hunt. thank you, all. this very busy hour. stay with us on twitter. @mitchellreports. here's stephanie for "velshi and ruehl." what an hour, starting with you at 9:00. >> what an hour. what a day. stunning. good afternoon, everyone. my partner ali velshi picked quite a day to be on assignment. it is thursday, november 29. let's get smarter. >> president trump's former longtime perm attorney michael cohen admitting he made false statements to congress about the russia investigation. >> this is different than the last time we saw michael kcohen. this is related to mueller. >> what he's pleading to lying about is this development to build a trump tower in moscow which was hidden from the voters while donald trump was running

for president. >> this is michael cohen confessing to outreach to the kremlin, the leadership of the russian government. >> said, you know this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. >> when i run for president that doesn't mean i'm not allowed to do business. i was doing a lot of different things. michael cohen what he's doing, is he was convicted, i guess. you'll have to put it into legal terms. he's a weak person. by being weak, unlike other people you watch, he's a weak person. >> obviously very loyal and very dedicated to mr. trump. >> i know mr. trump. i've stood by him shoulder to shoulder for the past decade. >> i understand michael cohen very well. turned out he wasn't a very good lawyer frankly. >> more breaking news. the president canceling his saturday summit with vladimir putin because of russia's new aggression against campaign. holy cow, when the best people

become incredibly weak. that is the term the president of the united states took this morning on his former attorney general and fixer michael cohen who previously said this about his longtime boss. >> i know mr. trump. i've stood by him shoulder to shoulder for the past decade. i've seen him in action. i know when donald trump wants something, there's nothing that's going to stop him from achieving his goal. the words the media should be using to describe mr. trump are generous, compassionate, principled, empathetic, kind, humble, honest and genuine. >> i'll do anything to protect mr. trump, the family, now vice president elect pence, as well as the campaign. >> well, somebody's changed his tune. now the man who said he would stop his administration like he did his business, with the best people slammed his former lawyer

in a nine-minute back and forth at the white house as he left for argentina. his appearance in federal court is what sparked the president's ire. cohen pleaded guilty to the special counsel's office for making a false start to congress regarding a deal in russia to create a trump tower in moscow. remember, it was that deal we heard denied over and over and over. it is something the president himself denied. but today, out of the blue, he suggested no big deal. >> everybody knew about it. it was written about it in newspapers. it was a well-known project. it was during the early part of '16. i guess even before that. it lasted a short period of time. >> here's the thing. it wasn't known about. president trump and his team certainly didn't share that information. here, in fact, is what president-elect trump said back in january of 2017. >> so i tweeted out that i have

no dealings with russia. i have no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia. because we've stayed away. and i have no loans with russia. >> this is why we call the president a liar. at that moment, he didn't have any live deals in russia. but just months earlier, he had been pursuing a deal. a cording to the criminal information in michael kcohen's latest plea, here's a big fat whopper. it says, quote, cohen discussed the project with individual one. that is president trump. and he briefed family members of individual one within the company about the project. so the president allegedly knew. along with members of the trump family, which could include donald trump jr., jared kushner, possibly his daughter ivanka trump who, remember, like her

husband jared, is an adviser to the president. all before their meeting in trump tower. joining me now to dig through all of this, a guy who seriously is working hard today, nbc news investigations reporter tom winter, former compliance counsel expert at the department of justice, we chen. and nbc news analyst danny cevallos. so there was michael cohen, clearly changing his tune this morning. >> such a contrast. as we're looking at that video a few seconds ago, when you look at michael cohen there, you look at somebody who is defiant, very direct and emphatic. now you see somebody who has a very different tone in court, and it's a tone of confidence, a tone of calmness. he came forward today and frankly felt comfortable in the courtroom setting and felt comfortable being around

