it. so why secret if the goal is pressure? >> i don't know that they didn't tell paul manafort this was going on. i suspect they had. why secret? it could be they have pro active cooperation going on. in other words, they flipped him, and it could be the case -- >> talking about a wire? >> talking about a wire. that they wired him up and got him into conversations. paul manafort's on house arrest. so in theery, he could still have phone calls and meetings. whether that happened or not, there's a whole host of things that a prosecutor and fbi agent team would use to use a cooperator proac

a strange new legal defense fund for donald trump for president campaign chairman paul manafort. now, i need to tell you, we don't know exactly who set this up. part of me thinks it might be a prank. "the washington post" reports tonight that it looks like it was initially registered as a web domain right after christmas and that it was updated somehow in late february, but today it went live. today unnamed and unknown self-described long-term friends of paul manafort put out a statement announcing the existence of this website and this -- what purports to be this fund. i say it seems like it could potentially be a prank or a stunt, or it's at least a little strange in part because this website that they launched today, this paul manafort defense fund, kind of feels like it was cheaply translated from some other language. quote, let's band together and allow paul's position to be fully expressed and create an even playing field. in english, playing field is two

paul manafort says no such thing. part of the -- that peculiar odor emanating from richard sea cord's legal defense fund in the contra days was the lack of any identifying information that accompanied those gigantic donations to sea cord from swiss bank accounts where he and his coconspirators in that international scheme had stashed some of their ill gotten gains. i don't know who set up the do not say paul manafort legal defense fund irrevocable trust and started soliciting donations for it today with this my space website. but it really does appear to be a pretty slop dash effort. a lot of the i had i don't me a lot of the idiom is super weird. there is no reason to think we would have any disclosure as to who set up this anonymous legal defense fund and who fills it up with money for paul manafort's use. they do take credit cards, they take checks, they take money orders. presumably you can drop off some jewelry you want to pawn. >>> and the new mysterious manafort legal defense fund has opened up today on a day w

congressman, we'll get to the developments on paul manafort's case in a moment. first, did president trump, do you believe, make a mistake in all of his optimism about his upcoming summit with kim jong-un? >> yes. it was quite amateur, wolf. we weren't even at the 50 yard line yet on denuclearizing north korea and the president was practicing his end zone dance. we need to stay focused. if we stay focused and remember the objective here, get nukes out of north korea, we can achieve that, but the president and his impulsive behavior will now threaten that. if he can stay focused and remember our greatest strength is our allies. if we remember to bring in south korea, japan, china who has worked with us in this effort, i think that we can get north korea to come to the summit and we can say to the american people we did all we could to make sure that north korea did not have nuclear weapons. >> what's your reaction to our cnn report, congressman, that the defense secretary and the white house chief-of-staff had to intervene to stop president trump's order to evacua

his campaign manager, paul manafort, was forced to resign, accused of getting millions of dollars from russian interests in ukraine. the leak that brought manafort down came from the very top of the ukrainian government, according to sources

where do you get the authority to charge paul manafort. your authority comes from the trump collusion and any matters that arise from the investigation. the manafort investigation doesn't arise from the investigation. mueller went in to the archives at the department of justice tax division and appropriated an old case against manafort that was cleared and he's used that. and the timing is unbelievable. bras remember sarah, it was july 26th, the morning raid, guns drawn and paul manafort's home and all he had to do is call the attorney and he would have surrennered. and august 22nd. approval came. and that means the special counsel had to be investigating beyond the man date and then the raid and then man date permission for the raid. >> judge ellis is not going to be bullied and made it clear in court today. that's why he said. i want that memo redakted. the one that you gave to me i want it unredakted. he wants to know the scope of what rosenstein gave authority to to mueller and he want its now. and they said this has nothing to do with

