paul manafort, i do. there are a number of forfeiture allegations in this case. without going into detail, i want to make sure that you understand as a result of this plea agreement, you're agreeing to the forfeiture to a considerable amount of property. do you understand that includes 377 union street? paul manafort. also, howard street. >> i do. it includes the jobs lane new york. and funds seized from an contract from capital one. i do. and another federal bank. an insurance policy with northwestern mutual. i do. and real property at baxter street in new york. i do. and real property at fifth avenue in new york. i do. he's forfeiting all of those things, bank accounts, insurance policy, lots and lots of real estate to the government. the government says he defrauded the government of $15 million that he didn't pay taxes on. part of that made up is to hand over his ill-gotten gains and the things he attained as real estate. but that last question there from the judge, real property at baxter street in n

paul manafort will not be an appealing witness. it's going to take a whole lot of detergent to clean him up before they put him on the stand at a criminal trial. but we have taken some of the worst of the worst people over the years as prosecutors and put them on the stand, the henry hil hills of the world. it's because they're so dirty for such a long period of time that they have inside information about others with whom they were doing their dirt. we heard a clip from paul manafort recently bragging about how, you know, i've known mr. trump for 20 years or more, and this was before things went south for mr. manafort rs but you know, there's no telling what kind of information mr. manafort is going to be able to provide the prosecutors, but most importantly, he was the campaign chairman for four months. and you have to believe he had daily conversations with the candidate and, you know, there are some things that are going to come to light that i think are going to be pretty staggering. >> pretty staggering. let's get daniel gold

the defendant, paul manafort, i did. it is. the judge -- did you participate and coordinate in public relations efforts and lobbying efforts in the united states on bee landfall of the ukrainian government and ukrainian government officials and -- in the united states? >> i did. did you make false statements to the department of justice in 2016 in conjunction with that lobbying work in the united states? i did. and did you also in fact conspire with at least one other person to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses in 2018? i did. >> so after 18 pages of laying it out by the prosecutor, the judge sums it up and paul manafort admits to the court, admits to the judge i did, i did these things. and now he has to admit what he is going to give up, because he is pleading guilty. the judge says, quote, you're agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy against the united states. do you understand that if i accept your guilty plea in this case, you could receive a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison on each

manafort or on the phone with paul manafort or sent an e-mail to paul manafort or received an e-mail from paul manafort has to try to fall asleep tonight wondering who is next. who will paul manafort hand over to robert mueller? leading off our decision, jill wine-banks, former assistant prosecutor and msnbc legal contributor. also joining us is federal prosecutor glen kirchner. as was mentioned at the top, there were a couple of ways to go today. there wasn't a lot of suspense in whether he would plead guilty, but he could have walked in there and pled guilty. he could have done that, sat and hoped and waited for his pardon, but he went all the way over the line and is now on team mueller. >> you know what that says to me? that says how untrustworthy donald trump is that his campaign adviser, his campaign chief couldn't rely on him for a pardon and had to take the chance of going with full discloesh wrdi disclosure to the prosecutor and cooperating. that's what it says to me. it is a big break because he is someone who was in at least several key meetings including, of course, the j

in that room, every word that paul manafort can remember was said in that room and what paul manafort remembers might lead to the first federal criminal prosecution of the son of a president of the united states. paul manafort could be the key witness in a case that would be entitled "the united states of america versus donald trump jr.," and president trump could once again be identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in such a case if paul manafort and others can testify credibly that presidential candidate donald trump knew about that meeting and was a participant in a conspiracy to obtain dirt on hillary clinton from russians. and so the big news of the day for anyone named donald trump is that robert mueller has a new witness, a big new witness. and that is even bigger news than that witness saying in court today, "i plead guilty." paul manafort spent this week telling the special prosecutor's team everything he knows about every crime he has committed or every crime he knows about. some of paul manafort's crimes were described in court today by andrew weissmann of the special c

the defendant, paul manafort, i did. it is. the judge -- did you participate and coordinate in lobbying efforts in the united states on behalf of the ukrainian government and ukrainian government officials and/or political parties? paul manafort: i did. >> so after 18 pages of laying it out by the prosecutor, the judge sums it up and paul manafort admits to the court, admits to the judge i did, i did these things. and now he has to admit what he is going to give up, because he is pleading guilty. the judge says, quote, you're agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy against the united states. do you understand that if i accept your guilty plea in this case, you could receive a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison on each count? paul manafort: i do. >> he's forfeiting all of those things, bank accounts, insurance policies, lots and lots of real estate to the government. the government alleges that he defrauded the government of $15 million, money that he didn't pay taxes on. part of making that up clearly i