prosecutors and aloecuting. this is the second time he's done this. to a federal crime. it's just a very different michael cohen from the one i saw in august when he pled guilty for the first time and i think the enormity hit him. today was an entirely different feel. >> what is michael cohen, a liar. what is president trump, a liar. what is manafort, a liar. it mentions the extend of the cooperation with the special counsel. is that the same thing paul manafort got? we thought he would be key to mueller until we learned he's been funnels every little bit of information back to president trump which makes rudy giuliani look somewhat clever here. >> if you look at their demeanors, i think the michael cohen we're seeing today is one that i believe is quite

different from paul manafort. when is someone who in everything -- his entire demeaner today is suggesting he is genuinely interested in cooperating. he has provided hours and hours of testimony through interviews with the mueller team. so i do think what we're seeing is something different. now what does normally happen is sometimes you have cooperating witnesses who are not interested in cooperating. they cooperate because at some point they felt like they had to. in a case like paul manafort, he apparently did not actually fulfill his terms of the deal, according to mueller's filings. so the change of mind so to speak is not an event that never happened. it does occasionally happen. it is going to carry consequences. >> i guess consequently if michael cohen had been taping, recording much of his dealings

with president trump over the years, then i guess he wouldn't take a bullet for him and wasn't standing shoulder to shoulder. when you look through these documents, what do you see that tripped up cohen here? >> this is a commune situation for cooperating witnesses. that's what this is, false statements. they tell 80% truths. they try to leave things. often it's related to their finances. this doesn't surprise me. the language that cohen used struck me. in one of the statements, he said i never considered asking individual one, who we know to be trump, to travel for the project. if he had used instead, i decided not to ask individual one to travel but instead he said, i never even considered it. when you make those kind of overreaching, overconfident statement, i can almost hear michael cohen saying them. those are the types of things

that come back to bite you. when cohen gave this testimony, or when he made these statements he's being charged with, that he was confident that no one would over find out they may be false. stunning. okay. before the news broke the president tweeted this on the investigation, asking, did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime? i would say yes, mr. president, your voter fraud commission led by chris coback, that would be one. the president forgets the fact there are now 32 indictments, seven guilty pleas. while we said this investigation is going on and on, benghazi took four years. they have zero indictments. so the president is saying something we know factually is p per prosperous.

muddying the waters, has he been successful? >> as you indicated, the type of white color investigation, the complexity, the facts involved in this situation, is the type that normally would take two, three, four years to finish. i think the mueller team has worked with incredible speed and efficiency. and what i'm also wanting to emphasize is what we are after here is fact finding. this is what this accident's about. now, at the end of this investigation, the special counsel is required to file a report. that report is to be made available to the attorney general. the attorney general does not even have to make that report public unless he decides it's in the public interest. >> you've lived this more. you resigned. you were part of the administration. you resigned. you were specifically involved in fraud and it was because of the president's conduct. take me to your last year where

day in and day out we say at best his conduct is unusual. at worst, it's reprehensible. but he's still living in the white house and the four of us are sitting here chitchatting about it. >> it was not unusual. it's beyond unusual. >> but does it matter anymore? >> it's up to us to make it matter. if we sit here and keep having conversations every day and do nothing about it, then we lead it to be the new normal. go to the polls, you know, be out there supporting the various efforts that grassroots -- >> this isn't just about getting elected. taupe, let's go back to the wall here. you've got the president's former lawyer admitting that he lied about russian outreach. manafort lied to prosecutors after cutting a deal. the back and forth nonsense, whether it's corsi and stone, is

a mess. in terms of actual legal implications, we have to take a step back. even if the president is saying my business was suffered from me running for office. you're the president's business empire tied into trying to get approvals and win favors from the russian government. while he is the president who has to deal with the fact we have sanctioned russia, which is why they remain in financial crisis. i mean, the president doesn't want to investigate russian meddling. how can a president from a legal perspective possibly continue to say at this point, there's nothing? >> he's entitled to make the statements he wants to make but i think what we need to look at here is, you know, it's not -- we've talked about this several times. it's not one thing where cohen said i had a turkey sandwich for lunch last week and it turns out he had a roast beef sandwich.

