he said that paul manafort is a good man. i'm wondering if the president believes he has the right to use the power of his office, the power to pardon to protect them from what he might see as unfair punishment down the road. does he believe he has that right? >> i would refer you back to ty cobb's statement. there not discussion or consideration of that at this time. there would be no reason for me to have had a conversation with the president about that. that is not being currently discussed at the white house. >> that wasn't about that. it was whether he believes he has the right to use the power of his office. >> the president has the authority to pardon individuals, but you're asking me about a specific case in which it hasn't been discussed. i would not have brought that up with him. >> thanks a lot. the president has the power of the pardon, not ty cobb. >> which is what i just said. >> not exactly. you talked about ty cobb's statement. the president has the power of the pardon. has he considered -- is he considering -

so rick gates, certainly to send a pledge to paul manafort. i think this seems to be, it is excalating. we keep saying it's escalating but there's a lot more activity. certainly, we keep saying it's escalating. because it's escalating. >> i think there's a concensus. >> stick around. don't go too far away. >>> the attorney for stormy daniels seeks to question the president and his personal lawyer about the hush money deal. >>> and the secret is out. a mystery train took kim jong-un to a meeting with china's leader. will a meeting with president trump really happen? and presto your business is magically transformed? not quite. it takes a ground-breaking company like dell technologies. a family of seven technology leaders working behind the scenes to make the impossible... reality. for instance, we're helping to give cars the power to read your mind from anywhere. ♪ we're helping up to 40% of the nation's donated blood supply... to be redirected to the areas and people that need it most. and we're even developing technology to create a whole n

plus was there talk of pardon for michael flynn and paul manafort? was the president behind those conversations? >>> and stormy daniels attorney, attorney is my guest. let's go outfront. >>> good evening i'm

and he transitioned over into paul manafort's world. so, from the get-go, when the rnc platform committee change happened, when paul manafort became -- >> became more friendly to russian foreign policy. >> yes, constantine known as k.k. came to the u.s. and visited with paul manafort, democracy had their antenna up. >> they saw this coming. this is now obviously well known to bob mueller. we learned about it in the charging documents for a dutch lawyer. do you think that we give the collusion investigation a sho short -- how we talk about it, the k.k., g.r.u., dee minds me of -- do we give short trip and are we ignoring what is right in front of our eyes, that collusion is now established between the trump campaign and the russians, and that this development is simply making that collusion more likely a conspiracy and it was between the top representative of the president's campaign and known russian intelligence officials? >> the key open question is whether there was a quid pro quo. if you guys do this, we'll do this. but look at the

>> reporter: i think he expected he would flip on paul manafort who is his long-time business partner and the campaign chairman of the trump campaign. one of the things my colleague has been learning from her sources is that when robert mueller's team the prosecutors on his team were talking to gates, they said, look, we don't really need you to help us win this case over paul manafort and to help us win over manafort's cooperation. what we want from you is cooperation and information that helps our core mission. we know from mueller that means investigating russian meddling and any kind of potential russian collusion with trump campaign officials. so that tells you that mueller is still very much looking into collusion, and he believes that rick gates could be an asset in that case. >> how is all this information coming to light now? >> reporter: part of the sources have been telling cnn. now also there is this case coming out, not in the manafort case, in the case of another lawyer that worked for manafort and gates pled guilty to lying to special counsel robert mueller. one of the

manafort, i think is his name to lead his delegate efforts. >> paul manafort, i think was his name, when this was breaking news, because he had been out of politics for decades. what we all know now, two years later, the white house on edge, because mueller is revealing in court filings a potential direct link between the trump campaign and putin's russian intelligence service. let me show you this, because it is explosive. there are new court documents where mueller states that a lawyer who worked for manafort and his deputy rick gates, knew that both of them had this alleged connection to the president, identified as person a in these documents. the fbi says person a has ties to a russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016. and goes on to say that gates told them person a was a foreign intelligence officer with the gru. now the gru of course is the same agency linked to the entity blamed for hacking the dnc emails, guccifer 2.0. let's review what you have here. manafort and rick gates talking to the man who at the time was alleged to have been hacking their rivals, the