up next headliners looks at paul manafort. for now, good night from washington. >>> drain the swamp. >> donald trump is a guy who likes to talk about the swamp. well, paul manafort is the guy who invented the swamp. >> he rewrote the rules in washington. >> he was considered one of the smartest and most able in the republican party. >> before taking his bare knuckle politics over seas. >> he huge paydays working for foreign leaders and politicians who had unsaver rereputations. >> a high profile return to american politics. running trumps campaign. >> paul had great success with reagan and bush and ford. >> i have known trump 30 years. and when somebody started talking about the need to bring in additional people. he listened and reached out. >> he couldn't escape the sins of his past. >> he resorted to committing bank fraud. >> or his ties to russia. >> he was indebted to a russian oligarch. close to putin. >> after convictions of bank and tax fraud. and time in jail. a stunning reversal for the former trump insider. paul man

but he did keep this paul manafort case because i think mueller knows that manafort has very valuable information to give. >> geoff bennett, i want to ask you about the decision here for paul manafort to do this. a bit of tape here from august 23, this is president trump talking on fox news about his one time campaign manager. let's take a listen. >> one of the reasons that i respect paul manafort so much is he went through that trial, you know, they make up stories. people make up stories. this whole thing about flipping they call it, i know all about flipping for 30, 40 years i've been watching flippers. it almost sort of should be outlawed, it is not fair. >> he's been watching flippers for 30 or 40 years. katie talking about what has been characterized as a pardon dangle. from your reporting, what do we know about how those talks broke down here, his counsel and president trump's counsel have been communicating here. >> yeah, sources close to paul manafort actually confirm what barbara mcquaid just said, that paul manafort's legal team was frankly a little spooked by the strength

manafort agreed to forfeit, that's paul manafort's apartment at trump tower on fifth avenue. you might remember that paul manford used the fact that he had that property in which he pitched himself for the campaign chairman job. now the justice department owns his old apartment in trump tower, which has on the a little up settle for the president, i'd ma'am. -- imagine. the next part of the hearing is the part probably what the president didn't expect and definitely what the president didn't want to hear. this is really the boom in today eats news. so that's the boom here. that is the unexpected news today. i mean, him pleading guilty, which he does a short while later in the transcript. the judge says are you prepared to tell me whether you wish to plead guilty or go to trial. the manafort says i am. and he pleads guilty. we knew that from the moment proceedings opened this morning. the judge said you're here to plead guilty. we did not know he would agree to cooperate. based on the plea agreement, based on the back-and-forth with the judge today from which we got this trans

in that room, every word that paul manafort can remember was said in that room and what paul manafort remembers might lead to the first federal criminal prosecution of the son of a president of the united states. paul manafort could be the key witness in a case that would be entitled, the united states of america versus donald trump, jr., and president trump could once again be identified as an unindicted coconspirator in such a case if paul manafort and others can testify that presidential candidate donald trump knew about that meeting and was a participate in a conspiracy to obtain dirt from the russians on hillary clinton. so anyone with the name donald trump, is that robert mueller has a new witness, a big witness. and that is even bigger news than that witness saying in court today, i plead guilty. paul manafort spent this week telling the special prosecutor's team everything he knows about every crime he's committed or every crime he knows about. some of manafort's crimes were described in court today by andrew wiseman of the special prosecutor's office. but he was careful to po

paul manafort is in charge. i'm reading from the agreement that says the defendant, that's manafort, quote agrees to testify at any proceeding requested by mueller. where does that fit in to any case that might ever want to prove regarding what happened in the meeting? >> the point being that manafort is a person who must have salient information and in he is now obligated to provide it. he's also someone who has demonstrated that he's going to obstruct justice. the question becomes what did he know about also how they were obstructing justice in terms of the conversations about that meeting. as we know, they lied about why they were having that meeting in the first place. stlst there's nowhere else for this to go except the next wrung of that ladder. plus i think there's so much we can't know about what else robert mueller knows about who else. i'm not sure that we know yet all the folks who are going to be implicated in this and now that manafort has to share that information, we'll see. >> you just put your f

and so what i think could happen is trump could still pardon paul manafort, but paul manafort, again, if he's already given the goods to bob mueller, then really you can pardon him, but he may have exposure to state charges in multi-jurisdictions and that would not save paul manafort if trump tries to pardon him. >> jay newton-small, how much attention are you paying to what's going on in new york city? michael cohen of course based up here. he pleaded in district court, and there are reports now in "vanity fair" that he is considering talking to special counsel robert mueller as that investigation continues. how important a key is that to this investigation, do you think? >> well, certainly, i mean, michael cohen was donald trump's -- one of his cloeftest confidants for many, many years. we don't know what michael cohen knows. certainly the case against michael cohen was sort of spun off by bob mueller, and he had a separate plea himself having to deal with the stormy daniels and the covert payments to her and another woman ahead of the election. but the question really is if he is t

