paul manafort. so talk a little bit about how this plays into the broader calculation for paul manafort. pick up where pete left off. what could this mean for paul manafort? >> it's very bad news for paul manafort because as pete was saying, there's this massive indictment against paul manafort. it's mainly a document case, though. now what the prosecutors have is a witness who worked with paul manafort for years who was involved in this conduct and is admitting it. even though he's only pleasing guilty to two charges, the criminal information the mueller team filed lays out this vast scheme with a $75 million paid by this russian-backed ukrainian oligarch and alleged money laundering, bank fraud, tax fraud. you have gates prepared to testify against paul manafort. paul manafort already was facing 15 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines in the first indictment. that does not include the latest charges. essentially he's facing a life term. he's 68 years old. it's putting enormous press

paul manafort is innocent. he is confident he will be acquitted of all charges the new allegations once again have nothing to do with russia an 2016 election interference/collusion. mr. manafort is confident he will be acquitted and his violation rights will be released. let me ask you, i see conflicting reports about. i don't know what to make of it. paul manafort's recommendation seems stable. rick gates' reputation does not. he had an initial lawyer that dismissed him. he had three different lawyers, now dismissed them. maybe. >> maybe. >> now then the third lawyer and some interesting reporter from betty woodriffe from the "daily beast." do you have any clarity on this? >> so we have not confirmed the daily beast reporting. we know that tom green was on the filing we saw tonight. he is now representing rick gates. he put out a statement saying i am rick gaethjes' lawyer. the daily beast is standing by it, reporting, i think this shows even jumping into three different lawyers whether or not it's a fourth, r

gates, who was paul manafort's right hand man and this puts enormous pressure on paul manafort, who is already facing 15 years in prison under the existing indictment under federal sentencing guidelines. he's 68 years old. the pressure on manafort now to consider a guilty plea would seem to be enormous. >> peter baker, rick gates is a central figure here. he actually was part of the campaign for a longer period than manafort. how much might he know? >> he was there for a lot of important events -- >> i think we have a problem with peter's audio. peter, i know we will fix that momentarily. let me ask that question also of chuck rosenberg, in terms of the way robert mueller is building this case. step by step, brick by brick, if you will. >> step by step, brick by brick. he's building it in the classic way. ken referred to the gambino crime family and working your way up the chain but we don't reserve that just for the gambinos. we do that in almost every case. you use minor witnesses and minor defendants to get to major witnesses and major defendants. >> and peter baker, let me repeat t

so, again, this all ties to paul manafort and as you'll remember, paul manafort pleaded not guilty to a range of charges that relate to his work doing lobbying for ukrainian government, viktor yanukovych and alleged money laundering. though this lawyer, who is now charged in this two-page information, though he seems to be related, he has ties to paul manafort and rick gates. we know this information was handed down this morning. we expect this attorney will appear in court for a plea hearing this afternoon at 2:30. it is expected that he will plead guilty. but the broader picture of this is it really does show how mueller's probe has expanded here and it also raises the question does this further put the pressure on paul manafort. of course, we know that that alex van der zwaan, connected to paul manafort, and over the past month or so, rick gates has been involved in plea negotiations. so the question is, if rick gates eventually pleads guilty, if alex van der zwaan pleads guilty this afternoon, as we're expecting, what kind of pressure does this put on paul manafort and this could

paul manafort. we've now gotten new indictments that are against manafort alone, they incorporate all the charges he and gates used to be facing together, plus a few new ones. we are expecting paul manafort to be arraigned in federal court in washington, d.c. on wednesday of this week, day after tomorrow and then expecting him to be arraigned again in a different federal court in virginia on friday because he is facing dozens of felony charges in both of those jurisdictions. the dozens of felony charges pending against the trump campaign manager paul manafort obviously present a significant legal challenge for him himself, but the way the charges are laid out, they may indicate potential problems for other people as well. there was a bunch reporting over the weekend quoting former european heads of state all denying that they knew the source of the funds that they had been paid from when manafort, according to the indictment, secretly spent 2 million euros paying all these politicians to lobby for h

