Sean Hannity Show - Sean Reacts to Cohen's Deal and Manafort Jury Verdict - 8.21

Aug. 21, 2018 - Sean Hannity Show

01:15:55

Sean Reacts to Cohen's Deal and Manafort Jury Verdict - 8.21

Gregg Jarrett and attorney Joe DiGenova join Sean and react to today’s breaking news involving both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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	This is an iHeart Podcast.
	Breaking news now.
	Here's Sean Hannity.
	All right, we got all sorts of news all over the place.
	Glad you're with us.
	Any press conferences that occur as it relates to Michael Cohn's plea with the federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, he has pled guilty to eight specific issues.
	The same with Paul Manafort.
	He's been found guilty in his trial of eight of the 18 charges against him.
	In the Manafort case, five specific tax fraud charges, five specific tax years, false reports.
	Guilty on one charge of hiding a foreign bank account and guilty on two counts of bank fraud.
	I assume that's all related to applications for loans, I believe, that he didn't even receive.
	In the case of Manafort, we'll stay there for a second.
	We do know that Judge Ellis will decide what his sentence happens to be.
	We do know in the case of Michael Cohn that he is facing a particularly long period of time in jail, anywhere between three and five years.
	Joining us now is former prosecutor himself, as Joe DeGenova, David Schoen, and Greg Jarrett stay with us as well.
	Joe, we'll bring you into all of this.
	Eight of 18.
	And Michael Cohn pleads guilty and makes a deal with the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
	Your reaction.
	Well, I think if you're Bob Mueller, you're pleased with a verdict which has eight guilty verdicts in it.
	That's why they charge so many to give the jury choices.
	And while some people may think this is bad news for Mueller, et cetera, et cetera, it isn't.
	He got a conviction.
	He got a conviction in something totally unrelated to collusion.
	So in that sense, it is a defeat.
	But this is pretty ugly stuff.
	I feel very sorry for Manafort.
	I think the way he's been treated has been horrific.
	And I just think that this is an ugly place to be.
	But it is a win for Mueller, as much as I hate to say it.
	But it's not perfect.
	And of course, most importantly, it has nothing to do with collusion.
	Let me go to the one thing that I know everybody in the media seems to be focused on, that in count seven and eight in the Michael Cohn case, he says he violated campaign laws at the direction of the candidate.
	Now, for example, in count eight, as it relates to Stormy Daniels, count seven as it relates to Karen McDougall, I know he's on record.
	There's a number of places where he has said it.
	A number of people he said it to.
	Vanity Fair is but one source.
	Cohn said that Trump did not know that he paid off Stormy Daniels.
	And for his own reasons, he said the payment was made with no expectation of getting reimbursed.
	Now, on the issue when the media is saying this implicates the president, how credible if somebody said one thing before and is saying one thing now in a plea deal, how credible is the conflicting statements in that case?
	Well, obviously, when, you know, are you lying now or were you lying then?
	And the issue is payments made with the knowledge of the candidate are not necessarily illegal per se.
	So it's going to require some additional proof and evidence about what this all means.
	And those charges are usually handled civilly, but in this case, they have not been.
	And so this needs to be fleshed out.
	Yeah.
	What's your take on that specific issue, David Cohn?
	Absolutely.
	It's going to be the sexy issue.
	The media plays up.
	By the way, that's why this deal was built as a no-cooperation deal.
	This is Cohen's payment to them.
	This is what I said before.
	You have to follow the plea colloquy.
	By putting the president into this or trying to, this is his cooperation.
	That's what they want him.
	Here's the great irony.
	The only campaign-related charge so far to date is brought by the Southern District of New York.
	Well, it was fed in fairness, though.
	This was Mueller feeding it to them.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	But that's the problem.
	There was absolutely no.
	It highlights, again, no need for Mueller or the appointment of the special counsel, the abuse of that appointment, and the waste of it.
	But look, this is going to be the issue that plays out.
	By the way, I thought that was the easiest charge to defend.
	The idea, as Judge Genevieve just said, usually handle a fair election commission, putting that aside, the idea that Mr. Trump paid these people solely or even primarily to affect the election, unfortunately, there is a history of illicit affairs and that sort of thing, not just for this president.
	Well, didn't this all get taken to court in the case of John Edwards?
	Isn't that similar?
	Of course.
	It happens day after day with elected officials and other people.
	And the payment to those people to stop further embarrassment is how business is done, frankly, among many lawyers in that business.
	And to this great satisfaction, by the way, of the so-called victim.
	Now here, Michael Cohen tries to tie it to the campaign.
	You're right.
	He's on record saying otherwise.
	And let me ask about that on record saying otherwise.
	Even his attorney, David Schwartz, was on fake news CNN March 28th and said that the president did not know about the hush agreement Cohen pushed with Stormy Daniels and the agreement that he made in October 2016.
	Quote, the president was not aware of the agreement.
	What is your reaction to that?
	Greg Jarrett, are you there?
	Yeah.
	Well, this will be a question of fact.
	The president's position has been quite clear.
	He didn't know about it.
	And he relied on his personal attorney to handle all matters regarding non-disclosure agreements, which are as common as the grass is green.
	And whether or not that's a campaign violation will be a question of fact.
	And, you know, Cohen has a diminished credibility now because of his guilty plea to crimes.
	So, you know, I wouldn't trust Michael Cohen over the president at any point in time.
	Well, let me ask big picture.
	So in this case, it's Michael Cohn.
	It's mostly tax on bank issues.
	Joe DeGenova, in the case of Michael Flynn, it's lying to the FBI.
	In case of Papadopoulos, it's lying to the FBI.
	In the case of Manafort, if we look at the specific verdicts, again, 10 cases where we had a hung jury that couldn't decide, but five specific tax years where he filed false income tax reports, one charge of hiding a foreign bank account, two guilty counts of bank fraud.
	You know what I'm not hearing here?
	Anything about Russia, anything about collusion, anything about the campaign or Donald Trump, really, except that there's a conflicting statement as it relates to whether he knew about what Michael Cohn did or didn't know, and Michael Cohen has said both things on that particular issue.
	I don't think there's any doubt that this has nothing to do with the original reason this entire investigation was set up, which is Russian collusion.
	So that's obviously clear.
	As far as the counts with regard to the campaign contributions, that's a question that's going to have to be resolved by the prosecutors about whether or not they believe.
	All right, guys, hang in there.
	Sorry, we're going to keep you guys for the rest of the hour.
	We have Paul Manafort and hard-fought deliberations.
	He is evaluating all of his options at this point.
	Thank you, everyone, to appeal.
	I'm not going to be out of the federal.
	That was a statement from Manafort's attorney.
	Sorry, that was ⁇ I didn't even get to hear most of it, but what's your reaction to ⁇ let's go back to the big picture here.
	No Russia, no collusion, no Trump, no campaign.
	And I know everybody thinks, well, all right, these are all people.
	Would any of these people be in any trouble at all if they didn't bring up a special counsel to investigate so-called Russian collusion?
