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The office of Legal Counsel that had dealings with the special counsels office. So they had knowledge of a number of episodes and some of the thinking of the special counsels office. So right after march 5th we started discussing what the implications of this were and how we would how we would and you made the decision when . I probably on sunday the 24th. That is the day the letter came out . Yes. You make the decision until the letter came out . You must have told somebody hout to write the letter. No. When did you actually decide there was no obstruction . The 24th. Okay. When did you get the first draft of the Mueller Report . The first it wasnt a draft. We got the final the first version that you saw. Well the only version of it i saw. Okay the only version. The 22nd. And you told senator harris you made your decision on the obstruction charge, you and rosenstein, based on the Mueller Report. Am i correctly infer you made that decision then between the 22nd and the 24th . Well, we had a lot of discussions about it before the 22nd. But the final decision was made on the 24th. And you didnt we had more than two and a half days to we have more than two and a half days to consider this. Olc had done a lot of thinking about some of the issues even before the we got the report and even before march 5th. They had been in regular contact the department had been in regular contact with muellers people and understood their thinking so the olc was looking into the Mueller Investigation while it was going on and witting of the evidence that they were gathering on obstruction before you saw the Mueller Report . My understanding i wasnt there. But my understanding is that the deputy and the what we call the pay ag, the principal associate deputy were in regular contact with the mueller team and were getting briefings on evidence and some of the thinking and some of the issues. Do they know enough to the llc was brought into some of those discussions. Do they know enough it might need to be redacted before they saw the 322 no. The problem we had is we could not identify the 6e material when the report came over. We needed the help of bob muellers team to do that. And lastly, can you assure me that nothing related to obstruction or the Mueller Report was discussed at your office of Legal Counsel brown bag luncheon june 27th . Nothing about what . Nothing about the obstruction issue and nothing about the Mueller Report itself was discussed when you had a brown bag luncheon june 27th with olc . Um, yeah, i mean we didnt discuss anything having to do with the Mueller Report or muellers eventual position on obstruction. Did you discuss your obstruction memo . I forgot if it was then, but i think ive previously said that i mentioned that i had a memo and was sending it to you have not yet said that it was mentioned at this olc i dont think it well it was not at the brown bag lunch, no. My time is up. Okay. Were the vote has started. Were going to split the time between senator klobuchar and senator blumenthal. Well try to go they wont hold the vote open too long but lets start with senator klobuchar and see if we can do this. Thank you. Mr. Attorney general on april 27th President Trump stated mueller, i assume, for 35 million, he checked my taxes and he checked my financials. Is that accurate . Did the special counsel review the president s taxes and the trump organizations Financial Statements . I dont know. Can you find out if i ask later in a written question . Yes, or you could ask bob mueller when he comes here. Okay. Well ill do that too. But i think ill also ask you. And then obviously we would want to see them as underlying information. During my earlier questions we went through a number of actions by the president that the special counsel looked into. My point was that we should be looking into the totality of the evidence and the pattern that the report develops. On page 13 of volume two, the special counsel instructs that we do something similar. The report says, and this is a quote, circumstantial evidence that illuminated intent may include a pattern of potentially obstructive acts. On this point the report cites three u. S. Cases. U. S. V Franken Houser and and u. S. V arnold and u. S. V. Sent oleo do you agree that obstruction law allows for a pattern of potentially obstructive acts. Well intent has to be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously some inferences could be drawn from circumstantial evidence that can contribute to an overall determination of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But that is one of the problems with this whole approach that suggested in the the special counsels report. Which is it is trying to determine the subjecttive intent of a facially lawful act and it permits a lot of selectivity on the part of the prosecutors and its been shot down in a number of other contexts. So one of the reasons that we are very skeptical of this approach is that you mean you and director mueller or you the Justice Department. The Justice Department. Is that in this kind of situation, where you have a facially innocent act and a that is authorized by the constitution just it is hard to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it is corrupt. Okay. I just want to get in a few more questions like senator whitehouse did. At your confirmation hearing you testified that in the absence of a violation of a statute the president would be accountable politically for abusing the pardon power. How do you reconcile that political accountability