what's paul manafort feeling so desperate about? today paul manafort and rick gates got sued by a putin-linked russian oligarch they used to do business with. oleg deripaska. they tried to do several big business deals together. at least one of those deals appears to have gone wrong. from what we can tell, it seems like deripaska gave manafort and his company many millions of dollars, 15 or 20 million dollars to try to buy a cable company in ukraine. they don't seem to have ever bought the cable company and deripaska seems to think that his money effort ins will went walkies, that it got sort of siphoned off at least in part by manafort and gates. deripaska sued manafort in 2014 to try to get the money back. one of the intriguing lines around paul manafort and his cash flow and why he wanted to run the trump campaign in the first place and his communication where he offered deripaska private briefings on the campaign and he e-mailed somebody else about whether or not the campaign was something he could use to get whole when it came

paul manafort, the campaign. paul manafort, the campaign chairat the campaign. paul manafort, the campaign chair at the time, was also in that meeting. the trump supporters have developed an explanation, saying nothing came of it, the principles involved were not paying attention, despite the fact that it was billed to donald trump junior as possibly presenting damaging information on hillary clinton that would be provided by the russians. they said they didn't get anything, it was brushed off, kind of a reflection of the chaotic nature of the pain. now you have steve bannon, a valued member of the trumpet ina steve bannon, a valued member of the trumpet in a circle, calling it unpatriotic and treasonous. —— of the trump inner circle. it significantly undercuts the line that the white house has tried to use to defend their position. to hear from somebody that used to be one of donald trump's greatest advocates, that is what makes it so jarring. i willjust read you a little bit more from the statement from donald trump, in response to the suggestion from stev

fund a n paul manafort's condo. speaking of people that ran the donald trump for president campaign, the man who ran the campaign before paul manafort was corey lewandowski. he secured legal representation in advance of mr. lewandowski's house intelligence meeting. corey lewandowski's lawyer is most famous for representing ruth madoff in that famous multi billion-dollar ponzi scheme. to tell you the crazy day, consider the fact there were three people that ran the donald trump for president campaign. the first one was corey lewandowski and the third person who ran the trump campaign after lewandowski and manafort got fired, the third one was steve bannon and boy, has he had an unusual day today. you know, if you called for jury duty, that means you're being called to potentially sit on a jury for a trial and in terms of your commitment and what you have to tell your boss, basically if you get picked for the jury, however long that trial lasts, that's how long you'll be on jury duty and away from work. when it ends,

that included campaign chairman paul manafort and jared kushner. or bad expletive, and i hatch to think it's all of that, you should have called the fbi immediately. bannon speculates that the special counsel office is focussing on money laundering, claiming that federal investigators have a path to trump that goes right through paul manafort, don jr. and jared kushner. it's as plain as a hair on your face, adding they're going to crack don jr. like an egg on national tv. that's a departure from what bannon told "60 minutes" months ago. >> it's a farce. >> reporter: questions bannon's sanity, saying steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have access to fool a few people. steve pretends to be at war with the media yet he spent his time at the white house leebing false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. it's the only thing he does well. press secretary sarah s

congratulations on this writing on paul manafort. when you say everything about paul manafort's track record, his history, his career suggests that he did do it, he did do the rest worst thing of which he's suspected, what in his track record suggests to you that he did? >> so paul manafort was a political consultant and lobbyist in washington. it's always been a corrupt place, but there are different scales and magnitudes of corruption. and over the course of his career paul manafort kept pushing the limits of what was acceptable paver in washington. and one of those limits he started working in the 1980s and '90s for a bunch of foreign dictators and goons who wanted to get money from washington and wanted to improve their reputations back home. so he was a full-service manager for them. he would help them work on elections back in their own country. he would lobby to get them arms in d.c. and over the course of the last ten years of his career, he ended up migrating to cukraine where he spent pretty much of all his time before the

. >>> paul manafort was probroke. he spent decades working for some of the least savory auto c cats of the world and allegedly took millions of dollars in off the books payments for the work and business partners with a russian close to putin. later pursued paul manafort in court for 20 million dollars and claimed manafort disappeared with. manafort was kind of in a pinch moving millions of dollars through offshore accounts buying tons of u.s. property and taking up millions of dollars of loans but then ukrainian ruler that manafort was working for was swept from power in a popular revolt and found himself out of a job. thanks to reporting, we learned paul manafort's situation when he joined the trump campaign as the chairman was way more than we previously understood. money that flowed freely to manafort and which he had spent more freely still soon became a problem. he complained about unpaid bills and at age 66 started scouring the world, hungary, uganda, for fresh clients hustling without luck. his during noted th

