Leaving congress to take up the question. In a letter obtained by cnn, the white House Counsel emmett flood denigrates muellers report by putting him news as a prosecutorial curiosity, compared it to a Law School Exam paper. Also breaking, new reporting from the New York Times revealing that the fbi sent an undercover investigator to meet with Trump Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to probe possible campaign ties to russia. And attorney general William Barrs war with House Democrats is escalating tonight with Speaker Nancy Pelosi accusing barr of lying to congress as the head of the Judiciary Committee threatens to hold barr in contempt. Well talk about that and more with the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee, senator mark warner, in his First Television interview since the release of the Mueller Report. And our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. First, lets go to our white house correspondent, kaitlan collins. This letter from the white House Counsel leaked out today amid the growing calls for the attorney general to resign because of his handling of the mueller investigation. Reporter and one day, wolf, after bill barr was at times critical of how Robert Mueller handled the investigation, as well, during his testimony on capitol hill yesterday. Now this letter goes much further than bill barr did. It is a scathing evaluation of not only Robert Mueller and how he handled this investigation but, wolf, it also turns an eye to the battles between the white house and House Democrats by saying that President Trump wanted it to be known and understood at the department of justice that just because he didnt exert executive privilege over the Mueller Report doesnt mean he wont do so in the future. [ applause ] with the russia investigation still on President Trumps mind people say how do you get through that whole stuff how do you go through those witchhunts and Everything Else . And you know what we do, mike, we just do it, right . And we think about god. Reporter new cnn reporting reveals his white house sent attorney general william barr a letter last month blafsting the special counsel claiming its report suffers from an extraordinary legal defect, acuesing Robert Mueller of playing politics and straying from the mission, alleging the team failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors. The white house lashing out at the special counsel for how he handled the obstruction investigation into trump. Even though current guidelines say a sitting president cannot be indicted, flood said mueller needed to either ask the grand jury to return an indictment or decline to charge the case. Adding, the one thing the special counsel was obligated to do is the very thing the sco intentionally and unapologetically refused to do. But mueller said that doj guidance had a major impact on how he conducted the investigation. Arguing that each if he found concrete evidence against trump, he couldnt charge him. But mueller making clear he wanted to preserve the facts if investigators want to revisit the case once the president leaves office. Yet barr testifying yesterday repeatedly disagreed with his longtime friend, mueller, and the actions he took during the investigation. I think that if he felt that he shouldnt go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision that he shouldnt have investigated. That was the time to pull up. Reporter the white house telling barr in a letter that mueller overstepped his mandate because some democrats now want to use his report as a roadmap for impeachment. Under oath yesterday, barr stood by his assertion that the Trump Campaign was spied on. Im not going to back off the word spying reporter and today a report in the New York Times could give trump and his allies ammunition for their claim. According to the times, the fbi sent an investigator who was posing as a Research Assistant to meet with the former Trump Campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, in 2016. As part of its efforts to look at the campaigns links to russia. The bureaus moves are now under investigation by the departments inspector general. Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a fisa warrant. Id like to find out whether that is, in fact, true. Reporter now wolf, in addition to that, the president also announced today hes no longer going to be nominating steven moore to the Federal Reserve board after comments that he made about women in the past had surfaced. That seemed to come as a surprise to steven moore who just an hour before the president tweeted as much that he said that the white house was fully backing him and that he was not going to withdraw his nomination. As you know, this is the second potential fed pick that the president has had in the last few weeks that has had to withdraw for past comments they made. And republicans are sending a pretty stark message to the white house, wolf, that they need to vet their nominees better. Yeah, herman cain was the first potential nominee that had to withdraw his name. Kaitlan collins reporting at the white house. Thank you. Tonight, the house Speaker Nancy Pelosi is accusing attorney general william barr of lying to lawmakers in his testimony before the senate Judiciary Committee about the Mueller Report. Our political correspondent, sara murray, has been working the story for us. The war between House Democrats and the attorney general clearly jess lating. Reporter thats right. Bill barr decided to pass on spending another day testifying in front of congress. Nancy pelosi is upping the ante, calling bill barr a liar. