A prescriptive thing. Its essentially a map for advancing from the Mueller Report and it does not pull punches. This is the lead, quote our election was corupted our democracy assaulted our sovereignty and security violated. This is the conclusion of special counsel Robert Muellers report. It documents a serious crime against the American People. The debate about how to respond to russias sweeping and systemic attack and how to hold President Trump accountable for obstructing the investigation and possibly breaking the law has been reduced to a false choice immediately impeachment or nothing. History suggests there is a better way to think about the choices ahead. He says quote, what our country needs now is cleareyed patriotism. Not reflexible partisanship. Whether they like it or not, republicans in Congress Share the constitutional responsibility to protect the country. Muellers report leaves many Unanswered Questions but it is a road map. It is up to members of both parties to see where that road map leads. To the even actual filing of articles of impeachment or not. Congress should hold substantive hearings that build on the Mueller Report and fill in its gaps. Not just straight to an up or down vote on impeachment. In 1998 the republicanled house rushed to judgment. That was a mistake then and would be a mistake now. She is referring of course to the impeachment proceedings in the house against her husband in 1998. She then says, quote, watergate offers a better precedent. Then as now there was an investigation that found evidence of corruption and a coverup. It was complimented by public hearings conducted by a Senate Select committee that insisted that executive privilege could not be used to shield criminal conduct and compelled white house aids to testify. The televised hearings added to the record and helped the public understand the facts in a way that no dense legal report could. Similar hearings with mueller, former White House Council don mcgahn and other key witnesses could do the same today. She then calls for the House Judiciary Committee to appoint a respected leader to lead an impeachment investigation just as the watergate era Judiciary Committee did. Clinton then calls for an independent Bipartisan Commission along the lines of the 9 11 commission to help protect our elections from future attacks like the one we suffered in 2016. She cites the New York Times report that Trumps White House chief of staff reportedly told the Homeland Security secretary that she should not bring up the russian threat to attack the 2020 election. She shouldnt bring that up with President Trump because President Trump didnt want to hear anything about that. And she calls that the latest example of an administration that chooses to take the most minimal steps to counter on going threats to our nation. Its the argument if a sitting president isnt and if he is stopping the rest of the administration and the rest of the federal government from protecting the country to this foreign attack then somebody has to step up and do it. Implicit in this critique from clinton is this imperative that she feels that if nobody else is going to lead on this because the president wont or worse, then shell try to, even if all she has got is the oped page now from which to do it. But she is calling on congress to take the reigns on this and shes calling on regular citizens to make them do it. She says quote, we have to get this right. The Mueller Report isnt just a reckoning about our recent history. Its the warning about the future. Unless checked the russians will interfere again in 2020 and possibly china and north korea as well. This is an urgent threat. Nobody but americans should be able to decide americas future. And unless hes held accountable, the president may show even more disregard for the laws of the land and obligations of his office. Hell likely redouble his efforts to advance putins agenda including rolling back sanks, weakening nato and undermining the european union. Of all the lessons from our history the one thats most important may be that each of us has a vital role to play as citizens. She closes a crime was committed against all americans and all americans should demand action and accountability. Our founders envisioned the danger we face today and designed a system to meet it. Now its up to us to prove the wisdom of our constitution, the resilience of our democracy and the strength of our nation. Hillary clinton writing tonight in the Washington Post in response to the Mueller Report and the on going fall out and political fights that have happened since it was released in redacted form last week. The headline is that shes not calling for an immediate vote on impeachment the way the Republican Lead Congress went to a impeachment vote, shes calling for the watergate model. The democratic lead house and republican lead senate should open investigations that build on the Mueller Report and fill in the gaps and if they lead toward impeachment let them do it but they ought to fill out this record on their own. Now we have asked secretary clinton if she wants to come on the show and talk about this and talk about her response to the Mueller Report more broadly. I have nothing to report to you at this point but you will be first to know if and when we are able to schedule that interview. Ill keep you posted. But on the subject of the fall out from muellers report and the response to it, i will tell you, i was surprised to see this Hillary Clinton oped tonight. I was even more surprised to see a super Strange Development in the aftermath that was published by Bloomberg News. It