manafort where he says you guys are trying to get paul manafort to roll on the president and trying to squeeze this guy. one thinks indicting his former son-in-law who knows things about his business practices probably bought real pressure on paul manafort. >> look, the indictment, we don't know the contours of the plea agreement. we don't know the nature of the cooperation they're seeking from him. actually according to the reuters story, he doesn't yet know. right. >> or at least the people who have talked to about it don't yet know. so look, could there be a cooperation, a form of cooperation designed to exert pressure on manafort? yeah, it could be that. it could also be the fact that this is a guy who has independent or quasi independence legal problem. this isn't the -- a family that dots the is and crosses all the ts legally. so you know, you put a bunch of people under this kind of scrutiny, all kinds of things are going to come up. it's kind of worth waiting and seeing what the relationship between this and the manafort case really is. >> one more note on this which is that

for paul manafort. >> talk about pressure. in addition to everything against paul manafort, pretty much dead bang cases that mueller has put together in two different jurisdictions, he's now being squeezed very strongly from yohai who he was in business with in real estate, that's all in california. that would be a whole new set of charges, and substantial ones carrying big penalties on that side. and he's already being squeezed on the ukraine misadventure side from his former second in command, rick gates. that's independent of what they have on him. he is under now tremendous pressure that in some ways has redoubled. and he's going to trial soon. it's very hard to see how he, in any way, can get out of the vice. so the question is, can he with stand it and just be ready, essentially, to spend his life in prison? it looks to a lot of people that he'll be -- he'll be looking to really cooperate as things go down the road. >> and david corn, rudy giuliani seems to have taken on the full kim jong-un role tonight in the mueller i

manafort confirming an fbi raid at one of manafort's home. >> paul manafort and his top lieutenant rick gates were indicted on criminal charges. >> minutes after the indictments were announced we learned that a little campaign aide named george papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying. >> that's national security advisor michael flynn, guess what he's doing today? pleading in the mueller case. >> there's been no collusion. there's been no crime. >> the indictment charges 13 russian nationals and three russian companies for committing federal crimes. >> special counsel robert mueller has obtained another guilty plea, this one from former trump deputy campaign chairman, rick gates. >> i have to interrupt you with breaking news now, attorney general jeff sessions has fired andrew mccabe. >>> the fbi raided the office of the lawyer for the president of the united states. >> there was no good reason for this investigation in the first place. this was engineered by comey. and i treat my mbc with new everyday verzenio- the only one of its kind that can be taken every day. in fact, verzenio is

he actually introduced donald trump to paul manafort, so he knows the two men well. further, barrack was asked to join the administration in a senior role, but he reportedly turned that down. also, the source indicates that barrack was not asked about his role on the inaugural committee. he was not asked about any financial issues, and further, he was told that he is not a target of their investigation. still, it's notable because it shows you just how broad the special counsel's investigation has become. >> and meantime, "the new york times" is reporting on a separate issue about the president and the stormy daniels hush money. president apparently denying when he may have actually known about that payment. give us the update. >> reporter: right. "the new york times" indicating that president trump was aware of the arrangement between his attorney, michael cohen, and stephanie clifford, aka stormy daniels, well before he denied knowing about it on air force one. the president has had multiple opportunities to explain that denial and to respond to this report. howeve

why did paul manafort come on to the campaign? and he had known paul manafort for about 40 years. it a mutual friendship and paul manafort was trying to take advantage of that. and after paul manafort had to resign from the campaign in august because of his payments from the ousted president of ukraine, the first person to welcome him with open arms off the coast of greece on his yacht was tom barrack. you know, there's a sense that tom barrack is kind of the nexus of all this because he is one of the few people that the president trusts. he's one the few who can criticize the president, he can call him up and say i don't agree with you on that. he's in the rare position of having trump's ear and paul manafort's ear and having the confidence of both men. >> rudy giuliani now brought in. clearly he was that sounding board for the president for so long. he's leading his legal team but it sound like there's so much disarray around this. >> i talked to a white house official after he was kind of slapped down saying he needs to get his facts right. what's really happening is that the p

