IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Cohen provided "Relevant and useful information". TRANSCRIPT: 12/7/18, All In w/ Chris Hayes

Guests: Joaquin Castro, Richard Painter, Elie Mystal, Michelle Goldberg, Kim Wehle, Elliot Williams, Elizabeth Holtzman, Harry Litman

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST:  Well, for a while anyway.  Adrienne Elrod, Shermichael Singleton, Sam Stein, that`s HARDBALL for tonight.  "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes have lots more on this story coming up tonight.  This is a news bombshell, the President directing criminal activity.  That`s starting right now.

ALI VELSHI, MSNBC ANCHOR:  Good evening from New York, I`m Ali Velshi in for Chris Hayes on an incredible night of news.  Three new court filings tonight.  Two of them sentencing recommendations concerning former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, one from the Office of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller the other from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  Cohen is set to be sentenced next Wednesday and the SDNY is recommending he be put behind bars for years. 

But the fate of Michael Cohen is not the biggest news tonight, not by a longshot.  For starters, the memo from the Southern District of New York includes this passage concerning Cohen`s illegal hush money payments to two women who say they had affairs with Trump.  "As Cohen himself has now admitted with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual One.  As a result of Cohen`s actions, neither woman spoke to the press prior to the election.

OK, let`s be clear.  Individual One is Donald Trump.  Federal prosecutors, not Robert Mueller`s team, the SDNY are saying that Donald Trump committed a serious felony, that he was intimately involved in the illegal scheme to pay the hush money.  Actually, he was more than intimately involved, no pun intended.  Trump directed the hush money scheme.  Think about that. 

Faced with this reality, Trump decided to create his own.  The President tweeted, "Totally clears the President.  Thank you."  No that`s not just a lie, that`s the actual opposite of the truth.  Federal prosecutors are saying in black and white the Donald Trump broke the law, that he directed his fixer to make an illegal payment which is a felony.  And that`s not even close to how much we have to cover tonight including this passage from the Mueller filing "Cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contact with persons connected to the White House during the period of 2017 to 2018.

Wait a minute.  2017 to 2018, that`s not during the campaign.  That`s once Trump was president.  So you got Mueller for the first time revealing that Cohen was coordinating with the White House while he was preparing his congressional testimony in which he perjured himself.  So that`s huge.  And I haven`t even gotten to the Russia stuff yet.  Start with this from the Mueller filing.  "In or around November 2015, Cohen received the contact information for and spoke with a Russian national who claimed to be a trusted person in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign political synergy and synergy on a government level."

The defendant, that`s Cohen, recalled that this person repeatedly proposed a meeting between Individual One, that`s Trump, and the President of Russia.  The person told Cohen that such a meeting could have a phenomenal impact not only in a political but in a business dimension as well referring to the Moscow project because there is no bigger warranty in any project than the consent of the President of Russia. 

Cohen didn`t follow up but there you have the Trump campaign interacting with a Russian national claiming to have influences in Putin`s circle who wanted Trump to meet with Vladimir Putin and who was promising to get the Russian government to clear the way for Trump Tower Moscow in exchange for political and business considerations.  Synergy. 

There`s also a footnote in which Cohen admits that he lied when he said he had never talked to Trump about trying to set up a meeting with Putin. "The defendant admitted that this account was false and that he had in fact conferred with individual one about contacting the Russian government before reaching out to gauge Russia`s interest in such a meeting." 

But I`m not done yet there`s one more thing.  Mueller also released a heavily redacted document involving Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair.  As you recall unlike Cohen, Manafort formerly agreed to cooperate with the government but Mueller pulled out of that agreement and said Manafort had been lying to prosecutors while feeding information to the Trump legal team.  That document says Manafort told multiple discernible lies about five major issues after agreeing to cooperate including " his contacts with administration officials." 

Now, just to keep us all orderly.  I`m going to get to the Manafort stuff in a bit.  But let`s begin tonight with what we learned in the Michael Cohen filings, two different ones.  Here to help us go through some of the incredible details including what we learned about Trump and the Russians, I`m joined by the guy I always turn to for this stuff, NBC News Investigative Reporter Tom Winter and MSNBC Justice Analyst Matt Miller who is a former Chief Spokesperson for the Department of Justice.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with me on a Friday night.  Tom Winter, let`s talk about this.  What -- you followed this very closely.  You and I have been together when -- everything to do with Russia and Cohen has come out.  What did we learn tonight that we didn`t know?

TOM WINTER, NBC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER:  So specific to the Russia aspect of this, Ali, I think one of the key things that we learned tonight was that there were contacts that occurred in November of 2015 involving Michael Cohen, involving a Russian national.  So this appears to be an individual that we haven`t heard about before which is a bit of an interesting part of this investigation.  The other thing is, this isn`t that there were discussions that were occurring that we`ve heard about in 2016.  This appears to me to back up the time frame quite a bit here, Ali, to November of 2015. 

So that means that by the time the President says in a press conference in July of 2016 Russia are you listening with respect to getting somebody`s e- mails, they`re already eight or nine months in here of knowing that Russia wants some sort of communication, they want some sort of "political synergy."  I think it`s important that that phrase political synergy that you talked about, Ali, is referenced herein quotes.  Meaning, there`s some sort of a documentation or some sort of specific quote or testimony or something that occurred here that allows them to make that statement in this court filing.

So I think it`s significant from that standpoint.  I think it`s also significant that passage that you read just a few moments ago.  There`s a paragraph that follows it which I`ll read it`s very short.  It`s the second, Cohen provided this Special Counsel`s office with useful information concerning certain discreet Russia related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with company executives during the campaign.  Company being believed to be the Trump Organization. 

So you have here the Special Counsel saying hey, it wasn`t just the Trump Towers -- excuse me the Trump Tower Moscow project here, this was -- these were other matters tied to Russia that are part of the Special Counsel`s investigation that he provided insight to just through his day-to-day communications with people in the Trump Organization.  I think those are two very specific Russia kind of -- Russia matters if you will or Russia specific parts of this. 