and paul manafort called trump treasonous. >> paul didn't feel like he had to play by the rules in an industry where you usually got away with it. and this time, he didn't get away with it. >>> all that plus donald trump making an unusual approach to the stump with his shutdown looming. i'm ari melber live in san francisco, you're watching "the beat" on msnbc. and we covered it, july first, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ it'sanyone ever haveady! occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily... ...with three types of good bacteria. try phillips' colon health probiotic for free. see sunday's paper! woman: i'm a fighter. always have been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national ey

paul manafort cannot get a fair trial in that area. do you agree? >> in fact manafort's lawyers have already filed a lawsuit. >> sean: we have so many moving parts here. peter schweizer, let me get to you.u. hillary fixes bernie, the fix is in with comey and strzok, exoneration before investigation, she pays for the dossier, she tries to use russian lies to influence the general election, and then, that same dossier is used to get fisa warrants against the candidate and the president-elect. it's based on faulty propaganda lies that she paid for. you cannot make this up in the worst spy novel or most imaginative spy novel i could ever think of! >> sean, this has got to go down as one of the great, if not the greatest dirty trick in american political history. look at what they accomplished with this or try to accomplish with this. for this investment with fusion gps, they wanted to try to influence the media, which stated, there were all these stories coming out about the fbi looking around and trumps russian ties in this area of collusion. did you a

paul manafort, surprise, appeared on capitol hill, and his spokesman announced that paul manafort, surprise, had just testified to the intelligence committee on the russia matter. nobody had known that was going to happen before manafort turned up and his spokesman sprung it on everybody. it had been kept secret. that was july 25th. well, that night after midnight, on the 26th, paul manafort got his house raided in the predawn hours by the fbi. remember the no-knock warrant? taking pictures of the labels of his suits and all that stuff. he had been in communication, handing over documents, he and his lawyers thought they were in a constructive or voluntary dialog with robert mueller's office. that dialogue apparently did not extend to the special counsel's office knowing that paul manafort was about to go to congress to give them testimony and to give them documents. when manafort turned up on july 25th on capitol hill, surprise, it appears that the special counsel's office obtained their no-knock search warrant for paul manafort's office that day and executed it that night. his congression

that shows weissmann had prejudice against paul manafort. on top much his troubling history. wissmann led the obstruction case and enron. he destroyed that company and tens of thousands of people lost that job and the verdict was overturned with a 9- 0 ruling. weissmann put four maryland executives in jail for a year. that's why we have to question the decision of making robert mueller, why would he make these appointmentes of people like weissmann and only democratic donor. why given his history was he appointed and why would mueller fill the team to people who gave money to hillary clinton and dnrngs c and candidates like barak obama. and a follow-up to our exclusive reporting last night on the clinton bought and paid for phony "fake news" russian dossier with all of that salacious material that was used by the obama administration to literally survey members. campaign team or president-elect donald trump and members of his team. and just to give you an idea how serious this is. a source is telling me this is all going to be proven right. hannity you are way over the target

i'm not a big paul manafort man. i think he has a long career of accepting lucrative contracts that are at best sketchy from foreign money sources. but, having said that is it okay that we empower a special prosecutor with unlimited resources with the resources of the government, unlimited budget, endless time frame to go after whatever they want? that is an investigation in search of a crime which is the opposite of what we are supposed to do in america. we are supposed to investigate a crime committed. >> harris: legal experts, katie, that i talked with this morning are saying actually the idea of what you are talking about is within the scope and the framework of what they are allowed to do and that this might not go very far but it does have a political leaning. >> katie: it's a political tactic to put out there again that the special counsel is way beyond the russia collusion narrative. i don't know if that's to help paul manafort or the trump administration. in terms of the details of the complaint there are 18

what is paul manafort feeling so desperate about? today paul manafort and rick gates got sued by a putin-linked russian oligarch they used to do business with. oleg deripaska is his name. backer of work in soviet union. manafort and gates and their company tried to do deals together. seems like one went wrong. looks like deripaska gave manafort and company millions of dollars to try to buy a cable company in ukraine. don't seem to have bought the cable company and deripaska thinks his money went walkies, siphoned off at least in part by manafort and gates. we know that because he previously sued to try to get the money back in 2014. one of the intriguing story lines around paul manafort and his cash flow around the time running trump campaign and why he wanted to run it in first place. and mysterious communications during the campaign where he offered deripaska private briefings about the campaign and e-mailed whether campaign was something he could use to get whole when it came to deripaska. one of the intriguing parts of this, even

