Is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. Im fd, using a curse word. On page after page, Robert Mueller details the many ways the president tried to make it all go away, including rid of the special counsel. He documents orders that the president gave such as to fire mueller which his subordinates did not carry out, but would have turned the white house politically radioactive. At least three people working for president declined potentially damaging directives from the president. Sometimes they said they would do it and just they didnt, hoping the president would forget about it, despite having the greatest memory what he had asked them to do. There is also much in muellers 448page document on episodes he and others reported on at the time, where the administration characterized as fake news. Funny some of those same people are under oath, they confirmed the fake news was real. Sarah sanders made up facts about why comey was fired and under oath admitted she was, in the words of mueller, what she said in the words of mueller, quote, wasnt founded on anything. Well get to all of that tonight. We begin with the reports bottom line conclusion, how they compared to the attorney generals portrayal, and the president s longstanding claim, which he restated today. Im having a good day too. It was called no collusion, no obstruction. There never was, by the way, and there never will be. This should never happen to another president again, this hoax. It should never happen to another president again. Well, the president spoke just a short time after his attorney general did with Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein standing behind him. But Robert Mueller notably absent. William barr, ahead of the release report put his gloss on that report, echoing many of the president s talking points, illegal leaks, no collusion, everything but witch hunt and hoax. The explanation of why the president s actions did not amount to obstruction of justice. As he said from the beginning, there was, in fact, no collusion. And as the special counsels report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere believe that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the white house fully cooperated with the special counsels investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and white house documents, directing senior aides to testify freely and asserting no privilege claims. Believe the legal for the team of lawyers and federal prosecutors to discuss. Muellers portrayal of the Mueller Report in advance and even today has become an issue reflecting on what role he is actually playing, as attorney general for the United States for the American People or for President Trump. In barrs march 24th report, barr wrote, im quoting now, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. That is true. Thats what i quoted a the top of the program. But now we know the full citation, which the attorney general had access at the time. Its hardly that rosy. It reads although the investigation establishes that the russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump Presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. Barr is saying in so many words, whatever happened, as unprecedented as it is, as wrong as you consider it to be or not, it didnt add up to any chargeable crime because the Trump Campaign and the russian government did not get together and agree on it, at least not that the Available Evidence showed and that the special counsel acknowledges that some of that evidence is simply not accessible. According to the special counsel, some individuals associated with the campaign deleted communications. Some refused to speak, citing the fifth amendment. Others, he said, flatout lied. In any case, the report certainly documents plenty of contacts with russians. The traditional amount by the way is none. Looking at the index, it starts on page 66 with the heading russian government links to and with the Trump Campaign and runs another 102 pages into the transition and finally the white house. At least 16 Trump Associates had russian contacts during the campaign or transition, according to statements, Court Filings and reports on cnn and others. Some of the trump aides lied about hes contacts and were charged with lying to investigators and glossing over all of it. Attorney general barr suggests the president has a clean bill of health. He also mischaracterized the special counsels reasons for not reaching a decision on obstruction, suggesting that mr. Mueller was not relying on Justice Department guidelines that a sitting president cant be indicted. He was not saying that but for the olc opinion, he would have found a crime. He made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime. Thats misleading at best, as the attorney general should have known from reading the report, which states, and im quoting, given the role of the special counsel as an attorney in the department of justice and the framework of the special counsels regulations, this office accepted the olcs the office of Legal Counsels legal conclusion for the purpose of executing prosecutorial jurisdiction. Said one thing that would be easily checkable an hour or so later, he also didnt mention this from the report, the special counsel writing, quote, if we had confidence after the thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. Well certainly talk about that tonight, and well also dig into what the mueller document reveals about stories that we and others reported about that the white house, at the time called fake news, despite the stories being true. One involves a story in the New York Times in january of last year that President Trump once asked don mcgahn to fire Robert Mueller. Here is what the president said about it at the time. Mr. President , did you seek to fire Robert Mueller . Fake news, folks, fake news. Whats your message today . Typical New York Times. Its a fake story. It was true. That was a lie. The