And you know, all one, there`s been some criticism of this investigation that`s being led by the Special Counsel`s office saying, well, hey, you know, they`re indicting people or they`re getting people to plead guilty to things that don`t even mention Russia in them.  And now, I think we continue to get closer and closer to this idea of Russian contacts as it relates to individuals that are very much in the Trump orbit as Michael Cohen was.

VELSHI:  So Matt, and I`m going to deal with the hush money and Michael Cohen and the implications that the President might have been involved in that felony a little bit later.  Let`s stick with Russia for a second because it`s back in the spotlight.  I think we`ve learned as Tom says three things that we didn`t really know all that well.  The contacts with Russia started earlier than we thought in 2015 that there were stuff that was going on between Michael Cohen and the White House in 2017 and into this year 2018, and that Cohen was in touch with the White House while he was preparing for his testimony in which he perjured himself. 

So the idea that Donald Trump wanted to put out there that Michael Cohen was insignificant to him, his operation, and the contact with the Russians seemed to have disappeared with this filing.

MATT MILLER, MSNBC JUSTICE ANALYST:  Yes, I think you can -- you can completely set that aside now and add to the fact that Michael -- that this filing you know, says that Michael Cohen when he was having these contacts with the Russian, when he was reaching out trying to have contacts with the Russians government, he had done that with the full knowledge of the then candidate, now President the United States Donald Trump.

I think the thing that -- the piece -- the new information that timeline is so significant because now if you look at all of the contacts, we know that they started contacts from the Russian government where they asked for this synergy at a government level, started in 2015.  They, of course, continued with this June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.  At the same time in August or just after that August Paul Manafort was meeting with Konstantin Kilimnik who of course we know is a Russian intelligence agent.  And then they continued through the transition when Sergey Kislyak -- when Sergey Kislyak was meeting with Michael Flynn --

VELSHI:  He was the former Russian Ambassador to the United States.

MILLER:  That`s right, and the President`s son-in-law Jared Kushner.  So if you`re the Special Counsel, you`re looking at it, you`re looking at a long timeline of outreach from Russian government officials, Russian intermediaries, Russian intelligence assets to the Trump campaign.  And we don`t know the full substance of that -- of that outreach but what we do know is that Bob Mueller knows a significant amount about it.  So the 2015 outreach, one things I thought was significant, the filing notes that Michael Cohen ultimately decided not to you know, sort of return the call or get back in touch with that person.

VELSHI:  Yes.

MILLER:  What it doesn`t say anything about, did he do anything else with that information, did he pass it on to anyone else in the organization, did he make anyone else aware of it, was Donald Trump aware of it.  We don`t know anything about that.  It may be that nothing happened.  It may be that the Special Counsel is silent on that fact because it`s still relevant to the investigation and he wants to keep it quiet.

VELSHI:  What a remarkable set of developments and we have hardly scratched the surface but we appreciate both of you being here.  Tom Winter, many thanks.  Matt Miller, stick around.  I`m going to talk a little later with you about the Manafort filing.  We will get to that.  I need to stick with Cohen for a while here though.

To talk about the legal ramifications of tonight`s Russia revelations I`m joined by Kim Wehle, a former Assistant United States Attorney, Elliot Williams, a former Federal Prosecutor who was the Deputy Attorney General in the United States under President Obama and MSNBC Legal Analyst and former Assistant Special Prosecutor -- Special Watergate Prosecutor, in fact, Nick Akerman.  Thanks to the three of you. 

Nick, let me start with you because you and I have been talking about this for a long time.  I went in really close to the ground on this one in my conversation with those two guys.  Now let`s pull this back, take it all in its entirety and tell me where you think we are.

NICK AKERMAN, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST:  I think where we are is that we`ve got a very powerful legal juggernaut that Mueller has put together that is going straight at Donald Trump.  It`s not just that Cohen is providing information about Russia and the conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, but you`ve also got Flynn, Michael Flynn, the former National Security Adviser who has also been providing information and according to Mueller has been cooperating fully.  Which means that he has been providing information about the sanctions and the lifting of sanctions which was the quid pro quo for the Russian help during the campaign.

And again, if you look at the facts surrounding that Donald Trump is right in the middle of that.  There -- he`s in Mar-a-Lago when Flynn is calling him to talk about having this conversation with the Russian ambassador.  He calls back after he has the Russian ambassador.  There`s no question that Donald Trump had to know exactly what went on in that conversation and then Flynn lied about it.  Because what happened was by pure coincidence, President Obama put a monkey wrench in the system by imposing more sanctions because of the Russian interference.  And then you`ve got to take into account Rick Gates who also knows a lot of what went on with the Russians. 

And so when you put all of that together, you`re coming up with a pretty powerful case and you`re going to also find out that it`s not all over with Paul Manafort.  He is going to get a pretty significant sentence as a result of his lies.  But that doesn`t mean that he can`t cooperate after that because under the rules he still has a year to go before a federal district court judge and get his sentence reduced if he cooperates.

VELSHI:  Right.  Although I don`t know what a sentence reduced for Paul Manafort actually means.  Kim Wehle, I want to talk legal stuff for a second.  There are three filings tonight.  One of them is the United States District of Columbia.  This is about Manafort so I`m going to just put that aside for now. 

Then we have two filings.  The thinner of the two is from Mueller`s team.  This is the Special Counsel`s report about Michael Cohen and his sentencing.  This big thick one.  This one is seven pages.  This is 38 pages, and this is from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  So this is not the however many angry Democrats Donald Trump talks about and ending the Mueller investigation.  This is United States Attorney`s Office.  What`s the distinction?  Why should we care about this?

By the way the US Attorney`s report is much harsher than the Special Counsel`s.