that's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about material witnesses to fact for which there is evidence. he's clear, i willfully lied here. it's an important legal distinction where he's saying i did it to stay on track with the president's messaging and my loyalty to him. he's saying i lied here. i said something for the purpose of lying. when you start to see people come forward for that, that's a good thing. the second thing is if robert mueller or prosecutor for his team confronted him and said, hey, you said this on this date, and was that true? michael cohen said it's not true. they still need evidence to back that up. danny referenced it before with the search warrant. . amount of information they were able to get from cohen. there should be by these prosecutors real evidence that speaks directly to these allegations. or in the case of michael cohen pleading guilty to lying.

when you look at this, you're starting to see situations here where it's not a he said/he said. it's not just the president's word versus cohen's. it's not paul manafort's word versus the president's word or together. you're going to be in a situation here with these statements. whether they're proving to be false or proven to be true, backed up by evidence. you're talking about a potential danger point. >> false statements contains a materiality requirement. >> english for me. >> i got you. i'm going to go back to tom's turkey sandwich. >> there you go. you know, you understand turkey sandwiches. >> that materiality requirement that tom talked about means you can't charge someone for section 1,001. if they say i had a turkey on

rye sandwich as opposed to wheat. it has to be something significant. need not be under oath this particular charge. as long as he gave it to congress in the course of their investigation, that's going to be enough. >> remember, those sanctions placed on russia crippled, crippled their economy. vladimir putin detests barack obama. he hates hillary clinton. he was incentivized for donald trump to win the election. donald trump over here has donald trump enterprises that would like a big old project in moscow if he doesn't win. he needs russia's help. i just want to share a statement put out by the attorney lanny davis. cohen reaffirmed what he said last july and told me many times since, that he decided to put his wife, daughter and country first. today he again told the truth and nothing but the truth. the real donald trump called him

a liar. who do you believe? i am proud that mueller himself confirmed michael cohen has told the truth and the truth is relevant and significant. michael will continue to work with the sc and others until the full truth is told. we're going to keep asking and keep digging. we have a lot more to cover. just after the news broke of michael cohen's guilty plea, president trump canceled his meeting with vladimir putin at the g-20. the optics completely different. he didn't say that yesterday or the day before. suddenly, he canceled it after cohen spoke. we're going to come back with more of the layers of this complicated story and dig into trump's alleged ties to russia. remember, he has claimed over and over he had no, no ties,

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welcome back. just this morning, president trump canceled his scheduled meeting with russian president vladimir putin. the president called off the face-to-face meeting while on board air force one traveling to the summit. trump blames russia's recent skirmish with ukraine and its seizure of ukrainian ships. it happened just hours after

trump's former personal lawyer michael cohen pleaded guilty to lying to congress about his efforts to build trump tower moscow. cohen's plea is in stark contrast to the president's repeated attempts to distance himself from anything to do with russia. those efforts stretch as far back as the 2016 campaign. but court documents show that cohen did receive a response from the kremlin about possibly building a trump tower in moscow. remember this, not from a real estate developer, from the kremlin, business and politics are absolutely 100% intertwined in russia. the russian cohen spoke to referred to it as assistant one in the documents said she would follow up with others in russia. joining me now is nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely live in moscow where it is so degrees outside and former assistant secretary of defense with her responsibility, michael carpenter.

