PBS NEWSHOUR VIDEOS: Where is Mueller’s probe headed? Indictments and surprise plea agreement offer clues & The charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos, explained by veteran prosecutors 30OKT17

THE PBS NewsHour devoted most of their hour long broadcast to fair, non-partisan analysis of the developments of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Here are two segments from the broadcast on 30 OCT 17, videos and transcripts.....

Where is Mueller’s probe headed? Indictments and surprise plea agreement offer clues

30 OCT 17

The Russia investigation entered a new phase Monday with indictments for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, and news of a guilty plea from a former Trump advisor for lying to the FBI about his connections to Russia. Lisa Desjardins reports and Judy Woodruff gets a breakdown of today’s indictments from Carrie Johnson of NPR.

Where is Mueller’s probe headed? Indictments and surprise plea agreement offer clues

Read the Full Transcript

• Judy Woodruff:

  The first charges in the Russia investigation speak to the size and scope of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

  Lisa Desjardins begins our coverage.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  Today, indictments for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for charges unrelated to the campaign, and a guilty plea from former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, which is related to campaign work.

  First, Manafort and Gates. Both pleaded not guilty today in court.
• Kevin Downing:

  There is no evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  The charges include laundering millions of dollars, tax fraud, failing to register as foreign agents and conspiracy against the United States, all of that stemming from their work consulting for foreign politicians for the last decade.

  Manafort, of course, is best known for his three months as the campaign chairman for Donald Trump.
• Paul Manafort

  We presented the exact messaging we were trying to do.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  Those were pivotal months. Manafort helped steer Trump’s primary wins, the selection of Mike Pence as vice president, and he oversaw last summer’s convention. Manafort was forced out shortly after that convention, following the release of a Ukrainian ledger alleging millions of dollars in payments to Manafort.

  Manafort called the document a fake and insisted no wrongdoing. Months later, the then White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to downplay Manafort’s role.
• Sean Spicer:

  Obviously, there’s been this discussion of Paul Manafort, who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  PolitiFact found that statement to be false.

  President Trump defended Manafort in August.
• President Donald Trump:

  I have always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  Manafort is a longtime political operative, advising Ronald Reagan in 1980 and three other GOP nominees. He also made millions consulting overseas, including Ukraine, and for Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych.

  Manafort is credited with his political makeover. As president of Ukraine in 2014, Yanukovych’s pro-Russian moves led to unrest, and he is now in exile in Russia.

  In 2015, Manafort bought an apartment in Trump Tower. A year later, he was working for the Trump campaign.

  Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan today acknowledged, but de-emphasized the charges.
•  speaker Of The House:

  I have nothing to add to these indictments, other than this is what Bob Mueller was tasked to do.

  I haven’t read the indictments. I don’t know the specific details of the indictments. But that is how our — that’s how the judicial process works.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  Rick Gates is Manafort’s longtime number two. I need to mention here that I have personally known Gates since we were students in college together.

  Now, the indictments today allege that both Manafort and Gates hid and laundered millions coming in from overseas to avoid taxes and that they acted as agents of foreign governments and did not disclose that.

  Also today, Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta resigned from his namesake firm, following news that his ties to Manafort, and his work on Ukraine issues, are also under investigation.

  A potentially more revealing case involves George Papadopoulos, who now appears to be a cooperating witness in the investigation. He was a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. In papers unsealed today, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with three people who were Russian or connected to Russia.

  The plea lists pages of contacts while he in the campaign, some about possible Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton and many about setting up direct meetings between Russian officials and Trump. In the plea, Papadopoulos said he brought up that idea to then candidate Trump and others at a march 2016 meeting. That’s shown in a photo tweeted out by Trump himself.

  White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded today.
• Sarah Sanders:

  I’m not sure that the president recalls specific details of the meeting. Again, it was a brief meeting that took place quite some time ago. It was the one time that group ever met.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  As for Papadopoulos’s role?
• Sarah Sanders:

  It was extremely limited It was a volunteer position. And, again, no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign.
• Lisa Desjardins:

  Sanders insisted none of this is related to the president at all.

  The president responded himself on Twitter, writing that the events involving Manafort were years ago and that there is no collusion.

  We know this: Special counsel Mueller’s team has entered its next high-stakes phase of investigation, with the endgame still unclear.

  For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Lisa Desjardins.
• Judy Woodruff:

  And now let’s look further into what is clear from today’s indictments with Carrie Johnson. She’s justice correspondent for NPR.

  Carrie, thank you for talking with us.

  You have been watching what Robert Mueller has been doing, at least as closely as a journalist can. What have we learned today about his work from these indictments?
• Carrie Johnson:

  That he’s working slowly, methodically and, in fact, five months in, he now has charged three people with wrongdoing.

  One of them, George Papadopoulos, has agreed to cooperate and has already been meeting with government investigators to tell them what he knows.

  For the last several months, Robert Mueller has been able to keep that a secret from members of the press and the Trump campaign and the White House. Also today, the charges against Paul Manafort and his right-hand man, Rick Gates, really upped the ante against Manafort.

