[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Our special coverage continues with "
[Erin Burnett Outfront". Erin Burnett, Cnn:] OUTFRONT next, breaking news, two bombshell court filings tonight from the special counsel, Robert Mueller. One on Michael Cohen and just how he has helped Mueller, the other on Paul Manafort, and his lied. Details about contacts with Trump administration officials. Plus, the president's tweets that he's in the clear tonight. Is he in denial or purposely muddying the water? And then Rex Tillerson versus Trump. Did the former secretary of state reveal one of the most damning details about Trump and the law yet? Let's go OUTFRONT. And good evening, I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, Mueller dropping a major bomb on Trump in a new court filing and we've got a few of them here tonight. In a new filing, Mueller says President Trump's former attorney general, Michael Cohen, has, "Gone to significant lengths to assist the special counsel's investigation." Mueller goes on to say Cohen helped in multiple, "significant respects." OK, so multiple significant respects. And in this filing, we learned that there are multiple Russia related issues that are core to the investigation. So, let me read to you Mueller's words here to that effect. This is from page 6 of the seven-page filing. "Cohen provided the SCO," that's the special counsel's office, "with useful information concerning certain discrete Russia related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with company executives during the campaign." Matters, plural, core to the investigation. Also, the timeframe, something very, very important here, could be changing tonight. Mueller saying Cohen's help, including discussing contacts with people connected to the White House as recently as this year, just be clear, that's 2018. So again, I go back here, to page 6, and Mueller's words. "Cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the White House during the 2017-2018 time period." And also, in this filing, specific contacts with a Russian, a Russian, it appears that we did not know about. You're going to hear a whole lot more about that in just a moment. But it comes as the Southern District of New York also filed a court today about Michael Cohen, recommending a substantial prison sentence for Trump's former personal lawyer. Even as prosecutors said that the president of the United States himself, basically, it could have we're going to talk about exactly what this means, committed a felony by violating campaign finance law with that Stormy Daniels payment. President seemed well aware today that big things were about to drop, going on a Twitter tirade against Mueller, witch hunt, Robert Mueller's big time conflicts of interest, five tweet long rant. Look at it on your screen there with multiple unfounded and some inaccurate just on the facts of it accusations against Mueller. Let's begin here with Evan Perez OUTFRONT in Washington. Evan, we're here just talking about Cohen. Of course, we've got all these Manafort filings as well. I want to ask you though, here, Mueller talking in this seven-page document about the significant areas of cooperation by Cohen. What's most important to you?
[Evan Perez, Cnn Senior Justice Correspondent:] Well, they take about Erin, they talk about these four areas that Michael Cohen was very helpful with the special counsel and one of them has to do with this contact with Russians about the so-called Moscow project. It's a project to build that Trump Tower in Moscow. And there were others connecting with Russians, trying to make contact. There were other Russians trying to make contact with the campaign and in particular they talk a little bit about a trusted person, a Russian national, who was suggesting a political synergy campaign and we'll tell you a little bit more about that. Second thing that they talk about that the special counsel says is that there's information related to Russian related matters, obviously, that were core to this investigation, that you said, you were pointing to the fact that these were things that he learned from interacting with the Trump Organization. That's a big deal as this information as this investigation goes forward. And then of course, the special counsel points out that Michael Cohen describes people he was talking to close to the White House through 2018. That is this year. Again, when the president talks about this is an investigation that is looking way, way back, what the special counsel is saying is that they're looking at information that came in this year and then there's finally, how he was coordinating with people close to the president on some of his false statements. Now we've seen that in some of his in some these court filings but it's very important for us to keep in mind that Mueller wants to know how the lies came about and whether or not the lies were essentially an effort to obstruct this investigation. But back to the Russian. We, you know, we don't know a lot about this person, but this person apparently is someone who is close to the Kremlin and we know that Paul Manafort that we know we know that Michael Cohen had been working on this Moscow project. This appears to be a separate project, Erin.
[Burnett:] And we understand, you know, from looking at this, Evan, to your point, you know, it would seem significant that we are now entering a new, it seems, a new Russian into this who was close to Putin.