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how do you view this lawsuit by paul manafort? >> well, rachel, to call their basis for this lawsuit, i think, is overly generous. i mean, as solicitor general, i saw, you know, thousands and thousands of lawsuits, i mean, criminal defendants will often complain about the prosecutor expanding their jurisdiction or something. i've rarely seen a lawsthut frivolous. i mean, this thing is, to use the legal term, silly. basically, the argument is, well, the special counsel regulations written in 1999 only permit an original grant of jurisdiction to the prosecutor for cases in which there is no conflict of interest and i, paul manafort, yes, i might have been involved in shady dealing with the russians starting in 2005, but there isn't a conflict of interest for the justice department to investigation and so, mueller had to go back, according to manafort, and ask for additional authority from roe rosenstein to investigate the 2005 onward russian money laundering. there are a lot of problems with this, but the most important is that it's

i'm not sure what part of the word "all" paul manafort doesn't understand. but clearly, clearly, bob mueller has the authority to investigate money launder, tax evasion and efforts by paul manafort to engage in financial crimes involving the russian federation. >> and matt, modern political history, every prosecutor, every special counsel has ended up indicting people for crimes that are often very much unrelated from the original. scooter libby was charged with perjury. president clinton was -- i mean people lie. people commit other crimes during the process of any investigation. >> yeah there is a long history of this. in fact, rod rosenstein, when he testified before the house judiciary committee a couple of weeks ago said he has talked with bob mueller several times about what his mandate encompasses to the extent there was any uncertainty about what he was allowed to pursue, rod rosenstein has given him authorization to do everything that he has been doing. i think jeremy is right. this is completely baseless. >> let me ask you this. is a big night for

that said, paul manafort was not released from house arrest. awkwardly, paul manafort's lawyers asked if there was anyway he could be given special permission by the judge to leave his home, to go to a nearby gym to work out every day. the judge hearing that request from paul manafort's lawyers said no. told paul manafort's lawyers although she confined him to his house, she had not confined him to his couch. i kid you not. presumably this means we'll see a republican fundraiser in washington where they try to crowd, fund a nortic track. speaking of people that ran the donald trump for president campaign, the man who ran the campaign before paul manafort was corey lewandowski. he secured legal representation in advance of mr. lewandowski's house intelligence meeting. corey lewandowski's lawyer is most famous for representing ruth madoff in that famous multi billion-dollar bonzi scheme. to tell you the crazy day, consider the fact there were three people that ran the donald trump for president campaign. the first one was corey lun dieb d -- lewa

trump campaign chairman paul manafort was indicted on multiple felony charges. trial due to start may 2nd. today he and lawyers filed a civil lawsuit against robert mueller and justice department official who appointed him and oversees the investigation, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. i'm not a lawyer but i think it might be weird that manafort has filed this as civil lawsuit. wouldn't you just file this in his own case? but it's demanding that order appointed robert mueller be declared invalid, actions taken by him be voided, presumably voiding the indictment of paul manafort. and manafort is demanding order and judgment declaring that mr. mueller lacks authority to investigate business dealings not arising from original jurisdiction set out in the order that appointed him. close quote. sounds nuts. why is paul manafort doing this now? is this a legal hail mary as it appears to be? if this has no chance of ever prevailing in court, what else could he be doing this for? obviously if he won that last point, injunction from a court that says special couns

paul manafort, surprise, appeared on capitol hill, and his spokesman announced that paul manafort, surprise, had just testified to the intelligence committee on the russia matter. nobody had known that was going to happen before manafort turned up and his spokesman sprung it on everybody. it had been kept secret. that was july 25th. well, that night after midnight, on the 26th, paul manafort got his house raided in the predawn hours. taking pictures of the labels of his suits and all that stuff. he had been in communication, handing over documents, he and his lawyers thought they were in a constructive or voluntary dialog with robert mueller's office. that did not extend to the special counsel's office knowing that -- when he turned up out of the blue, surprise, it appears that the special counsel's office obtained their no-knock search warrant for paul manafort's office that day and executed it that night. his congressional testimony, his surprise congressional testimony and that raid on his house that night were apparently not unconnected events. after paul manafort appeared before the se

., paul manafort and the president's son-in-law jared kushner. trump jr. admitted a middleman promised dirt or hillary clinton from a russian lawyer. president trump has denied any collusion with russia. the white house said the president didn't know about the trump tower meeting. steve bannon says there's zero chance that is true according to the book. this afternoon, the president released a statement responding to bannon's comment and here it is in full. "steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. he lost his job and he lost his mind. steve was a staffer that worked for me after i already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the republican party. now that he's on his own, steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as i make it look. steve had very little to do with our historic delivery which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of our country. he had everything to do with the loss of the senate seat in alabama. steve is only in it for himself. he pretends to