is available when the administration is refusing to comply with subpoenas and exerting executive privilege to stand in the way of that very accountability . As to a pardon . No. This was about in your confirmation hearing, you said in the absence of a violation of a statute, the president would be, quote, accountable politically, end quote, for abusing the pardon power if he did. But your question is abusing any power, not just the pardon power, is that what youre saying . Mmhmm. Well, president it is hard to evaluate that the president has been held accountable before and as have other office holders. Last question, are the president s actions detailed in this report consistent with his oath of office and the requirement in the constitution that he take care that the laws be faithfully executed. His what con what consistent with that. I said are the president s actions detailed in the report consistent with his oath of office and the requirement in the constitution that he take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Um, well, the evidence in the report is conflicting and there is different evidence and they dont they dont come to a determination as to how theyre coming down on it. So you made that decision . Yes. And as if its all right. We have we have two minutes left. Senator blumenthal. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Attorney general barr, i wander to you could tell us about the conversation between yourself and bob mueller shortly after your summary was issued. He called you . No, i called him. What prompted you to call him . The letter. Your letter . Or his letter. His letter. So you called him . Yeah. And how long did the conversation last . I dont know. Maybe ten, 15 minutes. There were multiple witnesses in the room. It was on a speaker phone. Who was in the room . Among others, the Deputy Attorney general was in the room. Anyone else . Several other people had been working on the project. Members of your staff . Yes. And the deputys staff. And as best you can recall, in the language that was used, who said what to whom . Um, i said, bob, what is with the letter, you know. Why dont you just pick up the phone and call me if theres an issue. And he said that they were concerned about the way the media was playing this and felt that it was important to get out the summaries which they felt would put their work in proper context and avoid some of the confusion that was emerging and i asked him if he felt that my letter was misleading or inaccurate and he said that no, that the press he felt that the press coverage was and it was and a completer a more complete picture of his thoughts and the context and so forth would deal with that. And i i suggested that i would rather just get the whole report out than just putting out stuff serie autumn and piecemeal but i said i would think about it some more and the next day i put out a letter that made it clear that no one should read the march 24th letter as a summary of the overall report and that a full account of bobs bob muellers thinking was going to be in the report and everyone would have access to it. There is nothing in Robert Muellers letter to you about the press. His complaint to you is about your characterization of the report. Correct . Well the letter speaks for itself. It does. And in fact, in response to your question, why not just pick up the phone, this letter was an extraordinary act. A career prosecutor rebuking the attorney general of the United States memorializing in writing, right . I know of no other instance of that happening. Do you . Well, i dont consider bob at this stage a career prosecutor. Hes had a career as a prosecutor well hes the he was the head of the fbi for 12 years. Hes a career hes a Law Enforcement professional . Right. I know of no other instance of but he was political appointee and he was a political appointee with me at the department of justice. I dont you know, the letter is a bit snitty and i think it was probably written by one of his staff people. Did you make a memorandum of your conversation . Huh . Did you make a memorandum of your conversation. No, i didnt. Did anyone, either you or anyone on your staff, memorialize your conversation with Robert Mueller . Yes. Who did that . There were notes taken of the call. May we have those notes . No. Why not . Why should you have them. Ill tell you, we have to end this. But im going to write a letter to mr. Mueller and im going to ask him is there anything you said about that conversation that he disagrees with and if there is, he can come and tell us. So the hearing is now over. And if i mr. Blumenthal i promise you if there is any mr. Mueller will have a chance to make sure that the conversation relayed by attorney general barr is accurate. And im going to give him a chance to correct anything you said that he finds misleading or inaccurate and that will be it. Okay. Five seconds. Attorney general barr, i just want to thank you for your service to our country. And especially today want to thank you for your civility and your composure. I missed what had a been a needlessly and unfairly hostile environment. Your professionalism has been remarkable and im grateful. Thank you. Thank you, my point of view is pretty interesting and it got off in a ditch every now and then but generally speaking the committee did pretty good and this is what democracy is all about. Thank you for being our attorney general. Thank you, mr. Chairman. So there you have it. More than four hours in the hot seat for the attorney general of the United States. Bill barr is now