Criticizing Mueller News Today

Independent attorney general. >> and so youve been doing this reporting. why? why is this who he is? >> well, i did this reporting partly because before barr was chosen, he wrote to me this striking memo. this is july 2018. and he is talking about how, in his view, the president alone is the executive branch. and he was making that quite extraordinary statement in the context of criticizing muellers investigation. mueller an old and really good friend of his. barr says at the beginning of his me...

Your leadership is vital or our country now. keep the pressure on. before he got that message, gates was on fox news, criticizing mueller and the department of justice. flynn also sent gates a message as recently as february of this year, on the same day william barr was confirmed as attorney general. flynn sent gates a picture of a bald eagle and a flag. i want to bring in attorney and cnn legal analyst areva. gates called for mueller to resign. the fact flynn was messaging him, telling him to ...

Of the results of the special counsels work, end quote. however, there are at least two aspects of mr. muellers investigation. first, russian interference in the united states election and whether any u.s. persons were involved in that interference. second, possible obstruction of justice. it is the second component that you have written on. just five months before you were nominated, i spent the weekend on your 19-page legal memo to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, criticizing muellers i...

Memo to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, criticizing muellers investigation, specifically the investigation into potential obstruction of justice. in the memo, you conclude, i think, that press special counsel mueller is, quote, grossly irresponsible for pursuing an obstruction case against the president. and pursuing the obstruction inquiry is fatally misconceived. i hope we can straighten that out in this hearing. but your memo shows a large sweeping view of presidential authority and d...

Campaign, but theres an appearance of conflict so we think you should step aside, and he says, nah. >> i dont think so. both attorney generals, mr. whitaker and mr. barr, they were chosen by the president not in spite of their conflict of interest, but because of their conflict of interest. the only reason donald trump is aware mr. whitaker exists is because he was on cnn criticizing mueller. hes an undistinguished attorney. mr. barr, a very different story. a very distinguished attorney. the on...

Im glad he thinks he knows about my finances, but its interesting. im proud to work for cnn. i have been working in this business for 21 years. they just take note because im now at cnn. it was a coincident that i came to cnn when i did. >> april, no one should face that kind of language, and youre damn good at your job. lets just say that for folks listening here. i want to go to shimon prokupecz because you were watching the words closely, im sure, and within a day or two of appointing a new a...

Whitaker impact the investigation here? >> well, whitaker has the authority to ask mueller to provide an explanation and justification for investigative steps he takes. and then, in certain circumstances, if he thinks that mueller is straying too far afield, going outside the bounds of justice department guidelines, he could overrule mueller. so you could imagine if whitaker really had in his mind that he wanted to impede mueller, he could start asking him to justify everything he does. because ...

>> let me read more of the story. this jumps out. a first day law stay tuned would understand jeff sessions had to recuse himself. he was so active in the campaign and he had a meeting and the big questions were about the campaign, any possible collusion with russia. even though the president was critical, a first day law student would say thats what jeff sessions has to do. they are likely to review whitakers past work to see if he has financial or personal confli conflicts. they do not require...

Worried about whether or not this man would be curtailing us in some way. >> and the working assumption is that the investigation is somewhat nearing its end. how could mueller get around any undue influence on his investigation at this point? some folks are saying he probably was thinking this could be -- this could be coming. at some point. are there sealed indictments out there? what would that mean? >> well, if there were sealed indictments, though decisions had already been made. presumably...

Opinion pieces about the presidents complaints about the special counsel investigation. on this show a year ago, he questioned the scope. >> it would be a fishing expedition if they started looking into all of trumps finances. we cant have prosecutors turning over every rock unrelated to any nexus to the underlying issues which is the russian coordination and the 2016 election. >> cnns laura jarrett is at the justice department. what does this mean for the russia investigation. >> whitaker has n...