michael, how do you read the president suddenly canceling his meeting with vladimir putin in the wake of michael cohen's plea today? personally, i would sooner wear a bikini standing next to you, bill neely in moscow than i believe the president did this because it's about ukraine. >> right, i'm with you. i think the ukrainian soldiers and ships were captured on sunday. why president trump makes the decision as he's flying on air force one on wednesday to cancel the meeting is beyond me other than that it's for political considerations. of course, he can't be seen as going into this meeting and being soft on putin. and he can't help himself. he's always been soft on putin. he's always mimicked putin's talking points. in helsinki, we saw it before that in hamburg, on multiple occasions. he probably realized himself better to call this one off than

go into a meeting, being seen smiling and coddling putin. >> he's always been soft on putin and we've continued to ask the question, what are the president's ties to putin? does he continue to put business first? and he has always said there is no business first, he has no ties to russia. here's what he told our own lester holt in may of 2017. >> i built a great company, but i'll not involved with russia. i've had dealings over the years where i sold a house to a very wealthy russian many years ago. i had the miss universe pageant, i had it in moscow a long time ago. but other than that, i have nothing to do with russia. >> when he says he sold his house to a russian a number of years ago, he's talking about a palm beach property he bought in 2004 for 41 million bucks, that he sold to a russian who had

been jailed for plotting the murder of a business foe. he was then a quitted but he sold it to that russia for $95 million four years later. real estate is the number one place to easily launder money and he sold that property, again, twice the price, over four years. president trump's personal plane and that russian oligarch's planes landed in the same cities hours apart three times during the campaign. does what president trump, what he said right there, does that -- is that in conflict with what cohen pleaded to today? i think unfortunately he can't hear me. i'll tell you, i would say 100%. because the fact that president trump and his company were even in plans to work on a trump tower moscow while he was

running for office. we've heard from intelligence agencies russia meddled with the election. yes, conflict. back in may, buzzfeed news reported that felix sater, with ties to the russian moshb, had conversation with cohen about setting up a trip to moscow. they discussed when then candidate trump would travel to negotiate a major business deal. he said, once he becomes the nominee after the convention. walk us through who felix sater is. >> this is a guy who is rumored to -- or alleged to have broken a margarita glass in a bar fight over some slight and a guy who, as you mentioned, is also

alleged ties to the russian mob. when the kremlin found out these guys were interested in pursue ago business deal in moscow, when trump was a presidential candidate, i mean, you can imagine vladimir putin salivating over the prospects of running an influence operation to entangle these guys to make contact with them and try and milk this for all it was worth. this is during the height of the campaign. we're talking about 2016 here. the president was clearly lying in his comments about having no business dealings whatsoever with russia. he clearly did. and russia, you can count on it, used those connections and that interest on the part of donald trump to try to expert its influence. >> buzzfeed news obtained renderings for what a trump

tower in moscow would look like. how involved would the kremlin be? >> the kremlin is involved in all major business dealings. every single oligarch in russia is allowed to keep their wealth, i say allowed advisory, they're allowed to keep their wealth, they're allowed to do business, only when they respond to the kremlin's taskings when called upon and if they pay tribute, usually to the security services, that is their benefactor, there so-called krisha, their roof, which means protection. so business and government are intertwined in russia. it's inconceivable that this project could move forward without the kremlin knowing about it. >> what does all of this mean for putin as he travels to argentina for the g-20?

>> stephanie, apologizes for the communication problems. just to bring you up to date. even an hour ago, the kremlin had no official confirmation from the white house that this summit was canceled. we had a statement from the kremlin saying so far we've seen only the tweet and the media reports. we have no official information. but they added president putin will hold a couple of other useful meetings if trump has refused to meet him. so if that's true, that's pretty extraordinary, that the kremlin wasn't told. also, president trump gave as his reason for canceling the summit that weekend novel clash between ukrainian and russian ships. one thing he said, based on the fact that the ships and the sailors have not been returned to ukraine from russia, i decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel the

summit. he says the ships have not been returned to ukraine from russia. the sailors are not in russia, they're in crimea. the united states has never recognized crimea as part of russia. perhaps that was just a simple mistake from president trump. you know he's also there of course in office to defend the national interests of the united states. yet he says i decided it would be best for all parties. he appears to be also acting in moscow's interests, if he's talking about canceling the summit, because it's best for everybody. i mean, it's a very, very curious cancellation, stephanie in every ruespect. >> answer one more thing for our audience who might not know that much about vladimir putin. how wealthy and powerful is this man? i say wealthy because one of the big issues here and has been since president trump won, will

