Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks explained to MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews how Robert Mueller's latest legal maneuvering is reminiscent of the Watergate prosecution which helped bring down former President Richard Nixon.
"Jill, his first prosecution reminds me of Watergate, like everything reminds me of Watergate," Matthews noted. "In this case, you start with the small fry, if you will, and work your way up, punishing them along the way perhaps."
"It does. And that is how we operated," Wine-Banks confirmed. "You start building your case by getting the people who can give you someone higher up."
Earlier Tuesday, Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in jail for lying to the special prosecutor, but Wine-Banks said the ostensibly-short sentence may have been sending a critical message to more important witnesses.
"That's a very strong message to all future witnesses: don't think you can outsmart them," she noted. "You can end up in jail for this."
"They know there's something there or they wouldn't be doing it," Wine-Banks concluded. "They know there's someone guilty involved in a conspiracy with Russia. The Russians know something or have something and that's why they're trying to stop the investigation."
Wine-Banks also had advice for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
"And I think that in terms of Manafort, yes, there's a clear and easy case to make against him for money laundering and for the crimes that he has been charged with, but hopefully he's now starting to see how much more the prosecutors know and will start to talk and admit what he has done in terms of the election which is clearly set forth in Rosenstein's authority to Mueller," Wine-Banks counseled. "So it could go much further and ... it's conspiracy with a foreign agent that is the crime."
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