was right around the time this oped posted. We got this gem posted. Its a screen shot of a series of Text Messages and the date on this string of Text Messages is supposedly october 30th, 2016. So right before the 2016 president ial election and you can read what it says there. To michael m. Cohen, the president s long time personal lawyer. Outgoing message to him says quote, stopped flow of some tapes from russia but not sure if theres anything else, just so you know. Cohen then responds, tapes of what. The sender responds. Not sure of the content but person in moscow was bragging had tapes from russia trip. Next message, well try to dial you tomorrow but wanted to be aware. Next message, im sure its not a big deal, but there are lots of stupid people. Bloomberg then reports that the next two texts in the chain are Michael Cohen saying you have no idea and then the initial sender relying back to him, i do, trust me. So you know what thats about, right . I did not see this coming. Specifically in the most immediate sense what this is about is a very provocative little tiny piece of muellers redacted report. A little piece of muellers report which raises eyebrows for everybody that looks at it but nobody knows what to do with it. Its from the part of the Mueller Report where mueller is describing trumps interactions with former fbi director james comey and james comes notes and memos and all of their interactions. This part of the report explains how during the president ial transition, january 2017 before the inauguration, comey and other Law Enforcement and intelligence officials went to trump tower to brief trump and other transition officials on russias attack on the election. And then comey also privately briefed trump on the contents of the steel dossier. This document circulating and he briefed the president on it privately one to one basically because these officials believed the president should know it was out there and what it said. Now famously of course one of the things it said was part of the russian governments leverage over trump is that there was allegedly some tape, some video tape showing trumps behavior in moscow during a business trip that was of a salacious and embarrassing nature. Something involving a hotel and some ladies. But nobody has ever proved these tapes exist. The whole point is in this dossier circulating in d. C. , that tape and those tapes were alleged to exist and the point of that being mentioned in the dossier was this allegation that president elect trump was somehow over barrel with russia. They could blackmail him. They had leverage over him. They had something on him that he wouldnt want anybody to know about. And so since that accusation about the president elect was circulating, intelligence and Law Enforcement officials at the highest level believe the president should know about it. Theyre not going to keep it from him. They should know it is out there. Thats the context about this part of the Mueller Report describing that briefing. Pop down to the footnotes for the real news here. Footnote 112. Comeys briefing included the steele reportings unverified allegation that the russians have compromising tapes of the president involving conduct when he was a private citizen during a 2013 trip to moscow. During the 2016 president ial campaign a similar claim may have reached candidate trump. Oh, really . On october 30th, 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from russian business man. He said told cohen that he stopped flow of tapes from russia but not sure if theres anything else, just so you know. It then sites an october 30th text message. He said tapes, referring to compromising tapes of trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the russian real estate conglomerant group. Continuing with this part of the Mueller Report in this footnote, cohen said he spoke to trump about the issue after receiving the texts, cow hen said that in an fbi interview according to muellers report. He said he was told the tapes were fake but he did not communicate that to cohen. He said that in an fbi interview. First of all, let me be clear. I have no idea if thats actually how you say this dudes name. He is a georgian business man. The former soviat but his last name starts with five straight consonants before you get to a very unhelpful vowel. I apologize for not knowing how to pronounce this. Im going to go with it until im corrected. So im sorry about that. But the news here unfolds in an odd way. I mean, republicans, in particular, the white house specifically, and a lot of the press have particularly this claim about there being some alleged tape of trumps behavior from amos cow trip, a tape being held in russia as leverage against him. Thats been derided left right and center but according to the Mueller Report it turns out before the election and well before any of the steele dossier or anything saw the light of day, a guy trump did know from business connections in the soviet union did get in touch with Michael Cohen to tell him to tell trump that he was stopping the flow of tapes from russia. Person in moscow bragging had tapes from russia trip. Oh, good he stopped the tapes from getting out of russia. And according to Mueller Cohen then told trump about that before the election. That means trump knew somewhere in the former soviet union a business buddy of his had taken action to make sure that tapes from trumps trip to russia, those tapes werent getting out. Dont worry. All taken care of. I took care of that for you. Thats what is in the Mueller Report. Footnote 112 volume 2. Its dangling out there like a thread screaming