paul manafort was there. we learned an awful lot yesterday from that criminal information just about the world that paul manafort was in, the relationships he had to other influential figures, wealthy figures in eastern europe. what does it tell you as you look at that whole thing that took 25 minutes to read, what does it tell you about the role of paul manafort we didn't know before? >> look, he is the key to russia and the key connection between the trump campaign and russian officials, and now we have him agreeing and cooperating with the special counsel as one of the people in the room. we have heard an evolving story of what occurred in that meeting from the president himself, who initially mislead the public about the purpose of the meeting. now, of course, coming clean that it was really an offer of dirt on hillary clinton, his opponent. but paul manafort may hold the keys to the kingdom so to speak for robert mueller in this investigation. additionally, he may be a very significant cooperating witnes

paul manafort promised to tell mueller every single thing in that room, every word that paul manafort can remember in that room and what he remembers might lead to the first federal criminal prosecution of the son of a president of the united states. paul manafort could be the key witness in a days would be entitled the united states of america versus donald trump, jr. president trump could once again be identified as an unindicted co-conspirator if paul manafort and others can testify that candidate donald trump knew about that meeting and was a participant in a conspiracy to get dirt so the big news for anyone named donald trump, paul mueller has new witness a big witness, that is bigger news than that witness say figure court today, i plead guilty. paul manafort spent this week telling special prosecutor's team everything he knows about every crime he has committed or knows about. some of paul manafort's crimes were described by andrew weissman. he was careful to point out that nothing he publicly described in court today includes anything that paul manafort has told the special pr

paul manafort has flipped. paul manafort has flipped. the president had floated a pardon for manafort, openly urged him to stay strong, tweeting last month that his campaign chairman refused to break. such respect for a great man. but today manafort not only pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy against the u.s., avoiding a second trial, but he signed his name to an open-ended cooperation agreement requiring his full participation in mueller's probe. in exchange for the possibility of not dying in prison. nothing is off the table in manafort's cooperation deal. he agreed to cooperate, i'm quoting here, "fully, truthly, completely and forthrightly with the government," meaning the mueller team and other law enforcement authorities identified by the government in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant. whatever prosecutors want him to do for them he has to do it. and we can assume manafort is telling a very different story now than he told the public during the campaign. >> so to be clear, mr. tr

so you have the idea they're very worried about what paul manafort might say, and paul manafort has this deal that he will talk about anything that the government said, so if he tells the truth, that cannot just go to obstruction of justice or the russia collusion, but it goes to the financials. the fact that the president and paul manafort had some sort of financial dealings that get them in trouble is almost a bigger story sometimes than the russian collusion. because i get a sense in talking to rudy giuliani they're a lot worried about. how about you? >> i think it's makes sense on both sides, obviously paul manafort is not going to improve his situation any in a second trial. and mueller is not going to gain anything by making it bounce while manafort is in prison. the question is what does ma manafort know? what he can certainly help mueller with is how these very nef farrov nefarious russian operates operation. >> paul manafort was replaced along before the election took place. he was with the campaign for a very short period of time. literally, for, like, what a couple of months?

paul manafort was. it was no secret that paul manafort built his personal fortune, made millions of dollars doing consulting work for shady figures and strongmen all around the world. >> matthew, the book on paul manafort is pretty well known. he comes in with known ties to a russian oligarch, known ties to kremlin money sort of making its way into his bank account. what we don't know is if he somehow brought those ties to the trump tower. >> that's right, and i guess that's what robert mueller will be interested in asking. i think he'll also be interested in specifically what manafort can tell him about the trump tower meeting in june of 2016. >> he's an eyewitness now. >> also people are neglecting, remember manafort has a former business partner, roger stone, who is also involved in the mueller investigation from what we can tell. i'm just struck, chuck, by sometime last month when omarosa emerged with her book tour and her tapes and her appearances on tv, the news just turned almost irr irrevocably

these are things that paul manafort knows about. i would imagine a series of meetings where they would spend considerable amounts of time going over every one of those topics drilling down in detail, showing him document, con fronting him with the testimony of other witnesses to determine the veracity of what he has to say. they want to not only know the whole story but make sure it's all true. they will test it against other witness testimony they had. it will be exhausting process. they spend lots howevers with paul manafort, sitting down, combing through documents and probing the extent of all knows. they may come back to him as they learn other things. >> in terms of what he may know, what he may be able to shed light on, the usefulness he may be able to provide. manafort could provide information about any potential conspiracy between the trump campaign and the russian government. that's something we know mueller has been looking at. he was among those top campaign officials who attended the june 2016 meeting with russians at t

