Behind the scenes. Long before all the leaks that gave hints to how wild it was. Also, what happens when donald Trump Leaves Office given what mueller put out in writing. Theres a road map for a potential prosecution. The question is if anyone would pick that up later. Also tonight well dpo Something Special part of this hour. We took your questions over the weekend, viewers and moms and many more. Well answer them. If you want to get in on it send us questions on twitter. Or on the show account. At the beat or facebook and instagram. Or email us. If you dont like social media. Well solicit questions and i promise to answer them. Heres the leading news. Speaker nancy pelosi holding a private call tomorrow with democrats. The topic, what they want to do from here and whether shes respond to what happened over the weekend. Which is increasing calls from democrats to impeach donald trump. To unify on the first next steps now that mueller determined that the rules deck at a time you dont indict a sitting president. You have to look at other options if youll do anything. There was a care here in the report that bill barr exploited. He misled the public and made is sound like mueller couldnt make up his mind. Thats not true. The confusion over now. What is the point . Of a meticulous, detailed, evidence road map of what mueller calls substantial evidence of obstruction. If you dont indict the president . Im not asking a rhetorical question. Im leading off the second hour by explafrs what the answer could be. Not what they will be. But could be. Mueller lists two specific ways a president can be held accountable. Congress may apply the obstruction law to the president corrupt exercise of powers of office. Rejecting the trump claim the president s cant obstruct. Mueller elude to the fact that in American History congress has pursued impeachment based on obstruction. And the second option. The one that nixon was so worried about. It was a big deal his replacement pardoned him. Mueller noting a president doesnt have immunity after he leaves office. That this russia probe helped quote preserve the evidence when memories were fresh. And documents were available. Now, fresh compared to what . Mueller shot across the bow. May scare trump. Nothing new, nothing legally creative. The whole reason so many people remember that former president nixon accepted a controversial pardon. He knew everybody knew a former president could be indicted and convicted like anyone else. What was true then, what was controversial then. The next president taking the pardon he needed to avoid the prosecution legally possible. As a constitutional matter that is true today. We begin with the big stakes with former federal prosecutor joyce advance. And david corn. Nixon looms large over so many of the discussions. Your view of this reference to potential later prosecution. It should scare donald trump. I dont know if it does. The idea of later prosecution is very something we should talk about later. Right now theres a crisis facing the country. Anyone who reads the report and im encouraged to see some republicans, not elected republicans. But people on twitter who say they have been shocked by what they read in the report. Anyone who reads this report realizes a question about whether he should remain in office or not. The next step is how the democrats in the house side figure out what to do. I know i have heard you and others talk about moving straight to impeachment. I think that the best thing first and this happened a little bit in water gate. Get the story in front of the american public. Thats a congressional hearing. Let me clear. Im not talking about moving straight to impeachment. I am reporting on the legal fact. That the evidence of obstruction is something that traditionally goes to an impeachment analysis or not. Which is such an important distinction. Given barr muddying the waters. Point taken. And i think this report is 448 pages. Not everyone will read it. I tell you, if you bring mcgahn and trump jr. Saider and Corey Lewandowski. Jeff sessions up for hearings. On this and other related matters, the country will be gripped by that. And thats the best way to present a case whether or not you should move ahead with impeachment. Or censure or something else. Clearly some action is called for. No action is not really i think acceptable at this point. For any democrat. They need to figure out how to proceed. Its about getting the truth out. So its wider than the audience that just reads the report. I think you make a vital and insightful observation. Which is the whole thing depends on whether theres a government process to educate the public. And then do we have a functional substive way to deal with it. Joyce, i dont want to go too met. Ill real the cable news on the screen. Having finished the entire Mueller Report there are footnotes that quote cable news headline as evidence of what trump was reacting to. We have a president who is known to react to them. This may concern him. It is merely a factual report. Mueller details obstruction evidence geps trump, notes expresident s can be charnled. He didnt have to put that in there. Who he charged and declined to charge. He put that in there. I want to read the footnote. Quote recognizing an immunity from prosecution for a sitting president wouldnt procollude such prosecution once the president s term is over. Or he is otherwise removed from office by resignation. Or impeachment. Joyce, why is that in the report . What does it mean in. Were all having what i think is really a political conversation about this presidency. Mueller and his team were writing a report that was grounded in the law. Its a very careful and thorough analysis. They walked through the steps, you can tell they were thinking what happens at this point and they conclude they cant indict. So they then think what happens if we cant indict . They walk through the steps they see two options. Impeachment. Or the other process is that some