Hi, this is Nicholas from Cleveland, Ohio and I'm currently in line waiting to hear Barack Obama speak

This podcast was recorded at 212 Eastern on Friday September 14th

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There it's the NPR politics podcast former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has pleaded guilty to two felonies

And is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller and the confirmation for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has taken a

surprising twist with revelations of a letter

California Senator Diane Feinstein received about an incident may have taken place when the judge was in high school

I'm Scott Detero I cover Congress. I'm debonical about Senator political editor and I'm Carrie Johnson

I covered the Justice Department. All right. We're going to get to the Kavanaugh news in a few minutes

But Carrie we're going to start with Paul Manafort. You are in court this morning. What happened? Yeah, Paul Manafort stood up in front of the judge

An appacked packed courtroom inside I plead guilty

Specifically, he's pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice and

Manafort now faces five years maximum on each of those charges

Importantly Scott he could get less time if the government decides to send a letter requesting leniency to the judge when he sentenced

What does it mean that he's cooperating with Robert Mueller? Yeah, we don't know exactly what that means

There's been some confusion about it

But what the plea agreement says is that Manafort will cooperate fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly with authorities about any and all

Matters as to which the government deems

Cooperation relevant and that includes grand jury testimony trial testimony and meeting with the special counsel team

Even outside the presence of his lawyers. So Paul Manafort has agreed to cooperate. What exactly is ready and willing to say we don't yet know

Well, do you have a sense about whether that cooperation will include information about Russian interference in the election and ties to the campaign?

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