standing up, very tough questions from the democrats, very different kinds of questions from the republicans. Clearly, jake, it was as if there were two separate hearings going on. We heard a whole line of questioning about the Mueller Report from the democrats and we heard very different kind of questions from the republicans. Not just two separate hearings, two separate worlds in which they live. You have the democrats who are convinced that the attorney general is covering up a whole bunch of things and giving him no benefit of any doubt and thinking every decision hes made is to protect President Trump and giving example after example for their case on that. And republicans for the most part proposing an alternate view of it all where the Obama Justice department went after donald trump. They said a lot of things that werent true such as the fact that donald trump was a subject of an investigation during the campaign which is not accurate. But theyre basic premise is this was a corrupt fbi and corrupt department of justice going after candidate donald trump. And there were two different theories of the case. One of them backed by Robert Mueller and the Mueller Investigation, at one point the attorney general saying how did we get here, where the president is being accused of all of these horrible things. And he a case to make in the sense that the president was accused of a lot of things that the Mueller Report didnt bear out. But also volume one of the Mueller Report explained how we got here. All of the contacts, all of the efforts by the russians to interfere in the election. But you heard the democrats repeatedly question his credibility. Were not talking about mueller, were talking about the attorney general of the United States. The statements he made, the original fourpage letter that was released followed, he got a separate letter from mueller in which he questioned substantively so much of what bill barr had originally said and resulting in several members, now several democrats and democratic president ial candidates saying that bill barr at a minimum should resign. That is right. There were three democrats on the committee running for president , Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris of california and cory booker of new jersey and Kamala Harris after her questioning was done and she she focused on how on earth was the Deputy Attorney general who was also a witness to the obstruction of justice part of this Mueller Report and investigation, how on earth was he able to render judgments after her questioning was done she called for attorney general barr to resign. Six of the 20 democrats running for president have called for him to resign, two have called for him to be impeached. One bit of news that was made at the very end of the hearing, and these hearing are very exhausting for everybody involved, especially for the person in the hot seat, attorney general barr in this case, where he kind of let his guard down and referred to the letter that Robert Mueller wrote him as a little snitty, quote. And he said that he thought probably one of muellers staff people wrote it for him. Up until then, with the exception of barr implicitly suggesting he didnt understand why mueller had not drawn a conclusion about obstruction of justice, he had been fairly respectful to mueller but here he was going after the letter as, quote, a little snitty. And then you heard him say they did have a subsequent phone conversation the next day and there was a memorandum written of that conversation and hes not going to make it available to the Senate Judiciary committee or senator blumenthal said he wanted the letter. Jeffrey toobin, what was your immediate analysis . Well i thought a couple of times we got to the heart of how william barr sees this whole process. A couple of times he said donald trump, in effect, is the victim here. Is that he was unjustly accused from the beginning, how did we spend two years on it and he said in effect, and almost in so many words, he had the right to on to obstruct the investigation because he was unjustly accused. That is not the law as i understand it. But i know we have a couple of clips, once during senator blackburns testimony and the second round of senator leahys testimony where he said in effect this was unfair to the president. Hes the real victim here. They were really going after that. And let me get Laura Jarrett into this conversation. She covers the Justice Department for us. Were now waiting to see if the attorney general shows up tomorrow morning before the house Judiciary Committee. They passed a motion today, the democrats or the majority saying he not only will have to answer questions from the representatives, the lawmakers, but also from staff counsel. And hes made it very clear, i am not coming if staff counsel thinks they are going to question me out in the open for 30 minutes both sides. Hes happy to take members questions but not from attorneys. So they may have an empty chair and chairman nadler said he will do that, if he doesnt come, hell hold the hearing any way and well see what happens now that hes finished with his testimony today whether he will come. To the point of defending the president , he has to go on after this to be the attorney general on a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with the russia investigation. I wonder how this impacts sort of his legacy. Hes on round two here at the Justice Department. This is somebody who is coming at this at a point in his career where he said he didnt need to do this, out there defending the