Mueller Report works through the entire episode step by step, day by day as the president stews over it, tries to get don mcgahn lie about it too, demanding he write a letter calling the story inaccurate, which it wasnt. Finally days later the two meet. According to the report, the president asked mcgahn, did i say the word fire . What you said, call rod, tell rod that mueller has conflicts and cant be the special counsel. The president responded i never said that. The report continues the president then asked what about these notes . Why do you take notes . Lawyers dont take notes. I never had a lawyer who takes notes. Mcgahn responded that he keeps notes because he is a real lawyer you find that funny, Jeffrey Toobin . I find that funny. Okay. Settle down. You have plenty of time. I know. Anyway. Please continue. Its your program. And explain that notes create a record and are not a bad thing. The president went on to say, ive had a lot of great lawyers like roy roacohn. He did not take notes. He also got disbarred if memory serves. It didnt end well for roy cohn. Clearly roy cohn was no don mcgahn. In event, this isnt only such incident. There is also the firing of james comey and the bogus reason given for it at the time. So whats your response to these rank and file fbi agents who disagree with your contention that they lost faith in director comey . Look, weve heard from countless members of the fbi that say very different things. What led you and the white house to believe that he had lost the confidence of the rank and file of the fbi when the acting director says its exactly the opposite . Well, i can speak to my own personal experience. Ive heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president s decision. It turns out there werent countless fbi agents calling up Sarah Sanders at the white house to express their relief. Sarah sanders speaking she was speaking, by the way, on two consecutive days for countless grateful members of the fbi allegedly whom she pulled out of her hat. How do we know that . Because she said so under oath. Reading now from page 72 of the report, sanders told this office that her reference to hearing from, quote, countless members of the fbi was a slip of the tongue. She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank and file fbi agents had lost confidence in comey was a statement she made, quote, in the heat of the moment that was not founded on anything. 448 pages of accounts like that, of meeting russians, of lying about it, of the president repeatedly answering questions i dont recall despite claiming to have the best memory. The report clears the president of criminally conspireing with the russians. That is incredibly important and a great thing for the country. Not, though, of seriously questionable contact. It clearly state whats the president has never fully acknowledged, that russia interfered in the election to help him win. It speaks of 14 other cases in jurisdictions some of which are in detail behind black redaction bars. Well get to all of it tonight. With us carl bernstein, gloria borger, dana bash, and Jeffrey Toobin, who i think has been here since yesterday, cnn political analyst Kirsten Powers and david urban. We appreciate everybody being here. The last revelation that the president , which we didnt actual was something that hadnt been reported, that the president tried to get Rod Rosenstein basically hold a press conference saying that it was his idea to fire comey and the White House Press office tried to get him to at least make a statement to that effect, to which he said i dont think a press conference is a good idea because if im asked, he will tell the truth. Well, this incident, this Rod Rosenstein incident is a good metaphor for the entire report, which takes something we know, because obviously we know that Rod Rosenstein wrote that famous memo giving one rationale for firing comey, but the story is much worse, as its spelled out. It is an active attempt by the president and by the white house to create a false reason, a false narrative for why james comey was fired, and i think as we dig into particularly the ten different examples of possible obstruction of justice that mueller outlines, in each one of them, there is a kernel that we were familiar with thanks to the excellent journalism of Maggie Haberman and many others, but the full story that mueller was able to get is a much more rich and much more incriminating story than we even knew. And thats true of the Rod Rosenstein story. Can i just Say Something about Rod Rosenstein. Its interesting, by the way, that Rod Rosenstein was one of the people who decided there was no obstruction, and he is a witness, a very important witness in this investigation so far as it comes to obstruction. Its fitting that he was standing behind but not talking. He is the zelig of this story. Exactly. He is there everywhere. And of course he is the one who appointed mueller in the first place. He looked like he wanted to throw up at some point. He did. The president is using the term no obstruction. That is not what mueller is saying. To the contrary, this is a narrative about a vast, sprawling, insidious coverup by the president of the United States. Thats what it is, and we see the act of the president , you just read it, one act after another, covering up, lying, making up stories, directing his aides to cover up. This is a terrible event, and it is all there in this report that the company has waited for. Reading this report is exactly what the country needs. The information is there about the conduct of the president of the United States and how grievous it is. The information we now see is there also that shows the conduct of the attorney general of the United States this morning in context, as well as the conduct of mr. Mueller and his investigators. And finally, we get a look at what the conduct of the press has been through this whole two years. Its all here. And openminded people of both parties