to rebut paul manafort's charge that mueller was on some wild goose chase. this document shows in black and white that robert mueller and the special counsel's office, they were dually and specifically authorized to go after paul manafort for the stuff that manafort ultimately got charged with. so, we got that last month. shortly after that turned up in the docket, shortly after mueller filed that document in court, pro-trump republican members of congress, who are very bothered by the mueller investigation, they insisted that they actually needed to see that whole memo with no redactions. they needed to see all of the other specific information about who mueller is cleared to investigate and what exactly he is investigating them for.d we need to see that -- this is -- this is part of the strategy that they've been pursuing in congress, right, to demand more and more information about the mueller investigation, about this live open investigation, while it is still live and open. i mean, we all know, can't comment on an ongoing investigation, right? by rule,

paul manafort has been trying to make this point for a long time. because if you look at the original charging document for the mueller investigation, mueller was assigned to look into any possible coordination between russia and the trump campaign. manafort has been saying, look, if i'm accused of laundering money in ukraine in 2006, it doesn't have anything to do with this. so far he's gotten nowhere but he seems to have gotten somewhere with judge le ellis. lou: and the fact of the matter is, this makes no sense. manafort owed sins if there are sins at all, and have nothing to do with the special counsel mandate or charter or scope memo, an appointment memo back in may of last year, two years of investigation and all they've got a bolder dash. balderdash. this is a sick, sick joke being per pecperpetuated by the deparf justice that is corrupt in its leadership, the fbi that is both inept and rancidly corrupt in its leadership. >> another thing manafort has been saying, which is, you know, mueller is allowed to look into this possible coordination

according to my sources, they intervened, they leaked material harmful to paul manafort paul manafort had to resign. if that is what happened, it was a disastrous miscalculation, and that l to the scramble to ge a proper sitdown with mr. trump. the ukrainian presidency, while initially refusing to comment onhis, has now responded to a local journalist, calling it a blatant lie. it.cohen himself deni and we should stress that there is no suggestion that trump knew of or took money from this arrangement. jane: paulnk wood, tfor joining me. president trump offered a teaser regarding his planned summit with north korea's jong-un, saying that we will know next week whether the june 12 meeting will take place. just a day ago, the president w said the a substantial chance it wouldn't happen after pyongyang balked at u.s. plan demands for denuclearization. secretary of state mike pompeo says the summit is still on track. secretary pompeo: wea generational opportunity to resoe a major national security challenge. our eyes are wide open to the lessons of history, but we are optimistice can achi

manafort. >> paul manafort was completely bored by this meeting. and the other people in the meeting, they said he generally seemed bored, uninterested. because once this went from being about dirt to what this really was about, which was adoptions, he completely lost interest. one witness described him as looking at his phone throughout the rest of the meeting, a meeting which lasted 20 to 30 minutes. you would think manafort would know better. i'm not sure he was really paying attention. >> and they describe jared kushner as agitated when the russian lawyer launches into the fact that this is going to be about adoptions -- >> russia suspended adoptions in response to sanctions. >> kushner is essentially saying what are you talking about? >> tells her to start over. >> she starts to say the same thing over again and another witness in the room says he looks even more agitated. it it's pretty clear this meeting of not going like they thought it would. >> i want to ask you about donald jr. talking about a meeting between kislyak and is it paul manaf

they have no authority to go after paul manafort. in response the special counsel's office asserted that they did have very clear authority to do what they did when it came to charging paul manafort. in order to make that case, in court, they filed this document. they filed in an unsealed way so we could all see it. it's a memo that was written just a few months after the special counsel, robert mueller, was appointed, was given his assignment. it's a memo from rod rosenstein who both appointed robert mueller and oversees the mueller investigation. in the memo dated august 2nd, 2017, the deputy attorney general spells out in detail what exactly mueller and his team are cleared to investigate within the realm established. the may 17th, 2017 order that established the special counsel, that order was worded categorically in order to perfect its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals. this provides a more specific sdripgs of your authority. the following allegations were within the scope

i think paul manafort finally had a good day in court. he's been getting beaten up in the federal charges here in washington. but this judge ellis down in virginia, he raised some questions about in particular a bank fraud charge that manafort is facing one of 18 counts in alexandria, virginia and here is a couple of quotes. that this investigation is become about the president and he said you don't really care about mr. manafort's bank fraud. he said, this is about trump's prosecution or impeachment. that is what you're really interested in. and he also said that essentially that the -- the council -- that the special counsel had too much power and said we don't want anybody in this kiernts with unfettered power and it is unlikely you'll going to persuade me that the special counsel has power to do anything he or she wants. and of course, president trump took up the charge there from the judge and he was addressing the nra convention today and he enjoyed what the judge had to say. take a listen to what he had to say. >> a highly respecte