	Joe DeGenova.
	The answer to that is no.
	In fact, in the case of Manafort, the original tax case against him was declined by the tax division of the Justice Department.
	They said there wasn't enough evidence.
	It just goes to show that when you throw resources at something where the prosecutor has only one case and one thing to do, that they can find anything on anybody at any time.
	That is the misery for Mr. Manafort to know that he had originally been told by the Justice Department a couple of years ago that there was nothing to this.
	And then Mueller decided to resurrect it, investigate it to death with millions of dollars, and he found something.
	Well, let me ask something that this goes to the heart of Greg's book.
	I mean, Hillary Clinton, I don't think there's a greater, more obvious case of obstruction with her subpoenaed emails deleted and acid-washed and bleach-pit and devices busted up and SIM cards removed.
	They wrote an exoneration before investigation.
	We do have a lot of corruption.
	All right, hang on.
	I hate to do this to you, but we now have, I guess this is outside of New York.
	Are these the prosecutors or the defense?
	You know?
	Let's listen in.
	Let's move over to that press conference now.
	Our courthouse split screen day.
	Attorney for the United States in this matter.
	This is the Southern District of New York prosecutor.
	This is Bill Sweeney, Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI, and James Robnett, who is the supervisory agent in charge of the New York office of the IRS.
	Also with me are the prosecutors from the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York who prosecuted the Cohen matter.
	I'm going to have a brief statement and will not be taking any questions.
	Today, as you heard, Michael Gowen pled guilty to eight felony charges.
	Five of those dealt with tax evasion for the years 2012 through 2016, in which he failed to report approximately $4.1 million in reported income.
	Approximately 2.5 of that money was from interest payments, from a personal loan that he failed to report.
	Approximately $1.3 million of that money was from the operation of his taxi medallion business.
	Approximately $100,000 of that money was from brokerage commissions, and over $200,000 was from consulting fees.
	That's over $4.3 million over a five-year period, which translates into a loss to the United States Treasury of approximately $1.3 million.
	In addition, in Count 6, Mr. Cohen pled guilty to making false statements to a financial institution in connection with an application for a home equity line of credit.
	In that application, he failed to disclose more than $14 million in debt that he had.
	And as a result of that concealment, he obtained that $500,000 line of credit, which he would not have been entitled to had he been candid and honest.
	In addition, Mr. Cohen pelted guilty to two campaign finance charges, one for causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and a second one for personally making an excessive personal contribution, both for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.
	In addition, what he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign.
	In addition, Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate's company, which were untrue and false.
	They indicated that the reimbursement was for services rendered for the year 2017, when in fact those invoices were a sham.
	He provided no legal services for the year 2017, and it was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful campaign contribution.
	A couple of points I'd like to make.
	First, these are very serious charges and reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time.
	They are significant in their own rights.
	They are particularly significant when done by a lawyer, a lawyer who, through training and tradition, understands— This is a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York talking about the Michael Cohn case.
	We're going to— We're not going to our first break.
	We're going to continue to hold this and then we'll continue with Joe DeGenova.
	Joe DeGenova, Greg Jarrett, and David Schoen.
	Straight ahead.
	Understands what it means to be a lawyer, to engage in honest and fair dealing and adherence to the law.
	Mr. Cohen disregarded that training, disregarded that tradition, and decided that he was above the law, and for that he was going to pay a very, very serious price.
	With respect to the campaign finance violations, the campaign finance laws are designed to prevent the use of illegal money in elections and to maintain the integrity of those elections.
	Mr. Cohen made guilty pleas for those campaign violations and those are core violations.
	And what he did was these pleas remind us that it is illegal for corporations to make contributions to candidates and it is illegal to make contributions in excess of the amount that Congress set for individuals.
	That is a strong message today and we will not be, we will not fear of prosecuting additional corporation campaign finance cases.
	Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this case is unique in many ways.
	Just witness the gathering of all of you here today.
	And in other ways, it's unique as well.
	But in the really important ways, this case is not unlike many cases that my office, the United States Attorney's Office, brings, that the entire Department of Justice brings, and that the law enforcement agencies do as well, including the FBI and the IRS.
	This case has more in common with all those cases because they all share the same message.
	And that message is that the rule of law applies and that for law enforcement, all of whom are gathered here, it is our commitment that we will pursue and vindicate those who choose to break the law and vindicate the majority of people who live law-abiding lives, who follow honest and fair dealing, and live lives of lawful behavior.
	The message is that we are here.
	Prosecutors are here.
	Law enforcement is here.
	The Department of Justice is here.
	The law enforcement agency is here.
	We are a nation of laws.
	And the essence of this case is about is justice, and that is an equal playing field for all persons in the eyes of the law.
	And that is a lesson that Mr. Cohen learned today, and it is a very harsh one for him.
	Thank you very much.
	Who is the candidate you're talking about?
	I'm sorry.
	One other thing.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	I'd also like to introduce, sorry, my fault.
	I really want to thank Mr. Sweeney and James Robnett of the FBI and the IRS and the agents who work for them.
	We do many, many cases with them, and their determination and their fair dealing and their vigor with which they pursue their cases is really inspirational.
	To the prosecutors in my office, I cannot express the gratitude for the hard work that they did in this case.
	And that is Assistant United States Attorneys Andrea Griswold and Nick Roos and Rachel Maimon and Tom McKay, as well as Ed Discant, the deputy chief of the public corruption unit, and Russell Capone, the chief of the public corruption unit.
	For all of these people, I could go on and on about their many virtues and talents.
	But the one important thing is they all are satisfied with simply being known as public servants, prosecutors, and law enforcement agents who are doing their job.
	Thank you very much.
	All right, let's get reaction now.
	That was the prosecutor in the Michael Cohn case.
	Joe DeGeneva, we'll start with you.
	Your reaction.
	Well, this creates a number of rather complicated problems for the president and other people around him.
	They are claiming that Michael Cohen told them that these payments, which they say were illegal corporate campaign contributions, were made with the knowledge of the payment of the candidate.
	Now, we're going to assume that candidate has got to be Donald Trump.
	Now, he can have knowledge that the payments were being made, but he doesn't necessarily know that they were illegal campaign corporate payments.
	So it leaves a lot to the imagination, but clearly this has opened a very serious door.
	And if I read correctly, what they are saying is that let me read from Vanity Fair.
	Michael Cohn says Trump did not know that he paid off Daniels.
	And for his own reason, Cohen says he made the payment with no expectation of ever getting reimbursed.
	I mean, and there are numerous cases where he's told that to people.
	What does that mean?
	Exactly.
	So they're going to have to deal with the questions of Mr. Cohen's credibility on all of these things directly related to any of these payments.
	So obviously, this matter has very many edges to it.
	Let me get Greg Jarrett's take on that.
	Well, under the Federal Campaign Election Act, it's very unique.
	It requires what most statutes don't require, and that's knowledge that you're violating the Federal Campaign Election Act.
