senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano joins me now there is so much
to feast on here Paul Manafort sin a whole world of hurt
how important is Rick gates oh he's the the critical testimony that the
government provides because he has presented an intimate knowledge of all
of the financial shenanigans that the government has accused the Paul Manafort
of engaging in from income tax evasion to bank fraud to lobbying for a foreign
country without registering for it the greatest of these is the income tax
evasion in the bank where that's the one he spent the the ones he spent the most
time with so you have the go back and forth between these two guys who I mean
from what it looks like we're committing crimes and from what you and I were
talking about there's some some evidence there of that what does that have to do
with the President of the United States it has nothing to do with the president
the president's name has been prohibited from being mentioned by the judge now
the judge can only prohibit that of the lawyers witnesses mentioned the
president's name twice once with respect to the name of the building Trump Tower
and once with respect to the president likes the Yankees and we have some
tickets for him well then come the president they call him Donald Trump he
wasn't the president at the time those are the only references which are
innocuous but this really this trial has zero to do with Donald Trump the person
or Donald Trump the president is it problematic that clearly there were some
illegal things going on with Paul Manafort for the president at all when
it comes to having worked for the Trump campaign no no this does not cover the
years that Palmer that this trial does not allege facts that the government
says occurred during the time the Paul Manafort was the president's campaign
manager I mean this goes back to 2012 and ends around 14 or 15 but it doesn't
get into 16 for Manta Ford only managed the president's campaign for about four
months in the summer of 2016 why do you think then bob muller is perched
well for the wreaths for the reasons that this judge has said which is you
only want Paul Manafort you're only squeezing and the judges phrased
residues they don't speak this way from the bench but the other judge has been
very candid very colorful your your only squeezing Paul Manafort because you want
him to testify against the president now the response to that is we are lawyers
and we have ethical duties we are prosecutors if we find evidence of
crimes we must pursue that criminality whether it's our original mission or not
that is a truthful statement with their obligation they can pursue it themselves
or they can pass it on to another prosecutor and have it pursue our case
they pursued it themselves you're a judge looking at this case potentially
how much time could Paul manna for face because that's where the pressure comes
in correct I think if he's convicted he's likely to be sentenced to 60 years
in jail he's exposed to more but that's likely what it will come down to if he's
convicted of all these allegations but the conviction depends on whether or not
for the most part because there's some documents here that support the the
government's case but for the most part the conviction rests or falls on rick
gates and the job of the metaphors lawyers which as Peter Doocy just told
us will start in about 30 minutes is to destroy him on the witness stand all
right Pete hagseth and I talked about this last hour from a political
standpoint but from legality standpoint I'm curious to know how important is it
to know that Paul Manafort had dealings with this former pro Russian Ukrainian
president who we know is as dirty as they come you know again the judge
ordered the government not to use pejorative terms about these Ukrainian
officially don't call them oligarchs call them the former president because
the church doesn't really want to sanitize things but he doesn't want to
add a prejudicial term to describe them I honestly don't think that the origin
of this money being a Ukrainian oligarch or whatever well in effect the ultimate
outcome the ultimate outcome that is whether mana Ford is convicted or
acquitted will be determined by whether or not the jury believes gates
if Gates is to be believed the evidence of criminal behavior
is truly overwhelming gates credible or not in your estimation ah you know the
government does this all the time and dates a group of people and cuts a deal
with one of them some people say this is a bribe
you know in return for letting you plead guilty to a very little crime you're
giving us the testimony we want to hear you're not going to go to jail and your
colleague he's convicted will jurors often believe that they believe the
criminals riding on criminals yes they built they believe that all these
confessions he made yesterday including robbing his own partner and boss Paul
Manafort are believable I got a break news now with you here on the mezzanine
has seen some arms and
legs with some very interesting actors some of them criminal what do you make
of it all I think it's a lot larger than anybody imagined at the time that Jeff
Sessions recused himself and allowed his deputy Rod Rosenstein to appoint a
special counsel and in a sense this is this is egregiously unfair to the
president that they have now instead
Trump's attorneys are planning to send a letter now to the special counsel
possibly as soon as tomorrow that will largely rebuff their latest offer for a
sit-down interview with the president the president's legal team objects to
the fact that it will still include questions related to obstruction of
justice because they claim that's outside the original purview of the
Russia probe something the judge and I have been talking about there's a whole
lot outside of that former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree
agrees watch they have to have a reason for answering these questions this is
not a fishing expedition the questions have to be relevant to the charge that
Muller has namely to investigate tampering with the 2016 election this is
not an opportunity for Muller to basically ask the president wide-ranging
questions anything he wants to know it has to be linked to his investigatory
mandate chief White House correspondent John Roberts obviously on the North Lawn
now outside the White House John and good afternoon to you Harris the parks
department here meticulously grooming the lawn so that's why he here the leaf
blower in the background we're also watching the president's Twitter feed to
see if he might weigh in on the latest news about Cohen though the president
has been encouraged to limit his tweets when it comes to talking about legal
matters we do know that the president's attorneys are working on a response to
the Muller letter of last week outlining the parameters of how he would like an
interview with the President to go we are told by sources that the response
letter from the president's legal team will not be forthcoming today so that
puts it at tomorrow at the earliest sources telling Fox News that the
president's legal team deeply concerned about molars desire to ask the president
questions related to obstruction of justice in their proposal letter to
Muller which was sent a number of weeks ago the president's legal team wanted
the questions limited to Russia the election and whether there was collusion
with the Trump campaign their contention is that that was what Muller was
appointed to investigate and they do not believe that the president should be
subject to questions regarding article 2 of the Constitution which spells out
presidential powers Muller said that in addition to asking those questions about