[Perez:] Right. Exactly. I mean that's what's interesting about this is that we've seen some of the other characters that Michael Cohen was talking to. We know that he had been in touch with Dmitry Peskov, who is the spokesman, someone very close to Vladimir Putin. We know he was also working through somebody who a Russian national, somebody who has U.S. citizenship, who was trying to be an interlocutor with the Russians. This appears to be a totally different character that we have not seen before and it tells us that the special counsel has more information about this person and maybe we'll see this in more information that comes forward in this investigation.
[Burnett:] All right. Thank you very much, Evan. We're going to talk much more about this person. You know, talking about multiple times, about a meeting between Putin and Trump. We'll get to those details in a moment. I want to go through the Southern District of New York's filing on Cohen because that was also hugely significant, you know, especially when we talk about whether the president of the United States committed a felony by violating campaign finance law by the Stormy Daniels payment. MJ Lee has been covering and going through this filing. And, MJ, you know, we hear the special counsel say Michael Cohen's been very cooperative but in the southern district, oh, not the same point of view at all.
[Mj Lee, Cnn National Political Correspondent:] That's absolutely right. If you just look at this SDNY filing, it is bad news for Michael Cohen. No question about it. It is actually asking the court to give Michael Cohen a substantial term of imprisonment, only a modest amount of leniency from the few years that he could get. Of course, this is bad news for Michael Cohen, whose lawyers have actually been asking for no jail time for him when he is sentenced next week. This filing from SDNY lays out how he evaded taxes, how he lied to banks, and also how he illegally tried to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. This last point, of course, is the most relevant for President Trump. These are the payments that we have been talking about all year to Karen McDougal and to Stormy Daniels, two women who alleged to have had affairs with Donald Trump. Not only this is really interesting not only does the filing just lay out how Michael Cohen tried to affect the outcome of the election by coordinating these hush payments to these two women, it also goes to some length to say how Michael Cohen was effectively hurting the Democratic process, how he was deceiving the American people and American voters and how he orchestrated secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise probably would have gone forward, gone public with their stories about Donald Trump. And even though, Erin, the filing doesn't actually come out and say that Michael Cohen was delusional or perhaps in denial, the suggestion is at least there. It says that he has a rose colored view of the seriousness of his crimes, and that he is asking for extraordinary leniency even though the crimes that he committed are the so, so serious. And I just want to quickly read a key passage from this SDNY filing that sums up the seriousness of all of this. It says, "After cheating the IRS for years, lying to banks and to Congress and seeking to criminally influence a presidential election, Cohen's decision to plead guilty rather than seek a pardon from his many fold crimes does not make him a hero." Now, that last piece, I'm betting, is going to be a bit of a gut punch for Michael Cohen because again, his strategy has been recently to present himself as a new man who wants to deliver the truth to investigators and to cooperate and to get no jail time, that is their goal, clearly, Erin, SDNY does not agree.
[Burnett:] Clearly not. MJ Lee, thank you very much. As they are requesting three and a half years of prison time for Michael Cohen. OUTFRONT now, John Dean, Nixon White House counsel during Watergate, Harry Sandick, the former U.S. assistant district attorney for the Southern District of New York, April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Media Networks and author of "Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House", and Greg Brower,, former FBI assistant director. OK. Thanks very much to all of you. So much to talk about here. I want to talk, specifically, first about Cohen and the Mueller filing from the special counsel. John Dean, Cohen provided useful information on multiple Russia matters, we learn here, right, including information about contacts with White House officials that were going on as recently as 2018. Which, you know, as Evan and I are emphasizing, could be a significant change here or new look that we're talking about a very different timetable. This could mean the investigation is bigger than we thought, John Dean?