	And Trump's position is that Cohen acted all on his own, that there was some general discussion.
	At one point, it was Michael Cohen's position.
	Yes, that's what I meant.
	It's Michael Cohen's position that he acted all on his own.
	It's also the president's position that he acted all on his own.
	So you can't impute knowledge to somebody who's not a party to it.
	So that would be principally the president's defense of any accusation that he was involved in directing and coordinating this.
	Let me get David Schoen's take on it.
	Show that Geneva accurately said a lot of this is going to come down to credibility.
	I think the prosecutor gave you a head start today.
	Prosecutor's words, lead prosecutor's words.
	Michael Cohen has a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.
	That's the government's position when any trial would be vouching for Michael Cohen.
	Greg is right about the intent required.
	And again, you know, I said this from the start, the irony is with many business people, when there's a history of paying for silence to avoid embarrassment.
	That in itself is a reason, a legitimate business reason.
	Well, that's the whole case of John Edwards, as I understood it.
	That's right.
	It has nothing to do with campaign finance.
	And the idea here, you know, Cohen submitted what he says are false invoices to the Trump organization.
	Do you think the Trump organization gets one or two invoices a year?
	Or do you think there are a lot?
	Do you think the president okays every one of them?
	Do you think the president thought that his election would turn on whether the public believed he was faithful at all times in his marriage or had an affair with Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal?
	Hard to believe that that's what the American people would have voted on one way or the other.
	What about what the prosecutor said here about Michael Cohen having lied over this long period of time, Joe?
	Well, that, of course, underscores the credibility problem that Michael Cohen is going to have.
	And it may be that it also may give some pause to the prosecutors themselves about his usefulness to them as a witness.
	It is quite clear that they have labeled him a liar.
	And they didn't hesitate to do so.
	Indeed, they were quite blunt about it.
	So in terms of him being a witness in anything, again, it remains to be seen.
	You know, as we go through all of this, though, I keep going back to one fundamental thing.
	This was supposed to be about Trump-Russia collusion.
	Now we're dealing in each case with either lying to the FBI, Flynn Papadopoulos, or Cohen and Manafort.
	And again, 10 of the 18 charges they couldn't decide on.
	And we had a hung jury on 10 of them.
	But it all comes down to bank fraud, some type of tax issue fraud.
	And in the case of two of the counts with Cohn, payments that he made, and again, in interviews, he had said that he made on his own devices without telling the president, and then false reimbursement that he made to the, I guess, the campaign or to the Trump organization.
	So to me, I keep going back to fundamentally, how did we get from one thing to this?
	And would any of this have happened?
	Greg, this is your last shot, but we're going to let you go.
	We're going to keep Joe when Andy McCarthy joins us.
	Well, it just shows you the two-tiered system of justice.
	Hillary Clinton engages in rampant acts of corruption and illegality and gets a free pass.
	But if you're Donald Trump, people like Bob Mueller and his team of partisans will go after you with a vengeance, and they will use the unlimited power and resources of the federal government to do it, even though his appointment, as I've pointed out in the book, was illegitimate to begin with.
	This has always been an investigation in search of a crime.
	This terrible death of Molly Tibbetts, we're now learning, by the way, a person illegally in the country is suspected and charged with the murder and her sad death.
	We'll have Joe DeGenova stay with us and Andy McCarthy.
	Thank you both, David and Greg.
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	All right, 25 now till the top of the hour.
	Glad you're with us.
	A lot of breaking news today.
	In the Manafort trial, guilty on eight counts, hung jury on 10 counts, and a plea deal as it relates to Michael Cohn with the Southern District of New York.
	Of course, you remember that case was recommended by Robert Mueller.
	In this case, again, it's like in the Manafort case, Manafort was guilty of five tax fraud charges, five separate tax years, guilty, one charge, hiding a foreign bank account, guilty on two counts of bank fraud.
	In the case of Michael Cohn, similar statutes, eight specific counts, evading personal income taxes, making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution, false statement to a financial institution, an excessive campaign contribution, et cetera, et cetera.
	He's facing anywhere between, I guess, three to five specific years in jail as they've gone through all of that today.
	We haven't gotten any word on whether or not anything else has happened.
	But anyway, tax evasion, bank fraud, making unlawful corporate contribution, making illegal campaign finance contribution.
	And he told prosecutors that he made the contribution at the direction of the candidate, which everyone is focused on.
	And there are numerous cases, and we have pulled up a couple of them, where Michael Cohn has directly been quoted as saying that Donald Trump did not know that he paid off in the case of Count 8 Stormy Daniels.
	And for his own reasons, Cohn said he made a payment with no expectation of getting reimbursed.
	And anyway, Andy McCarthy knows the law as well as anybody, and he served in the prestigious Southern District of New York.
	How many years were you there?
	I know you worked on the first trade center bombing and the Blind Shade case and an amazing prosecutor.
	And this is one of the toughest districts as it relates to federal prosecution in the country.
	Yeah, close to 20 years, Sean.
	Amazing.
	Yeah, the thing with the Cohn case, just so we can go lawyer on everyone here, is there's a difference between a direction to pay the money and the filing of whatever campaign finance disclosures are available.
	And as I understand it, in his guilty plea allocution, what Cohen says is he was directed by the candidate to pay the money.
	That doesn't implicate the crime here is not paying the money.
	The crime here is not making the required campaign finance disclosure.
	Now, I'm sure they could argue that it was implicit that there would be no disclosure because that's why you make the payment in the first place.
	But the important thing is there is a difference between a direction to make a payment and a direction not to file a required campaign disclosure.
	And I didn't hear anything in what's been reported or what he said in his allocution that the president directed him to violate the campaign finance laws.
	Well, that is a, you know, this is why you're so good at what you do.
	I never would have picked that up myself, to be very blunt.
	And this is where a lot of nuances in this.
	The prosecutor, I don't know if you know him, the one that gave the press conference, his name escapes me at the moment, but I mean, he was very eloquent in explaining what this case was about, but he also talked about a pattern of dishonesty that has gone on for years and false reimbursement and so on and so forth and things that he filed and statements.
	And when I go to the issue of what Michael Cohn had said previously, is that an issue?
	Do you see this in any way as an issue for the president?
	Well, I at the moment, I think the political ramifications of this are worse for the president than the legal ones because what happened here, if you're regarding someone as a cooperating witness, Sean, what you would usually do is throw the book at him.
	You wouldn't be talking about three to five years in prison.
	So what they've done here is they've treated this as a straight-up plea, not a cooperation agreement.
	They probably don't regard him as a potentially good cooperator because he's made so many statements all over the map that he's not the kind of guy you would want to put on the stand.
	So I think what he has said in court today is politically damaging for the president.
	There's no question about that.
	But as far as legally is concerned, I don't think they see this guy as someone they want to build a case on.
	And I think Mueller has already decided that he doesn't help on collusion with Russia, which is why the Southern District got the case in the first place.
	Well, let me then ask this.