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking democrat, calling the nations top Law Enforcement officer a liar. The attorney general of the United States of america was not telling the truth to the congress of the United States. Thats a crime. Reporter House Democrats now sleetening to threatening to hold william barr in contempt, ramping up pressure on the attorney general after he refused to appear before the house Judiciary Committee today. As barr headed to work, democrats seized on the empty witness chair. Come to order. Reporter creating their own madefortv speck tataclspectac. Some munched on Fried Chicken during the hearing and flaunted a ceramic chicken to drive his point home. Chicken barr should have showned up today and answered questions. Regime barr skipping the hearings after democrats demanded he answer questions in a block on top of a fiveminute round from lawmakers. He took our ability to hear fr from bill barr today. We go back to a circus political stunt to say we want it to look like an impeachment hearing because they wont bring impeachment proceedings. Thats the reason. Reporter house judiciary chairman jerry nadler threatened contempt proceedings over not giving the committee an unredacted version of muellers report by yesterdays subpoena deadline. No choice but to move quickly to hold the attorney general in contempt. If he stalls or fails to negotiate in good faith. Reporter its clear the democrats strategy is to drag this out. Nadler viewing to first fight for an unredacted version of the Mueller Report and then try to negotiate with the Justice Department before holding barr in contempt. As for house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shes all in, accusing barr of lying after he claimed in previous testimony to be unaware of whether the special counsels team was frustrated with his fourpage summary of their findings. He lied to congress. And everybody if anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general. Reporter a Justice Department spokeswoman fired back saying, the baseless attack on the attorney general is reckless, irresponsible, and false. The standoff with congress coming as democrats raise concerns about barrs role in other investigations, including whether the white house asked or even suggested barr open a probe into anyone. A question barr was unable to answer. Has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone . Yes or no, please, sir. The president or anybody else . Seems youd remember Something Like that and be able to tell us. Reporter at one point, barr even suggested he and the white house are aligned, saying, we have not determined if privilege will prevent other witnesses, like former white House Counsel don mcghan, from testifying before congress. We havent waived executive privilege. Reporter democratic lawmakers is plenty more questions, and they say Robert Mueller is the one to answer them. They are working on trying to schedule his testimony. Lets hope it happens. Well have to hear from mueller as we know. Thank you very, very much. Lets get some more on this. Democratic senator mark warner of virginia is joining us, hes the vice chairman of the intelligence committee. Senator, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, wolf. This is your first tv interview, i understand, since the Mueller Report was released several weeks ago. Youve been quiet. What do you think the report tells us . Well, on one level, i was surprised particularly in terms of the activities involving russia. Our Senate IntelligenceCommittee Investigation virtually had all that information beforehand. I was hoping that mueller with the resources he had might be able to follow a few more of those threads a little further. We did not focus as much on the questions around obstruction, but i think it is pretty remarkable that ten examples were cited, and i understand the white house lawyer today was complaining about mueller not making a charging decision. I think it would be great if the white house in a sense said the office of Legal Counsel restriction that says a president cant be indicted would be removed and then we ought to bring Robert Mueller up and ask him what he thinks as a lawyer, as a prosecutor, a former head of the fbi, what he thinks should happen. He built a fairly extensive case there. You know, in terms of the russia activities, he said he didnt feel that it reached, his terminology, the level of conspiracy beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is no such thing as a legal term around collusion. But i would say this if he did validate the fact that the russians intervened, they did it to hurt clinton and help trump, there were over 100 contacts. Those contacts included sharing of private polling data with russia, russian agents. It it involved some parts, we still dont know the answer of, of wikileaks and trump confidante roger stone being some level of intermediary. Ive got to tell you if those activities are not illegal, i think virtually every american would believe they were wrong and every reasonable american would turn those turn that over to Law Enforcement. If they were not illegal in 2016, at least Going Forward in 2020 because the russians and others will be back, i think congress ought to make sure there is an affirmative obligation when a foreign power tries to intervene in an american election. If you are receiving that help you have the duty to turn it over to laws and let them investigate. The trump folks didnt do that. I know youve gone through the 400pluspage report. Did you see anything specifically in there that fortunately potentially that potentially could lead to impeachment . Listen, wolf, im more focused on how we prevent this from happening Going Forward, to make sure Going Forward that we have an aaffirmative obligation, that if a Foreign Agent or country tries to interfere in the election, you know about that, you have the obligation to turn it over to Law Enforcement. Weve got to make sure we have Bipartisan Legislation