Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Justice that the president s lawyers have said publically and said it once again today that the president will not answer any questions about obstruction of justice and other issues that the special prosecutor Robert Mueller would like to question the president about. Regular viewers of this hour know i for one believe President Trump was never going to submit to any questions by my prosecutor under any circumstances, even back when the president said the chance of him doing that was 100 . So he said those things under oath. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of this . 100 . I would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you, jim. 100 . That was a year ago. And now the chances of the president submitting to an interview with Robert Mueller is almost officially publically zero percent. Although the president s lawyers continue to play the public game
that they are negotiating the terms of an interview with the special prosecutor. A central element of that game has been the Trump Lawyers repeated insistence that President Trump really does want to do the interview with Robert Mueller and its just the lawyers who are reluctant. This game is usually played out in trump Team Interviews with the New York Times where the trump spin is usually accepted as true. Todays report on this game by the New York Times carries the latest version of the trump teams spin in a paragraph that has appeared repeatedly in the New York Times reporting on this game for the last year. The president s lawyers are concerned that if he is interviewed, mr. Trump could perjure himself. That concern is in part driving the ongoing negotiations. They had been prepared last week to tell mr. Mueller that mr. Trump would decline an interview. But the president , who believes he can convince mr. Mueller that
what we have said for months. It is time for the Special Counsel to conclude without further delay. This is from one of the men who is causing the delay that hes complaining about there. So now what will Robert Mueller do . Subpoena the president . Todays New York Times report offers some insight into that question. In a meeting with mr. Trumps lawyers this year, mr. Mueller threatened to take the extraordinary step of subpoenaing the president to testify before a grand jury if he did not sit for a voluntarily interview. Now, that was reported months ago. But we still do not know if any of that is true because the sources of the Robert Mueller threat to subpoena the president were the Trump Lawyers, not Robert Mueller or anyone on Robert Muellers staff. The times turned to sources who worked with Robert Mueller in the past to try to get a sense of what Robert Mueller might do. Quote, Law Enforcement officials who have worked with mr. Mueller a long time federal prosecutor and the head of the fbi believe that he will try to use every tool he has to get the president to answer questions and that he will probably subpoena him to testify if he does not agree to be questioned voluntarily. Okay. Thats one possibility. And Trump Lawyers offered the New York Times another very credible possibility this time, saying some of mr. Trumps lawyers believe that mr. Mueller will not subpoena their client out of fear of losing a court fight that could undermine the investigations legitimacy to the public. And so Robert Mueller is approaching a very difficult Decision Point, probably the most difficult Decision Point that he will face in his investigation of the president of the United States. And now to answer the question of what Robert Mueller will do, what Robert Mueller should do,
we are now joined by Jill Winebanks and glen kersner. Thank you for being here 44 years after you heard the president say he was going to resign the next day because your investigation had closed in on president nixon. What is your reading of where Robert Mueller stands tonight on the issue of what to do with interviewing the president or subpoenaing the president or moving past any possibility of talking to the president and going ahead without that . First let me say, lawrence, that you gave such a good introduction that you have left very little for me to add to it. But and i do remember, by the way, the night of the Resignation Announcement like it was yesterday. Jill, can we just stop you on that for a second . Sure. Because we will not be at this day again. Take us back to 9 01 p. M. On that night. All of you in the Prosecutors Team i assume are sitting around televisions watching the president say those words that he would resign the presidency at 12 00 noon tomorrow. I think the first thing that came to our mind was now can we indict him . He wont be the sitting president anymore. And we had already been turned down while he was the sitting president , despite the fact that we had more than ample evidence of his guilt. And once he wasnt the sitting president , we said now we could do it. Unfortunately, he was pardoned by his successor, president ford, before we could return an indictment. And so he never got indicted. And, jill, so to where Robert Mueller stands tonight, there is a risk in subpoenaing the president and that is the president will challenge the subpoena. And there is possibility the
