Me, i served for many years on a Democracy Commission in the congress where we would partner with parliaments in emerging democracies we would say when you win an election you dont seek to jail the losing side and here the president of the United States is saying its perfectly okay for him, he has said this before, to go to the attorney general and get them to open an investigation of his rivals. Sadly this attorney general has turned out to be so political and partisan and frankly without integrity that he might do it. That adds to the crisis these democratic norms are broken down every day. This comes on Rudy Giulianis plan to visit ukraine to meddle in that investigation into the bidens. A trip thats been called off due to the bad press it garnered. But the president willing to ask for help from foreign governments. And the president using his twitter account to harass a witness in the obstruction of justice investigation. That witness former white House Counsel don mcghan hes been subpoenaed by congress and instructed by the white house to defy that subpoena. The president tweeting, i was not going to fire bob mueller and did not fire bob mueller. In fact, he was allowed to finish his report with unprecedented help from the Trump Administration. Actually, lawyer don mcghan had a much better chance of being fired than mueller. Never a big fan. And that is where we start today with some of our fair reporter and friends. With us on set, robert costa, ab stoddard, jeremy bash, Karine Jeanpierre is back, and New York Times washington correspondence mike schmidt is with us. Its with your reporting friday night on this white houses effort to get don mcghan to say the president didnt obstruct justice. Why was that so important if they felt the Mueller Report totally and completely exonerated him . What happened here and this demonstrates the advantage the white house had with the Justice Department. Before the report came out, the president s lawyers had a sneak peek, a chance to look at it, and they saw a lot of obstruction stuff and a lot of don mcghan. But what they didnt see was a statement mcgahn had made to investigators, which is that he never thought the president broke the law. Now, legally it doesnt matter what don mcghan, a witness, thought. But politically and in keeping the president calm. The president s lawyers thought it would be really great to have mcgahn put out a statement after the report comes out. It would take a lot of the air out of it. And the white house, before its released goes to mcgahns lawyer and asks will they put out this statement. They considered it, then the report came out and they saw all of the obstruction and they thought it would be pretty weird to actually put out such a statement and they didnt and trump got upset. So, robert costa, why if youre the president are you now harassing on twitter someone who, if any sort of investigation comes to pass, if impeachment proceedings come to pass on capitol hill, don mcghan will be a witness in the obstruction investigation. Talking in confidence to President Trump its clear the president believes privately that don mcghan would be central to any congressional case made against him on obstruction. And as capitol hill pursues that testimony, the president politically speaking and legally, is laying out his own terms and framing mcgahn has someone who cant speak to his own intent with regard to the firing of Robert Mueller or anything that led to discussions about that possibility. Mcgahns interpretation of intent is everything, thats why he wont issue as mike said through his reporting, doesnt want to issue a blanket statement because the debate inside the white house and the Legal Community around this case is what did the president actually mean when he took action with don mcghan to say do this or do that with regard to Robert Mueller. Im not a lawyer, i never met don mcghan but i read the Mueller Report. Five people say what the president intended to do was fire Robert Mueller, it includes chris christie, Reince Priebus, five people their testimony is quoted in the Mueller Report. Why is this a debate . It seems like a political debate not a legal question. I dont think theres a question the president wanted to get bob mueller removed the same way he wanted jim comey removed. He wanted the heat taken off him, the end of the russia investigation. I think its amazing in mikes reporting we hear that white house officials carried the request by the president apparently to don mcghans lawyer, bill burke. Why would white house officials participate unless the president was putting a strong arm on them, participate in an effort to request a witness cover up the fact that a president was unlawfully trying to obstruct the investigation. You and i are parents. We recognize patterns. Isnt there a pattern of constantly trying to change the story of people that offered testimony . Are you really surprised . This is what he did through the whole i guess to me whats most stunning what youre inching toward, is that the president was acutely aware of the fact he was not exonerated at all. Especially in the obstruction of justice investigation. He knew what he did. He knew he tried to obstruct the investigation. The question really is for congress and others to look into is how did he do it . Did he use the apparatus of his office . Did he use his authority as president . Did he improperly ask people to lie . There are many instances in the Mueller Report if people take time to look at it and review it, in which the president said go ahead and lie, write a memo to the file thats false. He directed Reince Priebus to direct k. T. Mcfarland to do that. There is going to make great fodder for