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Don Lemon Tonight
Mike Flynn's Sentencing Postponed; First Step Act Passed in the Senate; Donald Trump Shutting Down His Personal Foundation in the Midst of a Lawsuit; President Trump Facing Investigations on All Fronts; Least Favorable Stock Market in December. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 18, 2018 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[22:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: The president says he want it to be. His problem, that's not reality. In reality, the facts must come out. And more importantly, they must be kept straight. That's my job. That's our job together.
And I say facts first. Let's get after it together again tomorrow. Thank you for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with Don Lemon starts right now. D. Lemon.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Hey, it's always good to have you on and to be on with you, and I really appreciate what you said about immigration. I think that was a very productive conversation we had, and we should continue to have it.
CUOMO: And we will because it's going to continue to be under attack. And unfortunately, you are doing -- fortunately, rather, you are doing something that the president didn't make easy for you today.
His criminal reform bill matters. He doesn't want to talk about it because he wants to bash the investigations. But it's good that you're talking about it because a lot of people -- it's called the First Step Act for good reason. There's a lot more that needs to be done. But there are a lot of people who will get relief from a system that punishes the wrong people the wrong way too often.
LEMON: And there are lots of good things about it that we can use. You said it's a first step. It is. And I think I'm not sure which yard line we're on, but if we're in the football game, maybe it's the 10- yard line. But that is 10 more yards further than we were.
And the good thing is that this time it has things that are retroactive in it, that affects people who are serving right now rather than people who will be serving in the future.
CUOMO: Yes.
LEMON: And so, there are people who are in jail now I'm sure or prison who have no idea they're going to be affected by it, positively probably, and they don't even know.
CUOMO: It's very important and it's also important how it got done. LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: McConnell didn't want to have this vote. We know there was some ugliness in terms of people feeling that it was too lenient on the right, that too many people were going to be helped by this bill.
LEMON: The hard-liners.
CUOMO: Who had done bad things.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: But the president, Van Jones, you know, this coalition of people who believed it was the right thing to do, Jared Kushner, they found a way through the morass. And that's the lesson.
You can make the right thing happen if you try and you use your power, and you know how to do the job the right way. Imagine if this same experiment, this same paradigm was used more productively and more often by this president.
LEMON: Well, I wouldn't count on that. I'm just being honest. I mean, history and reality has shown us way too often that I wouldn't count on him always to do the right thing. And even if he does one right thing, it doesn't mean the next step will be right. But this is a good step, and we'll talk about that.
We have lots to talk about because there's a lot that happened today. And I'll see you tomorrow, my friend. Thank you very much.
CUOMO: Be well.
LEMON: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
As we've been saying this is our breaking news tonight. The Senate overwhelmingly passing a major prison and sentencing reform bill. Does it mean overall criminal justice reform? We'll talk to Van Jones in just a moment. He's going to explain all of that.
Here is the vote. The vote was 87 to 12. The bill was negotiated with the help of Jared Kushner, with an assist from CNN's Van Jones. Again, he's right here. We'll see him in just moments.
Also, tonight, quote, "A shocking pattern of illegality." That's from the attorney general of New York State describing the Trump family charity. But as we're going to see tonight, that can apply to a lot of what surrounds President Trump.
The Trump Foundation ordered today to dissolve in the midst of a lawsuit. To dissolve. Think about that. To dissolve. The prosecutor saying in her statement, quote, "Our petition detailed a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation, including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more."
That is shocking. The fact is a family that apparently cannot run its own foundation correctly is now running this country. And there is no doubt that shocking pattern of illegality extends into the president's inner circle.
His former national security adviser admitting in court today that he knowingly committed a crime when he lied to the FBI. The president seemed to think that Michael Flynn would take back his guilty plea at what was supposed to be his sentencing today, tweeting, "good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. It will be interesting to see what he has to say despite tremendous pressure being put on him about Russian collusion and our great and obviously highly successful political campaign. There was no collusion."
It was interesting all right. The judge was blunt and angry, telling Flynn, quote, "I am not hiding my disgust, my disdain for your criminal offense."
