Office of president of United States and will preserve, protect and defense the constitution of the u. S. Except where nobody gets killed or robbed. His point is basically that a crime is a crime is a crime, correct . Exactly. I think you see through georges tweet a commonality, again, between he and i. Even though we come from very different sides of the aisle, but a common belief, a core belief in the rule of law in america. And thats a belief that Rudy Giuliani himself shared as a prosecutor. I dont think he was only putting murderers behind bars. There are whole Statute Books being enforced every day. And it would turn our nation upside down to adopt giulianis new position. Thank you very much. I now hand it over to chris cuomo. Thank you, i am chris cuomo. Welcome to primetime. We have new information tonight. The Special Counsel wants more answers from the president of the United States, and he wants them in person. The president s legal team said it was open to more questioning, but they have been clearly afraid to put the president in a chair across from mueller. You know what that means. There is a showdown coming. And, does this new request by mueller have anything to do with this mystery proceeding that happened today . An entire courtroom put on lockdown. The press was cleared out. Coat closets were inspected, even an elevator sealed off. A great debate on what could be coming. Mueller dropped another eyepopping memo about general flynn today that gives us our best look yet at how the Special Counsel deals with liars. A load to break down in cuomos court. It is friday, so lets get after it. This was always the concern with the written responses from the president , State Of Mind. The Special Counsel has said, i
need to understand his State Of Mind during certain actions and episodes for the obstruction probe. If thats what the Special Counsel wants, it is the kind of questioning that really needs to be in person. You have to look at the person who is giving the answers. You have to assess them. You have to see if it works together. You want to test patterns. Very tough to do in writing. This news comes as the Special Counsel fired back at general flynn today, showing our best example yet of how mueller will deal with lying. Even though the Special Counsel has requested minimal punishment for the general, the Special Counsel went out of his way to say the man lied and that no one set him up. One of the quotes was his decision to make false statements was voluntarily and intentional. And he went out of his way to say as a former head of an intelligence agency, he should have known better. Again, even though the man is working for mueller, lying will not be tolerated. Very foretelling. Lets bring in former acting Solicitor General, walter dellinger. Great to have you. Welcome to primetime. Thank you. The idea of State Of Mind and what im laying out there, this was always my concern when i heard about the written interrogatories originally, that if they want to know why the president did what he did, its tough to glean, as we say in the law, from just written answers. Fair point . Fair point. And whats more dramatic, i think, about this latest development, chris, is that if you need to probe individual 1, that is, the president s State Of Mind, that means your focus is on the the criminal focus is on that individual, that is the president. You dont need to know his State Of Mind if you are merely seeking information about the actions of others. Good point. I want to know what you did. I want to know why you did it,
not just what you knew about other people. Thats an important distinction. Now, the question becomes, so now what . We know that the president s lawyers dont want to put him in the chair. Where does this go . Well, i think, you know, that the Special Counsel could very well try to get very quickly to the Supreme Court on the question of whether the president is allowed to refuse to submit to questioning. And i think the precedents on that do not bode well for the president. I argued and lost in Clinton Versus Jones that a lawsuit against the president a civil lawsuit ought to be postponed while hes in office. The Supreme Court rejected that 90, and said that even having to go through a civil trial did not meet the standard of sufficient interference with the president. That and the Nixon Tape Case would indicate that the Supreme Court would say the president has no choice but to answer questions. And my guess is that whether he would have to do it through a
redacted version or not, Special Counsel Mueller could lay before the Supreme Court how serious are the issues that he needs to review with the president to understand the president s State Of Mind. Now, if there is pushback, the ultimate kind of conflict goes right to what you have been writing about and what you have been practicing in this regard for so many years. If the president s argument winds up being, look, you cant indict me. You cant get me for any of this stuff criminally anyway, so lets stop this game. Write your report. Say whatever you want, say i wouldnt comply, but you cant indict me so dont treat me like everybody else. Im not. Im the president. Where does that go . I think, and ive said before, it is not as well settled as people think that a president cannot be indicted, at least as long as other proceedings are postponed during his term in office. But more to the point is the
