About, yet he went to him to work on an issue thats so important. That says everything about his life. Thanks, antjuan, and thank you, trymaine as well. President clinton and President Obama are set to speak in baltimore. Andrea mitchell reports starts right now. Thank you, craig melvin. Next on Andrea Mitchell reports, the Justice Department opens a Criminal Investigation into the origins of the fbis russia probe. Whats the crime . Whos under investigation . And why are the findings of the nations 17 Intelligence Agencies and the Republicanled SenateIntelligence Committee not enough for the Trump Administration . Falling in line. Republicans escalate their assault on the house Impeachment Inquiry, trying to slow down the pace after two weeks of damaging testimony. Plus going home. Thousands gathering in baltimore this hour, including two former president s, for a final farewell
to congressman Elijah Cummings. The man that speaker of the house nancy pelosi called our north star. And good day, everyone, im Andrea Mitchell and were keeping a close eye of course on congressman Cummings Funeral Service in baltimore. Well take you there when president clinton begins his remarks followed by President Obama. But we begin in washington where the Justice Department is pursuing a Criminal Investigation into the origins of the mueller probe. For two years President Trump has been calling this a witch hunt and a hoax. Even though russias attack on the 2016 campaign to help mr. Trumps election was unanimously accepted by u. S. Intelligence
agencies and the fbi, a conclusion ratified again just this month by a Republicanled SenateIntelligence Committee investigation. What had been considered an administrative review of those conclusions is now a fullblown criminal probe. We dont know exactly when that started. Giving u. S. Attorney, john durham, the power to convene a grand jury and subpoena witnesses. Nbc White House CorrespondentKristen Welker joins me as well as matt miller and legal analyst mimi rocah, julia ainsley, matt miller, just named, of course, former spokesman to eric holder, and ruth marcus from the Washington Post. Kristen, the president has been calling this a hoax all along. Is this to validate his
suspicions, his theory, or is there something more going on . Do we know who is being investigated . Well, it has certainly opened up President Trump to that type of criticism, andrea. Particularly you have jerry nadler saying this is essentially the president using the Justice Department to attack his political enemies. I put that question to mark short, who is of course the Chief Of Staff for Vice President mike pence, who disputed that thats whats happening here. But it does fit into the fact that President Trump has been calling for this to happen for years, referring to the Mueller Investigation is a witch hunt and a hoax. I asked Kellyanne Conway if President Trump had been briefed by the Attorney General, whether he had spoken to him about this development. And at this point in time she wasnt able to answer that question. It is a critical one, andrea, because it gets to the heart of what youre asking, is President Trump engaged in these discussions about opening a Criminal Investigation. Bottom line, though, as you point out, the mueller
investigation, while it found there was insufficient evidence to prove that there was a conspiracy, did determine there were as many as 140 contacts between the Trump Campaign and russia and found that there were ten instances of possible obstruction by President Trump. And so there were real findings that were yielded from that trump which complicates of theory that this investigation was purely politically motivated. So President Trump right now speaking on the White House South Lawn before he departs, andrea, so far it doesnt seem like hes been asked about this specifically, but well let you know what he says as soon as we get a readout from the reporters who are there with him. And that video of the president of course will be played back. Mimi rocah, what is the significance of this being a Criminal Investigation . What kind of power does that give the investigators from the Justice Department . Well, yes, so practically speaking, its quite significant. Now they can use the power of the grand jury to compel testimony, to compel evidence
from witnesses. It raises the stakes as well because at the end of the day, criminal charges now could be brought. Now, thats not to say that they will be. And while i, like many, find this escalation to a Criminal Investigation alarming, the real question at the end of the day is, will there be criminal charges, which would be just a whole other level of, you know, shock, i think, unless theres really something out there that we dont know yet, which is hard to believe given the amount of scrutiny, as you pointed out in the beginning, thats already been given to this investigation. So it gives power in the investigation, and it opens the potential for criminal charges, which is just a whole other level of serious. And we have a piece of an interview that david loughman, the former head of the national
security division of the Justice Department, who was speaking to Rachel Maddow last night shortly after this broke. I have high regard for john durham and the other former prosecutors and fbi agents he has surrounded himself with to carry out this investigation. I have high regard for him. Hes a distinguished prosecutor. But this investigation, if not born in sin, was born in political taint. Theres just no mistaking its origins that this is something the president wanted to see happen to vindicate political grievances about the 2016 election. And the president apparently has just been asked about this, whether he knows anything about it, he says he does not, hes leaving it up to Attorney General william barr. Matt miller, having worked in the Justice Department, the whole question that David Laufman raised last night about the taint on this because of all the politics involved and all the Conspiracy Theories that have been promulgated by one
network and by president. You know, i know john durham too and share davids assessment of him. Hes thorough, fair, hardcharging. But ultimately at the end of the day hes apolitical. If i thought john durham were running this investigation by himself, i wouldnt have any concerns. But thats not what weve seen. Whatever seen the Attorney General taking control of this investigation to the extent that he has flown to italy twice to personally interrogate foreign officials about their cooperation with u. S. Intelligence authorities. So i dont think that john durham is in charge of this investigation. I think bill barr is and i think theres very much reason to question his priorities. I find this entire step deeply concerning. As you pointed out, as mimi pointed out, we know more about the Mueller Investigation, the russia investigation, than maybe any investigation in dojs history. We saw a 450page report at the end of it. The Department Released a fifa application, something its never done before. And throughout, weve seen no