	I mean, if we're look at this in its total, I thought this was all supposed to be about Russia and Trump and campaign and collusion with Russia to influence the campaign.
	And, you know, I can go through all the cases where Clinton charities had to refile their tax returns because of errors or the fact, by the way, the president has arrived in West Virginia.
	He's going to, he's speaking, we'll run that in a minute.
	But Al Sharpton had a $4.5 million tax bill he didn't pay.
	And Tim Geithner, remember tax cheat Tim Geithner, he regretted mistakes with taxes.
	But, okay, I understand the law is the law.
	And I have said this to everybody I know for years.
	Pay your taxes.
	So if I look at Michael Cohn and Paul Manafort, these are the lessons that I get.
	Don't lie when making an application for a loan to a bank.
	Don't lie.
	Pay your taxes.
	And in the case of Flynn and Papadopoulos, don't lie to the FBI.
	And if we're going to add the one other issue we're talking about, Count 7 and 8, with Michael Cohn, don't make contributions to a campaign and then try and put it off through false reimbursements to silence a woman, et cetera, et cetera, what the prosecutor in the case said.
	If I sum it up, did I sum it up pretty well?
	Yeah, Sean, the only thing I would add to that is the issue I think that we're going to have to look at hard and discuss over the next days and weeks is whether there's been a change in the way they enforce the campaign finance laws.
	So in 2008, to take this example, the Obama administration commits over $2 million worth of campaign finance violations and is permitted by the Eric Holder-led Obama Justice Department to settle that with a fine to the FEC.
	I think it was a $300,000 fine or so, if I'm remembering right.
	So in other words, that was a major violation that was not handled as a felony.
	And now, you know, suddenly it looks like we're changing course and treating this as a felony.
	I don't want to, I'm not trying to excuse unlawful behavior, but I do think that it's important to look into whether the government is handling these matters consistently or not.
	Well, I mean, I think a lot of that goes to one of the arguments I have been making.
	I mean, you know my arguments as well as anybody, and I'd believe that you don't make it right an exoneration before you interview 17 key people in the case of Hillary.
	I don't think I've ever seen a bigger case, clear-cut case of obstruction than what she did with subpoenaed emails and her hard drive with bleach bid and busting up devices with hammers and removing SIM cards.
	And I do believe what happened to the FISA court on four separate applications was a fraud and lies to a judge.
	I wouldn't add that to the list.
	Don't do that stuff either.
	I don't think you'd recommend me doing it if you were my attorney.
	No.
	And she's gotten away with it.
	And then we've got the issues involving the Espionage Act.
	And then we've got all these fired FBI and DOJ people.
	I mean, 25 people have either been fired, demoted, or resigned the top people.
	I mean, from Comey to McCabe to Strzok to Paige and Sally Yates and Bruce Orr and everybody in between.
	I mean, it seems like we don't have any movement about everyone.
	I don't see any indictments about lying to FISA court judges.
	Isn't that bad?
	No, at the moment.
	Now, we understand that there's two different investigations of this going on at the Justice Department.
	We'll have to see how that turns out.
	But I think there's a profound case that there has been or have been two different standards of justice, depending on who it is who's violating the laws.
	I'm not casting aspersions at my old office.
	I think very highly of the people there.
	Jeff Berman, who I think is the U.S. attorney that you were referring to earlier, is President Trump's appointee there.
	No, he was recused from this.
	Oh, okay.
	Was it Rob Kousami then?
	But it was somebody else.
	Yes, it was Kazami.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Rob Kousami was my partner, or one of my partners on the blind shake case.
	Seems very smart, very efficient.
	He gave a totally professional press conference.
	Let me play for you, Andy, if I might.
	This is the president arriving in West Virginia reacting to both cases.
	Very sad about that.
	It doesn't involve me, but I still feel, you know, it's a very sad thing that happens.
	This has nothing to do with Russian collusion.
	This started as Russian collusion.
	This has absolutely nothing to do.
	This is a witch hunt, and it's a disgrace.
	But this has nothing to do with Russians involved in our campaign.
	There were none.
	I feel very badly for Paul Manafort.
	Again, he worked for Bob Dole.
	He worked for Ronald Reagan.
	He worked for many, many people.
	And this is the way it ends up.
	And it was not the original mission, believe me.
	It was something very much different.
	So it had nothing to do with Russian collusion.
	We continue the witch hunt.
	Thank you very much.
	All right, that was the president's full statement.
	Now, Andy, I want to just ask you.
	I mean, it is true.
	How do you go from Russia collusion?
	And the charges are Flynn and Papadopoulos lying to the FBI.
	You have tax and bank fraud in the case of both Manafort and Cohn and two campaign finance violations.
	How do we get there?
	Yeah, well, Sean, I think this goes to what we discussed last night with Professor Dershowitz on your show, which is would these guys have been in the crosshairs of prosecutors had they not been connected to the Trump campaign?
	It's hard to believe that they would have.
	It's a standard practice by prosecutors who think that somebody has the evidence that they need to advance an investigation, that you squeeze that person to try to get cooperation.
	You and I might have a slight disagreement on this, but I understand the process.
	Go ahead.
	Yeah, well, what I was going to say is let's say Mueller actually takes his mandate seriously and views it that what he needs to do is get to the bottom and answer all the questions about Russia's interference in the election.
	Forget about President Trump for a second.
	Manafort is a guy who has long-standing connections to Kremlin-connected people.
	It may well be that the reason that the squeeze is being put on Manafort is Mueller regards him as important in terms of what Russia's intentions are not necessarily necessarily on the president.
	Well, that goes to Judge Ellis, who says they're going to put the screws to Manafort, make him sing or compose for the purpose of prosecuting or impeaching Trump.
	Okay.
	Well, so far, Manafort, who, by the way, I had talked to him after all this started, and he said to me, I don't have anything to say.
	Those were his exact words to me.
	So I'm going to make the same point that I've made before.
	Manafort was not in Trump world for a long time.
	It's not like he's a long-standing confidant of the president, right?
	He worked for him for a certain period, a short period of time during the campaign.
	And for six months, maybe it's seven months now, Mueller has had access to Rick Gates, who was Manafort's longtime partner.
	And I have to think anything that Manafort would have known about Russian collusion, Gates would have known.
	And yet, since Gates, but what has happened to Mueller's investigation since then?
	He's returned two indictments against Russians that don't have a hint of any complicity by the Trump campaign.
	And they're quietly farming these cases out.
	So I think, you know, I don't really, I think that this is really, at this point, it's all about obstruction.
	I don't think that Mueller sees a collusion case here.
	I just don't.
	Well, an obstruction, I mean, you know, it's just like after Papadopoulos and Flynn, why would anybody ever talk to Mueller or any FBI guy?
	I'm a guy, my mom was a prison guard.
	My dad was a family court probation guy.
	And two members of my extended family made the FBI.
	They were deity.
	The rest were New York City cops, and they were deity to me.