now that we do a better job of securing the integrity of our elections. Mueller pointed out the russians tried to attack all 50 states, and frankly got into local election data bases. And i think we were very, very lucky that they didnt make a changing of votes. We need weve got tangible things we can do to improve the security of our elections system. And i have been working on legislation because we saw how the russians manipulated facebook, twitter, youtube, how we make sure we have guardrails around social media so that that dark underbelly of social media thats where we see hate speech and dissension constantly taking place, that we dont allow foreign governments to use those tools to interfere in elections. Ill have legislation there. So im focused on how we make sure this doesnt happen again. Whether it be russia or any other foreign adversary. And i hope again that many. My republican colleagues who on a lot of issues have agreed will work with me to make sure this becomes the legislation. Youre the vice chairman of the intelligence committee. Youre you see all sorts of extremely sensitive, very classified information. Youre part of that socalled gang of eight. Have you first of all, have you seen the redacted portions of the Mueller Report . Wolf, the attorney general has made the redacted portions available. Ive not gone and look at them. I dont think any of the democrats have yet because we believe that the version of the report without the redactions out to be at least available to all members of congress. I think its been grossly restricted by the attorney general trying to in a sense sweep this under the rug. And id like to play out the opportunity to let every member of congress see this before i go view the why not go view the full report and at the same time continue to play out the opportunity that other members eventually will be able to see most of it, as well . Wolf, at some point, im going to see the full report and one of the things i think is very important, as well, is to see the underlying, particularly counterintelligence evidence that went into that report. Again, remarkable that the attorney general made all his judgments without look at any of the underlying without looking at any of the underlying judgments. I dont think thats appropriate legal ethics. Ill get to see that. I do think from just the current standpoint as the house and others try to force the attorney general to release the nonredacted report to all members of congress, im going to hold off until we see how these proceedings go forward. In this letter that was released today by the white house special counsel, it was written on april 19th, fivepage, singlespaced letter, he made it clear theyre not going to make it clear the underlying evidence to you. Wolf, i believe from a gang of eight intelligence standpoint, maybe the special counsel wont, but its terribly important remember, weve got an Ongoing Investigation of our own bipartisan that continues that is based on Counter Intelligence. How we make sure russia or any other country doesnt do this again. We have the right as the Oversight Committee to look at that underlying Counter Intelligence evidence, thats our responsibility, were going to get a look at that. Were going to make sure, again, thats our charge to make sure the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement prevents this from happening again, and weve got to have that underlying evidence to make those conclusions. The chairman of your committee, senator richard burr of north carolina, its a curious note. Hes mentioned in the Mueller Report it appears that senator burr told the white house about a march, 2017, briefing that he got from the fbi director at the time, james comey, he was later fired, on the russia investigation. And even according to the report identified some people under investigation. Spokesman for burr says he doesnt recall this conversation. Do you think burr did the wrong thing . Does he need to step down as Committee Chairman . Listen, wolf, the chairman and i have had our bumps along the way. We both tried to make sure we maintain a bipartisan investigation because this goes to an attack on our nation. And i was not aware of the references made in the Mueller Report. I was surprised by that. The chairman has said hes going to, you know, lay out his version of the facts to the whole committee. I owe it to him to have him have that opportunity. But i think its very important that we keep classified information classified. Have you spoken directly with the chairman about this . Ive spoken with the chairman. And again, im going to give him the opportunity to talk and brief the full committee and have him do that first before i before i tell you my whole views on national tv. But do you believe what the Mueller Report says about him . Listen, ive had a very strong working relationship with the chairman. And we have had lots of times where this investigation could have gone off the tracks the way the house investigation did. Weve had the opportunity to pursue the vast majority of witnesses that democrats and republicans alike have felt were appropriate. And i want to try to maintain that good working relationship. But if its true, potentially it could undermine the trust if you have it. Listen, wolf, well see how this plays out. We have had our disagreements in the past, and there are many times where he disagrees with me and i disagreed with him. At the same time, i feel when were talking about a foreign nation attacking our democracy and in a way to help one candidate trump and hurt another candidate, clinton, that has been validated by mueller, validated by the whole Intelligence Community, no matter what this white house or what the white houses semi lawyer whos supposed to be our attorney general says on a