gates and paul manafort. "mueller just drew his most direct line to date between the trump campaign and russia. what's particularly significant in the mueller filing are six words. "and had such ties in 2016." prosecutors have said previously that a long-time manafort and gates associate had ties to russian intelligence, but they have never said those ties remained during the 2016 campaign. and that's the distinction. and an nbc news headline distilled this story down to clear language citing mueller's court filing. "trump campaign's gates knew he was speaking to russian intel agent." as you may recall, rick gates now cooperating with mueller's team. but paul manafort as we mentioned early on in the broadcast tonight has pleaded not guilty on a number of charges, including money laundering, put another way for the sake of clarity, if manafort gets the book thrown at him, he will die behind bars. but paul manafort as we mentioned early on in the broadcast tonight has pleaded not guilty on a number of charges,

paul manafort is fighting this in court. >> paul manafort is in desperate, desperate trouble. he's filed motions saying that mierl doesn't have the authority to bring these cases. it's outside of his jurisdiction. but i think he is in an almost indefensible position. i don't know how he's going to defend this case at trial. i think a guilty plea from manafort is far from out of the question at this point. i think, you know the trial is months away, but i just have a lot of doubt that that case will ever go to trial. >> unless he thinks he can get a pardon from the president. >> he can get a pardon after pleading guilty, too. so that's, you know, it's not necessarily either or, but you are right, if he doesn't want to cooperate. if he doesn't want to talk a pardon is certainly his -- >> it's preceding the guilty plea, they'd be looking for information about trump. if word gets back to trump about that, maybe trump doesn't give him a pardon. so that might be a reason for him to wait until the trial is over. >> it's a rather interesting nugget here. which is the russian intellige

now we're seeing robert mueller is connecting the trump campaign, paul manafort, directly to russian spies. this is again the central mission that robert mueller was appointed to which was to look into whether or not there were any ties, any coordination, illegal coordination, between members of the trump campaign and russia. >> what is it, sarah, that gates might know that might be of specific interest to robert mueller, the special counsel? >> it's clear the special counsel thinks that gates is going to be useful beyond just his business ties to paul manafort, beyond flipping on his former business partner and he may have information about potential collusion or coordination between members of the trump campaign and the russians. rick gates, president trump was never fond of him. he was also close to tom baric, a close friend of trump. when they were on the campaign together, paul manafort and rick gates, rick gates wasn't necessarily in every top strategy meeting but he made it his business to know what was going on. for instance, during that summer where there is the meeting at t

manafort to provide information against paul manafort. instead, what they said they needed him for was their core mission, which is looking into possible illegal coordination between trump campaign and russians, what people called collusion. and so this is a big deal, simply because despite what you hear from the president, despite what you hear from the white house, it appears robert mueller has not given up on the question of collusion, the question of collusion is very much what he wants rick gates to perhaps help his prosecutors come up with a case on. so, again, what we hear from the president, what we are hearing now from people who were close to these discussions with rick gates, appears to show a different picture that very much paints a picture that robert mueller is not done with the question of collusion. >> and are there indications now of how this is playing out exactly with gates? >> we are beginning to see a little bit of. that earlier this week, there was a filing in a separate case involving a lawyer who had done, whose l

paul manafort who served as the campaign chairman during the course of the campaign, and also michael flynn, the first national security adviser. we received a statement from ty cobb. he is the in-house counsel for the president. he addressed this topic. he said i've only been asked about pardons by the press and routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under destruction or under consideration at the white house. there was some question then left about whether this is something at any point that was discussed or considered and my colleague kristen welker focused on that when she spoke to sarah huckabee-sanders in this briefing. take a listen. >> ty cobb deals with the president so i want to ask you specifically, did the president direct john dowd to talk to the attorneys for paul manafort and michael flynn about potential pardons? >> i'm not aware of any conversations of that nature at all. >> did the president have a reaction to these revelations in "the new york times"? did you ask him specifically. >> i did not talk to him about it specifically. but again i've an bn in