KIM WEHLE, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY:  Yes.  They sort of read like a good cop bad cop.  That in the Southern District of New York giving its reasons for why they`re not recommending a what we call a 5K1 letter a basically reduced sentence for Mr. Cohen saying this is not a good guy.  He`s done a lot of really bad things and they walked through it with great care.  I think the key one is the campaign finance violation that I know you want to talk about later.  And then -- but they say you know, listen, we`re not -- we`re not so to speak throwing the book at him because he is actually cooperating with Robert Mueller.

And then Robert Mueller weighs in and says yes this is our two cents on it in our seven pages but that`s a blockbuster of a document and on itself.  And I think that is more telling in the broader picture than the longer 28 page one from the Southern District of New York.

VELSHI:  Right.  And the Southern District of New York is saying that the normal range for the crimes of Michael Cohen committed is 51 to 63 months and what they are asking for is that the court imposed a substantial term of imprisonment, one that reflects a modest downward variance from the applicable guideline range.  So Elliot, they`re still recommending a good long prison term for Michael Cohen saying as Kim just said, he`s not considered a cooperating witness.  What do you think this is done? 

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES:  Well, it`s all about the pattern of dishonesty that he`s exhibited with his crimes.  You`re talking about crimes on our campaign system crimes, you know, he was lying to banks and it was a series of crimes of dishonesty.  And they make -- they make notes of that.  They actually talk - substantially got privileged like and white-collar criminals feeling like they will be reputationally harmed and that he should be punished to the extent as anybody else would because we can`t deter people from future crimes if people like you are punished which was a fascinating passage toward the end of this. 

What this is about is getting at this pattern of dishonesty that you saw from him in the crimes he committed before and you know ultimately lying to federal investigators later on and this pattern of dishonesty that seems to pervade you know, all aspects of this investigation.  So lying was a common theme.  You held up the three documents both with Matt -- in Manafort`s document and both Cohen`s documents.  This is all about honesty and frankly, it does not pay to lie to the federal government.  And Michael Cohen is going to see that. 

They even -- they tweaked him a little bit by saying that he was asking for a sentence that was 99.5 percent lower than the federal guidelines would have -- would have contemplated because he was asking for just you know, the couple days of time served.  And it`s just -- they`re just night and day in different places with respect to what he`s done.  These are considered very, very serious crimes.  You`re talking about lying under either under oath or to federal investigators.  So that`s that`s what this is about.

VELSHI:  Kim, the President sees it differently than you do.  He tweeted out not too long ago.  I wanted to put that back on the screen because it`s kind of about the most remarkable tweet I`ve seen all week.  It says, "Totally clears the President.  Thank you."  OK, just follow that thought for a second.  In the Southern District of New York sentencing report, it says as Cohen himself has now admitted with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual One.  We know Individual One to be the President of the United States now, then Donald Trump candidate. 

Tell me about how these two things connect.  The President saying totally cleared the President and SDNY saying that the President was involved in a felony with -- or at least implying the President was involved in a felony with Michael Cohen.

WEHLE:  Well, the connection is a bit of a mind bender because to say that it totally clears the President I think just blinks reality and shows that he`s really at a point where his P.R. campaign of just saying this is all witch-hunt, none of it means anything, is kind of going by the wayside.  But this sentencing is beyond.  I mean, I agree that is a lot about lying but also -- when I was reading it, what struck me is how its drafted in a way it`s almost a message to the American public.  I mean, you could actually put Trump in the -- in the position of Mr. Cohen here starting at page 23, talked about why do we care about campaign finance.

VELSHI:  Yes.  This is important.

WEHLE:  He says -- he says it`s really important.  While many Americans who desired a particular outcome in the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows.  And I think a lot of people are so overwhelmed by all of this information they`re like why should we care.  We should care because we do want free and fair elections that are Democratic process.  And I think this document is speaking potentially on what should come or what could come either the criminal justice system or through an impeachment process, why we should care that the President was involved in this stuff.

VELSHI:  I`m glad that you brought that up, Kim, because in this very long document, that part can be understood by a guy like me who`s not a lawyer.  Where you finished off, it went on to say it is this type of harm that Congress sought to prevent what it imposed limits on individual contributions to candidates.  So it`s drawing a very direct line between the offense to democracy not just the offense under the law that Michael Cohen committed at -- in his words the direction of Individual One Donald Trump. 

Kim Whaley, thank you.  Elliot Williams and Nick Ackerman, thanks very much to both of you for helping us get through this. 

Now, as we`ve said one of the key takeaways from the sentencing menu -- I`m sorry -- memo, filed -- it does read like a bit of a menu actually -- the sentencing memo filed about Michael Cohen by the Southern District of New York is the conclusion by prosecutors, by federal prosecutors not by Mueller`s team, but by the Southern District of New York that the now President of the United States Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to make illegal campaign payments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEAL KATYAL, FORMER SOLICITOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES:  This filing that you just started to highlight that was made today in the Michael Cohen case really does for the first time you have federal prosecutors essentially saying that Donald Trump committed a felony. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI:  I`m joined now by former Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, author of The Case for Impeaching Trump.  Liz Holtzman was a Congresswoman who sat on -- who was in the Watergate hearings, voted for impeachment, and helped draft the rules, the guidelines for what was then a Special Prosecutor, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman.  Harry Litman also joins us, and Nick Ackerman is staying with us.  Nick was a former Watergate Prosecutor and is an MSNBC Legal Analyst.  Thanks to all three of you. 

Liz, let`s start with you.  You have written a book called The Case for Impeachment I believe it`s called.  This is as close as it`s gotten.  It`s not new information in that we knew from Michael Cohen`s earlier testimony and it is his -- the information against him that he said he was directed by Individual One, but now the SDNY seems to be saying they believe that to be the case. 

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN (D), FORMER REPRESENTATIVE, NEW YORK:  Right.  I mean, I think you see something very serious.  And the real question that comes out is what is the implication of the prosecution, the conviction of Michael Cohen for President Trump.  I mean, during --

VELSHI:  Right.  That`s everybody`s question.

