Did you accidentally set your alarm for a. M. Instead of p. M. . I couldnt sleep. Called j. B. And said, you want to take one off . He said, yeah, todays nothing its great to have you here. Anything is possible. Its a landmark day in american political history. In just hours, attorney general William Barrs redacted version of the Mueller Report will be released to the public for the first time in two years. Before that happens, attorney general william barr will hold a press conference at 9 30 a. M. Eastern time. A Senior Justice Department official said the report will be delivered to congress and then it will be posted on the special counsels website. Anything is possible. If we get a portion well bring it to you here. House of representatives nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer call the plan, quote, indefensible. They are calling on Robert Mueller to testify publicly accusing bill barr of trying to shield the president and spin muellers findings thats because barr is doing that. First with a reportedly stilted summary of the 400page report. Then by delaying the release for close to a month when it didnt need to happen. The presser today which is fine. But how can we ask questions about something no one has had a chance to digest except the white house . Thats another part of the poison process. The New York Times reporting the Justice Department did brief the white house on the Mueller Report ahead of its release today adding the talks helped the president s legal team work to rebut the report. The good news for transparency is the publicly released version of muellers report will supposedly only be lightly redacted in the section on obstruction of justice. I dont know what that means. It is all about what they redact, not just how much. Abby philip, cnn white house correspondent, david gregory, cnn political analyst, jeffrey toobin, former federal prosecutor, and mark mizetti. Investigative correspondent for the New York Times. He was part of the team who broke the story about the Justice Department talks with the white house on muellers report. We talked about this last night. Good to see you again. You look better than i do. I dont know how that happened. They were told something. This was a question the a. G. Was asked last week. He didnt want to answer it. They dont appear to be full briefings about the entire contents or conclusions of the report. There were discussions back and forth between Senior Justice Department officials and white house lawyers about the scope of the report. Some of whats in the report and this has given a head start to the team of the president s lawyers to counter the report, rebut the report. There was a little bit of a tell last week when barr was asked about this during a congressional hearing. Whether there had been discussions and he didnt answer the question. There were discussions in recent weeks. That created a political storm when democrats heard about this why did they do that . They are supposed to be Briefing Congress. Why did they have the discussions with the white house. Its unclear what the need for the discussions was. At what level they took place. It is a good question. We dont know who initiated, whether the Justice Department reached out to the white house to provide some input. Whether there were demands to learn more. Brother gregory, i get people saying wait for the report to come out. Once we read it, well know. Dont have so much consternation before. I dont think thats fair criticism. The process matters. If they had nothing to hide, control and manipulate, why release it the way this is going. Do you hear him . Hes speechless. Let him keep going. I love that. I find dead air to be good tv. Shall we pose the question . Here it is. Go. Go, david. Can you hear me now . Can you hear me now . They couldnt hear you and then you bust it. Go ahead. Exactly. The point about the process is important. Obviously the redactions, how light, how heavy will be important to discern. I dont think it is unusual that the white house gets a heads up about whats in the report. They should have been Briefing Congress as well. Thats whats important. Barr should have just said it. I dont disagree with that. There will be a lot of attention on whether we are going to hear from bob mueller down the road. We have to stop and remember there is a big report coming up that we could read with special language by the prosecutor and the team that should shed light on the questions. Do you think there is anything strange about barrs Team Briefing the white house . Numerous conversations before finding out whats in it i dont think thats improper or illegal in isolation. Process is something that people generally arent that interested in. Whats worth remembering is everything barr and the Justice Department have done since early march when mueller turned in his report has been spun in the same direction. Everything has been to make the president look as good as possible. The fourpage letter with the conclusion that mueller didnt ask for that repeats what the attorney general said in his 18page audition to become attorney general. The long delay. The statements about spying that the attorney general made. Now the coordination with the white house. And now this preemptive press conference before the attorney general before the report is released. All of this has been in the same direction. Each one in and of itself may be defensible. When you take them together it looks like the Justice Department covering for the president to get back to a point you made oh, abby. What happened to coates . We replaced her with jeffrey. He doesnt get enough air time she said part of