	And then when you watch a case like this, I have FBI guys saying, don't ever talk to the FBI.
	I'm like, what do you mean, don't talk to them?
	My inclination is, of course, I talk to them.
	Yeah, but Sean, people don't, people in these positions don't talk to the FBI and the prosecutors because they want to.
	They talk to them because they think it's the least bad alternative they have.
	Well, but I mean, if you're going to get, like, for example, if Don McGahn spends 30 hours with Mueller, and let's say Trump does go in and talk to him, which would be a bad idea.
	But if he did, what if he contradicts one, two, or three things?
	And then isn't it the prosecutor that decides what we believe?
	McGahn, we don't believe Trump.
	We hate Trump.
	Yeah, well, that's an additional reason why Trump shouldn't go in there.
	I must tell you, Sean, in 20 years as a prosecutor, I never got to interview the main subject of any investigation's lawyer, let alone interview him for 30 hours.
	Well, but it goes to show that he doesn't need President Trump in order to finish his work.
	That's a great point.
	Let me go back to the case you mentioned.
	In 2008, Obama's election campaign didn't properly report $2 million in last-minute donations to the juggernaut, and I'm reading from Reuters that swept him into the White House.
	But that was the only violation found in the FEC's audit of Obama's $778 million campaign.
	All right, $2 million.
	In the case of Cohn, we're talking about, and by the way, they paid a fine.
	It was a record at the time, some $300 and what did I have here?
	I had it in front of me.
	$300 and some odd thousand dollars.
	$375,000, the biggest fine at the time.
	We're one of the top five.
	In the case of Cohn, isn't that just like, what, less than $300,000, not $2 million?
	Is that equal justice?
	Yeah, well, that's, and, you know, who's the other one who comes up here, Sean?
	Dinesh D'Souza, who I think his campaign violation was like $15,000, and they charged him with felonies.
	I mean, that's why people look at this stuff and they say, do we really have one standard of justice in this country?
	Well, I think on all the other issues that we have pointed out, nothing has happened and that this was supposed to be about Russia in the beginning.
	And this is what we end up with with lying to the FBI.
	By the way, don't lie to the FBI.
	Pay your taxes and don't lie on loan applications.
	There are lessons here, but that has nothing to do with Russia or the campaign of 2016.
	Andy, I love having smart people on the show.
	You're one of them.
	You're going to join us on TV tonight, by the way.
	Your friend, the great one, Mark Levin, he's joining us tonight.
	He's going to be fired up, I'm sure.
	We appreciate you always being with us.
	Thank you.
	Sean Hannity.
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	77 days.
	It'll be the most important midterm elections in our lifetime.
	You know, it's so amazing.
	So we have two big-breaking stories we're following today.
	The New York Times reporting that, in fact, the Cone deal, which we expect at this hour, we know that Michael Cohn has surrendered to the FBI.
	And at this hour, it is expected a plea deal will be entered in the courtroom.
	And the New York Times reports that it does not include any cooperation of any kind, that it would include, let's see, oh, like Manafort, tax issues, tax fraud, bank fraud, and maybe a campaign finance violation, which Michael's on the record as saying that he did on his own.
	And I know that people have contradicted that, but that's what he's on record as having said.
	But it's funny, as you watch the New York Times, they're holding out hope that Cohn will cooperate with Mueller.
	And I'm like, but they're not biased abusively so at all, because around two this afternoon, that's when the news first broke that Cohn had reached a deal with the Southern District of New York and federal prosecutors.
	And they immediately raced to the conclusion that he was ready to cooperate.
	I can't imagine what was going through their heads.
	And then finally at long last, somebody was ready to incriminate President Trump in crimes that would end his presidency.
	And the collective media, it's like a collective orgasm of the news media in this country.
	You know, that you could almost hear the screams of omnipotent ecstasy from them.
	But by 3 p.m., they had the report that the Cohn deal did not include cooperation.
	And I don't think I've seen so many sad faces since November 8th of 2016 into the morning of November 9th.
	And they're particularly crestfallen over the New York Times, Maggie Haberman reporting, hey, don't worry, Michael Cohn can still decide to cooperate with Mueller at a later date.
	And the plea agreement does not call for Mr. Cohn to cooperate with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, but it does not preclude him from providing information to the special counsel Robert Mueller, who's examining the Trump campaign's possible involvement in Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
	If there's going to be any cooperation, they would decide now.
	And let me be very, very clear about this, because this is not a small issue here, because if you're watching very closely here, if, for example, if they give a range of three to five years, if they've written him off as a cooperator, you're never going to leave a cooperator open a big reduction in time in, say, three to five years.
	And that's what we have actually been hearing and what is being reported.
	NBC is reporting a possible jail time three to six years.
	And probably if they made a deal, that would include every bit of it.
	But if he already has made a deal and it doesn't include cooperation, that's a big, that is not a small deal, as much as the New York Times might be upset about it.
	The other big breaking news is this question that came from the jury in the Manafort trial.
	They have now gone, what, this is their fifth day of deliberation.
	It's unbelievable.
	And the question is, if we can't come to consensus on a single count, what does that mean for the final verdict?
	We're going to get into the rest of that as we continue.
	Greg Jarrett joins us, author of Three Weeks in a Row Running Now, the New York Times number one bestseller, The Russian Hoax, The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton, frame Donald Trump.
	David Schoen is a civil liberties criminal defense attorney.
	Sidney Powell is, of course, an attorney.
	She wrote the best-selling book, License to Lie, Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice and Senior Policy Advisor for America First.
	Welcome, all of you.
	Let's get a general consensus both on Cohn and the Manafort question.
	We'll start with you, Greg, considering you do have the current number one New York Times bestseller in the country.
	Well, the Manafort trial is interesting.
	The jury's note today was ambiguous.
	It could mean they've reached agreement on all but one count, but it could also mean they haven't reached an agreement on any other charges.
	Now, if it's the latter, then obviously there's a hung jury.
	And this would certainly be a victory for the reasonable doubt defense mounted by Manafort's lawyers.
	So we'll just have to wait and see how this unfolds.
	As for the Cohen plea, it appears that most of the charges against him involve tax and bank fraud, inflating his assets to get a $20 million loan.
	As to the charge of campaign finance violation, if, as you stated in your intro.
	Wait a minute.
	I'm just told that another note, by the way, has been sent by the Manafort jury to Judge Ellis.
	I'll know momentarily what that is.
	That's interesting.
	But go ahead.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, Greg.
	Well, if it relates to so-called hush money, which was, you know, essentially be quiet, go away, sign a non-disclosure agreement, the payment establishes it as a thing of value, and so it technically would be a violation of campaign finance.
	But it appears as though Cohen has stated repeatedly he did this on his own.
	So that doesn't necessarily implicate Donald Trump.
	One thing is for sure, none of this has anything to do with Trump-Russia collusion.
	You know, I mentioned earlier, you got Papadopoulos line of the FBI.
	Got, okay, General Flynn lying to the FBI.