[22:04:54] Flynn admitted that he knew lying to the FBI was illegal. So, all of that excuse, you know, about, my gosh, he was tricked, it just blew up. It blew up. Those repeated claims from the White House that the bureau tricked the former national security adviser.
Flynn also refused to take back his guilty plea. He said he's guilty. I'm guilty. And rather than walking out with no prison time, Flynn agreed to having sentencing -- his sentencing delayed for three months, giving Mueller another three months to question him and leaving open the question of whether he'll end up doing time after all despite Mueller's no prison time recommendation.
Shortly after the fireworks in the courtroom, there was this in the White House briefing room.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Flynn, he has cooperated with the special counsel's office and met with them 19 times. Is there a particular reason why the president has not said that he is a rat the way that he has said that Michael Cohen is a rat for cooperating with the prosecutors?
SARAH HUCKABEE-SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Look, we know Michael Cohen to be a liar on a number of fronts, and the president's opinion is extremely clear on that front. I don't see any reason to go beyond that comment at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: It is a great question. Why does this president call his former attorney a rat for admitting his lies while seeming to give his former national security adviser a pass for his lies? Lies, lies, and more lies. Lies that the president himself said way back in 2017 were the reason he fired Flynn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He didn't tell the vice president of the United States the facts, and then he didn't remember. And that just wasn't acceptable to me. I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And last year after Flynn's guilty plea, the president tweeted this. "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI. I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI." But now he's saying he didn't lie. I don't know.
So, the president said it right there. Flynn is a liar. Flynn himself admits that he broke the law. He's not the only one. Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, they have both been sentenced to prison for their crimes. All three are convicted felons. I call that a shocking pattern of illegality.
You've got to wonder why this president, the law and order president supposedly, remember, doesn't seem to care if his associates are liars and lawbreakers. And then there's this intriguing development, a case so sensitive it was argued in secret with an entire floor of the D.C. courthouse locked down. It's suspected to be related to Mueller's Russia investigation.
A federal appeals court forcing an unnamed company owned by an unnamed foreign country to comply with a grand jury subpoena. The rest is a mystery for now.
Much more ahead on our breaking news tonight. The Senate passing a sweeping prison reform bill that's expected to reach the president's desk by the end of the week. Van Jones was instrumental in this. Getting that bill to the floor. We're going to talk about what that means next.
[22:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Here's our breaking news tonight. The Senate overwhelmingly passing a major prison and sentence reform bill. The vote, 87 to 12. The bill known as the First Step Act was backed by the White House and negotiated with the help of the president's son-in-law, senior adviser Jared Kushner. The House is expected to take it up on Thursday.
Van Jones is with me now. Let's see what happens with the House on Thursday. Good to have you on. Thank you so much. So, let's just talk because at first I was just going by the wires and by the CNN blast, and it says prison and sentencing reform.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.
LEMON: Is it a criminal or is it an overall criminal justice reform?
JONES: Listen, yes and let me just say something. A Christmas miracle just happened tonight. As you and I both know, since 1988 when George H.W. Bush put out that Willie Horton ad, both political parties then rushed to build prisons and be tough on crime, and we've been trapped for decades now in this dynamic that you just can't do anything to move in a smarter direction. That nightmare began to come to an end tonight. Eighty-seven senators,
both political parties came together to do something to try to begin to reduce the number of people behind bars for too long. And what this bill does is unbelievable.
It means that 100 percent of the people who are behind bars in the federal system can stay out of trouble and come home a little bit sooner. Half of them can work hard and earn their way home sooner.
A hundred percent of the women behind bars can no longer be shackled when they're giving birth and mistreated. A hundred percent of juveniles can no longer be put in solitary confinement. And that horrible crack cocaine disparity where 100 to 1, if you had -- crack and powder cocaine are the same. You put a little baking soda in it for the hood, it's called crack.
At your yacht club with the power, it's called cocaine. Of the 100 to 1 that you were sentenced worse with crack, Obama was able to pull that down to 18 to 1, but they wouldn't let him make it retroactive.