bringing in barr should be about restoring integrity and he was mr. By the book. Thats the point of the dismay here. He didnt doing anything by the book. Its by his book which is to protect the president. A lot of people put that on bill barr. The fact he had been in the job previously made it seem more likely thats what it would do to establish trust in the Justice Department. Clearly the events of the last several weeks have called it into question. The president made it difficult for him. If you are bill barr and President Trump has been building you up over the last few days saying you are doing a great job by contrast to the last person he had in the job who wasnt doing a great job, wasnt protecting him. It makes bill barr look like trumps lackey. I dont know if thats the case. I dont think we have concrete evidence about what bill barr is or isnt doing with the report yet. President trump has clearly made it seem to the public that bill barr is out to protect him. Thats made it more difficult for barr to do his job. As all of this is unfolding the white house has had sensitivity to the idea that they may look like they are trying to weigh in on the report and to be tipping the scales behind the scenes. That could be one of the reasons why everybody has been trying to conceal the fact that they have been having conversations with the Justice Department. But at the same time you have heard aides say to us here at cnn they didnt weigh in specifically on executive privilege. They left it to barr to make decisions for them. There is trust from the white house perspective and the president s perspective that barr will do whats necessary for it to be done in order for it not to be a complete disaster for the president. That might be an unfounded confidence they have in barr. Maybe it is founded. Maybe it is based on something. Well find out soon when the report is released. One thing thats the way to frame the entire day is we are not going to be talking much about process once the report is digested. Is there anything there . Did they find anything or not . If you are in a hurry thats the question you want to know the answer to. This will be a battle to define the findings. The president , rudy giuliani, they have been waiting for this moment for a long time. The president has been trying to answer that for two years by saying its a witch hunt, theres nothing here. It was not that. There will be damaging information. To what extent does it hurt . Thats the real prospect that the lines will be hardened on both sides based on everything that comes in today. Its been a rorschach test. But rudy giuliani, people said early on, he doesnt sound like a lawyer. I dont think hes representing his clients interest here well. It was always about this. Its always been a spin game. The disappointing part about the a. G. Is hes participating in a spin game. Davids right. Jeffreys right. How we got here matters. Im going to read every word of the report. I will go through every word of it. It will be about the narrative you want to choose. Thats what this will be about there is Something Else happening thats important to talk about. There is more spin coming. Do you have reporting on why bill barr felt compelled to have a press conference . That took people by surprise. It felt like after james comey gave his spin nobody would want to do it again. It was roundly criticized. Do you know why bill barr is taking that route . Took us by surprise, too. You could certainly see a reason for him wanting to talk about his process by which you did the redactions. Its highly unusual to have a press conference taking questions without the reporters having seen the report which appears to be what will happen. Its part of the odd rollout. We have to see why he chose to have the press conference and let him explain. If i could go back to something abby said, its bizarre in a way that we had this relationship between the white house and the Justice Department where there is not a ritual humiliation of the attorney general which we saw. This is a close relationship between the white house and the Justice Department and recall the reason why Jeff Sessions got on President Trumps bad side in the beginning was for this kind of original sin of recusing himself from the russia investigation and trump blamed the entire thing on sessions. Now you see the end point where the attorney general is kind of taking charge of this process. Well see how much of an impact it had they promised things would happen and people dont know the facts yet. I wonder who may have encouraged the press conference. Mark, david, abby, jeffrey. Stick around. We need your expertise as more developments happen over the next two hours. There is other breaking news. North korea is demanding mike pompeo be replaced in future negotiations. We have breaking news from russia about kim jongun. Will ripley is in hong kong with all of the breaking details. What have you learned . A lot happening within the last few minutes. The kremlin confirmed what we have suspected for some time now that kim jongun will be traveling to russia and meeting with president Vladimir Putin according to russian state media. The kremlin had been deknowing it until a short time ago. It follows another diplomatic announcement. They no longer want to work with mike pompeo when it comes to denuclearization talks. Think of the time pompeo has invested traveling to north korea, meeting with kim jongun. Hosting delegations to the United States. Now they want somebody who is more mature and careful. They were watching the testimony to lawmakers. They felt he was disrespectful to kim jongun when he spoke to the Senate