[Berman:] President Trump's long time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, could learn his legal fait soon. CNN has learned the prosecutors in New York are preparing charges against Cohen that could come within the next few weeks. We're back with Ross Garber, Asha Rangappa, and John Avlon. Asha, this is serious. I mean, Michael Cohen, the New York Times reports, could face charges dealing with $20 million worth of bank fraud. This has to do with his taxi cab company, the medallions he owned. But these are serious, serious charges.
[Rangappa:] They are serious charges. So these involved potential bank fraud by misrepresenting his assets in trying to obtain bank loans for his taxi business, not reporting the income from his taxi business. This goes to tax evasion or tax fraud. And then, of course, the pieces that relate to potential illegal campaign finance contributions because of stories that were being silenced, and that appears to be the piece that could overlap in terms of the charges with the Trump campaign. I think it remains to be seen whether he has A, has information, and B, is credible or valuable enough to either Mueller's team or even this other district for other things related to
[Berman:] Right.
[Rangappa:] you know, criminal activity that he knows about that might be able to get him some kind of cooperation plea deal.
[Camerota:] Well, Lanny Davis, a famous lawyer, was saying the same thin to Politico. I'll read it to you. "I reached out to my old friend John Dean." John Dean is a fiend on this show,
[Ok - Berman:] Everywhere.
[Avlon:] Oh yes. Where isn't John Dean?
[Camerota:] "because of what he went through with Watergate, and I saw some parallels to what Michael Cohen is experiencing. I wanted to gain from John's wisdom. I certainly don't want to raise expectations that Mr. Cohen has anything like the deep level of involvement and detailed knowledge that John Dean had in the Nixon White House as a witness to Nixon's crimes, but I did see some similarities and wanted to learn from what John went through."
[Avlon:] I mean, why in the world would invoke John Dean's name five times in a statement to the media if I didn't want to raise any expectations as Michael Cohen's lawyer? Crazy talk. Look, I mean, John Dean parallels aside, we can do Watergate parallels all day long. It's a fun part of working with. This particular legal problem having to do the notoriously dodgy business of taxing medallions looks like he's a whole heap of hot water. Very little to do with the Russia investigation, unless it is about getting him to flip further which he's already shown an openness to do. And then they have questions and payments to Stormy Daniels and company.
[Garber:] He's showing an openness to do. I mean it
[Avalon:] I may be underselling that.
[Garber:] Holy cow. I mean Lanny Davis over and over and over. And now with this John Dean comparison I mean he is begging to be able to be useful to the government.
[Avalon:] Yes.
[Garber:] Begging to.
[Camerota:] And why wouldn't they take him up on that offer?
[Garber:] Well for one thing it may be a credibility issue, maybe he's got that. Maybe they think he doesn't have that much to offer. But there's another there's another possibility and it's that they want to have him dead to rights. Dead to rights before they even approach him, because they don't want to do much negotiation with him. They want to make clear they're not going to put up with any slipperiness. They may want to just make sure they have him nailed and then bring him in and see what he has to say.
[Berman:] I think this does explain perhaps why we saw that leak, where ever it came from a few weeks ago suggesting that Michael Cohen wanted to sing about the Trump Tower meeting here. It think the legal term is flailing. Michael Cohen and his legal team there flailing about here. Trying to find a way out for him because they know how dire the situation is. And they're trying anyway they can Asha to dig there way out of it.
[Rangappa:] Yes. I mean he's in a heap of trouble. We knew from the time that they that the FBI executed the search warrant and the high standards. That such a search warrant would entail given that it could implicate privileged information that the government had a lot of vary incriminating information already. And remember he's not protected here in terms of what the president is doing on other fronts. This is in the southern district of New York. What ever happens with Muller is not going to affect this case. It's going to precede a pace. It doesn't look like in terms of the path that he's taking that he's expecting or that I think Trump would be inclined to pardon him. So you know he's got some limited options. And I think if he doesn't have something to offer could be looking at a pretty bleak outcome.
[Camerota:] But John, I'm so confused. I thought that the tax the taxes business was like a golden goose of money? Why did he need $20 million in loans?