he put country before self-? he has never divested himself from his businesses. he continues to stay very close to it. as does his daughter and son-in-law. can you walk us through how rich putin is and how tied business and politics are? traditionally in the united states when you run for office, you're not running for office to enrich yourself, you want to be more powerful, love of country, civic duty. and things are different in russia. >> well, as the other person that you're talking to a few minutes ago said business and politics in this city are absolutely intertwined. you cannot do anything in moscow without political consent and of course traditionally in this city, there have been back handers and that has been, you know, the case in many countries for many years.

president putin wears his wealth very lightly, but there's absolutely no jives. he's not a man of the personal in the traditional sense of a russian leader. that's how he sees himself. he sees himself as in the line of the strong russian leaders of the past, of the czars even. this is an extremelymillions. i don't think anybody really knows. billions. we simply don't know. it's not something that's apparent to the russian people or because he plays himself as a man of the people. although many people here in russia would say good luck to him. he is extremely popular. you know, he won elections not

simply by election meddling of which clearly there was a lot, but also by popular vote. many people here want a strong leader. even an authoritarian leader. that wouldn't be true in moscow or st. petersburg but it is true in much of the city and many people might say, as they say of donald trump perhaps, you know, good luck to him if he's made money. of course in vladimir putin's case, the money has come from build of business dealings through the state. remember where this man came from. he was a junior kgb officer at the beginning of his career. now he is a multibillionaire perhaps. and president of russia. stephanie. >> indeed, he is. bill, you got to go inside, it's cold out there. >> it certainly is. when we come back, police raided the headquarters of my professional alma mater deutsche bank today as part of a global money laundering investigation. why is this so important?

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welcome back. just hours before president trump's former personal attorney and fixer michael cohen pleaded guilty in new york city for lying to congress, overseas in germany, deutsche banc which has a long history of doing business with donald trump was raided by law enforcement. german prosecutors say it is part a money laundering investigation referred to as the panama papers case. deutsche said we're cooping with the authorities. the bank is known for its rocky relationship with donald trump which goes back 20 years. the trump organization had sued deutsche and they sued trump after he failed to repay a $300 million loan. joining me now is european economics correspondent for the "new york times" jack ewing and reporter shalani basse te.

walk us through the significance of this raid. >> this is the latest scandal that deutsche bank has had to contend with really going back to the end of the financial crisis they've been involved in pretty much every banking scandal you can think of. rigging benchmark, interest rates, violating sanctions. they've been trying very hard to put that behind them. it looked maybe like they were making some progress but then today is a big setback. >> during that time, give me the -- i worked at the bank during a lot of those issues. they were personally fined for failing to prevent 10 billion bucks of russian money laundering and expose the uk financial system. what link does this give the bank specifically to putin? >> well, this is -- as the previous guests were saying, nothing happens in russia without putin's knowledge. these were russian customers of

deutsche bank who had this kind of convoluted scheme involving stock markets. as far as we know, that doesn't have any direction connection to what happened today but it all fits into the category of money laundering. it's amazing, having had that happy, once again, deutsche banc is involved in a money laundering case. >> deutsche banc has thousands of clients. it could be a coincidence. politico and others pointed out they were the one bank that in the '90s, in the early 2000s, global bank willing to do business with the trump organization. as i mentioned, they had the loop o loan out to trump. they still do. the one bank jared kushner's family continued to do business with. any link between the raid and what's going on today with the president and michael cohen? >> we don't know about the link between the raid today and the president. however that doesn't mean, you know, in the house financial