president in a pretty bold and vocal way on a number of issues today saying hes been falsely accused, we should be happy that essentially that he didnt find any conspiracy with the russians. But he also said we should stop using the Justice System as a political pawn. But at the same time, rushing to the president s defense on all of the issues instead of letting the report speak for itself. I want to bring in something that james comey wrote today in the midst of this investigation. In the midst of this hearing, james comey, who previously said that he thinks that that he thought the attorney general bill barr should be given the benefit of the doubt. That benefit of the doubt has been thrown out the window. He wrote an oped in the new york times, james comey, how trump coops leaders like bill barr saying the proximity to amoral leader and that is President Trump in combys view is part of what weve seen with bill barr and Rod Rosenstein the attorney general cant resist the compromises to survive mr. Trump and it cakes character like mr. Mattis to avoid the damage because mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites. First of all, i dont know why james comey feels the need to weigh in at every sort of yes you do. You know why. You absolutely know why. Im thinking about that. But he does. And that is hes entitled to his own opinion and what he is saying is that the minute they go to work for donald trump, somehow they become coopted and become amoral and their soul gets eaten in small bites. But what was interesting about barr today, was he would answer the question about the president s criminality or lack thereof but when senator hirono sort of asked him to make a moral judgment about donald trump, not a legal judgment, but said, look, is it okay that he tells his white House Counsel to go lie about something . Is it okay that he tells his white House Counsel to fire the special counsel . Is it okay that he behaves like this . He demured completely and did not answer the moral question. We have that bite too, if we could play that, this is senator mazie hirono from hawaii with perhaps the most heated questions. Lindsey graham the chairman later said she had slandered the attorney general. Here are her questions, part of them, for attorney general bill barr. You lied to congress. You told remt representative Charlie Crist you didnt know what Robert Mueller would object to the socalled summary and you didnt know if bob mueller supported your conclusions but you knew you lied. And now we know. Do you think it is okay for a president to ask his white House Counsel to lie . Um, well, im willing to talk about what is criminal. No, weve already acknowledged that you think it was not a crime. Im asking whether you think its okay, even if it is not a crime, do you think it is okay for the president to ask his white House Counsel to lie . Which look, if your going back to youre telling me now barr has already made it clear that he doesnt think that President Trump asked white House Counsel don mcgahn to lie. That they just had a different rec elections, although the Mueller Report makes it clear they believe mcgahns view of it. But there was this hairsplitting no there was this differentiation that barr did between look im here to talk about what is criminal or immoral or untruthful. That is a good tactic for barr. Hes in a nowin situation with that kind of question and he cant opine that it is morally wrong of the president to do that so he falls back on what has been his shield which is im only talking about criminal conduct here. Completely ignoring the fact that he reached out uninvited, even though he tries to make it sound like it was invited, to decide the obstruction issue to basically issue a declination. He wanted to make sure that got done. Although, laura, we should point out even though he didnt want to make a judgment whether or not it is appropriate for President Trump to lie he made judgments about what he perceived to be unfair attacks by democrats on President Trump. He got very heated and outraged about President Trump being called treasonous, et cetera. You defined the hypocrisy of the actual statements along with the idea of saying, look, i think it is important for every answer that will require a yes or no, ill give full context. Well lo and behold Robert Mueller said dont just give the finite straight lace, give the nuance i need for the American People to understand our role and what weve done for 22 months so it is hypocritical. But the mornts important was the most important is Kamala Harris, no one understands her, theyre all fuddled and when she starts speaking for some reason but she had the idea, wait, you havent read any of the underlying evidence involved he here, right . And no, i did not. I took it at its word but not reading the evidence is so important because it speaks to the facts that as senator hirono pointed out, somebody who writes a 19page memo before he was attorney general and then never reading the evidence to support the claims creates a self fulfilling prophecy. What else would he conclude not having read it and already making his determination. So this is a little understated the way she did it but it is not asking one question for the American People to say here is somebody who told you before he was a. G. How this report was going to go and he never took any proactive steps to read evidence to change his mind. And there are and Kamala Harris is one of them and senator harris is one of them and there are a lot of former state attorneys general who were on that committee and