Foreign relations committee. Now they want him out. President trump was just bragging about the excellent relationship he has with kim jongun and now kims people say they dont want to work with pompeo, his secretary of state. Does trump acquiesce and appear potentially weak or keep pompeo in the position and the north korean s say they dont want to talk to the u. S. Anymore. North korea tested a tactical weapon this week and kim jongun hinted he could move to a more militaristic posture if diplomacy falls apart reminds us of the prethis murderous despot is a good man. When he said kim jongun best not be messing with me that was one of my favorite acts of diplomacy. I remember your dramatic reading of the tweet. Theres a guy from queens. A little bit of political history there. Well have big history in washington. You finally get to make your own conclusions about what matters. Mr. Mueller used two years of our time to put together the story of what happened during our election. What will it say . The coverage continues next. 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Good to see you. Fair appraisal. Be honest. Its weird to have a press conference about something before you have released that thing. You cant be asked questions about it it is weird so journalists dont know what to ask especially if you think back to a week ago where bill barr said he wouldnt answer questions when asked about the Mueller Report. He said he wouldnt answer questions until it was out. So whats changed in the past week . Now we know there were communications with the white house. Whose idea was the press conference. What is Rod Rosensteins role going to be there given he played a big part in the investigation in bringing mueller onto it. Journalists will likely be asking some of the same questions that Congress Asked barr last week . A press conference does suggest there will be questions, not just a statement. Journalists will figure out. Who knows what this will look like. Journalists have lots of questions about what the report will look like. It will be fascinating to see how bill barr handles this and why he decided to preempt the report with the press conference. There are questions for bill barr. A lot of questions will likely be around the process of this. If i had to guess, i would say bill barr will try to tell us what he did in the report. What did he redact and why . What did he take into consideration when he made the decisions. There will be a lot of questions about that. I cant get over the fact that its the year 2019. I think we can figure out how to release a 400page report simultaneously to congress and the public simultaneous with a press conference thats an hour and a half earlier. Thats the part thats puzzling to me. There is no real logistical reason why it cant be done sooner. If it is done at 9 30 and barr can give a press conference it can be released before that time. Hes clearly making a choice not to have the substance of the report available to people before he makes comments. It raises legitimate questions about whether hell talk about substance before people have an opportunity to ask him real questions about that. Just when the heat was rising last night about the process and barr having the pageantry about the product of the report, then came the reporting from the Washington Post which was a nice antidote. The report will be lightly redacted when it comes to redaction. The mueller team was in conflict about obstruction because they couldnt determine the president s intent. What do you make of those morsels . What so many people will focus on when we get the report and even the opportunity to question the attorney general. Just what mueller did conclude. What else was missing and whether there was an invitation to the attorney general to make the determination that they ultimately made which was not to move forward with an obstruction charge understanding there are guidelines a sitting president cant be indicted anyhow. That will be interesting to democrats on capitol hill. Presumably republicans who would take a look at the actions while the president is in office. And whether it would constitute an impeachable offense. And why that bar wasnt met by mueller and why mueller ultimately failed to draw a conclusion. There is so much about what mueller has and hasnt done. How hes conducted himself. Whether hell testify later on about the report or leave the report where its at and the original question, too, of why not subpoena the president to have gotten closer to the answer of what his intent was or was not here is the republican rebuttal. This should mollify democrats a little bit. This is from doug collins. The only person trying to spin the report is jerry nadler. Hes done nothing unilaterally. After partnering with Rod Rosenstein to share principal conclusions barr is releasing the report voluntarily, working with muellers team step by step. Does that give comfort to the idea that they have been part of this all along the way . Can i the floor is yours, jeffrey. Thats a very important point. What was muellers involvement in the redaction process. If mueller said all these redactions are perfectly fine with me, i was on board with all of that. Thats a very significant point in barrs favor that he was doing the process. We dont know thats the case. The question of whether mueller adopts all the redactions and agrees with them is one of the many questions thats appropriate for the press Conference Today. Also for mueller when he ultimately testifies, as im sure he will. Yes, the commngressman makes an interesting point. Its not clear that its true. Facts matter you just wouldnt do it this way