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report actually does! i would perhaps want to address the question of whether, you know, he didn't come to a finding on obstruction, because he meant to leave that up to congress. i mean, that said, he is doing this at the justice department. i think if he does decide to draw those sort of, you know, lines of difference from barr, he's going to do it gently. unless this is a very different robert mueller then everyone at the justice department is used to, then michael zeldin is used to, we're not going to see him coming out and flame throwing. that said, it wouldn't be surprise me if he does take time to thank his team for their hard work and for their professionalism, because they have said nothing in the face of being under attack for two years. >> if you're just joining us, we're expecting special counsel robert mueller -- here he is. let's listen in. >> good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. two years ago, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel's
office. the appointment order directed the office to investigate russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this included investigating any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. now, i have not spoken publicly during our investigation. i am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. the attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. and we are formally closing the special counsel's office and as well, i'm resigning from the department of justice to return to private life. i'll make a few remarks about the results of our work. but beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office's written work speak for itself. let me begin where the
appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election. as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian intelligence officers who are part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization wikileaks. the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. and at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where russian citizens posed as americans in
order to influence an election. these indictments contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. the indictments allege and the other activities in our report describe efforts to interfere in our political system. they needed to be investigated and understood. and that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office. that is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. the matters we investigated were of paramount importance. it was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. when a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government's
effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable. let me say a word about the report. the report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. and in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president. the order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the
acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. and as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. the introduction to the volume ii of our report explains that decision. it explains that under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. a special counsel's office is part of the department of justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
the department's written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. those points are summarized in our report and li will describe two of them for you. first, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president, because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now. and second, the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. and beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. it would be unfair to
potentially -- it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge. so that was justice department policy. those were the principles under which we operated. and from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. that is the office's final position and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. we conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations. the attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and to the american people. at one point in time, i requested that certain portions of the report be released and
the attorney general preferred to make -- preferred to make the entire report public all at once and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public. and i certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision. now, i hope and expect this to be the only time that i will speak to you in this manner. i am making that decision myself. no one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter. there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. it contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. and the report is my testimony. i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before
congress. in addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office. so beyond what i've said here today and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the justice department or congress. and it's for that reason i will not be taking questions today, as well. now, before i step away, i want to thank the attorneys, the fbi agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. these individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel's office were of the highest integrity. and i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were
multiple, systemic efforts to interfere in our election. and that allegation deserves the attention of every american. thank you. thank you for being here today. >> sir, if you're subpoenaed will you appear before congress? >> no questions. >> a ten-minute statement from robert mueller, the special counsel, soon to be the former special counsel with some significant news, jake, especially his point, what he has said, he has said. not saying anymore. doesn't want to have to go before congress and testify. he defended the investigation. he was very specific in articulating its conclusions. >> there were a number of things he said that could be interpreted as specific pushbacks to things that we hear from the white house. but i have to say, the last statement he made, one presumes that he thinks that that is the most important thing that he's saying, because it's what he's leaving everybody with.
that is, there were multiple, systemic attempts, by the russians, to interfere in the 2016 election. and that is something that amidst all of the political back and forth, all of the false claims from the white house and from the president's detractors, keeps getting lost. other countries are trying to interfere in our elections and we are not, according to experts, doing enough to stop that. and that is, i think, what he wanted his last message to be. beyond that, there were a number of things he said that i thought were rather pointed, standing up for the people on his investigation, saying that they are of the highest integrity, despite all of the falsehoods we keep hearing about them from the white house and others. and obviously, saying that if we had evidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> and he kept saying that the long-standing justice department guideline is that a sitting president of the united states can't be indicted, can't be charged with a crime, and as a result, they didn't go ahead and charge him with any crime, in part because of that. >> and sara murray, one of the things he definitely made clear,
robert mueller is, i do not want to testify publicly. i want this to be the last of it. if you want to know what i think, read the report. >> that's right. he made it very clear that if he is essentially forced to show up, all you're getting from him is what's already in the report. this is his work product. he wouldn't go beyond that. he was speaking publicly. the furthest he went beyond the words of the report is that we would not reach a determination on whether the president obstructed justice. we decided we would not reach a conclusion on this based on our justice department department guidelines and based on our view of fairness. but he wants his work product to stand for itself and not to be a political football. we decided what happened when barr made a determination and barr wrote these letters and then everyone starts to begin feel like it's tinged by politics. and i think that robert mueller very much feels like he wants this product to stand as is. >> although, i should say, he defended mr. barr, the attorney general.
>> he really, he did. but i will say, just outside of what -- i agree with everything sarah said. he clearly does not -- he wants the report to speak for itself, but he also wants to have it the other way. and he essentially punted to congress at that podium today. he said that the constitution requires a process outside of the criminal justice system, outside of the justice department system, to handle what the president is accused of doing here. he's saying, essentially, what he did not say in this report, by the way, you know, if they had -- by the way, if he had said that in the report, i think it would have been a lot less speculation about, well, did he -- was mueller trying to punt to congress. today, he made clear, i think, that that is exactly what this was intended to do. that we couldn't do it at the justice department, we can't even indict a sitting president under seal, and unseal it after he leaves office. what we are allowed to do is investigate and then allow a separate process to handle it, if that is necessary. >> in this report, obviously, we
said this at the time, is a road map for impeachment. and like evan said, what he just described for the first time, hearing him and seeing him, was why they did this, and more importantly, why he fundamentally did not believe that they could go any further within their probe. >> he said it would be unconstitutional. >> it would be unconstitutional and just unfair to charge somebody or accuse somebody with a crime and then not allow them to be tried. but i think that what you said earlier is really key. he also explicitly repeated the notion that had he felt he could exonerate the president, he would have done so. >> because he said, john king, he said, "if the president had not committed a crime, we would have said so." >> it's very clear director mueller does not want to be part of the daily conversation about this. he wants this document to speak for itself. but to the point jake made right out of the gate, he hadn't spoken in two years. he knew every word he said would
be parsed closely and pushed back about every single argument that the president and his team have made about this report. from the beginning, they interfered to damage a presidential candidate. that the russians took sides. the president says, no big deal, they did something, they had some facebook accounts, jared kushner has said. no, they interfered to damage a presidential candidate out of the box. he didn't say there was no collusion, to your point. he said, we had insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. there's a lot of footsie between the trump campaign and the russians and wikileaks laid out in this document. he said, "insufficient evidence." he didn't say, there was no there there. then he went on to the obstruction part and he said, "we did not make a determination as to whether they didn't commit a crime," because he could not. he could not. and he lays out the evidence there. throughout this. and at the very end, to your point at the very end, not only did he say, come back to the interference and say the integrity of american elections, he said, it deserves the attention of every american. what's the last thing he said. the president of the united states gives it no attention. robert mueller knew what he was
saying. >> laura jarrett is over at the justice department. you were there inside the room, laura, when the special counsel spoke out. what were you seeing? >> reporter: well, it was interesting, wolf, he was be himself. i had wondered whether members of his team, his core deputies would be there along with him, some of the faces that we've seen in court when he hasn't been there. and today, it was really just he be himself. there were some top-level officials from the justice department in the criminal division, the national security division, the deputy attorney general's office, which has been overseeing this investigation for the better part of two years. but mueller was by himself. which was just a striking image to have him be the sole voice there. obviously, the attorney general, bill barr, not there either. and given that barr was not in the room, i wondered how much he would contradict barr in terms of, we already had known that he had some issues with how barr had laid out mueller's principle conclusions in that controversial four-page memo. and as all of you have been discussing, he clearly felt
constrained by the long-standing doj protocol on not indicting a sitting president. he said, simply, that it wasn't an option we could consider, they thought it was unconstitutional. so they didn't even get to that point given the longstand, doj protocol. i also thought it was interesting that he pointed out that even if he was to give testimony, it will not go beyond the report. he seemed to be setting the stage there, managing expectations a little bit, on both sides. obviously, democrats have a lot invested in what this man would say. republicans have said they want to hear from him, as well, for different reasons. but the fact that he was trying to sort of explain to everyone, as much as you have invested in this, i am not going to go beyond the contents of the report, and said almost, don't expect to even hear from me again after this report. this is the last statement i really want to make on the substance. and finally, i just wanted to point out, i thought it was very interesting at the end that he took a moment to thank the fbi agents, the analysts, the
