WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.930 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Individual one. President Trump emerges as a subject of interest in the 00:05.930 --> 00:10.060 align:start Mueller probe. I'm Robert Costa. Welcome to Washington Week. 00:10.060 --> 00:14.430 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) He is a weak person and what he's trying to do is 00:14.430 --> 00:19.940 align:start get a reduced sentence. So he's lying about a project that everybody knew about. 00:19.940 --> 00:24.150 align:start ROBERT COSTA: President Trump battles his former personal attorney and defends his 00:24.150 --> 00:27.290 align:start business with Russians during the 2016 campaign. 00:27.290 --> 00:30.910 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) We were very open with it. We were thinking about 00:30.910 --> 00:34.090 align:start building a building. I decided ultimately not to do it. 00:34.090 --> 00:36.630 align:start There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it. 00:36.630 --> 00:40.590 align:start ROBERT COSTA: But those talks for a Trump Tower in Moscow are now under intense 00:40.590 --> 00:46.650 align:start scrutiny, as Cohen admits he lied to Congress and the president continues his political 00:46.650 --> 00:52.130 align:start war with Robert Mueller after the special counsel withdrew a plea deal with former Trump 00:52.130 --> 00:57.790 align:start campaign chairman Paul Manafort. All this as the president is abroad in Argentina along 00:57.790 --> 01:03.420 align:start with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The latest reporting, next. 01:03.420 --> 01:15.090 align:start ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again, from Washington, moderator Robert Costa. 01:15.090 --> 01:20.890 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Good evening. The Russia probe that has long gripped the Trump presidency 01:20.890 --> 01:25.990 align:start was jolted this week by Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer, who admitted he 01:25.990 --> 01:30.300 align:start lied to Congress about what was called the Moscow project. 01:30.300 --> 01:35.990 align:start Cohen had testified that talks about building a Trump Tower in Russia had fizzled by 01:35.990 --> 01:42.300 align:start early 2016, but in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday Cohen said that discussions about 01:42.300 --> 01:48.420 align:start the project actually went into the summer of 2016, deep into the presidential campaign. 01:48.420 --> 01:55.780 align:start This development raises new questions: Did the president's business pursuits with Russia 01:55.780 --> 01:59.510 align:start shape his campaign or his message? 01:59.510 --> 02:04.400 align:start And what does it reveal about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation? 02:04.400 --> 02:08.370 align:start Joining me tonight to discuss all of this are three seasoned reporters on this 02:08.370 --> 02:13.880 align:start fast-moving beat: Michael Schmidt, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning national security 02:13.880 --> 02:19.310 align:start reporter with The New York Times; Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker and 02:19.310 --> 02:24.390 align:start author of the weekly Letter From Trump's Washington column; and Rosalind Helderman, 02:24.390 --> 02:29.340 align:start political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post, who won a 02:29.340 --> 02:34.310 align:start Pulitzer Prize this year. Michael great to have you here on Washington Week. 02:34.310 --> 02:39.470 align:start You've been reporting on Mueller for so long. There are so many pieces to this puzzle. 02:39.470 --> 02:44.440 align:start What does this piece - the Cohen piece, the development this week, his cooperation - tell 02:44.440 --> 02:48.320 align:start us about where Bob Mueller's going with his entire investigation? 02:48.320 --> 02:51.690 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Well, it shows, obviously, that he continues to go deeper and deeper 02:51.690 --> 02:57.120 align:start inside that inner circle of the president's in really trying to figure out what was going 02:57.120 --> 02:59.340 align:start on during the campaign. 