it's not clear why there's any violation between tony podesta. what we've seen a lot by the mueller investigation is that this lobbying work came up and it's made people in washington, d.c. nervous. it was very lax. you never saw farah violations but now mueller has taken a different position and the fbi has taken a different position. and i want to make another point on whether or not manafort could cooperate. there is something the government wants from paul manafort. we know he was give an sweet deal like rick gates has. he could have done so in this investigation. we know his cooperation but there was something and we don't know what that is that continues to stop paul manafort from cooperating, whether it's fear of someone, whether it's something else. he's been in the lobbying world for a lot of people. and that's what concerns him is that he comes in and starts talking about people. his life could be at risk and his family's life could be at risk but there's something that is stopping him from cooperating. >> that's an important point. gen

special counsel referred to tony podesta and craig to new york prosecutors. and they opened investigations into them over potential illegal former lobby. podesta is the brother of john podesta hillary clinton's former presidential campaign chair man. tony podesta is investigated for failing to reg aistanbulgist er with foreign workers inun crane. -- in the ukraine. no charges yet in those charges and no charges against a former republican congressman or president trump's former personal attorney mike cohen. getting a lot more attention than the democrats perhaps because is involves play-by-play models and not lobbying laws. the bill shows how many names of lobbiests are coming up. and how many individuals might have reason to be worried. >> bill: with me now the chief political correspondent for the washington examiner and a former advisor to hillary clinton. i want to show you a tweet that happened around 9 o'clock. this sent everything into a tizzy. from the president today. >> this is a terrible situation. attorney general jeff sessions should stop this wi

those sources say that former lobbyist tony podesta, former minnesota republican congressman vin weber, and former white house council greg craig are all under federal investigation. the sources also say the inquiry into tony podesta, whose brother john ran the clinton campaign of course stem from mueller's investigation into the case of paul manafort. as the special counsel and his team continue their inquiries, the president is now embracing a new line of defense. as we covered here last night, and as floated out yesterday by rudy giuliani. this morning, trump wrote on twitter, quote, collusion is not a crime, but that doesn't matter because there was no collusion except by crooked hillary and the democrats. let us bring in our lead-off panel for a tuesday night. josh gerstein was inside the courtroom today for today's proceedings. he is senior white house reporter for politico. also our very newest msnbc contributor. cynthia oxney is back with us, a former prosecutor of the civil rights division at doj. and sam stein is back with us, a politics editor at the daily beast. so josh, to

podesta, the brother of hillary clinton's 2016 presidential chairman john podesta. the office declining to comment but the referral comes to light as mueller's first trial connected to the russian probe but nothing to do with the 2016 election begins. former trump campaign chairman paul manafort got an ear full. former chief assistant us attorney andrea mccarthy's live to weigh in on all of this, great to see you tonight. let's talk about what is at stake. 5 counts of filing false individual income tax returns, four counts of failure to file reports of financial account, bank fraud and that is just the first case. what is connected to the president? >> none of it is connected directly to the president. the only connection between the president or donald trump's campaign and this trial is manafort, he happens to be in this trial it happens for four months to have been a high-ranking member of the trump campaign. other than that the two have nothing to do with each other and the theory we have been operating under for these many months is the reason for pursuing this

podesta, former republican congressman vin weber, now a partner at mercury public affairs and greg craig a washington lawyer who was white house counsel during barack obama's first year as president. they work for the then victor yanukovych and whether they registered their work at foreign agents is reportedly in question none have been channelled with a crime. the. a perform reported that rick gates personally directed mercury and the podesta group to set up meetings between senators and congressmen involving the country's interests, later detailed in the manafort indictment. craig, on the other hand, oversaw a report produced by his law firm about the prosecution of a yanukovych rival. mercury said it welcomes any inquiry and has acted appropriate appropriately. >>> it's get to the rally last night, president trump in florida, he was touching for rick scott, running for senate. scott did not attend the rally. rally goers screamed at the pen wheel they let loose a stream of false and flawed claims. watch this. >> fake news, fake news. they are fake. every night is the same thing, wouldn