manafort had helped bring him to power. >> paul manafort has for decades been the washington lobbyist and influence peddler around the world for a lot of the most vicious dictators we've seen. >> the question is, was manafort also linked to russia's strongman, vladimir putin? >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it absurd and there's no basis to it. >> but u.s. intelligence saw a different story. agents intercepted communications from suspected russian operatives appearing that manafort appeared to be asking for help. >> they describe him encouraging help, encouraging assistance to donald trump's campaign. >> his ties to russia go way back. he worked for a close associate of putin. oleg, one of a few wealthy oligarchs putin consults with regularly, according to a u.s. state department cable. >> he can pick up a phone to the oligarchs and say, hey, i need to get a message out and it gets done because he's vladimir putin and that's how the system works. >>less than two weeks before trump got nominated, manafort off

paul manafort was been indicted on money laundering. in a statement the justice department spokesperson said the lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants. joining me now is journalist carl bernstein and chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. >> i absolutely -- accurate. >> is there any merit to his suit. >> i think it is very unlikely to succeed. it is not a crazy idea. in 1987 when i was one of the junior members of the team that defended -- that prosecutors oliver north, he filed a similar lawsuit trying to get the case -- the walsh appointment, lawrence walsh the independent counsel, trying to get him disqualified. i think this is even less likely to succeed as north's suit did not succeed. it might have a somewhat bit e bett -- better chance as a motion to dismiss the indictment once he gets to trial as opposed to a entirely different lawsuit but just another example of how every tool is being used to try to discredit mueller. and now it is his -- now he doesn't have the right to do what he's doing.

paul manafort has been indicted on money laundering and other charges. in a statement from the justice department spokesperson said the lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants. joining me now is journalist carl bernstein and chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. >> a not-so legendary journalist. absolutely accurate. >> is there any merit to his suit? >> i think it is very unlikely to succeed. it is not a crazy idea. in 1987 when i was one of the junior members of the team that defended -- that prosecutors oliver north, he filed a similar lawsuit trying to get the case -- the walsh appointment, lawrence walsh, the independent counsel, trying to get him disqualified. i think this is even less likely to succeed as north's suit did not succeed. it might have a somewhat better chance as a motion to dismiss the indictment once he gets to trial as opposed to an entirely different lawsuit, but i think it's just another example of how every tool is being used to try to discredit mueller. and now it is his -- now he doesn't have

manafort had helped bring him to power. >> paul manafort has for decades been the washington lobbyist and influence peddler around the world for a lot of the most vicious dictators we've seen. >> the question is was manafort also linked to russia's strong man, vladimir putin? >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you and your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it absurd and there's no basis to it. >> but u.s. intelligence saw a different story. agents intercepted communications from suspected russian operatives asks for him. >> they describe him encouraging assistance to donald trump's campaign. >> reporter: his ties to russia go way back. he worked for a close associate of putin. oleg, one of a few wealouhew we oligarchs he consults with quickly. >> he can pick up a phone to the oligarchs and say, hey, i need to get a message out and it gets done because he's vladimir putin and that's how it works. >> manafort offered to brief him privately on how the campaign was going, according to "the washington post." >> it's not often that the russians get somebody to v

their case against paul manafort. it's all there. we don't know exactly what all of these notes mean. search warrants, paul manafort being paid through the ukrainian black ledger. we don't know what all of their notes mean. they're clearly some sort of internal work product that wasn't meant for the public, but we can tell this is not the right attachment. this is not something that was supposed to be filed with the court today let alone shown to everybody. so that happened tonight as well. and, you know, hey, lawyers make mistakes. and that brings us to the almost unbelievable third development in this story today. we're going to have more on this coming up a little later in the show. but a sharp-eyed legal affairs correspondent at cnn appears to have spotted a big new development related to the defense lawyers for the trump campaign personnel in this scandal. it's a development that suggests that robert mueller and his special counsel team may be about to flip somebody else. they may be about to get a new cooperatin

their case against paul manafort. it's all there. we don't know exactly what all of these notes mean. search warrants, paul manafort being paid through the ukrainian black ledger. we don't know what all of their notes mean. they're clearly some sort of internal work product that wasn't meant for the public, but we can tell this is not the right attachment. this is not something that was supposed to be filed with the court today, let alone shown to everybody. so that happened tonight as well. and, you know, hey, lawyers make mistakes. and that brings us to the almost unbelievable third development in this story today. we're going to have more on this coming up a little later in the show. but a sharp-eyed legal affairs correspondent at cnn appears to have spotted a big new development related to the defense lawyers for the trump campaign personnel in this scandal. it's a development that suggests that robert mueller and his special counsel team may be about to flip somebody else. they may be about to get a new cooperati