regular basis, weve got to make sure that it doesnt happen again, and the ability to have a Bipartisan Group of policymakers who will come together with consensus recommendations on how we prevent this from happening again is one of the most important things i can do. It certainly is. Clearly, by all accounts, the Intelligence Community believes not only is it happening right now, but its going to intensify as we get closer to the 2020 election. The whole purpose. What the russians were doing were to sow dissents, to create chaos, political discord in the United States. Clearly theyre anxious on continuing that. They are, wolf. And thats whats so extraordinarily frightening, frustrating. I dont know the appropriate word to use when you hear the president s official lawyer, rudy giuliani, saying no big deal, taking help from russia when youve got the president s soninlaw saying whats a few, you know, facebook ads, where you have the attorney general in his testimony has since joking about some of these items. I think these are not joking matters. I think this is a foreign nation attacking our country. And we still have a white house that basically denies that this took place, and we have a white house that is so afraid of Donald Trumps wrath that when the former secretary of Homeland Security said lets get a Cabinet Meeting together, to actually plan for 2020, the white house chief of staff said lets not have that meeting because it might offend the president. This is outrageous, and it is candidly beyond the pale, and why our committee, bipartisan, and why this Congress Needs to make sure it doesnt happen again. We need to make a law in place that if you receive assistance from a foreign power during an election, you have an obligation to report that. That we make sure that we have our election systems safe and secure with a paper audit trail and that the Large Companies who have 90 , three companies have 90 of our voter files, theres some way to have security checks on the files. And that we have some rules of the road around facebook, youtube, twitter, in terms of how they are not going to be manipulated on a Going Forward basis. Every american, i dont care what Political Party you belong to, ought to be part of that fix because what we saw and the russians did it in the brexit vote, in the french president at elections, you add that, all they spent up, its less than the cost of one new f35 airplane. So this is cheap and effective. And America Needs to be on guard. The fbi director, christopher wra wray, said this is an ongoing threat. The level of dismissiveness from the white house is, frankly, stuns me. And russias not just the foreign nation, its a hostile foreign nation, as you know. Lets talk about the attorney general, bill barr. The house speaker, nancy pelosi, says the attorney general actually committed a crime by lying to congress during sworn testimony under oath. Do you agree, first of all . I saw barrs answer earlier i think it was last month, that senator van holland where he was asked specifically did he have any idea that mueller might either agree or disagree with his socalled fourpage summary. He said he had no idea. Well, we now have documented evidence of not one but two letters from mueller indicating his frustration with bars characterization in the fourpage letter. To me, those two his earlier statement and the facts of what appeared dont jive. And if that to me is not telling the truth, and i dont think the term of the United States the attorney general of the United States should be in a sense not telling the truth before congress, as well as in his daily course of activities. Do you want him to resign . I think it would be better for the whole nation if bill barr who i actually had hoped because hes got had a distinguished legal career, would come in and be an independent attorney general. Lord knows we need now more than ever respectful rule of law. I believe he has not met the standa standard. I leave he views himself as the president s personal lawyer. Maybe he can join up with rudy giuliani. He should do that and not try to continue to act as the attorney general. Yes, i believe it would be in the best interests of our country if he resigned. Let me play for you something thats just coming in right now. I want you to listen to what the president just told fox news moments ago about the former white House Counsel, don mcghan. Listen to this ive had him testifying already for 30 hours. So is the answer no and its really i dont think i can let him and tell everybody else you cant because especially him because he was a counsel. So theyve testified for many hours, all of them, many, many, people. As far as youre concerned its kind of done one can and the others cant is it done . I would say its done. Weve been through this. Nobody has ever done what ive done. Ive given total transparency. Its never happened before like this. So congress should be they shouldnt be looking anymore. This is all its done. Let me get your reaction, first of all, he clearly doesnt want his former white House Counsel, don mcghan, to testify before Congress Even though he spent 30 hours testifying before the Mueller Report. And he says you guys should not even be looking into this anymore. He says its done. Well, i think weve all know that donald trump has not understood our three branches of government or has not really demonstrated much respect for the rule of law. I think about all the ways hes, you know, impugned the integrity of the intelligence committee, the fbi, the Justice Department repeatedly. And i think were again getting into very dangerous grounds. I dont think theres been any president of either party thats liked it when congress has investigated them. But the idea that this white house is going to suddenly and weve seen it with barr today