manafort's guy in ukraine. but they let him go. they let him go to russia, where mueller definitely will not be able to get to him. and ukrainian lawmakers are explaining they did this to try to keep president trump happy. so there is a lot going on today. the president got new russia lawyers today. he fired ty cobb who has been one of his russia lawyers from the very beginning. the president is making even more explicit threats today to the justice department and their ability to continue independently with this investigation in this country. and you see them making those threats as donald trump, and we're all kind of inured to it, this is the what he is like, this is how he talks, this is how he thinks, this this is what he wants. he is not just making those threats as donald trump. he is making those threats as president. and the american presidency has global reach. and the rule of law is beloved everywhere. but it is only strong in certain places at certain times, depending on what people are willing to st

manafort's guy in ukraine. but they let him go. they let him go to russia, where mueller definitely will not be able to get to him. and ukrainian lawmakers are explaining that they did this to try to keep president trump happy. so, there's a lot going on today. the president got new russia lawyers today. he fired ty cobb, who has been one of his russia lawyers from the very beginning. the president is making even more explicit threats today to the justice department and their ability to continue independently with this investigation in this country. and you see them making those threats as donald trump, and we're all kind of inured to it, this is the what he is like, this is how he talks, this is how he thinks, this is what he wants. but he's not just making those threats as donald trump. he's making those threats as president, and the american presidency has global reach. and the rule of law is beloved everywhere. but it is only strong in certain places at certain times, depending on what people are willing to

manafort. you care about information that mr. manafort can lead you to mr. trump and impeachment or whatever. and the judge went on to say you want manafort to sing and slamming the scope of the mueller investigation saying we don't want anyone with unfettered power and mocked the special counsel. saying this is what the investigation is about but we are not bound by it. and we were lying. the federal judge confirmed everything we said on the show for months. there is nothing that mueller will not do to malign the president and it is always about trump and not the people. and the president at the nra reacted to ellis' stunning beat down of mueller and take a look. >> none of that information has to do with information related to the russian government coordination and the campaign of donald trump. it doesn't have going to do. then how does this have going to do with the campaign, the judge asked? let me tell you, folks, we are all fighting battles and i love it. >> sean: equal application over the law and a battle over the constitution and according to our p

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 som

quote, come on, man, you don't care about manafort, you care about what information manafort can give you to lead to mr. trump and an impeachment. the mueller team refuels to show their authority. judge ellis demands to see the rosenstein secret memo, unredacted. the one that house republicans thought for months -- sought for months saying that information is that within the scope of that investigation. we don't want anyone with unfettered powers, said the judge. the court sums up the mueller team argument, quote, we said this is what the investigation is about but we are not bound by what we said and we are lying anyway. by saying their authority is not judicially enforceable, the mueller team is basically telling a united states federal judge that their authority cannot be challenged through the courts. it's time to end the mueller-comey-rosenstein cabal once and for all. and that's my open. tell me what you think on my facebook, twitter and instagram, hashtag judge jeaninejoining mef new york and attorney for president trump. i would like to get your reaction to my opening statemen

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

manafort. you care about information mr. manafort can give you to lead you to mr. trump and an impeachment or whatever." the judge went on to say, "you want manafort to sing." and judge ellis also clamming the scope of mueller's investigation, saying, "we don't want anyone with unfettered power." and the judge even mocked the special counsel saying, "we said this was what the investigation was about, but we're not bound by it. and we were lying." a federal judge just confirmed everything we have been saying on this show for months. there is nothing mueller will not do to malign this president, everyone around him. it's always been about trump, not these other people. during a speech the president was giving at the nra, he reacted to this. take a look. >> none of that information has to do with information related to the russian government coordination and the campaign of donald trump. it doesn't have anything to do. it's from years before. then, how does this have anything to do with the campaign, the judge asked. let me tell you, folks, we're all fighting battles,

manafort's long-time 10ty. deputy. >> that's right. manafort has two trials coming up. one july, one september, on those indictments that special counsel mueller's team brought against him alleging allegations of tax fraud and bank fraud. and so the question will be what does yohie have, if anything, to offer the investigators in that case? he could be called as a witness if he has something relevant to those investigations. and that's something that we'll see how that plays out the next couple of months. >> kara, thank you very much. former nixon white house counsel john dean, white house correspondent for american urban radio networks april ryan, and former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york harry sandick. harry, paul manafort obviously is a very important player here. he was the chairman of the president's campaign. he was in that meeting in trump tower. you now have his deputy rick gates and his former son-in-law essentially flipping. so what is the significance of his son-in-law flipping when you talk about -- talking about l.a. and new y