  We know that Mueller has been putting pressure on Manafort at least since July, when the FBI raided his residence in Virginia. This may afford Manafort one last chance to cooperate and agree to help the Mueller investigate. If not, he faces many, many years in prison on those conspiracy charges and charges that he failed to register as a foreign agent.

  Mueller’s lawyer today said he didn’t engage in any wrongdoing.
• Judy Woodruff:

  So, Carrie, is…
• Carrie Johnson:

  I mean, Manafort’s lawyer today said he didn’t engage in any wrongdoing.
• Judy Woodruff:

  I’m sorry to interrupt you.

  So, Carrie, among those reporters who follow or try to follow what Robert Mueller is up to, was this expected, or was it a surprise?
• Carrie Johnson:

  It was a bit of legal shock and awe, Judy, because, while Paul Manafort had been under the sights of the special counsel for some weeks now, and Rick Gates, as Mueller’s right-hand man, was as well, this guilty plea involving George Papadopoulos, a little-known 30-year-old foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, had flown completely under the radar.

  In fact, Papadopoulos had met with the FBI on a couple of occasions this year. He was actually arrested at Dulles Airport in July, and no word of that leaked until today.

  He’s been telling the FBI what he knows. And I don’t think we know exactly from these charging documents absolutely everything he has told the special counsel.

  I think there are a lot of investigative avenues opening up today that we didn’t know about before.
• Judy Woodruff:

  So, is there a sense, Carrie, from looking at this, of where Mueller depends to go from here, or are more surprises in store?
• Carrie Johnson:

  Well, I think more surprise may be in store, but there are some clues from the charging documents.

  One is that both Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were charged with failing to file as foreign agents operating inside the U.S. That charge has been little used, in fact, Manafort’s lawyer said used only six times since 1966.

  And that is the charge that could be deployed against other members of the Trump campaign. Remember, former General Mike Flynn, also Trump’s former national security adviser, belatedly filed foreign agent papers earlier this year.

  Secondly, the Papadopoulos charging documents reference conversations he had with supervisors in the campaign, high-ranking people involved in the Trump campaign last year. And investigators are looking at what those people knew and whether they can come under some kind of scrutiny from the FBI and the special counsel team moving forward.
• Judy Woodruff:

  And, Carrie, we heard the White House spokeswoman say today that it’s their information that the Mueller investigation is going to be wrapping up pretty soon. Any idea where that’s coming from and if that is accurate?
• Carrie Johnson:

  I have heard the White House press secretary say that. I have also heard Ty Cobb, who is a special counsel with the president dealing with and managing cooperation with the special counsel.

  Judy, as somebody who’s been doing this a long time, I see no evidence that this investigation is going to end before the end of this year. And, certainly, it feels as if it might go well into next year.

  At this point, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates are contesting the charges against them and, it could be presumed, preparing for trial, which wouldn’t happen until mid-2018 at the earliest. This could be a cloud hanging over the Trump White House for many months to come.
• Judy Woodruff:

  Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent for NPR, we thank you.
• Carrie Johnson:

  Thank you.

• The charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos, explained by veteran prosecutors

• 30OKT17

• The charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos, explained by veteran 

• prosecutors

• 
  
• Money laundering, tax fraud and lying to the FBI are some of the charges revealed Monday as part of Robert Mueller's probe. Two former federal prosecutors experienced in handling high-stakes investigations -- Peter Zeidenberg and former Justice Department official John Carlin -- join Judy Woodruff to offer a deeper look at the legal details and what they mean going forward.

  Read the Full Transcript

  • Judy Woodruff:

    And now a deeper look at the legal details here with two former federal prosecutors experienced in handling high-stakes investigations and prosecutions.

    John Carlin ran the Justice Department’s National Security Division from 2013 to 2016. Before that, he served as chief of staff and senior counsel to then FBI Director Robert Mueller. And Peter Zeidenberg, whose 17 years as a federal prosecutor included time as deputy special counsel in the investigation into the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity.

    Gentlemen, welcome back to the NewsHour to both of you.

    John Carlin, to start with you, what’s most significant about today’s indictments?
  • John Carlin:

    Well, there are two things that happened today. We have the indictments and then we have the release of a plea agreement and the statement of offense.

    And taking each in turn, so the indictment, what we see today, at least according to the allegations, is that the campaign manager of a major candidate who is now president was secretly taking millions and millions of dollars from the Ukrainian government that was one of Putin’s Russia’s closest allies.

    And just to explain who — for your viewers, who Yanukovych is, this is someone who not only was so close to Russia that, when he was deposed, he fled there in 2014.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    Right.
  • John Carlin:

    But it was him being overthrown that caused Putin’s Russia to invade and seize part of the Ukraine that led to the still-in-effect sanctions. So — and that’s a significance there.

    With Papadopoulos and the plea agreement today, we now know that there is an individual who has been cooperating for months, and that there is someone who was on the campaign, and, while he was on the campaign, was talking to people he knew were in touch with Russian officials to get damaging information about the opposing campaign, including hearing all the way back on April 26, according to the statement of offense, of 2016 that they had thousands of e-mails from Clinton’s campaign.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    So, Peter Zeidenberg, you have had a chance to look at these plea agreements and also the — I’m sorry — the plea agreement and the indictments. What do they say to you?
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    Well, it says to me they have got a big problem at the White House.