and paul manafort is facing very serious charges. he is, as you point out, facing them alone, and that -- and defending yourself against such charges is an extremely expensive and extremely risky proposition. and so the pressure on him is undoubtedly intense. >> mr. manafort put out a statement in response to rick gates's guilty plea that was an aggressive statement saying the reasons for rick gates doing this would eventually come out, he's expressing his disappointment, criticizing rick gates for having made the decision. that was reviewed by congressman adam schiff from the intelligence committee, he said that as mr. manafort making a public plea to the president for a pardon. i'm getting the sense for what mr. manafort is facing legally that a presidential pardon wouldn't get him out of the woods he'd face continued problems with nonfederal jurisdictions things a pardon couldn't help him. >> if he's relying on the presidential pardon right now, that's a pretty desperate situation, because a presidential pardon, among other things

paul manafort vows to fight in court. as he faces new charges tonight from special counsel robert mueller. who is now getting information from manafort's former business partner. >>> plus, the fbi warned weeks before the massacre. the quote, something's going happen. how did the critical tip fall through the cracks? why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. was a success for lastchoicehotels.comign badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. nobody glows. he gets it. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com oh hi sweetie, i just want [backto show you something. xfinity mobile: find my

it has to do with paul manafort and the pressure on paul manafort. they see all this stuff. they see manafort's work for viktor yanukovych and anyone else who manafort may have sub contracted, worked out from van covich to including podesta's group, mercury, public affairs, these are all firms that we've seen have some interest or generate some interest from the mueller folks, but they -- but the white house sees this as all totally peripheral to what they -- what is the core of the russia investigation and mueller's investigation, which is meddling by russia in the u.s. presidential election, and any potential collusion between the trump folks and russia, they see this indictment today as completely unrelated to that. but what it does do, as betsy suggested, and pete suggested, from the courthouse there, is it puts pressure on paul manafort and it put pressure on rick gates, who we saw some reporting that we haven't confirmed suggesting that rick gates might be considering a plea deal. what that does is put more pressure on manafort to potentially give up something about th

so flipping gates is really, must be terrifying to paul manafort. >> we also obtained paul manafort's early private secret pitch as to why he should get on the secret campaign -- >> there's nothing surprising about everything that's being reported to me. by the way, the russian world is also swampy, and maybe there's a relationship down the road. the extraordinary thing to me, just listening to you say what you just did, why did anybody in the trump campaign think this would be a good person to bring in. he had experience for 10 years, why would you want him then? >> i'll give you the reason and i'll let you expand on it. the stated reason at this time was that paul manafort had the yuan dme unique 5ib9 to -- >> of course i can think of lots of other people that can corral the delicates, that job, he has no special -- he has nothing in his background that would describe to you that he's a specialist in that. he's a specialist in running around with a very corrupt quasi-au quasi-au quasi-auto cratic -- that's a different kind of relationship, a different set of reasons why he was broug

threat to paul manafort. >> absolutely. it does represent a big threat. not only paul manafort. it could be other people in the campaign or associated with the campaign. who knows? the bottom line is one of the people who has the most exposure is paul manafort. he release ad statement just moments after rick gates pleaded guilty. and he said notwithstanding that rick gates pled today. i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hope that had my business colleague would have continued the battle to battle to prove our innocence. no sign that he intends to cooperate which is something we clearly, as people who have reported on it, it is something that the special counsel wants. they do believe that he has information that could be vital to this investigation. >> these charges, we're talking decades. i'm not sure that that is something that is not being rethought. that he has now pleaded guilty. this lie that occurred during the guilty plea negotiations is part of drama behind the scenes. rick gates showed up in court to file p

one of the things that paul manafort did to shine up victor janocovic was to hire u.s. law firms and p.r. companies to sell this guy in the u.s., to sell him like a product in washington, to make him seem kind of legit. and paul manafort's a life long republican and his connections are all in republican politics, but at the time his client in ukraine was walking to tim shen co and manafort was trying to make that seem okay. he in the u.s. it was the obama administration that was in power. and for manafort that put a premium on him trying to sell janocovic and put a premium on him that had democratic credentials or bipartisan credentials so they could try to get a better hearing from the democratic administration in power in washington. to try to whitewash the fact that his client had locked up his political rival, manafort arranged to hire washington p.r. firms that had bipartisan credentials and arranged to fire this very well known law firm, skadden arps. they could brag they had greg craig as one of their principles. they hired skadden to do a review of the whole loc