02:59.340 --> 03:03.620 align:start But I think more importantly he's continuing to tell the story of the different pieces of 03:03.620 --> 03:09.200 align:start the pie of what was going on in the summer of 2016 - the Russians were reaching out to 03:09.200 --> 03:14.870 align:start try and meet with his son, they were starting to do things on social media to undermine 03:14.870 --> 03:20.470 align:start our democracy, and they were also trying to do business with the president - and trying 03:20.470 --> 03:25.200 align:start to lay out for the average person in this country through these documents the history and 03:25.200 --> 03:28.590 align:start the story of this to give us a greater understanding of it. 03:28.590 --> 03:31.920 align:start ROBERT COSTA: The president's defending his conduct, all these different conversations. 03:31.920 --> 03:36.370 align:start He began the day with a series of tweets mocking the Mueller probe and defending his 03:36.370 --> 03:39.340 align:start pursuit of the real estate project in Moscow. 03:39.340 --> 03:44.390 align:start He wrote in part: "I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal 03:44.390 --> 03:49.690 align:start & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail." But most Democrats have sounded the 03:49.690 --> 03:54.440 align:start alarm, including House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff of California. 03:54.440 --> 03:58.140 align:start REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): (From video.) It means that when the president was 03:58.140 --> 04:02.850 align:start representing during the campaign that he had no business interests in Russia, that that wasn't true. 04:02.850 --> 04:05.730 align:start ROBERT COSTA: I just want to follow up on something you said, Mike. It raises questions 04:05.730 --> 04:10.260 align:start about what President Trump was doing during the 2016 campaign, about the timeline. 04:10.260 --> 04:13.780 align:start He just submitted questions, written answers to Robert Mueller. 04:13.780 --> 04:17.270 align:start Is there a perjury question now for President Trump and his legal team? 04:17.270 --> 04:21.750 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: As soon as we saw the plea deal with Cohen, the thought that we had was 04:21.750 --> 04:26.430 align:start what's in the answers, because we knew from reporting earlier this year that Mueller 04:26.430 --> 04:30.550 align:start wanted to ask him about this deal. He wanted to know who he spoke to. 04:30.550 --> 04:34.470 align:start And if you're trying to understand the criminal exposure, the political exposure that the 04:34.470 --> 04:37.500 align:start president has, you have to find out what that answer was. 04:37.500 --> 04:42.030 align:start So we went - we pushed on the president's lawyers to get that, and what they say is that 04:42.030 --> 04:46.770 align:start what the president put in those answers lines up with what Cohen said, and that he's fine 04:46.770 --> 04:52.590 align:start there. Now, in a Trumpian twist, the president came out from the White House after 04:52.590 --> 04:58.230 align:start Cohen pled and said he was lying that day. He called him a liar and said he was lying 04:58.230 --> 05:04.450 align:start to reduce his sentence. Well, if Cohen is lying, then what - it doesn't line up with what 05:04.450 --> 05:09.560 align:start the president was saying in his answers. So, you know, sort of classic Trump there. 05:09.560 --> 05:12.620 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Maybe Mueller comes back for more questions for the president about all of 05:12.620 --> 05:14.800 align:start this at some point. 05:14.800 --> 05:17.780 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: I find it very hard to believe that Bob Mueller will be simply 05:17.780 --> 05:21.890 align:start satisfied with written responses from Donald Trump on a small sliver of the investigation. 05:21.890 --> 05:25.210 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Ros, also great to have you here at the table. You've been following 05:25.210 --> 05:28.980 align:start Michael Cohen for so long. We've been questioning for a long time at the Post and 05:28.980 --> 05:33.240 align:start elsewhere how valuable he really is to Robert Mueller's investigation. 05:33.240 --> 05:36.450 align:start What does your reporting tell you about that question? 05:36.450 --> 05:40.130 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: Well, we know it was revealed yesterday that he sat down with Bob 05:40.130 --> 05:45.010 align:start Mueller's team I believe seven separate times just in the last few months, so there's a 05:45.010 --> 05:49.400 align:start lot of information. I mean, this is a guy who was really Donald Trump's sort of 05:49.400 --> 05:54.880 align:start right-hand man within the Trump Organization, had a lot of involvement with basically 05:54.880 --> 05:58.670 align:start all of the sort of dirtiest secrets of the Trump Organization. 