you've had manafort's former deputy, rick gates, plead. but manafort has held out. and the question is, does manafort have something to offer the government about the campaign, or does he not have anything to offer? why is it that he's unwilling to plea? he says, look, i've done nothing wrong here. this is part of the witch hunt. they're looking at things that they never wanted to investigate. they're just trying to put leverage against me. in many cases on the stuff that they're looking at with his work in the ukraine, it's documents. and that's usually a pretty good case for the government. >> yeah. >> so the larger thing that people in trump world wonder is, what is it that's holding manafort up? why is it that he's unwilling to do like gates did and cooperate in that fashion? and we still don't know that. and he's taken a very aggressive approach, particularly on filing these motions, trying to get the government sort of in the same way that devin nunes is to cough up more documents about the investigation, to reveal more, to give them more stuff to go after mue

they're charging a man, manafort, all manafort who you know, who was five months the chairman of the trump campaign, charging him to get at president trump. and by the way, it's pretty obvious that that's exactly what they're doing. >> there's no question about that. the sins of manafort are past sins, didn't happen in this campaign. and i think at the end of the day they're under investigation and probably could have indicted him on these charges whether he went on the campaign or not. but to mix it all together. the judge summed it up right. they're trying to squeeze paul, find him got and then try to make him turn on the president and there's nothing for him to turn on the president with. lou: it looks to me -- i'm very serious about this. it looks to me that right now the president has turned an important corner, whether it's the special count lel, russia, nortcounsel, russia,north koread mutual trid relationships, restoring prosperity for all americans, he's done all of this in -- not even quite 16 months in office. she'he's moved and has momentumd it looks to me like it's going

manafort could give you that would reflect on mr. trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever." the "or whatever" is the best part. wow. the judge pointed out that the investigation into trump attorney michael cohen was determined to be unrelated to the special counsel's primary work and so in the michael cohen case that one wasn't brought forward by the special counsel's office and robert mueller's team. instead they referred that one out to federal prosecutors in new york. so the judge today really lambasted all of the special counsel's prosecutors, but then he asked this really, really interesting and sort of intriguing question. if the michael cohen case can become just a local prosecution in new york, why can't the paul manafort case become a local prosecution in d.c. or indeed in virginia? decent question. why does one of them get halved off and one of them still pursued by mueller's prosecutors themselves? so far we've seen nothing in the prosecutor's filings in the manafort case that shows a connection to russ

manafort could give you that would reflect on mr. trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever." the "or whatever" is the best part. wow. the judge pointed out that the investigation into trump attorney michael cohen was determined to be unrelated to the special counsel's primary work and so in the michael cohen case that one wasn't brought forward by the special counsel's office and robert mueller's team. instead they referred that one out to federal prosecutors in new york. so the judge today really lambasted all the special counsel's prosecutors. but then he asked this really, really interesting and sort of intriguing question. if the michael cohen case can become just a local prosecution in new york, why can't the paul manafort case become a local prosecution in d.c. or indeed in virginia? decent question. why does one of them get halved off and one of them still pursued by mueller's prosecutors themselves? so far we've seen nothing in the prosecutor's filings in the manafort case that shows a connection to russian

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

attorney investigating the former son-in-law of paul manafort. >> from coast to coast, manafort has a wide cast he can use to manipulate situations in ways that are lawful. he can have people cooperate in the endeavors, apply pressure to people like paul manafort. he is the former son-in-law, divorced in august. as of last june, mueller was sending people out to investigate and interview him about his close business ties to paul manafort. it is important to consider. he is somebody that had information on different loan operations, loans for properties in new york and other places. even lived in one of the places that allegedly may be source of the investigation for mueller, so he has a lot of information. also, we knew rick gates was cooperating, presumably against paul manafort, as his right hand man, would have a lot of information. now you have someone we don't know what the relationship was between he and his father-in-law. perhaps a vendetta, ax to grind. the plea agreement, we're not sure whether he is specifically bounld bound to cooperate in the mueller probe or other investi

with manafort or manafort was communicating with someone about potentially help in the campaign, russians, helping the campaign. in the 49 questions, there is a lot of little ones kind of that really paint a bigger picture of exactly what mueller has here and what he's looking at. certainly it goes to the question of obstruction, right. and that has to do with comey and the firing of the former fbi director. but specifically what mueller is asking for here is regarding the decision to fire mr. comey, when was it made, why and who played a role in it. that is an important part because it was over a weekend in new jersey, the weekend before he was fired, the fbi director, and people were there with the president before he made that decision. it was jared kushner and steven miller. that has certainly come up in our reporting as well. the other thing this really shows us is that there are questions about his business dealings. during the campaign, potentially, with russia. and that's relating to michael cohen who is now obviously in the news -- facing potential criminal charges, felix seder,