i would hope can make their own judgments. But this is the most damning document. In watergate, we didnt have the document that became public. This is but you had the tape. We had a tape. But the tapes plural, most of them didnt come out until later. This is a sprawling account of an insidious event in our history such as we have never been able to press our eyes up to the glass and watch in realtime as mueller has laid out for us. David . Carl andri going to disagree. If it was so open and shut as carl asserts, then Director Special counsel mueller would have said so, right . He said i dont clear the president. He kind of did. He didnt, though, gloria. He said look, im not going to say the president did nothing, but i cant prove that he did something is what it says. No. You read it. He said he cannot be charged. Thats right. He is backing up that. Its a chicken and egg thing. No. You look at olc, saying i didnt bother to go and investigate and bring charges because of the olc opinion . I dont think so. I think he said thats out there. The chicken rossed the road. No, carl, disagree. I think the point is it wouldnt be fair to charge him. He also specifically says that. To charge him if he is not actually going to be indicted or appear before a jury or judge, thats unfair. Well hear. I suppose we will hear from him at some point directly when he testifies before the house judiciary committee. But we do see it in here. You can see my weve heard from him in here. In dog ears. But in each of the cases, ten cases that he describes in detail with a remarkable narrative of the times where he looked into obstruction by the president of the United States, and a couple of them he says, you know, the intent maybe wasnt there. But in a lot of them, he does. The conversation that he apparently had with don mcgahn saying youve got to fire this special counsel, trying to get Jeff Sessions to quit or at least to unrecuse himself. And it goes story after story. And in it each one he takes the time to explain why legally this is obstructive behavior, not that he can prosecute him because it may be ugly. It may be messy, but i dont think it rises, and i think this report says it doesnt rise to criminality. He essentially time and time again what the report is doing is essentially serving this up on like puupuu platter to congress, if Congress Wants to pursue this, mueller is saying i cant pursue this. Its a complex situation. Heres the information. How do you believe what you just said . Youre a very smart person, and you can read what was in the report, and you know that a president cant be indicted. This is really basic. Its pretty accepted, and this is clearly laying out a case without any real overt judgment to send to it the place should it go, to the political arm of the government that would make this decision. I mean this is how it was done in watergate. This is how its done. Its not a decision thats left as how it was done with clinton. Its not a decision thats left to the prosecutors to do. Its a political decision. We all know that. We know that this is how it is done. And so for you to sit here and pretend because he didnt prosecute him or say he should be prosecuted means he is somehow exonerating him. You know thats not true. I didnt say he said the report clearly says im not exonerating him. Im saying he iss saying im not making the case either way. The president is saying he is exonerating him. You certainly are saying if there was something that should have been prosecuted, it would have been prosecuted. Listen, there are 400 plus pages where the special counsel is very specific what he is saying. He does not mince words and pull punches on lots of this stuff. I think he clearly spells it out. If we had confidence after a thorough investigation after an investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction, we would so state. Is this basically mueller operating and acknowledging he is operating under very limited guidelines, that he cannot even consider charges . Thats the way i read it. It indicates that repeatedly, but he also gives the reason for the coverup. He says that there was fear that it might lead to other crimes and other acknowledgments of conduct unbecoming of the president of the United States were this coverup not to have been engineered by the president of the United States. I would just say the white house cooperated extensively. Yes. Put forth tons of folks. But the president as he is undermining it at every turn. But there is no doubt that everybody in the white house was told to cooperate fully and cooperate extensively. There is no assertion of executive privilege. Thats right. So in terms of trying to obstruct justice, listen, id submit that currently this white house, they have gotten 81 subpoenas from the house judiciary committee, and if they want to fight and kick and scream, theyre doing it right now. The argument youre making is look at all the banks he didnt rob, you know . No, im saying that they clearly cooperated. But they also done the president didnt cooperate. It was the key cooperator. He took the lead. The president told them to cooperate. And he didnt even agree to answer or have his lawyers answer written questions. As jeffrey note, he listens to smart lakers he didnt even answer written question. They did a very good job. They put enough evidence out that the special counsel felt this is all you can do. We have to take a quick break. The president just tweeted on this, surprise, well bring you this and talk to one of the spokespeople. Later well dig deeper into the many instances that special counsel mueller operated to pull that back from the legal brink. Yesss, im doing it all. The water. The exercise. The fiber. Month after month, and i still have belly pain and recurring constipation. So i asked my doctor what else i could do, and i said yesss to linzess. Linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. Linzess is not a laxative, it works differently. It helps relieve belly pain and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. Do not give linzess to children less than 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18, it may harm them. Do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. The most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. 