Tonight, the Senate voted to make it retroactive, which means there are 3,000 people sitting in prison right now who will get to come home soon because they're serving outdated, unfair sentences.
The New York Times calls this the biggest breakthrough in criminal justice in a generation, and it was brought about by ordinary people who came together and fought.
And I just want to say, formerly incarcerated people, directly impacted people like Topeka Sam, Jessica Jackson, Lewis Reid (Ph), David Safavian, and frankly Jared Kushner, whose father went to prison, refused to die on this, and we have a Christmas miracle.
(CROSSTALK)
[22:14:58] LEMON: OK. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it, then. All right. So, let's get into when you talked about powder cocaine and crack cocaine.
JONES: Yes, sir.
LEMON: Because you know for the longest time, folks of color have been saying, well, people weren't upset when, you know, people were in the hood were dying--
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: In the 80's and the 90's.
LEMON: -- and going to prison.
JONES: Peril.
LEMON: But now there's a heroin epidemic and what have you and non -- people of color, white people are dying or being affected by it and they're having to serve time for it, and now all of a sudden, it's an issue.
JONES: Right.
LEMON: What do you -- how does this work?
JONES: Look, I think that is a very fair point that when there was an addiction crisis in the black and brown communities, they said throw these people in prison. Now there's an addiction crisis in poor, white, rural communities, they say give these people help.
But the reality is now you've got common pain in all these communities, and now we finally have some common purpose to begin to do a better job. Listen, you know, this is like the 1959 Civil Rights Act. People think about, no, New York '64, '65. No, no, no. First you had 1959 which broke the logjam.
LEMON: This was the first step.
JONES: That was the first step. This is the first step. People go, it doesn't do this. It doesn't do that. It's not called the last step. It's called the first step. We will get to all these other issues, but you had to make it safe.
And I'm going to say something that I have to be honest. Donald Trump shocked me and a bunch of people by doing the right thing on this. People thought because, you know, from my point of view he's been wrong on 99 issues, that he could never be right on one.
On this issue, every time people made a prediction that Donald Trump was going to sell us out, turn on us, wasn't going to use political capital, he came harder. And as a result, it is now safer for people in both political parties to speak honestly.
We know this prison system is not working, it's wasting money. Sending people home bitter and not better and Donald Trump has got to get the credit. He stood up.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: But he did have support--
JONES: Obama did it first, Obama did it first, and now Trump has done it.
LEMON: But he did have support of many Republicans.
JONES: Yes.
LEMON: There were -- there were a few hard-liners like Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell who said no.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: And they got crushed like little bugs.
LEMON: But for the most part, he knew it was politically expedient. I'm not saying that but he did the right thing, but he knew it was politically expedient.
JONES: You know, I don't think -- I think it was on the bubble. I think -- I think that there were Republicans who know better like Rick Perry, like Mike Lee, like Rand Paul who know better. And there were other Republicans who weren't quite so sure.
Jared Kushner stuck to his guns, and when Donald Trump came out, it gave permission to Republicans to come out. So, listen, I give credit to the grassroots first. It was formerly incarcerated people, directly impacted people. But you have to give credit to Hakeem Jeffries in the House, strong Democrat, and you got to give credit to Jared Kushner.
LEMON: Hakeem is going to be here in the next hour.
JONES: And he, and listen, and he is a great hero.
LEMON: Let me bring in Symone Sanders now. Symone, thank you so much. Symone, this is one of the issues that you have been that you talk about that's on your radar as well.
This is what the president tweeted tonight. He said, "America is the greatest country in the world, and my job is to fight for all citizens, even those who have made mistakes. Congratulations to the Senate on the bipartisan passing of this historic criminal justice reform bill. This will keep our communities safer and provide hope and a second chance to those who earned it. In addition to everything else, billions of dollars will be saved. I look forward to signing it into law."
Does President Trump deserve the credit? You heard what Van said to this, getting this passed. Mitch McConnell wasn't putting it up for a vote.
