White house coverups. In all of of our investigations, the white house has not turned over one single shred of paper in response to any of our requests. The hurricanes in puerto rico, the white house has produced nothing. Security clearance abuses, the white house has produced nothing. Efforts to transfer Nuclear Technology to saudi array bee ya, nothing. Hush money payments, nothing. It doesnt matter what the matter is, the tactics are the same. This begs the question, what are they hiding. As the president s poll numbers show him behind joe biden and half a dozen over democrats his thoughts are increasingly on impeachment. The Washington Post out with tremendous new reporting on the president s post mueller obsession, his own removal from office by congress. The posts Ashley Parker reports he has peppered confidants and advisers with questions of how an impeachment inquiry might unfold. And he has coined his own cheeky term, the iword, that threatens to overshadow his presidency as he heads into his 2020 election campaign. Thats where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends with us heidi prez bella, mimi rocah, and john heileman. Joining us from washington, peter baker, and White House Reporter with the Washington PostAshley Parker. Ashley well start with you and your reporting about the iword, take us through it. Basically what i wanted to look at was there was a theory floating out there a fla plausible theory, between democratics that the president and United States in stalling for these were trying to goad democrats into impeaching the president because he believed it would be beneficial for him. The truth is somewhere in the middle. At the end of the day everyone i talked to, President Trump does not want to be impeached he understands that will be a bad thing, but he is curious and intrigued by it. He does understand he looks at what happened to bill clin n clinton. Saw his Approval Ratings went up, it backfired on republicans when they impeached him in the 90s. He does call it the iword. The truth is hes talking and asking about impeachment but it comes less from a place of anxiety and its a little more defiant. One things hes saying to aides is it they cant do that, right, they cant possibly impeach me because i did nothing wrong. Ashley one of your tweets sending the article out when it posted was called the president impeachment curious. I wonder if hes curious enough to understand that if impeachment proceedings commence, that Congress Actually has a few sharpened tools in their arsenal that it might strengthen their hand in getting their hands on witnesses like don mcghan and getting some of the grand jury evidence possibly that the Justice Department at least was in a posture to be more forthcoming should impeachment proceedings commence. Is he curious enough to understand any of the legal implications of his own impeachment . Youre exactly right about that. Thats why at the end of the day he doesnt want to be impeached. Hes curious about the political upside by wary of the danger and what a process would look like. As you say it gives congress a bit more tools at their disposal to come after him. If it were in any real way to go forward it would be an asterisk on his presidency. And he believes the democrats are trying to undermine the legitimacy of his election which we all know drives him crazy. Its such a great piece, i started thinking he would be the double asterisk president , aided by putin, and impeached by congress. Im glad ashley did this reporting because my gut said knowing trump thats true. The political thing is not what drives him. Most of the time is its his i. D. Things closer to the surface and closer to his psyche. And a direct line. People sit down and say you wouldnt get convicted in the senate therefore you can play the victim card. Trump loves playing the victim card but thats a double bank shot, thats not the way he plays pool, right. I have to say, every time i hear the iword, i think imbecile. Insane. Idio idiocy. Not impeachment. But my gut says trump, if you explain to him there might be a political upside, he might be i get that but he doesnt want it. He wants to beat his foes and beat them back to the point he can say, they wanted to impeach me but couldnt. Thats where trump lives in that kind of triumph, not the kind that he would have to say i got impeached but not convicted in the senate. Thats where he wants to stand up. Peter baker if donald trump is impeachment curious, bill barr would seem to be contempt curious, walking up to the line again over another stonewalling strategy, its unclear whether it was hatched at the white house or at doj this time other census documents. Take us through what you and your colleagues are reporting on that front. Of course, the Congress Wants to look at the decision made to add a question to the census asking if people responding are american citizens are not. Thats been challenged in court by opponents who say thats a way of depressing people who might be afraid of answering that question and colluding, possibly who are legal residents but not citizens. That has a lot of impact on government funding, districting of congressional districts and so forth. So its seen by opponents as having a partisan purpose rather than legitimate lets get information kind of purpose. But the president decided to assert executive privilege not to hand over documents regarding that decision today. Congress is now in one more confrontation with them saying whether theyre going to go to court, to push this issue or hold you in contempt to compel you. Is executive privilege a blanket thing to protect you from everything. Elijah cummings went through the investigations theyve received nothing, its the obstruction of justice, the hush money payments, the security clearance process, foreign influence, communications with putin, tax returns, nuclear