paul manafort is suing the department of justice and special counsel robert mueller. the former trump campaign chairman was indicted in october for money laundering among other charges. the lawsuit claims the doj granted mr. mueller carte blanche to investigate things beyond the scope of the special counsel investigation. in a statement the doj spokesman tells nbc news, quote, the lawsuit is frivolous, but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants. we're back with jeremy bash and matthew miller. jeremy, take this on for us. paul manafort seeing the justice department and robert mueller for going outside of the scope of what he was supposed to investigate, is that going to hold any water legally? >> zero. it's completely baseless. the rob rosenstein said it was onlimited by time and subject. i believe there was a quote that said bob mueller had the authority to investigate all -- >> and matt, in modern political history every special prosecutor, every special counsel has ended up indicting and charging people for crimes that are often very much unrelated from

paul manafort is suing the special counsel and the justice department over the russia probe. he's challenging robert mueller's authority to charge him with alleged crimes that have nothing to do with the 2016 campaign. i'll get reaction from senator mark warner tonight, and our correspondents and specials are standing by. let's go to jim acosta. this trump bannon grudge match is truly extraordinary. so are so many claims in this new book. >> reporter: absolutely. the new year is starting off with a bang in the white house. a war of words between president trump and steve bannon, their disagreement could not be more crucial to the future of the administration, that is whether or not the president's own son committed treasonous during the campaign. but the president is furious for going after the first family. as one source in the white house told me, they are holding nothing back at the white house. the gloves inside trump world and off and the fists are flying between president trump and steve bannon. an excerpt from bannon's new book established by "new york magazine" he wei

he was the one that looped in paul manafort and jared kushner. he's even quoted in one e-mail saying he loved the idea of getting dirt on hillary clinton that these russians were offering. perhaps the most fascinating moment appears where steve bannon appears to offer a olive branch to president trump even touting his own abilities as a messenger for the make america great movement. he writes, quote, i'm the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of trump and trumpism and remain ready to stand in the breach for this president's efforts to make america great again. we should note here that, for several days now, we've seen attacks the on steve bannon coming from the president's surrogates as well as the president himself, just yesterday referring to steve bannon as sloppy steve. you also noted some of that reporting and cnn has been able to confirm that over the past few days the president has reached out to friends and allies to essentially draw a line in the sand and say either they stand with him and the white hous

president's former campaign chairman paul manafort indicted on nine counts. his deputy campaign chairman rick gates indicted on eight count, granted for money laundering, no small thing, prior to the campaign. but for wrong-doing. his form am national security adviser pled guilty, lying to the fbi about contacts with russians. his george papadopoulos they call the coffee boy, although he was present in many meetings dispatched for overseas trips, including the for the possibly for meeting for dirt on hillary clinton. he pled guilty for a federal crime, lying to the fbi, he has been cooperating like michael flynn. so the idea that this netted nothing doesn't stand up to the facts. and if it's going nowhere, why is the special counsel if it sitting down with 15 and current members of the trump administration, including jeff sessions the first cabinet member to do so and why sit fess to speak with the president of the occupation on these questions? >> lauren, you can get in, just to get in, rotd rosenstein, mike rogers, sam clovis, sean schmeiser, jared kushner,

the president's former campaign chairman paul manafort indicted on nine counts. his deputy campaign chairman rick gates indicted on eight count, granted for money laundering, no small thing, prior to the campaign. but for wrongdoing. his formal national security adviser pled guilty, lying to the fbi about contacts with russians. his george papadopoulos they call the coffee boy, although he was present in many meetings dispatched for overseas trips, including the for the possibly for meeting for dirt on hillary clinton. he pled guilty for a federal crime, lying to the fbi, he has been cooperating like michael flynn. so the idea that this netted nothing doesn't stand up to the facts. and if it's going nowhere, why is the special counsel sitting down with 15 and current members of the trump administration, including jeff sessions the first cabinet member to do so and why sit fess to speak with the president of the united states on these questions? >> lauren, you can get in, just to get in, rod rosenstein, mike rogers, sam clovis, sean spicer, jared kushner, stephen

this sounds insane to me. >> it sounds like paul manafort which is a little insane and donald trump and his whole team could have known that before they hired him because he's been doing this for decades he's very well known in campaign circles who paul manafort is and what he was doing in russia and what kind of fellow he is overall. the doj will dismiss this as a frivolous suit. i think it's what it is. i'm not a lawyer but i can read really well and it's just more indications of how hard everyone in the trump orbit is sweating the mueller probe and i think that has a lot to do also with donald trump's fire towards steve bannon for the comments about don jr. and jared kushner and paul manafort taking that meeting at trump tower saying it's treason to have done that in the first place and you call the fbi when someone contacts with you with that kind information so paul manafort is doing his thing and he wants to the hamptons every fourth weekend but i don't think it's largely making a difference in what happens with the probe. >> i don't think the hamptons right now are the place to b