[Avalon:] I think it's about how you finance those medallions and how you move the money that comes from medallions. For a long time owning a tax medallion in New York City was incredibly valuable, also very expensive because it threw off a lot of cash. The rise of Uber and Lyft changed those dynamics. But then there's the question of the folks who were also in the taxi business. But $20 million in loans probably not accurately reported to the IRS. Maybe a best practice in that part of the industry, there's an icarus problem. The higher you get, the further you got to fall.
[Garber:] Can I go back to truth?
[Berman:] Oh, please.
[Camerota:] If you must.
[Berman:] Let's.
[Camerota:] You seem to be a stickler for truth.
[Garber:] I know I'm obsessed with this idea that maybe there is such a thing as truth. Because in this same interview where Rudy Giuliani declared the truth isn't truth.
[Camerota:] Yes.
[Unidentified Male:] He said something that was in fact
[Camerota:] False.
[Garber:] False.
[Camerota:] There are false hoods. I will grant you, yes.
[Garber:] Right, all right.
[Camerota:] Or watch.
[Avalon:] Or is your concession by team two [inaudible].
[Berman:] Well that's true.
[Camerota:] Yes, no let's not test it.
[Berman:] OK, if we can, if we can get hold of this I want play it. Because Rudy Giuliani was talking about the Trump Tower meeting, the one where Donald Trump Jr. was told that he would be provided dirt from the Russian on Hillary Clinton, from the Russians. And Donald Trump Jr. was told he would be meeting with a Russian attorney.
[Camerota:] I remember that.
[Berman:] This is what Rudy say's.
[Rudy Giuliani, Attorney:] The meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton. The meeting turned into a meeting
[Unidentified Male:] Which in itself it's attempted collusion. I under
[Giuliani:] No it's not.
[Unidentified Male:] You just said it. The meeting was intended to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Kremlin lawyer.
[Giuliani:] No it wasn't. No, no.
[Unidentified Male:] That was the intention of the meeting. You just said it.
[Giuliani:] That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursed at all. And of course any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate's staff would take. No.
[Berman:] He goes on to say he didn't even know that he was meeting with the Russian lawyer. When in fact inside the e-mails Donald Trump Jr. was told the Russian attorney is in court until three, I was just informed. Would it be possible to move the meeting to tomorrow? Also I was asked to schedule a meeting with you and the Russian government attorney.
[Avalon:] Yes.
[Garber:] Right. Well and that's one of the difficulties. Truth is not truth, can not mean it is OK to misstate things. It's OK to lie. I don't think Rudy lied here. I think he didn't know the facts. But I think that's the point. Truth is not truth can not mean that. I can mean sort of the high minded discussion we were all having a few minutes ago.
[Berman:] Very high minded.
[Camerota:] Very high minded, Socratic in that.
[Avalon:] And or the case of Rudy he can go deep on St. Thomas to quite us. But this is not that. This is just one other reality check about that, the idea that all campaigns were taking oppo on an opponent. Right, that is not true when it is the Russian government offering with oppo. That's a bright red line.
[Camerota:] Right and he said that he's saying she was a regular civilian, he didn't know it was the Russian government. Yes they did, yes, they did.
[Berman:] Yes they did.
[Camerota:] So this is a fact. Facts exist.
[Avalon:] I'm so glad you understand that.
[Camerota:] Truth is different.
[Avalon:] Oh, OK.
[Camerota:] But we will dissect more of that. Also it's day three of the deliberations for Paul Manafort and we'll get into that later. Thank you very much panel. So we also have an amazing survival story to tell you about. This woman went overboard on a cruise ship. And after 20 sorry 10 hours of treading water at sea they found her, and she lives to tell about it next. We are following some breaking news out of Iraq. That's where a U.S. coalition helicopter has crashed in a remote area north west of Baghdad. Killing one service member and injuring several others. Military officials say the helicopter was part of a counter terrorism mission. There's no indication that the crash was caused by enemy fire. The fallen service member has not yet been identified. END