fact that this president s term ends in 25 months and the statute of limitations would not have run on these crimes. If hes not reelected, no one doubts that he can be indicted and prosecuted when his term is over. That step ought to be taken reluctantly. But if the facts warrant it, thats what the president is facing when his term is over without any doubt. And that means that a president would have every incentive if a president really did engage in provable felonies of a serious order, a president would negotiate in a sense to resign from office in exchange for extreme leniency in the sentencing process. This man gives no suggestion that he would ever do anything like that. You know, President Trump has shown at every turn in his life he will take the fight. I dont mean that in some false sense of bravado. Im saying he will push the situation. It takes us to what he might be facing. Michael cohen, is it a big deal or not . Im not going to get into that. I want to measure the veracity. I want to play sound from both of them, and i want to ask you who you believe, but more importantly why. I never directed him to do anything wrong. Whatever he did, he did on his own. Hes a lawyer. He was trying to hide what you were doing, correct . Correct. And he knew it was wrong . Of course. Whom do you believe . Well, i have my own opinions. I think its really hard to say. I mean, the president has certainly had incentives and hes changed his story several times. But i think more to the point is i think the Special Counsel we have every indication that the Campaign Finance violations are every bit as serious as neal was saying in the last hour. That may really be almost a side performance. The big issue here is what may rank as one of the greatest crimes in american history, which is the russian federations attempt to interfere in the president ial election. And on that, i think the filing today you referenced in the Flynn Sentencing raises a question of why did General Flynn Lie when he could have told the truth about his conversation with kislyak . Its as if he was hiding something much deeper, much more expansive than that. So, i think at the end of the day well know what we know when we know it. But even these Campaign Finance matters may be relatively small. We have to ask about the lying, chris. Why are people lying . Yes. If they have nothing to hide, why lie . Thats actually two different decisions. Again, i am not getting im not getting sideways with walter. The guy is a better lawyer than
i have ever been on my best day. But just how people understand at home, you have two different avenues of thought. I know you are coming after me. I lied just to protect myself, not because i have anything to hide, but i know you are coming after me. I know you are trying to frame me and make me part of something that im not, so i lied to protect myself. The other one goes to your suggestion, which is, there is Something Else there. What is more likely at this point . I think whats likely is that there is Something Else there. Take the lie that general flynn was talking about. He actually, we now know for a fact, spoke to the russian kislyak about the sanctions issue that obama had imposed. Now, technically, that might be a violation, but he was facing no jeopardy. Right. But as a former head of a Defense Intelligence agency and a general, he knew he was under severe risk of a fiveyear felony to lie before the fbi
recordings, as they did, of his conversations with the russian ambassador. So why would he take that enormous risk . He may know and may have told the Special Counsels office about the degree of complicity with russian involvement or some similar issue that made him think at that time, at the very beginning of the administration that he did not dare tell the truth about a relatively inconsequential matter. You do have a Metaphor Effect here. With the federal violations with cohen and the president , the president says, i didnt direct anybody. Some lawyer told him thats a meaningful distinction. Its not the best advice. He didnt have to direct the action to be exposed to the responsibility for the action. But it is instructive of when the president says, well, i didnt direct it, so therefore im okay. Does the same apply to flynn . Does the same apply to manafort in his meetings with russians . Does the same apply to the Trump Tower Meeting where he says i didnt make any of this happen but i happened to have lied about what i knew. And well see. As we get more meat on the bones, you are one of the men ill have to call back for more of your take on this situation. Well, youre quite welcome, chris. Thank you. I encourage everybody to read your piece, out this weekend. Well give directions on the site and i will link it up as well. Thank you very much. So, general flynn is sentenced to be is due to be sentenced on tuesday, all right . We know that this is weird today, what happened. Thats why im trying to spell it out for you. Mueller says hes been great. He helped before others did. He helped in every way we wanted. Thats why im asking for the low end of the range of sentencing. But then he hammered him today. And it was such an interesting window into what mr. Dellinger was just suggesting, which is if you lie here, it is a problem. And they hammered flynn for lying and they went out of their way to architect exactly how tied to the lie flynn was. What does that mean for the future of other people that