manafort had helped bring him to power. >> paul manafort has, for decades, been the washington lobbyist and influence-peddler around the world for a lot of the most vicious dictators we've seen. >> the question is, was manafort also linked to russia's strongman, vladimir putin? >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you, or your campaign, and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it's absurd. there's no basis to it. >> but u.s. intelligence saw a different story. agents intercepted communications from suspected russian operatives indicating that manafort appeared to be asking them for help. >> they describe him as essentially encouraging help. encouraging the russians to provide assistance to donald trump's campaign. >> manafort's ties to russia go way back. he worked for a close associate of putin. >> is it true that mr. manafort owed you millions of dollars -- >> oleg deripaska, one of a few wealthy oligarchs putin consults with regularly according to a u.s. state department cable. >> he can pick up the phone to the oligarchs and say, i need to get a message out to this americ

and trying so to say when he talked about the meeting being treasonous it was referring to paul manafort, but he also talked about a money laundering issue to jared kushner and that that is the path robert mueller will follow to take down donald trump. and there's no apology in here to kushner, no retraction of those claims. and -- >> it was really just shifting the blame to paul manafort and taking it off of don june fior saying it was treasonous, the meeting in trump tower. >> and if he says he said mean things about donald trump jr., this is to walk that back, but i think the serious issue with the president is basically about there being this criminal activity that is going to bring him down. that seems like something that probably is upsetting the president a great deal, especially since it's an accusation about his son-in-law. but kushner and bannon, who were at each other's throats much of the time that both of them were in the white house, he seems to be trying to declare a truce with don junior without declaring a truce with don junior's brother-in-law. >> kushner. and his wife.

their path to expletive trump goes right through paul manafort, don jr. and jared kushner. it's as plain on the hair on your face. the president blasted bannon, his former adviser, saying he's only in it for himself. the book written by journalist michael wolff also has strong words for the president's daughter ivanka and her husband jared. they accepted roles in the west wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. if some time in the future the opportunity arose, she'd be the one to run for president. the first woman president, ivanka entertained, would not be hillary clinton, it would be ivanka trump. >> and that right there is summarizing what is bad blood to put it mildly between steve bannon and ivanka and jared kushner. no question about that. it was obvious here during all of steve bannon's time at the white house. now one lingering question here is did michael wolff interview the president directly or not? he says he had inside access, and, in fact, we have seen michael wolff here repeatedly over the first year of the presidency. he is here as often as some w

but first, a look at paul manafort. frank foer writes the cover story for the "atlantic" entitled "american hustler." in it he details manafort's interactions with the governments of russia and ukraine before the 2016 election began. he writes in part "a paul manafort deputy once boasted to a group of lobbyist that in every ministry he has a guy. only a small handful of americans, oil executives, cold war spy masters could claim to have ever have amassed such influence in a foreign regime. the power helped fill manafort's bank accounts, according to his recent indictment he had tens of millions of dollars stashed in havens like cyprus and the grenadines. manafort profited from the sort of excesses that make a country ripe for revolution. manafort's role in mueller's broader narrative remains carefully guarded and unknown to the public and his personal corruption is less significantly, ultimately, than his lifetime role as a corrupter of the american system that he would be accused of helping foreign power subvert americ

., paul manafort, jared kushner and russians unpatriotic and treasonous. today the president's former chief strategist is clearly trying to mend fences. listen. a. >> by the way, nothing will ever come between us and president trump and his agenda. don't worry about that. >> kaitlan collins at the white house. i'm not sure the president sees it that way, but what else can you tell us? >> yeah. especially after the president issued a very lengthy statement yesterday saying that steve bannon had lost his mind. poppy and john, the excerpts are continuing to dominate the news cycle and this book has not even been published yet with more coming out this morning including one where michael wolff writes that jared kushner and ivanka trump not only two of the top aides to the president in the white house but his own family, were trying to distance themselves from the president just six months in to the administration in trying to save themselves from them, and michael wolff quotes steve bannon saying the daughter will bring down the father. steve bannon and ivanka

he said my comments were aimed at paul manafort. a seasoned campaign professor with experience and knowledge of how the russians operate. he should have known they are cunning and not our friends. to reiterate the comments were not aimed at don jr. the subtext being that paul manafort should have known better and donald trump jr. did not. further we should note that donald trump jr. said that he loved the idea of getting dirt on hillary clinton that the russians were offering as he is quoted as aing in saying in an e-mail. he timeouts his own ability for the make america great again movement. he writes i am the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of trump and trumpism and to stand in the breech to make america great again. the statement coming on the heels of several attacks from trump surrogates and the president himself on steve bannon. just yesterday calling steve bannon sloppy steve and as you said, cnn confirmed reporting that they reached out to friends and allies to essentially tell them they