SYMONE SANDERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think there's no question that it was under the Trump administration that this First Step Act did, in fact, happen. And there's no question that we needed sentencing and prison reform, that we are not yet there to comprehensive criminal justice reform.
But as Van said, you know, you got to have a first step to build a staircase to get to the second step. But I will say that there is no question that folks remember when President Obama first won election and that Mitch McConnell went to the Senate floor in front of all the cameras and said, I will do everything I can to make this man a one- term president.
And so, criminal justice reform was not happening under the Obama administration. I am happy to see this step forward. But as, you know, Senator Gillibrand came out, I think this weekend or earlier this week, and all my days I'm getting now, Don, and talked about the fact to me that this bill is a first step, but we need cash bail reform.
So, there are other aspects--
JONES: Absolutely. SANDERS: -- that I think will become incorporated into this legislation. I would hope going forward, as we have more conversations. But the fact of the matter is, the juvenile justice piece is a central piece of that.
I'm happy to hear that solitary -- banning solitary confinement has now been codified in this bill. Something that the Obama administration they passed regulatory reform. But we all know that regulatory reform can be rolled back, which is why a bill is very important.
But the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act has not been reauthorized and we need reauthorization. I'm a former member of the federal advisory committee of juvenile justice, I'm a former chairperson of the coalition for juvenile justice national emerging leader's committee, and member of executive board for the coalition for juvenile justice and that is something that juvenile justice advocates have been pushing for. So, we've got a first step. We've got to go further.
LEMON: Yes, go ahead. Last word because I've got to run.
JONES: Well, sure. And now people's dreams and hopes can grow. Listen, people have been fighting on this for a very long time. It didn't start with the Trump administration. You had the Obama administration stood up on this.
[22:20:00] But now the ceiling has been lifted, and people can now fight for more because we finally broke this logjam. And now, listen, both political parties are going to own this issue of criminal. No more Willie Horton attacks when both parties have embraced it. So that gives everybody more room and more safety to come up with even better ideas like what Symone was just talking about.
LEMON: Van, Symone, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
A big surprise in court today when Michael Flynn's sentencing was postponed. We're going to take you inside today's testy hearing and get reaction from his former boss and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Tonight, a CNN exclusive. Our Chris Cuomo obtaining a letter of intent signed by Donald Trump for his proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.
Joining me now is James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence. Good evening, sir. How are you?
JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I'm fine, Don.
LEMON: Director Clapper, I want to ask you about this document that my colleague, Chris Cuomo, exclusively obtained. It is a letter of intent. It's for this proposed Trump Tower in Moscow, signed by Donald Trump. But I just want you to remind, just put up a reminder for you, right? This is what Trump said on Russia. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[22:25:04] TRUMP: I have nothing to do with Putin. I have nothing to do with Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. We have nothing to do with Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, here, this is what Trump said about this letter just last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think you should go back to -- I think it was January. This was just reported very well by Catherine Herridge, who is a terrific reporter on Fox. She talks about a letter that he signed. I don't even remember it, and it specifically talks about this deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So, Michael Cohen didn't sign it. President Trump signed it. And yet, this is what Rudy Giuliani said about it. He said it was a real estate project. There was a letter of intent to go forward, but no one signed it. Is there anything that -- I don't know. Is anybody telling the truth here?
CLAPPER: Well, no. I think, you know, this comes on the heels of the Michael Cohen revelation about dealings with Moscow about a potential tower. So now we have, you know, documentation in writing of the continued interest in some kind of a deal in Moscow.
And of course, you know, you played some of the denials that the president, both as a candidate and since, you know, we had nothing to do with Russia. Well, obviously that's not the case.
LEMON: Why don't the lies seem to matter? I mean it's so many. They come in such rapid succession from Trump and all of his acolytes and his apologists. Why don't lies seem to matter anymore?
CLAPPER: Because, you know, there are so many of them, and it's almost as though nothing shocks anymore. We are becoming jaded and callused, and we're just used to the fact that this president is an inveterate liar. He's, you know, either incapable or unwilling ever to tell the truth.