ventures with saudi arabia can they expect for that to work, the claim of executive privilege to stone Wall Congress on all those probes . No. Its just amazing. Theyre treating executive privilege like its this magic wand they can pull it out whenever they dont feel like producing something and say were asserting executive privilege. Go to court to get it. It works to a certain extent, but i think the courts are going to take that into account. Theyre going to look at this just complete stonewalling and judges look for reasonableness in part. And it isnt this catch all. I mean, it has specific requirements that apply to certain kinds of communications between certain parties. And the and most of the cases here where its being invoked, those requirements are just not going to be met. So it will put it off for a while but i think in the end it will hurt them in court. The thing i think is most remarkable about this latest exertion of it is that you have barr saying, im going to tell the white house to invoke executive privilege. So you have this barr trump conspiracy going on, which we saw back with the Mueller Report and the roll out of it and it looked like barr was protecting him. Now you have, it really looks again like barr and trump in cahoots to keep this information from congress. Heres the thing. The question is not if. Youre probably right about that in terms of it winding its way through the court system but when. Because that is the problem the democrats are facing right now. As of right now they dont have the documents, the witnesses, and if you look at the white House Counsel, Pat Cipollones letter to jerry nadler a couple weeks ago, i dont think thats gotten enough attention because hes essentially saying article 1 of the constitution is not relevant and is not in effect right now because congress doesnt have oversight powers over the executive, contrary to what article one actually says and you congress have to have legislation or an agenda to get any information the courts rejected that, right . They laughed at it. Yes. But theyre continuing to do this. This is why were having this impeachment discussion at all, it isnt the obstruction in the Mueller Report, its the obstruction going on right now. The question again is how long, because right now its very effective a strategy. To build on something mimi said, it is extraordinary right because normally in my career covering white houses, the white House Counsel, and the team of lawyers around the president make decisions about executive privilege, the attorney general being an appointed position but an independent top Law Enforcement official in the country, attorney generals dont weigh in on that topic generally. Im trying to think of an example where i heard ever of an attorney general who said im advising the president to invoke executive privilege. Thats something the white House Counsel would normally do. So it is an extraordinary thing to have barr essentially seeming as though hes acting, as we said many times before, as a personal counsel to trump or at least a Government Counsel to trump, riding shotgun with the white House Counsel here, rather than being an actual attorney general of the United States. Of the United States of america. I believe it was said in an interview with you, peter baker, that donald trump was looking for a roy cohn. He admired this model he had in his mind of the president having an attorney general, a fixer bouncer, but you covered white houses, you covered the one in this which i worked and executive privilege was almost like a used as a scalpel, you could carve out, not even certain aides but Certain Communications between certain aides and the president. It was never thrown like a tarp over everything that happened in a white house. Are there smart people in the white house that understand a tarp strategy is not sustainable . Theyre trying to buy time . I think youre right, the assertion of executive privilege has been with the Nixon Administration and a lot of president s have not wanted to look like they were repeating what happened in watergate which led the Supreme Court slamming Richard Nixon now and forcing him to release the tapes. President clinton tried to use executive privilege and attorneyclient privilege and other privileges against ken starr and it didnt work. I think president bush and others looked at it saying we dont want to get too far down that road. In this case it is a tarp. Its a blanket policy theyre saying we dont recognize your right, congress, to do this thing. Youre partisan, youre going after us for political reasons. Of course, thats true to some extent, obviously there are politics involved in the political system but thats not necessarily a legal argument in terms of executive privilege. Well see how courts respond to this. So far the Trump Administration har hasnt had a winning record in courts on this. They didnt try, im surprised to, to assert executive privilege over donald trump jr. s testimony. Hes on capitol hill, behind closed doors, with the senate intel committee. A lot of theories, mimi, i wonder if you can take us through them. A lot of smart people have weighed in after reading the Mueller Report and the Mueller Report in describing what they were able to investigate around the trump tower meeting listed two individuals with whom they were not able to communicate or talk, it was natalia veselnitskaya, a russian operative and donald trump jr. , what do you think happened . Did he take the fifth . Did he lie . What could he have done to have been described the way he was described in the Mueller Report . It sounds like he did take the fifth with mueller. And mueller he didnt, once again, he said it without saying it. He hinted at it. But he didnt take the fifth today. That is what donald trump jr. Probably couldnt have asserted executive privilege but he could have taken the fifth, and he