risk that the president could win in his challenge of that subpoena. I think the chance of his winning that are very, very small. I think that the decision which was 80 in the nixon case really says that the president is not above the law. A president had to comply with a subpoena for documents. It is different when it is a subpoena for his own testimony. But i believe that the concept of the opinion says for sure that mueller would win that argument and the president would lose it. I would say, however, that he may not need his testimony and he may not want his testimony. We are only hearing from the president s lawyers. We dont know whats in muellers mind at all. If the president is, indeed, a target, even if it is only a target of a report rather than an indictment, then maybe he doesnt want to call him in because he would have to take
the fifth amendment and that would be something that he might not want to have happen. So it may be that the reason hes not pursuing this is that he doesnt really care. He doesnt need the testimony. The evidence has been in plain sight. I dont think you have to ask him what his intent is. The president has expressed his intent over and over and over again enough times that we dont have to ask him anymore. He said it to lester holt a year ago. Now he has said it again in tweets. So we know what hes thinking. We know why he wanted to stop the investigation. He wanted to get rid of the russia thing. And thats why he fired comey. Glen, i know you dont know what Robert Mueller will do. And, so, i will if you if you are on Robert Muellers team, what would you advise him to do at this point on the issue of speaking to interviewing the president of the United States . Well, lawrence, i think that,
you know, all possibilities that the president will actually come in for a voluntarily interview have played themselves out. I tend to believe that the president was never going to voluntarily sit down with Robert Mueller for an interview. His lawyers knew what a danger that would present for him. And, so, if we move past that, the next question is should Robert Mueller subpoena the president . I think as jill was suggesting, it may be that bob mueller has now begun to view the president as a target of the investigation. And because the Department Of Justice has a policy that they dont allow prosecutors to subpoena targets of the grand juries investigation because of the might against selfincrimination. There is an exception to that, but it is a rarely used exception, i think that may mean we never hear from the president , not in a voluntary interview, not under subpoena
before a grand jury and then bob mueller moves on to the next phase of his work and that may be returning indictments. It may be authoring a report that gets released to congress. It may be a combination of the two. It may be that bob mueller decides to return a Conspiracy Indictment Naming Everybody but the president and just putting everything hes learned about the president s misdeeds into a report to congress and let congress handle it as a political issue and then again it may be as i know mrs. Winebanks can tell us, that he will choose to name the president as an unindicted coconspirator in a large conspiracy indictment. I worked for bob mueller directly at the u. S. S Attorneys Office for the district of columbia, but i will not pretend to be able to look into his head and predict now hes doing. I can promise everything that he will be governed by the rule of
law and he will announce his findings accordingly. Were going to listen to something that Rudy Giuliani said on fox news tonight. It is quite shocking. A former Justice Department official himself lying to fox news viewers about Justice Department policy and saying that this investigation must be over by september, according to Justice Department policy. Lets listen to this. I think if it isnt over by september, then we have a very, very serious violation of the Justice Department rules. That you shouldnt be conducting one of these investigations in the 60day period. Glen, your reaction to that . I was a federal prosecutor for 30 years. I have never heard of such a policy. I think so much of what we heard weve heard from mr. Giuliani over the past year or so is selfcontradictory. Hes playing to not a court of law but a court of public opinion. He really is just trying to
poison the well of the American People in the hoping that that may somehow work to the political advantage of the president down the road if this matter gets taken up in impeachment hearings. I want to share one more thing because i think it proves what has been my case, that the negotiations are literally just a game. Shawn hannity asked him why would you even bother with a counter proposal. Lets watch this. Why would you even more a counter proposal. When it is over with, ill explain it to you. Im not getting anything out of you tonight. Good to see you, mr. Mayor. Thank you. Jill, it certainly sounds like a game to me. They have been playing this for public relations. I agree with you that they probably never intended. And probably the most shocking thing that Rudy Giuliani said is that the president could perjure himself if he went in. The president could perjure himself only if he plans to lie and or if he plans to cover up further what he knows he did. So it isnt a perjury trap unless the witness wants to lie about something. And its shocking that we are at a State Of Affairs where the president of the United States lawyer is saying that he could commit perjury. Yeah. The president s lawyers public negotiating position is the president is so guilty of something that he will lie about it and commit perjury if he is interviewed by the mueller team. Thats their public position. Were going to have to take a break here. Glen, thank you for helping us. And jill will be back with us when we come back because we will get jills legal reaction to those secret Audio Recordings of deven nunez. Rached pl eel played these in t hour, but rachel didnt get a