LEMON: Yes.
CLAPPER: And that unfortunately is what some would call is the new abnormal.
LEMON: Yes. I think it means -- it says more about the people who the lies don't matter to them than those who they do matter to, which is a lot of people. I'm talking about maybe the 33 percent or whatever, 38 percent of the country or whatever it is who whatever he does, it doesn't matter. CLAPPER: Those -- always think of the rhetorical question opposed to
that 30 percent. What is it he would have to do to make you say that's enough? And I'm beginning to think nothing, you know.
LEMON: Well, there you go. So, let's talk about Flynn now, Michael Flynn.
CLAPPER: Right.
LEMON: Before he ever worked in the Trump campaign, in the Trump administration, he worked for you in the Obama years. You fired him. So, what do you make of the judge seemingly prepared to throw Flynn in prison despite Mueller's recommendation of no -- little or no prison time?
CLAPPER: Well, like everyone else, I thought it was a big surprise to me how this unfolded. One thought that occurred immediately is I wondered if the judge had a larger audience in mind, and I'm thinking about, you know, Rudy Giuliani rather cavalier dismissal of criminal acts. I wonder as well about how much more blood out of the turnip is there.
Mike has already sat through some 62 hours in 19 sessions, and the judge kind of put it on him to come up with yet more revelations that would be of value to the special counsel in order to avoid jail time.
Chris Cillizza had an interesting piece this morning. I hadn't thought about it too much until I read it, and that had -- and that referred to the president's tweet, the good luck tweet, in which he used the phrase -- it's interesting to see what he says, which implies that perhaps the president or somebody in the White House was anticipating that Mike Flynn would back out of his plea agreement, which of course he didn't do.
I thought the tongue lashing administered by the judge will be seared into Mike's memory forever. I mean, that was a really terrible, a scathing indictment for somebody that spent 30-plus years in the military. Now he has confronting him and his family three more years --three more months at least of uncertainty about what's going to happen. That in itself is a form of punishment.
LEMON: Yes.
CLAPPER: Knowing how Mike is about his family, this, it terribly stressful for them. And, you know, I also thought about the advice that President Obama tried to give to the incoming president not to hire him as national security adviser.
A lot of questions about, you know, why he did what he did. I think personally, knowing him, I think it's a combination of two things.
[22:30:01] One, some hubris. And two I think Mike frankly was just in over his head. He was a great (Inaudible) intelligence officer, but as soon as I heard he was going to be a National Security Adviser, I didn't think it would last. I thought it would go longer than 23 days. But he just doesn't have the skill set. And I don't say that condescendingly because I don't either. Most
professional intelligence officers just don't have the right skill sets, the political acumen particularly, I think, to be an effective National Security Adviser.
LEMON: I -- there are a couple things I want to talk to you about before we run out of time. I want to get to two things that you said. You said that you think that folks in the White House were surprised that because they thought he was going to back out of his agreement, right? Do you think that they are starting to believe their own lies or their own conspiracy theories about -- or what they're hearing that people are saying rather than just the facts of the case?
CLAPPER: I do. I believe, you know, it's like Sarah Sanders today at the press conference, where she continued to insist that Mike had been duped or tricked.
LEMON: Ambushed, she said.
CLAPPER: Yeah, ambushed. That's right.
LEMON: By the FBI.
CLAPPER: By the FBI.
LEMON: Which obviously he wasn't. He admitted in court that he was not. He said, no, I have not been ambushed or tricked, and I plead guilty.
CLAPPER: Exactly. But yet, she insisted that that was still the case. And so it makes you wonder about this bubble of delusion that they live in there. And they talk themselves into their own reality, which is increasingly very disparate from truth.
LEMON: The judge at one point said that he believes that he sold his country out. Do you believe that he did?
CLAPPER: Actually, I don't. I think he used very bad judgment. But I was taken aback when the judge said that, and certainly the inference about treason. Yeah, Mike made some mistakes, very bad judgment. But I wouldn't have gone that far.