Russia and the election and possible collusion he also wants to ask about
obstruction of justice Rudy Giuliani telling Fox News early this morning
quote we have a real reluctance about allowing any questions regarding
obstruction of justice here's more from Tom Dupree on the subject obviously the
president is a busy person and if this is information that you can get in a
different way then you're obligated to try to get it through that source before
trying to get it from the President of the United States
so this is an argument that the president's legal team has been making
that that Moeller they believe has not fully demonstrated the need to talk to
the president that he is the only person who can give Moeller the information
that he's looking for it's unclear at this moment as well as what the
president's attorneys are going to go for in their response letter but I was
told that one possible scenario that might be acceptable would be an
in-person interview to talk about rush of the election and possible collusion
and then any questions about possible obstruction or any questions that would
go to the issue of obstruction of justice would be in written form again
here's Dupree the president obviously would like to do things in writing that
gives them time to think about their answers to craft the right answer as
opposed to a face-to-face interaction where you know as we've seen a lot
witnesses sometimes don't quite get it right under the pressure of the moment
Rudy Giuliani telling Fox News again that the president wants to continue
down the road of negotiation to try to make this happen he believes that if he
can get in a room with robert muller he can convince him of his innocence and
that there was no collusion but what the president's attorneys really fear here
Harris is that if he starts asking him questions about obstruction and then
brings him back in after he gets more information that really could be setting
a perjury trap which could be really bad news for the president Harrison all
right John Roberts thank you very much let's bring in James Freeman now an
assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal editorial page author of the
brand new book borrowed time on store shelves today great to see you in a beer
I well there's been a lot of breaking news in your paper in the last hour or
so you've got the Michael Cohen tax fraud investigation going on
but I want to talk specifically about where we are with a sit-down interview
and you know James I have been reporting based on what we know that once Robert
Muller would get to the president we might see a quick wrap-up so it's easy
to understand why the president might want to sit down yeah I think this this
is part of a negotiation it's been going on for a while I think maybe we're
thinking maybe it's not going to wrap up so soon if they're at an impasse so this
question of can the obstruction questions be written or or do they have
to be done in a live interview and I it seemed like Muller recently it said okay
some of them can be written but he still wants us I'm questioning there and I
think the president's lawyers are wise to say make this be about Russia which
was what this investigation was supposed to be about contains us under it's
understandable that you know written verses the spoken word you're gonna have
at Ernie's present anyway and I know the president you know gets criticized by
some for not being economic with his words I would say probably most I mean
he's very candid when he speaks you know and tweets and so the question then
becomes how did the the written deal ever get on the table in the first place
Muller's gotta know that's gonna be something that everybody would want well
I think as long as if Muller is saying okay I'll do some written but others I'm
going to question you live then his team may feel like they have enough to go
after the president on obstruction now as you've discussed and I'm sure the
judge would tell us mr. Dershowitz is explained on this network why there's a
really high bar to getting an obstruction case against the president
he is the one who holds all the executive authority under our
Constitution obviously so so there are issues there I think we'd have if they
can't settle this dispute we might have a dispute like we saw in the Clinton era
in terms of Special Counsel of fighting over a subpoena but I know you look at
the polling very carefully you look at the politics of this issue when I talk
with potential voters and those are the people who really count because it's
who's going to go to the polls yes in the midterms and in 2020 most people
can't even remember originally what this case was about and and they hear the
word collusion and they think well some people say it's not a crime Rudy
Giuliani doesn't you know doesn't think it's a crime there are many
experts by the way who say that that particular thing is not a crime Road
conspiracy actually would be the crime thread but people don't even recall
potential voters where we started with this but they see criminality Paul
Manafort Rick gates yep where are we in terms of
this being an issue for the voters well we see a lot of cases but they don't
directly relate to that original charges also I think what you're asking I think
the answer is that it is politically sustainable for I know the president
keeps saying he wants to talk to Muller I think it's politically sustainable for
him to say no because of this fact that it's now more than 2 years since the
government began investigating this alleged collusion we're still not seeing
evidence of alleged collusion and I hear it from both Republicans and Democrats
strategists who work on campaigns this is not what people ask about yeah when
they're in swing districts around this country so who is this serving because
Democrats today from you know your reporting on this I am - some are saying
that you know in terms of this issue the resist resist is back like never before
but that doesn't drive people to the polls for Democrats or Republicans Trump
idea within the Democratic Party and I'm not saying that's all Democrats but I
don't think that's a political winner I think some people in the party realize
that but as far as whether it serves one party or another mr. Muller and this is
the reason this is problematic he is almost unaccountable and can pursue this
because any attempt to manage him by the duly elected leadership is now seen as
interference last question as we head up to the midterms now and people make
their choices how much do you think people are focused on this issue before
after the midterms I don't think they are I think if there's no difference
leading up in post right now I think if President Trump wants to make this with
his Republican colleagues about the economy they've got a pretty strong hand
yeah so in other words why sit down now before the midterms because it won't
make much difference I don't I don't think his polls are gonna go up if he
sits down but there's big downside if he's trapped in some unrelated statement
that isn't accurate right all right your book is called borrowed
it and and we're kind of on borrowed time because we've got it great but
congratulations Thank You ppreciate you thanks good to be here president Trump
going all-in hoping his endorsement will push the GOP candidate across the finish
line in Ohio special election today Democrats are hoping for an upset of
course with polls showing a tight race for that House seat live report with
analysis stay close plus the Trump administration renewing sanctions
against Iran Democrats don't like the move so will it force Iran to change
some ways they say that they want us to be sincere really they're calling death
for America
you
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