Page 8 - Obstruction Question News Today

He said he choses his language particularly. how is it barr and mueller seem to have seen this obstruction question so differently? >> i think you have to look at it through the lens of why attorney general bill barr was picked for that job. we do know he auditioned for the job. he sent an 18-plus memorandum to donald trump saying how a sitting president cant be indicted, this is a witch hunt, so he won the job that was coveted, he got the job. beyond that, what did robert mueller say? we want h...

A sitting president but this did not stop him from gathering evidence that could be used for further action. >> under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while hes in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view that so is prohibited. the special counsels office is part of the department of justice. by regulation, it will bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime is th...

Have the authority to refer to congress. he did tell us thats what he was doing. he said thats the next obvious step. there are other bodies that can judge this, not me as special counsel. he didnt directly say it. he didnt say it in a way that wed play in a loop on cable television or twitter saying the house must investigate. i think thats actually helpful to president trump. >> hes not robert de niro playing him. hes not to tough, brooding power figure. he came off as a civil servant today. t...

Youre investigating me we arent going to move forward. >> sandra: the mueller investigation played out. >> mueller pushed the rest to congress. the obstruction question is still an open question. he pushed it to congress. >> well, a couple of things here. you mentioned the bill clinton impeachment years. alexandria ocasio-cortez, who is sucking up a lot of oxygen in the room in the democratic party she was eight or nine years old when that was going on. >> bill clinton wasnt the vocal defender o...

To try to move forward on some of the things that actually affect the lives of voters. its hard to give attention to it when there is so much else going on, when you see these investigations coming to a head with the oversight committee be and the intelligence committee and the judiciary committee and then the courts. but she is fighting the good fight on that. >> whats interesting is this is the argument congressional republicans are making, too, which is that these questions have been settled ...

Other side of the obstruction question. what has replaced don mcgahn? >> well, i mean, again in that report the thing that is so striking is that there are people who are constantly saving the president from himself. frankly, in an effort to save themselves they kind of inadvertently help -- >> right, we should explain that. if you think the presidents committing obstruction of justice and you stay and help him, you too are legally exposed for committing -- you are part of a conspiracy to obstru...

In the mueller report. right? theres more information that they have. they were able to put this in this document. they went out publicly. its a question of why we didnt see this before especially because it seems to lead to the obstruction question. it does not change the fact robert mueller did not make a decision on obstruction. he knew this before he made that decision and then it, of course, allowed the attorney general to make the decision he did. but i think the question we all have is wh...

That he repeated no collusion half a dozen times, right from the presidents script. yes, barr is someone who at least at this point seems willing to trade the credibility he earned in his previous decades in government in order to curry favor with donald trump. >> ashley, you read the mueller report, the second volume and don mcghan just emerges as, if nothing else, deeply conflicted. loyal to the institution of the office of white house counsel, to the office and the prerogatives of the office ...

>> from how i know mueller works when he was director of the fbi, he papers the file very well. i would specific somewhere in a footnote or appendix to his report we will see his thought processes why he didnt do this. it will be recorded and discussions with rosenstein will be memorialized and will come out on discussions on the hill. if youre told this repeatedly and why the public needs to see this report, if mueller was told emphatically by the presidents attorney, we will plead the fifth am...

Investigation, where the boundaries were and how much time they took to look at whether there was obstruction at the a.g. level. every minute that goes by leaves suspicions on the table i think theyd be well served to clear. >> who do you think should testify before congress about this? would you like to see robert mueller in addition to the attorney general? >> id like to see robert mueller, rod rosenstein and attorney general barr at the table subject to questioning. >> do you think theres any...