Separate. And why your reporting is ev even he didnt read the letter and approve it. In the letter friday he said it would be muellers principle conclusions. Thats not the case. On page three he didnt have a principal collusion. Its barrs that there wasnt obstruction of justice. Everybody stand by. This is cnn breaking news. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am wolf blitzer in washington. After nearly two years, we now know the main conclusions of Robert Muellers russia information. A fourpage singlespaced summary was released by the Attorney General of the United States, bill barr. Part of the report reading and im quoting now. The investigation did not kid not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or
coordinated with the russians government in its election interference activities. Rudy giuliani told us the findings were better than he expected and President Trump just responded as well. It was a complete and total exoneration. Its a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, its a shame that your president has had to go through this. This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side. It comes to the question of obstruction, the Attorney General barr said mueller did not have enough evidence to prosecute but could not exonerate the president. This is all far from over. Right now Top Democrats are already calling for the full Mueller Report to be released immediately. And the House Judiciary Committee chairman jerry nad ler says his committee will be
calling for the Attorney General bill barr to testify soon. Laura is over at the Justice Department. Shes been watching all of this unfold. Laura, whats the latest investigation youre getting . Well, the latest were getting is what happens next. As capitol hill is champing at the bit to get every last piece of the underlying materials here, this is not muellers report. This is Attorney General bill barrs report. And as he explains here, hes working with the Special Counsel as well as the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein, and another select group of advisers trying to figure out what else can be produced here. The main issue on that is the fact that there is grand jury material potentially exposed by simply turning over the report. Im told by a Senior Justice Department official that this team of advisers is already working. That process has begun to try to figure out how to scrub the report and figure out what is left to be turned over to congress and by extension, the
public. The other interesting part about this fourpage memo from barr that sort of lays out the obstruction of justice case ais to note how mueller punted on that issue even though he was the Special Counsel appointed to try to figure out what gets to the bottom what the president s intent on that issue is. It makes it pretty clear mueller says theres evidence on both sides. He punted to the Attorney General to get to that question. And the Attorney General found there Wasnt Corrupt Intent and they couldnt make a nexus to a criminal proceeding. Of course, he couldnt assess the criminal intent. Mueller never sat down with the president. Laura, sand tand by. Manu raju is on capitol hill. Top democrats are not satisfied with this fourpage letter. Theyre saying they cant trust what bill barr said. They want to see all the
evidence that led bob mueller to reach these conclusions. They want to see the full report demanding the public release and release to capitol hill as part of as democrats try to pursue their own investigations in the days and weeks ahead. Pelosi and schumer said it raises as many questions and answers. Jerry nadler made clear he wants to hear from bill bar in a public testimony before his committee. He said in light of the very concerning discrepancies and final Decision Making of the Justice Department where mueller did not exonerate the president , well be calling Attorney General barr in to testify in the near future. Now, republicans have a much different reaction. Theyre saying this is a complete vindication for the president and exoneration. A great day for the mpresident. Theyre saying its time to move on, not retrace the steps as
part of the Obstruction Investigation. Lindsey graham saying in a statement good day for the rule of law. Great day for President Trump and his team. No collusion and no obstruction. The cloud hanging over President Trump has been removed by this report. But, of course, a lot of questions about how bob mueller reached these conclusions. Will the Justice Department provide congress with the full report or the underlying evidence . Bill barr said in that letter he would his goal was to release as much as possible under the law, under the regulations and abiding by Justice Department policy. A lot of questions tonight about exactly what that means. Well see how much he releases and what the democrats do about that. Manu, stand by. Abbie is with us. The president is clearly feeling pretty good about these findings. Reporter thats right. Our sources are telling us the president who spent the weekend in florida is in a fairly jovial mood as he returns to washington
on Air Force One. He stopped and talked to reporters a little bit before he got on that airplane, and he said this was a complete and total exoneration. His campaign and his aides are saying it is a vindication for a president who has been saying no collusion and no obstruction for two years now. Now, the white house is not making a distinction. That distinction youve been talking about between the findings on collusion and the findings on obstruction. Because theyre focusing on how they can use this to move the president forward. Theyre thinking about 2020 and theyre thinking about how to fire back at a democratic majority in the house. Wolf, i want to point you to two things the president talked about in his comments with reporters. He talked about the many people hurt by the investigation. Many of his associates who were charged with crimes, are facing prison time as a result of some of the findings of this investigation. And he also asked why the Justice Department or people are not looking into the other side. Now, its likely that hes
referring to the Clinton Campaign which hes been saying the people colluding with the russians he said. But these are two points we should focus in on as we look at the next steps for President Trump. President trump at this moment is not backing down on this. He called this an illegal attempt at a takedown of his administration that failed. And i think he is really planning at this moment for fighting back. Hes not going to just let the Mueller Report go by the wayside. And its worth noting he didnt talk about russian interfeern. That was part of the findings of the Mueller Report. He didnt thank Robert Mueller for his work. The president is irritated that as he said, he had to go through all this through the first two years of his presidency. Important points. On by, i know youre getting more reaction. The president on his way back to the white house from florida. Air force one should be landing fairly soon, were told. Our chief legal analyst jeffrey
toobin has been watching owl of th all of this. Give us your perspective on whats folding in the United States over the last few hours. Reporter well, this has been an enormous investigation. And the first part of bob barrs letter really sums up the number of interviews. 500 interviews. Hundreds of subpoenas. Swarnlts. Forei search warrants. The thoroughness of the investigations can scarcely be doubted based on what we know now. And there were two general areas that mueller was investigating. And they really never changed from day one. The first was what came to be called collusion. Which was the involvement of the Trump Campaign or anyone connected to donald trump with the acknowledged efforts by the russian government and people and entities affiliated with the