we've always had this question about why trump would pick paul manafort and why paul manafort would share it for free and also what paul manafort was doing that triggered this strange bank activity that led to the bank accounting being shut down in california and led to multiple felony charges from the special counsel's office here on the east coast. open questions, he's not pled guilty but this week he did hire a new white collar lawyer, richard wesley became the third high powered attorney to join paul manafort's attorney this week. the judge in virginia is not inclined to let mr. manafort linger around because he's facing life in prison. so he sits at home waiting for the first of his two trials to start in july and meanwhile, the general who pled guilty in this investigation is giving remarks at the fundraiser for the longest of long shot candidates. if you thought this investigation and characters in it couldn't get weirder, just hold your breath for a few seconds. surprises at every turn. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. just making some ice in my freezer here. so check back f

this is an overwhelming case against paul manafort. he's 68 years old but to hear it from the actual judge in the alexandria case is something -- it's something significant, i think. this is from judge ts ellis and he wrote, given the nature of the charges and the pattern weight of the evidence against him, the defendant faces a very real possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. and this is a bail ruling where he's been placed on 24 hour lockdown. he's now basically confined to his house except for medical emergencies and he's wearing an ankle bracelet on each ankle, one for the d.c. case and one for the alexandria case. it's one of the great mysteries of the mueller investigation, why paul manafort is holding out and when with and if he will plead guilty. >> i've heard that maybe he doesn't have anything of particular value. what are sort of the investigative journalism and investigative in the prosecutorial theories for why manafort hasn't pleaded guilty? >> he's lived his entire life in the shadow of the law. he has b

paul manafort, facing a lot of charges. big question has been why is paul manafort not pleading guilty to one of the charges and trying to make a plea deal. you have legal analysts out there who say there is no way he can avoid jail time. so what has been floating out there until today? well is he expecting a presidential pardon. then this "times" story comes out so he is expecting a presidential pardon because it was floated to his lawyer last year. >> that is the part we don't know. but it does appear that way. that manafort is looking for that pardon. i believe as we've discussed before, that part of it is he is refusing to cooperate with mueller. he also -- when rick gates announced that he pled -- pleaded guilty a few months ago and suggested that he would, mueller lit him up in a statement. suggesting he couldn't believe -- i'm sorry manafort lit him up in a statement. that said how could you do this. we're innocent and suggesting his own client would not be doing the same and woe still be not guilty. and manafort and

that trump tower meeting paul manafort attended with a number of russians. he may have heard about it or found out if the russians were with anybody else in the building. they say he may not have been in the top strategy meetings but made is his business to know what was going on. >> thank you so much. we appreciate that. we will bring in analyst carl bernstein and john dean and cnn counter terrorism analyst phil mudd. john, huge nooudz news tonight what do you think this tells us about the real target of mueller's investigation? >> i think he is back looking where he started with is collusion, i thought gates was a powerful potential witness, given the teal made for gates, it was a very good deal. and it had to be more than nailing his former partner manafort. so i think he's given them a lot of information and he has a lot of information and he's an invaluable witness and could change the whole dynamics of the case. >> mueller and his team didn't need rick goetz to flip on his box one of the contact with russians and potential collusion. what does that tel

manafort who has connections to paul manafort and was a business associate of his was communicating with rick gates during the height of the 2016 campaign. >> what kind of information might rick gates have? what information did he have access to? >> reporter: rick gates, as we know, has been a close business associate of paul manafort. he was part of trump's inner circle including, as we said, paul manafort. and also another individual, tom barrick. he was a close friend of the president. manafort was in on the fund-raising decisions. he also developed a reputation for keeping tabs on what others were up to in the campaign, including the controversial trump tower meeting with a russian lawyer who promised dirt on hillary clinton. and also important, this newly released information from these court documents that reveal that rick gates was talking to a russian intelligence individual in 2016. >> thank you for setting all of that up for us. we have cnn political analyst john avlon and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. this may lead bread crumbs as to which way robert mueller is