another one is Dick Blumenthal from connecticut and he went after barr on the issue of whether or not barr had exonerated President Trump on the question of obstruction of justice. Here is blumenthal asking barr about exonerating President Trump on obstruction of justice. Im not in the business of determining when lies are told to the American People. Im in the business of determining whether a crime has been committed. Were not in the business of exoneration. Were not in the business of proving they didnt violate the law. I find that whole exonerated him in your press conference and in your fourpage summary. How did that start . I didnt hear the beginning of the question. You, in effect, exonerated or cleared the president. No, i didnt exonerate. I said that we did not believe there was sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction offense which is the job of the Justice Department. And the job of the Justice Department is now over. That determines whether or not there is a crime. The report is now in the hands of American People. Everyone can decide for themselves. There is an election in 18 months. That is very democratic process. But were out of it. And we have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon. So that was a tactic i think we saw throughout the day by bill barr is try to slice and dice the conduct into unrecognizable small pieces. Its not a crime to lie to the media. But it is part of the larger story. Trying to get don mcgahn to falsely tell the media, no, the president never tried to have me fire mueller and if you slice anything up thinly enough it wont look like much and what our courts are all about is presenting a full picture. We heard toward the end people talking about the totality of the circumstances, but i think William Barrs credibility is in tatters. Both in terms of his impartiality and his candor. And that answer right there, that was not it was not a straight answer at all. I served in doj under both bush administrations, obama administration, sure people disagree with the attorney general on policy and sure people criticize attorneys general but i cant remember any attorneys general whose credibility has been this much in tatters. Having said that, pamela, you cover the white house, if the president of the United States was watching, i suspect he was or top aides were watching, i suspect they were watching, they have to be so grateful to the attorney general bill barr for so strongly coming to the defense of the president. Absolutely. I think youre absolutely right. The white house is paying close attention to what bill barr had to say today. But i will say i think the one line where bill barr said i did not exonerate the president. Im not sure the president President Trump would have liked hearing that given that he continues to tweet this is total exoneration but overall clearly this is an attorney general who was there to back up the president painting this picture that, look, he was the victim and he was falsely accused and that was the core. That was where his actions and the obstruction case were stemming from. And what stuck tout out to me is the attorney general was defensive in how hes handled this, saying, look i put out the redacted report. This is more than the regulations required of me. But the key here is the place holder that he said. He said, look, i just put out a place holder, the fourpage memo, before the full report was out. But that place holder is what shaped the public narrative. And that is key. And that is what is given democrats ammunition in this hearing today and that was the impetuous for this letter from Robert Mueller saying, look, this place holder you put out, that fourpage memo didnt capture the scope and his concern in this letter was that the public that the narrative of the investigation that took two years to do was going to be baked in by the time the report was out. And he blames it on the press. Barr said well the conversation was really about the way the media was interpreting this. When, in fact, this letter is not about the media. This letter is about the fact that your communication, your summary did not capture the context, nature and substance of my work and therefore the media has a muddled view of what we did. He didnt use the word media, he said the public. Right. Barr used barr used the media as the interpreter. Look, there was a Big Conversation and were talking about this in media after the fourpage memo is why didnt Robert Mueller make a decision. Why did he punt that word punt and i think that was really frustrating it seems like to Robert Muellers team because there was wasnt an explanation for it in the fourpage memo and so that is also something that the team wanted to clear up. One thing that the white house the president might not specifically the president might not be too happy with when he heard what bill barrs attorney general was saying, and laura ill let you lay in weigh in on this, he made it abundantly clear that russia did interfere in the election in the 2016 election. That russia interfered to sow dissent here in the United States to make it clear that the russians wanted to hurt Hillary Clintons campaign and help Donald Trumps campaign and that they are continuing to do that to this very day and is likely to intensify going into 2020. That is what bill barr, the attorney general himself, had to say. Right. The facts are undeniable. There is now a report andin finive treatis on the way he did that so he couldnt deny that. But i dont think he offered the most sort of robust, loud explanation on all of those