looking at the idea of collusion between the trump campaign and the russians paul manafort of course was the campaign manager, campaign chairman for the trump campaign for a period of time in 2016 so if he is cooperating, the question that raises is what information does he have about potential collusion that robert mueller, special counsel, wants from him is that what he's got a deal on. we don't know the answer to that question yet that's the focus of everyone's attention the next few minutes >> that's a big question and open one john, mr. manafort is now the fifth associate of president trump to be pleading guilty and cooperating with mueller what does that mean? >> well, yes, the fifth and also i think the most important as eamon indicated, that paul manafort was chairman of the campaign paul manafort had a decade's worth of ties with putin allies before from his work in the ukraine and with russian oligarchs that are also relevant to mueller's inquiry, so this pulls into play all of the issues surrounding potential money laundering because paul manafort was charged with money la

we'll have to see what he says, if anything, about paul manafort. we've seen how the white house and the president's outside legal team have tried to minimize the manafort mess. both sides putting out statements saying that this has nothing to do at all with president trump. although we know in the criminal investigation, the court documents make clear that some of paul manafort's criminal behavior, the money laundering, the work on behalf of foreign governments without registering in this country as a lobbyist, that continued while manafort was working as campaign chairman for the trump campaign. it's also true that when donald trump hired him to work for free as a campaign chairman, paul manafort was a known quantity. it was no secret that he made his personal fortune, his vast millions having done consulting work for shady figures all around the globe. david? >> those shady figures now very much in focus as we begin to learn more about his relationship to them and what relationship they might have had with then candidate donald trump. let me turn

for us and for paul manafort. gloria, thank you so much. everybody, thank you. the breaking news, paul manafort has entered into a plea deal with prosecutors and agreed importantly here, agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, robert mueller, in his investigation. very important breaking news on the russia investigation. we also continue to follow the other very important breaking news on the coast of the carolinas as hurricane florence is now just sitting there, slowly walking along the coastline and battering cities along the way. we're going to get back to anderson cooper on the ground right after this. i don't keep track of regrets. i never count the wrinkles. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on... is staying happy and healthy. so, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. new boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33% more high-quality protein, along with 26 essential and minerals your body needs. all with guaranteed great taste. the upside- i'm just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life slon

we should note that with paul manafort pleading guilty. four people in the campaign worked in the trump white house pleaded guilty in this investigation. as the manafort news unfolds, live breaking news, sources tell us the president is watching the coverage from the white house residence and he was briefed earlier today by his lawyers. the white house issuing its official response moments ago from the press secretary sarah sanders. this has absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. it is totally unrelated. let's discuss this enormous development. cnn legal analyst and gloria borger. i want to talk about this with you because of your experience with these investigations. you get a plea from a man who said he would not plea. admits to everything. he is only charged with two crimes, but admits to everything. if you want to understand it, here it is. now he is cooperating. is he in if they were in cahoots, is this the cast of characters involved? >> we are getting an update. the judge explained

. >> are you considering pardoning paul manafort? >> i have great respect for what he's done in terms of what he's gone through. >> paul manafort touches so many circumstantial pieces of evidence that have been hanging over this investigation. if he is now the chief dot connecter, my guess is that is not good news for the president. >> reporter: manafort is the latest in a string of people linked to mr. trump who pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the special counsel. we're learning he has already spoken with mueller's team. >> all right. thank you for that. joining me, legal analyst danny cevallos and katie fang. good to see you both. these documents that were filed by the special counsel, manafort not only admitted to everything but he's already offered info to the doj, pled guilty to 2 of 7 counts. interpret all of this. how do you read it? >> the dates are important, alex. the plea agreement has a date of september 13th, thursday. we know he did an open court plea yesterday on friday. what's also included with that net plea

., former trump campaign manager paul manafort. paul manafort -- has struck a deal. he struck a cooperation deal with robert mueller. much more on that in a moment. first, though -- right now, bringing with it torrential rains. this is a live look at new bern, north carolina. rescuers there in new bern have been pulling people out of floodwaters there for a couple of hours now. unrelenting rain that could total three feet by the time it stops. nearly half a million people, half a million people are without power. most of those are in north carolina. that's a number that continues to rise. another 52,000 people are without power in south carolina. more than 20,000 people have made their way to shelters in north carolina. mariana tencio is in oak island. 40 minutes south of where i am right now. you're battered throughout much of the morning there. has it slowed down a bit where you are, as well? >> reporter: the winds have died down a little bit, craig, but they continue to lash out here in the longest and the largest beach in north carolina. and now we're starting to

