[Don Lemon, Cnn:] I'm Don Lemon. We have major breaking news in Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. A federal judge ruling that Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, intentionally lied to the FBI. He lied to the special counsel's team, and also to a grand jury in the ongoing investigation. And that breaks the plea agreement that made that Manafort made with as a star cooperator for Mueller. The big question is what this ruling could mean for Manafort's upcoming sentencing. Also tonight, a CNN exclusive. Sources saying that William Barr who's expected to be confirmed soon as attorney general is already in discussions with the Justice Department officials on how to handle the report that Robert Mueller will submit to the Justice Department about the Russia investigation. And exactly what information Barr will share with Congress. A lot to discuss. I want to bring in now Shimon Prokupecz, Susan Glasser, and Michael Moore. Wow, every night it seems there's a lot to discuss so let's get right into it. Good evening to all of you. Shimon, let's start with the news. The judge ruling tonight that Paul Manafort intentionally lied to the FBI, to the special counsel and to the grand jury even after his plea deal. But I want you to dig into it further. What did we learn from this about Mueller's case?
[Shimon Prokupecz, Cnn Crime And Justice Reporter:] I think what we learned here is that he lied what the judge ruled and agreed with the Mueller team is that he lied about facts there, material to the investigation, you know. And that's what the important part of this is. He agreed to cooperate, he came before FBI agent, he came before prosecutors and the special counsel's office. And when they started asking him questions that were important to their investigation, questions that they said were at the heart of their investigation, he started lying about it. And the judge agreed with the special counsel on this hugely significant because, you know, they were on a fact-finding mission. And you're right, Don. They did in some ways look at him as this big cooperator. They were trying to get him to cooperate from the beginning. You know, we see this deal that Rick Gates got and he's out free. This was the same deal that Paul Manafort was going to get had he cooperated from the beginning. And when he finally agreed to cooperate, they thought, they trusted him. He came before them, he said certain things and obviously they didn't believe him. And now the judge agrees with Paul Manafort, and you know, he's facing a lot of prison time now.
[Lemon:] Shimon, as I said earlier, it's kind of a mixed bag, though, because the judge's ruling wasn't all good news for Mueller's team.
[Prokupecz:] No, on the most significant part it certainly was good news for the Mueller team. There's couple of things that she did find that she didn't agree with the Mueller team on. And that is, you know, an important part of this, she didn't agree that he lied one of the key things is that she didn't agree that he lied about contacts with people in the Trump administration. She did not agree with the special counsel on that. Obviously, that was a big deal that was something that the special counsel's office had raised. That, she did not agree with the Mueller team on.
[Lemon:] Michael, let's bring you in now. Here's the big question is why. I mean, why would Paul Manafort risk his plea deal and lie?
[Michael Moore, Former U.s. Attorney, Middle Districtof Georgia:] I think that is ultimately the question. The plea deal is nothing but a contract between the defendant in this case, Manafort and the government. And so, he had a good chance to hold the government to the position and recommended to get a lesser sentence and then he threw that out the window. I think there's probably some speculation on whether or not there had been some discussions about a pardon. He may have calculated, you know, I'm going to do eight or 10 years regardless under the best circumstances, and so I'm not going to last that long. Maybe if I can convince the president I'm going to bat for him that I can put myself in line for a pardon. It really makes no sense. But I think if you look at his age, you look at what he's charged with, you look at what he's facing, at some point he probably decided that it was a diminishing return and he needed to take his chances and try to
[Lemon:] So, he's taking his chances on a pardon, you think?
[Moore:] I think so.
[Lemon:] OK.
[Moore:] I think otherwise you're talking about decades in prison anyway and he's going to take his chances.
[Lemon:] Susan Glasser, let's and I want you to take a look at this list of all the Trump associates who have now either admitted to or admitted or being proven to have lied about the Russia investigation. What does this pattern say to you?
[Susan Glasser, Cnn Global Affairs Analyst:] Well, look, first of all, Don, obviously these are not just bystanders in the world of Donald Trump. These are people who were intimately and significantly connected to him. In the case of Roger Stone, Paul Manafort for decades, who were instrumental in this shocking rise to the presidency? So, the fact that there's already a documented and proven pattern of lying all around the president is something that if it weren't for the seriousness of the other charges we're talking about, would be breathtaking in its own right. And I think that's something that does get lost here, but that is very, very long list of crucial senior level Trump insiders, the people who ran his campaign, ran his inauguration, ran his national security. Again, in any other administration this would be a crippling scandal, number one. Number two, the seriousness of the allegations that are underlying this question of what Paul Manafort was lying about is something that also tends to get lost in the mix here. And I think it's very significant that what the federal judge is saying she believes Paul Manafort lied about was his repeated contacts with a known agent of Russian intelligence, in the very middle. In August of 2016, in the very middle of the 2016 campaign, while he was running the nominee for president of the United States, Donald Trump's campaign.
[Lemon:] Well, that's my I want to that's question to Shimon. Shimon, let's talk about the name that keeps coming up is Konstantin Kilimnik, right? And the judge specifically mentioned Manafort's lies about his interactions with him. And by the way, Konstantin Kilimnik is a man with alleged ties to Russian intelligence. Why is this so significant?