-- asking about outreach from paul manafort, which i mentioned up at the top, paul manafort to russia for potential assistance to the campaign, so far there hasn't been anything really reported about manafort reaching out to russia for help. to you does this mean that mueller has something there or could they simply just be asking because manafort is in a whole bunch of other trouble? >> well, pretty basic rule of interviews like this is that you already know the answers to the questions that you're going in to ask. you still owe -- ask them in an open ended way, so the person can give their own version of it. but i suspect that they probably have some evidence of coordination between manafort and russia. this only makes sense in terms of what we already know about manafort, who is a subject of two fisa orders, which you can only get if you know that the -- if you can show a court that the person was acting, knowingly, on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. so we know they have some evidence there already. the question is was he doing any of that while he was in the campaign, an

accused of using paul manafort to get to the president. >>> who knew what and when and new accusations that trump knew about the stormy daniels' payout months before. >>> that is where we begin this hour. last night "the new york times" broke the story that the president knew about his attorney michael cohen's payments to stormy daniels quote, several months before he denied any knowledge of it to the reporter aboard air force one in april, and this is according to two people familiar with the arrangement, and nbc news reached out to the outside legal team, and they declined to respond, and last night, "the wall street journal" came out with the report of michael cohen through the public records that michael cohen gained access to $774,000 from the line of credit that a new mortgage of the 216 presidential campaign, and they said that they reached out to cohen and his attorney, but they did not respond to the request for comment. for more on this, we bring in betsy woodruff, a politics reporter for daily beast, and msnbc contributor as well, ju jean -- eugene scott is a msnbc contribu

and all of the charges that have resulted against paul manafort. so he said this, he said you don't care about mr. manafort's bank fraud and the judge continued saying this was really a way for the special counsel to get at the president himself. going forward saying that you want to know what could provide and lead to trump's prosecution or impeachment? that's what you're really interested in. this is the first time we heard a federal judge really kind of lash out and maybe slap the special counsel's team on the wrist here. this is all emanating from many charges that paul manafort is facing. he's facing dual indictments. what is interesting here is that this hearing today was all about this motion to dismiss. paul manafort's team said, look, the special counsel has been overreaching here. they had a mandate to look into potential meddling of the russians in the 2016 election and all of these charges are not even anything to do with the campaign. you can see paul manafort here, leaving court, no doubt his legal team has to be feeling a little bit

so the judge echoed some of paul manafort's lawyers concerns. he said this in part while on the bench today in federal court. he said you don't really care about mr. manafort's bank fraud, the judge told michael dreeben. he said they were only interested in manafort because what he could provide that would lead to the president's, quote, prosecution or impeachment. that's what you're really interested in. the judge said we don't want anyone in this country with unfettered power. it's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special prosecutor can do anything he wants. this was a hearing on paul manafort's motion to dismiss the entirety of the virginia case. he contends the special counsel went too far in charging him with crimes that don't directly relate to the campaign. the judge will rule on that in a later date. in the meantime, the judge will get access in this case to that unredacted august 17 memo that spells out the special counsel's authority. the judge will be getting this. however, the memo will remain sealed so only the judge will be