	If we're going to go down the list, Manafort, you know, old tax and bank fraud issues, nothing to do with Russia, collusion, the campaign, or Donald Trump.
	Now, tax and bank issues as it relates to Michael Cohen.
	And maybe the campaign issue as it relates to, you know, him paying what he said was on his own, making his own decision to pay Stormy Daniels his campaign violation.
	What is your take on all of this, David Schoen?
	Oh, it's very interesting.
	Breaking because obviously, so we don't really know what to make of it yet.
	I'll be interested to hear what the new Manafort note is.
	I'm trying to decipher all afternoon whether this there's one count that they can't agree on and they've agreed on all of the others or they can't agree on even a single count.
	I tend to think, quite frankly, that it's the former, especially if the judge's instruction included that he would provide a partial verdict form potentially.
	That would tend to indicate that they may have made agreement on all of the counts except one.
	I just don't know.
	On the Cohen thing, my biggest concern now is I want to hear what the factual predicate is in the plea colloquy.
	And they may play it close to the best.
	But when he appears before the judge, Andrew, his plea, his actual change of plea is guilty plea.
	The judge is going to want a factual predicate to satisfy that.
	Often the prosecutor just reads it, defendant agrees, or the defendant actually says it.
	On the campaign finance violation, you know, this may be where they got cute and they say he's not cooperating.
	But if he tries to put the president into that in his plea colloquy on the campaign finance thing, that's going to be very interesting.
	And of course, you were right in what you said earlier.
	It's not presented as a cooperation deal, or they wouldn't say three to five years.
	That's an obvious cross-examination.
	Yeah, but the New York Times.
	But he could decide to cooperate later after the deal is all done.
	Yeah, that's going to happen.
	I mean, it's so ridiculous.
	And it's such an obvious bias that they have.
	But let me go through the big picture question as we're waiting for specifics.
	I have been told, I am confirmed now, that in fact there has been a note sent to the juror.
	But I'm looking very, very closely.
	Yep, Jory has sent another note to the judge.
	Could it be, possibly, Sydney, they've reached a verdict?
	It could be, or it could be them telling him they've tried longer and they cannot reach a verdict.
	I missed what you said.
	Linda was talking in my ear, which makes it impossible for me to hear two people.
	I'm sorry, Sidney.
	Go ahead.
	It's all right.
	It could mean that they have tried as hard as they can and they have not reached a verdict and deemed themselves unable to do so.
	Well, let me go over this question.
	This question is fascinating.
	I watched all the comments all day, and I can see both sides of it.
	If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, what does that mean for the final verdict?
	Now, can you interpret that as they've already decided on 17 counts and we have one left?
	Or does this, we can't come to consensus on any count, a single count.
	It could be either one.
	Which would you say, Greg Jarrett?
	But a pessimist Irish in me says, no, no, no, they got 17 guilty verdicts.
	You always think worst case scenario.
	Well, I think the point that David Schoen was making is a valid one.
	If the president, excuse me, if the judge has said that he is willing to deliver a partial verdict, that does suggest that unanimity has been reached.
	Either way, it could be unanimous, not guilty, unanimous, guilty, but on some of the charges, they have reached an agreement.
	That would be the suggestion here.
	So we'll have to wait and see.
	There was a tweet that went out by Peter Doocy today.
	He was a great kid.
	I mean, I say that because I'm friends with his father, Steve Doocy, but he's an incredible reporter that he spoke to a source that was inside the courtroom and saw the note from the jury firsthand and that they saw the word any crossed out before single.
	Now, that to me is pretty amazing.
	So, I mean, if that's the case, then that would mean the other interpretation, which would be the best possible case, David shown for Paul Monafort and his legal team.
	Right.
	I mean, it's very hard to parse the words.
	He also might have said any could go either way.
	One could make the case that he should have said, they should have said any of the counts if they really meant they were hung on all of the counts.
	So I don't know.
	Look, we're going to find out soon.
	You're just guessing.
	I thought that once we heard this, and if it meant just one count was tearing them apart, that we would get a verdict this afternoon, frankly.
	Either the guy would yield if there's one holdout or would go the other way.
	But I don't know.
	I felt we were going to have a verdict today.
	Well, I don't know what this note is that they sent the judge, and we're waiting for that detail to come out.
	Now, the judge did remind the attorneys today in a lot of detail.
	I need not to say anything that's coercive to the jury.
	He told the jury to carefully reconsider and re-examine all the evidence in the case.
	He said if the jury sends a message that they can't get to unanimous on all counts, I will ask, considering asking the jury where they stand, meaning he will ask if they have come to a unanimous decision on some counts.
	And then we get the whole issue of Sawyer instructions and an Allen charge as it relates to this specific case.
	And some were complaining in the media that he had already asked for it.
	The Allen charge is an instruction given by the court to a deadlocked jury.
	And people were complaining.
	Well, they didn't say they were deadlocked.
	In a way, they might have been saying that and encouraged the jury to continue deliberating.
	And the U.S. versus Sawyer case, you were all familiar with it.
	What is your take on that?
	Did he give those instructions seemingly earlier, Greg?
	It doesn't appear he did.
	If he did, it certainly was a watered-down version of it.
	I mean, the Allen charge is normally issued in fairly specific language that follows the Allen decision.
	It's called a dynamite charge.
	It essentially means go back and try harder, but there's other language in which the judge encourages the jurors to try to reach some consensus or compromise.
	We're going to tell our stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network, our 575 amazing affiliates, that we're going to go to a little earlier break here in the hopes that we're going to get to the bottom of this in the meantime, because I suspect we might be going commercial-free afterwards.
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	We expect any minute now to find out what that note to the judge in the Manafort case is all about.
	As we speak, Michael Kona's in court.
	He surrendered to the FBI and has made a plea deal.
	All coming up.
	All right, we just have this breaking news.
	The jury note said they have reached a verdict on eight of the 18 counts in the Manafort case.
	They cannot reach a verdict on the other 10 counts.
	Wow.
	Reaction.
	Greg Jarrett.
	Well, I think this is very good news for the defense.
	They mounted this reasonable doubt defense.
	They didn't call a case in earnest with witnesses.
	Rather, they attempted to pick apart the credibility of the witnesses and evidence through cross-examination of the prosecution's case.
	And to some extent, at least as to 10 of them, it appears that they succeeded.
	But a verdict on eight of 18, we're sort of presuming that those are guilty verdicts, but they may not be.
	I mean, it's altogether possible, although if I were a betting man, I wouldn't say so.
	But it's possible they could be unanimous verdicts of not guilty.
	If I had to bet, I'd say guilty.
	But I mean, 10 out of the 18, it's just, to me, it's an unmitigated disaster for Mueller.
	I mean, and maybe there was one little tax issue or that or bank issue that they say, you know what, he didn't do this right, and we find him guilty on that, but nothing else.
	Let me get Sidney's reaction to this.
	Sidney.
