Volume 1, 193. He lied three times. Why didnt you charge him with a crime . I cant get into internal deliberations as to what or would not be you charged a lot of people from making false statements. Lets remember this. In 2016 the fbi did something they probably havent done before. They spied on two american citizens associated with the president ial campaign. George papadopoulos and carter page. Was carter page who then went to the g the fisa court. With mr. Papadopoulos they didnt go to the court. They used human sources. From about the moment papadopoulos joins the Trump Campaign you have all of these people All Around The World starting to swirl around him. Names like halper, downer, misfeud, thompson. Meeting in rome, london, all
kinds of places and the fbi even sent a lady posing as somebody else. Went by the name turk to spy on papadopoulos. In one of the meetings he is talking to a foreign diplomat and he says that the russians have dirt on clinton. That Diplomat Contacts the fbi and the fbi opens an investigation based on that fact. Thats on page 1 of the report, july 21, 2016, they open up the investigation based on that piece of information. The diplomat tells papadopoulos that papadopoulos tells the diplomat russians have dirt on clinton. Diplomat tells the fbi. What im wondering is who told papadopoulos . How did he find out . I cant get into the evidentiary yes, you can because you gave us the answer. Page 192 of the report you tell us who told him. Joseph misfeud. He told papadopoulos and the mysterious professor who lives in rome and london, works at two different universities. He told papadopoulos hes the guy who starts it all. And when the fbi interviews him, he lies three times and yet you dont charge him with a crime. You charge rick gates for false statements. Charge Paul Manafort and charge Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn a threestar general with false statements but the guy who puts the country through the whole saga starts it off for three years we have lived this now. He lies and you guys dont charge him. Im curious as to why. Well, i cant get into it and its obvious i think we cant get into charging decisions. When the fbi interviewed him in february, when the Special Counsels office interviewed misfeud did he lie to you too . I cant get into that. Did you interview him . I cant get into it. Is he western or russian intelligence . I cant get into that. A lot of things you cant get into. You can charge 13 russians no ones ever heard of, no one is ever going to see them, you can charge them. You can charge all kinds of people who are around the president with false statements. But the guy who launches everything, the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you cant charge him. I think thats amazing. Im not certain im not certain i agree with your characterizations. Well, im reading from your report. Misfeud told papadopoulos and papadopoulos tells the diplomat and the diplomat tells the fbi and the fbi opens the investigation in 2016 and here we are, three years later july of 2019, the country has been put through this and the central figure who launches it all . He lies to us and You Guys Dont Hunt Him down and interview him again. And you dont charge him with the crime. Now heres the good news. Heres the good news. The president was falsely accused of conspiracy. The fbi does a ten month investigation and james comey told us at that point they had nothing. You do a 22 month investigation, at the end of the 22 month you find no conspiracy. And whats the democrat wanting to do . They want to keep investigating. Maybe a better course of action is to figure out how the false accusations started. Maybe its to go become and actually figure out why Joseph Misfeud was lying to the fbi and heres the good news. Heres the good news. Thats exactly what bill barr is doing. And thank goodness for that. Thats exactly what the Attorney General and john durham are doing. Theyre going to find out why we went through this three years saga and have gone through it. The time is expired. In a moment well take a very brief five minute break. I ask everyone to please remain seated and quiet while the witness exits the room. I also want to announce to those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you
leave the hearing room at this time. All right. So this is the first break that theyre taking. The house judiciary committee, very, very explosive exchanges. Very explosive information being released. Theres a lot to discuss the initial statements from Robert Mueller in response to questioning from jerry nadler t committee chairman, his investigation nearly a two year investigation did not totally exonerate President Trump despite what he has been saying. Look, this has been well over an hour, almost actually an an hour and a half. And there have been a lot of questions in the weeds. But i think its in some ways the democrats could have stopped stopped the hearing after the nadler exchange because in that exchange they got what they wanted and what they needed. Politically speaking, about the notion of obstruction and most importantly the notion of the president insisting over and over again that he was exonerated. He was not exonerated. And you had the Special Counsel who did the twoyear Investigation Answering that very clearly with very direct, yes or no answers. Specific very significant developments, jeffrey toobin. Yeah, the Nadler Questioning was by far the most illuminating and most important exchange so far. I think theres a large question hovering over what we have seen for the hour and a half which is is muellers phlegmatic, extremely limiting answer a strategy or is it some inability he has to engage with the questioners . I mean, i think the question of how hes you know, this very limited short sentences, yes or no, is that a strategy or is that