and we may see it if he exerts executive privilege or the statements he saying where no one should testify do you want do you want don mcghan to testify . Of course don mcghan should testify. What if the president says hes not going to, what are you going to do . I think then you get into questions around executive privilege. I think the broader question is, wolf, is ive heard out of this white house that there may be in a sense a full ban on white house personnel, thats whats been reported in the press at least, that theres been musings about a potentially saying nobody should go testify before congress. Well, in my mind, again, if we allow that to become the new normal, what would happen with this president , what happened with the democratic president on a goingforward basis, again, my hope would be that that since most of this activity seems to be in the house, that you might actually have cooler heads in both parties go to this white house and say you just cant ignore the law. You just cant ignore the powers of article one, the congress. And my hope would be that the overwhelming number of americans regardless of bipartisan affiliation would say, come on, you know, this is one of the fundamentals of our democracy. If we suddenly are ignoring those kind of rules, those kind of laws, those kind of precedents, then frankly, what the russians did in 2016, they are successful. Yeah. Lot of people thought the mission was accomplished. I know you got to run. Let me get Quick Reaction to this report. It was posted on the New York Times today that an undercover fbi investigator met with Trump Campaign advisorior, George Papadopoulos, two months before the 2016 election. Now this is what the president and the attorney general say was spying, was spying against the Trump Campaign by what they would call the deep state. Was that appropriate . Wolf, mr. Papadopoulos, who shared information with a foreign diplomat who was friendly to america, and the information was that he knew that russians had hacked ill eey clinton and they were going to release that information to help trump. Thats a Trump Campaign affiliate. Now if the fbi had that information and they didnt investigate, they would have been derelict in their duty. And the idea that somehow Law Enforcement using people that are undercover, i mean, i dont im frankly amazed that anyone would call that into question. But its it has been this pattern. I mean, i go out and try to visit my fbi offices on a regular basis because i feel like the fbi from this president is under constant assault. I feel the Justice Department, prebarr, is under constant assault. I know the Intelligence Community has been maligned on a regular basis by this president and this white house. Again, i think were in uncharted area where respect for rule of law and the notion that you can somehow, you know, make these kind of charges that this white house makes, i hope wed take a deep breath. Senator warner, it was kind of you to join us. I know youve got to run. Thank you so much. We will certainly welcome you back soon. Mark warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee. Lets get some reaction to all the breaking news right now. Our senior legal analyst, former u. S. Attorney preet bharara, is joining us. So let me ask you about what the president just told fox news about the former white House Counsel don mcghan. He says he doesnt think hell let mcghan testify before Congress Even though he spent 30 hours testifying before the mueller investigators. Can the president do that . The president can assert all sorts of things, and it might have to be fought out between his administration and the congress and potentially in the courts. But its an odd position to take. Not only because on one occasion they not only allowed but directed don mcghan to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and talk all about conversations that he had with the president , some of those are sensational and have been debate over the last number of days. And even in that circumstance, theres been reporting that they said they were reserving the right to protest further release based on executive privilege. Thats all well and good. But then you had a later occasion, much more dramatically, with the entire Mueller Report being released, and there was again in sort of dramatic fashion the attorney general of the United States saying in a way that i think he was trying to get some credit from the public for being transparent, and on behalf of the administration said theres not going to be an executive privilege asserted with respect to the report. And now after two occasion wheres theres been, you know, something akin to a waiver and the second time i would argue basically an explicit waiver of executive privilege, i dont know on what basis youre going to prevail in saying don mcghan has already given all this testimony, and much of which now we have seen because the report has been made public. I dont know how you prevail on that claim, although the president can make it and there may be a fight about it. Certainly will be. Also want to ask you about the attorney generals testimony before the senate yesterday. Were you surprised to hear attorney general bill barr raise issues, specific issues with muellers work . Not that surprised. I think weve learned over the last number of weeks that he is of a mind to protect the president rather than i think look at all the issues in an independent and fully fairminded way. We also had inkling that he was going to disagree with Robert Muellers legal reasoning because even before he became the attorney general, as weve discussed many times, he put forward a memorandum without knowing the facts, without knowing necessarily what the evidence showed, to say basically because executive powers so broad, that the