attorneys, everyone who had work on this case, given the drumbeat that we have heard from the president himself about all of the so-called coup that has gone on, all of the statements the president has made, relentlessly attacking this man and his deputies for so long, it was interesting to hear from mueller himself, thanking his team. >> that's right. he described them as being fair and independent and of the highest integrity. certainly a blowback to the insane "coup" charge. i want to bring in cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, jennifer rogers, to get her their. jennifer, what did you think? >> i thought that mueller's pain point was throughout this statement to defend the investigation. yes, he defended the investigators personally, too, which i think was important, but all of these attacks on the investigation and how it got started and what they did in the early days, it was really important, i think, for mueller to come out and say, no, this investigation is really important. here's what was happening in russia. here's how they were attacking
our electoral systems. here's why it was important for us to look at this. this could have been used against co-conspirators. here's why it's important to gather it. that's what he was doing. really saying, this investigation was important, it was worthwhile, it was necessary. my team and i did our jobs the way we were supposed to do them and trying to kind of tamp down and push back on all of those attacks on how the investigation got going and how it was conducted. >> you know, it was very significant. i want to play the clip, what this special counsel said about the evidence that he collected and if there had been specific evidence he might have done something else. listen to this. >> the order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. now, we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress
of our work. and as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. >> all right, michael zeldin, that's a powerful statement we just heard from the special counsel. >> right. this was quintessential mueller. a man of few words. and what he did in this ten minutes was to deliver the executive summary that he wanted to be delivered with his report. he hit all the highlights of the testimony that's in that report in a very succinct fashion, saying the two important things that we've all talked about, one, there was an interference with the election. and that the trump administration was receptive to that. and i did not charge, not because of any reason other than the evidence didn't allow me to charge it by doj policy. those are two important statements for mueller to have made. >> the other way to look at it
is, he's saying, look, the president, you know, could have committed a crime here. maybe did commit a crime here. by saying explicitly, if i could clear him, i would have, the flip side of did not have the power constitutionally to pursue it through a trial and therefore it was unfair to make that public accusation. >> and shan, let me bring you in. do you agree that the headline here is, president trump likely committed a crime but i cannot charge him because of the legal guidance that sitting presidents cannot be charged. >> yes, i think he made it crystal clear that he could not charge trump. he thought it would be unconstitutional to do so. he was bound by that olc regulation. >> office of legal counsel. >> not an option we can consider. and since you can't take the president to court, that it would be unfair to the president. but he essentially said, here it
is. here's ten counts of potential obstruction for those of you who do have that option. i didn't have it. >> i think that's the most important bit of daylight we've seen now between mueller and barr. until today, we hadn't really heard exactly what mueller has to say about barr's contention that if you remember, barr said that if it wasn't for the olc, it didn't really matter. the olc guidance did not really matter in the decision that they did not bring any charges on obstruction. what mueller clearly said today is, that is the only reason why. and so i think that that is an important clarification for us to have heard today from robert mueller's own mouth. you know, because, again, his friend, bill barr, has led us to believe that mueller told him, look, the olc guidance didn't really matter here. that, you know, we were just -- we just chose not to make a decision. >> and there's also a falsehood that's been put out by the white house, there have been several, obviously, but there's one that you can't obstruct an
investigation if there is no underlying crime. obviously, many prosecutors have brought charges against individuals, including this department of justice -- >> roger stone! currently facing charges. >> right, even though they weren't able to get proof of an underlying crime. and it seems very clear that mueller does not subscribe to that falsehood. he lays out the cases of obstruction and said, if we could have cleared the president, we would have. >> exactly. what he did was repeat his findings in this report in a very succinct way. he didn't say, but for, explicitly, but for the olc opinion, i would have charged him, but he did say, because of the olc opinion, we didn't reach a decision. i think there's a little bit of a difference. >> but he also said, if we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> exactly, exactly. >> that's the other side of the same coin. >> that's right. and he says, in addition to that, the process exists outside of the criminal indictment process for this to be resolved, which is exactly what he said in the report.
>> i think he also said, we could not consider this. >> they couldn't even consider it. >> they couldn't even consider it because of the olc guidelines. >> which also, by the way, might have its roots, him saying that, in the fact that there is this book by michael wolf that claims that he had written up charges, an indictment of the president, which mueller's office says is not true in any way, shape, or form. mueller today saying, we never even could consider such a thing, might have had something to do with that as well. >> i think that's an important thing for him to say, publicly, because that's what the democrats -- that's the biggest thing the democrats want to hear from him in a testimony. i think they want to hear, look, you know, could you tell us, did you draw up charges and someone told you you couldn't do it? those are the big questions that i think people wanted to hear from him. and today he made explicitly clear that we could not even consider it because of the office of legal counsel. >> because he said he accepts the long-standing department of justice policy that a sitting president of the united states can't be charged while in office.
and as a result, they obviously did not file any formal charges against the president. and gloria borger, as we listened to this, clearly, what we just heard from the special counsel robert mueller will give the democrats in the house of representatives and maybe even more than one republican, we know there's at least one republican, this impetus to go forward now and formal lip launch impeachment proceedings. >> yeah, i think. and to follow up what you all are saying, and to john king's point, robert mueller's a company man. and first, what he did was he said what he had said to the president's attorneys privately, more than a year ago, which is, i'm not going to take on this long-standing department of justice policy, which says i can't indict a sitting president and charging the president with a crime was never anything we could consider. then he went to the next point, which was, therefore, they didn't do it. but if you read between the lines, he made it completely
clear that if they could have done it, they would have done it, because they couldn't clear him. and you know, dana -- dana made that point. so he was, he was, i think, telling everybody, look at what i'm saying. i couldn't do it, because the law would not allow me to, but even if the law did not allow me to charge him, i still could not clear him and i am telling you that and it was also interesting to me that they probably investigated whether a president could be charged, even if kept under seal. that's something that we hadn't really thought about before, but obviously, this team of lawyers looked into that. and said, well, maybe we can't charge him now, but we could keep it under seal and eventually when he leaves office, charge him. and the answer to that was also "no." so he was bound by policy, he works for the department of justice, he works for the
attorney general. and this is how he proceeded. but i do think he laid it out for the congress, wolf, to answer your question. and i think they're going to take a look at this and say, okay, we really don't have to read between the lines here anymore. this policy kept him from indicting. and remember, mueller was criticized, you know, when you're an attorney, you either indict or you don't indict. you don't give this middle ground. well, most lawyers are not bound bit office of legal counsel opinion, which says you can indict somebody you're looking into, and that is why he did it this way. so, i think he wanted to quash that criticism and let the congress know, you know, i would have if i could have. >> and the point -- to the point you're making, gloria, he said specifically, the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice, and by regulation, his office was bound by the department policy. and he also suggested, without
talking about the house bringing up impeachment, that there was a way forward outside of the traditional criminal justice system or the justice department. >> that's right. and so i think he was saying, i couldn't, but you do what you need to do. and you know, jake, i remember early on in this, talking to all of the attorneys involved in this case, that mueller made it clear, very early on, that he was bound by this policy. that he was not going to go rogue. he's not the kind of guy that does. that he wasn't going to go rogue and indict a sitting president, but he was criticized when he didn't do it. and i think this was his answer to that, which was, look, i would have done it, but i was bound by your policy at the department of justice. so maybe he was legislate barr know, in his own way, well, this policy kept me from doing my job. >> and sara murray, three things that he made very clear in the
body of -- we were told they were going to be substantial and substantiative and they were. one, this wasn't a witch hunt, despite what president trump says. two, my office has conducted itself with the highest integrity, unlike what president trump says. three, we did not clear the president of anything, unlike what president trump says. >> right. and i think the thing we have to remember is that this is a guy who hasn't spoken in two years. and he decided very carefully every sentence of those remarks that he was going to make in only ten minutes. and in those ten minutes, that's what he decided to cover. he wanted to make crystal clear that he was not exonerating the president, despite what bill barr may have said, and that there was an avenue to continue this inquiry and that that avenue was congress. the other thing that he said that i thought was interesting was this election interference was important. and it needed to be investigated. and that's an important thing to remember, is that bill barr is looking into the origins of this investigation. bob mueller came out there and said, they tried to interfere in our election. this will continue. it needed to be investigated then and needs to be taken seriously now. >> and we don't know what bill
barr is going to come up with as part of his review. you know, he's hired some very seasoned people, some people with good reputations to do this investigation of the investigations. but it should be reminded to everyone that how this began is because of russian interference, russians' efforts to, you know, hurt one candidate and help another one. that's where this began. you know, a lot of people will focus on the dossier, a lot of people will focus on a fisa of carter page and they'll say they were spying on a campaign. but at the beginning, this is all about what russia was doing and that's the first line of what mueller's -- >> he made no mention of this new investigation that the attorney general bill barr has launched an investigation into the investigation. why this investigation was launched to begin with. >> and i bet you there's a reason why, wolf. i guess he believes that whatever facts will come out will come out. and if anybody made mistakes, that should be exposed. i don't think he's opposed to
essentially that, but i think the political part of this, which is coming from the white house and from republicans in congress, that this was an illegitimate investigation, it's clearly not true. >> and. >> just to kind of take this notion of this report being a road map a step further to include what we actually heard from robert mueller's lips about the fact that he seems to think that the president committed a crime but he can't do anything about it, and this is your job, congress, the huge political debate that we have been discussing since the mueller report came out. the pressure that has been increasing on nancy pelosi from her caucus and from presidential candidates to start the impeachment inquiry, to hear from robert mueller, effectively saying, okay, go for it! it's going to only increase the pressure even more. >> you know, i just want to point out, john, i want you to weigh in, because we keep hearing from the president of the united states, no collusion, no obstruction, he keeps saying it over and over and over again. that's clearly not what we heard from the special counsel.