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flynn. Even if both sides agree, the former National Security adviser shouldnt do much, if any, time. Its interesting. Mueller said flynn was committed to his false story. Hes saying to the court, dont buy this. That he was set up. Dont buy he meant to lie. He meant to lie. He lied a lot. We caught him. Thats the real deal. Why is this important . Because it shows how mueller and his team view lying. All right . Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements. Thats another quote from the filing. Muellers own filing shows the fbi tactics didnt sit well at the time. We know sally yates wasnt happy and some people whose names were redacted argued about the decision to interview flynn. And the fbi said he didnt feel he was being deceptive. The Special Counsel says they may have thought that, but it didnt change the fact that flynn was lying and admitted to it. Its all fodder for cuomos court. Thank you for being here on a friday. Heres where i find it so interesting. This is the first window that weve had where we see how mueller thinks about lying. Now, i took the time to go back and read his report on the nfl and how they dealt with ray rice because i wanted to see the same thing and i saw parallels that it is all Straight Line reasoning. Nope, you lied. I can show you lied. I dont care why you think you did it, i dont care how you think you can get around it. I may think you deserve leniency, but if you lie, im going to call it out. He did it in the nfl report. Hes doing it with flynn. Combine that muellers new request to get more out of the president about his State Of Mind, which almost has to be done in person, and what does that tell you . Well, chris, with the flynn filing, i mean, i see more than mueller just saying that im not going to tolerate lying. We know that from the fact that he charged him with it. I think its the absurdity of the claims that flynn was making that he was lured into this
interview and he didnt know he needed a lawyer and, you know, all of this nonsense. You know, this is somebody who was appointed to be the National Security adviser. Right, savvy guy. Somebody who is supposed to see every threat far and wide, you know, to the United States, and he cant know he doesnt know to tell the truth to the fbi. I mean, my 9yearold had a visit from officer friendly to her class and knows she doesnt lie to the police. This is not rocket science. And i think it is more that he thinks this is an absurd claim to be made. But its interesting about the disposition. Jims jim, i want to layer on top of it what the president s response in a tweet. He kind of poked the bear with a tweet to the president. They gave general flynn a great deal because they were embarrassed by the way he was treated. The fbi said he didnt lie and they overrode the fbi. They want to scare everybody into making up stories that are not true by catching them in the smallest of misstatements. Dont you take his device and snap it in front of him and say, didnt you just hear that mueller wants to talk to you, man . Dont you understand whats happening here . Stop antagonizing the man with all the power i want to say i agree 100 with asha on, why would flynn make that argument . Because he wanted more leniency. Right, but he already had leniency. He already had a deal. He is poking the bear. That didnt make a whole lot of sense to me. But also, in that memo they typically dont comment on credibility in those types of memos, and they did here. Likely because the issue was raised. But i think thats important, and i find it more important on the issue of what are we going to see down the road and what is mueller looking at. Down the road, hes going to see the president State Of Mind, as you guys both know, jim, i want to talk to you about why you did things and what was going through your
head. We know two things, one, you are not a sidebar. I am not just asking you for information. Im looking at you. Two, i cant get it in writing. You have to sit down with me. Do you agree or not . The forecast is hes going to see the president and his legal team is going to attack this one. We saw the tweet today. Theyre going to attack the credibility of strzok and the problems he had associated with this investigation. Hes no longer on the legal team. They will try to use that to their advantage once the report hits. This memo today was forecasting that mueller is going to say i supported the fbi. This guy was a liar. We charged him. I mea