if you werent worried about controlling the narrative. Once there is not going to be any change to the indictment it becomes how do we tell the story. Barr promised to be by the book. You dont have the a. G. Kind of then supersede the special counsel and make a key determination. This could have been done by mueller and the team and we wouldnt have waited this long a lot of pressure on the a. G. If you think it took him less than 48 hours to come up with a letter saying the president there was no evidence of collusion that cleared him of obstruction. Going through the details now. Youll be reading every word of the report. A lot of pressure and focus on him as to what led him to come up with the fourpage conclusion. The irony isnt lost. Comey was fired from the getgo. Rod rosenstein in his letter said it had to do with how he treated Hillary Clinton to come out and give the press conference. He may be in a similar position with the attorney general and Rod Rosenstein giving a press conference as well. Thats a key question. You brought it up earlier. Its important. What was so prejudicial about what comey did is he said nobody would charge the secretary of state Hillary Clinton with any crime in all of this. Boy, did she have bad judgment and do bad things. She should have known better. I dont think you will get it from barr. There will be damaging information in this Mueller Report. The question is will it have the political impact comey ultimately had on Hillary Clinton as a president ial candidate because of the timing close to the election. This is where narrative matters. This is where spin matters and this is the moment the white house hasnt been waiting for. President trump started on day one and said there will be nothing here. This is a witch hunt. Thats the argument hell be saying today can i Say Something about spin . Quickly. Viewers should be aware that the people with the biggest partisan stake on either side will be the fastest to declare vindication. Its worth waiting a little bit. Reading it for yourselves and let people absorb it a little. We are all going to be on television all day talking about this. The people who are most certain that their preexisting conclusions are ratified, maybe we shouldnt believe them so much. Thank you for the cautionary note, jeffrey. Friends, thank you very much for weighing in. Democrats are calling on attorney general william barr to cancel his News Conference this morning before he releases the Mueller Report. One congresswoman is leading the charge. 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. 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The central concern here is that the attorney general barr is not allowing the facts of the Mueller Report to speak for themselves but is trying to bay in the narrative about the report to the benefit of the white house. This is wrong. It is not the proper role of the attorney general. All right. New this morning, House Speaker nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer are calling on Robert Mueller to testify before congress. Joining us now is democratic congresswoman Madeleine Dean madalean. Excuse me. Close enough. Thank you very much. You want bill barr to cancel his press Conference Today . Absolutely. There is no reason for it. Today should be the release of the Mueller Report, not the barr press conference. There is no reason for the attorney general to preempt a report thats not even out with a press conference. Im wondering what the purpose of it is one of the purposes, at least the byproduct is reporters can ask him questions. Isnt that valuable . Ask questions about a report that hasnt been seen that will likely be heavily redacted . We have a lot of carts before the horse here. Actually, i think there is no reason whatsoever for attorney general barr to be holding a press conference. The American People and congress have a right to see the full Mueller Report. This was a 22month investigation. President barr is late to the party. If you were at the press conference, where is the full report . Meaning the unredacted report . The unredacted report. The Washington Post is saying it will be lightly redacted. Does that give you comfort . Absolutely not. The Judiciary Committee had a letter from attorney general barr identifying four areas of redaction. It will be multicolored and multi coded. Thats not how it works. When this investigation concluded and the report was given over to the attorney general, the attorney general in his own words when he testified before the senate said he didnt think it was in the publics best interest for him to summarize or chop up the report. What has happened. In whose best interest are they working . What are they afraid of . One of your republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee had a rebuttal to this. Let me read what doug collins said yesterday. He said the only person trying to spin the report was jerry nadler. After partnering with Rod Rosenstein to share principal conclusions bill barr is working with muellers team step by step. Does that mollify your fears to know hes been working hand in hand with muellers team . We have no idea who it is among muellers team hes been working with. Muellers team operated with good faith, with no leaks. You are starting to see people who worked on this very disquieted by whats going on. Lets remember something. This is an investigation of this administration. A tremendous number of people around this president have wound up prosecuted, convicted, serving time or about to serve time. I think what we are seeing is with attorney general barr, a confusion. Hes not acting as the attorney general. In