prosecutor down the road could indict because that sitting president ial immunity doesnt follow you into private citizen ship once youre out of the white house. Like any other american. A former president could be indicted. Interestingly had notes those are not mutually exclusive options. You can be impeached and indicted. What hes done is put together a package of evidence. So future prosecutors whether on capitol hill or u. S. Attorney office somewhere can fulfill the obligation. Betsy, i want to play a chairman nadler speaking to all of this. To making sense of what mueller was doing with the very careful very footnoted references to what accountability could be. The special counsel made clear he didnt exonerate the president. The responsibility now falls to congress. To hold the president accountable. If you choose to go to impeachment. How important would this report be . It was probably written with the intent of providing congress a road map. Betsy . Whats important here to remember also in the context that nadler is talking about that bill barr the attorney general appears to have deliberately mischaracterized how mueller wanted his report to be read. And lets remember not to make the mistake of con flating the intent of the person writing the text was. With the text itself. If you read the four corners of the report. It makes clear that it was not written from the deliberate hope that bill barr or the current attorney general would make a decision about whether or not to prosecute. Because mueller himself couldnt make the choice. Rather mueller in the text of the report leaves that option open. That stands in direct contrast to the waybill barr characterized the report. When he read it weeks before anybody in the public was able to read it. He said mueller couldnt decide and passed the baton to me. Thats not what he said in the report. Thats part of the reason this moment is so crucial for nadler. He has to say was mueller, do the four corners of the report mean that i rather than bill barr need to make this decision about what to do with this 200 pages of evidence pointing to potential obstruction of justice. She lays that out so well. Were doing a special and can go deeper and longer. Im curious of your diagnosis of the problem in washington. You have studied this town for a listening time. Including pretrump. Reporter skeptical in the bush era on the iraq war. You were like many people initially for that and it turned ot you got that right. I think the panel is discussing the fact that while it would seem obvious given the attention, you dont have to be an expert to hear the fact you cant indict a sitting president. When barr leaked on what she described, there were many in washington who gave that more credibility than it deserved. Do you know why . Thank you for making he feel old and having paid attention to what i have done in the past. I appreciate that. I do think theres you can call it an throe polg. Here in washington. Always deference paid to official dom. Its not the media is right or left. Its people who work here in washington and media. Not all. But they know the people who run the government. And they often want to trust them more than not. So they defer to them and take the queues from them. And not all the time. That is a baseline for a loot here. The idea is Jeff Sessions obviously a political hack and when hes out of here bill barr who is here with George Hw Bush and this long established credential. Hell be the adult in the room. The great search in the trump years for the adult in the room. And so when he comes out and says no collusion. Exoneration. And it was my job to take care of this. Im the adult in the room. Mueller wanted me to do this. People naturally believed him. They believe his press conference. An hour before the report came out. And to me the mystery is not that the tie goes to the runner he gets the say. Its he went so far out on the limb and said things that were so much a mischaracterization of the report. He read it he knew what he was saying. And i dont understand why fellow with that standing previously that standing would do something so hand in hand he would be made to be seen basically as a liar. An hour after the press conference. That is a big mystery too. I think that its clear that he wanted to prove to his boss not only a type of loyalty. But a willingness to do it in public that yolks himself to Donald Trumps why. In Donald Trumps view thats the ultimate. I get that. Why does bill barr want to be roy cone . At this stage in his life. Why does he want to do that. You have to do that if youre working for trump. But whats in it for him . Having held the job before and back in the same job. I dont know. We have all covered complex issues here. Some of them are understandably so difficult that when people make mistakes, i get it. The way that at least part of washington was so credulous about what barr said when it was obviously from day one what we reported here the barr letter tells you what barr thinks. Not mueller. That strikes me normal reporting. Barr is the attorney general. Whats important when we report it. The numb of people who said this shows what mueller did. No way. And i thought obviously as with all past probes of the president , indictment is not the issue. Whatever mueller did was for congress. Thats my addition. We have extra time. We lose david corn after this. Thank you. Joyce and betsy stay with me. We have the big question. Why didnt mueller use his powers to force a sit down interview with trump . Well get into that. We have the report. Will we hear from mueller himself. He caught got by a reporter. We got a no comment. We could if he shows up and testifies under oath. Thats what the democrats are demanding. I can tell you we have the Mueller Report 448 pages has so much to unpack, tonight ill answer some of your questions directly. Coming up. Coming up. Conventional wisdom says you cant make a 400 horsepower sedan, thats also environmentally conscious. We dont follow conventional wisdom. At a comfort inn with a glow taround them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. clients voice remember that degree you got in taxation . danny of course you dont because you didnt your job isnt understanding tax code. 