issues. Especially compared to some other Administration Officials that is the whole reason why this investigation began. Of course. The people like fbi director chris wray or dan coats, odni, have come out saying the red light is flashing about this. That was not bill barr today. At least in my view of how he offered the depiction of what the issue is. He kept saying, what do you mean by receptivity to russian help and we know what that means. And this is an important point, as we go into 2020, the question of what are Foreign Countries going to try to do and what is the role what are political operatives supposed to do if they get approached and we have on one hand Jared Kushner belittling what the russians did as a couple of facebook ads, we have Rudy Giuliani saying to me, a couple of sundays ago, that it is not a crime to get information from the russians, and here today you have william barr not definitive on the question of what do you do, what should someone do if a foreign individual says we have ways to help. Now he said if it is a foreign intelligence agent, clearly you should reject it. And he made and he underlined we have the clip. This is this is number three. If a Foreign Intelligence Service, a representative of a foreign government. Yes. Said we have dirt on your opponent. Yes. Should they say, i love it, lets meet . Or contact the fbi. If a Foreign Intelligence Service does, yes. So that is really interesting that he did that. Because what happened with the trump tower meeting as we all know is that a friend of don jr. , donald trump jr. Reached out and said a russian government lawyer has information. That is not a we dont know who she is particularly in terms of whether or not she was operating on the russian government but bill barr is defining it if you see inspector kruso walk over with a mustache, then dont take the information but that is not what were talking about here. And barr wants to have it both ways. He thinks it is bizarre that they didnt brief the Trump Campaign given they have the u. S. Former the former u. S. Attorneys. But they were briefed and he to take that back. But at the same time if you have that legal expertise, why wasnt the Campaign Making use of that. That is something hes trying to hide. And that is why it was so important that senator klobuchars line of questioning to hone in on the idea of the totality of circumstances. While barr continued to try to pars out each individual instance of obstructive behavior as outlined in the report, trying to downplay perhaps or in isolation it wouldnt have the same gravitas, but senator klobuchar said if you want to talk about isolation, i could see each individual instance not making the cumulative patdern of behavior that we have to legislative against, if there is the gap between what is wrong and what is unlawful, but also holding him to his own word at the confirmation hearing when said, look, if this person does x, and this will be obstruction, well then he said, well i really meant like the trump tower meeting, that is not the same thing and so you have the klesax and how he reacted to harris and klobuchar asking questions about hold on, this whole standard of the law that you were the head of the department of justice you should know about, we always look at the totality and that is as important as the individual incidents. Why not honor it. And i think it is clear that if any of the campaigns going into 2020, democratic, republican, president ial campaigns, if any of the individuals get word from a hostile Foreign Intelligence Service, we have dirt on your opponent, what you do immediately is you call the fbi. We dont know if it is hostile intelligence if you suspect that somebody there is no badge they wear. Usually you could tell. Everybody stand by. The call for the attorney general to resign are growing among democrats including 2020 president ial candidates. Well have more on that when we come back. Applebees bigger, bolder grill combos. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. Ahhhh were here. Usually you could tell. Come back. Attorney general bill barr grilled by Democratic Senators on capitol hill today over the Mueller Report, his handling of it. At one point bill barr defended President Trump characterizing him as a falsely accused man. Take a listen. How did we get to the point here where the evidence is now that the president was falsely accused of colluding with the russians and accused of being treasonous and accused of being a russian agent and the evidence now is that was without a basis and two years of his administration have been dominated by the allegations that have now been proven false. And, you know, to listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think that the Mueller Report had found the opposite. Jeff toobin, you wanted to weigh in. I just found that such an astonishing and revealing expression of why barr has acted the way he has. The idea that because the mueller did not find a prosecutable case of collusion, anything trump did was justifiable. I thought that was such a distortion of what of the history here. Remember what it was that prompted the appointment of mueller in the first place, it was the firing of james comey. It was the interference with the russia investigation. That is something barr has read out of the entire process here. The reason mueller was appointed was not just because of the collusion investigation, it was because the president was interfering with the investigation. And, as mueller found. He continued to do so. But barr has only only sees the exculpatory