congressional investigators. Mike schmidt something you and your colleagues reported on was all of the efforts to get the president to sit for an interview. And some of the analysis at the end of the Mueller Investigation is that no one had a window into the president s intent. Is this reporting from the weekend, the president s tweets attacking don mcghan, saying he was more likely to fire mcgahn that mueller, is he giving us a window into his intent that could damage him in an impeachment proceeding . Im not sure. Its interesting. The president claims he cooperated fully with the investigation. He fully cooperated in the parts he cooperated with. He didnt sit for the interview. And a central question here was why was he doing what he was doing . Why was he pushing mcgahn so hard . Im not sure the tweets over the weekend answer any of that. Im not sure it gives us any greater understanding. I think the Mueller Report has far better understanding of sort of what the president was saying behind the scenes when he took these actions and what he was truly intending to do as the Mueller Report shows the president wanted to get rid of mueller, despite what he says now. Look, at the end of the day, i think its clear and the president can sense the exposure. The most exposure he may face is on this question of trying to get don mcghan to recant what he said to investigators after it comes out that the president tried to fire mueller he pushes mcgahn to create this fake memo to the file as jeremy was saying. He knows the best way to go about this in a situation like this, public opinion, its a political question not a legal question, is to attack, attack, attack. Thats what hes done for decades and why would he change now . He might change now, robert costa, because he might face impeachment proceedings or the commencement of impeachment proceedings. And it would seem this incident that jeremy and mike talked about, and for weeks before the Mueller Report came out, you were reporting that the obstruction questions, the conduct that could be construed as criminal obstruction were always the thing that kept white house lawyers up at night. It would seem that that problem has not gone away in terms of the exposure that the president faces should impeachment proceedings commence. Thats right. Because of those hovering problems you have the white house asserting executive privilege about mcgahns testimony. Delaying the idea of him coming to capitol hill and testifying about all these events. When you talk to House Democrats they say they cant build an impeachment case at this time until they hear not just from Robert Mueller but don mcghan. Its not just political theatre for the House Democrats to have there. Its critical to have a face, a name, a voice, a story being told about the intent rather than something people read in the report. Can i just adhere . Please. One of the things looming over the president is not just whether hes impeached he figures, i think, thats a political fight id like that, im not going to removed from office by the senate. Whats looming is the fact that bob mueller said im preserving office because the president out of office is not immune from criminal prosecution. If the president violated the law and obstructed justice in office, he has criminal liability when he leaves. Thats why he desperate to discredit don mcghan, a witness against him. You bring up a good point. If thats the context the president has to answer from, executive privilege is not going to protect him from don mcghan. Neither is anything about nonimpeachment, hearings that dont result in his removal from office. Fundamentally, the president faces a bigger threat to his own personal liberty and freedom. We came on the air friday and Rudy Giulianis trip to ukraine was on, he was heading there to meddle in two investigations. That trip got some bad press and its been called off. But this picture of the president harassing on twitter don mcghan, the star witness in the obstruction investigation. A man who managed to thread the needle as mikes reported, was willing to say until the day the Mueller Report came out that he didnt believe the president had obstructed justice. That the president attacked him on twitter. That rudy was on his way to ukraine. And the president saying to politico that he is going to talk to the attorney general about investigating the bidens. This picture is just stunning. We throw around the words banana republic. This conduct taken together is really chilling. When President Trump took office he expected the bummers in the Republican Party to tamp down his controversial conduct. And then they did initially. And over time theyve stopped. And they condone it. You have senator Lindsey Graham basically saying if i were donald trump jr. s lawyer, i would tell him dont come back and face a lawful subpoena or cooperate with a bipartisan investigation on a subpoena that a republican signed off on. And so, everyone around the president , who he anticipated would be stopping him, become henchmen. He does what he can get away with. He called on the investigation of Michael Cohens fatherinlaw. He has done all sorts of things that theres been no push back to. So the more he sees he gets away with, the more he pushes. There are no rules. People see a witness tampering tweet about don mcghan roll their eyes. This idea that biden will be investigated is not news to anyone. I think republicans who are worried about the majority in the senate, not enough good democratic recruits but worried nonetheless could not stomach this rudy trip and it wasnt the democratic response. However biden will be investigated whether its by Corey Lewandowski or some band of rookies or by the department