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Theres one decision that has led many to debate what he did. And like any other Government Official he is not above debate ore reproach. He never demanded and used his potential subpoena power to force an in person interview with the president. For months trump claimed he would do it. I would love to speak. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me. Against my lawyers most never speak on anything. I would love to speak. That wasnt really true. Donald trump was doing something he does. Try to dominate the headlines. Not unlike what we were discussing at bill barr. Saying something that would prove to be false. Trump talking to mueller under oath didnt happen. Extraordinary thing. To interview a president of the United States. It seems like the worst possible strategy for someone in his position. Anybody interested in wanting to know what trump knew will get their answers when he sits down with mueller. He didnt. And only submitted written answers. Now mueller explains why he didnt force quote the president because he declined to be interviewed and theres a grand jury redaction. Which is tantalizing. He says we believe we had the authority and legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the president testimony. We chose not to do so. Mueller explains there would have been a substantial delay. That would have been produced. It went very differently for bill clinton. The fight over his testimony took time. But not forever by legal standards. Half a year in 98. Ken star subpoenaing here and clinton testified within 12 days. The president has been subpoenaed by the independent counsel. The president will testify. About his relationship with a former intern. Under oath and on tape for the grand jury. Those statements got clinton in a lot of hot water. But from a legal perspective the point was he did face the ngt tors. And george w. Bush was interviewed as president. By a special counsel. And occurred in the white house in the negotiation was that the discussion would help the probe but not technically be under oath. In washington today president bush did something only handful of sitting president s have ever done. He met for an hour this morning with the special prosecutor investigating the leak. Joined now by former federal prosecutors. Welcome to both of you. John, your view given everything we know having digested the report. Would an in person interview with trump provide information or duply kative. Should mueller have pushed harder . He should have pushed harder to get it. Explanation is weak stuff when you consider he spent a year it felt like begging for him to testify. And then he got answers to written questions. But they were all i dont recall, i cant recollect and so forth. About things we all know he did recollect. And did talk about after bragging about his perfect memory. And the mueller said that that information that interview was vital to the investigation. Yet he didnt pursue it. If you focus your energy you can get an interview. Unlike the other president s we had a situation here where he had given written answers. I dont know what fifth amendment was left after that. And in addition because his team decided to cooperate with the mueller information, i dont think there was executive privilege possible. Most of the evidence we were concerned about involved the period before he was the president. Theres no executive privilege. The chairman of Judiciary Committee is fond of pointing out. Theres no privilege conducting a criminal act. We had evidence that would have been before trump pushed by documents and letters and contradictory statements by excellent people. It would have been useful. The thing about people who do not recall, we make prosecutions of people like that. Because right around the thinking they dont recall, they recall a lot. People are convicted in situations. We have a lying president. You can trust when he admits he did something wrong. With skilled professional prosecutors, he would have gotten the information that would have gone the rest of the distance in my opinion. Even though i think he had a lot of evidence and sufficient evidence to go forward. But did not. You may make a subtle legal point. Which is that they could have used the written answers to dial up a around the fifth amendment. For anyone who thinks donald trump is sloppily making it up as he goes along, theres ample evidence he is incredibly canny when it comes to avoiding criminal liability. How he got the experience has been well documented. Take a look in the 90s. When he was defending bill clinton. Against a special counsel probe. And talking about how you could invoke the fifth. His lawyers in particular the lawyer i wont mention names. Representing him with respect to jones. Did a terrible job. Im not sure he should have taken the fifth amendment. I dont get along with star. Hes after me. Hes a republican. And take the fifty amendment. Its a terrible thing. But he should have done it. Explain your legal argument that they could have used the written questions to prevent a later indication of the fifth. He answered each of the questions by saying i dont recall. And he used reference to certain documents and so forth to suggest innocent things. By talking about the subject matter, each of the things that were put before him in the questions, how could he then say i have a right to remain silent . When he was not silent in print. He had waived his privilege. And i think you can argue he waived his privilege almost everything by the way his counsel had positioned themselves. In their defense structure meeting the investigation of mueller. So i dont think there was anything left that