05:58.670 --> 06:03.470 align:start Obviously, we've seen, involved deeply with the payments to women prior to the election 06:03.470 --> 06:08.650 align:start to silence them, but also just a lot of Donald Trump's overseas international business 06:08.650 --> 06:14.310 align:start expansion. So he's a guy with a wealth of knowledge. The problem is he's also a guy, 06:14.310 --> 06:19.490 align:start like so many people in Trump world, who has a tendency to exaggerate and to lie. 06:19.490 --> 06:24.230 align:start And so you can be sure that Bob Mueller is gathering every piece of paper he can to try 06:24.230 --> 06:28.240 align:start to get corroboration for anything he's being told by Michael Cohen. 06:28.240 --> 06:32.020 align:start ROBERT COSTA: But this development this week, does this tell us that Mueller sees Cohen 06:32.020 --> 06:34.240 align:start as pretty credible, at least? 06:34.240 --> 06:37.610 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: It certainly shows that he believes that Cohen has important 06:37.610 --> 06:42.880 align:start information to share, and certainly that he has a lot of additional evidence to back up 06:42.880 --> 06:45.390 align:start anything he plans to use. 06:45.390 --> 06:49.910 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Susan, you've lived in Moscow. You've written a book about Vladimir Putin. 06:49.910 --> 06:53.710 align:start You know this country. The timing here really matters. 06:53.710 --> 07:00.510 align:start It comes just as Russia is mounting its interference campaign in 2016, then-candidate 07:00.510 --> 07:05.370 align:start Trump engaging with Russians at the same time. What does it tell us about Russia 07:05.370 --> 07:08.730 align:start and Putin that they were doing both of these things simultaneously? 07:08.730 --> 07:11.280 align:start SUSAN GLASSER: Well, you know, I think that's an excellent question because that's the 07:11.280 --> 07:13.750 align:start thing that immediately occurred to me. 07:13.750 --> 07:18.830 align:start When you look at what Cohen is testifying to and what was included in this agreement that 07:18.830 --> 07:24.860 align:start Mueller brought to court the other day, it includes the information that multiple times 07:24.860 --> 07:30.690 align:start Michael Cohen reached out to and interacted with Vladimir Putin's office through his 07:30.690 --> 07:35.230 align:start spokesman - through the office of his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who I know - who's been 07:35.230 --> 07:38.850 align:start Putin's spokesman, by the way, since the very beginning of his term. He's one of Putin's 07:38.850 --> 07:42.920 align:start closest advisors. So he's not just like a press secretary; he's been with Putin since 07:42.920 --> 07:48.110 align:start Putin became president in the year 2000, so 18 years, right, and is reputed to have 07:48.110 --> 07:53.110 align:start grown very wealthy at the side of Vladimir Putin. And so it's not just some random 07:53.110 --> 07:57.300 align:start official that they're interacting with. But think about this. Think about this: 07:57.300 --> 08:02.400 align:start weaponizing information - "kompromat" they call it in Russian - is, you know, a 08:02.400 --> 08:09.400 align:start trademark of this new Russian power elite in the post-Soviet era. And what does it mean? 08:09.400 --> 08:15.680 align:start Potentially, it means that Donald Trump and his advisor Michael Cohen have offered Putin 08:15.680 --> 08:21.680 align:start an enormous amount of potentially compromising information on him to use in the middle of 08:21.680 --> 08:26.420 align:start a political campaign. As you pointed out, Putin's government, according to U.S. 08:26.420 --> 08:31.720 align:start intelligence, was already mobilizing to support Donald Trump in the election using 08:31.720 --> 08:37.370 align:start influence methods. But separately, he's seeking - he's offering him more information. 08:37.370 --> 08:41.620 align:start ROBERT COSTA: You had this marvelous profile of Adam Schiff, the ranking member, who's 08:41.620 --> 08:45.240 align:start going to be the new chair of the Intelligence Committee when House Democrats take over in 08:45.240 --> 08:47.970 align:start January. As House Democrats process all of this, as Schiff watches 08:47.970 --> 08:50.410 align:start all of this, what can we expect from them? 08:50.410 --> 08:53.870 align:start SUSAN GLASSER: Well, first of all, this is the first charge from the Mueller case to 08:53.870 --> 08:56.480 align:start result from lying to Congress. 