    The Papadopoulos plea agreement suggests that there are at least three individuals that were involved with the campaign that were fully aware of Mr. Papadopoulos’ connection with Russia, and he was advising — he sent an e-mail saying Russia updates.

    And this is after the campaign and the administration has been saying for many, many months no connection with Russia, no collusion, no cooperation, no connection of any kind.

    And now we know that at least three people besides Papadopoulos were aware that he was trying to reach out and, in fact, had reached out to Russian government officials.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    And the White House — and more to talk about here, but I was struck that the White House today was emphatic, John Carlin, in saying, well, but this happened, in terms of what Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates did, well before the Trump campaign, didn’t have anything to do with what the Trump campaign was doing.
  • John Carlin:

    I will just say, according to the document that we have seen today, that while he was the campaign manager for the Trump campaign — the whole point of the statute that these allegations say that Manafort violated and his aide, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, is to be transparent when you’re receiving money from a foreign government…
  • Judy Woodruff:

    Right.
  • John Carlin:

    … so if you’re acting on their behalf, the American people know.

    And the problem here is that he wasn’t. He wasn’t transparent. And so, in that sense, it’s a big deal.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    And we heard his lawyer — we heard Paul Manafort’s lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, say, well, this has only been used, I think he said, a handful of times in the last many, many decades, and only once successfully.
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    That is true. It’s a rarely used statute.

    But, man, if you’re going to use it, this is the case to use it for. Here, you have got an enormous amount of money from a country that is trying to influence our election. I mean, this is like a paradigm of why the statute is written, so that if you were going to bring a case, this is the case to bring.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    So, let’s come back to George Papadopoulos and that plea agreement, John Carlin.

    Again, going to the White House’s reaction, they said, well, this is somebody with an extremely limited role, he wanted to do things for the campaign, he kept being turned away.

    So, they’re trying to — I mean, they’re putting as much distance as they can between the campaign and anything he did.
  • John Carlin:

    Well, and not commenting on the White House, but looking at the statement of the offense, it wasn’t just that Papadopoulos, while working as a member of the national security team — and the statement of offense takes pains to point out that he attended a meeting with the president of the United States while working on the campaign in March of that year.

    But it’s also he was reporting what he was doing back up to campaign officials, as Peter points out, at least three officials. They are not named, but it says they were campaign officials, and he’s e-mailing them while he’s talking to these representatives of the Russian government. So there is definitely more to find out there.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    So, what does that tell us, Peter Zeidenberg? Are we closer to knowing whether there was collusion?

    And remind everybody what it would mean the to prove collusion, coordination between a campaign…
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    Well, there’s no legal term of art for collusion.

    The crime, if there was one, would be conspiracy. And this has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy. It’s not charged as a conspiracy, but it certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to say that there is coordination and a goal of getting this information to the campaign.

    He was encouraged by one of these officials to take the meeting in Moscow. And he’d explained that…
  • Judy Woodruff:

    One of the campaign officials.
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    On the — by the campaign officials.

    So, the dots are all lined up. All you got to do is take the pencil and draw the line.
  • Judy Woodruff:

     What does this say to you, John Carlin, about how — I mean, we’re not able to talk to Robert Mueller. I mean, he’s been operating very much behind closed doors. But what does it say to you about his approach to what he has and what he may have going forward?
  • John Carlin:

    Well, I think the one thing that’s clear, as we knew, is that he was going to take the facts where they led, and if anyone could act quickly and assemble a team and bring charges quickly, it’s him.

    These are serious charges. It’s actually a relatively short period of time to bring as substantive an indictment as you see. And when you have someone who’s pled guilty and continuing to cooperate, you can tell there’s more work to do on the investigation.

    But one point I don’t think should be lost is just — we talked about where it might go, but to just take a step as to where we are, before we start changing our expectations as to what’s normal and what is not. This is more information of historic importance that we just haven’t seen before about a Russian campaign, and here another government as well, that ends up influencing our presidential election, our core of what it is to be a democratic country.

    And that’s not partisan. That’s a problem that needs to be addressed across party lines.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    And, Peter Zeidenberg, what do you say to those listening and watching out there who maybe saying, well, it’s just an indictment, it’s just a charge, none of this has been proven?
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    Actually, Papadopoulos is not just a charge.

    He’s pled guilty and will be cooperating. And it sounds like these are — you know, there’s an e-mail trail that goes on. And I guarantee you that the three campaign advisers have been interviewed. And they may be cooperating as well. They may have corroborated this as well.

    And if they contradicted it, they either may have — they either will be charged or may already have been charged. So, there are a lot more shoes to drop here, for sure.
  • Judy Woodruff:

    Peter Zeidenberg, John Carlin, just the beginning.

    Thank you both very much.
  • John Carlin:

    Thank you.
  • Peter Zeidenberg:

    Thank you.
• 
  
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