tie me off. Snip me. This cant be left. Now Bloomberg News got ahold of the unpronounceable Business Contact from georgia that took care of this tapes problem for him. Hes the one that provided this longer screen shot of what he says was his Text Exchange with Michael Cohen right before the election so we can see the full context of the remarks about the tapes. In the Mueller Report they only quoted this one text. Stopped flow of some tapes from russia. Not sure if theres anything else just so you know. Well now this georgian business man is providing the rest of the conversation as context because his lawyer tells Bloomberg News the way the message shows up in the Mueller Report isnt fair. His lawyers telling bloomberg that muellers reports footnote includes only part of the Text Exchange with cohen failing to provide the full context. The fbi and muellers team spliced the dialogue to produce the ugly insinuation and footnote of 112 to attract publicity. Therefore because its so taken ut of context and this is so unfair, this georgian business man wants these other texts to be made public too including the immediate follow on text which explains these tapes were allegedly from the russia trip. Which is exactly what you would expect to see here if it turns out in real life that trump knew full well and was warned ahead of the election while russia was interfering in the election to help him that there were some tapes about him from his russia trip back in the day and those tapes are kept inside of russia by a business associate doing him a favor and just so you know it, im on it when it comes to those tapes. Im stopping the flow of the tapes out of russia because otherwise they would be out there without my intervention. Honestly, personally, the one thing i refuse to let myself think about is the prospect of incriminating salacious tapes or trump being warned that there were incriminating salacious tapes of him in russia. Tapes russia could let out in the world but they were stopping that from happening. Thats the one part of this whole ridiculous d grade movie we have been living through that i refuse to let sit in my brain when thinking about this president and this scandal and russia messing with our election to benefit with him and him potentially being compromised by russia at the same time. I mean, i didnt want to think about the whole tapes thing but now heres the whole tapes things. And the revelation in the Mueller Report that trump was not hearing about those for the first time when he heard about it from james comey during the transition. He already heard about it from this connected business man in the former soviet union before the election. So that happened today. Enjoy your dinner. Tums and rolaids next to the tv. Take as many as you need. The aftermath of the Mueller Report is still opening up new spiggots of information but its becoming clear theres two areas of trouble that appear to be most unsettling to the president at this point in this process. Two areas where the president and the white house are scrambling harder than they are on anything else to try to stop on going investigations in their tracks. The first is financial issues. Money trail. Theres no indication in muellers report that mueller investigated anything having to do with the president s business or financial entanglements at all. There isnt information about that stuff in muellers report or any reference that we can see in the parts that are unredacted. Thats actually in keeping with warnings that we had for months from the Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff. He repeatedly said mueller wasnt looking at that. That said today, the president spoke to reporters at the white house and said oh, yes, mueller did do that. He must have. The president told reporters today at the white house, quote, now mueller i assume checked my taxes, checked my financials which are great. All you have to do is go look at the records, theyre all over the place. They checked my financials and they checked my taxes. They did . You know that . Really . Turns out no the white house does not know that. An anonymous source quickly walked that back to Cnns Jim Acosta tonight saying actually despite the president s remarks to that effect, they have no idea. They have no idea if mueller looked at trumps taxes or financials but theres a reason that President Trump is saying that anyway. Theres a reason hes saying mueller looked at my taxes. Mueller went through all of my financials. Thats done. Its already taken care of. The president made those soon to be walked back comments about the investigation today in the middle of him arguing to reporters that his financials and his taxes are all out of bounds for any further investigation. And sometimes he says thats because his taxes are under audit so nobody is allowed to look at them. Sometimes he said his finances are just a red line and crossing that red lines would give him grounds to fire anyone that tries to take a look at them. Sometimes he says mueller already looked at all of that stuff and turned out its all fine. None of those things are true but he rolls out new excuses and he doesnt want any investigators looking at his finances or his taxes. His actions tell you that even more emphatically than his words. Were now two days into the irs just flatly refusing to hand over to the chairs and means. Its a law that as far as we know nobody has ever broken before so were not sure how this is going to be ajudicated now that theyre just saying no. One saying if treasury secretary doesnt turnover the requested returns he is likely engaged in the most ser