08:56.480 --> 09:01.210 align:start And so what happened is that Michael Cohen is actually pleading guilty to having lied to 09:01.210 --> 09:05.360 align:start Capitol Hill when he was called to testify in their earlier investigation. 09:05.360 --> 09:10.070 align:start As you know, there was a very partisan report that was put out by the House Republicans 09:10.070 --> 09:14.560 align:start on the Intelligence Committee, who then shut down their investigation. 09:14.560 --> 09:19.270 align:start Democrats, under Congressman Schiff, have vowed to reopen an investigation. 09:19.270 --> 09:24.290 align:start The first thing they want to do is release transcripts of the many interviews that they 09:24.290 --> 09:29.360 align:start took with people. They say there are other people who likely committed perjury and 09:29.360 --> 09:33.220 align:start that may now be charged by Mueller's investigative team as a result. 09:33.220 --> 09:37.970 align:start For example, Congressman Schiff specifically named Roger Stone as one of those who he 09:37.970 --> 09:40.820 align:start believed was not truthful with their committee. 09:40.820 --> 09:43.590 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What about at the Department of Justice? You've been following the 09:43.590 --> 09:46.610 align:start obstruction side of this for so long, Mike. You have an acting attorney general, 09:46.610 --> 09:49.720 align:start Matt Whitaker. How does he respond to this? How are they handling this? 09:49.720 --> 09:52.810 align:start Are they on edge that the president could try to disrupt Mueller? 09:52.810 --> 09:56.540 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Well, it seemed from what sort of we've learned in the past few days 09:56.540 --> 10:00.350 align:start that Whitaker has not been very involved in the Russia matter and that it has stayed 10:00.350 --> 10:04.920 align:start underneath Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. There does not appear to have 10:04.920 --> 10:10.160 align:start been any real interest by Whitaker so far in getting involved in the Mueller investigation. 10:10.160 --> 10:15.360 align:start He knows that everyone is closely looking at him, whether he does anything towards this 10:15.360 --> 10:19.880 align:start and whether that is part of a continued obstruction. The problem is is that the 10:19.880 --> 10:24.630 align:start president put him there because he felt comfortable with him. He knew what he had said 10:24.630 --> 10:29.290 align:start about the Russia investigation. He knew that Whitaker had been very skeptical of it. 10:29.290 --> 10:33.540 align:start Whitaker had spent a lot of time with the president, had built a real rapport with him 10:33.540 --> 10:37.750 align:start and Whitaker was someone that no one at the senior levels of the Justice Department 10:37.750 --> 10:41.690 align:start thought really deserved the job. So there's this sort of weird dynamic there where the 10:41.690 --> 10:46.790 align:start president has someone, there is this ongoing investigation, it's still being run by Rosenstein. 10:46.790 --> 10:49.910 align:start ROBERT COSTA: If that's the dynamic, why aren't Senate Republicans trying to protect 10:49.910 --> 10:52.030 align:start Mueller with legislation? 10:52.030 --> 10:54.760 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Well, that legislation, it looked like it died again this week. 10:54.760 --> 10:58.120 align:start I mean, it seems like it's died a few times, but more recently died this week. 10:58.120 --> 11:03.090 align:start And, you know, for whatever reason, they don't feel the need to do this. 11:03.090 --> 11:06.880 align:start And I'm not sure why. I mean, they seem very attuned to public opinion on this, 11:06.880 --> 11:11.220 align:start maybe the Republicans really don't care about it. Will it take something else 11:11.220 --> 11:14.750 align:start of the president doing to get them to do that? I'm not sure. 11:14.750 --> 11:18.490 align:start ROBERT COSTA: The other issue, Ros, of this whole thing brought up this week was 11:18.490 --> 11:21.960 align:start President Trump kept telling us in the campaign he had nothing to do with Russia, no 11:21.960 --> 11:24.150 align:start money involved with Russia. 