early this afternoon catching paul manafort on camera. just a couple hours later, boom, 32 new felony charges against paul manafort and his deputy rick gates. joining us now to help us understand what just happened here is chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official as well as a former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia which is where the grand jury that returned this new indictment today was seated. chuck, thank you for being here. nice to have you here. >> nice to be here, rachel, thank you. >> let me ask you about the venue question. the first time of manafort and gates was from a grand jury in d.c. these new charges were from a grand jury in virginia, in the eastern district of virginia where you served as u.s. attorney. is there a reason for this change of venue? it seems unusual just as a lay observer? >> it's unusual but not unheard of. if you want to charge manafort and gates, rachel, with everything they did, you have to bring it in this case in two different places. it seems to me they don't have venue for the ta

everybody talks about him as paul manafort's deputy. when it comes to the trump campaign, rick gates was there a lot longer than paul manafort was. manafort is pushed out 2016, thereafter rick gates stayed. he was there for the duration of the campaign, right through the election day, in the transition, he was a senior official and then he was the number two official in the trump inaugural committee. he was frequently seen at the white house and pro-trump outsiou outside group and longstanding committee. the national republican committee. people talk about him as manafort's deputy and a long-standing business relationship and proceeds the trump campaign. in terms on his role for the investigators you might have seen what and who he might have been exposed to in the time of a trump as a presidential candidate and trump as president, rick gates has potentially been witness to a lot more than manafort ever saw. he was just there for a lot longer for a lot of extra parts of this, the trump presidential era that manafort ended up missing. ri

paul manafort is 68 years old. he seems to have nothing to gain by going to prison for donald trump. and there isn't much that he can offer that would be higher than himself. he was the chairman of the campaign. i'll ask you the same question i asked in our previous block. what's the biggest thing that donald trump would have to fear? would it be that manafort is willing to give up jared or don junior? >> we don't know. we do know that trump himself, the president, has said privately, at least it's been reported, that he thinks manafort could, in fact, incriminate him. how could that happen? one of two ways it seems to me, something that really puts the finger on trump, as you mentioned joy, say it's true as steve bannon has said that trump knew about the meeting in june and knew about the the whole effort with russia, that immediately changes the dynamic. second, you know, he's been neck deep in financial malfeasance for many year in some of the same part of the world where the trump operation was doing its own di

gates wasn't just paul manafort's deputy. after working on the trump campaign, he held a top post on the trump inaugural committee and went on to cofound an outside non-profit promoting president trump's agenda. later working directly for the president's long-time friend investor tom barrack. he is now the third member of the president's campaign to plead guilty to a federal crime and joins george papadopoulos who advised the campaign on foreign policy and michael flynn whom the president chose to be his single most important and powerful national security adviser at the white house, a job in which he lasted 24 days. three of the president's associates are felons. criminals. as part of his plea deal, gates agreed to cooperate with robert mueller whose team told the court they might let gates avoid prison time if they're satisfied with what he shares. and that is likely not very good news for one paul manafort. gates' long time boss and mentor accused right now in the scope of this is staggering and will hard to get your head

a major new indictment against paul manafort and rick gates. what message is the special counsel sending about the russia investigation? >>> and we'll have a live report on the shocking revelation from a florida sheriff that an armed deputy on the campus of that high school during the shooting massacre stood there and did nothing. this is food made to sit down for. slow down for. put the phone away, and use a knife and fork for. and with panera catering, it's food worth sharing. panera. food as it should be. my bladder leakage was making me feel like i couldn't spend time with my grandson. now depend fit-flex has their fastest absorbing material inside, so it keeps me dry and protected. go to depend.com - get a coupon and try them for yourself. (male vo) raging wildfires continue to scorch parts; (male vo) allegations of misconduct; ♪ oh, why you look so sad, ♪ the tears are in your eyes, mvo: how hard is it just to take some time out of your day to give him a ride to school and show him you support him. ♪ and don't be ashamed to cry, ♪

