Nbc news reporting some of the more than one dozen former and Current White House officials who cooperated with special Counsel Robert Mueller are worried that the version of his report expected to be made public on thursday will expose them as the source of damaging information about president donald trump. Thats according to multiple witnesses in the investigation. Some of the officials and their lawyers have sought clarity from the Justice Department on whether the names of those who cooperated with muellers team will be redacted or if the public report will be written in a way that makes it obvious who shared certain details of trumps actions that were part of the obstruction of justice probe. People familiar with the discussions said that they said the Justice Department has refused to elaborate. Among the most potentially dangerous witnesses in trumps close orbit, someone who witnessed known obstruction flash points including the attempted firing of Robert Mueller himself. Former White House Counsel Don Mcgahn met with muellers team for at least 30 hours of testimony and has reportedly hinted that more of his conflicts with President Trump will soon be known to the public. But any information he and others close to trump may have shared and how much of it will see the light of day this week is now in the hands of attorney general bill barr, a man under growing suspicion from democrats and trump detractor from the central plank of Donald Trumps war on justice, that he was spied on during the campaign. That is where we start with some of our favorite reporters an friends. Counter interesting at fbi, harry litman, former Deputy Assistant attorney general and executive producer of talking feds podcast nbc News National reporter carol lee. With us at the table matt miller, former chief spokesman of department of justice and Washington PostNational Political reporter robert costa. Carol lee, i want to start with you and your fantastic reporting. Take us through it. Basically what we learned in talking to various people who have been witnesses in the mueller investigation, people in the president s orbit, and they have said theres a rising anxiety among those who cooperated with this investigation because they fear that the president , if its obvious that they shared certain information that is viewed as damaging to him, that he will seem some sort of retribution. Hell attack them, allies will attack them. From their perspective, they are saying, look, we were told to cooperate. We didnt really have a choice. We have to talk to investigators. When you get in and talk to investigators, you have to tell the truth. Have you to fully disclose everything you know. Like it or not, some of the things they know are not things that President Trump is going to find make him look good, and hes going to be upset with. So theres this concern that they dont know what muellers report redacted report is going to look like. Theres questions about will their names be actually listed in the report. If not, a couple of people said will it be A Bob Woodward type of book. Its obvious who was a source on something. Theres this game where you try to figure out who individual one and two are. Either way they feel like they are exposed and they are concerned about it and concerned about this president s reaction. We could name some names of people we know went in as witnesses. Just looking at how that investigation shook out, there was a a bucket of sort of collusion witnesses, former campaign officials. A far reaching, wide obstruction of just that ended in basically special counsel version of a hung jury. No conclusion whether or not there was a prosecutable crime but very clearly no exoneration. Don mcgahn, more than 30 hours, priebus, steve bannon. The universe of people who have to be sweating the next 39 hours is vast. They are not only sweating, they are angry. Talking to lawyers for some of these witnesses and friends of these witnesses, they say the white house early on looking back made a mistake executive privilege by the white house officials to cooperate and sit down for these interviews. They believe these officials through their conversations with the mueller team built a case with the president on obstruction of justice. Looking back on this presidency, they wonder, is that the right decision, strategic decision, imperils this whole presidency going forward. If it imperils the presidency, strung together with the guy that sat in the next office or gal that sat in the next office could be pretty damning politically. We know through the Washington Post and other fine news allegations about the president railing against his attorney general in private and in public. Very unhappy with the officials at department of justice. There were certainly according to lawyers of these witnesses more examples of the president lashing out, whatever that means, that reporters were not able to find. They expect Robert Mueller because he had subpoena power, sit down privately with officials, did find more examples of the president s behavior that will be of interest to congress and the american people. Im struck by what you say that their concern, as always with concern with people in this white house is what was the politically smart thing to do, not what was the right thing to do. Any other white house, administration, the administration you worked in, the administration i worked in, everyone goes and talks to the fbi if theres an investigation. Thats what youre expected to do. The fact, number one, they would be angry and think the lawyers let them down into not cooperating about a foreign investigation shows you something about the people that work in this white house. Number two, the fact they understand the president will be concerned because they didnt lie to investigators. Thats when you get to the bottom line of carol lees reporting. Thats what they are upset about. They told the truth, as they were required to do, because otherwise they would go to jail as other people in the president s orbit are doing because they lied to