part of the investigation on the russia part. I just thought if you want it in a nutshell, how barr feels about this whole process, that quote tells you it. And barr also let me bring in phil mudd, former fbi official. Barr also in that monologue questioning the notion of how did we get here, why did this even happen . Volume one of the Mueller Report is pretty clear in detail in terms of all of the contacts that the russians made or attempted to make with people on the trump team as well as the definitively proven interference by the russians in the election, for getting that the trump part of it, in terms of hacking and releasing information, as a former fbi official, looking through volume one here, i mean, is this cooked up . Is this does this seem fraudulent or like a hoax to you. . Im with jeffrey. I find this fascinating how the attorney general is saying. It is st appropriate to investigation foreign intelligence in the investigation, not ome is it appropriate we have a bunch of indicts. And number two, it is appropriate for a u. S. Election official to accept information from a foreign power. I think the congress and others beyond the investigation should be saying we have ample evidence that people in a campaign were willing to accept information, this is completely unacceptable. But the final thing and jeffrey was touching on this, shouldnt we go into the investigation saying im the irs and im looking at jake tappers irs information and his tax returns and until were confident that well convict him and confident well convict him, we shouldnt open the investigation. There is ample reason to open this investigation. Do we have to prove from the outset that well convict somebody before we open it . That sounds like a kangaroo court. I dont know what hes talking about there. And phil, while we have you, i want to get your reaction to Something Else that barr said. There is this letter that has been released now, a letter that mueller wrote to the attorney general after the attorney general wrote that fourpage letter explaining basically it was a summary but he denied it was the top line verdict of not guilty and mueller didnt care for the letter. He objected to it. He didnt like the fact that mueller didnt release the executive summaries that he had written that were already preredacted and everything was okay to use and here is what attorney general barr had to say at the end of the hearing, perhaps exhausted about the letter. The letter is a bit snitty and i think it was probably written by his and i think it was written by one of his staffers. So what is your reaction to that . That is absolutely nonsense. It is one of the rare mistakes i saw the attorney general make. Whether you disagree with him or not, he waurked away without making huge headlines and without mentioning the president s name often, interesting. It was all about barr and not about the president. To suggest that a subordinate wrote a letter, i spent maybe a thousand threat briefings with the director and cant tell you how many times we go into threat briefing or a conversation with a field office, vaguely humorous when you say director yes, mueller, the director, four and a half years and you would say director you cannot ask them what color the car was which is code to say you can ask highend questions about the investigation but as a career prosecutor he would go down a rabbit hole and saying three days ago on the surveillance for this you cant ask those questions. To suggest that somebody with that level of interest in the detail of an investigation, to suggest that he would simply say on a twoyear investigation the most significant political investigation in this country in 50 years since watergate, he simply told a subordinate go draft it and i wont review it. That is disrespectful. He made a mistake and i think he was tired and a staffer may have drafted the letter, but he approved it and he signed it and it was submitted. He would never let a letter go out saying i reviewed every word and by the way that comma is in the wrong place or i wouldnt use that adjective, that is not Robert Mueller and that is not appropriate. So here is the question because i had to look up snitty. Which means agitated or annoyed and he described the letter as that. Now a lot of what i know about bob mueller comes from you. But would he would he let his rancor show or his ire, let me put it that way, in a letter if he because its amazing that he put it in writing in the first place. But is he someone who would generally do that . Or would he do it because he was really upset . I dont know him. Let me try to take you inside his head. Upset is not a word i would use to describe director mueller. You go back to his marine ancestry since i was with him in fbi audiences and United States and overseas, people who way what made you who you are, i was a marine officer in vietnam, duty, honor and country and he does his duty, im tired but if you want me to do this investigation for two years, this god forsaken investigation ill do it and 12 years as director ill come back and here is a summary that we think is clear and somebody misrepresents that summary, i dont think dont misinterpret what hes saying in that letter. Hes saying, especially that word substance, which means you mischaracterize the theme of my investigation, you mischaracterize the facts. For somebody who believes in doubter, honor and country and go two lanes over and say you mischaracterized what i said to the American People, man, that was stunning. And let me read this the letter because he said that he