president trump's former lawyer floated the idea that the president might be willing to pardon paul manafort and michael flynn. that, of course, raises questions about whether dowd who resigned last week is trying to influence their decisions about whether to cooperate with mueller, dowd denied the whole thing, telling the times, there were no discussions, period. there's more coming out of the mueller investigation to tell you about. rick gates knowingly talked with a former russian intelligence officer weeks before the investigation. that allegation coming in the upcoming sentencing of the dutch attorney who worked with gates and manafort and interestingly enough is the son in law of a russian billionaire. if you think you've heard the last of president trump's nemesis stormy daniels, think again. her attorney wants to depose the president and his so-called fixer michael cohen, to ask who knew what and when about that $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star. wait, there is more. a federal judge allowing a wlaut to proceed that alleges trump took illegal foreign gifts. he received gift

manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> the very first thing paul manafort's lawyer said is president trump was correct. and that day i said why is he saying this? why isn't he talking about paul manafort and the fact that there was no money laundering if there wasn't any money laundering? instead he is defending the president. maybe we now know why. >> yeah, the remark was certainly neither here authorize the nor there, as understand, it had nothing to do with russian collusion. it was curious. but i think that we risk -- we're treading into dangerous territory when we speculate a little bit too much about what is going on here. robby i think is right to say bad things could have happened, but it could be that the president just feels these people were treated unfairly and wanted his lawyers to throw out the prospect of a pardon. we really don't know. and so i think as far as reporters are concerned, we risk getting into a treacherous territory because the president does things at times out of impulse as we've seen with some of the appointments without consul

he's also said paul manafort is a good man. i'm wondering if the president believes he has the right to use the power of his office, power to pardon to protect them from what he might see as unfair punishment down the road. does he believe he has that right? >> look, i would refer you back to ty cobb's statement. there's not discussion or consideration of that at this time so there would be no reason for me to have had a conversation with the president about that because that is not being currently discussed at the white house. >> the question is whether he believes he has the right to use the power of his office. >> the president has the authority to pardon individuals. you're asking me about a specific case in which it hasn't been discussed so i would not have brought that up with him. >> the president who has the power of the pardon, not ty cobb. so has the president -- >> which is what i just said to phil. >> not exactly. the president has the power of the pardon. has he considered, would he consider pardoning paul manafort

evidence that paul manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> paul manafort faces 23 felony counts. first trial in july for bank fraud. then expected to face a second trial in washington this fall on charges related to his lobbying work on behalf of ukraine. peter hardy former federal prosecutor. >> history is against him. if i had to put a dollar on it. he will likely be convicted at trial. yes. and then he will face, significant potential prison time. >> sources close to the case tell cbs news that paul manafort expects to receive a pardon if he is convicted. the "the new york times" reported to day that pardons were discussed by lawyers that previously represented mr. trump and mr. paul manafort. the president's former lawyer said no discussions took place. and the white house denies any pardons have been offered. >> no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the white house. >> court documents don't indicate whether gates discussed the election with that former intelligence official. but that is exactly the kind of evidence that gates can o

paul ma th manafort left august. these reported and suspicious transactions suspicious enough to shut down the bank accounts started within a week of manafort exiting the campaign. that timing tracks with some of the earlier questions about strange financial circumstances shell cam pompany called summer breeze and used summer breeze to acquire $20 million in loans for multiple banks around the country from august through the election and then up until around the time of the inauguration and mueller charges fraud lengthily. we've always had this question about why trump would pick paul manafort and why paul manafort would share it for free and also what manafort was doing that triggered this strange bank activity that led to the bank accounting being shut down in california and led to multiple charges from the special counsel's office here on the east coast. open questions, he's not pled guilty but this week he did hire a new white collar lawyer became the third high powered attorney to join paul manafort's attorney t