[John Dean, Former Nixon White House Counsel:] It does mean that. There's that very real potential. With Michael Cohen, it appears, given the fact he went to the, apparently, initially, to the special counsel, didn't wasn't truthful with them as a footnote shows. And then went up to the Southern District and had sort of a partial cooperation up there, that he was slow in realizing that he had to come forward. And that's why this information is kind of dribbled out, out of him. And I think what's going on, he's got a very savvy lawyer, principal criminal lawyer, as well as one who is sort of handling the public side of this. And I think he's relying on what's called rule 35 where after he testifies, he can go back to the court and say, listen, here's all the information I have supplied, I'd like a reduced sentence. That's, I think, his hope.
[Burnett:] Which could be, and of course, obviously, Southern District asking for a long sentence, right, more than three and a half years here.
[Dean:] They are.
[Burnett:] Greg, let me ask you, though, in this filing from Mueller, it is very clear, from what they are saying in here, that Cohen is playing a role in the Russia investigation, which is beyond, above and beyond the Moscow tower, right? We're talking about Russia related matters, plural, core to the investigation, contacts with persons connected to the White House from 2017 and 2018.
[Greg Brower, Former Head Of Fbi's Congressional Affairs Office Under Comey:] Right. These all of these recent filings, the Manafort filing, the Cohen filings, and the Flynn filing, all are stunning in that they come as close as we've seen so far at pointing directly to the president in terms of implicating him in this Russia connection to the campaign. And so, the fact that Cohen and Flynn in particular are cooperating with the special counsel to the extent they apparently are, can't mean anything good for the president. And I assume that we're going to see a lot more detailed information to come in terms of what both of them have been able to provide to Mueller's team.
[Burnett:] Right, Harry, because of course obviously, they are tipping their hand in one sense, right? They're saying multiple Russia issues core to the campaign, the timeframe seems to be changing, they're adding another Russian here but obviously this is still ongoing so they're not giving us details on what all these Russian related matters are. But what about this Russian? We have all these details here. This person reached out to Michael Cohen around November 2015. So, you know, Trump announced in June. By November, this person, who as you heard Evan say, could be a totally new person close to Putin that we did not know about, offers the campaign, "political synergy and synergy on a government level." Repeatedly proposes meetings between Trump and President Putin, and says, a meeting could have a phenomenal impact in political and business dimensions. These details are all in here.
[Harry Sandick, Former Assistant U.s. Attorney, Southern District Of New York:] Yes. And you read this, and how can anyone say with a straight face, no collusion or no contacts with Russia. This is through Michael Cohen, someone who was very close to the president for many years, and different from the Moscow project. Now, it does say the meeting did not happen, but it says in the
[Burnett:] Between Putin and Trump.
[Sandick:] That's right.
[Burnett:] That's it does say that meeting did not happen.
[Sandick:] Right. And it also says that Cohen did not pursue his dealings with this Russian, but that was only according to the Mueller filing because Cohen had other contacts with Russia that he thought would be more productive than this new Russian figure. So there's contact with Russia everywhere. I mean I don't want to take the entire hour listing all the different connections between Trump and Russia, but this is a very serious addition to that list.
[Burnett:] And, April, you know, the other question is, how much Michael Cohen knew about Trump's activities, you know, what he really knew. I mean, right? Obviously, it looks like from what we're learning here tonight, he knew a lot more than we thought.
[April Ryan, White House Correspondent, American Urban Radio Networks:] Yes. You know, Cohen is connecting the dots. No matter the fact that he has lied in the past and he is considered a liar by the U.S. Attorney's Office, but Cohen has tapes. He's got proof that is nailing this down. You know, the president just talked about no collusion. Well, Cohen is maybe bringing something else to the table saying that may not be true, Mr. President, and also the fact that, you know, obstruction of justice is on the table as well. Cohen was someone who said he would fall on the sword for the president. He was loyal to the president.
[Burnett:] Take a bullet, right? Those were the words. Direct quote.
[Ryan:] Yes, take the bullet. Take the bullet.
[Burnett:] Yes.
[Ryan:] Fall on the sword. But take the bullet, yes, for this president because he was loyal to him and there was a payoff at that time.
[Burnett:] Yes.
[Ryan:] The payoff is over. Now he's fighting for his own life. He is giving up all the information that could really connect the dots to the Oval Office, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, if indeed it's true, 2017 and 2018 are in play as well.