HOLTZMAN:  Right.  During Watergate, the grand jury secretly indicted Richard Nixon -- I`m sorry --  secretly named Richard Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator.  Was that done by any grand jury here, we don`t know.  That information didn`t come out.  Nick would know that better than I.  it didn`t come out right away.

VELSHI:  Yes, you guys are looking and you didn`t see that, did you?  You didn`t see anything -- there`s no reference to anything that`s been done with Donald Trump as a result of this?

AKERMAN:  No, not at all.  I mean, but being an unindicted co-conspirator is really an evidentiary fact so you can get statements in and furtherance of the conspiracy.  So you`re not going to really see that until you see other people indicted and there`s a trial and the prosecution decides they`re not going to indict Donald Trump. 

VELSHI:  And both of you were there in Watergate so you remember how this unfolded.  There was one key difference and you as a lawyer and a former member of Congress know what that was.  And that was that legislators at some point decided enough was enough.  They decided that Richard Nixon was an albatross, that it was going to cost them.  Does anything that happened tonight, do these documents influence American legislators in any way?

HOLTZMAN:  Well, American legislators in Congress who were very much influenced by the American people and that`s what started the impeachment process when the American people said you know, we`re not a Banana Republic.  Congress, you have to do the right thing.  And they really forced Congress into action.  That could happen here.  I mean, I think the fact that we have all of these different tentacles surrounding the President of the United States, it`s closing in on him.  We now have his fixer, his lawyer, personal lawyer --

VELSHI:  His campaign chair, his national security adviser --

HOLTZMAN:  Right, now being said -- the prosecutors are saying directed and coordinated with the President, now the President the United States.  We have Manafort who`s been convicted of lying, former campaign manager, his national security adviser.  Now we have other Russians who apparently working -- contacting the campaign.  And I believe as I read the documents that Michael Cohen discussed that November approached by the Russians with Donald Trump`s or maybe it was the U.N.  But Trump has been advised about these de marshes from the Russians.  So we know he`s part of this.

VELSHI:  That`s the thing.  Harry Litman, that`s the thing that comes out as you parse these pages.   If you thought that Michael Cohen was a shady businessman, you`re pretty clear on that from these documents.  If you thought that Paul Manafort was a shady businessman, you`re pretty clear on that from these documents.  The important thing here is the degree to which Donald Trump is referred to as having known of been involved in and having directed things despite the fact that he has constantly denied all of those things since before he was president and well through his presidency.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES:  That`s it exactly.  And remember, Ali, what we have here is a seven-page document with sort of bland and elliptical statements from the --

VELSHI:  That`s the Mueller document.

LITMAN:  Right.  But they stand in -- and also SDNY you know in terms of the three crimes that you set out.  But they -- what underlies them is seven -- is dozens of hours of detailed conversation from Cohen.  So we now know he was sitting there giving chapter and verse not just about his own involvement, not just some of his own financial hijinks, the very crimes that clearly the President was involved in, the Stormy -- the campaign finance crimes.  And now we know the Russian -- what they call the Moscow project the Trump -- the Trump Tower overture that that connects both political and commercial misdeeds. 

We know all these all the statements in the filing are magnified to a degree we just don`t know yet but has to be substantial by everything that Cohen actually said.

VELSHI:  So Nick, let me just ask you here.  There -- people are saying, well how does this all affect Trump and what does it all mean?  What is the narrative start to look like?  And it looks like there was some contact with Russians, there was some desire to do business in Russia, there were some quid pro quo possibly offered to Vladimir Putin, the reports of a top- floor apartment at Trump Tower.  There were -- there were e-mails that were leaked and there may have been a couple of conspiracy theorists who were talking to WikiLeaks, and then there was that Trump Tower meeting in which adoptions which is really the Magnitsky Act were discussed, sanctions against Russia.  If you were putting this all together, what`s the narrative.

AKERMAN:  The narrative here comes right out of that Russian indictment in July of this past year, the conspiracy to break into the Democratic National Committee, steal the document, steal the e-mails and then we`re leasing and staging the release of those documents right through the campaign.  You can take everything that`s in these documents and fit that right in.  It`s clear from the Cohen papers, from the Special Counsel that there was a conspiracy and contact with the Russians.  It`s clear also from the Flynn plea and his cooperation that he`s testifying to that. 

And so if you take it right from step one right from the time when -- if you take it back to November and that`s when Roger Stone supposedly got fired by Trump and he goes undercover to work in a situation of plausible deniability to have nothing to do with the campaign, but yet he`s the only person in America that speaks to the Russian operative who releases the first of the stolen documents and happens to also speak to Julian Assange who is releasing the rest of the documents. 

But it all goes through to the Trump Tower where Don Jr. gets the June 4th e-mail saying that the Russian government is supporting Trump in the campaign, that they`ve got documents to bring to Trump, first offering him to trump secretary but in the e-mail states better to bring it in person.  We don`t know if they actually brought the e-mails in person.  Probably not.  But we do know that Donald Trump on June 7th after winning the New Jersey primary with Don Jr. at his side, said that he`s going to release the next week all this information about the Clintons and he doesn`t.

But yet a week after that, you`ve got Guccifer 2.0, the Russian operative releasing information and on and on and on up to the point of the Access Hollywood Tape where they`re actually using those documents in order to deflect the tension away from Donald Trump and put it on, Hillary Clinton. 

VELSHI:  Trump better hope you`re not working with Mueller on this one because I that was a pretty good narrative.  I got to wrap this part of the conversation up, but thank you to all of you.  Thanks for all the time that you`ve all put into helping us understand these very complicated legal issues.  Liz Holtzman, Harry Litman, and Nick Akerman.  Much more to come on the lies, the obstruction and what happens next.  We`ll break it all down.  Do not go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI:  There was an intriguing line in the special counsel`s memo about Michael Cohen tonight, including, or among the information that prosecutors found helpful, along with his contact with Russians was his contact with the White House, and his contact with the Trump organization, quote, "Cohen described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements contained within it." 