so this hearing was all for this motion to dismiss by paul manafort's team. they want the entire case dismissed against him virginia. the judge hasn't ruled yet, but it seemed like he might be siding with paul manafort's team. >> talk about a stunning development here in all of this. that truly would be a major development. i mean, the judge is also going to be given access to the memo. which lays out the special counsel's mandate. you know, more than obviously the basic one that we have all seen from the department of justice. why does the judge want this? >> so it's a memo and once it's given to him in unredacted form, really the judge will get the full view who have what's been given by rod rosenstein. we've seen parts of this memo. it was written in august. a large portion of it has been publicly released. what we know is that the special counsel was given permission to examine manafort's lobbying work in ukraine anotably whether he colluded with russian b officials. maybe the judge will see more what power the special counsel has and will make that decis

he is also paul manafort's former business partner. the two of them worked together on four california property deals that fail and were placed in bankruptcy. but he is not just another business partner, he was married to paul manafort's daughter jessica before the two divorced in august of last year. yohai agreed to plead guilty in connection with a criminal investigation in los angeles. his indictment comes nearly seven months after manafort himself was indicted in special counsel robert mueller's russia investigation. and just days after a federal judge rejected manafort's bid to dismiss charges from special counsel robert mueller. nbc news can confirm that mueller and his team have also been focusing on yohai for the past six months. this is a hard one to follow but we're going to get you there. i'm going to bring in nbc news reporter ken dele l di lan dela. what does this signal? >> more trouble for paul manafort. because yes, these are two separate investigations. manafort's son-in-law has been accused of running a ponzi scheme i

if the criminal activity by paul if the criminal activity by paul manafort was not related to russian interference in the election in 2016 they'd refer it to another office. that's why they haven't referred it to another office. that's what the prosecutor said in court today. does that mean these multiple felonies against paul manafort, this case unspooling in these two jurisdictions is related to russian interference and we can't see it yet? if so, when can we find out? is this judge going to make them show their hand on that? how weird is it the judge screamed at everyone and then asked that really good question? turns out that's all answerable, stay with us. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can sa

it's one more potential witness against paul manafort in another area. already you have rick gates, who was his partner in his international consulting business, who's prepared to testify against him about all of their actions in ukraine and potentially other countries. it just adds one more, you know, kind of heavy weight on paul manafort's shoulders. he's looking at years and years in jail, and he really only has two ways out of it. one is to cooperate with the special counsel, and it wouldn't just be cooperation. he's actually have to have something valuable to give up about the president or someone else more senior than him like maybe jared kushner or donald trump jr., or he has to hope and wait for a pardon. those are his only options because the weight of the evidence against him is pretty serious. >> yeah, it's not looking good. counselor, i'm going to give you the last word after reading this to you about how they intend to perhaps prep the president for sitting down with mueller. this is from politico. the planning meetings to be held during off

the judge pretty much said, look, you just want to squeeze paul manafort to flip on donald trump. which is manifestly true. but the mueller team didn't want to admit that in court, ari. >> you have the ability to squeeze people, the jurisdictional question is more narrow, which is should this get farmed out to another office and mueller has shown that when he thinks that's warranted in the michael cohen says he did it. the other amazing thing which i'm going to hold up in the hearing today is i'm holding up this now infamous redacted memo, the judge was asking david corn to get the unredacted version of this, i'm sure you and everyone interested in this case would also love that, the judge has maybe a better argument than the rest of us, but this is the redacted secret authorization that rosenstein gave mueller to go after extra stuff. we don't know exactly what because it's a black box. what did you think of this -- this memo being raised in that hearing today? >> well, you know, the judge kind of was suspicious of bob mueller's office when they said everything that's redacted th

paul manafort will not have access to the document. this is also a document that members of congress have been asking for and the department of justice have denied them permission to look at it. the judge will look at it, not sure why, but he will look at it. >> interesting. he's getting that. you're getting new information about the michael cohen case. what can you tell us? >> this came out a short time ago. the special master who has been assigned with reviewing some of these privileged documents or potential privileged documents filed her first report and in it she basically says that a lot of the documents that the fbi, some eight boxes that were seized and a lot of the documents have now been handed over to michael cohen's attorneys, to her, some of the electronic media, phones, ipads, some of that information has now been handed over. so it tells us things are moving forward. and it tells us, michael cohen's attorneys have what was seized in the raids so they now know and should have a good idea what the fbi is looking at in this