>> no, as we've been having this conversation the last few minutes, the trump campaign sent out a fund-raising email with "witch hunt" in the first paragraph. this is not going to stop, which is why words from the special counsel are so important after no words for two years. a man who anybody except those in the president's inner orbit has impeccable integrity. 100-0 was the vote in the united states senate when they extended his term in the fbi. the words were so important. number one, and evan discussed this also, i do not question the attorney general's good faith. he didn't say, i agree with the attorney general. he didn't say we're fine. he said, i don't question his good faith. it's very clear that robert mueller has differences with the attorney general. he's just not saying he's a bad person or he deliberately did anything. he's just made clear, i don't question his good faith. implicit in that is, i don't agree with what he has said. and to the other point, the report is my testimony. the report is my testimony. we did not charge the president
because we could not p. two smart lawyers at the table. if you read the second half of this report. if that were john doe or john king or sara murray or that wolf blitzer, that person would be charged with obstruction of justice. >> not wolf blitzer. >> i want to bring in jim sciutto right now. jim, obviously, the beginning and the end of special counsel robert mueller's conversations have to do specifically with the fact that russians attempted and succeeded in an interference campaign in the 2016 election. he says, russian intelligence officers who are part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. that's how he began his remarks, and he ended it, with that there were multiple systemic attempts to interfere in our election. that allegation deserves the attention of every american. >> here is a special counsel who has not spoken in public for two years since the start of this investigation. takes a rare decision to do that and how does he use his voice? he contradicts the president on
two fundamental issues. one, as you note, jake, on interference in the election. he says this is something that deserves attention from every american. that's not a message you've heard from the president on the significance of this. he also stated explicitly that this russian interference, which he called sophisticated, was designed and timed to damage a presidential candidate. that, of course, hillary clinton. again, we have a sitting president who has downplayed both the effects or the existence of russian interference in the election. so here you have a special counsel taking his first moment in public to use some of those precious minutes of that first public statement to highlight the seriousness, the depth of this risk and this danger to american democracy that he makes clear still remains. the other point i would make, jake, is just on the issue that you've been talking about here, which is contradicting the president on that key question, and really contradicting bill barr on the key question of no obstruction, right? the president has ore perepeate
phrase. bill barr misread the report to say, we didn't have the evidence, but the special counsel made clear, it wasn't the evidence that was the deciding factor, it was department of justice policy. that was in the report. we all read the report. we know it was in there. but clearly, as it's been digested and spun in washington, there are players including the president who are taking something from the report that was not in the report. and again, he uses precious moments in his first public speech in two years on this to make clear, no, it was the policy that precluded an indictment. that's remarkable to hear from a robert mueller at this moment in time. >> and also, let me bring michael zeldin. it's beyond the fact that president trump might be the only senior person in the administration who hasn't fully acknowledged the idea that the russians interfered in the 2016 election. beyond that, president trump did not bring it up in his last
phone conversation with vladimir putin when they were discussing venezuela and other matters. he did not raise the subject that the russians are still doing this. and beyond that, rudy giuliani, the president's attorney told me that there's nothing necessarily wrong with getting information from the russians, depending on what it is. >> and it is because he thinks that the more you talk about that, the more it delegitimizes his election, and he just cannot tolerate that notion, that he was not legitimately elected, which he, of course, was. the thing that i think is important to note, too, is that i think mueller made an important point by saying, i couldn't indict him, constitutionally, by the olc opinion, but i could investigate him and preserve the evidence when the memories were fresh. and he has put that now in a box and it's got a ribbon around it. and when the president leaves office, i think mueller is also saying to future prosecutors, when it's donald trump, private
citizen, you may want to look at this then. so congress, you can look at it, future prosecutors, you may look at it, i couldn't look at it. and while i couldn't exonerate him, i didn't charge him. >> justin amash -- you going to do it? go ahead. >> justin amash from michigan, republican, something of an outlier in the republican caucus, has been very critical of president trump, especially on issues having to do with the constitution. go ahead, dana. >> well, it just says right there, the ball is in our court, congress. as you said, he is a lone gop voice. but jake, in addition to that, the house judiciary chairman, who has been trying to balance, not had an opinion on this question of whether or not to pursue impeachment, and thanks to conversations with the democratic leadership, he also just released a statement saying, at the end, it falls to congress to respond to the crime, lies and other wrongdoing of president trump and we will do so. no one, not even the president
of the united states is above the law. he doesn't say, okay, impeachment inquiry coming. but that's leaning pretty far into -- >> the box around the democrats is getting smaller. the flexibility they have. >> if you heard from what bob mueller just said, too, i mean, he discussed the fact that there is underlying evidence and that there's a process being worked on with the justice department for congress to be able to access that. you notice, he didn't say, they shouldn't. he mentions. it and i think that's an important thing, also. i think congress should take those words and see it as encouragement that it is something that they should work on. i mean, there is now pregnacede thanks to president trump and the republicans, the republican majority, right, in the last couple of years, to get access to fbi interviews, so now perhaps they can get taaccess t some of these interviews that were part of the obstruction inquiry. >> we're getting reaction now from the president of the united states. abby phillip is over at the
white house. clearly, he's using his favorite medium, namely twitter. >> reporter: and i think this is basically what folks expected. the president himself weighing in and basically saying, this is old news. he says, nothing changes from the mueller report. there was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our country, a person is innocent. the case is closed and he ends, thank you. but as you've been discussing, what mueller really said was that there was a lot of evidence, but they could not, according to doj regulations, do anything with it. the president is spinning that into, there is insufficient evidence and he is therefore innocent. there was clearly no effort to charge the president, no trial, and mueller makes it clear the reason that there wasn't any sort of charge or trial was because, quite simply, they could not charge a sitting president. so i think this is what you're going to be hearing from the white house today. they are downplaying this totally by basically saying mueller didn't advance the ball in any way, did not provide any
additional evidence. but i think the question now turns to, did mueller punt the ball over to congress saying, we couldn't do anything, now it's up to you. this is the other thing that president trump has been very concerned about. he has been saying that the democrats just simply want to impeach me, just because they want to damage him politically. i think this is really going to put the spotlight on that issue of impeachment going forward. >> all right, abby phillip, thank you so much. a fairly restrained comment from president trump, i would say. "insufficient evidence, therefore the case is closed, thank you." none of the "mueller has conflicts of interest," he had "19 angry democrats," no all caps, no "no collusion," no "no obstruction." >> that's coming later. >> that comment, the old news, nothing to see, case closed is the more traditional kind of white house response, one that perhaps the president would have benefited himself had he stuck with it the whole time. i suspect that's not going to be the last we hear. >> you can't rewind 200 years of
railing against the special counsel -- or two years! feels like 200! two years of railing against the special counsel on twitter. but of course he says, the case is closed. wouldn't anyone who is being investigated for a crime like to announce, the case is closed and we're done here. that's not what bob mueller said, he basically said, congress, over to you, and bill barr, the one who donald trump hand picked to put in that job said the case is closed. robert mueller said, that's not our case to make. over to you, congress. >> the one thing we have to remember, though, is he said his report is his testimony. he's nothing saying anything today different than that. in his report se he hhe says, h not want to preempt congressional ability to look into this. he does not have the ability to charge. and he is not exonerating. that's his testimony. so his testimony is his report. and i think we have to be
careful not to say what he said today is different than what he said in his report, because he said twice, this is my testimony. but he also said importantly, that there is a process that doesn't concern me, mueller, to get the underlying documents. and i think that's interesting, that he acknowledges that that is a process. >> but to jake's point about the president's tone, because that is different. it's very different to say, you know, there's insufficient evidence, therefore case closed. the president was watching this in the residence. i would be really interested to know who was around him. just to tell him to tone it down. because saying there was insufficient evidence is very different than saying, this was a deep state coup, it was illegal, everything they did is wrong and wicked and evil. that's a very different tone. now we'll see the president's mood and tone often changes on these things, but it's really interesting that the first thing he says is a much more legalistic argument, let's move on, as opposed to the normal political, "they're all out to get me and it's illegal and every bit of it is a crime"
>> and shan, let's reiterate what i think there's some consensus that we agree is the most important sentence that robert mueller said today, the special counsel, quote, if we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. that's a pretty damning thing for the special counsel to say. >> absolutely. huge emphasis on that point. and he's a man of so few words that the ones he utters takes on great significance. also, to the whole road map point out, as john points out is in the report, he also chose to emphasize it was part of their charge to preserve the evidence while it was fresh. we did that. it's here for you. and that was another point emphasized that we've laid it out for you, it's therefore for you to use. could be for future prosecutors, but it also seems, he also emphasized the alternate process, not criminal investigation, which is obviously congress. he put those two together. it seems a pretty simple equation. >> he's clearly sending a image to congress, now it's up to you. you guys figure this out. i've said what i have to say. i'm not saying anything else. he may be subpoenaed.