Among the congressional bodies Michael Cohen testified before was the House Intelligence Committee, one of whose members, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas joins me now.

Congressman, good to see you.  Thank you for being with us.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO, (D) TEXAS:  Great to see you.

VELSHI:  There`s so much news and so much information tonight, it`s hard to separate -- it`s hard to figure out what the important threads are.  But one of the important threads that stood out to me is that in preparing for testimony to congress, to your committee, in which Michael Cohen lied, in which he perjured himself, in preparing for that he was talking to the White House.

CASTRO:  Yeah, that`s right.  And it`s remarkable, because throughout the investigatory process we got word back that different lawyers for different witnesses were communicating with the White House, and perhaps with each other.  So, it`s quite possible that if one or more of them lied to our committee if they -- in other words, if they all coordinated their stories, that they may -- basically may have told the same lie and may now be on the hook for those falsehoods.

And I also have to say, Ali, but it is remarkable to read that Cohen sentencing memo, and to realize essentially that the only thing keeping Donald Trump from being indicted and being charged with a crime beyond wealth and privilege, is that he occupies the office of the presidency and that he`s in the White House, and that if he didn`t it`s very likely that he would be in court right now as well.

VELSHI:  What`s the thing that stands out to you as a member of congress?  You know, Kim Wehle pointed out on page 23 of the Southern District of New York`s memo, that -- they speak specifically about the harm done to democracy, that congress has specifically worked to protect Americans from by rich people buying the silence of other people in the influence of an election.  There`s that.

There`s the fact that Michael Cohen says he was directed to pay this hush money by individual one, who we know to be Donald Trump.  There`s that.

But there`s so much more.  What stands out to you?  And what are you going to do about it?

CASTRO:  Well, the first thing -- I mean, you asked the question as a member of congress and as a member of the intelligence committee, the first thing that really stands out in reading these sentencing memos is how much further along the Mueller investigation is than anything that the Senate or the House has been able to do.  That`s the first big thing.

But also just the vast, basically collusion that went on to undermine our democracy.  In the Manafort sentencing memo, there`s further indication that there are even deeper ties between Trump`s former campaign manager, Manafort, and Russians, including somebody that`s believed to be a Russian spy, or possibly a Russian spy.

So, in each of the areas of collusion, possibly of money laundering, and certainly as we`ve seen before, obstruction of Justice, there continues to be more developments in each of those areas.  And it is incredibly remarkable to see how far we`ve gone from a president who said none of my people talked to Russia, I never talked to Russia, had no business in Russia, to where we are now.

VELSHI:  Your committee, the intel committee, because of the leadership of that committee that seemed to be somewhat compromised on the Republican side, didn`t get the job done that it was supposed to do, there were people left uninterviewed, there were things that were just not investigated.  Is that going to change in January when Democrats take control of that committee.

CASTRO:  Yeah, you`ll see a very different direction under Adam Schiff, I`m confident.  You`ll see a fair, but very thorough investigation.  And we`re not going to reinvent the wheel.  We`re not going to bring in every single witness again, but there are somewhere between a half dozen and 10 very important unanswered questions that we want to get information on. 

And it was surprising to me that throughout the last two years under Devin Nunes, the committee basically conducted a take them at their word investigation.  The witnesses would come in, they`d be asked some questions for a few hours, whatever they said.  It`s as if we accepted them at their word.  There wasn`t a single subpoena that was issued to go and verify anything that was told to us and that`s going to change in January.

VELSHI:  So Congressman Castro, let me ask you this, you`ve been in congress for awhile, but now you`ve got the majority and there are a lot of people who were elected on kitchen table issues -- on health care, on things like that.  At some point, because of all of this paperwork, and the fact that they are way further ahead than many people think and that there`s going to be more -- and Nick Ackerman, you may have heard him, sort of created a narrative around what`s going on. 

Are you in a position to consider discussing impeachment in congress?

CASTRO:  I think we have to be. 

You know, look, nobody runs for the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate because they want to go impeach a president.  And I think that people are sobered by that thought.  That is the most serious thing that you can undertake in American democracy. 

People go to congress, as you mentioned, to deal with issues of education, of health care, of economic prosperity, but when the evidence becomes so clear that you very likely have a criminal sitting in the Oval Office, what is the congress left to do at that point? 

We do have to wait for Bob Mueller`s report.  There`s got to  be a fair and thorough process here.  Also, the American people have to be convinced.  It`s important that they`re also convinced.  But I think that you`re seeing that more and more.

So, yes, you know, there`s no -- I know that -- I`m sure that many conservatives, many Republicans would say that we`ve got a partisan grudge, that we want to go after the president, that`s not the case at all.  Folks are very reluctant to go down this path and are sobered by it, but at the same time you can`t ignore the evidence.

VELSHI:  Congressman, good to see you tonight.  Thank you for joining us.  Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas, thank you for being here.

CASTRO:  Thank you.

VELSHI:  We`ve been talking about -- the congressman just mentioned the third document tonight.  This is the one that I haven`t talked about yet.  This is the United States district court for the District of Columbia about Paul Manafort.  And I just want to flip the pages of this to show you some thing that you might find interesting.

This document is heavily redacted. There is stuff in here that you can`t see and I can`t see.  So, in this heavily redacted filing, Special Counsel Robert Mueller says that Paul Manafort -- this is what we can make out from here -- says that Paul Manafort breached his plea agreement by lying to the FBI and to the special counsel`s office about several issues.  These include: number one, Manafort`s interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, his Russian business association who has already been charged by Mueller, he was in June.  Number two, Kilimnik`s participation in Manafort`s attempt to get two witnesses to tailor their testimony.  Number three, a wire transfer to a firm working for Manafort.  Number four, information relating to another Department of Justice investigation.  Number five -- remember, these are just lies, these are the lies that Manafort fold Mueller`s people -- Manafort`s contact with administration officials.  He continued to have contact.