investigators. They know the president i think they know rightly, the president is going to be up set at them for telling the truth. I think my reaction is boohoo. You went to work for this president. The fact youre concerned the president is going to be ir rationally unhappy with you, thats the consequences of working with someone like that. Its such an ugly picture. You talk to people close to the investigation, the community of lawyers that represented witness in this investigation and ugly is a word you hear over and over again. The president has, for reasons obvious to all of us, focused on the headline he chose, attorney general barr told him, being exonerated on the conclusion side. Everyone is expecting a very ugly story to be told, perhaps in chron lonell cal order with a lot of evidence marshalled from these witnesses were talking about on the question of obstruction of justice. Does this sound right to you . Yeah. Because look, it now appears a criminal metric, criminal standard applied by muellers team and certainly by attorney general barr to their findings and approach. Here is the problem with applying that. We knew mueller was likely working under the constrapts kcf a policy that said you couldnt indict a sitting president. Anything less is going to be in that report. That could be a whole lot of ugly, as youre saying, and could be extremely damning for the president. Lets just think about the irony and repercussions of what you teed up at the top of the show, people are concerned. What are they concerned about . Lets go through this. We have people who may have cooperated with mueller on an investigation of obstruction and witness tampering. They are now afraid if their cooperation is revealed, whats going to happen. The president is going to gauene in obstruction and witness tampering. Whats he going to obstruct . Its over. Its not over. First we know cases have been spun out. We know detailed to the u. S. Attorney in the district of columbia. This is ongoing. And congress is in the middle of subpoenas and investigative w k work. So the president could keep reobstructing and retampering with witnesses. If the attorney general were serious about this, he would be issuing a warning to the president with this release on thursday saying dont mess with witnesses, dont obstruct, dont tamper and congress would release a similar statement saying were starting investigations, stay away. Harry litman, its an exceptional point to be made. Donald trump is individual one in the Southern District of new york where there are active and open criminal investigations into the president s inaugural committee and the president s hush money scheme and god knows what else in and around trump organization. The president likely to retaliate at least on twitter and god knows where else against people if he tries to figure out or deduce who said what and what is expected to be a politically devastating obstruction of justice report. What is the effect on ongoing investigations like the ones out of the Southern District of new york and the prosecution of roger stone in d. C. . You know, its always a bad idea to be saying anything when youre a subject, and yet trump has broken that rule with impunity again and again. But yes, you have to think hes giving more evidence to the prosecutors in sdny. Look, it says so much about the mob mentality of the president and the white house that people are scared about exactly as mat says doing what we had to do under the law. Think of whitewater, say, where betty curry were in an uncomfortable position telling the truth about clinton but there was no issue that somehow they were going to be repriced against. So he really is playing out of that playbook, but it could get him into ongoing trouble because its not over yet and certainly isnt over for the trump organization, the trump children and the like. And robert costa, we know obstruction is behavior hes engaged in around these other investigations. He attacked, been reporting, he wanted political appointee at sdny to unrecuse from some of the cohen related cases there. This idea of ongoing investigations, known conduct, your newspaper and others have covered, we will have. We will have in a report thursday morning a narrative description of what that looked like. With don mcgahn spending 30 hours of mueller investigators, we made a list of things he would have been a witness to. The efforts to fire mueller, reported he threatened to quit if that happened. Pressure on sessions to unrecuse, which i always recuse, which isnt even a thing. The comey firing which mcgahn was one of many people around that. The handling of flynn, the warning that he might be a target for black blackmail, may be a target. If you just take don mcgahns experience, things he witnessed, through his account alone it paints an unbelievable picture of an attempt to obstruct. All those will be laid out for the american people. Two things im watching as a reporter, how do democrats in the house see it. Does it reach the threshold for obstruction, Impeachable Offense to pressure Speaker Pelosi to move forward on that front. Watch the reaction of republicans who so far have been in lock step with President Trump. Do they show any crack at all with this president and say were starting to question this president s conduct. New information has come to light. Governor hogan of maryland who talked about a possible primary bid will certainly be reading it closely. Well watch his reaction to see if establishment mainstream republicans say this is too much for us. Carol lee, don mcgahn has secured a spot sort of deep inside that inner sanctum of senate republicanism around his record and his judgment on judicial appointees. Hes still in the fold and in the mix very much. Do you think that was a little assurance on don mcgahns card to make sure he has allies on the republican side to make sure if this thing goes sideways. Its possible. He could wind up being one of the main targets the president aims at after the Mueller Report comes out for all the reasons you outlined. One