he may be forced to come up and testify before congress, but he clearly does not want to do so. joining us on the phone right now is james classropper, the fr director of national intelligence, a cnn national security analyst right now. so what was your reaction, general clapper? >> well, first, i thought it was, as has been noted, classic bob mueller, understate d but i think he clearly thought about every word. and i'll just reinforce a point that jake made earlier. i think the most important thing he said was at the end, and that is about the russian interference in our election and the attempt to damage one of the candidates. and what an important message that is for the american people. i really resonate strongly about that, i've felt strongly about this ever since we did our intelligence community assessment about this and delivered to president obama on the fifth of january of 2017 and president-elect trump the next
day. and i thought it was a very compelling but understated but compelling rebuttal of a lot of the attacks on him and his team and i thought in a gentle way, it was kind of a pushback on attorney general, as well. >> well, he made it clear that his conclusion, the conclusion of his investigators is exactly the same as the u.s. intelligence community has concluded during the obama administration and even during the trump administration, that, a, the russians interfered, the initial goal was to sew dissent in the united states. the second goal was to embarrass and hurt hillary clinton in case he was selected president to weaken her as much as possible. but the third goal was to help donald trump, because they thought he would be better for russian than hillary clinton would be, even though they assumed hillary clinton would be elected. and he has reiterated that
position, which the intelligence community has stated, but the president, general clapper, is reluctant to state himself. >> yeah, exactly, wolf. and you have it exactly right. three essential teams of that original intelligence community assessment, which, by the way, the current leadership of the intelligence community has reiterated on more than one occasion. and you're also quite right, and this is what is, i think, dangerous and disturbing, is the president's refusal to acknowledge that. >> and general clapper, i was noting earlier, not only has the president not acknowledged it in a forthright way, that the russians attempted to interfere in the 2016 election, they tried to help him, they tried to hurt hillary clinton, they're still going to try to interfere in the election. they did so, they tried in 2018, they're going to try in 2020. but in a phone call with vladimir putin, he did not even raise the subject. and rudy giuliani, the president's attorney, at cnn,
told me in a "state of the union" interview that there's nothing necessarily wrong with accepting information from the russians, and to chuck todd he went so far as to say, even if that information was stolen. so one wonders if this happened in 2016 and the president and his team think there's nothing wrong with it, excluding his national security officials and his intelligence officials, what's going to happen with in 2020? >> that's a great question, jake. i assume that the rest of the government will continue to do what it has done, at least my impression is to take measures to prevent a recurrence of what happened in 2016. and even in the absence of the president acknowledging it and worse, taking a leadership to do something about it. and that's what's missing here, there's a void here and i've long contended this, because of the unique bully pulpit that
only the president occupies to galvanize the american public's attention and concern about this, and i think mueller's statement is yet another attempt to do that. it's just something all americans should think about. >> thank you, general clapper. we appreciate your time. i want to bring in cnn's gloria borger right now. gloria, a lot of responses coming in from capitol hill, from the white house, all over town. >> yeah. and i can't emphasize enough, and we've all been talking about this, is that thwhat mueller di without saying anything, in a way, that he didn't sort of state in the report, is he said to jerry nadler and he said to nancy pelosi and he said to the democrats in congress, my hands were tied, but yours are not. you can do whatever you want to do, but i was bound and gagged. i could not indict the president of the united states. but you can follow up with what
you're going to do, whether it's impeachment. he didn't mention the word, obviously, but he made it very clear, i think, that there were still other things congress could do. and in reading jerry nadler's statement, a couple of things are interesting to me. one is, he didn't say, we're going to demand bob mueller come and testify. we, you know, bob mueller made it very clear, i'm sorry. even if you had me up there, i'd effectively read from my report to you. so what would be the point of having me up there? i am not going to answer any hypotheticals, as he put it. and so it's not going to be worth your time. so jerry nadler really did not address that. what he did say, what he did say is that if, you know, congress is going to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of president trump and we will do so. so he was listening to bob mueller as well. and i wonder now whether, as john king was saying, the walls
are closing in on the leadership and they're going to have to do something after mueller spoke. >> yeah, clearly, the pressure now has intensified, i would say pretty dramatically in the aftermath of mueller's statement that we just had on the democrats in the house of representatives, and they are the majority, to formally launch impeachment it's interesting as you point out in the final statement from jerry nadler, given that special counsel mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the president, it falls to congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrong doing of president trump and we will do so. no one, not even the president of the united states is above the law. let's go to laura jared over at the justice department. she is getting more information, as well. >> well, wolf, i'm told by a source familiar that in terms of looking at whether mueller wants to testify as you were speaking
about nadler's position, we should focus in on his words where he says my hope and my expectation is that this is the last you will hear from me meaning period. i do not want to testify in front of congress which is consistent with what we have been reporting over the last couple of weeks that he was concerned about being part of the political spectacle. he went on to say if the issue is forced i am not going to go beyond the four corners of this report. you see a lot of members of congress reacting to his statement today in front of the cameras. but in many ways, the statement tracks what he said in the report itself. he did not provide really any new evidence or conclusions today that we hadn't heard in that report. so i think it is just important to highlight that he wants to try to stick to the report. separately, i wanted to highlight a little bit the issue that we had been talking about on the predominance of how much
the long-standing guidance from the justice department on not indicting a sitting president really weighed on the special counsel's team here and the difference between what they're saying and what the attorney general had said a couple weeks ago. we had the sound from the attorney general bill barr announcing the closing of the investigation. i want to play for you what the attorney general told me on that day. >> mr. attorney general, we don't have the report in hand. so could you explain for us the special counsel's articulated reason for not reaching a decision on obstruction of justice and if it had anything to do with the department's long standing guidance on not indicting a sitting president and disagreeing with legal theories. what did you disagree with him on? >> i leave it to his description in the report, the special counsel's own articulation of
why he did not want to make a determination as to whether or not there was an obstruction offense. i will say when we met with him, deputy attorney general rosenstein and i met with him along with ed o'callahan who is the principle associate deputy on march 5, we specifically asked him about the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking the position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion. and he made it very clear several times that that was not his position. he was not saying that but for the olc opinion he would have found a crime. he made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime. >> reporter: so the key there obviously for barr is this but for sort of cause ality situation that he is setting up there.