According to the filing, Manafort said he`d been in contact with a senior administration official up until February of this year.

Joining me now, the other guy I always rely on for these things, Ken Dilanian, NBC News intelligence and national security reporter; and as advertised, MSNBC Justice Analyst Matt Miller remains with us.  Thank you, guys.

Ken, make sense of this.  We have spent a lot of time talking about Michael Cohen and that -- the two of the three reports, but this one is juicy and interesting.  What does it tell us that we didn`t know?

KEN DILANIAN, NBC NEWS INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT:  I wish could make sense of it, Ali.  It`s a very strange predicament that Paul Manafort has gotten himself in, because he lied, according to this document, about things that were provable, either that or he didn`t realize -- perhaps, I mean, some of the things that he has said to have lied about, including his interactions with this guy Konstantin Kilimnik, the special counsel has documentary evidence -- emails, texts, phone communications, to prove his lies.  Did he not realize they had this capacity by now?

VELSHI:  Talk to me about Kilimnik.  Who is Kilimnik in this whole thing?

DILANIAN:  So, Konstantin Kilimnik is a man who has been identified by Robert Mueller as having ongoing ties with Russian intelligence.  He was sort of Manafort`s right-hand man in Ukraine when Manafort was representing that Russian-backed Ukrainian politician.  He spoke the language, Manafort didn`t.  He made the trains run on time.  But there is some suspicion that he was a Russian operative the entire time. 

And the role that he`s played -- that he has played in Manafort`s interactions with Russians during the campaign and his role with the Trump organization,  that`s always been kind of a mystery.  As you said, he is indicted as part of this obstruction conspiracy, but he`s in Russia now, so he`s out of reach of justice.  But that to me is the most intriguing thing about this filing that Manafort.

And then the second more intriguing thing is this ongoing contacts that Manafort had with senior administration officials in the Trump administration, you know, while he was under indictment and up to May of this year.  It`s just bizarre...

VELSHI:  Yeah, he was texting.  He wrote an op-ed -- I mean, one doesn`t -- living in Paul Manafort`s head is an interesting experience. 

Matt Miller, people can understand that Michael Cohen stuff.  It`s pretty basic, right.  Donald Trump directed him to do lots of things, including pay two women off so that they didn`t talk to the papers and then go to the National Enquirer to catch and kill a story.

The Manafort stuff, given the narrative around how this is all coming together, where do you place the Manafort stuff?

MILLER:  Look, I think the question coming in to this filing -- ever since we found out that Paul Manafort had lied, according to the special counsel and violated the terms of his cooperating agreement, the question was did he lie about his individual kind of personal criminal liability, his lobbying business, his finances, or did he lie about things that related to the president and things that related to the Russia investigation.  And the answer is both.  He lied about all of them.

And I think it`s interesting, because if look at the specifics of his lies about Konstantin Kilimnik -- so remember what that appears to be about.  Remember what happened when Paul Manafort was the campaign manager, Konstantin Kilimnik flew into the country, had a meeting with Paul Manafort.  They talked about how Paul Manafort could make good with this guy...

VELSHI:  That he owed money to.

MILLER:  That`s right, that he owed money to.  He clearly...

VELSHI:  The offer was that he could give them intel on the election, the campaign.

MILLER:  That`s right, he can give access to the Trump campaign. 

And the thing that I find so interesting about the filing is the fact that all of that is blacked out.  And what that tells you is that relationship with Kilimnik and that incident, or those incidents of communication while he was the campaign chair, are something that are still relevant to the Russia investigation.

And so we have heard from the president over and over again -- I think we heard it from Sarah Sanders tonight, that Paul Manafort`s crimes, the things that Paul Manafort has been prosecuted for, have nothing to do with the president.  They`re all about his business before he came to work for the president.  We found out tonight that that is absolutely not true.

VELSHI:  So, I`m looking at this document and the redactions.  Number one, the interactions with Kilimnik, it`s all -- like this whole thing is redacted.  It`s almost impossible.  I don`t know, Ken, when you`re reading this what you`re able to make out other than the fact that there`s a guy named Konstantin Kilimnik written about.

DILANIAN:  Well, there`s a reference to a meeting between Kilimnik and a third individual, not Manafort.  And of course that is a huge reporting target right now, Ali, is to find out who that person was and why it`s relevant.

Here`s another way to think about this.  So, the filing also tells us that Manafort met 12 times with the special counsel, testified twice before the grand jury.  Just because he lies doesn`t mean that they didn`t get interesting and relevant information out of him for their investigation.  We`re not seeing that in this filing. We may see it when ultimately he faces sentencing to what extent he cooperated in a useful way.

But 12 meetings, many hours, two testimonies before the grand jury, that to me is very significant.

VELSHI:  What an interesting night.  Thank you for your analysis.  Ken Dilanian and Matt Miller for sticking with us.

Just ahead, the president today named the next person to potentially oversee the Mueller investigation.  We`re going to talk about that in light of tonight`s revelations, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI:  All right, the memos we`ve been talking about all night, from the special counsel, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, these were dropped on the same day that the president announced his brand new pick for a permanent attorney general, William Barr.  You may know this guy`s name.  You may remember him, he was the former attorney general under President George Herbert Walker Bush.  He`s trump`s nominee to replace ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Joining me now to talk about what Trump is up to with the Department of Justice and all of this news breaking tonight is Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.  Richard, welcome.  Thank you for being with us.

The president has been carrying on with news all day today, or whatever he calls it.  He`s been tweeting some pretty crazy stuff.

I want to just before I back into the William Barr conversation, the president put out a tweet not very long ago in which he said in reference to these reports, these sentencing reports, totally clears the  president, thank you.  Wouldn`t mind getting your take on that.

