Election. And i cant believe it. But Lindsey Graham last night at maralago said he wanted to continue investigating hillary clinton. And the clinton emails. Its just its absolutely rid its absolutely ridiculous. And i think the democrats have a constitutional responsibility to continue to conduct oversight of this administration. And just because the republicans didnt do it doesnt mean the democrats shouldnt. Thats exactly what they should do and let the facts like Robert Mueller let the facts lead them to their conclusions. So stick with us, if you can. Just want to reset for those who might be just joining us. It is 5 00 p. M. In washington, where were following and in new york and on the east coast entirely. Where were following breaking news. Last hour we received a fourpage summary of the Mueller Report. The summary was provided by Attorney General bill barr. Before boarding air force one, the president stopped to speak to reporters about those
findings. He said it was a complete and total exoneration, although we will factcollect this. After a long look, after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side, where a lot of bad things happened. A lot of horrible things happened. A lot of very bad things happened for our country. It was Just Announced there was no collusion with russia, the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard. There was no collusion with russia. There was no obstruction and none whatsoever. And it was a complete and total exoneration. Its a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, its a shame that
your president has had to go through this f. Before i even got elected, it began. And it began illegally. And hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side. So its complete exoneration, no collusion, no obstruction. Thank you very much. That is not true. It did not totally exonerate the president of the United States. The Mueller Report says this. While the report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. That is from bill barr, summarizing the Mueller Report. Mueller also did not find no obstruction. That was a determination made by william ba william barr, Attorney General and Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney general. They decided with the evidence that was provided to them by Robert Mueller that the president did not obstruct justice. Mueller basically punted on that. Presented both sides of the issue and allowed them to decide. On the issue, though, of conspiracy, of coordinating with russia, the president has been exonerated by Robert Mueller. Robert mueller found that he could not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. Joining us now, nbc news Julia Ainslie at the department of justice, host of nbcs meet the press, chuck todd and kristen welker. Julia, the top lines of the report are twofold. One, there was no conspiracy. Two, they were going to allow Attorney General barr and Rod Rosenstein to determine whether there was obstruction. And both of those men determined no obstruction. Thats right, katy. I want to take you through how
fast they made that decision and how they did it. As we know, the Attorney General did not receive the Mueller Report until friday afternoon. So he was able to take all of the evidence that Robert Mueller laid out on both sides of the Obstruction Argument for charging for obstruction and not. These difficult issues he talks about in this letter. And they were able to decide less than 48 hours later that there was no obstruction. And, of course, this now makes sense why reporters have been told over and over again this weekend that Rod Rosenstein was in the room. Because i dont think that the Attorney General wanted to have this decision squarely upon his shoulders. He does give us some insight, however, into how he made this decision. One thing he considered, he said they considered the intent with respect to obstruction, and they decided that there was not intent, because there was no underlying crime related to Russian Election interference. Thats something weve talked about a lot with legal scholars on our network about the fact that it can sometimes be difficult to charge obstruction when theres no underlying
crime. Some people say that the underlying crime shouldnt be considered with obstruction. Its clear here that william barr and Rod Rosenstein did think that was significant. One thing they did not consider, another question we have talked about a lot, whether or not you can indict a sitting president. As you know, the justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel weighed in on that in 2000 and said you cannot indict a sitting president. And we wondered whether or not that would keep more indictments from coming down. Barr says in this letter that opinion was not considered. So in other words, its not that hes making this Obstruction Decision based on the indictment opinion. He would have made an indictment if the evidence had been there on obstruction. But hes saying its not. Julia, at the end of the summary, william barr also says hes going to try and release as much of the Mueller Report as possible but theyre going to go through and determine what they cannot release. Grand jury material being one of those things. How long do we expect them to take to do this . Have we gotten any more on a
time line . There is no more time line on that. As we know, he wanted to give a time line on releasing this letter, but he could take longer. He wants to go back and consult with Robert Mueller. He didnt consult with Robert Mueller on this letter, but he wants to consult Going Forward. Another key thing that william barr will have to consider, what evidence he could give us that could interfere with ongoing investigations. Those in other districts that have sponsor out of the mueller probe. He doesnt want to interfere with those. That means this could take some time. Hes going to have to keep going, not just to Robert Mueller, but to prosecutors in other districts to make sure he doesnt cross into their investigation. So it could be that we continue to get more of this evidence, and we know more about what was considered, both by Robert Mueller and making his decision not to charge for conspiracy or collusion, and in William Barrs decision, not to pursue an obstruction case. Kristen welker at the white house, everybody in Donald Trumps world is doing a victory
lap, including the president himself. And we just got a campaign statement, katy, which builds upon what President Trump said, which is he sees this as complete and total exoneration, vindication. And so it is giving you essentially a preview of what you are going to see from the president , his allies, officials here at the white house over the next 48 hours, certainly. And frankly, youre seeing a preview of what we are going to see on the Campaign Trail. The president s attorney saying this was better than they had expected. I can tell you that they were preparing for a range of different contingencies. This, politically speaking, is going to be viewed as a win by them and again by the president. President trump just leaving florida, where hes been throughout the weekend. He has been very restrained. His advisers have said do not comment. Do not tweet about the Mueller Investigation until we know exactly what is in the report. And the president really stuck to that. He didnt speak until he was just departing. When he lands, were going to be there, katy. Well try to get some questions to him. And i think the biggest one at this point becomes, will he call for this report to be made public in its entirety. Because thats really the question. And thats what democrats are demanding. They want to see the full report. They want to be able to review all of the pieces of information that Robert Mueller had at his hands and then make a determination about how they see those facts. And so thats really where this debate is going to go now for that report to be made public. The president has said he wants it to be made public, but, of course, again, katy, we go back to that issue. How much of the report Will Congress and the public actually see in the end. And the president often changes his mind on a dime. Chuck todd, one thing that has i guess stuck this process up in the past couple hours, even though this is a good day for the president in