LEMON: Thank you, Director Clapper. I appreciate your time.
CLAPPER: Thanks, Don.
LEMON: Thank you. President Trump shutting down his personal foundation in the midst of a lawsuit accusing him of illegally using it for his own personal and political ambitions, but dissolving the charity won't necessarily keep him out of legal jeopardy.
[22:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Imagine this scenario. You can't run a real university. It's been found to be a fraud. You can't run a charity. It's ordered to dissolve. But you can run the country? President Trump agreeing today to close down his family foundation amid a lawsuit by New York States' attorney general, alleging that the charity was used as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump's business and political interests.
Let's discuss now. Walter Shaub, the Former Director of the Office of Government Ethics is here, as well as David Cay Johnston, the author of "It's Even Worse than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America."
Good to have both of you on. When you think about it that way, I think that really sort of puts the perspective on it, right?
You can run the country, but you can't run a charity or your business properly. The New York Times attorney general, Walter, is saying that the Trump Foundation engaged in a shocking pattern of illegality, the foundation maybe dissolving, lawsuit concerning its finances still ongoing. What does that mean for the President, you think?
WALTER SHAUB, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know, this is just another example of the kind of culture the Trump administration has brought into the White House and the federal government. It's just completely alien. You know, back when George H.W. Bush was the President, he wrote some ethical standards that all federal employees are supposed to abide by, including one that says you should abide by all of your obligations as a citizen.
And honor all just financial obligations, particularly those involving taxes. Well, this checkbook, as the attorney general for New York called it, is really a tax dodge. And it really fits right in with the article that the New York Times back at the beginning of October, alleging that he had engaged in a pattern of tax schemes and even using the word fraud in their article.
It's very troubling. You've got -- Trump University went under. You've got allegations about the Trump inauguration, the Trump transition team, the Trump administration, and the Trump organization are all currently under investigation, suspected of wrongdoing. And here there just seem to be no grift too small or too big for him.
You had the Washington Post writing about how $7 was donated by the foundation to the Boy Scouts at a time when Don Jr. was 11. And apparently, $7 was the minimum donation to get into the Boy Scouts. So imagine being a bazillionaire who has to gift $7 to get your kid into the Boy Scouts. And at the other end of the spectrum, $260,000 used by the foundation to upgrade a fountain outside of one of Trump's properties. So it's just disheartening to see although not probably a surprise.
LEMON: David, you say that a grand jury could indict the President over his foundation. Explain that to us.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Well, people have gone to jail in this country for far less abusive conduct with charities than what we've seen here with the Trump administration. And it was D.C. Report, the nonprofit news service that I lead, that got people to call -- enough phone calls to Governor Cuomo, tying his phone lines up for as long as 10 minutes at a time, to shift his position and authorize a criminal investigation by the state.
[22:39:56] The New York State attorney general only has civil authority unless the governor or certain other people give her criminal authority. And she has found and said in her report that this is a criminal enterprise and referred it to the federal government. Of course, we're not going to see the federal government go after Trump, but the state of New York can.
And I think it should, given that if we're going to be a country of laws and not respecters of persons, then we should treat Donald Trump the way you or I would be treated or Walter would be treated if we had a charitable foundation and abused it this way. We would be indicted.
LEMON: But, David, what about the children, because this case also implicates his children. How much trouble could they be in?
JOHNSTON: They could be indicted as well as -- by the way, Allen Weisselberg, the financial guy at the Trump Organization who didn't even know he was a trustee. I mean they didn't even follow the basic rules about running this nonprofit. And remember, it wasn't Donald's money. The money in this was essentially legal kickbacks from NBC, where he had his reality show from the McMahon family with the World Wrestling Organization.
They're the ones who put the money into this. And that suggests the possibility that the reason Trump never put money in it beyond his, you know, famous being cheap and not paying his bills, is that he wasn't paying any income tax. And therefore, there was no tax value in making a gift. But these other people had income that was being taxed, and therefore could take this as a deduction.