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Now he is tweet, and im quoting, anything the russians did during the 2016 election was done while obama was president. He was told about it and did nothing. Most importantly, the vote was not affected. Is that the most important thing . I guess so. Earlier he tweeted, i had the right to end the whole witch hunt if i wanted. I could have ended everything, including mule fer i wanted. I chose not to. Joining me hogan gidley. Thank you for coming in. Its important since the top and the beginning of this that its good for the country and the president and the people in the campaign were found to not be in a criminal conspiracy with russia. That being said, why is the president and his allies saying he was exonerated of obstruction which is literally the opposite of what Robert Mueller decided . Well, first of all, i do appreciate you starting that way, because i think its pretty obvious that so many in the media, so many on the left were actually upset at the fact that a man they had accused of treason for the better part of two years was innocent of that charge. No reporter at cnn ever accused the president of treason. There might have been pundits and analysts. Pundits and democrats did that, absolutely. But the fact is weve seen 2,800 subpoenas, 500 witness, 500 warrants, 40 fbi agent, 19 attorneys and a partridge in a pear tree all to find throughout is no collusion. There is no obstruction, and its wait, wait. Total exoneration. Thats not true. Saying that is not what Robert Mueller said. He said i cant exonerate the president on this, and he pointed out some very detailed examples. Right. And prosecutors dont exonerate. Prosecutors prosecute if they have the evidence to do so. But they dont prosecute the president of the United States. Otherwise wed be talking about a president under indictment right now and his family. Thats not true. The attorney general of the United States has said and said this in the memo in which he uninvited to folks in the white house that the sitting president cant be indicted. Robert mueller accepted that so the idea that if there were things to indict, they would have indicted him, he cant be indicted. While that is what the attorney general believes, lets also be clear that Robert Mueller said that they didnt use that into consideration. Thats not true. When they decided he said that in the report, that he didnt use that in his decision. I think the important part is here, and i think this something your guests would appreciate, im reading from the report now. The evidence we obtained did not establish that the president was involved in any underlying crime related to Russian Election interference. Right. It cant be any clearer than that. If he had the goods on him, he would have used it. Actually, thats not the case. Time and time again in this report, he is saying its essentially congress which has the constitutional role here to play, and he is offering up evidence for congress to fulfill constitutional obligations if that is how they see it. And in fact, in the report, he does say that he accepts the olc finding from the department of justice that a sitting president cant be indicted. Furthermore, he goes on the say that it would be unfair to charge the president given the fact that the department of justice would not actually indict a sitting president. So to actually bring charges against him would be unfair to the president because the president wouldnt be able to have his day in court. Its interesting were talking about whats unfair to the president after being accused of treason for two years. Well, you can ignore what i just said. Robert mueller, the regs of the special counsel are to actually issue a ruling. They did not. They chose not to do that. But youre ignoring it was laden with some political statements. Lets go to the impeachment points because you brought it up. Speaker pelosi said its not worthwhile, cloet unquote at this time. And adam schiff on this very network, who has become quite a star over here, on wolf blitzer earlier today said he was not inclined to impeach either because quote unquote, we needed overwhelming and demonstrable evidence. He has been on your air multiple times saying he has that evidence. I wish you would acknowledge. He doesnt have it. Neither did Robert Mueller. And so the president is clean and he is exonerated. I dont like talking over because its rude to the audience, and ui want to be respectful, but you stated that the olc finding had nothing to do with what mueller ended up doing and how he acted. Thats simply not true. It says so in the report. Its a very detailed explanation of why he did that. Im wondering what you make now. We now know that Sarah Sanders admitted under oath that she made up statements about why comey was fired. Not only that, the press office at the white house tried to get Rod Rosenstein to Say Something that wasnt true, that he was the one responsible, it was his idea about getting rid of comey. Fist of all, i worked for Mike Huckabee when he was governor of the state of arkansas. Ive known Sarah Sanders since she was 19 years old. She can well defend herself. Im not here to speak on behalf of sarah sander. Im not asking you to speak on behalf of her. Its an honor to work for this president. And sarah is going to defend herself later on tonight on another network. The fact is what she was talking about being upset about is the phrase she used, countless. She has been clearly contacted by fbi agents. Ive seen this really . Absolutely. Ive seen the text. Thats not what she said under oath. She said it wasnt based on anything. There was no basis for what