RICHARD PAINTER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ETHICS LAWYER:  I just think the president`s out of control on Twitter.  Today, he`s attacking Robert Mueller yet again.  He`s completely out of control.  He thinks he`s going to shut this investigation down either through Twitter or through appointing an attorney general who`s going to shut it down, and that`s not going to happen.

VELSHI:  Let`s talk about this new attorney general who he`s appointed.  Interesting because this was an attorney general under George Herbert Walker Bush.  He was confirmed by a Democratically controlled Senate in just a voice vote overwhelmingly.  What`s the president thinking with William Barr?

PAINTER:  Well, I don`t know what he`s thinking.  He probably thinks he wants to kill off the Mueller investigation.

Let`s start William Barr, people have different opinions of him.  I happen to have a very high  opinion of William Barr.  I think he was a very good attorney general and could be a good attorney general in any administration.  But he must recuse from the Russia investigation and all the other investigations of the Trump campaign, including the investigation of the Southern District of New York.

Let`s look at the facts.  Just today we`ve learned that the prosecutors in New York, they believed the president of the United States has committed felony campaign finance violations.  Robert Mueller has already obtained convictions of guilty pleas for the president`s lawyer.  We have the president`s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, the vice chair of the campaign, Mr. Gates.  We have the former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, a number of other guilty pleas, a bunch of them are cooperating with the prosecutors.  President Trump fired the director of the FBI, James Comey, in order to stop this investigation. He`s repeatedly tried to fire Robert Mueller.  He fired Jeff Sessions because Jeff Sessions wouldn`t shut down the investigation. 

There`s just no way that William Barr can come into this job and oversee the investigation.  He has to recuse.  He`s been appointed by the president at this juncture.  If the president thinks he`s going to shut this thing down or he`s going to control it in any way, it`s not going to happen.  And if William Barr does not recuse, what he`s going to be doing is spending almost all of his time sitting in front of the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee explaining himself, and that`s no way to be the attorney general of the United States.

VELSHI:  Let me ask you this, this might be interesting, because when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, Rod Rosenstein took over the Russia part of the investigation, and appointed Bob Mueller.  The president constantly talks about the 12 angry Democrats, or however many and Mueller, and all that kind of stuff.

But I think there`s an interesting distinction in these two reports, one filed by Mueller`s team and the much harder, tougher, bigger one filed by the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York who I suppose the president could fire also, but that`s a different thing.  That`s not a what the president would call a biased investigation.  This is the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  And they are coming down harder on both Cohen and the president then the Mueller investigation did.

PAINTER:  Well, for the moment, yes.  But Robert Mueller has yet to release his report, has yet to file initial indictments, and Robert Mueller`s investigation is very sensitive to the national security of our country, and that investigation is going to continue, and I think it is a serious threat to Donald Trump.  That`s why he`s been trying to fire Robert Mueller.

And referring to Robert Mueller and his team as a bunch of angry Democrats is crazy.  Robert Mueller is a Republican.  He`s  the type of Republican that I was for 30 years until the party was turned over to a bunch of people who want to collaborate with the Russians.

This is nuts.  The president cannot bring in an attorney general who is going to try to control this investigation.  We`re fine with Rod Rosenstein supervising and Robert Mueller continuing his investigation, and the prosecutors need to continue in the Southern District of New York and we need to get to the bottom of this.

VELSHI:  Richard, good to talk to you as always.  Thank you for joining us.  Richard Painter is with us tonight.  He definitely always has some good views on this thing.

There seems to be enough evidence right now that not only suggests that the president acted in a way that is contrary to the interests of the country, but that he committed a crime, which gives one the impression that the incoming Democratic House majority might be forced to think about impeachment  proceedings, but before they really wanted to.

To talk more about where things might be headed, I`m joined by Elie Mystal, executive editor for Above the Law, and Michelle Goldberg, columnist for The New York Times.  Welcome to both of you.

A little earlier I had a conversation with Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro.  And I was actually surprised by his answer.  He said that at some point, while no member of congress gets elected to impeach a president, it`s complicated, it`s not what they want to, you can`t keep denying this sort of information. 

And in this document it talks about the fact that the president may have conspired with Michael Cohen to commit a felony that influenced an election.

Michelle, what do Democrats do about this?  Because so many of those Democratic votes were about fixing the economy and fixing health care and things like that.  Do the Democrats have a mandate or the backing of the American people to pursue impeachment?

MICHELLE GOLDBERG, NEW YORK TIMES:  I mean, I think that absolutely a lot of those Democratic votes, you`re right, were about health care, were about sort of pocketbook issues, but they were also a rebuke to Donald Trump, right.  I mean, the reason that you have such an unprecedented outpouring of volunteers, the reason that you had such an unprecedented increase in turnout was because people wanted to stand up to the lawlessness of this administration.

And so I don`t think that they`re going to go in there and start impeachment proceedings in January, but what they`re going to do is start other sorts of investigations that simultaneously with Mueller I think are going to keep revealing new evidence of criminality.

And it may well become a place in which you kind of -- it`s so overwhelming that it becomes absurd not to start impeachment proceedings, although I think at that point you might also see Trump`s political support begin to crack.

ELIE MYSTAL, EDITOR, ABOVE THE LAW:  This is interesting.

VELSHI:  That`s an interesting point.

MYSTAL:  Right.  It`s unfair to put all of this on the Democrats, right?  At some point, and we let them off the hook all time, at some point Republicans of conscience have to stand up.

VELSHI:  Which they did in Watergate.  In Watergate they said this is too much.

MYSTAL:  Right now today what we`ve seen, Robert Mueller is coming out here like the ghost of Christmas future, right?  And the Republicans are still screaming fake dream, fake dream, like at some point they have to wrestle with what`s happening to their country -- to our country.  And if they`re not willing to go along, like I think it`s at some point unfair to just put this all on like Democratic strength.