everybody talks about him as paul manafort's deputy. but when it comes to the trump campaign rick gates was actually there for a lot longer than paul manafort was. manafort was pushed out in 2016, but thereafter rick gates stayed. he was there through the duration of campaign and through election day and then he was a senior official in the trump transition and after the inauguration he was frequently seen at the white house. he worked in a pro-trump outside group and also has long time tiewise the republican national committee. people talk about him as manafort's deputy. and he has had a long-standing relationship with paul manafort, but in terms of his role as a potential witness. in terms of his role for the investigator scene, in terms of what he might have seen, what and who he might have been exposed to in terms of trump as a candidate and trump as a president, rick gates has potentially been a witness to a lot more than manafort saw. he was there for a lot longer and for a lot of extra parts of this, the trump presidential era th

there is a sentence that says paul ma -- manafort funneled money. it was unsealed on the last monday in october and a few days later, this fellow van der zwann showed up voluntarily with his lawyer and asked questions about his dealings with gates having to do with the report and lied about it and so he wasn't really acting as a lawyer in that conversation with gates. he had a different kliclient if had one at all. in this particular instance, he was a witness to whether gates and manafort were actually pulling the strings behind the skadden report. >> if you look at the evidence they laid out, does that read to you as it does to me this is information they were able to put together in part because rick gates is sharing information with them. >> maybe but maybe not. because it all happened pretty quickly, the two meetings he had with the prosecutors were in november and december and if gates cooperates, maybe he didn't start that early. they have access to e-mails and chats and electronic media gates had and this fellow van der zwann showed up in so

paul manafort legally seems to be in deep, deep trouble, as you say. these charges are very hard to mount a defense against. now rick gates, you have testifying against you, presumably. should manafort just throw all his chips on donald trump, the president maybe giving him a pardon? >> well, he can hope for a pardon. i think at this point, you know, it would be so politically incendiary, it looks so much like trump was doing it to protect himself, not to protect paul manafort, that i think even donald trump, who doesn't fear the consequences of a lot of what he does, wouldn't take the risk of the backlash that he would get if he pardoned paul manafort at this point and his white house has said all along pardons are not under consideration. >> i listen to you a lot on tv. you think it's inevitable at this point, practically, that paul manafort will cop a plea deal? >> i do, too. >> i don't see any way he can make this case go to trial -- he can take this case to trial. i think the enormous expense involved and the stakes for him is that if he's convict

>> we saw new charges come in against paul manafort. not in terms of new counts, but new narrative about some of his lobbying activity with further extensive relationships with european politicians, which is sort of some interesting intrigue. other thing that's new is in the virginia indictment, talked about how paul mrt seemed to be sort of desperately trying to generate cash by getting false mortgages and loans on some of his properties. when you will couple that with some of the reporting we've seen already about offering a free briefing to a russian oligarch about the trump campaign and perhaps owing a large debt to a russian oligarch, it does suggest that all of these financial crimes might be related to links to russia as well. >> okay. so joyce, manafort released a statement. here's what it said, not with standing that rick gates pled guilty, i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue to battle to prove our innocence for reasons yet to surface, he ch

and that would obviously be very bad news for paul manafort. until this point, wolf, one of the things about this case is the government hasn't had really any witnesses, any big witnesses, to use against paul manafort. that changes today. at 2:00 p.m. when rick gates walks into this courthouse and he pleads guilty to at least these two charges. we don't know all the details of what he is going to cooperate with the special counsel, but usually, typically in these agreements, you have to essentially say everything you know, and that has implications beyond paul manafort. we know, of course, that this special counsel investigation is looking at others inside the trump campaign, and so the question is what happens to paul manafort? does he flip? and then does he provide information about others that are under investigation in this special counsel probe, wolf. >> it clearly is designed, at least in part, evan, to put that kind of enormous pressure on paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman, to go ahead and cop a plea himself, to plead gui