why should mller believe paul manafort. paul manafort seems like he will say anything he can to get out of jam. how do we know that manafort is not somebody who will tell whoever is listening at that moment to get him out of a jam? >> manafort is corrupt. manafort is basically the swamp. but also flynn and also gates, and all of these peopl and cohen, if cohen cooperates, all of these folks have pled guilty to lying and fraud,ll they're tainted witnesses, and so as a prosecutor, you only rely on them to the extent you can corroborate them. but often you can, if paul manafort says i spoke to donald trump about the donald trump tower mee i did it at this particular time in this particular phone call and you go to the phone records and you fi r those phoneords that corroborates those statements, so you're not going to relyth o word alone, but you're going to rely on it when you cane corrobor it. >> rudy giuliani, the present's lawyer has said th manafort is not disqualified pardon. rudy giuliani also confirmed that manafort's

it's in the paul manafort case. the man who once headed donald trump campaign pleaded guilty to two federal charges. he did so as part of employplea. he's agreed to cooperate with robert mueller. he admitted to two counts of conspiracy. all of this coming weeks after manafort was convicted in a different federal trial on agent counts relating to financial fraud. jury selection for this new trial had been scheduled to begin in three days. his lawyers made this brief statement after proceedings ended today. >> tough day for many manafort. he's accepted responsibility. he wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life. he's accepted responsibility and this is for conduct that dates become many years. everybody should remember that. thank you, every one. >> what we don't know at this hour is what manafort is telling robert mueller and whether it has anything to do with the president or with the trump campaign. shortly after the news broke the white house issued this statement, quote, th

so you have the idea they're very worried about what paul manafort might say, and paul manafort has this deal that he will talk about anything that the government said, so if he tells the truth, that cannot just go to obstruction of justice orthe russia collusion, but it goes to the fina ials. the faat the president and paul manafort had some sort of financial dealings that get them in trouble is almost a bigger story sometimes than the russian collusion. because i get a sense in talking to rudy giuliani they're a lot worried about. how about you? >> i think it's makes sense on both sides, obviously paul manafort is not going to improvy his situation in a second trial. and mueller is not going to gain anything by making it bounce while manafort is in prison. the question is what does ma manafo know? what he can certainly help mueller wi is how these very nef farrov nefarious russian operates operation. >> paul manafort was replaced along before the election took place.e he was with th campaign for a very short period of time. what a y, for, like, couple of months? a little periodf time.

we begin with paul manafort striking a deal. the man once in charge of the presidential campaign is now cooperating. he pleaded guilty to two charges filed in washington, d.c. and admitted to ten counts from his earlier trial in virginia. he will remain in prison until sentencing. this agreement comes just days before a second trial was to get under way. press secretary sarah sanders issued a statement saying this had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. it is totally unrelated. the president's lawyer rudy giuliani issued a similar statement saying once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign. the reason, the president did nothing wrong. want to bring in geoff bennett who is live from the white house lawn. and tell us more about paul manafort's stunning past couple of days. >> paul manafort struck a plea deal yesterday that requires him to cooperate fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly with inve

to make the point that, it was paul manafort's work with the campaign and it is known that paul manafort was a known quantity before he was hired by the president, and it no secret that he made the personal fortune doing the lobbying work, and the consulting work in shady figures all around the world, and it is the reason that he was unemployable in domestic politics, and you heard him say this he worked for ronald reagan and bob dole, and president trump is that the large part of the work he did for the philippines and other countries in the world. and other point that they tend to make is that after a short time in the campaign and although we know that he was the campaign chairman in the crucial moment that it was not clear that paul manafort was chosewen the candidates and that trump had amassed had stayed with the campaign, and we know from the court document s ths that he wa allegedly committing crimes while he was the campaign chairman and laundering money and registering as a a foreign agent, chris. >> and going back to what the white house said and we could expect daniel goldman

so you have the idea they're very worried about what paul manafort might say, and paul manafort has this deal that he will talk about anything that the government said, so if he tells the truth, that cannot just go to obstruction of justice or the russia collusion, but it goes to the financials. the fact that the president and paul manafort had some sort of financial dealings that get them in trouble is almost a bigger story sometimes than the russian collusion. because i get a sense in talking to rudy giuliani they're a lot worried about. how about you? >> i think it's makes sense on both sides, obviously paul manafort is not going to improve his situation any in a second trial. and mueller is not going to gain anything by making it bounce while manafort is in prison. the question is what does manafort know? does he truly know any dirt on the trump campaign or not? what he can certainly help mule we are is a more details understanding of how the nefarious russian operates operation. >> paul manafort was replaced along before the election took place. he was with the campaign for a very s