services committee in january, if they decide to subpoena deutsche banc to figure out what the links are, that we may not see anything more. right now, they seem like a lot of despairette situations. once you look at what's in the bank, there's a question about whether relationships from russia to the u.s., there were any links. right now there doesn't seem to be any. >> the financial services committee has not yet subpoenaed deutsche banc. we know maxine waters and others asked for information and deutsche said no. could that change now that the house flipped? >> that's a possibility. and the investigation we talked about. the doj hasn't said anything about that yet, even though the other regulators have. dsf settled for the situation. there are a lot of matters that do involve russia and deutsche bank. separately deutsche banc and donald trump have a strong relationship. doesn't mean the two necessarily

have anything to do with each other yet. when we come back, remember that infamous dossier alleging collusion between the trump campaign and russia? in addition to lured stories it made claims about cohen being a key figure in secret connections with the kremlin. how the dossier ties into all of it. george woke up in pain. but he has plans today. hey dad. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong.

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he's a weak person. and by being weak, unlike other people that you watch, he's a weak person, and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. >> if cohen is such a bum, why did you hire him, have him on the payroll for 12 years -- >> because a long time ago, he did me a favor. >> that was president trump, outside the white house today. speaking about his former personal lawyer michael cohen. just the latest trump associate to plead guilty to the special counsel. just like every mueller indictment, there's more than what is on the surface. the criminal information in the case makes several references to an individual two. the moscow project was discussed multiple times within the company, as late as approximately up2016, cohen and individual two discussed efforts for the moscow project.

individual two was presumed to be this man on your screen, felix sater, a russian immigrant, real estate developer, once connected in connection with the russian mafia stock fraud. he was a significant player behind the trump project. sater promised to engineer a deal with the help of russian president vladimir putin. in august 2017, "the new york times" published portions of e-mail exchanges between cohen and sater. when he told cohen, quote, i've arranged for ivanka to sit down in putin's private chair and his desk and office in the kremlin. i will get putin on this program and we'll get donald trump elected. sater moves on to say, buddy, our boy can become president of the usa. and we can engineer it. i will get all of putin's team to buy in on this. i will.

now, there's no evidence that sater actually fulfilled that promise. cohen released a statement saying sater was, quote, prone to salesmanship. s says, you must have known sater was lying. the response, all i know is, i always tell the truth. joining us, nbc news investigatist reporter ken lee danian. what else did sater say? >> that's all, he quickly got of the phone. the fact he's not in jail and hasn't been charged with a crime suggests he has been telling the truth to mueller all along. these documents depict a trump tower moscow deal that went on much longer than michael cohen admitted at first in under oath testimony to the congress. that's why he's being charged with lying. sater must have known that. so it suggested he's been

cooperating. he is a larger than wife wheeler dealer ripped from the pages of a spy novel. he's also -- he want stabbed a man in a bar fight with a broken martini glass and after that stock swindle you mentioned, he began cooperating with the u.s. government and actually served as a u.s. intelligence asset, asset to the cia and defense intelligence agency and helped them in the hunt for osama bin laden. then he began to work for donald trump and had a business card that said senior adviser to donald trump. he actually helped develop the trump soho. his company helped donald trump develop that project in new york city. in the campaign when stories about sater's felonious past come out, donald trump was asked and said, i'm not sure i know that guy. sort of laughable to the trump organization. sater was a fixture. now he shows up again in this deal with michael cohen. in talks with russian officials

and the documents show that the russians talk back, which is new information today. the russian president office reached out to michael cohen and was engaging him on this project. >> to everyone on ars force once who's watching, felix sater's fate. michael cohen's fate. in the end, didn't know them, kind of knew them, who are they. that could be you. you have written extensively about the president, his russian connections, his outreach. when michael cohen pleaded guilty today, besides you saying told you so, told you so, told you so, what was your takeaway? >> the big point is something ken just alluded to. while trump was campaigning as an america first candidate, he, through cohen, was secretly interacting with putin's own office seeking help on a