i mean, he was never supposed to talk to paul manafort. he talked to paul manafort until the attorneys said you can't do that anymore. he still talks to roger stone. this will pass. and then when he gets frustrated with the political advice he's getting inside the white house, he'll talk to -- he'll talk to steve bannon again. i mean, this is the way this president operates. he doesn't ever discard anybody permanently because he wants everybody to come back in the fold and adore him again. and so i think that, you know, i think that is likely to continue. i do think, though, that people are going to try to use this, as dana points out, to drive a wedge so that the president would be more likely to listen to mcconnell and corey cory gardner, who runs the senate campaign committee, about which candidates the president ought to support. >> and where does steve bannon -- where is his great power? what has he accomplished, you know, since november? he got a democrat elected from the senate in alabama. >> right. >> which seemed impossible. >> ri

here's the thing, weissmann was discussing paul manafort with the reporters and joined mueller's team where he's leading the case against manafort. now, he was prejudging the case, prejudiced. massive conflict of interest. we obviously see what's going on here. and then there's weissmann's disturbing history. why would robert mueller ever appoint this guy that led the obstruction of justice case against arthur andersen accounting and the enron scandal, tens of thousands of people lost their jobs. they're out of business. thank you weissmann. the supreme court overturned a ruling 9-0 in the case. his job was a mess. people, by the way, exculpatory evidence that he withheld. also responsible for putting four merrill lynch executives behind bars. you might not care but guess what, they were innocent, convictions overturned by the fifth u.s. circuit court of appearance. you would care if it was your family. robert mueller did he check weissmann's history? no, he knew it, they're best friends. mueller can't mind members of his investigation donated $50,000 to obama-clinton and the dnc, not

manafort, the trump organization and the russians righ now. have you seen evidence, direct evidence beyond what glenn simpson said? >> beyond glenn simpson, yes -- evidence is not a conclusion. somebody saying i know they were using real estate to have the russians invest in real estate

paul manafort is fighting back by suing bob mueller. alleging mueller's investigation went beyond his mandate . great to have both of you. i want to you reconcile this. what is it that paul manafort is arguing that doesn't jive with what he's being charged with by bob mueller? >> well, he's arguing that mueller's mandate is too broad. that the order that was written instructing mueller how to proceed violates the special counsel rules. as the legal scholar kathleen clark has pointed out, the order did not cite the special counsel statute. it cited some other laws and appeared to give mueller very broad authority to investigate whatever he deems necessary. and rosenstein testified that mueller was well within his mandate. the other point he's making, he was investigated in 2014 for his work, consulting in ukraine and for his offshore banking. he was interviewed by the fbi and no charges resulted. and he's saying it's unfair that mueller came in and undied me on this. but we know that mueller's team learned a lot of new information from t

according to the civil complain complaint, paul manafort and his legal team argue the rush probe has gone beyond the scope of the special counsel regulations. calling robert mueller's investigation from the original mandate. >> there may be a fair legal question about the scope of the independent prosecutor's jurisdiction. judge jackson will decide that. the judge that actually has the criminal case in front of her is the one who's going to have the final say on it. >> at october, paul manafort and his business partner pled not guilty to allegations of money-laundering and making making false statements. the attorneys are under a gag order but said at the time there's no russia connection. >> those activities ended in 2014. over two years before mr. paul manafort served in the trump campaign. >> reading "the new york times" the opposition research firm behind the unverified trump dossier called on congress to release transcripts of the testimony. cofounders of fusion gps said they do not believe the dossier alone sparked the fbi russia case. republican senator chuck grassley called o

the thing, he was discussing paul manafort with the reporters and then joined mueller's team where he is leading the case against manafort. he was prejudging the case, prejudiced, a massive conflict of interest.ha we obviously see what's going on. and then there is weissmann's disturbing history on top of it. why would robert mueller ever a point this guy that plied the obstruction of justice case against arthur andersen accounting and the enron scandal back in the 2,000s? tens of thousands of people lost their jobs. they are out of business. thank you, weissmann. the supreme court overturned a ruling, 9-0, in the case. weissmann's job was a mess. exculpatory evidence in one case thathe he withheld. also responsible for reporting four merrill lynch executives behind bars. you might not care about merrill lynch guys but guess what, they were innocent, their convictions also overturned. this time by the fifth u.s. circuit court of appeals. you would care if you it was your family. did robert mueller ever check's history? mueller didn't mind the members of his investigation donated 50 gr