of the things we talked to, we learned, is that theres this anxiety because they know theres all of this new stuff thats going to come out thats not maybe out of the box of things in terms of the kinds of things weve seen the president do in terms of obstruction but that are really damaging. I think bob makes a really good point in that how damaging it is. Based on the conversations we had, people are really nervous and it sounds like it could be pretty explosive. We also dont know what would be redacted and exactly what is in the report. But the anxiety level suggests it could be something really significant. The political reaction on the hill is going to be one of the most interesting things to watch after the report is released. When it comes to don mcgahn, you could easily see him, you know, becoming one of President Trumps main targets. Weve talked to people in the past who said that hes been wanting to unleash on him at various times since he left. He was frustrated with him when he was there at different times. So he sort of stands out among, above all of the other people who into with special counsel for all those reasons. Harry, a former republican federal prosecutor said to me that the only way the Justice Department could be pressured into or backed into legally or politically sharing underlying evidence would be as part of an impeachment proceeding. Is that a correct analysis . Well, backed into, i dont know. I actually think now that there is a legal avenue for them to be forced to do it, whether or not an impeachment inquiry has happened. The big analogy is what starr did. I think if they go to court and say this is preliminary to our impeachment, we need this in order to decide whether to impeach, that turns out to be exactly what happened in the starr case. When starr got the order permitting him to disclose the grand jury information, congress had not started an inquiry. I think we are in the same setting. A couple arguments i heard from the white house i think dont fly. There is one maneuver that i think jerry nadler can take today. Otherwise its such an endless slog trying to fight back on the redactions one at a time. Theres bipartisan support for at least getting an unredacted copy of the Mueller Report. Matt miller, we learned that congressman schiff chairman schiff and nunez asking for unredacted report in a rare joint letter. Do you think that happens . Do you think the underlying evidence ultimately makes its way to congress . I think it will. Nunez has his motive for showing that. He probably thinks they inappropriately spied. Or nunez. Schiff and nunez have motives but want the same thing, which is to get all the evidence. Harry makes the right point about grand jury information. Congresss case may be stronger if they started impeachment inquiry but they dont need it to get that information. Then theres this whole set of underlying information that never went before the grand jury. I think the obstruction of Justice Information most likely falls into that category. I think its important that congress see that report. I think we will probably see all of the obstruction of evidence piece of report or the vast majority of it on thursday. They also need to see, for example, don mcgahns memos. The memos we know he wrote. The evidence of interviews that white house staffers did with respect to obstruction of justice. Because that is now a question for congress to decide, whether thats appropriate president ial misbehavior or not. The precedent for congress is just so strong on this based on the Justice Departments recent actions. I know weve talked about this a number of times based on evidence they turned over with respect to hq and evidence they turned over about the russia investigation while ongoing. Doj may exist. Barr seems to be showing he will resist. If it ever gets to court, congress has very much the upper hand in this. Frank, i want to underscore one last point before we lose you. Robert mueller spent 22 months looking at both questions, whether a criminal conspiracy around coordination and efforts with the russians took place and around obstruction of justice. On the question of obstruction of justice, he did not roach a conclusion. Bar did. Will the report explain that extraordinary culmination of Robert Muellers 22 month effort around obstruction . I would be surprised if the report does not contain either in some exhibit, appendix or footnote a legal explanation of muellers intention. Ive got to tell you, thats one of the first things ill be trying to flip to when the report is released. What was in the mind of mueller, what was conveyed to the attorney general, if anything. I think thats critical. If we see evidence that mueller intended this to go to congress for a decision, that is explosive and actually empowers the house to move forward with investigation. The other thing ill be flipping to, because you know where i come from from my experience, ill go straight to the issue of russia and counterintelligence and see if theres anything new there involving the whole conclusion and conspiracy angle that could prove extremely embarrassing for the president and his family. Let me follow up with one more for you, frank. A theory was posited to me by a former security official that said mueller may have some explanation that gets at but doesnt necessarily explicitly articulate some sort of conflict investigating his own firing as part of the obstruction case as well as being prohibited from pursuing an interview with the president. Could anyone have made a prosecutable case for obstruction if they felt conflicted around investigating their own firing and or if they couldnt actually interview the target of the obstruction of the investigation . Well, mueller is just that kind of individual who would be very concerned. Its becoming increasingly rare in washington. The kind of guy concerned about appearances, conflict, recusal, integrity. Its possible we could see a footnote saying i felt conflicted on this and i punted it to the attorney general. I dont think thats the