fact, hes acting again maybe like another fixer for the president. Like a president s attorney. Thats not his role. Again, i ask what is this administration afraid of . The president himself in march said let the people see the report. What are they afraid of . The president and the administration is acting out of fear do you have an opinion if muellers team is involved in what the public will see today . I do not. The New York Times is reporting that bill barr had numerous conversations with the white house. Briefing them on some level, the white house lawyers, about what will be released today. What do you think . Wholly inappropriate. Can you imagine i read that reporting as well and the committee has seen the reporting. Over the course of the last week, maybe more the white house and attorney general barr have been cooperating, dare i say cocolludico collu colluding . T this is a lot of distraction and a lot of division in order for us maybe this day before a couple of important holy days in this country to hope that the American People wont want to focus on the report. But the Judiciary Committee will do its job. Were going to get the full report lets talk about that. What are democrats plans after today, after the report comes out. Nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer said they want to hear directly from Robert Mueller. Whats your next move . We are in the majority. Chairman nadler has the gavel and subpoena power. Im confident that we will be subpoenaing barr and mueller. We want mueller, we may not need a subpoena do you think hell voluntarily come . I hope he will. I think he might. Hes probably confident in his work and knows the role congress has to play in terms of oversight. I feel confident that mr. Mueller and hell be the more important person to hear from. Barr just came to the party recently and is in it to protect the president. Congresswoman dean, great to have you here. My pleasure. Thanks chris . All right. The man coming up as an unfamiliar face with a unique name in a crowded field for the democratic nomination. How can former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper stand out . He makes the case to you next. We switched to tide pods free gentle. Its gentle on her skin, and dermatologist recommended. Tide free and gentle. Safe for skin with psoriasis, and eczema. Living well do you often wake up with chest congestion . Or suffer excess mucus . Try mucinex 12 hour. The bio layer tablet immediately releases to thin and loosen excess mucus. And lasts for 12 hours. Mucinex 12 hour. Cancer, epilepsy, mental health, hiv. Patients with serious diseases are being targeted for cuts to their medicare drug coverage. New government restrictions would allow Insurance Companies to come between doctor and patient. And deny access to individualized therapies millions depend on. Call the white house today. Help stop cuts to part d drug coverage that put medicare patients at risk. If youre keeping count there are already 18 president ial candidates in the race for the democratic nomination including former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. What will separate the governor from the pack . Joining us now, governor john hickenlooper. Good to see you. Former governor, just got out in 2019. We discussed before we came on you have a unique background. You were a businessman. In colorados history in a pivotal time of the need to rethink how denver would be and one of the most ambitious things we have seen in terms of social programming in this country which is what to do with legalizing marijuana. What do you bring to the table nobody else does . I am an entrepreneur who built a business from scratch. I also had eight years as a successful mayor and governor. The one thing i bring is i have been able to bring people together to get things done. I have a long record of progressive accomplishment with people that hadnt been they had been feuding. That ability to you know, obviously democrats we want we have to defeat donald trump. I think i can bring us together on the other side and get stuff done one of the things you tragically have experience with and its in the news, is the columbine massacre. Again, we have just been reporting on it this morning. It ended obviously better than a massacre, but in a tragic way. Probably a mentally ill woman made the threats. She has taken her own life. You think there is a solution for some of these things. What do you think is the way out of this horrible violent cycle were in . You look at yesterday in denver, a half million kids couldnt go to school. In a serious way, they were terrorized. So once they got off the joy of not having to go to school, they realized theyre at risk in school. I think there is a whole network, a sequence of things weve got to do. Universal background checks have to become national. We got it passed in colorado. The only purple state to achieve universal background checks and limiting the size of the capacity of magazines. I think we have to go beyond that. We should be raising the age of certain gun purchases. We should be looking at how to do more training on gun safety and making sure that we have red flag laws so when someone is having a psychological issue they are i mean, some of the stuff we cant get basic stuff passed like universal background checks. Its infuriating. Over 90 of the American People believe in universal background checks and its still not passed . Lets role play a little bit. Say you were able to get the democratic nomination. Now youre going toe to toe with one of the dirtiest fighters in modern history in politics. I think the president would probably take that as a