she said. That was what the conclusion was from the report, not what she said. What she was talking about that were in quotes was the word countless and the slip of the tongue was to use the phrase countless. She will exonerate herself later this afternoon. And your office, if this was before you were there, so im not pointing this at you, but your office according to Robert Mueller in sworn testimony tried to get Rod Rosenstein to lie. Whats up with that . Again, this is so great that were going to parse every word of this for the next im not parsing. Its a pretty baldfaced lie. We just learned it. Heres the thing. If the president had done something wrong, he would be indicted right now. The president wanted to ask Rod Rosenstein to lie. He is not presently indicted. Weve been dealing with this now for two and a half years. When are you people going to understand. The guy youre working for lies. I know so many reporters wanted the outcome to be the case i didnt want any outcome. Im very happy an an american im happy as an american that the president of the United States did not collude with russia. Did not collude with russia. Were saying the same thing, talking over each other. Im glad you. Okay. Im just surprised because this is the first time weve learned about it that the president of the United States actually asked Rod Rosenstein to hold a press conference and lie, and the White House Press office also was pushing that, and Reince Priebus was screaming at some flak over at the department of justice to get Rod Rosenstein out in front of the camera so the guy could lie. I mean, thats thats normal behavior . No, look, thats absolutely no, its not. I agree. I understand where youre trying to go with this, but the fact is im trying to ask. Where im trying to get is get an actual answer wanted for so long for democrats to be guilty. We do acknowledge the president lied about this. Its in the report. I get it. I appreciate you coming in. Youre in a difficult spot. Look, if they had anything on him, he would be indicted today. He wasnt, because they dont have testified. Did the president lie . They have to put up or shut up here, anderson. Did the president lie . Did the president lie . No, im not aware of him lying. He hasnt lied to me. Youre not aware of the president of the United States lying . He is absolutely coming forth and accomplishing all the promises he said hed do for the American People whether its building a wall or defeating isis, absolutely. I remember a time i you can keep your health care, you keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. So dont give that to me. The fact is this has been well litigated a this point. Two years, 35 million, 1. 4 million pieces of paper. I feel bad that youre scared to say that your boss lied. There is nothing. I just said he didnt. I would not want to work in that situation. Hogan, i appreciate your you have a panel almost every night with people who lie. So i dont know how thats any different than what im talking about. Well, thats unfortunate that you would think that. I know it. Thank you for being here. Thanks. Yeah. The list well, i wont be long. That gang joining us, and david gergen as well. The argument that mueller was not taking into account any guidelines, was not operating under specific guidelines and acknowledging those guidelines is simply not true. Its like criticizing someone for not running the speed of sound. Its like they cant. And the idea that mueller should be that it is somehow proof of innocence that mueller didnt indict trump is that mueller couldnt indict trump. And says so repeatedly. And everyone knew he couldnt, because he is an employee of the department of justice and the department of justice has this policy. But whats also particularly interesting about that, for all the president s talk that mueller was out to get him and this is a witch hunt, mueller was clearly saying, kirsten, it would be unfair to go ahead and indict him because it wont be brought to court. Exactly, and he wont defend himself. This is crazy. Its like saying nixon didnt do anything because he didnt get indicted. We know that thats not the case. We know that nixon did do something bad and that it was sent over to congress to deal with it. So why are people saying this when you know its not true . Do you remember the entire news cycle today, the president is going to be indicted. That was copping out. The buzzfeed story. It ran all day. It ran the whole day. I watched it. Well, let me just say i watched it. The notion that the president could be indicted wasnt so farfetched. Im just telling you. Good back and play it. But Robert Mueller always was operating under this belief. But im saying the notion, everyone in the world believed it wasnt crazy at one point. What everybody in the world thinks doesnt matter to Robert Mueller. This is what hes doing. Mueller told the president s lawyers according to our reporting early on, pretty early on that he did not intend to indict the president , period. Thats right. And the president s lawyers were very happy with that, and in the report, he also says, look, this is what the office of Legal Counsel said, and we also recognize that if we did a federal criminal accusation against a sitting president , it would be difficult for him to govern, period. So that. But its not impossible, and what we did is pursue this so some time in the future you would have this voluminous record if anybody else decides to prosecute. Have i known hogan for a long time since i started covering Mike Huckabee and thats when i met Sarah Sanders. Maybe not 19, but very young. I say that because i think that is why he was answering the way he was when you asked him the very legitimate questions about Sarah Sanders and what it says in this report, but he was just wrong about what it says. I have it right here. What it says with a quote i hate when you bring up original documents. All right. Im kidding. So she says sanders told this office that