11:24.150 --> 11:28.580 align:start But this week, we learned that the Moscow project, thanks in part to your reporting, 11:28.580 --> 11:32.200 align:start wasn't the first attempt by President Trump to expand his brand into Russia. 11:32.200 --> 11:37.080 align:start You wrote in your story, quote, "It was a dream born in the 1980s, a gleaming Trump Tower 11:37.080 --> 11:41.560 align:start in the heart of Soviet Moscow. For Donald Trump, that vision never died, even as he 11:41.560 --> 11:48.530 align:start launched a presidential campaign." What explains this decades-long effort with Russia? 11:48.530 --> 11:53.490 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: I think Trump wanted to do a thing he had set out to do years ago 11:53.490 --> 11:58.080 align:start and he hadn't succeeded. I think you have to look at Cohen's activities during the 11:58.080 --> 12:03.870 align:start campaign against that backdrop. I mean, Cohen was a guy who wanted to please the boss. 12:03.870 --> 12:09.180 align:start That was sort of his self-image was being Donald Trump's man. And so he understood, 12:09.180 --> 12:14.340 align:start if he could finally get the Trump Tower deal in Moscow done, he would really get in 12:14.340 --> 12:20.950 align:start good with the boss. And you have this history. Trump goes in 1987, he goes in 1996, 12:20.950 --> 12:27.000 align:start in 2005 he signed a deal actually with this same guy, Felix Sater's company, to try 12:27.000 --> 12:32.390 align:start to build. He's back in 2013. He's trying again and again. And you see the Trump 12:32.390 --> 12:37.400 align:start Organization putting its name on buildings in various other countries of the world. 12:37.400 --> 12:41.720 align:start Russia was a place he wanted to be. It was a place where his brand, Russians liked his 12:41.720 --> 12:47.080 align:start brand, they were buying all over the world in his buildings and he wanted a building there. 12:47.080 --> 12:49.760 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What does this mean for the president, as he's watching all of this from 12:49.760 --> 12:55.180 align:start Argentina, for U.S. foreign policy, for U.S.-Russian relations, U.S. relations with our own allies? 12:55.180 --> 12:59.190 align:start SUSAN GLASSER: Well, you know, as you know, it's been an incredibly divisive issue, 12:59.190 --> 13:03.800 align:start among many, between the United States and its European allies from the very beginning of 13:03.800 --> 13:09.050 align:start Trump's presidency when, you know, he came into office, even potentially talking about 13:09.050 --> 13:11.340 align:start lifting sanctions on Russia. 13:11.340 --> 13:14.700 align:start Those have stayed in place largely because Congress has made it absolutely clear that 13:14.700 --> 13:19.720 align:start even the Republican-controlled Congress would have acted very decisively if he moved in 13:19.720 --> 13:24.090 align:start the direction he wanted to. Enormous outcry even from Republicans when he had that 13:24.090 --> 13:28.380 align:start meeting in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin, which we all remember. So flash forward to 13:28.380 --> 13:32.520 align:start this week at the G-20. President Trump has been looking forward to meeting President 13:32.520 --> 13:36.840 align:start Putin again ever since that Helsinki meeting. And in fact, John Bolton, his national 13:36.840 --> 13:41.540 align:start security adviser, said in the lead-up to Buenos Aires that the agenda of the meeting 13:41.540 --> 13:47.270 align:start between Putin and Trump was simply to continue their excellent discussion from Helsinki. 13:47.270 --> 13:52.010 align:start And, you know, now Trump is saying, well, I canceled it because of Russian aggression 13:52.010 --> 13:55.130 align:start toward Ukraine over the last weekend. 13:55.130 --> 13:58.030 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Is it - is it more - there's more to that story, though, perhaps. 13:58.030 --> 14:00.800 align:start It's not just about Russia's hostility in the Ukraine. 14:00.800 --> 14:03.230 align:start SUSAN GLASSER: Well, you know, it's an excellent question. 14:03.230 --> 14:06.340 align:start Obviously, we don't know yet the real story here. 14:06.340 --> 14:10.330 align:start But it's fair to say that the United States was very sluggish in its response to this 14:10.330 --> 14:15.930 align:start incident involving the Kerch Strait and Ukrainian naval ships that were boarded and 14:15.930 --> 14:23.170 align:start seized by Russia. Other countries, NATO, the EU issued statements both far more quickly 14:23.170 --> 14:27.620 align:start and far stronger than those of the U.S. government. President Trump at one point 14:27.620 --> 14:30.670 align:start seemed to say, well, you know, there's a problem on both sides. 