but it almost misses the point because as we heard from mueller today and as we saw in the report, the olc guidance, office of legal counsel really did weigh heavily on the special counsel's team, so much so that they didn't even reach that question. it's almost as if it was irrelevant. as the special counsel articulated today, in his view, it would be unfair to try to even look at that question because you can't defend yourself in court since you can't indict him, but it also was unconstitutional. i wanted to highlight how almost barr and mueller are talking past each other on this issue. >> appreciate it. shan yu, if you listen to what the attorney general general said in april and then put it up to next to what robert mueller said today, you can give him good faith or not, but it does
rnt sound like attorney general barr represented accurately what special counsel mueller thinks. >> bob mueller can give him good faith. i don't think i can. misleading the way he parsed those words. his statement that his discussion with the representative from the special counsel's office indicated that the office of legal counsel opinion did not prevent them from finding a crime is a red herring. mueller says that opinion prevented them from even considering whether they could reach that conclusion. so barr carefully parsed that to make it sound like the olc opinion olc opinion had nothing to do with this. it completely stopped them from considering that path so very misleading. >> also the idea that even without the olc opinion memo, robert mueller did not think that the president had committed any sort of crime. that's something else that the
attorney general suggested in his remarks. also not supported by what robert mueller said today. >> he didn't find mueller evidence of an underlying crime. >> underlying crime. >> that's what barr said. barr said obstruction of justice typically you have an underlying crime, obstructive acts geared toward a particular tribunal. he said -- this is what barr said because there was no evidence of an underlying crime i in my discretion as attorney general determine. mueller said if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would have said so. based on the facts and applicable legal standards, however, we were unable to reach that judgment. that's not exactly but for the legal opinion we would have. he is saying there are
complicated legal facts and law and we were unable to. >> historic day unfolding here in washington d.c. for the first time, we have heard directly publicly from the special counsel robert mueller. our special coverage will continue right after a quick break. do your asthma symptoms ever hold you back? about 50% of people with severe asthma have too many cells called eosinophils in their lungs. eosinophils are a key cause of severe asthma.
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It-wouldn-tFlame-throwingRobert-muellerTeamWorkNothingAttackUsFaceProfessionalismTwoEveryonethere was substantial evidence of criminal intent by the president, in his view. we're going to see bob mueller walk out and we're going to be watching for is he alone, is mr. barr behind him or in the room, what are the first words that bob mueller wants to publicly utter? a man who is reticent, sometimes to a fault his supporters say. he clearly has something to say. does he in any way elude to or cite what we know to be major disagreements with mr. barr about what mueller found in his investigation and about evidence about sitting the president. >> here we have for the first time publicly in more than two years robert mueller. >> thank you for being here. two years ago the acting attorney general asked me to sv as special counsel. and he created the special
counsel's office. the appointed directed the office to investigate russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this included investigating any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. now i have not spoken publicly during our investigation. i'm speaking out today because our investigation is complete. the attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. we are formally closing the special counsel's office, and as well i'm resigning from the department of justice to return to private life. i'll make a few remarks about the results of our work. but beyond these few remarks it is important that the office's written work speak for itself. let me begin where the appointment order begins.
and that is interference with the 2016 presidential election. as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian intelligence officers who were part of the russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system. the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization, wikileaks. the releases were designed and times to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. and at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian entity engaged in a social media operation where russian citizens posed as americans in order to influence an election.
these indictments contain allegations, and we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant. every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. the indictments allege, and the other activities in our report describe, efforts to interfere in our political system. they needed to be investigated and understand. and that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office. that is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. the matters we investigated were of paramount importance and it was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. when a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation oral lies to investigators it strikes at the
core of the government's effort to strike at the truth and hold wrong doers accountable. let me say a word about the report. the report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. the first volume details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. and in a second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president. the order appointing the special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. and we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the acting attorney
general apprised of the progress of our work. and as set forth in the report after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. the introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. it explains that under long-standing department policy a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider.
the department's written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. those points are summarized in our report and i will describe two of them for you. first, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president, because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now. and second, the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrong doing. and beyond department policy we were guided by principles of fairness. it would be unfair to
potentially -- it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge. so that was justice department policy. those were the principles under which we operated and from them we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. that is the office's -- that is the office's final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. we conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general. as required by department regulations. the attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and to the american people. at one point in time i requested that certain portions of the report be released. the attorney general preferred
to make that -- preferred to make the entire report public all at once, and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public. and i certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision. now i hope and expect this to be the only time that i will speak to you in this manner. i am making that decision myself. no one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter. there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. it contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. and the report is my testimony. i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress.
in addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office. so beyond what i have said here today, and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the justice department or congress. and it's for that reason i will not be taking questions today as well. now before i step away, i want to thank the attorneys, the fbi agents, and analysts, the professional staff to helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. these individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel's office were of the highest integrity. and i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments that there were
multiple, systematic efforts to interference in our election. that allegation deserves the attention of every american. thank you. thank you for being here today. >> sir, if you're subpoenaed -- >> no questions. >> and there you have it. roughly nine minutes from special counsel robert mueller and in that nine minutes there were a number of headlines. the special counsel saying, quote, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so. bob mueller also leading folks to believe that the statement he made there would serve as his testimony if we were called in to the house judiciary committee or a senate committee as well. we are joined by quite the panel. nbc news national security and
justice reporter julia ainsley, live at the justice department. i have msnbc justice and security analyst, matt miller is back. mimi rocah, former assistant u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst. former feder former federal prosecutor glen kurchne. and, of course, our lead legal analyst, ari melber. robert mueller said he's speaking out because he's resigning, he's returning to private life. what instruct you the most? >> on the scene, this was vintage bob mueller. no questions, no bull. and just laying out what he's already laid out in the report. he basically quoted the key highlights in this report and in so doing, i think a fair reading of what he said would rebut the white house and parts of what his boss, bill barr, have said
about him. then he went out of his way to say he doesn't question the, quote, good faith of attorney general bill barr, his boss. that is huge because democrats in congress have tried to line up an attack on barr as the front edge of their allegations against what they call a corrupt trump administration and its attempts to obstruct. mr. mueller just brushed that back. he also did something else that may be disappointing to people and congress may make a decision whether to demand testimony, he said if you make me talk, i'm going to read you back this report. that's it. he said it more artfully. but he's telling the nation if you want to know what we found, read the report. a final point on indicting the president, which is a big deal. mr. mueller said something that's as big a piece of news today as it was in the report
that he found substantial evidence the president tried to obstruct justice. he wasn't able to state he didn't commit a crime. and the rules say if you want to deal with it, you deal with it through congress, aka the "i" word, not through the special counsel. he told america, this kicks back to congress, you do something or you don't. that's what the constitution says when it comes to potential high crimes and misdemeanors by the sitting president. >> he also cited this long-standing policy at the justice department that prohibits charging a sitting president with a crime. >> yeah, look. i think mueller made as clear today as he possibly could, perhaps without saying it in exactly the way some would want him to have said it more explicitly, that he did not charge trump with a crime because he could not, because of that policy.
as ari just said, i think mueller made it clear in the report and today what he chose to highlight was that there was evidence and that, you know, this policy is what prevented him from stating that he would have charged him with a crime. i thought it was interesting that mueller said i'm not going to respond to hypotheticals. i think the hypothetical he's talking about is this hypothetical that many -- nearly 1,000 former federal prosecutors signed onto, which is that if trump weren't president he would be charged with a crime. mueller isn't going to answer that question. he'll answer it in the way he said in the statement. one thing i wanted to point out what mueller said. he talked about how obstruction crimes strike at the core of our justice system and democracy. that's important.