president could not be accused of obstruction. I did find it a little bit odd that he accused bob mueller of being snooty in that letter that he sent that became popular the last few days. Two Big Questions, whether the president suggested that he open a specific investigation into anyone and whether he he discussed the Ongoing Investigations stemming from the Mueller Probe directly with President Trump. Did his answers raise red flags for you . They did. And not just because on those two issues you worried that he wasnt giving a clear answer even though he had ample opportunity to say what he meant and to explain what the circumstances were in connection with his answers to tom la harris, but Kamala Harris, but all sorts of things that called into question his credibility. Not only well we talking about concern with his credibility, the special counsel Robert Mueller himself who wrote, you know, two extraordinary letters saying that there had been a mischaracterization of the scope and nature of his investigation because bill barr put out that fourpage summary which he insists still not calling a summary which boggles my mind. I think people need to be concerned about whether or not theres you have a white house thats bent on retaliation against people who were former or current or future, by the way, joe biden comes to mind, future political adversaries as opposed to based on the merits and on the facts. And when you have an attorney general talking about whether or not there was some instruction and saying im grappling with what the word suggest means, i think thats worrisome. In a letter sent to the attorney general the day after the Mueller Report, that weve got a copy of five pages, single spaced, the day after the Mueller Report was released, the Top White House special counsel, emmett flood, writes and im quoting now, the special counsel and staff failed in their duty as prosecutors and only as prosecutors. He calls the Mueller Report and im quoting again, a prosecutial curiosity. Did the office of Legal Counsel, the opinion over at the Justice Department preclude mueller from making a call one way or the other . I dont have a clear answer on that. I think theres a lot of problems with the letter that i also have read in the last hour or so. The one thing on which i think that both bill barr and the folks who wrote the letter have some reason to be quizzical is its not 100 clear to me what the reasoning was behind Robert Mueller saying i cant decide one way or another. It is true that it was surprising that bob mueller didnt make a decision on the question of whether or not the crime of obstruction was committed. It came as a surprise to a lot of people, and ive been trying to figure out the reason im infer something things and reading between the lines. Its not absolute clear. I dont know that its precluded or not. Thats the reason why its incredibly important both in the house and the senate to have mueller come and in a straightforward way explain his reasoning. The other thing thats odds about the letter is over and over and over again the white house, the president s lawyer, emmett flood, says in this letter repeatedly that hes upset essentially that this theres this public rapport, that prosecutors are supposed to make their decisions known publicly in indictments and otherwise confidentially in dechildrenation memos. And this was in fact a confidential report. He talks about all the problems with the report as written for the public. It wasnt written for the public. It seems that their ire should be directed more toward bill barr who while hes taking flack for redacting some portions, deserves credit for making the rest of it public. Robert mueller did not write it for the public. Robert mueller wrote it according to the regulations for bill barr, and he bears some responsibility if the president s lawyer is going to say this is unfair and they could have made the arguments to bill barr as an initial matter, not the day after. Preet bharara, as usual, thanks for joining us. Sure, thanks. Lets get more on the breaking news. Our correspondents and analysts are here. Let me play the clip once again. This is the president of the United States moments ago speaking to fox news and was asked about whether his former white House Counsel, don mcghan, should be allowed to appear to testify before congress. Ive had him testifying already for 30 hours. So is the answer no its really i dont think i can let him and then tell everybody else you cant because especially him because he was a counsel. So theyve testified for many hours, all of them, many, many, many, people. As far as youre concerned, its done i cant say one can and others cant. Is it done . I would say its done. Weve been through this. Nobody has ever done what ive done. Ive given total transparency. Its never happened before like this. So congress should be congress should be they shouldnt be looking anymore, this is all, its done. You heard its done. Done. He said it several times. Yeah. Look, its not surprising given what the president has said in the recent past. Given emmett floods letter today to barr saying they wanted to reserve the right on privilege. And they dont want don mcghan testifying in public because honestly, hes the worst witness against the president that exists right now. And just like he didnt like the Michael Cohen testimony, this testimony would be devastating to the president because what domestic don mcghan would say is what he said to the special counsel which is that the president wanted me to lie, and he wanted me to get the special counsel fired. They dont want it. Can the president exert executive privilege even though he did allow mcghan to testify for 30 hours before the mueller investigators and even though mcghan now no longer works at the white house, hes