her reference to hearing from, quote, countless members of the fbi was a slip of the tongue. Okay. Maybe she is going to talk about later. But also says that she also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank and file fbi agents had lost confidence in comey was a comment she made, quote, in the heat of the moment that was not founded on anything. Thats what it says. She spoke under oath. David gergen, we havent heard from you . There is so much to say and so little time. Listen, i think the critical thing is that after two years that donald trump escaped. I think hes now people have investigated him there has been no they didnt find criminality with regard to conspireing with the russians. I do think that the report is very clear, it does not exonerate the president on the question of obstruction. That question is still out there. Nobody knows why bill barr jumped in and offered his own conclusion which seemed out of place and inappropriate. The critical thing is i think donald trump goes stronger into 2020 now. We are going to have continuing arguments. But basic impeachment is off the table, at least for now. There are 12 other investigations under way, some of which we dont even know what they are. If there is a bombshell that comes out of there, thats going to revive interest. But base odd about what we have so far, there is not going to be an impeachment. Thing will be congressional oversight. Some. Which i will continue. And remember, the tapes, the existence of the watergate tapes came because of congressional oversight. Theyre going to continue doing their job. I think youre right about impeachment, unless they have the public with them on that, as nancy pelosi has said, theyre never going to do it. And steny hoyer. Also that this will probably be just in terms of a white house that functions. Yes. At least this cloud will not be the cloud of collusion will not be hanging over them, which is certainly a good thing. Just because we dont have the criminality does not mean this isnt a scandal. It is a scandal, and its one that is going to have lasting impact. And one of the things weve learned is all these books that have come out that have tales of people from the white house inside who have said no, no, no, this is not true, what this comes up is a very damning statement of incident after incident of when people inside the white house have decided to lie. Without a doubt. Look, we all know hogans a spokesperson and he has a job to do. But time and time again in this report, so many of these things the president saying fake news, you have all the spokespeople coming out. Right. Categorically denying stuff, its just not true. They were true and they were lying. One more lie that is really i think needs to be emphasized, it turns out that the press was a lot more accurate than anybody in the white house would admit. Thats right thinking was not fake news. And i think just as in watergate, the press was part of the checks and balances that worked against nixon. I think the press has represented itself well in the sense of being a check and balance there are times when we get carried away with emotional aspects of this. But i think the reporting has been done by cnn, by the times, by the pothe post, by, has turned out to be very credible and i think should enhance the reputation of the press. I doubt that will happen. I agree. But i think its very easy for people to see, you know, we have seen and we like to have a wide variety of opinion. Right. And its david beyond saying no collusion and you have a democrat on saying evidence of collusion, both of which sit next to me. No, that should be fair, i actually never said that. But there certainly were those who were saying that. But that doesnt mean that cnn is reporting that. Were people have opinions and people are allowed to express opinions. The thing that i come away with is that there were guardrails inside the white house. There were people like don mcgahn, there were people like Reince Priebus and those folks who wouldnt do stuff that the president wanted them to do, and you know there have to be guardrails. So you ask yourself the question, those people are gone. Who are the guardrails now . I would like to emphasize again at the beginning, the good news, right . There is no collusion there was no concerted effort by the Trump Campaign to work with the russians to impact the election. I think thats something that should be celebrated. I agree with that. Weve got breaking news to bring you. George conway, the husband of Kellyanne Conway has dropped an oped piece calling donald trump a cancer on the presidency. Shades of john dean obviously. Ill talk with a key democrat about what comes next in the house of representatives, because that of course is the big question. Robert mueller has served this up to the congress. What are they going to do about it . Well talk to a key democrat. Will it find a way to take up obstruction of Justice Charges against President Trump . Well be right back. We bought a house in a neighborhood with a lot of other young couples. Then we noticed something. Strange. Oh, could you, uh, make me a burger . Poof youre a burger. [ laughter ] everyone acts like their parents. You have a tattoo. Yes. Fun. Do you not work . So, what kind of mower you got, seth . I dont know. Some kid comes over. We pay him to do it. But its not all bad. Someone even showed us how we can save money by bundling home and auto with progressive. Progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents. But we can protect your home and auto. Progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents. If you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, every day can begin with flakes. Its a reminder of your struggles with psoriasis. But what if your psoriasis symptoms didnt follow you around . Thats why theres ilumya. With just 2 doses, a majority of people were clear or almost clear. And over time, even more people were clear or almost clear. All with dosing 4 times a year. After 2 initial doses. Plus, ilumya was shown to have similar risks of infections compared to placebo. Dont use if you are allergic to ilumya or any of its ingredients. Before starting treatment, your doctor should check for tuberculosis and infections. 