. >> does paul manafort have something to offer robert mueller that will allow him to not spend rest of his days behind bars? >>> this is "new day weekend" with victor blackwell and christi paul. >> good morning. another senior trump campaign official flips in the russia investigation making him the third known trump associate to cooperate with special counsel robert mueller. rick gates took a plea deal yesterday possibly in exchange for testifying against trump's former campaign chairman, paul manafort. >> in the meantime, what were they waiting for? cnn learns a total of four broward county sheriff's deputies waited outside that florida high school as students inside were being shot. law enforcement facing some tough questions this morning now about what more could have been to stop the massacre. >>> first, in the russia investigation, abby phillip at the white house now. the spotlight firmly on the trump campaign this morning. how are the white house and lawmakers responding? >> reporter: good morning. this case is continuing to expand this week as yet another trump campaign assoc

he led the campaign, paul manafort did. that's hardly someone who wasn't in the know in a lot of this. rick gates was his right-hand man in much of the time that paul manafort was there helming the campaign. however distanced the white house wants to put between itself and these guys, whenever you are the president of the united states and these ongoing scandals and inquiries and investigations are roiling your administration, it is never a good idea when your former deputy campaign manager is in a situation like this. >> and, lynne -- >> can i add one thing? >> sure, go ahead. >> sorry. go ahead. i was just going to add one thing, with respect to the pressure on manafort remember the day before yesterday mueller made a filing in court which said that paul manafort may have committed mortgage fraud with respect to obtaining a mortgage -- >> that's right. >> -- that he has used for property that may be related to his bond status. so they are really pressuring manafort in a whole host of ways. gates is just one part. this new

manafort, rick gates has worked with paul manafort for a long time. he worked with the campaign right until the end. until election day. and then worked -- a senior member of the transition and for the republican party for a while. >> reporter: he was one of those people who was an access point to paul manafort. manafort did have a much more public role in the campaign as the chairman, appearing on television frequently and had previous presidential election experience which was one of the reasons that he was brought in to begin with. again at a time when so much of the talent in the republican party had been disbursed across 17 candidates. the trump team was sorely in need of people who had legitimate presidential campaign experience. and that is part of where paul manafort came into the picture. also the fact that one of his residences was in trump tower was another access point and so behind paul manafort and through his side, their business and political life was rick gates. his name became well-known once the indictments came out last fall and no

>> don't forget, paul manafort was brought in to run the campaign for free. he was largely pro bono, even though he was in debt to a lot of these russian oligarchs. you follow the money directly to cyprus, which is a favorite laundering sites for russian bankers and russian billionaires and oligarchs. you look at who manafort and gates had worked for, that was the former president of ukraine, viktor yanukovych. where is he now? he's in exile in russia. he was a pro-putin president in ukraine. you remember the ties that manafort had with various oligarchs, including another tide to the kremlin. and you look at gates' legal team seemingly crumbling. you saw three of his attorneys leaving. they appear to be some sort of deal that they were coming close to settling. that's blown up. so you see the wide scope of this investigation that mueller has taken. and anybody that thinks it's near the end is quite mistaken. >> clearly, phil, you used to work at the fbi, squeezing manafort, robert mueller big-time. manafort, jeffrey toobin pointed out, is 74 years old. if he

>> all about paul manafort and about what he knows. apparently he is not cooperative with special counsel. he is exercising his constitutional right to go to trial at the end of the day. 95% of people charged with crimes end up pleading guilty. manafort looks like he needs a lot of pressure but mueller seems to think he's got the goods or someone higher up in the chain. this is a campaign manager and present at a lot of meetings and contact with russians p mueller wants to know what manafort knows and gates, his business partner, is key it manafort. >> let me ask you quickly, surprise that rick gates initially pleaded not guilty and then a couple since entering the plea, not guilty has changed and said he would plead guilty? >> it happens all the time. when you're charged, the defense attorney recommends to plead not guilty and see what kind of deal you can get. he isn't getting of a deal outside of 18 months in prison. that suggests that mueller has a lot of evidence against gates as well. so he has a strong bargaining chip. we only h

his campaign chairman paul manafort asked for briefings. paul manafort made the e-mails again conskon consta manafort w the july 7th, 2016 e-mail quote if he needs private briefings, we can accommodate. quote, on july 29th, a week after trump acre acre secement accepted the nomination, appeared to be a meeting he held with oleg. we spent five hours talking. i have several important messages from him to you. he asked me to go and brief you on our conversation. it has to do about the future of his country and is quite interesting. let me know what dates and places will work even next week. i can come and see you. manafort's response was tuesday is best. and then august 2nd was indeed the next tuesday and che came t deliver the important messages to the man who was running the trump for president and they met at the grand havana club in new york city. so according to bank records, paul manafort owed this russian guy nearly $8 million and this russian guy was really coming after him for it. and simultaneously for some reason, paul manafort at t