14:30.670 --> 14:34.360 align:start He later came out and said, well, I don't like this aggression, I don't like it at all, 14:34.360 --> 14:38.240 align:start but it was much after the fact and it certainly didn't seem to be an issue that would 14:38.240 --> 14:42.230 align:start have motivated him to cancel a meeting with Putin days later. 14:42.230 --> 14:46.440 align:start When he got on the plane yesterday to go to Buenos Aires, he said he was going to have 14:46.440 --> 14:50.110 align:start the meeting. One hour later, in the midst of the Cohen deal, it was canceled. 14:50.110 --> 14:52.470 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Russia haunts him at home and abroad. 14:52.470 --> 14:55.920 align:start Mike, when you think about the president, when you went to - reporters used to go visit 14:55.920 --> 14:59.850 align:start him at Trump Tower on the 26th floor, you'd see his children there, Don Jr., Eric, 14:59.850 --> 15:03.950 align:start Ivanka, working with him on business, working with him on the campaign. You read about 15:03.950 --> 15:10.630 align:start Cohen, his work with Mueller, does the family have exposure here, legally and politically? 15:10.630 --> 15:15.120 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Well, I think in the president's mind they do and that is probably the 15:15.120 --> 15:18.960 align:start most important thing. We don't know what Mueller has, we don't know what he's doing. 15:18.960 --> 15:22.930 align:start But certainly, the president, you know, he has these different red lines that he's made 15:22.930 --> 15:28.630 align:start up. I think a true, real one is the family. And they do think that there's something 15:28.630 --> 15:33.260 align:start afoot here and that they are looking at Don Jr. That's what the president thinks. 15:33.260 --> 15:39.220 align:start And that has guided some of his anger. You know, in the past month, it has built. 15:39.220 --> 15:43.560 align:start He didn't like the way that they - that Mueller was treating Paul Manafort, his former 15:43.560 --> 15:47.490 align:start campaign chairman. He didn't like the way that they were trying to enter into a plea 15:47.490 --> 15:51.980 align:start deal with this person who was in touch with WikiLeaks. And he didn't like the way that 15:51.980 --> 15:56.310 align:start the government unsealed these documents about Julian Assange that showed they charged him. 15:56.310 --> 15:59.300 align:start And he thinks something larger is going on here. 15:59.300 --> 16:03.490 align:start He sees the Cohen thing happen right as he's leaving for a meeting. 16:03.490 --> 16:08.140 align:start He knew that Mueller had filed charges before he went to Helsinki, the last time when he 16:08.140 --> 16:12.700 align:start went to meet with - meet with Putin. He does - he thinks that there is a conspiracy. 16:12.700 --> 16:15.240 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, he's right, there - well, there's not - there is a lot going on. 16:15.240 --> 16:17.020 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: He thinks there's a conspiracy. 16:17.020 --> 16:20.380 align:start ROBERT COSTA: He thinks there's a conspiracy; it's an investigation. You mentioned 16:20.380 --> 16:24.010 align:start Paul Manafort. There was news this week, of course, that Michael Cohen is cooperating 16:24.010 --> 16:28.540 align:start with Mueller's probe and that's significant, but so is the fact that the Trump campaign's 16:28.540 --> 16:32.780 align:start former chairman, Paul Manafort, his plea deal with Mueller collapsed this week. 16:32.780 --> 16:39.750 align:start Manafort, his deal falling apart. Does that mean he's going to break at some point, 16:39.750 --> 16:43.390 align:start Ros, and be a cooperative witness like a Michael Cohen? 16:43.390 --> 16:48.140 align:start Or does this mean he's going to face another trial and more legal trouble down the road? 16:48.140 --> 16:51.240 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: Well, there was a hearing just today in that matter. 