[Prokupecz:] It is probably the most significant aspect of all of this, Don. I think Susan is right as well. I mean, this is what really the Mueller investigation has been about. This is the man that the special counsel and the defensive team has, you know, inadvertently leaked that he provided, Paul Manafort provided internal polling data for. This is man that Paul Manafort had a secret meeting with in New York where it's believed he discussed, you know, Ukrainian political issues there at this meeting in New York. This is man that the special counsel has been very interested in, very interested in the relationship between Paul Manafort and this Russian operative. And they said in court, in these court documents and transcripts, they said this is the heart of our investigation. And when Paul Manafort came before them and when FBI agents and prosecutors started asking him questions about this man and his relationship and his meetings and his contacts, yet again we saw another person connected to the Trump campaign lie about it. That's what the judge said, that he specifically she said that he lied about his contacts, about his communications with Kilimnik. And this is what has so troubled I think the special counsel and the FBI throughout this entire investigation.
[Lemon:] So, what does this do? You know, we've been saying all along collusion is not a crime, it's just a term, right? But what does this mean for the potential of that, Michael?
[Moore:] You know, we would talk about this, that this is, we don't have collusion, but we do have conspiracy. You know, this is if you think about a bicycle wheel and you've got the spokes of the wheel and there's something at the center and that appears to be the Trump campaign or maybe Trump himself. And there are the other tentacles that reach out that had spokes that are doing sort of the dirty work, and there is something that connects. So, what we're seeing is, I think you're seeing Bob Mueller tell the story of what's connecting these people. It may be the meeting at the Atlanta club, it maybe be Kilimnik, it maybe the sharing of the polling data for some unknown reason, it may be money at the end of the day. I still think we're going to be following the money. And that's what Mueller has been doing in this case. But there's something that's tying all these people together. And so, by bringing in the ideas of Kilimnik being involved and the data going out, and whether Trump was shouting out to the Russians after the WikiLeaks problem, you know, that is we're hearing sort of that wheel get pieced together and we're seeing Mueller connect those spokes.
[Lemon:] All right. So, let me ask you this, Shimon, you point out that over two years ago when you started covering this story, officials pointed to Paul Manafort as a possible nucleus of the investigation. Is that how it's looking to you right now?
[Prokupecz:] It is, Don. Look, I could tell you, you know, two years ago when we started forming our team here at CNN to cover this, we realized it was going to be a big story and it was going to dominate a lot of what we were doing. And as we started meeting with people and U.S. officials and discussing Paul Manafort's name I could tell you kept coming up. There were intercepts, there were communications that they were picking up not necessarily between Paul Manafort and people, but his name kept surfacing. And they were always very concerned about what was he doing in this campaign, why was he even involved in this campaign. Why was he even involve in this campaign? And they were certainly always concerned about his relationships with Russians and people connected to the Russian government. The FBI has always been concerned about this. And, you know, when you look at the charges, the tax fraud and the other money kind of charges that Paul Manafort wound up getting convicted for, this is something that had been around for quite some time, and that if the FBI and the Department of Justice wanted to go after him for they could have done it, you know, probably some time ago. But I do think that the special counsel was trying to use this as a leverage to get him to cooperate. Because ultimately, they wanted to get to the heart, right, they say this to the heart of this investigation. And it really is about the Russians and what were the Russians doing here. And in some ways how they were able to infiltrate the Trump campaign and what they were doing. And they were trying to learn, and the FBI is still trying to understand this.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Prokupecz:] And they were hoping that Paul Manafort could help them along those lines, and he didn't.
[Lemon:] But Susan, there's something to be said that why they didn't do it before. But I mean, was someone like Paul Manafort even on the government's radar before this? I mean, this put him on the government's radar. You can't certainly say though, well, they're just doing it because of Trump. Yes and no. He's front and center and they've also found credible evidence obviously to charge him with these things and he's admitted to lying about some of it.
[Glasser:] Well, look, Don, I do think that Shimon is right, that he was well-known to U.S. law enforcement, very likely to U.S. intelligence as well. You know, his role in working for a variety of unsavory international figures is something that was well-known. I've asked this question myself to a number of former senior national security officials of the Bush and Obama administrations before that, in particular his role in Ukraine, which went through a revolution in 2014. That's when his client Viktor Yanukovych was essentially fled from power and return to -went to Russia to seek haven. You know, this was something that was extremely well-known. Paul Manafort was a very questionable figure, and I think that this issue of why he was working for Donald Trump remember, this is something that people forget a lot. If your campaign chairman is working for zero dollars managing your presidential campaign, the question is who's paying him or what is his financial interest in this campaign that is non-salary, shall we say. And so, I think there was enormous amount of suspicion already to be raised about this. And so, I think no one is surprised from the very beginning that Paul Manafort, if anything it was too obvious. This was a man who had well-known associations with Russian oligarchs, with questionable Russian figures and in fact, really had been essentially purged from working in Washington in the more respectable quarters of lobbying here because of it. So, you know, the fact that we're circling back to the guy who was being paid zero dollars, who raised his hand to Donald Trump and said, I'd love to work for you for free, and he's meeting secretly in New York City taking time out from those campaign duties, meeting secretly in New York in August of 2016 with a known Russian intelligence agent, that's at the heart of what we're talking about today. And the fact that he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and then lied about that meeting, and again, you talk about the evidence that they've compiled this. One thing we've learned in the course of this court filings is that special counsel's office had information and intercepts presumably or intelligence information that contradicted their own witness, Paul Manafort. And they confronted him with this evidence of his own lying.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Glasser:] And that's what the judge has accepted tonight. I think it's a big deal.
[Lemon:] Thank you all. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.