Page 12 - Obstruction Issue News Today

President to behave when you have a legitimate investigation that needed to get answers, and all he did was try to find ways publicly to obstruct it. again, not in a criminal way, but in ways that we all could see. those -- thats not a way for a president to behave to undermine his own government. >> and reading this and seeing this and the whole obstruction issue, now you understand why the presidents team did not want to fire mueller, why did not want him to do anything that would -- they were...

Hold back. see what this is. they felt good after friday with no indictments. so there was a message sent to him that it is bet are for you to wait on this and he took it. >> ashley, do they feel like theres now no danger in the president talking about this? we had been having this ongoing conversation every time he picks up the phone to tweet something, he could be putting himself in legal jeopardy. have those questions been put to rest? >> thats a good question. i dont know the answer. its two...

Rather than the four-page document from the attorney general. >> everybody stand by. shimon, you know a lot about the southern district of new york, the u.s. attorney there. wheres this heading? >> i would say -- and as weve been reporting, i think this is something that still consumes the president and consumes the presidents attorneys. they are concerned about the southern district of new york. they are still in the middle of this campaign finance violation where the presidents been implicated...

Thats their word, about the investigation overall. do you buy into that? do you think this is a smart strategy? do you think mr. barr has credibility to make these decisions or not? >> i think the problem that bill barr has to deal with is this memo that he wrote before he came to the job in which he prejudged obstruction of justice. but he has a really easy method for clearing that question up, which is to release robert muellers report, to release all of the underlying evidence, to let congres...

Democrats have been pushing collusion, what they called a collusion conspiracy. this is how theyre going into 2020. one of my colleagues, betsy cline, just spoke to a senior trump campaign official a few moments ago who said this is going to be one of the tools they use to try to woo moderate voters going into this next election. moderate voters have been pulling away from president trump for a long time, particularly in the suburbs. its one of the factors that helped democrats win the house of ...

They were going through the questioning of the president, what questions they can ask of the president. the lawyers for the president worked very hard to keep any questions out about the obstruction. >> absolutely. >> now we understand why. they were legitimately concerned about the obstruction issue. they knew on the collusion issue, they felt a little stronger about it. it seems even reading this report, this is where the special counsels office, thats the position they took as well. >> and it...

Attorney general, even the memo he used to apply for the job with the president, prejudged the obstruction issue. that called into question the step thats barr took today. >> julia ainsley, to joyces point, what do we know about how any of those decisions were made in the justice department? do we know anything along those lines? >> well, we have some bread crumbs that are just laid out in this letter here, kasie. what the attorney general is saying is because of report from mueller didnt weigh ...

Documents. >> on the obstruction of justice piece, robert mueller said theres evidence on both sides of that. william barr, the attorney general and his deputy who made that conclusion not to prosecute the president for obstruction of justice. do you think the attorney general handled that appropriately? >> i think the main point is that the report from director mueller indicates that he did not exonerate the president, nor did he exonerate him from the issue of -- and in particular of obstructi...

Republicans requested them. i think theres precedent for the underlying information, evidence, testimony, files to go right to the hill and that will be a basis for further investigation. >> very good case about precedent that was set. joyce, can you weigh in on the decision not to subpoena the president and the point jeremy was making of the history of this? were you surprised they ultimately came to the conclusion not to subpoena the president? >> you know, i think jeremys absolutely right. it...

Be sealed indictments coming forward, but i hope that my colleagues are actively working these issues still. >> you brought up active in 16, you brought up starting in essentially january of 17, pretty much every single month the president tried to stop this investigation. every single month. ask k you imagine him not dealing with the obstruction issue in this report? whether it was trying to get him to drop the case against flynn, fist every month, and then trying to rattle, trying to get unres...