trump campaign chairman paul manafort will be wearing two ankle bracelets. this presumably is why god gave paul manafort two legs one for an electronic monitor to make sure he doesn't free from his d.c. trial and a second one to make sure he doesn't free from his virginia trial. apparently the electronic monitoring systems in d.c. and virginia aren't the same so he needs two ankle bracelets. i hope he gets them on each ankle. would be weird to have two-on-one. right? i don't know. i also want to show you this footage. this is what happened when trump campaign chairman paul manafort left his arraignment today when this guy screams at him, show us your bracelet. he might not have known at the time it should be bracelets, plural. >> show us your bracelet! hey, traitor, here is your flag. russian flag. traitor. traitor. you're selling out america to the russians. how much did you get for that? traitor. >> it has been a remarkable day in the news. president's campaign chair pled not guilty to 18 felonies and the president announced he'll be the first president ev

and the statement that paul manafort made that you read feels funny. of course, members of foreign intelligence services don't introduce themselves as a spy, but sophisticated operators are responsible for knowing who they work with and what entities, political parties, governments, intelligence services they're affiliated with. this is one of the bedrock principles of the justice department's rules of who you're working for. paul manafort registered with the justice department though not to the extent mueller expected. he should have known how these rules work. the idea he would have accidentally worked with somebody who was a russian spy doesn't make sense, doesn't mesh with manafort's own characterization of the work he claimed to be doing. >> professor, what's going on with the guilty plea of vander swan? is it likely there's a plea agreement in place of what it should be. that he thinks he knows what he's pleading guilty to and this is all paperwork necessary before they get to the judge? >> it's hard to know what's going on. usually the prosecuto

he thinks it is weak and flimsy and praised paul manafort at length calling hmm a good man. we know the president has not fully distanced himself from either one of these figures. whether he made the observations or sanctioned them, we don't know. >> page, i'll play you some sound i'm open cessobsessed ove last fall. this is after the first indictment was issued, the lawyer kevin downing. listen first thing he said. >> i think you all saw today that president donald trump was correct, there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> it just struck me as interesting last fall that the very first line of defense that he had was for president trump, not his own client, paul manafort. i'm wondering, if perhaps now we have an explanation, maybe he was trying to curry favor with the president. >> john, i think that's absolutely correct. it makes no sense for manafort's lawyer not to be discussing the merits of their defense. these are very serious charges against manafort, the money laundering, the financial dealings, and now no

if paul manafort is batman, gates is robin. a lot of people's jaws dropped that he would turn on manafort. he's also connected to one of trump's closest friends who he was working for at the time of this arrest. so i think he's a very important person to watch. >> clearly the robert mueller team is sending a message with this disclosure, buried inside this other issue. >> i would say, wolf, mostly they're spending it to manafort, which is saying you've got to cooperate. >> still refusing to cooperate. >>> everybody stick around. more news we're following. the president says no way the second amendment to the u.s. constitution will ever be repealed after a u.s. supreme court justice has called for just that. >>> and forget mexico. cnn has new reporting on who the president says could pay for his long-promised border wall. >>> plus, is the president gearing up for a war with amazon? we have details on the new report that has the stock plummeting. i have type 2 diabetes. i'm trying to manage my a1c, then i learn type 2 diabetes pu

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

and pardons for former trump campaign chairman paul manafort who is now facing multiple criminal charges. cnn's jeff zeleny is at the white house. are they denying these charges? >>. >> reporter: the white house is pushing back saying these conversations did not happen. first we're hearing from white house lawyer ty cobb who said this earlier this afternoon. he said, i've only been asked about pardons by the press and i've routinely respond that had no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the white house bust of course, this was a central matter of questions here in the white house briefing room a short time ago with white house press secretary sarah sanders, asking about the president's authority. and if he ever had any conversations. take listen. >> does he believe he has that right? >> i would refer you back to ty cobb's station. there would be no reason for me to have had a conversation about that. >> the president has the authority to pardon. i would not have brought that up with him. >> there's room for some wiggle room. there is sourcing to say that these convers