[Burnett:] So, Greg, you know, in the filing from the Southern District, and this is the crucial part MJ was referring to, right, obviously they're taking a very tough line against Michael Cohen on his cooperation. But they are saying, in a court filing, right, for the first time, right, they are saying that the president of the United States, you know, knew about this payment to Stormy Daniels. Is this saying the president of the United States committed a felony?
[Brower:] Yes. It's hard to read this document without interpreting it as just flat-out implicating the president of the United States in a couple of different felonies relating to campaign finance laws. I don't know that there's any other way to read that. And so, I think that's the takeaway from that filing.
[Burnett:] I mean, Harry, I know you think that the one the one out could be did he know that it was a violation, the knowledge.
[Sandick:] That's right. That's right.
[Burnett:] So, here's the question, though. What happens? If we are at a point where we're saying the president of the United States committed a felony and then OK, he had no what are they going to do about it?
[Sandick:] Well, they're it's not clear that they're going to do anything about it, for a few reasons. Number one, there are DOJ policies that say that whatever the circumstances, the president can't be indicted until after he leaves office, and it seems as if the prosecutors in the Southern District and on the Mueller team are going likely to follow that rule. The second issue is that because Cohen did not go all the way as a cooperator, did not tell the government everything he knew, did not sign a cooperation agreement, the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District doesn't have him available to call as a witness. They have a specific program for cooperators. They've had it for many, many years, and as they say in their brief, Cohen didn't follow it.
[Burnett:] And yet, John Dean, we are at a point, if you look at that filing and you say that this is a felony, campaign finance violation, and the president knew about it and directed it, that, again, is a new stage here to be so formally at that point, right? This is a court filing in which that is the clear implication.
[Dean:] That's true and that's exactly what Michael Cohen said in court when he pled. He in his allocution, he implicated Trump directly, that he was doing his instructions that's why the payments were made for his benefit. I don't know that this will forever disappear into some dark hole of unprosecutable presidents. I think will it will resurface in the Congress. I think what this totality of today's filings show that the House is going to have little choice the way this is going other than to start impeachment proceedings.
[Burnett:] And obviously, I just point out what everyone watching knows, you now have a Democratic controlled House, not in the Senate but, you know, you have a real question now of whether you're looking at a Bill Clinton-like moment where you actually get that impeachment vote. April, something clearly on the president's mind and I want to make a point here because the president is, you know, over time vacillated between Michael Cohen, my friend and an honest broker and a liar. The special counsel very clear here on page two of the filings, referring to Cohen, the information he's provided has been credible and consistent with other evidence obtained in the ongoing investigation. They are making it clear we've corroborated all this. We know it's true.
[Ryan:] Yes. I mean, you know, Michael Cohen has been proven to be a liar, but when you have tapes that they have found that may not have been edited, what have you, and you have voices, clearly having conversations, audio tapes, video tapes, whatever tapes, that nails the coffin shut to a certain extent. And then other people who, I guess, if they have evidence on or to talk to, to say, look, we've got this, give us the information. It's not about their word now. It's about the evidence that's in front of them. And Michael Cohen has given them the evidence to prove certain things. So this president, I mean, when he goes out and tweets, he's got to be very careful, because we don't know. I mean, he doesn't probably know a lot that's on the table as well. He may have answered questions. If there are things that we are still finding out, and many who are involved in this are still trying to figure out.
[Burnett:] All right. We're going to continue our breaking coverage here, obviously, of this filing, also the breaking news on Paul Manafort. We've got a new filing here tonight and there's quite a bit of new information in it, how Paul Manafort lied to investigators about five major issues are detailed in here, including his contacts with Trump administration officials. We've got the new details in here, some crucial developments on a couple of those areas. Plus President Trump and the White House just responding to tonight's bombshell court filings. The president is responding at this hour. We're going to talk about that. And Chief of Staff John Kelly, not speaking with the president anymore. He and the president not on speaking terms. This as we are learning that Kelly has now spoken to Bob Mueller's team about the investigation.