paul manafort. now all of a sudden their judgment seems to be much in the terms of how they're going to do this. you saw this in a statement put out by former new york city mayor rudy giuliani in terms of how they were able to walk back statements in which they said that manafort was going to tell the truth. he ended the day, now you have manafort, cohen, general flynn, all of whom have been saying, you know, in their own way that they're going to fully cooperate with bob mueller. >> those numbers are certainly rising. tessa, i want to go back to that tweet again. do you know of any -- that president trump is actively trying to shut down the investigation? >> that's something that trump has an idea that he's batted around for months. i think he can't be feeling good right now because, as his poll numbers are dropping, we're seeing mueller's approval ratings rise. from that tweet, you can see that he thinks or knows that that might be related. and he and his lawyer, rudy giuliani, have been waging a

what kind of witness do you think paul manafort will make? >> i think there will be a lot of parallels to what we saw with richard gates at his own trial with paul manafort. he still had some value to add because he was there and saw what happened. when you have a witness like paul manafort, what a prosecutor will do is make sure that person isn't standing alone. you don't have to believe everything he has to say because you will corroborate it with other evidence, documents, e-mails, text messages and the testimony of other witnesses. so you don't have to like him, you don't even have to believe him, you just have to let him fill in the gaps with some things that have happened. the other thing he could have is even if he's too toxic to testify, he could still provide leads and information that could be useful to investigators as they continue forward in the investigation. >> finally, i want to ask your take on this latest tweet. kelly o'donnell and i earlier were trying to figure out exactly what he meant by it. maybe you have an idea. he on

paul manafort was good for the fact that he had not. now paul manafort has, in fact, flipped. he is going to tell the prosecutors what he knows. as jill says, we don't know exactly what that's going to be but it has to be an unsettling moment nor the president. all along he said he doesn't want people talking to the prosecutors and spilling secrets. we just don't know what those secrets are yet. paul manafort was the chairman of this campaign, not just there for 49 days as he said in the clip you played there, for five months. the fact he was hired knowing his background for a pro russian, you know, lobbying effort raises all sorts of questions. why was he, of all people, chosen to be the campaign chairman? what did he do while he was there? he offered briefings to a russian oligarch that he was in debt to. there's all sorts of questions, no doubt, robert mueller would like now that he's got cooperation. >> we haven't seen the president today but he's canceled rallies because of the hurricane. maybe stuck at the white house because of the weather. it's not looking like it may

paul manafort was the big get. a lot of resources. 11 months but finally mueller broke paul manafort. >> i'm a layperson, not a lawyer, but i presume you give up somebody higher than yourself to get these deals. the only people higher up the food chain than paul manafort were jared kushner, donald trump jr. and donald trump. didn't he have to tell the mueller team everything he had before getting the pardon? >> that's the condition of any plea agreement. when he came forward in the proffer he had to dazzle the prosecutors enough to believe the information he had was reliable and that it went up the chain of command. i caution everybody, yes, it's possible that it's trump, trtrump jr., jared kushner, but it could also be the other folks in the russian investigation, russians. so it could relate to those people as well. which would be interesting if manafort has information that's not damaging to the americans above him, but that he really has information damaging only to russians. does he then still appear loyal to

. >>> paul manafort is working for the feds. he decides to flip and take a deal to cooperate in every way and not face a second trial. he is a man who knows a lot. also tonight, the report from "vanity fair" that can trump's personal lawyer michael cohen is also talking to the mueller investigative team. and the slow rolling disaster that will still be causing trouble well into next week as florence delivers more water than the land can take. as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a friday night. >>> good evening once again. from our nbc news headquarters in new york, day 603 of the trump administration. and while it has not diminished the damage, it is delivering florence is now thankfully a tropical storm. still pounding the carolinas and we'll have a late live update ahead. we begin with a huge announcement that paul manafort, the man who offered to work for donald trump for free, is tonight working for the feds. the man who has enjoyed the good life after a lifetime of orbiting at or near the top of the republican political so

or anywhere else that prosecutors ask paul manafort to testify. at the end of the day, paul manafort had resisted this very event that took place today in federal court, but it is everything that the prosecutors have been pushing for, this negotiation -- the prosecution and the manafort team had been having these negotiations in the last few days, and this is exactly where the prosecution wanted them to end up. >> evan, manafort's lawyer tried to explain why manafort took the guilty plea. >> that's right, kevin downing spoke to reporters briefly right after the court hearing, and again, he talked about the importance of helping paul manafort's family. here's what he had to say. >> he wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life. he's accepted responsibility, and this is for conduct that dates back for many years, and everybody should remember that. >> i hear you telegraphing there from kevin downing that this had nothing to do with the president's campaign. so i think what you're hearing there, jake, is an effor