the other is with paul manafort. and based upon that, i think there are a lot of open questions for me just from a national security perspective about whether russia was invited on to the campaign. did gates and manafort's, again, long-term relationships with russia in some way influence the way that they ran the campaign, the way that policy was done, meetings that were scheduled, and financial transactions. >> and of course there are still the questions about the softening of the approach to russia and the republican party platform. amy, let me cut back to you. part of the expectation from prosecutors is that rick gates now cooperating with the investigation will help in some way to flip paul manafort who could offer information about the campaign or the president. do you expect that despite the statement of denial from paul manafort that he will flip? any indication that this is just a front for something that's to come down the road? >> i don't know. it seems that he's holding firm from everything i've heard from

the no knock door raid on paul manafort at that very early morning raid. what's the white house's response to these former campaign workers? >> of these actions, these indictments do not have anything to do at the white house. they have nothing to do with the president. president trump today has been focused on dealing with this issue of school safety, as we know we've experienced a tragedy in park in florida. this week alone, he spent time with family, students come along for enforcement. he is ensuring that we take action when it comes to dealing with school safety. that's a top priority we are dealing with right now. congress is coming up to session next week and will be meeting with governors, as well as meeting with congressional leaders to address this issue, as we know from parents out there who want to make sure that their children feel secure when they go to school, that's what's on the mind of the president. that's what this administration is focused on. >> harris: i know that this just happened and there's a hearing coming up that we are being t

day, there was already a surprise from paul manafort. because in addition to the charges against paul manafort, hey, who is that guy? even now, months later, when we show file footage of this man, rick gates, people think we're just showing file footage of some random clip art model or maybe he's a cop or a body guard. rick gates. that was the surprise indictment, even on day one from robert mueller, back in october. but nobody knew who rick gates was. then the next time we heard from the special counsel, again, maybe nobody was all that surprised to see michael flynn turn up in court, since he too had been very high-profile and he too had to bow out under a cloud of suspicion and intrigue under his certain tissues contacts. but then even there was a surprise from the special counsel. flynn's guilty plea. flynn is pleading guilty and will be a witness for the prosecution? that was definitely a surprise. and on that same day, surprise again. because hey, who is this guy? george papa dapa-who is pleading guilty? who on earth is george pap

so paul manafort now in court. he'll be facing the judge at 9:30 at loan on that new super seeding indictment with several charges including money lawn during and false statements. we understand at this hearing as well paul manafort's lawyers will continue to press for modified bail terms because paul manafort is still under house arrest. john? >> jessica schneider at the d.c. federal courthouse. keep us posted. wait, there's more. white house communications director hope hicks admitted to the house intelligence committee that she tells white lies for the president. our evan perez live in washington with what's going on here. evan. >> reporter: john, i think you call them big little lies when it comes from the communications director at the white house. certainly at the house intelligence committee, hope hicks declined to answer questions about her time at the white house. she was able to answer some questions ability tout the tran. one of the big questions they had from her is when did she learn about the now famo

paul manafort and donald trump speak the same language. they come from the same murky world and it makes all the sense in the world that they would work together on a campaign. >> all right. you look like you're bursting. go. >> i just wanted to give props to evan mcmullen who came on my show in october of 2016, you just announced you're running for president. he said something then that shocked me, which was that donald trump was behaving like an asset of vladimir putin. when he said it at the time, it made my hair go on fire because we didn't have all the evidence that we have now, and that he saw it then is something that we should -- i just want to mark. >> when we come back, donald trump's plan to arm teachers gets some push back and the governor of florida proposes raising the age to 21 for all gun purchases. we'll go inside the quickly changing gun debate in america. with expedia one click gives you access to discounts on thousands of hotels, cars and things to do. like the garland hotel for 40% off. everything you need to go. exped