16:51.240 --> 16:55.670 align:start And the special counsel's office told a judge that they have not yet decided whether to 16:55.670 --> 17:00.220 align:start pursue further charges against him for his new lies, what they - what they said in a 17:00.220 --> 17:03.430 align:start court filing were his crimes and lies. 17:03.430 --> 17:07.860 align:start It does seem like the ship has sailed for him to be a cooperating witness. 17:07.860 --> 17:13.570 align:start This is not a development that a prosecutor would want, to have a cooperator sort of 17:13.570 --> 17:18.010 align:start breach their plea agreement, so I think he's unlikely to come around. 17:18.010 --> 17:22.940 align:start But interestingly, we're going to see a really important development a week from today 17:22.940 --> 17:28.430 align:start when the special counsel's office goes into court and actually details for the judge all 17:28.430 --> 17:31.610 align:start of his lies, all of the ways in which they feel - 17:31.610 --> 17:33.860 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Why do they have to detail those things? 17:33.860 --> 17:36.930 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: It's part of arguing to the judge that his plea agreement has been - 17:36.930 --> 17:41.600 align:start has been breached and he will not be worth - he's not deserving of leniency for having 17:41.600 --> 17:43.960 align:start assisted in the - in the investigation. 17:43.960 --> 17:48.710 align:start Otherwise, he would be in a position of getting a break on his sentence. 17:48.710 --> 17:52.230 align:start So they're going to file this report and they're going to talk about all the things they 17:52.230 --> 17:58.480 align:start were asking him about in this time period where they felt like he was not honest, and 17:58.480 --> 18:03.760 align:start they're going to have to say why they know he wasn't honest, which allows them to lay out 18:03.760 --> 18:08.140 align:start some evidence. You know, we're all talking about this report that might be issued. 18:08.140 --> 18:12.400 align:start Well, we might see some of the information we might have expected to see in a report in 18:12.400 --> 18:15.660 align:start sort of stages entered into court, starting next week. 18:15.660 --> 18:18.970 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So you're saying we may not even see that report, but we can get a little 18:18.970 --> 18:21.820 align:start gleaning of what's going to come from the court? 18:21.820 --> 18:24.910 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: We could get a singular report maybe in the - in the new year. 18:24.910 --> 18:27.480 align:start But before then, we're going to have a lot of new information. 18:27.480 --> 18:31.030 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: There's no guarantee we'll get a report, so Mueller has to speak when 18:31.030 --> 18:35.800 align:start he can speak, and he does that in his public filings. So he always knows he will be 18:35.800 --> 18:40.370 align:start able to do the things in public. He will not really be able to control where the 18:40.370 --> 18:44.190 align:start report goes. That is a decision that will be made above him at the Justice Department. 18:44.190 --> 18:47.680 align:start But to your point about Manafort, the thing to understand about Manafort is there's 18:47.680 --> 18:51.530 align:start really just two people who basically control the fate of perhaps the rest of his life. 18:51.530 --> 18:54.640 align:start He's 69 years old. He's looking at many years in prison. 18:54.640 --> 18:58.830 align:start Either it was going to be Bob Mueller who was going to go to a judge and say give this 18:58.830 --> 19:03.640 align:start man leniency, or it's Donald Trump who is going to pardon him. There's really no one 19:03.640 --> 19:09.590 align:start else who can - has any other important, you know, way to impact the rest of his life. 19:09.590 --> 19:13.730 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Is he searching for a pardon, Susan, when you look at Paul Manafort? 19:13.730 --> 19:19.350 align:start You've followed his career a long time, international political strategist. Unlike Cohen, 19:19.350 --> 19:23.590 align:start does he perhaps see there's a window here for him to get a pardon from President Trump? 