>> sarah, the president has said that michael flynn is a good man and also said that paul manafort is a good man. i'm wondering if the president believes he has the right to use the power of his office, power of pardon, to protect them from what he may see as unfair punishment down the road. does he believe he has that right? >> i would refer you back to ty cobb's statement. there's not discussion or consideration of that at this time. there would be no reason for me to have had a conversation with the president about that. that is not being currently discussed at the white house. >> with whether he believes he has the right to use the power of his office. >> the president has the authority to pardon individual bus you're asking me about a specific case in which it hasn't been discussed so i would not have brought that up with him. john? >> thank you, sarah. the president has the power, not ty cobb. >> which is what i just said to phil. >> not exactly. you talked about ty cobb's statement. the president has the power of the pardon. has he considered, is he considering, would he consid

manafort. even if hypothetically that did happen, that wouldn't preclude the special counsel from talking with them as part of the investigation. >> yeah. >> so another story that we need to talk about, there's also the reporting tonight that rick gates had repeated contacts in the final weeks before the 2016 election with a person with ties to the russian intelligence service and gates knew about those ties. how big of a problem is that for the president. >> if you're the special counsel who advised, this is a bone for a dog. i mean on the surface it looks simple. gates has flipped, obviously, so he's going to be talking to mueller about his contacts with his russian -- what he knew. i don't think that's the most significant series of questions that mueller would have. let me give you a few, don, that would be really interesting especially for someone like gates, a cooperating witness. who in the campaign knew about this beforehand? who knew about it after. did someone ask you to do this befor

he was there in 2016 when there was the meeting in trump tower between paul manafort and some other trump campaign aides and a number of russian officials. so it's possible that rick gates has some kind of information about that. but he also stuck around after manafort was fired he was on the campaign for longer and then he went on to work on the presidential inauguration with tom barrack, one of president trump's close friends. so he could have information we're not aware of right now. >> i want to bring in our next guests. hello, everyone, welcome to the program. we're learning more and more about robert mueller's focus. do you think rick gates is the lynch pin mueller needs to make the collusion case? >> no. he'll need more, but it's not just rick gates. so remember, rick gates, might have kept -- have e-mails, have documentation, other evidence that then leads to other people who may know more. sarah was reporting rick gates was not in the inner circle but as mueller is able to get more information about what might have been happening in the inner circle, some of that inner circle may

columnik is also someone who worked with paul manafort in the past. the special counsel is interested in these interactions. he said these contacts are pertinent to the investigation and wants to find out more about them. and of course the big question is what, if anything, does this mean for president trump? we have seen him out there time and time again calling this investigation a witch hunt, and part of his argument is that nothing he has seen from investigators so far ties anyone on his campaign to russian officials. obviously the latest information we're getting takes some steam out of that argument. >> it certainly does. rick gates pleading guilty, fully cooperating now with manafort. that's a source of concern clearly to some around the president of the united states. thanks so much, sara, for that report. >>> several times during the russia investigation president trump has clam ored for a secon special prosecutor, this one to look into hillary clinton and the bias in the state department. jeff sessions has now refused that second special cou

but he was of course close with paul manafort, the campaign chairman. and he was working at the campaign at a time where a lot of interesting things were happening in trump tower. we learned in retrospect he was there in 2016 where there was the meeting between paul manafort and other campaign aides and a number of russian officials. it's possible that rick gates has information about that. but he also stuck around after manafort was fired. he was on the campaign for longer. and then he went on to work on the presidential inauguration with tom barrick one of president trump's close friends. he could have additional information we're not aware of at this point. >> many thanks, sarah, i appreciate that. i want to bring in juliette kayyem, michael moore, a former u.s. attorney, and a former federal prosecutor. hello welcome welcome to the program. >> hey, don. >> juliette. we're learning more about the foengz of the investigation. do you think rick gates is the lynch pin needed to make the collusion case. >> no, he will need more. but it's not just rick ga