Well, Trump may not have been able to. That's one of the things I hope comes out fairly soon is, you know, how much was Donald Trump reporting. We have very good reason to think that in the recent years, it was less than $500,000 a year because of a particular tax benefit that's public record that he got in New York year after year.
LEMON: Wow. He loves to say how charitable he is. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRES. DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I give a lot of money away. And I love doing it to be honest. I give a lot of money to charities. I give a lot of money away to charities and other things. I give a lot away and all that stuff. A lot of money goes through the Trump Foundation into charities. It doesn't go to me. It goes to charities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Walter, we talk often on this program about the President's truthfulness or lack thereof. According to the Washington Post, though, the last gift Trump made to the foundation was in 2008. So was that another blatant lie? SHAUB: I mean, who knows, right? He lies about so many other things.
I am not sure that we've ever gotten confirmation from all of the charities back about a year ago when he said he was going to give a million dollars to charity. And so, you know who knows? These are private tax records so far, because the man has refused to release his tax returns. And, you know, that ongoing refusal ought to raise red alarms.
LEMON: So David Fahrenthold, of the Washington Post, who has reported extensively on the Trump Foundation, says that the New York A.G. is making the foundation sell off its three physical possessions, OK? And they said these possessions include a Tim Tebow-signed helmet and two paintings of Trump himself. Trump paid $42,000 for them using foundation funds. What does this say about this President that he uses charity for his own personal gain, Walter?
SHAUB: Yeah, well, that's the other thing. I mean there's something deeply immoral about taking advantage of the tax break for a charity that isn't a charity, but is really just a tax break for a billionaire, or more likely he's probably a millionaire. And that's the character of the person in the White House. You know, you mentioned a double standard, or David did a minute ago.
The irony is one of the two candidates in the 2016 election had a charitable foundation that's engaged in a shocking pattern of illegality. But Congress held a hearing on the other candidate's foundation last week. So let's see them put their money where their mouth is or their principles where their actions are and hold a hearing to get to the bottom of this illegality.
I suspect that we'll suddenly see these members of Congress saying, oh well, a person's private charitable foundation is their own personal business and not something Congress ought to be looking into.
LEMON: Well, as David told me early on, and he continues to say, there is absolutely no evidence so far that point to him being a millionaire. Am I wrong, David?
JOHNSTON: To being a billionaire, that's right.
LEMON: A billionaire.
JOHNSTON: Yeah. There's never been any evidence of that. And keep in mind here that this is a man who every time he did one of these acts that total around a half a million dollars that we know about, that's income to him. And unless Donald Trump reported the purchase of the paintings that hung in the Trump properties, for example, unless that was reported as income, that's tax cheating.
[22:45:08] And if you do it for large sums of money and repeatedly, which is what happened here, that's criminal tax cheating, for which we properly indict, and when convicted, imprison people.
LEMON: Thank you, both. Appreciate your time. With all the investigations swirling around this President, is he finally learning that the rules do apply to him? John Dean weighs in next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: President Trump facing investigations on all fronts tonight, his campaign, his administration, his businesses, even his family foundation. And while Donald Trump is no stranger to legal troubles, the walls may be closing in now. Here to discuss, John Dean, who was Nixon White House Counsel, John, thank you, certainly a lot of investigating going on.
[22:50:07] I want to take a look at this lead in the Washington Post, OK, tonight. And I am going to read it to you. It said for the first 70 years of his life, Donald Trump had all the reason in the world to believe that the rules didn't apply to him and he could get away with pretty much whatever he wanted. That is no longer true.
And today, he is getting two different significant indicators that his defenses against accountability are falling away. And then they go on to cite the two stories that we have just been talking about, Flynn in court and the Trump charity. Do you agree with that?
JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I do. In fact, before you read those lines, I was just sort of mentally thinking about the lead for this section about how Trump is, indeed, after a lifetime of escaping the rules that really apply to everybody else. They now do apply to him. And he is going to feel the brunt of the law. This is going to be the way his career may be ended.