he's saying don't lose sight of this, the fact we're talking about obstruction of justice and the president should not go unattended to. it is at the heart of everything that our justice system and our democracy is about, i think he's calling attention to that. i think it's important that he praise the integrity of the prosecutors and investigators who work with him. we don't hear it often enough from the department of justice but you heard it from mueller today. >> a quick reminder here. this is the sound bite that probably is going to get a great deal of attention from robert mueller, which is what he said a few moments ago as it related to evidence against the president. take a listen. >> we do not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. the introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. it explains that under long-standing department policy a president cannot be charged
with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider. >> it sounds like, and you correct me if i'm wrong here, glen, it sounds like the special counsel is very much leaving open the possibility that once president trump leaves office, there could very well be some sort of indictment. >> absolutely agree with you, craig. i think in the near term what he's also saying, and this was one of my top line takeaways, after he said i am not permitted to indict the president he went on to say, that requires a process other than the criminal
justice system to formally accuse a president of wrong doing. you don't need to be rand mcnally to see that road map. he was virtually announcing congress, do your job. >> also joined now by -- rejoined i should say, barbara mcquade is with me and so is frank figliuzzi. another top line and bob mueller saved this to the end perhaps wanting to remind all of us, one of the biggest takeaways here, the fact that the russians tried, on numerous occasions -- in fact, i think we have the sound. let's take a listen. >> it is important that the office's written work speak for itself. let me begin where the appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election. as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian
intelligence officers who were part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and released that information through fake online identities and through wikileaks. the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and damage a presidential candidate. >> frank, it sounds like bob mueller is challenging congress, challenging the white house, and challenging all of us to remember precisely what it is that the russians did. >> bob mueller decided to open his statement with the russian problem and he decided to end his statement with the russian problem by saying it's something that all americans should be
concerned about. and if you understand bob mueller, if you've sat across him every morning and perhaps every afternoon, as i have as his assistant director and you learn that he speaks in measured but clear tones and style, you understand he's saying this is a huge problem, and it's not being addressed, and every american needs to get on this and understand this is still ongoing. that's how i read this and his choice to start and end his statement with russia reminds all of us we're still not resolving this problem. >> glen, you also worked for bob mueller, what you saw and heard there from your former boss, is that what you were expecting? if. >> yeah, you know, that's the man bob mueller is. he's precise, he's factual, he's accurate. the man doesn't know the definition of hyperbole. and what he just told us, craig, is that you have everything you need in this report to move
forward and do the right thing, do justice, hold russia accountable, i would add hold the president accountable. i think when he said, listen, i will not go beyond what's in my report if called before congress, i think we all need to take that, craig, as an affirmation that everything the american people and our elected politicians need to make their decisions and to move forward is right there in those 448 pages. >> matt miller, 25 minutes ago we were speculating about what special counsel bob mueller might say. give me your top lines here. what are we missing? >> you know, look, i think one of the things that surprised me a little bit is how much of this press conference was a rebuke of bill barr. he did say, as ari noted that the attorney general is not acting in good faith. i think on the russian collusion side of the investigation and
the obstruction side he contradicted things that the attorney general has said. on obstruction, when bill barr held his press conference releasing the report, he was asked point blank did the special counsel not make a determination because he thought it ought to be left to congress. barr said i hope that's not what he's doing, it's the job of prosecutors to make the determinatio determinations. i think mueller made clear in his statement that the constitution leaves it to congress. because of that constitutional requirement and the justice department policy it would have been unfair for him to make a determination and publically accuse the president of a crime -- >> matt, let's just reflect on that with craig, if i may, to be specific. because i think matt makes a nuanced point here -- >> i want to remind viewers and listeners what precisely robert mueller said about bill barr. >> we conducted an investigation
and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by the department regulations. the attorney general then concluded it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and the american people. at one point in time i requested that perscertain portions of th report be released. the attorney general preferred to make the entire report public all at once, we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public, and i certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision. >> that's the phrase you want to hone in on? >> exactly. perfect. as craig drew our attention to the perfect point. to be clear for viewers who were understanding what we just got moments ago from robert mueller. we says he doesn't question attorney general bill barr's good faith in that decision, on that one issue. and to barr's credit, much of the report was released. the redactions were concerned by
nonpartisan experts to be narrow. so, matt, i think to build on that point before you move to the other issues, what does it tell us that mr. mueller is basically helpful to barr on the disclosure part, the transparency part but not the points that you and others have pinpointed that bill barr's statements mischaractered the report but the seeking of the disclosure was to clean up what people called criminal defense work for the white house rather than attorney general work. >> i doubt he would go that far and use those words. but i at the he is saying the attorney general mischaracterized my work. he may have said it's the job of prosecutors to make the determination, i not only can't because of the constitution and department of justice policy but in this instance it would be unfair of me to accuse the president of a crime.
i think on the russia section he said something important. if you remember what the attorney general has said over and over in his public statement when he released this report and in subsequent interviews it's that there was no collusion. this report, this investigation found there was no collusion. he said at times this report confirmed that it didn't happen. well, bob mueller when he talked in the opening of this press conference about what his investigation found about a broader conspiracy. what he said was, we found there's insufficient evidence to charge a conspiracy. that's different than what the attorney general came out and said that no collusion happened and this investigation confirmed it didn't happen. >> john brennan joins me on the phone right now, former cia director. thank you for your time. i know that you were listening to the special counsel a few moments ago. what did you take away from what he said? what you heard. >> a couple things p. as has been mentioned, this was
bob mueller, precise and careful in his language, making a statement on his terms, and that's why i don't think he wants to be part of any type of political and partisan show on the hill. and as has been mentioned, he would read his report and go no further than that. two he made it quite clear that were it not for existing doj policy as well as a constitutional process to hold a sitting president to account, that there is not a basis for him and his team to go forward with an indictment of the sitting president but also he said clearly if he was able to exonerate a president of wrong doing, he would have done that. so i do think he made a very explicit that there is an outstanding issue when it comes to wrong doing on the part of donald trump on obstruction of justice and there are the options of dealing with it while
mr. trump sits in office by the congress, or -- and after mr. trump leaves office in terms of following through with some type of indictment so that charges can be looked at and mr. trump can defend himself as appropriate. >> john brennan with me now, msnbc senior national security analyst, intelligence analyst. i think the direct quote you were eluding to is, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> i don't think he can be any clearer than that. again, that language is very, very carefully worded that clearly shows that he could not, in all of his investigative work, demonstrate to his satisfaction and i think to the public satisfaction that mr. trump did not obstruct justice.
also making it very clear again the parameters that he believed he had to operate within, existing doj policy, as well as constitutional -- the constitutional framework for holding a president accountable did not allow him to move forward with that charge or indictment, and i think he sees that there is work yet to be done on obstruction of justice. >> ari, you were wanting to make a point about congress and democrats here. >> yeah, i think it's important to look at this in the broader context. some people say, craig, why if there's substantial evidence against the sitting president, why doesn't he get charged, why is he above the law? there are good answers to this which we've been exploring, the rules treat the president differently because he's the officer taking care the laws are faithfully executed. i think we've been speaking on the substance here for the last
half hour, they overlap with the legal dynamics because it is only congress' job, not the prosecutor, the press, the voters, it is congress' job to decide if and when high crimes were committed. mueller didn't insult anyone in any way, criticize anyone, but if you read him carefully, he's saying to the house and congress, i can't do your job for you. i gave you evidence. i gave you a longer report than people ever usually get. pat fitzgerald investigated a white house, there wasn't a public report like this. in the days ahead it'll be interesting to see. did the country hear this? i don't know, i don't have that good hearing. does the country hear it, congress you said wait for mueller, mueller finished. you said we need to hear from mueller publicly. mueller came out and said, i
spoke. it's up to the congress, which we knew he put in this report to decide whether or not there were crimes in office. in some ways we heard the speaker try to avoid this day, kick the can down the road, we'll hear from mueller later, mueller says the evidence is here, congress decides this and he says what mr. brennan repeated and what you reported, craig, if we had confidence the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. translation, bob mueller looked sbh into this, bob mueller has a sterling reputation, bob mueller saying we don't have evidence the president didn't commit crimes in office, congress is the place to adjudicate this. this is to the house to decide what to do about it. >> jeremy bash we are waiting for some sort of response from this white house. one would assume we would get something here very soon. we know they were huddled around their televisions at 11:00