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Joining me now is democratic congressman jim himes, who 70s the house Intelligence Committee. Congressman himes, do you believe special counsel mueller in the way he wrote this report essentially handed the matter of obstruction off to congress . And if so, what do you think congress should do about it . Yeah, i absolutely do. Having now read it, im sort of stunned by the clarity with which bob mueller said hey and by the way, this directly contradicted by what we heard from the attorney general, who said that mueller had not been concerned with the fact that the department of justice has this policy against issuing an indictment against the president. Right. There is no question that mueller was teeing this up, was offering the facts, using the phrase you just said, we would so state if we believed that he had not committed a crime. He has handed this to the congress i think out of an understanding that the department of justice was not going to be the source of accountability for the president. Earlier today, you indicated that the constitution would demand that impeachment process at least be initiated here. Do you want is that what you want . If the president potentially committed a crime, i assume you could argue congress is constitutionally mandated duty is to hold them accountable . But House Majority leader steny hoyer said to dana bash what weve seen to date Going Forward on indictment is not wto while Going Forward at this month. The election is in 18 months and the American People will make a judgment. Is he right . This is a really difficult box to be in for the congress of the United States and certainly for the speaker of the house. On the one hand, yes, bob mueller basically teed this up and wink, wink, you know, a crime may have been committed. And were not going to seek accountability in the department of justice. And so yes, the constitution would say you should at least begin the process of studying whether the president committed enough high crime and misdemeanor to warrant removal. So, you know, the constitution would suggest that we start that investigative process, that deliberative process. Here is the problem, anderson. There is at least in my mind absolutely no question about how that ends, and that ends with the senate not convicting. So, again, i dont think there is a crime that this president could commit that would cause the Republican Party to turn on him. So i say with great certainty that we would get to a point after a lot of time, energy and resources only to have the senate turn around and acquit him as happened in the clinton administration. And then what do we have to show for it . The president will have claimed to a martyr. We will be distracted from the other oversight tasks and will not address issues we all ran on, transportation, education, health care. I wish i could tell you i know exactly the right answer. But the way impeachment proceedings would end, at least at this point, and remember, there is lots of other investigations out there, there is no question that the senate would vote to keep, regardless of the fact pattern, to keep the president in office. It was reported today that the house Intelligence Committees authorized subpoenas for five former white house officials, including white House Counsel don mcgahn. I wonder why call them in if at least at this point impeachment is not on the table. Why what is the point of further investigation . To the point of democrats are in a tough corner, you know, if they go for impeachment and they cant get it in the senate, theyve wasted time and the president can say hes a martyr, you can make the same argument about continuing investigations that are not going to have an end result in some sort of legal action or congressional action. Yeah, im not sure i would agree with that for two reasons, anderson. Number one, i was pretty small at the time, but when president nixon resigned because he was facing imminent impeachment and almost certainly conviction, right up until that moment it looked like there was no chance he could be impeached. So new facts obviously historically have influenced the congressional temperament. Now we live in different times where sadly the Republican Party has given itself wholly over to being a cult of personality for the president. But the other thing is there is a whole school of thought, and i think that steny hoyer is a member of this school of thought which is that there is still a political decision for the American People to make. And the more facts they have, the better theyll be in a position to make a decision in november of 20. All right. Congressman himes, appreciate it. Thank you very much. I want to check with chris to see what he is working on for cuomo prime time. Chris . Now we know. They tried. They denied. They cried. They lied, but now they cannot hide. We have it all set up here. We dont know some of the grand jury stuff yet, anderson. Right. But we want to talk about how this starts. Were going to go all through wit the president s lawyers tonight and some top experts and a big shot democrat. Russia interfered. Will the president now admit it . The lies and coverup now enumerated different types of what they did, different people they involved. You want to talk collusion . We can because there is over 100 pages of it. Not criminal activity. Collusion is different. Special counsel lays it out that way. Obstruction, look at all the incide incidents. They start with how it was done, what mueller wanted to have happen, what didnt happen that he wanted, what will happen next, all the different parts, all broken down for people so we can just have the