>> paul common fort and michael -- paul manafort and michael flynn who was president partners, there can be an ethical abuse someone third party is offering that in exchange for withholding testimony. rick gates. >> interesting. >> perhaps he was offered same deal at the same time with paul manafort. now they've flit them up -- >> my point with this, it's difficult if you're the white house to even step in without calling the names. you can push back on it. how much can you say? you don't know what mueller has. he doesn't typically have leaks off his team. he's got some bias there and democrats working for him. you can see where some of the politics come in play. that's interesting. >> we do know, trish, that these pardons were not offered. they weren't offered. we have got jay sekulow saying never during the course of my representation the president and i had any discussions of pardons of any individual involved in this inquiry. ty cobb, the white house lawyer, i have only been asked about pardons by the press. they continue to respond that no pardons are under consideration at the

you've got paul manafort digging in, ready to fight. we talked about rick gates cooperating, michael flynn, the folks saying to robert mueller, here is information that i have that can be useful to you. do you think at this point paul manafort has a case here? is he throwing a hail mary? >> this is such a silly filing by paul manafort. look, a couple things. one, i think it's pretty obvious that bob mueller is acting completely within his mandate. the mandate makes clear he can look at anything else that arises from the investigation. and his supervisor, rod rosenstein, has made it abundantly clear a number of times he's closely coordinating with him. any time he's gone into a new area he's gotten his supervisor's approval to do so. but let's say just imagine if manafort were successful in this filing. it doesn't mean that these same charges couldn't be brought against him. it just means mueller couldn't bring them. so there would be nothing to stop -- >> that's the argument, right? >> yeah, there's nothing to be said the u.s. attorney

in court documents filed late tuesday, the fbi says that trump campaign share paul manafort and his deputy rick gates were in contact with a person who had an ongoing relationship with russian intelligence and alleged that gates said he knew the person was a russian intelligence officer. the revelation came in the presentencing report to alex v are an did he rlon who lied about his contact with gates. vander zwaan had a series of kauts with gates and person a in september and october 2016. the conversations concerned potential criminal charges in ukraine. raising the question posed by poe lit toe, how much is he actually telling mueller about trump? manafort declined a comment on this. >>> the plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing president trump of accepting unconstitutional gifts are hailing progress in their case. a federal district court judge is letting their case advance, though the court has limited the case only to payments involving the trump international hotel in washington, d.c. the suit was filed by washington, d.c. and the state of maryland accusing the president of violating the

>> it's striking of all the people left out there, paul manafort's still standing. it's always kind of struck me as to why he hasn't flipped. michael flynn, pap dadopoulos a others. you have to build it through surrounding cases. if all you have is a he said/he said, that's difficult. a prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. if you have offers being floated through the lawyer and maybe that lawyer has to end up testifying, if paul manafort is telling others he's going to sit tight because, you know, i got a potential pardon coming to me down the line. it's that kind of evidence that would have to be accumulated to somehow bolster a criminal case. because i think if it comes down to a he said/he said, that's a very difficult case to bring to a court of law. >> i want to touch on the stormy daniels case and play what michael cohen's lawyer said last night about the nondisclosure greet. take a listen. >> the president was not aware of the agreement. there were a ton of matters that took place that michael flixed. donald trump wasn't involved in every single

new york times" is reporting a presidential lawyer floated the idea of pardoning michael flynn and paul manafort last year, as the special counsel was closing in on those high-level former trump campaign aides. this hour, i'll get reaction from senate judiciary committee member, chris coons, along with our correspondents and analysts. first, let's go to our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta. jim, it's official now, the va secretary shulkin, fired. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. it's as if the president had this in his back pocket, waiting to unveil it on the american people, announcing that he is replacing his va secretary, david shulkin, with the white house physician, dr. ronny jackson. dr. jackson, you'll recall, made a name for himself, you might say, by declaring the president to be in excellent health. but i'm told by a white house official that some of these questions about david shulkin, ethical questions over at the va were becoming too big of a distraction for him to carry out the president's agenda when it comes to reforming care for our nation's veterans.