who is up the chain from paul manafort? he was the chair of the trump campaign. >> not many. >> don jr., roger stone, the campaign itself and perhaps ultimately the president. i think there is a substantial -- we don't know for sure, the judge is right. there's a substantial possibility that this evidence that manafort is offering will implicate somebody up the chain. >> judge, we heard alan dershowitz who has been positive about the president saying it's a huge win for mueller, opens up a lot of doors that haven't been opened. in terms of the russia investigation. at the same time we hear a dismissive reaction from the president's legal team. this is meaningless, has nothing to do with the president himself. who is right? we don't know. >> we don't know. understandably it would be dismissed by the president as a nothing burger, there's nothing to this. i think alan is right. bob mueller has someone cooperating with him. he was on the other side of the courtroom fighting every step of the way. now you have paul manafort say

the agreement requires paul manafort to cooperate fully with special counsel robert mueller's russia investigation including giving interviews and testifying. as part of this agreement, paul manafort forfeited multiple bank accounts and several properties in new york. however he will keep his properties in florida and virginia, notably where his daughter and wife live. >> he wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life. >> paul manafort's attorney was quick to point out that these charges are related to consulting work in the ukraine and not russia interference in the 2016 presidential election. >> this is for conduct that dates back many years. everybody should remember that. >> the president's attorney rudy giuliani said, once again, an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign. the reason, the president did nothing wrong. >> paul manafort is looking at significant jail time between a guilty plea and guilty crimes. his lawyers maintained maintain that their client has nothing to offer

also, paul manafort has a co-defendant in his next trial. the trial due to start in washington, d.c. in a couple weeks. his co-defendant is not likely to turn up. he is russian borne. -- born. konstantin kilimnik is the co-defendant. in addition to his work paul manafort, this guy also formed a company with a consulting firm with sam patten, the guy charged today. so that's another link. the leader he worked for and helped get elected in ukraine, there is no mention of anakovich related to sam pattedep. he was related to sam patten but sam patten, according to prosecutors, was placing op eds in u.s. media outlets and organizing political meetings on capitol hill. the guy for whom sam patten was illegally lobbying, it wasn't victor yankovic's chief of staff. paul manafort is being charged with being an unregistered foreign agent, sam patent, an unregister unregistered agent. all indications are that part of opposition block. the unnamed foreign official described throughout the documents, all indication is that he was this guy, sergei. part o

because paul manafort is a big get, if you like. we have already seen key former members of the trump administration switching sides, if you like, for national security advisor michael flynn has been talking to the mueller team, so too has the former foreign policy advisor, george papadopoulos, but paul manafort is the man, it is thought, who knows, really, whether there was a conspiracy and whether there was some sort of agreement to conspire between the trump campaign team and russia. thanks very much to david. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: ten years after the collapse of lehman brothers bank, marking the beginning of the global financial crisis, how is middle america coping with the fallout from the financial meltdown? 30 hours after the earthquake that devastated mexico city, rescue teams still have no idea just how many people have died. there is people alive, and there is people not alive. we just can help and give them whatever we've got. it looked as though they had come to fight a war, but their mission is to bri

paul manafort was a part of the trump campaign. he was a significant part in the summer during the convention of 2016. what he is pleading to relates to work he had done prior to coming on board, right? >> well, technically, you are right. you are mostly right. the conduct that the government is alleging and lays out in this information continued up to and including the time he was on the trump campaign. that includes defrauding banks. when he joined, he was working for free. the government says he was strapped for crash. he turned to, e sensually inflating incomes and loans on property to generate cash and fuel his lifestyle. what everybody cares about here, right, is whether paul manafort is going to cooperate with mueller. paul manafort, of all the people who work for donald trump had the most connections with russians and ukraine al guards. the question remaining today is if he does, will he share that with the special counsel? >> can you walk through the nuts and bolts. are we going learn that at the 11:00 hearing? >> yes. wha

paul manafort was there. he will get a word for word break down as best paul manafort can recall it. i don't think there is anybody who believes, for example, when don jr. floats information out there. well, i suspect that is not going to turn out to be accurate and what the special counsel now has is an insider to that meeting. i tell you, when you're dealing with conspiracies and tight knit groups whether family and associates having an insider and criminal conspiracy means everything to a prosecution and that is what the special counsel now has in paul manafort. >> we'll see what the trump team, his lawyers, their counsel and how they'll play it on their end. natasha, thank you so much. always great having you with me. the rest of you, i know you're sticking around and we'll come back to you throughout the hour. >>> live to the carolinas as flood waters move inland and we're joined by nbc reporters who have been braving the weather and lieutenant governor give us an update on how it is all going. >> we're