GOLDBERG:  Although, I actually don`t -- you know, I don`t think we`re going to see Republicans acting out of an outbreak of conscienceness and patriotism, I think that what might happen is Trump`s approval rate also really crumble.  I mean, that`s kind of what happened with...

VELSHI:  But they don`t move.  I mean, the fact that Trump is...

GOLDBERG:  I mean, they move a little bit.  They move a little bit, right?  So, you know, they move from 42 to 38.

VELSHI:  Right.

GOLDBERG:  I think if we enter a recession...

VELSHI:  They don`t get to 30.

GOLDBERG:  You`re right.  But if we -- Trump is already a much diminished figure, and I think as the evidence of his failures become harder and harder for his supporters to explain away -- I mean you saw that happen, it took longer, but you could very tangibly see it happen with George W. Bush where there was this sort of macho hero worship and cult around him that eventually faded away as people had to reckon with the obvious failure of the Iraq War.

And so I think it might happen on a slightly more rapid timetable with this administration just because the failures are eventually I think going to be -- I mean, you`re probably still going to have a third of people who are apologizing for this president.  You had die-hard Nixon supporters until the very end.  But I think that you might see Republican support go into the 70s or even the 60s.

MYSTAL:  I mean, I don`t know if that`s a good enough answer.  I don`t know -- I don`t know how many more Susan Collins press conferences I can take while she plays Hamlet.  I don`t know if I can -- how much more I can hear from Marco Rubio or Lindsey Graham or all these people who want to get on TV and act like they have principles.

VELSHI:  Right.

MYSTAL:  And so at some point, when you`re saying the approval ratings, what you`re really talking about is at some point the American people have to start taking this stuff seriously and the left is already there.  At some point, the independents, the people on the right, the people who are watching  basketball games right now instead of the news, at some point these people have to stands up and say like we`re not going to let the president of the United States commit crimes and do nothing.

VELSHI: Right.

And is the weight of this kind of stuff and what comes out of the Mueller investigation, is that what`s going to do it, Michelle?  Is that -- again, go back to Watergate.  It was when it became irrefutable, it was when Republicans no longer had a leg to stand on to stand up for president. 

He is talking about fake dreams, it`s when you can no longer say these are fake and these are  angry Democrats and these are made-up things.

GOLDBERG:  You know, I don`t know what it`s going to be.  I feel like we have these moments every once in a while.

VELSHI:  A lot of people thought we crossed this line two years ago.

GOLDBERG:  Right.  And we should have.  And in kind of a remotely healthy functioning country, he would have been -- impeachment proceeding would have started his first week in office.

But I mean, what you see I feel like with this president is we kind of lull ourselves into this sort of miasma where everybody kind of muddles along, and then every so often something happens and the screens fall from people`s eyes and there is this sort of panic as everybody reckons with what kind of monster he is.

You see it after the Helsinki conference, you see it at John McCain`s funeral.  And I think that -- you know, as the evidence of collusion, or as it`s called in one of these filings, one of the Russians that they meet with, political synergy, which I feel like is a pretty good synonym for collusion, right.

So, there`s, I think eventually -- he`s still out there tweeting no collusion.  I think that eventually the evidence of collusion, Mueller has left a lot of breadcrumbs that it`s there under those black bars.  And eventually I feel like it will become undeniable, whether Republicans continue to deny it...

VELSHI:  We just hope that happens before I grow an Afro.

MYSTAL:  I think you got flip the kids.  I think you got to go after the kids, and I think you got break the kids. 

I think that one of the more interesting things in the SDNY stuff, Cohen was withholding something, so they know something -- and we don`t know exactly what that is, but since it`s SDNY, it probably involves New York, which gets us into the Trump organization itself.  It would be interesting if what Cohen was withholding was stuff on Eric, stuff on Don Jr.

I still think, as much as like Roger Stone looks like the next shoe to drop, I still think eventually this needs to come to Donald Trump Jr.`s desk and Eric Trump`s desk.  And we`re going to have to see the president make a decision whether or not he is going to admit the truth to save his children or whether or not he is going to keep lying.

GOLDBERG:  I can`t imagine he would do that.  But I think the more interesting question is whether his children would flip on him.

VELSHI:  Let me ask you this, Elie, one of the reasons why Joaquin Castro was saying we don`t want to rush head long into impeachment, one of the reasons it hasn`t been done since Donald Trump`s first week in office, is because it`s really hard.  The constitution designed it to be really, really hard.  And if you thought the country had ground to a halt, that will grind it to a halt.

MYSTAL:  Yeah, and well I think the other reason that Congressman Castro wasn`t as forthcoming about is that you need 20 Republicans to come with you to convict, right? 

Democrats have the power to impeach in the House, but to convict him you have to take him out in the Senate.  And because we went further behind even in the Senate, you`re going to need 20 or so Republicans to come on board, and I`m still waiting for Ben Sasse to grow a conscience.  I mean, that`s -- the math of it all makes it...

VELSHI:  So what gets us to that Watergate place where 20 Republicans, or however many Republicans, are able to say this is not right?

GOLDBERG:  Like I said, the only thing that gets us to that place is when they feel like their  reelection is in trouble, right?  When the Republican Party, and if not the base, enough kind of Republicans drift away that they feel like it is in their own self-interest to break with this president, when he becomes a mill stone around their next.

VELSHI:  Right, and that is not happening.  That is not yet happened.  Despite everything this president has done, we haven`t gotten close to that point.

MYSTAL:  Nope.

VELSHI:  You see it coming any time soon?

MYSTAL:  I mean, I think the Democrats in the Senate need to start thinking more creatively about collective action and a kind of a protest movement to start this.

I want to see Chuck Schumer hold a hunger strike in the middle of the Senate, right?  Let`s see if that gets some people to understand how serious this is.

VELSHI:  Thank you to both of you for being here for us on a Friday night.  Elie Mystal, Michelle Goldberg.

And that is All In for this evening.  The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now.  Good evening, Rachel.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END