i hope people aren't attracted to the john and tony podesta as as, -- >> why would they do that anyway? >> congress has become so incredibly powerful, and now there is someone that so powerful that they don't like it, that's when people -- >> that is why the american people picked an outsider because they know what you said is true. let's move on and get to this, please. the majority of registered voters approve of the special counsel russia investigation. but a majority also think it's only somewhat or not at all likely that bob mueller will find president trump has committed a crime or impeachable offense. i say some numbers are interesting. democrats have been wanting to do what you have been telling them not to do, which is preach impeach. before we will go down about a road if we preach impeach. if we focus on that we are basically telling the american people that we don't have a platform and that's not right. we need to come and we can and we have offered more than just being the anti-donald trump. the other part of this in the midterm elections is, i think the republican base, i

they are tony podesta, the brother of clinton campaign chairman john podesta, greg craig and vin weber a former republican congressman. mueller has referred their cases to the u.s. attorney in manhattan just like he did with the matter concerning michael: cohen but no charges have been filed. >> bret: thank you. a federal appeals court says president trump's executive order threatening to withhold funding from sanctuary cities is unconstitutional. the ninth circuit court said the lower court went too far when it blocks the order nationwide. the president wants to deny federal grants to cities that refused to cooperate with immigration authorities, so far no comment from the administration. fox news senior judicial analyst andrew napolitano join is us, good to see you. what about this federal appeals court decision? >> the decision was pretty straightforward reminding anybody who reads it fit under the constitution, the congress controls the purse strings. congress wants to use this as an example, $100 million to the police in san francisco only congress can say it you can have the 100

among the subjects, longtime democratic lobbyist tony podesta along with a former republican congressman and a white house lawyer under president obama. all three men did work on behalf of ukraine. mueller has already turned over a case involving trump personal attorney michael cohen. no comment yet from the special counsel, the u.s. attorney, or any potential subjects. >>> president trump putting a little physical distance between himself and the mueller investigation by campaigning for republican candidates in florida last night. things got tense when his supporters fiercely heckled cnn's jim acosta. [ crowd chanting ] >> president trump did nothing to calm the crowd or stop it. the president's son, eric, retweeted the video, which was then retweeted by the president. jim acosta has more for us in tampa. >> reporter: dave and laura, at a rally here in florida, the president steered clear of the subject of the russia investigation, instead returning to one of his favorite topics on the campaign trail, immigration, telling his supporters here that there should be voter i.d. laws across t

tony podesta, a democratic lobbyist and the brother of john podesta, hillary clinton's former campaign chairman. he's under investigation along with a few other political officials. i know this came from robert mueller's office, what can you tell us? besides, this is why people hate washington. >> reporter: you're absolutely right, stephanie. this is the ultimate swamp story. how ironic that john podesta, hacked by the russians, a key part in this investigation, his brother, tony was a lobbyist working for paul manafort on this ukraine lobbying. he's now under investigation for allegedly failing to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government. a foreign entity. and only him, greg craig, a former lawyer in the obama administration and vin webber, a former member of congress also caught up in this. mueller has decided to hand this off to the southern district of new york for investigation because this is beyond the scope of what he's looking at. and it's an effort by the government to step up, what they believe, is sort of a habit of people failing to register when working for foreign

podesta is facing. listen, the broader point there is that you have a lot of u.s. lobbyists who do a lot of work, a lot of highly paid work for some not particularly nice or friendly governments around the world. ukraine and the pro russian government of ukraine is not the only one. it shows you there's bipartisan malpractice here overseas as well. the legal troubles he's facing are not insignificant. >> april, i want to switch gears. i didn't get a chance to talk to you yesterday about this. my interview with lebron james. i want you to listen to some of the things he said about this president. watch this. >> we are in a position right now in america more importantly where this whole race thing is taking over. you know? and because -- one, because i believe our president is trying to divide us. for him to like i said use sports to divide us, i can't sit back and not say nothing. >> what would you say to the president if he was sitting right here? >> i would never sit across from him. >> april, trump of

podesta and vin weber ends of his investigation to the southern district of new york, the manhattan federal prosecutors. what that means is that what he's actually doing, and we see this with the michael cohen case and we see this in a number of other instances, he's handing off things that don't seem related to his core russia probe. so the fact that he is staying focused on roger stone means that he thinks roger stone is the center or part of the center of this russia question. this isn't sort of some unrelated tax charges or, you know, some prostitution or escort charges dating back to the 1990s, totally unrelated. this is something that is central to bob mueller's investigation that roger stone is the key to unlocking. >> okay. i need you guys to stick around. we'll continue on for one more round after this. >>> when we come back, a former trump campaign aide socialized with alleged russian agent maria butina, weeks before the election, inviting her to his birthday party. according to "the washington post." wonder what they talked about. no. no, no, no, no, no. cancel. cancel. p