and i believe that paul manafort, at least i think robert mueller believes paul manafort has more information that could lead to the information -- lead to disclosures about russian collusion with the trump campaign, with whomever else. that's important that that process needs to go forward. >> so noel, given the judge is, you know, a reagan appointee. >> right. >> that he expresses his opinion in the manner in which it happened, does that in any way jeopardize this case or influence this case or the outcome? >> well, you know, keith has a good point. i agree with this. i think that the judge is irritated and, finally, there has been a judge that has been a little irritated about the way this investigation is going. you know, i do think that manafort's been a pawn, to get to the bigger fish, so to speak. i think that, you know, a lot of people have felt this way. and it was refreshing to see a judge get a little irritated about it, about how they feel like it's kind of a one-sided deal. >> but does that mean that there isn't merit? does that mean that there isn't merit for this case to procee

of course people are focused on paul manafort. and what we do know is during the campaign he offered inside assistance to the russian campaign to a russian oligarch who is close to putin and did it through an intelligence officer named constantine. that may be what mueller's looking at as well. but this question really applies far more widely than just to manafort. >> well, david, the book is called "russian roulette." it could easily be crossword puzzles in 2016 with all the names. jessica, i don't know if you want to buy a vowel but bottom line how would this questioning work if you were sitting there and you did not see the questions being leaked? >> one, they start with very open ended questions. and i think part of it is the initial question really is important in the sense what you want to do as a prosecutor is just get donald trump talking. because we know that will basically be an unequivocal good thing for the special counsel and i think an unequivocally bad thing for donald trump. but then i also think what we've heard i

against paul manafort all arises from that work he did for the government of ukraine with associates of russian and political figures associated with russia and oligarchs. so even if they don't have concrete proof that this is about russian interference with the election, looking at the flow of money is important to understand motives and leverage and extortion and blackmail and other things i think they see it as being intertwined with the russia investigation. >> barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney in michigan. thank you, barb. much appreciated. >> thanks, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪[upbeat music] ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun♪ ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun transitions™ light under control™ let your inner light loose with one a day women's. transitions™ ♪ a complete multivitamin specially formulated with key nutrients plus vitamin d for bone health support. your one a day is showing. >>> happy friday night. thank you for being with us tonight i

a spokesman for paul manafort put out a statement today saying paul manafort maintains his innocence and looks forward to prevailing in this matter. and as you pointed out, this is just one of the courts where manafort is arguing. >> so explain that, because it is a little bit confusing, as i talked about. the ruling comes on the heels of the other judge earlier this month questioning mueller's authority to bring these charges. so there's two different courtrooms going on? >> reporter: that's right. there are two different courtrooms where this sort of theater is playing out. this one was in d.c. and previously earlier this month, manafort was making a similar argument in virginia, again saying that mueller has overstepped his authority. and in this case, the judge seemed much more sympathetic to manafort's argument, essentially going to prosecutors and saying, look, i think that you guys are just using this to go after president trump, potentially to try to impeach him. i don't think you really care that paul manafort committed bank fraud, if that -- if that's what you're alleging h

paul manafort and now his son-in-law pleading guilty. you've got donald trump and his son-in-law jared kushner and his son donald trump, jr. you've got jim comey talking about sort of how the family sounded and acted like a mob family. and you've got men, the three on the top, try not to swear in front of my son. you have men and their sons in law in potentially criminal enterprises. >> boy, nicolle, the thanksgiving table is not going to be a pleasant conversation in those families. it does, it does showcase that obviously people's judgment can get clouded when they're dealing in family enterprises. it is a word of caution. but, look, all the people on the bottom rung of that chart are adults and i think the way prosecutors and law enforcement officials view things is that if you are an adult and you know what you're doing, then you have to pay the consequence. and the fact that you have a familial relationship shouldn't make it worse for you and it shouldn't make it better for you. i think it does put the guys on the top rung, the dads