in a private law firm, hes a private citizen. Certainly the president can try, hes going to run up against two primary problems. One is that you ordinarily cant selectively waive privilege. You cant allow him to testify for 30 hours in wound cone cont a public report and later say i didnt inend to waive executive intend to waive executive privilege. The other significant problem is whatever the executive branch doesnt want somebody to testify who continues to work with the executive branch, they can say if you testify, well fire you. Thats a pretty good way to control someone. Its not clear that the executive branch can prevent a former official who actually wants to testify from coming to congress. And keep in mind, the president has spent the past couple of weeks accusing don mcghan of lying, a crime of lying to federal investigators. And he is now attempting to essentially prevent or deny mcghan the opportunity. Do you think mcghan wants had i think this is the big question, does mcghan want to. Yeah. Hes been silent on this issue. Right. But having been called a liar now repeatedly, i would think he would want to clear his name. Mueller found him credible, at least the special counsels office said in the report. We weighed both sides, and obviously the president has another side of the story even though they didnt get to interview him. I would think that mcghan would want to get that in the clear. Its also not clear that mcghan might have some things that would put the president in a good light. He did work there even after the president continued to put pressure on him. I think that there could be some issues there that congress would want to tease out, as well. I think this president more than others knows the power of television and knows the power, you know, maybe some people didnt read the Mueller Report. Maybe they didnt read anything about it. And then youd have don mcghan saying it in front of, you know, everyone, what he said in the report. I think that would outweigh anything else. Thats a powerful sound bite. Let me bring in mark mazetti of the New York Times, National Security reporter, reported on the piece at the New York Times. You learned two months before the 2016 president ial election, Trump Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos sat down with a woman who was actually an undercover investigator for the fbi. Tell us about that. So we knew about this meeting that George Papadopoulos had with a man named Steven Halper who was a confidential informant for the fbi. Hes a Cambridge University professor in england. What we learned is that actually the fbi sent another investigator to work with halper as part thereof operation. There would be someone who could oversee the operation. Remember halper is just an informant, not someone who could gather evidence even possibly testify in court. So it clearly shows the level of anxiety inside the fbi during this critical period of time with emails spilling out, questions about russian involvement, and as we said earlier, russia papadopoulos had already heard about offers of russian help. So it was clearly tried to be a pretty intricate operation against papadopoulos. According to papadopoulos, mark, the woman almost immediately began asking him questions about russia connections, possible russia connections. According to pop dopts, papadopoulos, he walked out because of her line of questioning about russia. Was this an intelligence failure on the part of the u. S. . Right now it doesnt seem that way because we know there wasnt sort of some big mother lode of information that George Papadopoulos could have offered. They were clearly prodding to find out was he a key link between the Trump Campaign and russians because of his previous interactions. We now know that he wasnt. And so it would be hard to characterize that as a failure because it doesnt seem like a key piece of information in this case was missed. You know, laura, the attorney general bill barr used the word spying, there was spying going on the part of elements of the u. S. Government, of the Trump Campaign. Is this what he was referring to . This is one of the Big Questions i have right now actually. He made it clear yesterday in his testimony that there was more there than just the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against former Trump Campaign aide carter page and more than the halper, the confidential informant. The question is, is this the big there there, or is there Something Else we still dont know about. He says there could be more issues. So he wants to look into the genesis. Everybody stick around. 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To save 30 on all the medications we carry. So go directly to petmeds. Com now. Weavre following the breakg news. The attorney general came under fire from the speaker, nancy pelosi, she said he lied to congress. If anybody else did that, they would be it would be considered a crime. Right. Thats pretty strong words. And i dont think that she can prove that its a crime, that he lied, sorry. Lying is a crime. Because what he did was he split hairs in a meticulous way masterful hair splitting masterful hair splitting. Was he being deceptive . Sure, because he said, well, i didnt know the staff was upset. Not that the question wasnt asked have you heard from special counsel Robert Mueller that he was upset, then he would have had to answer it in a different way. He didnt volunteer information, and nancy pelosi has a point here because perhaps that is not what we ought to be expecting from the attorney general, i would argue its not. But i dont know that she can prove her case. I think thats right. Look, clearly the attorney general lacked candor, he was being intentionally misleading. That said, the bar for perjury is extraordinarily high. It has to