chance to do a legal analysis of these recordings yet in her hour. We will do that next. Who would have thought, who would have guessed . An Energy Company helping cars emit less. Making cars lighter, its a good place to start, advanced oils for those hardworking parts. Fuels that go further so drivers pump less. Improving efficiency is what we do best. Energy lives here. Crisp leaves of lettuce. Freshly made dressing. Clean food that looks this good. Delivered to your desk. Now delivering to home or office. Panera. Food as it should be. Ie you
one thing was that, quote, sometimes you love the president s tweets. Sometimes we cringe on the president s tweets. That is something that every trump supporter i have ever spoken to in private admits to, cringing at some of the president s tweets. Devin nunes did admit that it is criminal to conclude with a foreign country or foreign nationals in an american campaign, but he seemed to identify a very narrow definition of criminal conduct. Now, if somebody thinks that my campaign or cathys campaign is colluding with the chinese, you name the country, hey, could
happen, it would be a very bad thing if she was getting secrets from the portuguese. Lets say, just because im portuguese, my family was. If thats the case, then thats criminal. Somebody stole the emails, gave them to cathy, cathy released them. If thats the case, then thats criminal. What if someone stole the emails, did not give them to cathy, but gave them to someone else to release them to benefit cathy. They lied to their contributors, just lied to them when they said that the reason they were not moving forward quickly with the impeachment of the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein in the House Of Representatives is that the senate would then have to immediately take up that Impeachment Trial after the house voted to impeach rod
rosenstein and the senate trial of Rod Rosenstein would prevent the senate from confirming the president s choice for the supreme court, brett kavanaugh. That is an outright absolute lie. This senate would be under in timing obligation to take up a bill of impeachment sent over to the senate for trial. The House Of Representatives will never vote on impeaching Rod Rosenstein and the senate will never have an Impeachment Trial of Rod Rosenstein. But at republican fundraisers, republicans will probably continue to lie to their contributors who are hoping for an impeachment of Rod Rosenstein. Joining our discussion now, jenner. I wanted to get your legal reading of the way devin nunes described what we considered criminal collusion if foreign power were to steal some emails
and gave them directly to a campaign and the campaign were then to directly publicize those emails for the campaigns benefit, that would be collusion. That seems like a very narrow definition. It is a narrow definition. And i also want to say we arent using the word collusion anymore. I started a saythisnotthat. We will be calling it criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States or criminal conspiracy to violate the Election Laws because thats what it is. It is a much broader legal problem for the republicans than devin nunes described. What he said is true, that is criminal. It would be criminal. But its also criminal if you accept anything of value from a foreign individual or a foreign government. Especially when it happens to be an enemy of our country, not a friend or ally. But you cannot accept anything even from our closest allies if
it is a foreign person. So once you have his description was of a portuguese giving something to the candidate. It doesnt matter what country it is. You cant take it. Anything of value is barred by our Election Laws. And, so, there is a much broader thing. And it Doesnt Matter Whether you public it or you knowingly allow someone to publish it or whether you just send an email that says i love it, especially later in the summer and then wikileaks publishes it later in the summer. Jennifer rue b, the notion te senate has to immediately take up a bill of impeachment, the last time we saw an impeachment of this level was of a federal judge. 1988 in august the house voted to impeach a federal judge. The senate did not begin the trial until 14 months later in 1989. And then they did it parttime, a couple hours here, a couple hours there. Senate business was never interrupted by that impeachment. It is like all these republicans went to the same bad law school and they never picked up the constitution and they know nothing about their laws because what they say is essentially nonsense. Jill is right. First of all, thats entirely wrong. This Ideal Conspiracy is a broader issue. What is illegal is