eastern like all of us. mr. bash is that how you heard it? this 448 page report, bob mueller saying it is going to speak for itself and all but daring congress to do something about what he reported? >> craig, i was struck by a couple things. number one is bob mueller leaned really hard into the office of legal counsel opinion that says you cannot prosecute a sitting president even if if you found he engaged in critical activity. that was kind of the centerpiece of the statement. it was present in his report but the report was 448 pages it was so longs, it was so detailed, it was sort of, i think hard to get the fundamental point. number two, he clearly implied that bill barr mischaracterized his report, mislead the american people and congress when he rolled this out. this report game out on april 18th, i don't see anything that mueller said today that he couldn't have said six weeks
ago. the reason he had to say it this way, number one because the attorney general has been misleading the public, number two because the president has been misleading the public, and number three, there's been a lot of questions about whether he was teeing up the question to congress as to whether they could proceed with an investigation of the president's high crimes and misdemeanors. i think the headline out of today's statement was this was a green light for congress to investigate, analyst and make decisions on the president's high crimes that could lead to a potential impeachment vote in the house of representatives. >> mr. brennan, let me come back to you for a moment before we go to hans nichols at the white house. director, based on what we have seen and what we have heard from this congress, is there any reason to believe that they are going to, in fact, act on special counsel mueller's recommendations or even that nine minute statement we just got from him? >> i think bob mueller's public
statement today is going to give momentum to those who want to move forward with impeachment hearings. i think there can be no doubt about mr. mueller's message that the obstruction of justice issue is not resolved, and that there needs to be follow-up action on it. so i do think it's going to give some additional momentum to them, whether or not they're going to decide to do it, as ari pointed out, it's not just a legal issue, it's a political issue and obviously there are political considerations. i think the cry for impeachment is going to increase and it's going to be interesting to see how the white house and mr. trump reacts to a very clear, and i believe, very pointed statement by bob mueller. >> senior national security and intelligence analyst and former cia director john brennan on the phone with me. thank you, appreciate the time. let's go to 1600
pennsylvania avenue now. hans nichols is standing by. i go back to this quote, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. so its face that would seem to undercut the assertion from this administration time and time again, that there was no collusion. it sounds as if the special counsel's office is saying we don't have evidence. >> and craig, that's the challenge for the white house this hour. the urgent challenge is how do they square what we just heard from robert mueller with what william barr has been saying. i was trying to get something from press people upstairs. they don't seem to have decided if, when or how they're going to respond to what mueller just said. you can appreciate their predictment, the challenge is not just the immediate reaction and who it comes from, but more importantly how do they manage the president's response to what mueller said. the president has vacillated, been all over the place, sometimes he said bob mueller
should testify, other times it's ridiculous. we'll wait to see how the president reacts. we know that the white house didn't know the content of what mueller was going to say, so they are being taken by this, they're bringing it on board and trying to figure out how they're going to respond on two fronts, most immediately and also how you manage the president's twitter feed and when he interacts with reporters and many of the impromptu opportunities he sometimes engages with us. >> hans, out of curiousty where is the president? >> the last i checked is he is not in the west wing yet. the tip is the guard is out front, but i didn't see the marine guard as of 20 minutes ago. in the past the president likes to have what we call exec type of executive time upstairs. sometimes you get a sense of what the president is watching
as he's tweeting. as of this morning, no tweets yet but i haven't looked at my phone for 30 seconds, i could be wrong about that. >> let us know when and if we hear something from the administration. joined by chuck todd, moderator of "meet the press." in the last few moments, speaking of twitter we saw this from congressman justin amash, the only republican so far who has called for impeachment. this is the tweet, just a few moments ago, the ball is in our court, congress. chuck, what do we surmise that what we heard from the special counsel is going to mean for more calls for impeachment. >> craig, i think that's the headline of this statement by robert mueller. the most important think he clarified what he meant in the introduction of page 2. the most important sentence he said was we chose the words
carefully. he always does. he made it crystal clear he believed this was not constitutionally a decision that could be made by anybody at the justice department, anybody that works for justice. he believed he worked for justice. that's his way of saying bill barr this wasn't your call either. there's only one constitutional place remedy for where this call is made and it's congress. so i think between that, craig, and the fact that justin amash is making the clearest case for opening an impeachment inquiry right now, if you think about it. we know there's a group of house democrats who think there should be an impeachment inquiry, but who has laid out the reason to do it with more clarity than justin amash, both on social media and holding a town hall, and putting his words out there. i think the political pressure
now on the democratic leadership in the house, i think speaker pelosi doesn't want to do impeachment, she's been hoping to run out the political calendar clock if you will. get to labor day and say let's get through the presidential, don't distract from that. i think this one-two punch of amash basically putting himself out there, making this a bipartisan call and mueller making it crystal clear what he believed whose job this is. it's basically congress, it's now up to you. it's your call. >> chuck, again a reminder for our viewers and listeners on sirius satellite radio, this is what we heard from bob mueller a few moments ago as it relates to the possibility that he might testify before congress either publicly or privately. take a listen. >> i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. in addition, access to our
underlying work-product is being decided in the a process that does not involve our office. so beyond what i've said here today, and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the justice department or congress. and it's for that reason i will not be taking questions today as well. >> chuck, do you hear that? is bob mueller basically telling the house and the senate, read the report again. i'm not showing up to take your questions or to be a part of your political theatre? >> no. i took it as he doesn't want to. he did not say he wouldn't. he just essentially said, hey, if you do it, i'm going to bore you to death, i'm going to read the report. i'm not going to tell you anything i didn't already put in the report. that was a way of tempering expectations, i think it's important and i don't know if he
wanted to lay this more out, i think justice already knew this, judiciary committee news this, if they didn't you now they do for sure, i think it's important mueller clarified he has no role in being able to negotiate to provide certain parts of the underlying evidence to congress. which means essentially that's a direct back and forth between the judiciary committee and the department of justice, ie bill barr. look, i didn't hear it as him saying i'm not testifying. i heard him as saying i don't want to testify. i don't think i'm going to provide you anything -- if you think i'm going to provide you any more incite than i've done, forget it. i think there are plenty in congress that think bob mueller should be the narrator of his work. that it would play an important role in the public sphere if he essentially narrates his work. look, i suspect we're going to
see bob mueller testify before congress. i suspect it'll be perhaps the questioning is behind closed doors, it wouldn't surprise me if he could negotiate that. but he's going to be a private citizen. i don't know how much -- how much other than -- you know, how much he can negotiate in all this. >> stand by one second. we have a tweet from the president and we have our justice correspondent pete williams standing by as well. this is president trump a few moments ago, quote, nothing changes from the mueller report. there was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our country, a person is innocent. the case is closed. thank you. our chief legal correspondent standing by. is that how it works? >> well, good -- it's a serious day but the tweet is laughable. the defendant says the case is closed. if only. as we reported in the past, there was good news in the mueller report, chiefly in the
lack of a chargeable conspiracy but no the case is not closed as chuck todd was saying, john brennan said, other people said that i don't think bring any necessarily assumption about the outcome. the mueller report stated, congress deals with high crimes by the president. and the only reason that there wasn't, from the beginning, a treatment of whether or not donald trump committed a crime was because of the rules of the justice department, ie the tweet you just read, which what the president said is false, in its substance and essence false. the other thing i want to raise is the democrats were told by bob mueller that he doesn't have reason, at this stage, to go and say a lot more in public because the report represents the most careful and clear presentation of his findings. the other way the country could hear from bob mueller, what chairman nadler illueluded to,
justin amash said, if there were impeachment probes, there was a collection of evidence, a house vote, a senate trial -- not judging whether any of those things would happen. if it did you can call in the prosecutor and his team to present the evidence. what mueller is saying is not he'll never talk. i think chuck todd nailed it, if asked to talk about the report, did you read it? do you want to read parts of it? is this "reading rainbow"? great show. but bob mueller is more serious about it. he's saying this is not "reading rainbow". if congress wants to hold an impeachment probe or present evidence, he'll get involved. that's a key thing, i know you have a lot of guests to get to, the last thing i'll say, we have every indication that bob mueller wasn't trying to give a
televised press conference, wasn't rushing out to speak about this, was hoping the process would work and congress would come to a judgment, yes or no. instead congress said we'll need more from mueller. he put an end to that. the ball is in congress' court 100% today. >> pete williams is standing by. pete we have heard from jerry nadler, the chairman of the house judiciary committee, i will not read his entire statement, but he said, although the department of justice prevented the special counsel from bringing charges against the president, the special counsel has clearly demonstrated that president trump is lying about the special counsel's findings, lying about the testimony of key witnesses in the special counsel's report and is lying in saying that the special counsel found no obstruction and no collusion. given that special counsel mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the president, it falls to congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrong doing of and we
will do so. not even the president of the united states is above the law. pete, have we heard anything from the justice department in response to what we just heard from its special counsel, robert mueller? >> reporter: no. didn't expect to. there's no -- there's nothing to respond to from the justice department's perspective. he's basically saying i'm done. i have nothing more to say. a couple of points i think need emphasizing based on what i have been hearing in the past half hour, number one it's clear mueller does not want to testify before congress, he made that quite clear. the report is my testimony, you played a short excerpt but let me back up from that. what he said is, i hope and expect this will be the only time i will speak about this matter. when he first said that, i thought to myself, he means in this a forum like this. not necessarily in congress. but after consulting with some of his folks, he meant that to
