Page 8 - Steele Report News Today

What mr. ratcliffe said. even the president is innocent until proven guilty. my time is up. >> the gentleman from tennessee. >> thank you, mr. chair. first i would just like to restate that mr. nadler said about your career. it is a model of rectitude and i thank you. based upon your investigation, how did president trump react to your appointment as special counsel? >> i send you the report where that is stated. >> there is a quote from page 78 of your report volume 2 which reads when sessions ...

We havent heard him interact with aaron zebley who came in with him to back him up on some of these things but clearly he is leaning on the report and then at times asked does conspiracy equal collusion and he said no. and then he was read that part of the report which says essentially that is what he found in the report. and then he sort of back pedaled and said well, go with whats in my report. >> brett: ill bring the panel in, democrats arent having the former special counsel read from the re...

Sir? >> let me go to the next one. the president quote criticized mcgahn for telling your office about the june 17th, 2017 events when he told mcgahn to have you removed, correct? >> correct. >> in other words, the president was criticizing his white house counsel for telling law enforcement officials what he believed to be the truth. >> again go back to the text of the report. >> well, let me go a little bit further. would it have been a crime if mr. mcgahn had lied to you about the president o...

Whether the investigation was impeded in any way. he said no. democrats are trying to hammer down this view of obstruction because thats the only thing they have left and they were hoping today that americans would tune in and watch robert mueller testify about this report because they hadnt read it. none of that is happening. he is not giving any extra information or answers about what went on. republicans are laying out the case, the origins and corruption how the whole thing started. >> brett...

>> i cant answer that question. >> well, on page 89 in your report volume 2 you said, and i quote, substantial evidence indicates that the presidents attempts to remove the special counsel were linked to the special counsels oversight of investigations that involved the presidents conduct and most immediately to reports that the president was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice, close quote. director mueller, you found evidence, as you lay out in your report, that the preside...

York times" reported that, quote, the president had ordered mcgahn to have the department of justice fire you. is that correct? >> correct. >> and that story related to the events you already testified about here today, the presidents calls to mcgahn to have you removed, correct? >> correct. >> after the news broke, did the president go on tv and deny the story? >> do not know. >> in fact, the president said, quote, fake news, folks, fake news, a typical "new york times" fake story, end quote, c...

Supposed to be the attorney general of the united states of america or the con sig larry for the president. >> united states of america. >> the president sought to convince sessions to unrecuse himself so the investigation -- >> i rely on the report. >> restricted the scope of your investigation. >> im not going to speculate. if he took over or was attorney general he would have greater latitude in his actions that would enable him to do things that otherwise he could not. >> page 113 you said t...

The battleground states. so while the russians were buying ads and creating propaganda to influence the outcome of the election, they were armed with inside information that they had stolen through hacking from the dnc and that they had been given by the trump campaign chairman mr. manafort. my colleagues will probe the efforts undertaken to keep this information from becoming public, but i think it is important for the american people to understand the gravity of the underlying problem that you...

>> and yet the president repeatedly expressed his decisions of sessions to recuse himself from oversight of that investigation. >> thats accurate based on what is written in the report. >> presidents reaction to the recusal as noted in the report mr. bannon recalled the president was as mad as bannon had ever seen him and he screamed as mcgahn about how weak sessions was. do you recall that from the report >> yes? >> despite knowing attorney general sessions was not supposed to be involved in th...

>> well, i cant get into it. >> was this letter written and leaked for the express purpose of attempting to change the narrative about the conclusions of your report and was anything in attorney general barrs letter referred to as principal conclusions -- >> the time for -- >> he may answer the question. >> may answer the question. >> was anything in barrs letter dated march 24th inaccurate? ? a i am not going to get into that. >> were focusing on five obstruction episodes today. i would like to...