didnt, i think in part because it seems like he was able to limit it so much. Today . Today. There was two hours and there was, you know, maybe three topics. I dont think they really asked him about the trump tower meeting. I think that was one of the sort of places that they didnt go. And so, it seems like he was able to limit it so much that he didnt really necessarily fear that as much as looking like he was guilty and hiding something by taking the fifth amendment. Whats your theory on donald trump jr. Today and in terms of what happened between him and the mueller investigators . This is a place where i tend, because of my lack of actual legal expertise, i defer. I think what mimi says makes a lot of sense. I think the place to go back to the prior conversation, the bush administration, obama administration, others in the wake of watergate, as peter said, have not wanted to invoke executive privilege because of fear it would look bad if the courts said it went too far. The Trump Administration dont care as long as it takes time. The things are politics hurt, pleading the fifth. The headline of donald trump jr. Takes the fifth is a bad scene. And i think that they have successfully, and somewhat mysteriously to my minds in terms of how this negotiation played out, they were able to get this testimony limited to a place where donald trump jr. Would never have to take the fifth and to the extent i have views, most of the smart lawyers who have read the Mueller Report sort of seem to suggest that is what he did with the grand jury and with mueller and thats where we are right now. And i do think that everybody who has suspicions about his culpability and what happened in that room are still left wondering, are we ever going to get to the truth of the meeting. This brings me back to the politics of having him at all today. This wasnt without a lot of blow back for the republican leader of the committee, richard burr, if its as limited as mimi suggests it may have been, what was the whole exercise about . I think thats a great question. And we dont really know what he said. I will say i remember at that moment when it turned out he was going to be the first witness who, you know republicanled committee was going to subpoena, there was a lot of discussion at the end of the day when they finally reached these terms which were quite limited in terms of the number of hours and topics and the scope. His sort of his band theyre not really official advisers. Theyre these merry band of mischief makers who are all donald trump jr. Allies. They kind of crowed and you should take it with a shaker of salt. They said, listen, this is how it is done. This is the art of the deal. You make them go after you and then you reach an agreement where you get exactly what you want, and you go up to the hill and get the positive coverage as john was saying that you havent taken the fifth and you dont have to answer questions on the topics you want. We dont know the exact topics, on the other hand you have to assume for them to bring him back there at all there must have been specific issues and holes that they really wanted to press him on. I want to put up some tape of jerry nadler speaking with more certainty than ive heard the chairman of the house judiciary speak about bob mueller being on capitol hill. Lets watch. Youve also been negotiating with now former special counsel mueller. Has he agreed to come in voluntarily . Is there a date by which if he does not you would subpoena him . Were carrying on conversations with him, he will come in. If we have to subpoena him, we will. Will that be, say, by the end of the summer if he doesnt come in. I think itll be before that. Is this a surprise to anybody or is it locked and loaded on capitol hill, Robert Mueller they booked a car, hes on his way. Theres so much frustration right now if you talk privately to these Judiciary Committee members who believe we should be in the midst of an active impeachment inquiry right now and mueller should have been there weeks ago. But theres not a lot of faith that its going to happen, because theyve been pushing so hard for this and no one understands why mueller is putting up such a fight. We understand the basic contours of it, he doesnt want to get in the middle of a big political fight and make the rest of his life worse. Any worse than its already going to be having been the person at the center of all of this. So but nothing changes in terms of the dynamic right now, unless and until he comes up there. If you talk privately to democrats, just so much air has come out of this nicole, theyre depressed. I would argue all the air has come out. I heard arguments from people close to Robert Mueller, why he doesnt want to go. Ive heard all the same things you have. But the reality is, i think, this thing is over without some human beings that either conducted the investigation or were interviewed by the investigators. This is a lights out moment. You have ten days where people that did the and i dont think it has to be Robert Mueller but you have the obstruction investigators up there explaining why they didnt reach the decision that barr reached, the declination of donald trump. Or it is over and we all turn the page. Do you see the stakes any differently . No. Absolutely. Look, i too have heard all the reasons and i do understand muellers reluctance. I think that hopefully he can differentiate between needing to testify and spin his report, sell his report, versus testify and just describe and explain the findings in his report. Thats what we need right now. I think every time as you highlighted on your show, one piece of evidence from the report gets examined and highlighted, people go, whoa, really, that happened . But its lost in the sea of bad facts from trump. And mueller needs to be there to walk people through it. He shouldnt think he needs to come on there a