beyond manafort in the event that paul manafort decides the potential sentence under the sentencing guidelines in the federal system are incredibly tough? i don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. even if i think i have a defensible case, perhaps i should consider cooperating just as gates did. this is a devastatingly effective technique that the u.s. attorneys use and it results in conspiracy cases in a race among co conspirators to cooperate. you don't want to be the last one. >> so we'll see if these charges put pressure on manafort to cooperate. we know in recent weeks mueller's team met with former chief white house strategist steve bannon, jeff sessions, and also james comey. when you put all the pieces together, danny, do you think the investigation is now getting closer to an interview with the president himself? >> we can reasonably assume that this investigation will not be over unless and until there is at least a request or an actual interview with the president. and barring that, possibly a subpoena for grand jury testimony. any reasonable federal investigati

again here is paul manafort's statement. i continue to maintain my innocence, i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface, he chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me. i was speaking to somebody in the trump world a little bit earlier today, nick, who said if anyone was going to fold, and then switch and cooperate with mueller, it would be rick gates. that the pressure would be too much on him. rick gates is a father of a young kid and been asking his -- reporters have been reporting to be able to coach his son's soccer games. be able to leave his house to do that. when you look at what mueller is doing and those that he's interviewing, yesterday he interviewed donald trump's former campaign aide sam nunberg. early on aide, and not somebody who went far into the campaign. but somebody that was there in the early st

paul manafort faces money laundering charges and conspiracy. now according to multiple reports, the special counsel and federal prosecutors are also investigating paul manafort's dealing with a man name steve caulk. caulk was part of candidate trump's economic advisory panel. he did not get a job in the white house. the "wall street journal" reports a spokes map for paul manafort said he doesn't comment on rumors. fox news and the "wall street journal" share common ownership. the banker has not commented on this latest reporting. but he is -- has said in the paul that the loans were not related to his work with the campaign. one of president's trump's earlier campaign advisers meeting with the special counsel's office today. that adviser has accused top trump officials including the vice president of lying about contacts with russians during the campaign. our chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge is live on capitol hill. tell us about this former adviser. >> sam nunberg worked with the campaign a year before the election. so the s

rick gates was paul manafort's partner. he's agreed to plead guilty and to cooperate fully and he has to cooperate completely and fully or he is right back in the pokie with all these charges. it was about 2:00 this afternoon that gates agreed to plead. my guess is gates knows an awful lot about the inner workings. and gates stayed on after manafort left. this is a squeeze on the higher-ups. >> we start with people like george papadopoulos that no one ever heard of and you work your way up the chain. there's a lot of plea agreements and people in his cross hairs. people wonder who is at the top of this flow chart. we have no idea who it is. but it is paul manafort and whoever he wants to give up. >> we could be saying fwls jared. i've always said, it looks like hope hicks might be the unfortunate person here. who really knows? it is unfortunate that we're at this place. we have these charges being levied. >> i'll have an exclusive interview with scott israel as well as connecticut senator chris murphy. it all starts sunday

so this is putting enormous pressure on paul manafort, up until now you had a strong case against paul manafort, but it was a paper case. it was mainly documents accusing him of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, accusing him of bank fraud and tax fraud. now you have this very compelling witness who can say that he was there every step of the way with mr. manafort as they committed those crimes together. and that is putting enormous pressure on manafort to plead guilty, which seems to be what robert mueller wants, because at the end of the day, this is not really about bank fraud and tax fraud. this is about whether the trump campaign colluded with russia. and it seems like robert mueller believes that paul manafort has information relevant to that question and wants to get that testimony. kasie? >> to that point, you have worked with robert mueller and seen him operate under high stakes, high pressure. what can rick gates offer to him and if, in fact, he wants to potentially get away without serving any prison time, what is he giving mueller in exchange for that? >> yeah, so l

there was already a surprise from paul manafort because in addition to the charges against paul manafort, hey, who is that guy? even now months later when we show file footage of this man rick gates, people think we're showing file footage of some random clip art model or maybe a cop or body guard. rick gates, that was the surprise indictment on day one from robert mueller in october. nobody knew who rick gates was. then the next time we heard from the special counsel, again, maybe nobody was all that surprised to see michael flynn turn up in court since he, too, had been very high profile and he, too, had had to bow out famously under a cloud of suspicion and intrigue under his contacts with the russian government. but even on the second of the indictment days, even when they hauled in flynn, again, there was a surprise from the special counsel. flynn's guilty plea. he'll be a cooperating witness for the prosecution? that was definitely a surprise. on that same day, surprise again because hey, who is this guy? george papadopoulos who is also pleading guilty? who on god's green earth is