business deal. that is the trump organization, going to putin's office and saying how can we make money in russia? how can you help us? all this time trump is campaigning publicly. he's not telling a single voter he has this deal or he's trying to he's not saying he has this deal and trying to put it together. that's one of the biggest conflicts of interest in modern u.s. political history. you can't point to any other candidate who had such a big conflict. while he's doing this, he's out there praising putin. he goes on morning joe and joe says putin is a killer. he goes how do you know. he was asked in december 2015 while this deal was under way secretly, what about his relationship with felix sater. he couldn't admit knowing him because he would have to reveal this secret deal with russia that they were going to putin's

office on. i've always thought this was the most undercovered element and least understood element of the whole trump russia scandal. now it's hitting like a bombshell and it shows trump lied about his connections to russia and he was conning the voting public while he was running for president. >> it wasn't just on joe. i think it was on super bowl sunday where trump was griffin t -- given the opportunity. vladmir putin isn't just the leader of another country. obama administration sanctioned russia and it crippled their economy. if president trump were to win, lift those sanctions, it would be a game changer for russia. president trump could help vladmir putin in such a significant way while president trump, whose priority has been his business, was trying to win

over the kremlin and get a deal like this done. it's stunning. >> think about this message this sent putin's own office. here you have trump coming to them for help. this is a guy you're looking at from putin's perspective while his plan to attack the election is already under way, they are hacking the dnc and others. he's looking at trump and goes he wants me -- he wants to do business with me. he's the guy i'm going to help. trump is saying to putin, here. i'm your guy. help me. >> here's the other thing. what this shows is there was a channel between the trump organization and vladimir putin during the presidential campaign on the trump tower project. what other channels were there ? don't forget the dossier. he went over to do some damage control in 2016 and met with russians in europe. he's always denied that but now

he's a proven liar. can we trust his denials. that will be an area of reporting going forward. >> didn't jared kushner talk about creating back channel line of communication after president trump won between the white house and russia? am i remembering correctly in. >> he talked about this during the transition period. mentioning the steel dossier. it says one way that russia is trying to cultivate trump is by dangling business opportunities in front of him. this just nails it on the nose. this is what they were doing with trump in 2015 and throughout 2016. we can do business. we can work with you here. that's one aspect of the steel dossier that's been enhanced by this new information. >> my goodness. what a day. thank you so much. we'll leave it there.

amid all of this, we cannot forget that michael cohen is facing other charges that are not related to russia investigation. there was paying off of porn stars, play mates. we'll break that down, next. my mom's pain from moderate

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here's the thing. even if he was right, it doesn't matter because i was allowed to do whatever i wanted during the campaign. i was running my business. a lot of different things during the campaign. >> that was president trump this morning talking about former personal attorney and fixer michael cohen, but here's the thing. the president's wrong that he could do anything he wanted. the things michael cohen alleges trump directed him to do are against the law. let's go through what cohen pleaded to in the summer and today. back in august cohen pleadsed guilty to eight counts brought by the southern district of new york, be u.s. attorney's office here in manhattan. he entered a guilty plea on five counts of personal income tax evasion. one count making a false statement to a financial institution and one count

causing an unlawful corporate contribution. that was the hush money deal between american media and karen mcdougal and one count of making excessive campaign contribution. that's the 130 grand he said he paid on his own to stormy daniels so she would keep quite wi -- quiet about affair with trump. he is guilty of lying about a project that was to deal a trump tower in moscow. there are no good guys here. despite the president's claim that the mueller investigation is a witch hunt, the special counsel office returned indictments against 33 and secured guilty pleas from seven of them. five of them connected directly

to the president and his campaign. that, mr. president, is not a witch hunt. this is due process. this is the rule of law. if only the self-proclaimed law and order president would acknowledge that then we could move forward. thank you so much for watching. i turn to a woman who has spent a lot of time with president trump over the last few years. >> yeah. today's a significant day. michael cohen could be the single most terrifying for president trump. the single most destructive person going forward. destructive for his campaign, his career, the rest of time spending if office. >> he's the guy that said he would take a bullet and he's the first one that looks like he could be pointing the gun at donald trump. >> he's been saying that for years. he said