compliment. You know hell have fun with your name. When he says, oh, thats the pot guy and he wants to legalize drugs. Thats still going to be a raging debate in this country. You have data that suggests a mix of results right now in colorado. Probably, to be fair, too soon to tell. But you have had concerns about up ticks in crime in colorado. How do you make the case . Its going to distinguish you in the first case, i would love to have the chance to take trump on. Whats he going to say about my name that i havent heard . What rhymes with hickenlooper . Chicken pooper. The key is to recognize i opposed it in the beginning. Our voters passed it 5545. The state constitution says you have to obey the will of the people. We did everything we could to make it work. It is working. We do a poll of over 20,000 people and we can say with pretty much confidence that young people, there is no spike in their consumption. The only increase in demographic consumption is senior citizens. You can make your own conclusions from that. We havent seen dramatic increases in driving while high. Most of the things we feared havent happened. The federal government should delist it from the schedule one narcotics so we can do testing on it. We should get the fda to look at really making sure that we are treating it as a or measuring it and testing it as a narcotic, as a medicine that can help people. The second thing you should do is make sure the department of agriculture is making sure pesticides are we doing anything that could be harmful to people and let states one by one decide what they want. Sort of what we did when we repealed prohibition. The government didnt say alcohol will be available for everyone. States can choose. Certain states even to this day, some counties in texas or oklahoma are still dry counties. You cant get liquor there Mueller Report comes out today. Your thoughts . I would like to see transparency, right . All the negotiating and the twisting and turning, it makes everyone suspicious. You know, when i talk about why im running for president , im running because we are in a crisis of division. We havent been this divided since civil war. I think thats true. Part of it is all this suspicious behavior makes people break into their corners. Everyone is either pro or con instead of saying lets get the facts, lets all as a country, you know, make a decision together. Thats what the country really needs right now is to begin getting stuff done what do you need to do to get it done within this field . You have to deal with recognition, the early money numbers come out, arent playing to your favor but its early on. What are you going to do to distinguish yourself . I have to demonstrate again and again to people that i have a record of accomplishment. We have almost universal health care in colorado by expanding medicaid and having a really innovative exchange. Weve got the oil and gas industry to sit down with the Environmental Community and we addressed methane. 25 to, some people say as much as 60 times worse than co2 for climate change. We got the oil and gas industry to pay 60 million a year, the equivalent of taking 320,000 cars a year off the road. We got them to do that together by collaborating. America needs to get people together and get things done lightning round. We have been doing this segment on new day called candidate mix tape. Lets talk about music. Whats your Favorite Music genre . I love what they call traditional music, the avett brothers, a lot of those. They have ban jos but also electric bass and drums whos your favorite . Depends on where i am. I love local music. In new orleans im excited about a different band than if im in denver. There is a band in denver right now thats got a horn section, a memphis sound. Theyre breathtaking awesome. Thank you for educating us and the lumineers are a denver band. There are more live music venues in denver now than in nashville or austin get out of here. Fact great to have you in studio. Great to talk to you. Up next, our legal analyst ellie honig will tell us three questi key questions we all need to be thinking of today ahead of muellers report. Most pills dont finish the job because they dont relieve nasal congestion. Flonase allergy relief is different. Flonase relieves sneezing, itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose, plus nasal congestion, which pills dont. Flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. Most pills only block one. And 6 is greater than 1. Start your day with flonase for more complete allergy relief. Flonase. This changes everything. Hi, whats this Social Security alert . 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The first question i would ask is does this report exonerate the president . Now, alisyn, this one is a little bit of a catch because we know the answer. We know that Robert Mueller has concluded that the report does not exonerate the president yet donald trump has been out there declaring that it does totally exonerate him. I want to test William Barrs independence and credibility. Is he willing to give a direct accurate answer, no, this report does not exonerate the president even if it might upset the president. William barr ought to not hide behind the report speaks for itself. He is the one going behind that podium, giving us the image of transparency, he has the report not us in the public. We will be able to tell early on is this Real Transparency or is this just a show. What about number two, National Security . How so . I would ask the president , look, as the nations chief Law Enforcement officer do you have any security concerns about the contacts between donald trump and the