looking at whether longtime lobbyist tony podesta and his firm, the podesta group as well as former congressman ben webber and his firm mercury public affairs and greg craig, who is the former obama white house counsel and also formally with this law firm performed work on behalf of the ukrainian government without registering as foreign agents, which is a step that's required by federal law. >> tell me why this is so significant. >> sure. i should note that some of them have said that they did not form that registration because they were misled by intermedaries who were involved in the work. the significance of the referrals is that there's been an expectation as the mueller investigation has progressed that if mueller or the special counsel team came across work or investigative threads that weren't central to the question of whether trump campaign colluded with the russian government that he would then -- the special council team might then farm them out or refer those cases out in part to protect against the idea they had gone beyond the scope of what they had been assigned to do or why the

if you are going after manafort, why not go after tony podesta as far as i can tell has the same paper trail manafort does? >> we should be thankful in a way, what he did with podesta evidently refer that case to the southern district of new york. sounds like what mr. mueller is doing is trying to stay on task. i realize that the manafort case doesn't have anything to do with russian collusion as we understand it but manafort is someone we think, mueller thinks is relevant witness. sometimes this is the way you get a relevant witness. david: andy mccarthy. thank you for being here. appreciate it. melissa: could one little tweet be a crime? new reports that the sec is looking whether elon musk's surprising tweet yesterday was quote, truthful and why he used twitter in the first place? there could be big implications. no one knows this stuff better than columbia law professor john coffey. he joins us in a fox business exclusive next. >>> neck-and-neck, the republican gubernatorial primary in kansas is too close to call. what could that mean for the midterm elections? congressman roger ma

could it be that, because, welln one of those names is tony podesta? super lobbyist and the democratic party and brother off john, the chairman of hillary's failed 2016 campaign. or that other name, greg craig? former white house counsel for barack obama. re-joining us now for reaction, alan dershowitz, and sol wisenberg. okay, guys. how potentially serious, or not, is the deal with referring both podesta and greg craig to the southern district of new york? greg craig, full disclosure, work for my old law firm, and they parted ways. months back. let's start with you, professor dershowitz. what is going on here? >> greg is a great guy. he lives on martha's vineyard with me. i see them periodically over the summer. full disclosure. look, this proves that you never needed a special counsel. they are taking these cases mori and more and referring them to ordinary u.s. attorney's office. the manafort case could have been tried by the u.s. attorney's office in northern virginia. the other manafort case by the district of columbia he was -- u.s. attorney's of

elites, on the left and the right, what about tony podesta, he did it as well, same deal. >> you see how the case i laying out as you said, though he made an absolute fortune overseas from people connected to the russians he tried not to pay tax on it, the money dried up. that's laid out. it's clear, seems like, it's hard to dispute that. what we are missing and what we need next is the link. was there some one who then tried to use him, because he's under financial distress, to infiltrate the trump campaign, on the part have the russians? there's no evidence so far, no one has even said that. but that's where this would matter. that's the link that we need and we haven't seen it. >> without the link you can still accomplish what she's talking about, though. you can pressure manafort and pressure those people who are under the microscope -- >> but they have to lie and say there were people -- >> they haven't done that already? there's plenty -- >> right. >> when president trump, or then-candidate trump hired manafort, manafort has extensive experience working with george w. bush, ron

like president obama's white house counsel, greg craig, and longtime democratic lobbyist tony podesta. he is the brother of hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign chairman, john podesta. the special counsel's office declined to comment. the referrals come to light as mueller's first trial connected to the russia probe but having nothing to do with a 2016 election begins. former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. fox news contributor, andrew mccarthy is here with us to weigh in on all of those. great to see you tonight. >> hi, shannon. >> shannon: let's talk about what is at stake. i want to talk about what manafort is facing. five counts of filing false tax returns. four counts of filing bank fraud and five counts of bank fraud. that is just in his first case. but what of that is connected, at all, to the president? >> none of it is correct on my connected directly to the president. the only connection between the president or president trump's campaign and first trial is the manafort event is to say that he happens to be in this trial and happened, for about four months, to

we know that he had dug into tony podesta, the brother of john podesta who was leading the clinton campaign at the time, so he's clearly taken some level of interest in a lot of these players who have, you know, circled around this whole entire investigation. jon: it came out that the president's long-time cfo in the trump organization allen weisselberg is getting an immunity deal, but apparently we are told that the trump campaign or the administration has known about that for quite some time and his testimony was given quite a while ago. a former trump advisor says he's not particularly worried about what weisselberg might have to say. listen to this. >> i don't think just because they have immunity we can expect that they are going to -- that they are rolling on the president and creating some kind of a wave of charges against him. i'm willing to sit back and wait. i'm not getting too excited about those immunities. jon: so everybody, you know, a lot of other people are getting excited about immunity deals because if you get one, it suggests that you have a great deal to tell, does it no