meaning this was not just about paul manafort. to be clear, nbc has not confirmed this report, but it does overlap with some of what we know, that mueller is using gates to tie the campaign directly to the russians. we did show you on this new court filing that says that gates was directly communicating to someone in 2016 to someone who had ties to russian intelligence services. so did gates have no choice but to flip? is this information coming from somewhere around gates? that we do not know yet. today news that a trump ally was detained at boston's airport and questioned by mueller investigators, including about contacts with, yes, roger stone and wikileaks. and this comes amid some other reports that this comes amid contacts between the trump team and the rnc. there are investigators in congress and there are investigators worried that trump could lash out and try to get mueller fired. >> i think it is obvious that he would like to fire him, whether he will or not is the core question. i think the president's abrupt recent act

former trump campaign manager, paul manafort, is making it clear, he is ready for a fight. his lawyer is asking a judge to throw out the indictment against him, claiming special counsel, robert mueller, exceeded his authority by charging him with crimes unrelated to russian meddling. that's happening as attorney general jeff sessions considers whether to fire former fbi director, andrew mccabe, just days before his planned retirement. a move that could put his pension at risk.

was the trump legal team trying to keep michael flynn and paul manafort from cooperating in the russia probe? >>> the date is set for leaders of north korea and south korea to meet. welcome to "early start." i'm michelle kosinski. >> great to have you here, my friend. i'm dave briggs. it is thursday, march 29th. you know dr. ronnie saying he has incredibly good genes. we have david shulkin out as secretary. in this case, we are told chief of staff john kelly gave shulkin the head's up on the phone. he said questions about the travel have been distractions getting in the way. the president campaigned hard on veterans. >> the big surprise was not shulkin's ouster which was rumored for weeks, but who is nominated to replace him. his personal physician. dr. ronnie jackson. unsurprisingly the performance on tv had to do with the selection. dr. jackson's white house briefing said the president's health played a part in his decision. here is a look back. >> no indication he has any cognitive issues. the president is sharp and ar articulate. look at his vision. he can drive if he wants to with

but some countries could be spared. >>> and paul manafort pleased no pleads not guilty to

paul manafort and rick greats in touch with someone who had russian military intelligence ties during the campaign there be drawing the most direct line as you said between the campaign and russia that we've seen. >> not just that. a reminder to folks because this character has arisen before. remember when the e-mails come out, paul manafort gets the job on the campaign and sends an e-mail to someone in ukraine and says has this is russian oligarch seen this? the person he's sending those e-mails is this individual, is that right, natasha? >> correct. he went with constantine in may and another time in august they met in person. at least one conversation, they did discuss the presidential campaign. not only did they exchange e-mails they also met face-to-face twice during that year. >> klimnik is on the ground. manafort is is e-mailing him as using it as a means to get made whole with a shady russian oligarch. malcolm, this question of ties to russian intelligence, that terms ties is nonspecific. i never know what to do with it. people would say ties to terrorists and organized crime,

he was deputy to paul manafort, a long-time business associate of his. and he has connections to tom barrack, a close friend of trump. rick gates was in on some of the fund-raising decisions and developed a reputation for keeping tabs on what others were doing in the campaign, including that trump tower meeting where a russian lawyer promised dirt. remember that happened over the summer during the campaign where this russian lawyer promised dirt on hillary clinton. alisyn? >> shimon, thank you very much for all of your reporting. so skepticism appears to be growing over president trump's pick to lead the department of veterans affairs as he made headlines in this unscripted rally in ohio. cnn's abby phillip is live in west palm beach, florida with more. so what happened, abby? >> reporter: good morning, alisyn is. president trump is waking up at his resort here in mauer ltpin . it is the person he picked as his new v.a. secretary is coming under scrutiny as his inner circle shrinks. mounting criticism on capitol hill about the qualifications of president

paul manafort, the former com pain chairman ended up not. he's fighting this. that's why these conversations are important. if the white house, if the president was offering or talking about some type of pardon, is there obstruction of justice here? now, these are all questions. we don't know the answer to these questions. but this new reporting and the white house's very careful calibration today certainly suggests that this may be something that bob mueller is looking into. >> yeah, a lot depends obviously on the wording, assuming this conversation between john dowd and the attorney for manafort and the attorney for flynn took place as the times is reporting, and "the washington post" has also backed up with sources although, again, john dowd deni denies. assuming those conversations took place, the wording of what was said is very critical to whether or not this was an attempt to actually obstruct or just a conversation. the white house, as you pointed out, was very careful in their wording about whether or not these conversations took place today. >> report