	Well, it could be that they started with the ones they thought were the easiest and got some not guilty agreements because some of the counts were absolutely ridiculous, such as charging him for a false loan statement when he didn't even get the loan.
	That's a good.
	What a great point.
	That's why I love you.
	You're so, you know, why not state the obvious?
	Good point.
	David, what's your reaction?
	Well, I mean, again, I hate to predict because it's impossible to predict what a jury is going to do until we've heard from them.
	But it could well be.
	I mean, what would make sense here, I suppose, would be the bank fraud-related counts.
	There are nine of them, I think, instead of eight.
	Are you sure you're not Irish like I am?
	Because I'm a pessimist.
	I just assume the worst at all times.
	I am too.
	I'm a worst case scenario person.
	But, I mean, that's a bundle that you could see a jury might focus on because they're of like kind in a sense, the bank fraud charges.
	But yeah, I mean, it is a disaster.
	But Sidney makes a great case of a great point.
	He didn't get the loan.
	Yeah, well, but it's, you know, the intent that's unfortunately, the government works both on the intent to get the loan and filing of false documents reportedly and on intended loss for sentencing purposes.
	That's where they sort of get you coming and going.
	But look, we don't know exactly what it is yet.
	We don't know if it's guilty or not guilty, as Greg has said.
	And I think we just have to wait and see.
	Unfortunately, look, there are a lot of implications for all of this stuff.
	Did they retry those other counts?
	Is the judge satisfied with home?
	And does he take a partial verdict?
	Well, he said earlier today he would.
	All right.
	Stay right there.
	We're going to come back.
	We'll continue.
	Eight counts.
	They have a verdict in the Manafort case.
	No decision on the 10 counts.
	And Michael Cohn has surrendered to the FBI, and we expect a plea deal to be entered at this hour.
	We'll have more when we continue.
	All right, glad you're with us, Sean Hannity Show 800 941.
	Sean, we have two simultaneous stories we are following at this hour.
	Well, Michael Cohn is in court.
	He has made a plea deal with the Southern District of New York.
	It is estimated that it's going to be anywhere between three and five years.
	Bank fraud charges and tax fraud charges and maybe a campaign finance violation thrown in there as well.
	Again, he's also, according to the New York Times, they believe the deal would mean he is a non-cooperating witness in this case.
	The Manafort judge is about to interview each juror individually.
	The jury has now said in this case it is deadlocked on 10 of the 18 counts, and they have found a verdict for eight of the 18 counts.
	Now, that is pretty fascinating.
	We continue with Greg Jarrett.
	He now is the number one book in the country, according to the New York Times.
	It's a number one bestseller.
	It's called The Russian Hoax, The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.
	David Schoen, civil liberties attorney.
	Sidney Powell, attorney of the incredible book, Licensed to Lie, Exposing Corruption at the Department of Justice.
	She's also a senior policy advisor for America first.
	And, well, anyway, let me go through what just happened.
	Again, we go back to earlier today, and the judge got a note from the jury, which was very mysterious to me.
	I think we now know the answer.
	If we cannot come to consensus on a single count, what does that mean for the final verdict?
	Well, now that we know that they only found a verdict on eight of the charges, and they're deadlocked on 10 of them, we now know that there were probably a lot of them.
	Now, it's really hard to read a jury.
	Paul Manafort is found guilty on at least one count, we are now told, according to Breaking News.
	Another news about Michael Cohn, he's pleading guilty as it relates to, hang on, I'm looking at what this one count that they are saying here.
	Okay, the most it could be is seven other counts, and it looks like the jury is deadlocked on 10.
	They now have declared a mistrial on the other 10 counts.
	Now we're getting, I guess the jury is reading a verdict on the other counts.
	Before that happens, he's going to interview each juror before he makes a determination.
	Okay, he's interviewing each juror.
	How do we know then?
	Why is CNN reporting that he's guilty on at least one count?
	I guess that was part of it.
	Fake news.
	Well, we don't know if it's fake news.
	You know, we have people actually listening.
	We have to lighten the load a little bit here, Sean.
	No, no, I know.
	I don't care any way you spin this, Greg Jarrett.
	I mean, this is a disaster for Robert Mueller.
	Here it is.
	Wait, guilty filing false individual income tax returns.
	$100,000 fine and or up to three years in prison.
	This is now literally, all right, that's so, all right, guilty filing a false individual tax return.
	That's a money thing.
	It seems on one count.
	If we look at all of this, they didn't take Rick Gates' testimony at all.
	And it looks like the juror, the judge in this case, Ellis, being very hard on the prosecution in this case and not allowing them to go into full hyperbole mode as it relates to ostrich coats, et cetera.
	I don't know, Greg, if it's guilty on one.
	All right, now it just came in.
	He's guilty on eight counts in the fraud trial, hung jury on 10 other counts.
	What's your reaction?
	Well, that was our suspicion.
	This underscores just how unscrupulous and overzealous Bob Mueller and his team of assembled partisans were.
	They overcharged this case.
	And as a consequence, they did not get a verdict on 10 of the charges.
	They did get a verdict on eight of the 18 total charges.
	So I would agree with you that this is an embarrassment and a disaster for Robert Mueller and only serves to demonstrate.
	All right, now five counts were false tax returns.
	There were five separate counts.
	So he's really, okay, so that's five of the eight, I'm assuming.
	That's a right?
	Yes.
	All right, so failure to report bank accounts, four counts, loans from Citizens Bank is three counts.
	So if I'm the guess, they probably went to the loans from, it seems like it's either loans and tax returns.
	That's all it seems to be, David Schoen.
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, it would make sense now that it's the package counts one through five, be the false tax returns, could be the failure to file in the foreign bank accounts.
	Remember, there was a question that came up during it, whether there was a reporting requirement and whether report had been, it had been reported already.
	If is really the way it goes, I think you're 100% right.
	It's a repudiation of Gates and the prosecution's theory because the juice here was on the bank fraud charges.
	That's where the forfeiture is triggered.
	And that's the question of did it.
	Manafort and or just Gates if it was done.
	Well, it raises a question that we've all talked about in detail.
	It's a Sammy the Bull issue.
	Oh, he kills 19 people, but he testifies against what?
	John Gotti, and then he is forgiven all of that.
	He gets a get out of jail free card.
	Rick Gates gets a get-out of jail free card.
	Yeah, well, the five, just to be clear with our audience, the false tax returns guilt here, it's five specific counts, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.
	So I would assume that's at least five of the eight.
	So it's basically, okay, he filed false tax returns for five years.
	Now, by the way, what does that have to do with Russia?
	Anybody want to venture a guess?
	Well, and I'll tell you what, it should have been an IRS audit resulting in a civil penalty as well as back taxes.
	That's how cases of tax fraud, tax evasion are normally handled.
	But Bob Mueller decided he was going to throw everything at Paul Manafort to, as the judge pointed out, squeeze him to implicate Donald Trump, which hasn't happened.
	Well, I have stories here.
	Let's go back.
	This is ABC News reporting.
	Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner said on Wednesday he made careless mistakes when he didn't pay all of his taxes while working at the International Monetary Fund.
	And he apologized for senators for adding to their burden.
	When the economy is in the midst of a severe recession, they were careless mistakes.
	Then I have another article here.
	It says Al Sharpton's $4.5 million tax bill.
	And then, of course, we had the Clinton Foundation.
	They had to re-audit their taxes and start paying as well.
	It seems to me, so you got five cases of tax fraud.
	What does this say about Manafort's Trump-Russia collusion?
	That's what I guess I'm looking at, Sydney.
	It says absolutely nothing because there was no Trump-Russia collusion.
	What it does say is that we have a horrible double standard in this country, and that the fact is if Paul Manafort hadn't spent three months trying to help Donald Trump win the presidency, he would not have been prosecuted.
	Let me interrupt you.
	Guilty, five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts, guilty on two counts of bank fraud.
	Oh, nothing about Russia.
	I'm sorry, Sydney.
	Go ahead.
	He would not have been prosecuted for any of this had he not tried to help President Trump win the presidency.
	And that's the only reason he's been prosecuted.
	The Department of Justice had already passed on any prosecution of him during the Obama administration.
	So Mueller just got these charges out, dusted them off, pumped them up, and ran them to try to get him to testify against President Trump.
	You know, well, that's what Judge Ellis said, David Schoen, to put the screws to Manafort so he sings or composes.
	He never sang, he never composed for the purposes of prosecuting or impeaching Donald Trump.
	So here we are, five tax fraud charges, five returns, five years in a row, one charge of hiding a foreign bank account and guilty on two counts of bank fraud and his embezzling, tax cheating, lying partner gets off scot-free in a get-out-of-jail free card.
	That's a great system.
	Right.
	You will hear, you heard before the trial and now, the prosecutors, Greg Andre said, you will never hear Russia or Trump during this case out with a conviction on even one.
	You'll hear them closing the circle.
	Michael Cohn pleading guilty.
	Now this, nothing whatsoever to do with it.
	Very interesting sort of pot-parie the jury picked on counts to convict on.
	And by the way, on the foreign bank reporting, with everybody else out there, the government offered an amnesty program.
	They weren't sending people to prison, these kinds of things.
	There was a way to work it out.
	I've had many of these cases.
	You pay a penalty, and with the amnesty program, it was offered far and wide.
	So it's bogus, this prosecution.
	But, you know, it is what it is, Matt.
	Yeah.
	Well, let me ask this.
	So you got Michael Cohn, tax, it's the same thing.
	Tax bank fraud.
	Manafort, tax bank fraud.
	You got Flynn lying to the FBI.
	Papadopoulos, same thing.
	And all of this has one commonality, and that is they're connected to Donald Trump.
	This was supposed to be about Russian collusion.
	Now, I know that this is big news and fake news, CNN and MSNBC, and I'm looking at it and I'm watching.
	Okay, but they also failed on 10 specific counts, Greg Jarrett.
	And nothing here has to do with Russia.
	Nothing.
	Nothing has to do with the campaign.
	Nothing.
	Nothing has to do with Donald Trump.
	Nothing has to do with Russia.
	Nothing.
	And my question is, how do we look at this as a system of justice that is fair?
	Now, keep in mind this.
	Hillary Clinton had an exoneration written before an investigation.
	Hillary has the single biggest slam-dunk obstruction of justice case in history.
	Hillary Clinton, we know, violated the Espionage Act.
	We know that Hillary Clinton bought and paid for through funneled money through a law firm to an op research firm, hiring a foreign national who put together Russian lies that he doesn't even believe in.
	It was used to manipulate and lie to the American people in the lead up to an election, then used on four separate occasions in applications to get a FISA warrant on a Trump campaign associate.
	They lied to four separate FISA judges and committed a fraud on four separate FISA courts.
	I don't see anybody in these cases indicted in any case.
	So how does an American— Well, clearly you've read my book, because you've just outlined it quite nicely, chapters 1 through 12.
	And Sidney is right that this is a glaring, unfair double standard.
	There are two or three different systems of justice, and one of them is if you're Hillary Clinton, you can engage in all manner of criminality and get away with it.
	They cleared her before they even interviewed her and 16 others in the case.
	And as I point out in my book, I've interviewed so many different federal prosecutors and former FBI top officials, and they all say they've never heard of such a thing.
	But this was James Comey and his Confederates who decided they wanted to clear a path for Hillary Clinton to become president because Donald Trump threatened to drain the swamp and they were the swamp and didn't want to be drained.
	And they're in the same way.
	Well, let me ask about that.
	Let me ask about one other thing.
	What does it say about the other 10 charges that they couldn't come to a verdict on?
	It shows that they overcharged the case, which underscores how overzealous and unprincipled and unscrupulous that Mueller's team is.
	These are people who cannot be trusted, to be fair and objective.
	So the average American, how's the average American?
	Well, let me give you some other breaking news as we speak here.
	So we have the news.
	Michael Cohn got very emotional as the judge discussed a possible sentence.
	And in a federal court, as we've been reporting all day, they had made a deal with the Southern District of New York, pled guilty to federal charges stemming from hush payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with the president.
	He's been under investigation.
	Cohen was shaking his head, appeared to be holding back emotions as the judge reviews the possible sentence.
	Cohn faces a likely prison term of 46 to 63 months.
	The judge said Cohen was charged with eight specific counts, evading personal income taxes, making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution, making a false statement to a financial institution, making an excessive campaign contribution in October of 2016.
	And, okay, it's all the same.
	Where is the Russia here?
	David, where is it?
	There's no Russia whatsoever.
	Again, we have to keep our eye on the pleat liquid for this campaign finance business.
	What did he say?
	Is he going back on what I said earlier?
	You know, the tangential issue is the effect on the civil case.
	It's meaningless.
	But, you know, now Avenati certainly will argue that it was an illegal contract from the start.
	Therefore, he wins the case.
	And, of course, Avenatti appears to be the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for president, the Avenati Daniel ticket.
	Yeah, exactly.
	All right, stay right there.
	We're going to take an early break here.
	We're expecting press conferences a lot in the final hour of the program today.
	And 800-941 Sean, we'll also be joined by Joe DeGenova.
	He's always interesting.
	That's coming up in the next hour.
	And Andy McCarthy is going to be checking in as well in the next hour.
	So we'll get a lot more in terms of perspective.
	Andy worked for the Southern District of New York, just like Rudy Giuliani did.
	Probably one of the most respected in the entire country.
	Anyway, so we'll get you more information.
	Eight counts as it relates to Manafort, eight counts as it relates to Cohn.
	And we have 10 counts.
	The jury deadlocked.
	No decision as it relates to the Paul Manafort case, which I think speaks volumes.
	By the way, no Russia, no collusion, no Trump, no campaign.
	All right, 800-941.
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	We'll take a break.
	Andy McCarthy.
	And also we'll be checking in with Joe DeGenova.
	Straight ahead.
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