terms of finding no collusion, finding no conspiracy, and bill barr saying there was no obstruction, essentially clearing the president from the doj angle of this, the president and the white house and Sarah Sanders are still continuing to be misleading about the results of this investigation. Theyre both saying it completely exonerates him. Bob mueller says specifically, this does not exonerate him. That was William Barrs assessment of the bob Mueller Report. Although he committed no crime, the report does not exonerate him. They also said that mueller found no obstruction. Mueller did not find no obstruction. Mueller laid out the evidence on both sides of the issue and allowed bill barr and Rod Rosenstein to make the decision. Why continue to be misleading about good news . Well, i think they take bill barrs assessment as exoneration on obstruction, and but Sarah Sanders in her statement said mueller exonerated the president on obstruction. Im shocked by the conflation
attempts by these folks. This is katy, as we know, this is what donald trump does, overexaggerates everything, whatever it is. And this is the pr head start that essentially the Trump Administration the president is getting, thanks to the fact that his Attorney General that made this assessment. And this is where democrats are in a huge box here. Were all taking bill barrs word for the clearly, Robert Mueller found troubling evidence on the obstruction question. Because he could not come to a conclusion. He left it for the Attorney General to come to this conclusion. So he found troubling evidence. Its bill barr that has cleared him. This is where democrats are going to have their back up on this. Theyre going to be very upset. And this is where from a pr standpoint, i dont know how they ever get this back. Once you see the report, if it
doesnt match the tone of what bill barr wrote or at least to reasonable folks, then it is only going to polarize the perception of this even further. So that is but on the pr front, this is the head start that they have. Theyre Going Forward. Theyre filling a vacuum before we ever get to read the actual report. And so theyre going to have spun and spun and spun. They got their supporters worked up. Theyve got everybody lined up. And, again, nobody has seen the actual evidence that apparently Robert Mueller has put out there that does at least raise questions of the obstruction question. But again, politically, they got the head start, and i dont know if democrats will ever be able to sort of get that pr perception back, which is important if you want to have political legitimacy for continued investigations. Reverend al sharpton, youre with us as well. An historic day. No doubt about it. I think it is. I want to bring Joe Scarborough back in from morning joe. Because i think hes right. This is a clear day of victory for the president. But i think that the question that he raises that i wanted him to elaborate on is that if all is as we are seeing from barrs letter, then why did so many people lie . Were talking about 37 indictments. So if it was not russian collusion, then what was it, and is any of that criminal, joe . Because the question is, people dont just lie about anything or about nothing. So then what do all of these people i would hate to be one of the guys headed to jail if all of this was nothing. Yeah. Well, you know, reverend al, again, i think again, and i know you and i have talked about this before off camera. So much of what donald trump
does, not only whether it was on the campaign or on the Campaign Trail or even as president of the United States is not focused on foreign policy, not focused on domestic policy. Its always been about money with him. So if they were continuing their conversations with russians and with russian officials about building a trump tower in moscow, then, yes, they would lie about that. Because they would know that that obviously would be improper behavior. Illegal . Maybe not. But certainly not a proper thing to be doing during a president ial campaign. But again, we have to put this in proper context. Donald trump did not expect donald trump to be elected president of the United States. This was like this was like a Branding Exercise that went horribly wrong. He thought he was going to lose, and then he thought he was going to make a lot of money off of that, by either starting a tv network or by, you know,
building his trump tower in moscow. So that probably explains most of the lies. I dont understand, though, why you had officials even after they were indicted by Robert Mueller, continuing to lie. But they did. But just again, lets just look at the big headline here, though. This is actually a big win for the president of the United States. Not just legally, but chuck todd is right. Politically, its a very big win. And we can talk about Obstruction Of Justice. Most of the obstruction was done in plain sight for all of us to see. Whether it was with a lester holt interview or whether he was bragging to the Foreign Minister of russia that he had fired comey and relieved the pressure off of everybody. So most of that obstruction seemed to be in plain sight. So those the congressional committees can still continue the investigations. But collusion was the big
question. And on that, Robert Mueller, after two years of investigating, gave a very clear answer. And that was that there was no collusion. I mean, this was this was as cleancut, and reverend al, im sure youll remember this. A lot of people may not. This is about as cleancut as mike tyson Beating Spinks in the first round. I mean, this was i know trumps attorneys are shocked. I know a lot of democrats are shocked on capitol hill about this. No one expected this sort of exoneration on collusion, but there is exoneration on collusion. There remains questions about Obstruction Of Justice that, of course, the congressional committees can investigate. But also, again, youve got the Southern District of new york where most legal scholars believe Donald Trumps greatest legal jeopardy lies. Yeah, well, i was sitting at that fight when mike spinks was knocked out did i tyson. I was about two seats from donald trump. He was a democrat then. Yeah. But anyway, let me say that i think youre right. Its a clear victory for him politically and legally. The question is going to be the other investigation, Southern District and State Investigations. And right. And if nadler Congressman Nadler does call william barr in, and they begin to dive deep down into this, that will be another question. But the democrats also now have to move on and really deal with hard issues. I think the politics is exactly. Is that were now going to have to Start Talking about tax reform and Climate Change and other things. Because the mueller situation i think has ended up a clear victory for the president. Well, and reverend al, listen, you have said this all along. A lot of democrats havent figured this out over the past couple of years. They have been distracted by the Mueller Investigation. But you have understood and i
think the smarter people in the Democratic Party have understood, that they were never g