include his testimony as well. he said, this is my decision. i made this decision myself. nobody told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about the matter. from his own lips, bob mueller does not want to testify before congress. will he ultimately agree to do so in a closed session? perhaps so with a transcript to be released later. what he said is, don't get your hopes up, i'm not going to go beyond what's in the report. as for access to my materials that my staff gathered, that's not my call, that's up to the justice department, in essence, he no longer works for the government as of today. that's point one. point two is nothing about how he summarized his report as new. what the president said today, what jerry nadler said, all these other people, they could have said the same thing and, in fact, largely did after the report itself came out because he added nothing to it, nor did he intend to. i thought what i learned from this is a little more about the process. it seemed to me that he was
saying that they made the decision, going in, that they couldn't charge the president with a crime because it would be unconstitutional. it does seem when you read the report and this has sort of mystified a lot of people, it seems like they made the decision at the end, they gathered all the evidence, now can we say whether or not any of this evidence constitutes obstruction of justice on the part of the president, i guess we can't so therefore we can't decide whether it did. it seems that process is not the way it worked based on what he said today. that was their going in proposition, they were well aware of that. one of the people that came to work early on was michael drieben here who's one of the government's leading experts if not the leading expert on the constitution, so they clearly were thinking about this question from the beginning. one other note, it's a
footnote -- one line in a footnote about the business of whether congress -- impeachment, he didn't use the word today. but it did seem interesting to me that in this relatively short summary of a 440 plus page report he did choose to say this. the opinion, meaning the report says the constitution requires -- means the justice department's opinion on whether you can charge a president -- requires a process over than the criminal justice system to formally accuse the president of wrong doing. i thought it was interesting he chose to put that in there. >> pete williams outside the department of justice, thanks as always, pete. let me bring in congressman eric swalwell now, a member of the how judiciary committee, also a 2020 presidential democratic candidate. we'll start with what pete mentioned there, this idea that bob mueller does not want to
testify. do you plan on compelling the special counsel to come before the house judiciary committee in a public setting? >> good morning, craig. we're going to hear from bob mueller, america needs to hear from bob mueller, we paid for this years' long investigation. i believe he ultimately will. i believe he's a patriot, he may be reluctant about it but seeing is believing. and mr. mueller raising his right hand and laying out for the american people what the russians did to our democracy and what the president and his team did to obstruct an investigation into that attack is important. >> we just heard from him and essentially what bob mueller seems to be saying if you call me, i am going to refer you back to my 448-page report. what more do you hope to hear from bob mueller? >> again, it's the difference between, you know, seeing the movie and reading the book. and, you know, people are busy, they're taking their kids to
school, working hard at their jobs. but the special counsel a very articulate, experienced prosecutor can lay out for the american people in his words what the russians did and what the president did to obstruct. but we also want to get the full report. and if this president is so innocent, so cleared, so exonerated he needs to let us have 100% of the report. because an eighth of it is buried beneath the earth right now. he needs to unearth it and let bob mueller speak to that evidence. >> what did that, roughly, 9 minute statement from bob mueller, what did it do for folks in your party, the calls for impeachment? >> it certainly, i think, will amplify those calls. it's a road i said we're going to be on and end up at anyway. taking a step back, craig, the call i heard from mr. mueller was for every american to care about what the russians did.
that includes you, mr. president, because he is the only leader in our country who has not acknowledged what the russians did to our democracy. i believe there's a call for future presidents todoj rule th president cannot be indicted. i've said if i win, day one, i will tell the doj to lift that policy. i hope every democratic nominee will make that pledge. no president should be immunized the way he has been because he would be indicted right now. >> chuck todd has been standing by. he's been listening to all of this. your reaction to the reaction. >> i'm not surprised. i think, again, i think it's a, i look and think that democrats do have a dilemma. i think this is easy to sit here and say if you choose to be in favor of impeachment, you're making a political decision or if you're not in favor, you're
making a political decision. i think these are tough choices. this is an unusual proceeding you've got to do. you have to weigh a lot of things. you have to weigh the focus of the country. i don't think this is -- even though it's clear mueller said, look, congress, whether you like it or not, this is in your court. it isn't a no brainer that they should do this. i do think, though, that every democrat has to think about a short term and long term. as they think about the short term and what feels politically correct in the moment, i would remind them how a bunch of democrats debated the iraq war resolution back in 2002. the politics of the iraq war resolution was one thing in that period of time with an election coming up patriotic fervor
running rampant and five years later that vote is one of the biggest stains you can have in the democratic party these days. that's what all of these politician s have to weigh. maybe what the founders would have thought and what the public expect and also what's this going to look like in five years. >> thank you, sir. barbara mcquaid is with me. we are you are surprisingly starting to get reaction from democratic presidential candidates in addition to congressman swallwell. cory booker tweeting bob mueller statement makes it clear, congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately. we're also getting a statement from the counsel to the president, the president's attorney. the announcement that the office is closing and he is resigning to return to private life put a period on a two yeerar
investigation that produced no findings of collusion or obstruction against the president. if attorney general concluded there was no collusion. the report identifies no actions that constitute obstructive conduct. that coming from the counsel to president trump. is that how you heard it? >> no. i don't see a period. i see a dash. i'm done with my work and now congress it's your turn. i know we all compliment robert mueller on his eloquence but i wish he were a little less nuanced. key and peele did the obama translater and i'll be robert mueller's translater. here is what i heard. there was no hoax. russia interfered with our election. there's no coup. these people acting with integrity in their investigation. i can't find obstruction of justice because the law says i can't charge a sitting president. you know who can, congress can. read my report. it's all there.
>> barbara mcquaid we should point out we're giving you ten additional point fs for the key and peele reference. brett stephens has joined me. new york times columnist and msnbc contributor and brett, the quote that continues to stand out to me from what we heard from bob mueller there, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. do we think that what we just heard from bob mueller at the top of the hour, that nine-minute statement, no questions, do we think that's in any way, shape or form going to help us move forward or is this going to create more questions now? >> i think it grecreates a grea many questions. i think mueller has a responsibility if subpoenaed by congress to testify in any setting that congress demands especially now that he's a private citizen and not working for the justice department. that seems to be all the more
the case. the argument he can't say anything beyond the 448 pages of the report just strikes me as untrue. there are major questions that have to be answered. what i did hear mueller saying pretty clearly is i'm not going to be your messiah. i'm not going to deliver a verdict. all all impeachment cases, this is a conflict of legal and political issues and ethical judgments that only congress itself can resolve. people keep looking to bob mueller to sort of give us the answer and he demurred. >> california democratic kamala harris who spoke a few moments
ago. take a listen. >> prosecution of a sitting president would undermine the capacity of the executive branch. should that be doj policy and should the special counsel have set to charge president trump with obstruction of justice? >> i think what we are clear about is that we learned a few things today. most importantly what we learned is that the special counsel did not return an indictment because of that memo. in other words, but for that memo, i believe a fair inference from what we heard is there would have been indictments returned against this president. the other thing we learned today is that the current attorney general of the united states misled the american people when he spoke about his conversation with bob mueller and suggested that bob mueller said, no, i had nothing to do for that memo.
there wasn't enough there. so these are the issues that are now, i think, very clear and the bottom line is one we have got to now let the process start its course around congress acting on what we know is a indictable evidence and information. >> should it be policy, doj policy, to indict a sitting president? >> i think if i were president, i would ask and hope the attorney general and an attorney general who had justice in mind instead of covering up for the president, i would hope and ask that she would put in place a procedure of questioning whether that memo is actually necessary and applicable when we have situations like this. it's an advisory memo. it's not the law. >> what was the message that mr.
mueller was sending to you, a sitting member of congress, and do you have a reaction to the president's tweet saying the case is closed and nothing has changed? >> well, i try not to respond to those tweets. what is clear is that i think it's a fair inference from what we heard that bob mueller was essentially referring impeachment to the united states congress. >> thanks, guys. >> kamala harris upstate south carolina on the heels of that town hall last night here on msnbc. just a few minutes here left. is that what you heard from bob mueller? was he calling on congress to do something? >> he was saying that this is not in my hands. it's in congress' hands. i don't know. the statement was somewhat do something can mean doing nothing. he made it clear he was not
exonerated -- the report did not exonerate the president. there's a great question as to then what that do something ought to be and there are a range of options before the congress that are not simply impeachment or doing nothing. there's such a thing as censure which is what democrats were recommending against president clinton 21 years ago during the saga of his own impeachment. this is a judgment that spoke legal, as well as political, that only the congress itself can determine. if i were offering the democrats in congress advice to the extent they take it, i'd say it's a good bet because it allows a lot of republicans to get on record censuring the president. >> we'll have to leave it there. big thanks to you and my guests. roughly an hour ago, special
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