argument once and all. The president s lawyer is right, my friend. It is time to rumble. All right, chris. Thanks very much. Ill see you then, just a couple of minutes from now, around 11 minutes. As we said, mueller found no conspiracy with russia. What else did special counsel mueller documented several russians and the Trump Campaign and high ranking members of the m ka pain and what don jr. Called negative information. So there wasnt enough to bring criminal charges. He did layout a lot of communications between russians connected to the government and Trump Campaign. Right. Thats clear anderson. According to the special counsel they found that the Trump Campaign knew that they could benefit from what the russians were up to and essentially were endorsing all of that activity by the russians. In the end what the special counsel found that they couldnt find a criminal conspiracy because they couldnt find there was an agreement between People Associated with the Trump Campaign and the russians. They looked at a lot of different things, including beyond the conspiracy. The idea of looking at a Campaign Finance violation. Wlnlt th whether or not that trump tower meeting that donald trump organized, whether that was a violation of Campaign Finance laws because it would be accepting a thing of value from a foreigner. They even looked at whether disseminating or spreading some of the emails that had been stolen from the clinton campaign, whether that would violate the stolen properties act. Thats a federal law that makes it a crime to do that. They decided this was not enough to prosecute anyone. They even looked at whether Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn after the president had essentially looked for Hillary Clintons stolen emails or deleted emails, they looked at whether or not Michael Flynn, you know, looked what he had done to try to essentially help find the emails, whether that violated the law. They ended up deciding there was nothing there to bring charges against him. I want to play what he said in a press conference when he brought uphill Hillary Clinton emails. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. The white house said that was a joke and detail in the report is just how quickly russia actually acted on that. Right. It was almost instant. It was about five hours afterwards. Moscow is about seven hours after u. S. East coast time and here is what the special counsels report says. It says within proximately five hours of trumps statement, the military Intelligence Service targeted for the first time clintons personal office after candidate trumps remarks, unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts to redact. Parts of this is still redacted as part of this investigation. They were listening. Thank you very much. One key member of the nations Intelligence Committee who warned about then candidate trump in the election. He has been a regular object of President Trumps criticism. Hes the author of facts and fears. Director clapper, what were you big takeaways from the report . One of the things that i think did not get a lot of focus on is the Detailed Analysis of how russia interfered in the election. Well, exactly anderson. Thats what we can argue about obstruction or collusion until the cows come home but what was huge to me and where i think special counsel mueller rendered a huge Public Service was in laying out in very rich detail what the russians did to interfere in our election process in 2016. I dont think there can be any doubt about what the russian interference and i think it points out that there was god reason for intelligence and Law Enforcement to be concerned about whether or not there was a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the election. The president tweeted again tonight sort of imlying if russia did, he says, you know, it had no effect on the outcome. He said anything the russians did concerning the 2016 election was done with obama. The president was told about it and did nothing. Most importantly the vote was not effected. You were president obamas director of national intelligence. What do you make of that . Well, i think both assertions are absurd. Most notably he directly con fronted putin and very poignantly asked him to stop the interference which is something that our current president hasnt seen fit to do. So i think and i do think, frankly, when you look at the magnitude and the persuasiveness of the russian effort, particularly the social media, just facebook alone reached some 126 million americans that suggest that they have no impact on the election stretches crudulity. To me, in fact, i make that assertion in the book. I believe the russians turned the election in trumps favor. You really believe that. And i think what the Mueller Report said conspired with russia but didnt determine whether or not members of the Trump Campaign may have been unwitting assets of the russian government. I think was the active collusion proven . Then what we have here is a case of passive collusion where in some cases unwittingly to include candidate trump himself who retweeted messages that had been planted by the russians in social media. And its how members of the campaign were used and manipulated by the russians. I appreciate your time. The news continues. I want to hand it over to chris for cuomo. The president s attorney is right about one thing. It is time to rumble my friends. We now have the facts. Except for some info like grand jury redactions and that will come eventually, you can test what the facts mean. Please read the report. We know that russia interfered in the election. Its not speculative on any level for anyone except our president and our president and his campaign did not commit crimes connected to the interference. He is not a russian agent according to this report. But that is not the end of the story. There was a lot done that was wrong by him and his campaign and it was lied about. The president is far from