but this case, as i see it, is bigger than paul manafort. it's obtained more than -- i think almost half a dozen guilty pleas including the president's former national security adviser, michael flynn. so of course they have to prove the case. they're not above the law. and, you know, i expect that the judge, you know, will rule, you know, according to the law. but i see that there's a lot of evidence relating to paul manafort and whether the president had knowledge or candidate trump had knowledge of paul manafort's dealings with the russians and whether that made him more qualified for the job because there's so many people who were on the team that had prior relationships with the russians that would have been disqualifying in most campaigns, but it looks like to this candidate that helped them get the job. >> the president today talked about a lot of subjects in dallas but the setting was the convention for the nra. he did talk about guns. you made news this week on the subject of guns. i want to read from an op-ed that you wrote in that

in that letter he mentioned that paul manafort would be willing to work for free. this was a really interesting anything. tom barrack's importance is that he serves as a nexus between the president and paul manafort. after the election and after paul manafort was ousted from the campaign because he was revealed to have all these shady payments from the ukrainian government, tom barrack hired his right-hand man. a lot of people were questioning tom barrack's judgment about that, saying why would you hire someone who has so much baggage. that raises more ace about, well, what was the -- why did tom barrack feel compelled to keep rick gates around. after paul manafort left, the first place he went was to tom barrack's yacht off the coast of greece. we don't know if the 'emphasis was on the relationship between the two men or campaign finance. tom barrack was the top fund-raiser for the trump campaign. he's well positioned to be able to answer all the questions. >> i want to come to the inauguration. despite the fact that paul manafort was in a tirm with roger stone fo

paul manafort is facing 18 counts, including bank fraud in federal court in virginia. that's on top of the counts he faces in washington. so the criticism from his lawyers is that these charges, they don't relate to the campaign and, therefore, they just go too far for the special counsel. so judge ellis, who is a reagan appoint he, he echoed some of those concerns. he said this in court. he said you don't really care about mr. manafort's bank fraud, the judge told the special counsel's team. instead, the judge said the special counsel was only interested in manafort because of what he could provide that would lead to the president's, quote, prosecution or impeachment. the judge continued to say that's what you're really interested in. the judge also continued to say, we don't want anyone in this country with unfettered power. it's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special prosecutor has the power to do anything he or she wants. the american people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power. so, of course it was friday morning. hearing on paul manafor

and what the special counsel was doing, we can only presume, is following the ties that paul manafort had with ukrainian officials and russian officials. secondly, insofar as this might have been a part of putting the squeeze on paul manafort, who has been indicted several times now, poppy, that is an ages old practice of every prosecutor in the history of western civilization. it is probably the 10,000th time the judge has seen it. let me finish. lastly, lastly, the judge seems to be saying, gosh, if you found criminal activity, wire fraud, bank fraud, in the conduct of your investigation, since it is not directly related to the president, turn your head, let him go. i don't understand the legal argument of denying the crime. >> your fellow democrat on the house intelligence committee, the ranking democrat, adam schiff, even said on this network, 24 hours ago, to jake tapper, you know, he is concerned when he hears that from the judge. let's play it. >> it does concern me if it includes the judge's review of the facts and the law. that seems to be the judge questioning the motives of

he had a tortured relationship with paul manafort. he hired him as a political consultant, wasn't happy. gave him some money for a investment. they had a falling out. said he stole my money and took it into the united states. the guy they go to is an enemy of paul manafort. and said could you help us -- he laughs. he breaks out in laughter saying it's preposterous. is to take this seriously and he said i don't like the guy. there's no chance they're using paul manafort to coordinate an election and that's important for two reasons. it's two months before the election. it's before the fisa application and here is something that the fbi trusted previously to give them reliable information. spent his own money doing fbi work and now they're telling him no collusion. does the fisa court know this? i bet not. >> laura: so our viewers understand this. we have a situation with three fbi agents go to this russian billionaire's apartment, who only can come to the united states because he is supposedly a bad guy, which by all indications he was