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

. >> lou: manafort. >> mueller will get a dressing down to the manafort case. it appears that mueller didn't have authority to bring the charges against manafort. that would take the wind out of the sails of manafort. i think guiliani is hoping to exploit that if it happens. >> lou: taking the wind out of mueller's sails. he has an overwhelming camp to the entire operation. nearly all of them activist and democrats and left wingers with a history of prosecutorial abuse and extraordinary close ties in two instances is hillary clinton. >> it is legitimate to call in to question robert muller's judgment. >> lou: and integrity. >> he has a fine reputation. >> lou: and you are required to be impartial and you do this? 13angry democrats? >> muller saboitaged his own investigation by failing to recognize the mandatory recuesal and selecting a team of hyper partisans and going after paul manafort on old charges for which he was largely cleared. >> lou: let's talk about that for a minute. i was unaware of it until last week, and that is, that he took these closed files

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

gates has pled guilty, while manafort denies any of those charges. we understand that tom barrack was not asked about his personal relationship with the president, whom, as you noted, he's known for more than 40 years. 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

manafort's bank fraud. instead, the judge continued on to say they were only interested in manafort because of what he could provide that would lead to the president's quote prosecution or impeachment. that's what you're really interested in. and the judge, he didn't stop there. he continued on 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 power to do anything he or she wants. they feel strongly no one has unfettered power, so the judge really seeping to echo the president and also echoing paul manafort's lawyers, who have argued that the charges in virginia on mostly bank fraud and financial crimes, they don't relate to the campaign. just go too far under the special counsel's mandate. 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

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

judge in manafort case says mueller's aim is to hurt trump. do you believe that? this is what we're up -- it's called a witch-hunt. folks, we are all fighting battles, but i love fighting these battles. >> donald trump today seizes on a federal judge's skepticism about who should prosecute paul manafort, bob mueller or other independent federal prosecutors in virginia. this judge hitting mueller's team with several tough questions on that front, but bob mueller's prosecutors had an answer. they say they followed the money and found that these allegations against manafort are still tied to their collusion investigation. meanwhile, cnbc reporting mueller is focusing sharply on rick gates and his links to trump aide roger stone. if you watched "the beat" you know we've covered roger stone a lot. he is a long time confidant to president trump, he pushed trump to consider running for president as far back as the '80s. in a moment we will hear from a filmmaker that spent five years embedded with roger stone for the documentary "get me roger stone". >> roger always wante

anti—corruption agency later stopped its investigation into mr trumps former campaign manager, paul manafort. mr cohen denies taking the payment. there were also denials from the two men named as intermediaries, and from a lawyer for mr cohen's alleged partner, felix sater. in the past few minutes, petro poroshenko's administration has described the claims of a secret payment as a "flagrant lie". this report from our producer in new york suzanne kianpour and correspondent paul wood in kiev. donald trump's run for the us presidency was watched with alarm by ukraine's government, dismayed by his apparently pro—russian rhetoric. then trump had a setback. 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

manafort and this man had a falling out, he was pursuing manafort for millions of dollars. he thought he had stiffed him in a ukrainian cable deal, and this is all while manafort is about to take over the campaign. he's being hounded by this putin-connected oligarch, and how does putin respond? he starts e-mailing with his trusted deputy -- >> [inaudible] >> manafort responds saying maybe we can offer briefings, private briefings on the campaign. he's giving him -- >> he tried to leverage his position. >> leverage his position with the trump campaign. >> but think about -- yeah. thinking about what he's offering. he's not just offering information to the oligarch, he's offering information to putin. if you give this information to the oligarch, you have to expect or assume it's going to go elsewhere. and, you know, if you're -- and starting june 14, 2016, is the day that "the washington post" reveals that the dnc has been hacked. and right away, you know, the news reporting is that the russians are behind it. so at that point in time, any point from that point on, if you're

manafort could give you that would reflect on mr. trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever." the "or whatever" is the best part. wow. the judge pointed out that the investigation into trump attorney michael cohen was determined to be unrelated to the special counsel's primary work and so in the michael cohen case that one wasn't brought forward by the special counsel's office and robert mueller's team. instead they referred that one out to federal prosecutors in new york. sought judge today really lambasted all the special counsel's prosecutors. but then he asked this really, really interesting and sort of intriguing question. if the michael cohen case can become just a local prosecution in new york, why can't the paul manafort case become a local prosecution in d.c. or indeed in virginia? decent question. why does one of them get halved off and one of them still pursued by mueller's prosecutors themselves? so far we've seen nothing in the prosecutor's filings in the manafort case that shows a connection to russian