19:23.590 --> 19:27.500 align:start SUSAN GLASSER: Well, look, a lot of people have suggested that that seems to be what 19:27.500 --> 19:33.390 align:start he's doing for here, and that it's such an audacious play, in fact, to challenge someone 19:33.390 --> 19:38.270 align:start who is as tough-minded as Bob Mueller; by breaching your agreement, that you must have in 19:38.270 --> 19:42.610 align:start mind that this is your only lifeline, your signal to President Trump, who's made it very 19:42.610 --> 19:48.740 align:start clear what he thinks about cooperators. He's gone - over and over made the point that 19:48.740 --> 19:53.270 align:start they're rats, that they're not trustworthy, that they're bad people. So it seems to me 19:53.270 --> 19:58.270 align:start that he needed to restore in some way credibility with Trump in order to make his case 19:58.270 --> 20:02.480 align:start for a plea. But I would just say that there are potentially some other people who 20:02.480 --> 20:04.510 align:start could affect Paul Manafort's life. 20:04.510 --> 20:09.070 align:start For example, he spent years getting millions - tens of millions of dollars from Ukraine's 20:09.070 --> 20:14.520 align:start corrupt, deposed former President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia-supported. He has enormous 20:14.520 --> 20:19.590 align:start relationships with Russian oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska, who figure in this Trump 20:19.590 --> 20:23.870 align:start story. They have information, too, that could affect both Paul Manafort and Donald Trump. 20:23.870 --> 20:27.780 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Or what about, Ros, Roger Stone, a longtime Manafort associate? 20:27.780 --> 20:30.480 align:start What is his future right now legally? 20:30.480 --> 20:34.390 align:start ROSALIND HELDERMAN: Well, we don't yet know. What we do know is that the special counsel 20:34.390 --> 20:41.340 align:start has spent an enormous amount of time on the Roger Stone piece of his case in recent months. 20:41.340 --> 20:47.590 align:start He's brought in, I think at last count, maybe a dozen friends/associates of Roger Stone 20:47.590 --> 20:51.740 align:start to be interviewed by prosecutors or in front of the grand jury. 20:51.740 --> 20:57.230 align:start We know that Roger Stone said things prior to the election that sure sounded like he had 20:57.230 --> 21:00.090 align:start advance knowledge of what WikiLeaks has planned. 21:00.090 --> 21:04.900 align:start Now, he has over and over and over again now denied that fact, but there is clearly 21:04.900 --> 21:10.650 align:start something about Roger Stone and what he knew that Bob Mueller is very, very interested in. 21:10.650 --> 21:15.510 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Final thought, Mike. The talk about a pardon, President Trump's, his 21:15.510 --> 21:20.650 align:start signaling on that front; the conversations between Manafort's lawyers and the Trump lawyers; 21:20.650 --> 21:25.020 align:start is there an obstruction issue at all facing Manafort in these kind of conversations? 21:25.020 --> 21:27.870 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: I guess it depends on what's really going on. 21:27.870 --> 21:32.380 align:start If there was some sort of backroom deal between Manafort's lawyers and the president's 21:32.380 --> 21:36.580 align:start about giving them information in exchange for a pardon to interfere with the 21:36.580 --> 21:39.880 align:start investigation, highly, highly problematic. 21:39.880 --> 21:44.840 align:start If it was simply Manafort's lawyers passing information back to Trump's, you know, to, 21:44.840 --> 21:49.950 align:start you know, just kind of be a free flow of information, less so. Not really clear. 21:49.950 --> 21:53.990 align:start What we do know is that the issues of pardons have been looked at. Mueller - 21:53.990 --> 21:56.210 align:start ROBERT COSTA: You reported John Dowd once. 21:56.210 --> 21:58.050 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Correct. John Dowd, you know - 21:58.050 --> 21:59.720 align:start ROBERT COSTA: The president's former lawyer. 21:59.720 --> 22:02.740 align:start MICHAEL SCHMIDT: - last year having discussions with Manafort and Flynn's lawyers. 22:02.740 --> 22:05.530 align:start ROBERT COSTA: We're going to have to leave it there. We've a live show, but we're 22:05.530 --> 22:08.420 align:start going to continue that on the podcast. I appreciate everyone coming out tonight on 22:08.420 --> 22:12.160 align:start a Friday night. We will continue this conversation on the Washington Week Podcast. 22:12.160 --> 22:16.710 align:start You can find that on our website Fridays after 10 p.m. and also on your favorite 22:16.710 --> 22:19.680 align:start podcast app. I promise we'll get there, Mike. 22:19.680 --> 22:33.680 align:start I'm Robert Costa. Have a great weekend, and thanks for joining us.