be an unambiguous question, unambiguous false statement and response. That just wasnt the case here. If theres a problem here, really it is an issue with the questioning. Right, whenever you give the sort of ambiguous question do you know what they were referring to, had that been phrased as have you had any communication with mueller or anyone on his staff regarding your response to the report, things like that specific yesorno questions. Whenever you see experienced prosecutors like Kamala Harris asking questions, you see her say, yesorno question here. Thats to box people in. The house appeared before the house kmecommittee, the Sen Committee yesterday, and struggled to answer in questions. Listen to this. You couldnt recall that when congressman chris asked you the question a few days later . No, im saying that this was you dont recall for sure . I just let me move on . I can say has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone . I wouldnt i wouldnt yes or no . Could you repeat that question . So not the most flattering portrait i think of his five hours on capitol hill yesterday. But that last question from senator harris i actually think is really important. And his answer there was very wishy washy. And part of the issue might be the fact that the president calls on him and his previous attorney general to open investigations publicly all the time. And so he seems to be grappling with something there. The question is what has he been saying behind closed doors. Mark, has the attorney general european uniproven hims honest broker to oversee the other issues spun off by the special counsel that are continuing right now . I would say that in the last month attorney general barr has shown an inclination to, you know, at least, you know, protect the president or or come to the president s defense on a lot of issues. I dont want to weigh in whether hes an honest broker or not, i dont know whether its for me to judge. But certainly his behavior, his actions over the last month, have shown that he has, you know, very much in some ways seen himself as someone whos testing the president. At his press conference, he sort of went out of his way to defend the president s actions. What do you think, jackie . This is an attorney general that came in with a very broad view of executive power. I think thats what were seeing play out. Certainly will. Stick around. Theres more news were following including news coming out of venezuela. The political crisis in venezuela. Has tension between washington and moscow right now on the rise. Be right back. 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Thats why we have the monday row doctrine which were dusting off. Russia firing back. Translator i believe returning to the doctrine that is 200 years old is disrespectf disrespectful. Reporter while the Trump Administration supports juan guaido. They had an airplane on the tarmac. He was ready to leave this morning as we understand it and the russians indicated he should stay. Reporter maduro and the russians deny that version of events. Meanwhile, john bolton saying moscow is undermining american interests in latin america. This is our hemisphere. Its not where the russians ought to be interfering. This is a mistake on their part. Its not going to lead to an improvement in relations. Reporter Nicolas Maduro is a long standing ally of Vladimir Putin. And even now the russians have soldiers on the ground in venezuela though moscow claims theyre only trainers and maintenance personnel. While President Trump and Vladimir Putin have repeatedly declared their mutual admiration for one another, it could be turning into a high stakes game of chicken between washington and moscow. President trump alluding to the option of u. S. Military force in an interview with fox business. And were doing everything we can do short of, you know, the ultimate. There are people that would like to have us do the ultimate. Reporter and, wolf, the russians certainly showing no signs of backing down. They even say that they want to mobilize other nations against what they call americas schemes in venezuela. Wolf . Fretd pleitgen in moscow. Thank you very much. More on the breaking news. President trump saying he doesnt want his former white House Counsel don mcgahn to testify before congress. Facebook banned some of the most controversial users. We have details on whos been pulled offline. They really appreciate the military family and it really shows. 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The Company Announced just a little while ago its banning multiple people including nation of islam leader Lewis Farrakhan and alex jones and his media outlet info wars. They tell cnn those users have been deemed dangerous for promoting violence and hate. Civil Rights Groups have been pressuring facebook to take action but the company says evaluating potential violators of its policies takes time. Other people newly banned from facebook include right wing media personalities including laura loomer, for example, paul joseph watson. Facebook will remove groups, pages, accounts created to represent the banned individuals when it knows the individual is participating in the effort. To our viewers, thanks very much for watching. Follow me on twitte twitter wolfblitzer. Erin burnett out front starts right now. Out front next, taking on barr. Nancy pelosi accusing the attorney general of committing a crime. Does that mean prison time . President trump wont let don mcgahn testify before congress. At the center of the Mueller Report, what is trump afraid of . Steven moore said he was all in. About an hour later the president announced later moore as his fed pick was out. Lets go out front. Good evening. Im erin burnett. Out front, war with barr. Democrats firing on all fronts. The house democratic