something hes just not capable of doing . Well, garrett, you knowRobert Mueller very well, you have written a book about him. What do you think . Its sort of hard to tell. I think i would expect Robert Mueller to be a little bit more combative than he has been during some of these exchanges. Particularly the one with representative gohmert. This is not necessarily the Robert Mueller testify before congress before, but we have seen him you know, he performed very strongly in his opening remarks and that opening exchange with nadler. He has been shakier with some of these more complicated little bit more obscure questions with citations back to the report. And its hard to know as jeffrey is saying whether thats a strategy on his part, where hes trying to be very, very precise in what his report is actually saying. It could also be were seeing him shake off the rust of not testifying before congress in six years. Did the chairman accomplish
what the democrats clearly wanted to try to accomplish . Sure. In the opening round, yes. Were used to saying that members of congress dont know how to ask questions, well, they dont know how to be crisp about them. Watching the testimony i graded him an a. Maybe an aplus. Whats interesting about whats been discussed in the last couple of minutes whether its some inability or its a strategy they both point to the same direction. And good for Robert Mueller who doesnt want to say much. When he gets good, sharp questions, that are clear, he answers in a good, sharp and clear way. I think at the beginning i was just observing everyone like the panel here, when he was answering yes, no, yes, yes, you dont see witnesses testify that way. Lots of witnesses whether theyre extremely sharp or not go on and on. They filibuster. He doesnt do that. I dont believe i have yet heard bob mueller give any kind of
narrative answer that goes more than one sentence. Hell either answer yes or no or say i refer you to the report. Thats it. One of the things from the nadler exchange at the very top, dana bash, the report does not exonerate President Trump. Exactly. Other people especially republicans have made other points but right now i think thats the headline out of th this out of the hearing so far. That mueller says that his report does not exonerate the president despite the president claiming so. Absolutely. That is by far the headline. The person and the exchange that came close to that i think it maybe it backs it up and gives evidence behind the headline was the exchange we saw at the end here with congresswoman karen bass of california. She had the same kind of very fast paced. She asked the question, he answered yes or no and what she got out of the exchange was the fact that his counsel the president actually directed his counsel to try to fire robert
mueller and when that was reported by the New York Times he tried to get don mcgahn the counsel were talking about to deny it and he refused to do it because he said no, the story is true. That speaks to probably exhibit a in the at the evidence of the obstruction case. One of the one of the other points, the republicans are trying to score some points. Congressman ratcliffe made the point its not standard procedure for a prosecutor to say im not exonerating this person even though im not charging them. Congressman gohmert accusing mueller of perpetuating injustice. Congressman jim jordan asking a lot of questions about the mysterious Joseph Misfeud who we have never really figured out what exactly his role in all of this is. But i dont know that those are going to be headlines out of this report. Im sure that they will you
know, merit some back slaps in the Fox Greenroom but i dont know if thats making a larger point here. Right. Or back slaps from the president. We have learned that Congressman Ratcliffe is auditioning for a job in the administration. He was echoing a question of this inverted standard of proof mueller saying he couldnt be exonerated and that the obstruction probe you dont prove someones innocence, you prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I think part of the strategy, the bigger strategy for republicans is they are trying to portray a confused witness who is not in command of his performance. I think thats the larger strategy. And were see it from the republicans. I think there are two answers to the questions here. One of course is the nadler question. Was he exonerated . Clear answer from mueller is no. He answered in those terms more than once. When he was pressed on the conspiracy question, did the president conspire, et cetera, muellers answer was not no. It was we found insufficient evidence of the president s culpability. The president could have said clearly theres nothing there. He didnt. Thats as far consistent with the report. By it shows you but it shows you he didnt dismiss that in the way he dismissed the claim of his obstruction. Listen, i think it could be unfair to look at muellers performance there and say that somehow hes not on top of things. I mean, you had you have a 400 page report here, members citing Page Citations and mueller when there are particular citations well, let me look at the report on the key questions of what he found, was there he gives a clear answer on the conspiracy question, a clear answer on the Obstruction Question and those are the takeaways. One other item that i think is important, jeffrey toobin, that he said that the