in that campaign, the only thing above paul manafort's rank would be donald trump. >> that's right. it would be to offer up connections between donald trump and the russians, these questions of what did he know of the hacking of john podesta's e-mails, which would be a crime of the e-mail act. and also if he had past dealings with russians and past oligarchs in some of these real estate deals. bauds everybody else that might be of interest seems to have gotten plea deals. the only other person is the attorney general jeff sessions who had dealings with the russians that he did not report during his confirmation hearings. >> there's reporting in politico about some of the more fringe elements of the republican right wing saying that the president should be issuing pardons immediately. they're the kind of people who you might normally ignore but the fringe in trump world becomes the center of his thinking. might people like paul manafort be hanging on in the hope of pardons or is it even possible to consider the possibility that rick gates moving into the zone of a guilty plea might p

paul manafort not happy today. but tonight we have learned of new charges that came after this plea deal against paul manafort. >> reporter: yes, david. at least two new counts against manafort for playing russians as experts secretly lobbying, david. >> thank you. >>> next to the security scare at the white house. a car plowing into a barrier outside, triggering a lockdown there. the secret service jumping into action. the car crashing to a stop. the woman behind the wheel then taken into custody. abc's david kerley is on the scene for us tonight. >> everybody, we got to walk this way now. >> reporter: the frantic moments. as secret service officers respond to a vehicle attempting to breach the white house grounds. >> responding to a suspicious vehicle. >> reporter: according to witnesses, the woman ignored repeated commands to stop trying to get through barriers in that white van. >> she just kept pressing on the gas and trying to press through i guess. that's what it looked like. they ordered her to stop. >> rep

he's certainly connected to paul manafort. "the new york times" back in september of last year did a story about him, and in it they basically describe how the justice department of justice and special counsel were looking at him. it has to do with some work that he was hired for to do for paul manafort, it says he arranged for this law firm, the scat den arps, this prominent law firm in new york that he worked for to draft a report that was used to essentially jail a political rival of ukrainian viktor yanukovych. as we know and have done reporting on this, manafort had done work for yanukovych and it appears he hired this firm to do some work for him in justifying the jalg of yanukovych's political rival. it's kind of interesting i guess that the special counsel had started to look into this, that they were asking questions about this, about the payments for this work. it appears, at least according to the charges have that haven't filed, the attorney that has been charged there, alex van der zwaan, lied to the special couns

why is this special counsel getting new information about paul manafort? what is their new source of information about his alleged bank fraud? nbc news has not confirmed but over the weekend, the "l.a. times" reported that manafort's deputy and business and deputy on the trump campaign rick gates will change his not guilty plea to guilty and "the times" is reporting rick gates agreed to testify against paul manafort. possibility was first reported by cnn. the "l.a. times" report put meat on the bones this weekend. that has been matched by cbs news. if that's about to happen, does it make sense rick gates flipping and becoming a cooperating witness explains why we're seeing allegations of new criminal conduct against paul manafort? if that's happening, what should we expect to see and if there is a new list of alleged criminal conduct against paul manafort, why is it the special counsel's describing these allegations in a filing like this? does this actually mean there are new charges ending up against him? if so, how serious are the charges? how do we tell

a spokesman for paul manafort released this statement tonight. paul manafort is innocent of the allegations set out in the newly filed indictments and he is confident that he will be acquitted of all charges. the new allegations against mr. manafort once again have nothing to do with russia and the 2016 election, interference, collusion. mr. manafort is confident that he will be acquitted and violations of his constitutional rights will be remedied. ominously for paul manafort and others facing possible charges, rick gates released no statement about the new charges filed against him. nothing about rick gates being innocent, nothing about rick gates being confident that he will be found not guilty of all of these charges. joining us now ron klain, former chief counsel of senate judiciary committee. and paul fishman, a former u.s. attorney. and david k. johnston is with us. he's the author of "it's even worse than you think what the trump administration is doing to america" a best-seller now. paul i want to go to you, what do you make of these add