., tony podesta as well as other big-time lobbyists who were circumventing u.s. law by not registering as foreign agents and lobbying on behalf of the then pro-putin ukrainian government here in d.c. jon: we have yet to see whether the president will sit down with special counsel mueller or his team and answer some of their questions. that answer yet to come. thank you. >> thanks for having me. jon: a new congressional report on the opioid crisis reveals fentanyl and other opioids are coming into the u.s. on international flights from china and mexico. customs and homeland security working round the clock to try to make sure those drugs don't make it to the streets. claudia cowan has more. >> a bag of suspicious powder. >> 500 grams >> could be opioids bought on-line stopped by customs and border protection at this entry point for international parcels one of nine in the u.s. fentanyl in particular is extremely dangerous, something we intercept regularly. >> while commercial shippers like fedex and ups must provide custom officials packaging in advance making sus

podesta, others, referred them to the southern district of new york just like michael cohen of course. my sources tell me this is a reflection of the fact mueller is very much focussed on people who are related to the russian investigation. now, of course, that's not terribly surprising but i think it does counter what the president is saying, what his allies are saying, which is that the manafort case has nothing to do with russia. we're just focussed on bringing down a guy because he was involved with trump. i think this is a very good signal mueller still views this as a potentially significant case, even though this has to do with things that happened before the campaign and before 2016. >> thank you guys for coming on. see you next week. >>> we're going to wrap up as always with today's big picture, it's from england. a little girl holding a frog. why? super cute picture. it's not just any frog. that is a new species of frog discovered after 20 years of research by scientist andrew gray. what did he do? named it after that little girl. she happens to be his 3-year-old grand daugh

tony podesta also did some work for -- >> the brother of john podesta who was the hillary clinton campaign chairman. >> exactly. but the level and duration and amount of work manafort did for him was important and relevant and long running. the other point i would make is this. it's a bit rich for trump and his allies to claim that paul manafort was in effect some sort of short-term coffee boy. they were a key three months to get the delegates at the convention, through the convention. and he was the head of the campaign. not a low-level position but time and position doesn't mean much here because they will -- with michael cohen, for instance, who worked for the president for more than a decade, in a very intimate role, they're now claiming they always knew he was a liar. not a lot of -- there are some thin arguments being made about their relative connection and importance to this president. >> and also in the trump tower meeting with don junior. >> yes. >> and that may be something that troubles the president. >> everybody hold their breath. a lot more to discuss. we're waiting for the

, i never worked forjohn, i actually worked for his brother, tony, just to make sure that i was clear on that. in terms of the message for the democratic party, you know, yes, we are in this race and in this game against a republican party, but where the democratic party has to fundamentally change, and that's what i'm working on with the dnc, is that the democratic party can no longer just be a political organisation, it has to be more of a community organisation, where we're actually on the ground in these communities helping people address the issues that they're dealing with on a day—to—day basis. that's the utility of the democratic party, and that's where we have to go back to so that we can become the party of the people once again. and so, we are working on reforms and things that we can so that we become more grassroots—based, that we are actually in communities addressing issues that are so, so important for people in order that they can live the american dream and that their kids still have the hope of living the american dream as well. jaime harrison, i wish we could

if he gives information about paul manafort we know infomercial lobbyist podesta, former white house council craig reportedly under investigation by prosecutors in new york after he reefrl from special counsel mueller's office cnn first reported probe your reaction to this? >> these are good people whether they did anything wrong should be determined again, it shows we didn't need special counsel the special counsel is isn't investigating these guys the case this is southern district of new york, every one of cases could have been handled by a u.s. attorneys office. why did we have to spend so many millions of dollars in bring on additional staff, it is going to end up only in a report and some low-hanging fruit indictments the way you mueller is proceeding trying to squeeze manafort trying to get him to testify against trump even judge ellis presiding over this trial size not about manafort it is about trying to get man forfeiture to sing or compose about donald trump higher-ups i used to teach students if first year if you are going to commit a crime in america commit with it someo