investigation began into the obstruction of Justice Charges started with the memo, meaning that i gather that they were never going to indict President Trump. Ever. And that was thats news, actually. I mean, because the question of how and whether and when the mueller team was going to abide by the office of Legal Counsels opinion that you cant indict a sitting president when did they agree to that . Apparently from day one. So they went into the investigation according to the Special Counsel knowing that they were never going to indict the president. And i think that shapes a lot of what follows. The problem i think when you think about a narrative, if you were a casual viewer today and someone were to ask you after an hour and a half, what did the president do wrong here . It wouldnt be easy to answer that question because of the sort of hes not telling a story. He is ratifying a story that the
questioners are asking him, one question at a time. Those of us who know the story, you know we understand what theyre getting at. But, you know, if he alternatively had said this is what don mcgahn told us, and that is just not hows approaching this he said refer to the report for further details. And part of the problem is that trump has spent the better part of 2 1 2 years telling you that this investigation was about him and when he outlined about what his directive and mandate was was to investigate the idea of foreign interference. He identified the notion he had under the olc opinion he said you never know where the investigation is going to lead. So a notion of being able to continue the investigation was extraordinarily important for him to do so because it wasnt as if his one of the targets was actually President Trump. I look at actual mueller and how he operated today. I have to say he was extraordinarily frustrating as a witness because he continually derailed everyones soap box. He did not give an inch or remove one. In doing so, he said i told you before i got here, i was going to be limited. I was going to be pointed. Look at the actual document, fine. You want to hear my answer, fine, but i have a duty here to be precise. You must ask a question you want answered as opposed to i want to point out that the chairman is now back in the room. You see him speaking with one of the counsels, norm isen and he was playing Robert Mueller in helping the democrats make sure they ask the right questions. Preet bharara, were you surprised that they could not indict the president heres jerry nadler calling the hearing to order. You can answer that until we yeah. As jeffrey said thats news. I would have liked to i would like to hear a stronger answer as to why it was appropriate to continue the investigation because the implication of it is
as a lot of people are speculating, you do the investigation, you can continue to investigate and theres a body called congress that also has the you know, an interest in this and future prosecutions once he leaves office. So it was not all for naught. Yeah. I think to lauras point, one of the things thats fascinating and helped to Prep Jim Comey for some of these dramatic hearings before, this is not jim comey. You know . This is you know, you watch the way that comey has told these dramatic stories before about the president and youre not getting that with Robert Mueller. Mueller is yes, no. Yeah. Refer to the report. Im a little surprised at times he hasnt pushed back more when he was told that he was perpetuating injustice. He said ill take your question, i think he went to say i take your point. But then later he did tell one of the congressman that he didnt agree with the assessment. So theres a little bit but hes not fiercely defending his own integrity or the integrity of his team. No. Which is surprising to me. Hold on. Because hes walking back in. Robert mueller. They took a little break. Theyre going to resume i think for another hour and a half now before the judiciary part of the hearing concludes and then they go before the house committee. Mr. Richmond . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, Congressman Deutsche addressed the request to mcgahn to fire you. Representative bass talked about the president s request of mcgahn to deny the fact that the president made that request. So i want to pick up where they left off and i want to pick up with the president s personal lawyer. In fact, there was evidence that the president s personal lawyer was alarmed at the prospect of the president meeting with mr. Mcgahn to discuss mr. Mcgahns
refusal to deny the New York Times report about the president trying to fire you, correct . Correct. In fact, the president s counsel was so alarmed by the prospect of the president s meeting with mcgahn that he called his counsel and said that mcgahn could not resign no matter what happened in the oval office that day. Correct . Correct. So its accurate to say that the president knew that he was asking mcgahn to deny facts that mcgahn quote, had repeatedly said said were accurate, unquote, is that right . Correct. Your investigation also find, quote, by the time of the Oval Office Meeting with the president , the president was aware one, that mcgahn did not think the story was false. Two, did not want to issue a statement or create a written record denying facts that mcgahn believed to be true. The president nevertheless persisted and asked mcgahn to repudiate facts that mcgahn had repeatedly said were accurate. Is that right . Generally true. I believe thats on page 119. Thank you. In other words, the president was trying to force mcgahn to Say Something that mcgahn did not believe to be true. Thats accurate. I want to reference you to a slide, its on page 120. And it says, substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging mcgahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated the president acted for the purpose of influencing mcgahns account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of the president s conduct towards the investigation. Thats accurate. Can you explain what you
meant there . I just believe as it appears in the report. So its fair to say that the president tried to protect himself by asking staff to falsify records relevant to an Ongoing Investigation . I would say thats generally a summary. Would you say