credible allegation of wrongdoing. If theres a crime here, of course it should be investigated. But based on what we know now, we havent seen any of that and it feels more to me like bill barr trying to smear the president s political opponents than trying to get to the truth. Julia ainsley, what is the Justice Department saying about why the Attorney General is so personally involved, trying Around The World, collecting evidence himself . They say its perfectly within his bounds to be doing work to help out an investigation. But i think what this shows is what a priority this is for william barr and its hard to extrapolate that from the priorities of the president. As we know, trump has been so fixated on the mueller probe, he sees this as a deep state conspiracy out to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency. We saw the italian prime
minister saying that the italian Intelligence Agencies had no information to hand over to barr. This could be a reason the president did have calls like he did with the president of ukraine where he talks about what went into this 2016 opening of the russia probe. One thing i would point out about these other investigations. We have the Inspector General investigation on top of investigations that republicans have already run from congress, on top of senate intelligence. Now the reason why they say they need this extra step was simply to compel testimony. Thats the whole reason william barr justified the existence of john durham in this matter, was to be able to compel testimony. Theyre now at that point, by being able to impanel a grand jury. Its not clear what evidence predicated that, what brought it over to the criminal side. At this point its not clear whether or not they felt that there were people who werent cooperating with their inquiry and that somehow this will be the tool needed. Its not clear what meat is on these bones, what theyre going after. At the end of the day, the worst Case Scenario would be a political bias. That doesnt necessarily show that just because there was a political bias maybe on peter strzok or lisa page at the fbi that that somehow would have made an entire investigation impartial and would have led to a fisa warrant that should have never been granted. That was signed off by many people in both the Trump Administration and the obama administration. And repeatedly by the fisa judge who had to keep renewing that fisa warrant. Ruth marcus, one of the issues that had come was exploding when this was First Authorized was the fact that the president
authorized the Attorney General to declassify very sensitive, top secret cia information about the origins of the probe. And that was not taken well by the former dni, dan coats, and others in the intelligence world. So we dont even know what access they have had to the most important secrets, secrets that there was, frankly, concern in the Intelligence Community would be shared with the president who tends to blurt these things out to the russians. We dont know are probably the most important words we can say today. There are reasons to be concerned. Chief among them is the remarkable degree to which the Attorney General himself has inserted himself personally into this probe, whether its an internal probe or whether its now a criminal probe. But we also and onjohn durham as i dont know john durham as you do, but it would
require him to be knowingly going along with that. There are reasons for concern but there are also reasons for us to do what were not very good at which is to stay tuned and recognize there is so much we dont understand about whats going on here. A lot we dont understand, we should not be jumping to conclusions. But Kristen Welker, it has to be alarming to the democrats running this Impeachment Inquiry that a whole other Criminal Investigation to some of the former officials who were front and center in the univer universallyaccepted conclusions of the russia probe. And key to this might be john bolton, were now hearing that lawyers in contact with the House Committees are talking about a possible deposition from the former National Security adviser. That could be pretty explosive. It could be significant, andrea, because he is someone who would be aware of the
conversations that were taking place here about ukraine, about those investigations that President Trump was asking for. We know that he wasnt on that july 25th phone call. But certainly you would anticipate that the administration, the white house, would be concerned if he were among those going to capitol hill to testify. Tim morrison, one of the russia advisers here, who we believe was on that phone call, those are the reports, we dont have that confirmed ourselves, but all signs point to the fact that he is going to be testifying as soon as next week. So both of those testimonies could be of concern to this administration, andrea. Kristen welker, mimi rocah, julia ainsley, matt miller, ruth marcus, thanks to all of you for starting us off here. Meanwhile, Secretary Of State mike pompeo is refusing to talk with kansas reporters about former ambassador to ukraine bill taylor. This happened on thursday. Bill taylor told congress this week that he sent you a
cable on august 29th expressing his misgives about the delay of military aid to ukraine. What do you do with that cable . Im not going to talk ukraine this morning. Did you relay his concerns to the president . I came here today to talk about workforce development. This as the Washington Post reports that the white house pressured ukraine the pressure on ukraine, rather, went well beyond withholding military aid. It turns out in late august white house Trade RepresentativeRobert Lighthizer recommended to restore some of ukraines Trade Privileges after then National Security adviser john bolton warned him the president would probably oppose anything that would help the government of kiev. Joining me now is stephen piper, former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, currently with stanford university. Thank you for being with us. Let me ask you about William Taylor because you worked with
him. Hes being attacked pretty vigorously if not viciously from the white house and others well, certainly Secretary Of State pompeo and others have also talked about him being a bureaucrat and being political, not pompeo himself i should say, but other people speaking from the State Department and the white house. What is your reaction, having known bill taylor as you did . Ive known bill taylor for more than 25 years. He served america for 50 years, going back to as an Infantry Captain in vietnam, going to places like afghanistan, ukraine. There is not anybody who i would say more clearly represents the ideals of the ideal Public Servant and thats been ambassador taylor. And its disappointing that the State Department and the Secretary Of State are not speaking up for him. One of the statements that came from the white house, from stephanie grisham, was slamming
taylors testimony saying, President Trump has done Nothing Wrong, this is a coordinated Smear Campaign from far left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the constitution. Roberta jacobson is here as well, a veteran diplomat who resigned from the State Department a year and a half ago, thank you for being with us. This refusal by mike pompeo to defend the witnesses who have come from the State Department after socalled Friendly Subpoenas and being told by the State Department not to testify. Yes, i think this has been sort of the death blow to morale at the State Department. This unwillingness to defend people who are career diplomats, people who are not radical unelected bureaucrats. The