russian government to help trump win the election and hurt Hillary Clintons campaign. And there were two criminal cases brought as a result of that investigation. One involving the use of social media to help trump and hurt clinton. And another involving the hacking of the emails by emails of democrats and people affiliated with the democrats. And there have been a lot of suspicion about that, about people like roger stone and Paul Manafort with who has some interactions with the russians. And of course, there was the famous Trump Tower Meeting in june of 2016 with donald trump junior and the Paul Manafort and the president s soninlaw was there as well. The conclusion for all of that for mueller repeated by barr today was that there was no illegal activity there. That no one affiliated with the
president or his campaign directly or indirectly helped the russians sabotage this campaign. And its an enormously important point. The second general area in the investigation is the one that prompted the appointment of mueller in the first place which is james comeys firing by donald trump as fbi director, and the question of whether that action and other actions that the president took were an obstruction of justice, a criminal act. And here the result of muellers investigation is sufficiently is considerably more ambiguous, because mueller apparently, and this is a its confusing as presented by barr here, did not reach a conclusion about whether there was a criminal act by the president. He apparently sort of turned over the evidence both Pro And Con To Mueller himself, to barr,
and the Attorney General himself to make that determination. Mueller did not make a recommendation about obstruction of justice. Barr in consultation with his Deputy Attorney general, rod rosen Ti Rosenstein concluded based on the evidence presented to him from mueller and he did it fast. He only got the evidence on friday. A twoyear investigation, and he concluded today that there was no basis to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against the president. And its very important that in muellers letter, and what is certain to be a frequently quoted passage from muellers report that was quoted by barr, he said while the report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. Certainly congress is going to want to see the underlying basis for that conclusion and that is
sort of where we go now. Congress is going to have to take over that part of the investigation if its so inclined. Its very significant, because the as you connectly point out, the Special Counsel said that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him, but then the Attorney General bill barr and the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein in their analysis of what they got from mueller, they say they have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsels investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. So thats what the conclusion of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney general was the Special Counsel, he stopped short of that. Reporter thats exactly right. And what is different about what we saw and what we expected was
that it was barr and rosenstein, the president s appointees who made the ultimate conclusion about obstruction of justice. Not the Special Counsel, mueller. And whats even stranger about that is that it was the whole reason why mueller was appointed was that the hierarchy of the department of justice has an inherent Conflict Of Interest when investigating the president of the United States. So the issue of how and why it was barr and rosenstein who came to reach this conclusion about obstruction of justice and not mueller himself is something very much worthy of investigation. Im not saying its corrupt. Im not saying its improper, but it is certainly not required by the regulation under Which Mueller was appointed, and how it came to be that barr made the con reached the ultimate
conclusion about obstruction of justice and not mueller, thats something that congress is certainly going to want to investigate. Very Significant Development indeed. Gloria borger, lets get your analysis right now hes very firm, mueller in saying there was no collusion, not very 23ir78 on the issue of obstruction of justice. And i think to add onto what jeffrey is saying, i think what Congress Wants to get the answer to is why did the Special Counsel pass on the question of obstruction of justice . Why did the Special Counsel we know that the from the barr letter that the Special Counsel views the difficult issues of law. In fact gloria, hold on for one moment. We lost your mike for a second. Were going to fix that. I want to go to david watching this unfold as well. And david, you have a unique perspective. Youve seen a lot of these activities over the many years youve worked for four u. S. President s. Youve now gone through probably several times reading this
letter for the Attorney General to congress. What do you think . Reporter well, i think overall it is very clear and very significant decision in favor of the president , and i think its probably one of the most important things thats going to happen this term. It doesnt obviously change who he is. His temperament, his fitness for office on other issues, but this has obvious and clear implications for the 2020 race. Beyond that, though, i think there are two other things that are significant. There was also good for the country in one fundamental sense. And that is its important for us to not believe our president is a crook, that our president conspired. They didnt conspire. And thats a good thing. They did a lot of things that were suspicious, but they didnt conspire. I think thats healthy for the country. Theres another group that won a victory here in this, in my judgment. That was the department of justice. The people have done this investigation and have been under enormous not only just pressure but all sorts of
attacks. Theyre angry partisan democrats. They were trying to bring down the president and low and behold, they defended the president and found him basically not guilty on count one, and i think that shows that this was an impartial group. Then we ought to show a lot of respect for their findings. Whether we like it or not, and there are many, many people out there that are going to be extremely disappointed by this outcome. But this was a way, a good way a country settles significant disputes. We do it through the rule of law, and i think thats to be celebrated. Its clear, david, that the democrats on capitol hill are not happy with this conclusion that there was no collusion or conspiracy or cooperation between the Trump Campaign and the russians. Well, i can understand why theyre disappointed. They thought this was there have been so many things that have been suspicious about this, and when the president today
which i thought was an inappropriate remark just a short while ago that this was an illegal takedown that failed. Its worth remembering that what set this investigation off, what triggered it was suspicious activity by people who worked in the Trump Campaign. And that was picked up by our counterintelligence people. Thats when the ball started rolling toward this investigation. So i think we can question aspects of the investigation as jeffrey did and is an admirable summary of what was stated today. But i think nonetheless, we have had a fair now and a very thorough investigation, and on the fundamental question of a conspiracy, they just didnt find the evidence. And by the way, thats what the House Intelligence Committee has said, and the senate Intelligence Committee basically have said. They havent found serious conspiracy. Yeah. Thats an important point as well. Were getting new information, significant information. Pamela brown and laura are working