basically is saying -- >> or paul manafort. >> and he does not like paul manafort but he's basically following the money. and the backdrop to anybody who has talked to steve bannon knows he's constantly spinning his perspective on this. and if he hates jared kushner and paul manafort, this could be his spin on this. >> sure, he does not like them. the don jr. shots he was taking, saying they will crack him like an egg on national tv. but his overall suggestion was that mueller is going to try to get don jr. and jared kushner essentially to flip and deliver donald trump. and, you know, that is -- for someone that he worked with for this long -- >> in the oval office. >> correct. is really significant. and even as things go with steve bannon in terms of being bombastic in what he says, it stands out. >> this is not the only development when it comes to the russia investigation today. this is new this morning, but overnight you flagged something else. over the last year, the name that has popped up in the headlines a time or two, fusion gps. this is a research firm, of course, that was

seize heing michael flynn and paul manafort, and is a little scared of what's next for him. >> michael steele, i was not surprised today, but still think it was a missed opportunity by the president, when he immediately jumps into everything about this is a hoax. this is an excuse for the democrats for losing. by the way, there was a report today about how the u.s. election system, we basically, are not prepared for the current attacks that are likely coming from the russians today. he doesn't ever mention that threat. everybody else does. does that not make him look guilty? >> well, not guilty, at least clueless. i think that the lack of sincerity on this subject of voter integrity with respect to what russians -- we know what the russians did in 2016. we're going into what will be a pivotal election this fall, you know, chuck, where there are going to be a lot of questions raised about ballot security. you're already beginning to see that. the supreme courts are starting to throw out the -- lines have been drawn by various state legislators. it will be a tumultuous cycle and the pres

paul manafort pleaded not guilty to, among other charges, money laundering. you'll hear more about them later in this story. but one lesser known player is also in the hot seat, donald trump first mentioned him at a meeting with "washington post" editors in 2016. >> george papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy. >> excellent guy george papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi in the russia investigation. >> mr. president you called george papadopoulos an excellent guy. what's your reaction? >> thank you very much. >> the trump team has been working overtime to portray him as a nobody. >> this individual was a member of a voluntary advisory council. >> he's the coffee boy. if he was going to wear a wire all we know is if he prefers a caramel macchiato over regular coffee. >> but the coffee boy found his way to the big boy table with donald trump and other campaign people. >> he doesn't know how to even make coffee. >> the fiancee of george papadopoulos says he was much more than a coffee boy. >> he attended many events and en

manafort had helped bring him to power. >> paul manafort has for decades been the washington lobbyist and influence peddler around the world for a lot of the most vicious dictators we've seen. >> the question is was manafort also linked to russia's strong man, vladimir putin? >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you and your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it's absurd and there's no basis to it. >> but u.s. intelligence saw a different story. agents intercepted communications from suspected russian operatives, indicating manafort appeared to be asking them for help. >> they describe him essentially encouraging help, encouraging the russians to provide assistance to donald trump's campaign. >> manafort's ties to russia go way back. he worked for a close associate of putin. >> is it true mr. manafort owes you millions of dollars? >> olhoh, one of the few wealthy oligarchs he consults with quickly. >> he can pick up a phone to the oligarchs and say, hey, i need to get a message out and it gets done because he's vladimir putin and that's how it works. >> less

he describes a 2016 don junior jared kushner and paul manafort had with a group of russians to reportedly get dirt on hillary clinton >> he wrote the guys thought it was a good idea to meet with the foreign government inside trump tower with no lawyer, they didn't have any lawyer, even if you thought that was not treason us patriotic, and i happen to think it was all of that you should have called the fbi immediately. we should also points outlet there's no evidence that donald trump senior met with the russian that is day, but the book includes excerpts and interesting stories about donald trump not expecting to or even wanting to -- wanting to win and steve bannon cussing and calling i ivanka and liar in the oval office and his dad looking at her and simply telling her this is a tough town, baby >> ronica cleary is live on this one tonight. >>> jim and shawn i think the bomb cyclone hit the white house a day let me tell you i cannot imagine what it must have been like when a few people in the white house got copies of that book. sarah hackabee-sanders did say there may be copies floatin

., jared kushner and paul manafort that promised dirt on hillary clinton from the russians. quote, even if you thought this was not treasonous or unpatriotic or bad expletive, and i happen to think it's all of that, bannon said, you should have called the fbi immediately. bannon also suggested that candidate trump may have been involved in the meeting. according to the book, bannon said, quote, the chance that don junior did not walk those jumos up to his father's office on the 26th floor is zero. donald trump has denied having knowledge of the meeting until it came to light a year later. the russian lawyer tells nbc news that she and her cohorts in the june 2016 trump tower meeting did not meet or see then candidate donald trump despite bannon suggested otherwise to michael wolff she told nbc news, quote, absolutely not true. whether or not trump met the participants that day, did he know about the meeting? and the timeline surrounding that june 26 meeting is actually quite intriguing. on june 3rd, 2016, rob goldstone promised incriminating information on clinton. don junio