of justice, theres no question that the president believes its appropriate. Hes going to tell the voters he was spied on and 2016 and anyone whos going to be the democratic nominee is prepared to face that. You reported that the president has sought to use his Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton, i believe, and jim comey in the past, mike. Does he have in attorney general barr, someone who will acquiesce to those questirequests. On the Rudy Giuliani point we spent two and a half years trying to figure out questions like whether Michael Cohen was in prague to meet with russians to get dirt, and that was a central sort of question of the Mueller Investigation of collusion and such. And just the other day the president s lawyer said im going to a foreign country to look for the same type of thing. Its just like look at how far weve sort of come and sort of i guess its an interesting approach on transparency. Karine jeanpierre, how far weve come, how far weve devolved. I hope we havent norm alized any of the conduct weve spent time talking about. I think that they feel like committing crimes in the open was part of their Defense Strategy when it came to obstruction of justice. Theyre now engaged in this conduct out in the open. You can get away with it. I agree with ab that biden will be investigated. But theres a huge difference between campaigns engaging in Opposition Research and outsourcing said Opposition Research to ukraine. Yeah. I would have to say that Richard Nixon must be blushing right now because the amount of obstruction of justice thats happening just way out there in the open is dumbfounding. I think we have to step back for a second because this has always been donald trump. He ran his business like a mobster, it was all about loyalty to him and he took that into the presidency. So this is really no surprise. And also, when you the tweeting that he did this weekend. He tweeted about biden, about mueller, he tweeted about don mcghan, did he tweet about melania once on mothers day, no, not at all. You see where his head is at. There is a danger because the Founding Fathers anticipated someone like donald trump. They really did. And they built the constitution because they knew that we could potentially get a donald trump. What they didnt anticipate is a branch of government, in particular the senate, led by republicans, who would not hold him accountable. And thats the danger that were in. And democrats have to do everything that they can to get mcgahn in front of them. Because we need mcgahn, we need mueller. Its time. You have to bring the republic into this conversation or else, because people are not going to read this report. Theyre just not. So thats the way you get the public in. I do believe they need to start impeachment proceedings because thats another way to get it out there. You can get the grand jury documents. Theres so much more that would happen if they were to do that, if they moved forward in the direction. I dont know that everyone understands this, jeremy, but it does trigger legals legally, impeachment proceedings, the underlying evidence, presenting and making available other witnesses. I want to play something for all of you that adam schiff said about impeachment. Here the Trump Administration has decided to say a blanket no. No to any kind of oversight whatsoever, no witnesses, documents, nothing. Theyre stone walling, they want to draw this out as long as possible. Were going to fight it, we are fighting it. We have to. Its true these additional acts of obstruction, obstructing the Justice Department, now congress, does add weight to impeachment. I know the political analysis is his base is conditioned, all this conduct and people in the middle, you know, karine said that i think a lot of people are buying and ordering the Mueller Report. Theyre all reading it they are. But i feel like this is a way to really bring people in. Its what, 45 of folks are saying impeach donald trump, we have to get that number up and this is a way to do that. Obstruction of a behavior does reek of hiding something, guilt. It seems to push against trumps brand of washington and draining the swamp, im not sure theres anyone left who believes that. But schiff seems to have landed on a message that could stick. Theres always a tussle between the executive branch and congress on issues like witnesses, documents, and executive privilege. Thats something thats appropriate we want that between our branchs of government. Youre pointing to something very important, which is the constitutional design contemplated what happens if a president goes rogue, what if he shuts down his branch in this case his branch of governments ability to cooperate with legitimate oversight. What is congress to do . They cant say, okay, were good. We cant be in a situation where the only test of whether youre going to testify is whether youre going to be physically dragged there. That cant be the test. One point. This is a crisis moment for congress about its own oversight authority. This branch of government in recent years has seen itself d diminished as a legislative body. They barely cut any deals anymore, barely move legislation. Its functioned as an oversight body. Now you have a president in a historic and dramatic way saying no thanks im not cooperating on any of the oversight. Thats why when i sat down with speaker pelosi, it was somewhat humorous when i asked her, could you hold people in contempt, could you jail people for not complying with congress . Theyre used to people who deal within executive branch norms, suppose nobody abides by those norms, can the branch of government function . Thats the Million Dollar question. Everyone is waitin