LEMON: Interesting. The President and his team, John, they deflect. They deny any questions of anything illegal or improper, any kind of behavior like that. But the justice system doesn't seem to be buying it so far. Some of his supporters may buy it, but the Justice Department is not buying it. Do you agree?
DEAN: I do. You know, Don, I think he's been able to get away with it because he is utterly shameless. He doesn't seem to feel what other people do is embarrassment when he is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or whatever he's doing that's on the other side of the law. And these investigations are going to catch him.
Some of them are civil and will not have criminal implications, but others of them are pure criminal investigations. And he's on the wrong end of all these.
LEMON: You know, I was watching the cable news today and flipping through when the whole Michael Flynn thing was going on. It was interesting to hear the different takes, especially Fox News scurrying around to try to figure out how do we spin this? How do we spin this? What do we do? What do we do? Oh my, gosh, he was ambushed, whatever.
And the judge on there saying, no, he wasn't ambushed. He just admitted in court that he wasn't ambushed. I was wondering the entire time. I wonder what John Dean is saying about this terrible day that Michael Flynn is having in court with this judge, who was furious.
DEAN: Well, I am familiar with this judge. I had a civil case as a plaintiff in front of him, that after being long in discovery with a judge who wasn't paying much attention to it, Judge Sullivan came in. And it happened to be one of the defendants was the infamous Gordon Liddy, who was always full of shenanigans.
And the judge had no toleration for this whatsoever. So I have watched him for a long time, and realized that he's not intemperate as people were accusing him today of being. He's very thoughtful. He's clearly very patriotic, and was deeply offended by Michael Flynn's offenses, which are very serious. And I think he just spoke for a lot of people when he addressed Flynn today.
LEMON: Yeah. Let's talk more about Flynn because his sentencing has been delayed until March, John. That gives him more time to cooperate with the Special Counsel. Judge Sullivan, his telling, quote, was this. He says the more you assist the government, the more you arguably help yourself at the time of sentencing. I mean it sure seems like Judge Sullivan was going to hit Flynn with some jail time, right?
DEAN: I don't think there was any question. I had -- when I was asked that most recently in public, I said I thought he would get a sentence from this judge, who wasn't going to buy all the prosecutors were offering. And that's exactly what happened today. And I think the judge was signaling to him that they better take another look if he has any more in him, which is questionable.
The Special Counsel's office attorney did not really encourage the judge. There was a lot there after the sessions they already had. But he didn't turn the judge down, because I don't think he wanted the judge in a bad mood, nor did he want a situation where Flynn might come in and challenge this judge as being intemperate and not suitable to sentence him.
I think that's a very risky motion at this point, but not impossible, not impossible.
LEMON: Let's talk a little bit more about the spin here, because even after the judge's scathing takedown of Flynn, The White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders doubled down on the, quote, in her entrapment claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE: The FBI broke standard protocol in the way that they came in and ambushed General Flynn and in the way they questioned him, and in the way they encouraged him not to have White House counsel's office present. Those are facts. And certainly, there may be other issues there, but that -- we don't have any reason to want to walk that back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:55:05] LEMON: Those are not facts. As a matter of fact, that's a lie. It's spinned. Is she making things worse for Flynn legally? Go on. Respond to what she said.
DEAN: It's like she doesn't pay attention to what is really happening out in the world. She was -- maybe she was unaware of what happened in the courtroom. But she's not making things better for not only the White House and the President, but for Michael Flynn, who the President, given his tweet this morning, seems to be wishing well.
And Sarah Sanders did not help at all today. This is going to challenge the judge again. It's forcing people to speak out about this White House. And people, you got to wonder where she gets her information and what kind of preparation she does for her briefings, because this is pathetic, and this is obviously what Fox wanted tonight.
And so she was probably trying to set herself up for the Fox lead, which was really destroyed in court today. Flynn said that no, he was not entrapped, that he knew he was lying, and he just took 180 degrees away from the setup theory.
LEMON: Thank you, John Dean, always a pleasure.
DEAN: Thank you, Don. The stock market is on track to have the worst December since the great depression. Is this a bigger threat to the President than Robert Mueller?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