russians . We know that Robert Mueller and william barr have concluded there is not sufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, that is the highest Legal Standard we have in our system, but it does not mean that nothing happened. We know the trump power meeting happened, we know there were all these contacts. I would ask william barr as the chief Law Enforcement officer of the United States even if there is not a crime here do you see things that give rise to security concerns on your behalf . Do you have any concern whatsoever about all the russian contacts and about the lies that followed those contacts . Okay. Elie, hot off the presses, we have been handed this intel from Jessica Schneider about what that 9 30 press srchs will be about. She has learned the attorney general will address, number one, whether executive privilege was invoked, number two, the doj interactions with the white house in the past few weeks, thats something that Congress Certainly would like to know and, number three, his redaction process. Does that change your third burning question for him . Yes, it does, alisyn. So lets go into process. Lets go into executive privilege. That should be a straight up yes or no has anyone evoked executive privilege. Another question that i have about redactions, with one of the categories that bill barr said he would be redacting is information that might be embarrassing to peripheral third parties. In his testimony last week bill barr said i do not include the president in that, i will not be san tiesing for him. The request he is do you include donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner that that category. Have you had made redactions in order to protect their interest. If so i think thats a misstep. Those people are obviously accountable to the American Public and close inter sanctum people. If he hass sanitized to cover that problem i think we have a problem. You had a question before obstruction, whats the big question there . Can reasonable prosecutors disagree about whether there is sufficient evidence for obstruction of justice. We know that Robert Mueller and bill barr disagree. Bill barr after two days of review said no obstruction in my view but Robert Mueller said its a close enough call that im going to leave it so somebody else. I would ask bill barr is there a close enough question that two reasonable prosecutors like you and Robert Mueller could disagree . Is there any evidence that the president of the United States committed obstruction, clearly there is, Robert Mueller the answer has to be yes. Yes, Robert Mueller would not have ended up on the fence. This is how you know he is a former prosecutor, he knows what the answer is. If you dont give that answer now hes going to start walking you down a path of where he thinks that youve been playing him the whole time. Well done, honig. Thanks, chris. You made a point early on, i think it will be a key consideration for people as they start to digest these 400 pages. Please do not leave it to people who are wearing makeup all day mostly men on that count, women do that on a more regular basis, to tell you what to think about this. You said they cant make the case of a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt when it comes to their coordination with any russian interference, but that doesnt mean nothing happened. Explain that in the context of, well, what is wrongdoing and what could be in there that isnt a crime but still stinks . Chris, that is such an important distinction that i hope everyone keeps in mind throughout the day today. In order to charge and prove and convict on a federal crime a prosecutor needs to be able to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the highest burden of proof we have in all of our legal system. So there is plenty of room, though, between that and nothing happened. There is all sorts of wrongdoing that could have happened that either is not provable beyond a reasonable doubt or that is bad conduct or Security Breach or an ethical breach or abuse of power that doesnt quite fit within the contours of one specific federal criminal statute. People need to read this with a holistic view and objective view, but it is not the case that the only question is crime or no crime. Elie honig, it is wonderful to have you on stand by to synthesize everything when it is made public this morning. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys. We do now have breaking news on the release of the Mueller Report so lets get after it. Well said. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. All right. Good morning, everyone, welcome to your new day, it is thursday, april 18th, 8 00 in the east. This is chris cuomo, he joining us this morning, john berman is off this week. Great to have you. Its a very busy morning. Pleasure is mine. Lets make a little history together. Lets do that. It is a landmark day in american political history about 90 minutes from now attorney general william barr will hold a press conference, this is before he releases the redacted version of the Mueller Report. We have new information. We just learned the top picks that the ad wants to talk about today as democrats are accusing barr of improperly trying to color muellers findings before the public or lawmakers could read the Mueller Report. By definition hes doing just that. He isnt releasing the report but he wants to talk to us again about what he thinks matters. Cnns Jessica Schneider is live outside the Justice Department. So we have three areas to expect, what are they . Reporter thats exactly right. We just got that briefing from the department of justice spokesperson, carrie