he worked for years alongside paul manafort's firm and in addition to his work with paul manafort, this guy kilimnik also formed a company with, a consulting firm with sat patten, the guy charged today. so that's another link between these two cases. here's another link. the leader he worked for and helped get elected in ukraine, that was viktor yanukovych, there's no mention of viktor yanukovych in the charging documents today relating to sam patten, but sam patten, according to prosecutors was placing op-eds in u.s. media outlets and an was organizing political meetings on capitol hill. the guy for whom sam patten was illegally lobbying without registering as a foreign agent, it wasn't viktor yanukovych but it was his chief of staff. so he is charged with being an unregistered chief of staff for victor yanukovych and his party. sam patten is charged with being an unregistered agent for viktor yanukovych's party and his chief of staff. the unnamed foreign official described throughout the documents, all indications is that he was this guy, sergei, part of the opposition bloc, chief of

also, paul manafort has a co-defendant in his next trial. the trial due to start in washington, d.c. in a couple weeks. his co-defendant is not likely to turn up. he is russian borne. konstant konstantin kilimnik is the co-defendant. in addition to his work paul manafort, this guy also formed a company with a consulting firm with sam patten, the guy charged today. so that's another link. the leader he worked for and helped get elected in ukraine, there's no mention of victorian koefk in the charging documents related to sam patten but sam patten, according to prosecutors, was placing op eds in u.s. media outlets and organizing political meetings on capitol hill. the guy for whom sam patten was illegally lobbying, it wasn't victor yankovic's chief of staff. so he is charged with being an unregistered chief of staef for victor yankovic and his party. sam patten as well and the chief of staff. the unnamed foreign official described throughout the documents, all indication is that he was this guy, sergei. part of opposition bloc chief of staff y

former trump campaign chairman paul manafort talking to robert mueller. how much does he have to tell him? shooting, burning, diabetic nerve pain, these feet... ...raised a good sport... ...and became a second-generation firefighter. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor, and he prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects: dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs, and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. now i have less diabetic nerve pain. ask your doctor about lyrica. >>> in north carolina right now, rescuers fighting rising floodwaters to get people

what they really want, and the real value that paul manafort has, is cooperation. my guess is, the way they're pressuring him is holding out, saying if you want to deal with us, it has to include cooperation. >> what i imagine paul manafort's plight right now, which i try not to do often, one of the things that i ponder is how he sees his own fate and his own options. if he thinks he has nothing to say about donald trump, if he thinks that his time on the campaign, his other sfwer interactions with the president wouldn't be of much value because he didn't see anything particularly interesting, if he thinks he has nothing of value to offer, if prosecutors believe that manafort didn't witness anything from president trump, that might imply potential legal liability for president trump, does that curtail his options? would they still want cooperation from him, even if he's not sure he's got anything valuable to offer? >> i think robert mueller would in this case. what's valuable to him is the truth. this is a quest for the truth. a defendant can get value, substantial

do you think they're paving the way for attacks on paul manafort's credibility? does it send a signal they're worried? how do you interpret that? >> well, the play book as i describe in "contempt," i think the trump white house and lawyers are taking a page from the clinton play book -- attack the prosecutor. this is more delicate because now you have one very close to the president, at least for a while, the campaign manager. but on the other hand, we're much closer to getting the truth than we were before this plea. it's terrific that we're moving forward, getting someone who may be knowledgeable. we don't know what bob mueller knows, don't know what paul manafort can share but there's a key word in that agreement which was truthfully and then there was another word, fully. and that's what we need to do. thus far these signs, there is no evidence that paul manafort is going to bring forward collusion. but we'll see. >> president trump has signalled he is thinking about pardoning paul manafort. do you think he should? what do you think the repercussions would be

we're getting this news about paul manafort. they put out two statements in response to the news within minutes of each other. the first statement said this. said the president did nothing wrong and paul manafort will tell the truth then minutes later the legal team responded with an additional statement which changed that line of the statement, the president did nothing wrong, period, omitting the point about paul manafort telling the truth. the legal team is adjusting its public comment on real time within just a few minutes of itself updating and correcting its previous statement not confident paul manafort will tell the truth and the legal team doesn't want to be in a position of saying anything on behalf of paul manafort who they don't work for a lot of moving parts here in washington right now $200 billion in chinese tariffs on the line. the president and his aides trying to figure out what paul manafort will be cooperating on and what it means for this president and his presidency >> it's hard to know the answer because w