ellis -- lou: manafort? >> mueller would get a dressing down in the manafort case. because according to the judge so far, it appears that mueller didn't have authority to bring charges against manafort. that would take the wind out of the sails of mueller. and i think giuliani is wanting to exploit that if it happens. lou: what is it that takes the wind out of mueller's sails. think about this. he has an overwhelming etiological can't to his entire operation, nearly all of them activist democrats left-wingers with a history of prosecutorial abuse, many of them, and extraordinarily close ties in two instance to hillary clinton. >> right. it's legitimate to call into question robert mueller's judgment in this case. lou: his integrity also. >> well -- lou: what kind of integrity do you have when you're a special counsel and that you are -- and you are required to be impartial and you do this, as the president describes them, 13 angry democrats. >> mueller sabotaged his own investigation, first of all, by failing to recognize a mandatory recusal. his conflict of interes

, wasn't really interested in manafort and crimes there, but was using manafort as a way to try to get the president on impeachment or something else. now, he didn't issue a ruling. still plenty of suspense about where this is going. certainly today the president is claiming this represents some form of vindication for him. >> yeah. you know, steve, i've been a prosecutor before. i've felt the heat from a judge. the government's got to prove its case. you know, that's the job of the judge and ultimately a jury to make sure that they can prove each part beyond a reasonable doubt. 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 manaf

manafort had been cleared. and he commandeered those documents and brought charges against manafort. and the judge sees through this. lou: he raided manafort's home. >> oh, yeah. lou: who was a cooperating -- who was cooperating with the special counsel and agents, apparently with guns drawn, kick in the door in the predawn raid and frisking manafort's wife for cryin' out loud. >> this is what james comey has wrought. a lack of respect for the law, manipulating the law. lou: by the people who are supposed to be enforcing the law. >> so the law enforcers are the lawbreakers. and before it's all said and done, what we're going to find is that all of the people who were protecting hillary clinton to allow her to become president and sought to destroy donald trump will end up being criminally investigated and some may face criminal charges, comey most of all. lou: as you read everything that's gone wrong here for the special counsel, for the justice department, for the fbi, after two years after investigation by th

jeffrey yohai was once a manafort business partner, was divorced from manafort's daughter last august. both reuters and nbc news

, wasn't really interested in manafort and crimes there, but was using manafort as a way to try to get the president on impeachment or something else. now, he didn't issue a ruling. still plenty of suspense about where this is going. i'm curious about your reaction. certainly today the president is claiming this represents some form of vindication for him. >> yeah. you know, steve, i've been a prosecutor before. i've felt the heat from a judge. the government's got to prove its case. you know, that's the job of the judge and ultimately a jury to make sure that they can prove each part beyond a reasonable doubt. 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

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

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

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 able to see it. that will no doubt cast a little bit more light for this judge on just how broadly the special counsel's powers are. we got a glimpse of this

that manafort colluded with russia in russia's effort to interfere in the election and manafort committed crimes with respect to payments he received when he worked for that pro-russia ukrainian dictator. then the whole rest of the page. and maybe that stuff that's blacked out is more stuff that mueller is cleared to investigate about manafort. maybe it's more stuff that mueller is cleared to investigate açe>m0q other people. we can't tell. but that three-page memo with the big redactions, it was put in a public court filing by robert mueller's office last month, so rebut#rñ this civil c from paul manafort. 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

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

indicting manafort. 2005? the president didn't know manafort in 2005. if he did, there was no meaningful relationship. >> laura: the story broken by the russian oligarch visited by the fbi in new york. he is on the sanctions list. visited by the fbi. they said we have this idea that paul manafort was colluding with the russians for the trump campaign. do you want to help us? and a person who can't stand manafort said i can't like this guy. the idea that manafort is colluding, he law enforcement officers them out of the room. it doesn't look was disclosed.uf the room. it doesn't look was disclosed. >> if we walked into a hearing with them, i don't know what they would not tell us. i know they have plenty -- it's about time to get the darn thing over with. say enough. we tortured this president enough. meanwhile, look at what he accomplished with all of this on his back. it's like a big weight on his back. korea and china. >> laura: michael said this. >> if there is a conflict of interest, it would jeopardize the investigation. >> that's right. what about