said barrs letter did not fully capture the context and nature and substance of this offices work and conclusions. It was not a snitty letter by any means. He did defend his and he used to work at cia as well. He did defend the use of the word spying, the allegation that there were career officials in the fbi and elsewhere who were spying on the Trump Campaign during the election process. Listen to this. You ever referred to authorized department investigative activities officially or publicly as spying . Im not asking for private conversations. Im not going to abjure the use of spying. My first job was in the cia and i dont think spying has pejorative and mwhether its authorized. I think spying is a good english word that doesnt have synonyms because its the broadest word incorporates all forms of Covert Intelligence collection. So im not going to back off the word spying when did you decide im not suggesting any pejorative and use it frequently. Ask the media. When did you decide to use it . Was it off the cuff in the hearing, or did you go into nah hearing it was actually off the cuff, to tell you the truth. What did you think . Painful. Look, technically, if i listened to your phone call or listened to your email, i suppose i could say i was spying on wolf blitzer. Let me give you a different perspective. There are 35,000 fbi employees, six people around the tables here. As american citizens, would you like a domestic spying agency . The fbi officers i worked with, regardless of the technicalities would look at you and say, we dont spy. If were going to listen to your phone or go to an email, we go to a judge and have a courtauthorized investigation. Its not about technically whether reading your email is spying, its about what the message is to the American People. We dont spy in this country. And the larger issue, really, beyond the word choice of spying is whether or not the fbi conducted surveillance of any sort on anybody affiliated with the Trump Campaign that was inappropriate. Or unauthorized. Or unauthorized. And as of now, we dont know of any case like that, right . Thats exactly right. And i think one thing that barr is trying to do here is, i think his choice of the word spying is maintain to echo what the president is saying. I mean, he knows very well how loaded that word really is. And thats a very deliberate choice. And to add to shans point, he did the same thing with collusion. He was asked today, why did you keep using that word no collusion. I think he said it six times in that press conference. And mueller goes out of his way in a report to say, in a whole passage, collusion is not a criminal record, not a legal word. No real prosecutor have ever used the word collusion in connection with a crime. It is a political word and a loaded one. Weve got some news just coming in from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, Lindsey Graham. If you think if you think that hes going to want mueller to come before the Judiciary Committee and testify, if you think hes going to want don mcgahn, the former white House Counsel to come before the Senate Judiciary committee and testify, the answer is, absolutely, positively no. Asked why, he said, because i am not going to do anymore. Enough already, its over. If theres any dispute about a conversation, then ill come. But im not going to retry the case. Im not calling mcgahn. It is over. So he clearly doesnt want anymore he wants it over. He wants to move on. But of course, the house of representatives is now controlled by democrats and they will, im sure, feel quite differently. Special coverage continues next, including new reaction from 2020 candidates to what happened today. Stay with us. Well be right back. To a single defining moment. When a plan stops being a plan and gets set into motion. Todays merrill can help you get there with the people, tools, and personalized advice to help turn your ambitions into action. What would you like the power to do . Priceline will partner with even more vegas hotels to turn their available rooms into amazing deals. Delegates, how do you vote . wild cheering music plays sample yes. Yyyyes. Yes. Woman that is freaky. Book now and enjoy free unlimited open bar and more. Norwegian cruise line. Feel free. The attorney general accuses mueller of getting snitty with it. The lead starts right now. A democratic senator tells the attorney general, you lied to congress after its revealed that Robert Mueller was in the in love with barrs memo on his report. Did the top Law Enforcement official in the land Mislead Congress and the American People to protect the president . Tvs turn to bill barr in the white house. President trump watching and tweeting his reaction as the Russian Investigation continues to hang over his protest like a dark cloud. And its over. Judiciary chairman graham, lynd city graham says hes not going to call Robert Mueller or don mcgahn to testify. So is this the last word . Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. We begin with the politics lead today and a furor on the hill today as attorney general william barr tried to explain his handling of the Mueller Report. Skbrus mome and just moments ago, Lindsey Graham said he will not call mueller before his committee saying, quote, its over, but graham added he will allow mueller to testify if the special counsel disagrees with barrs description of their private conversations. The backdrop of this all, of course, is a letter from special counsel mueller himself, warning barr that he did not think that barr was fully capturing the context, nature, and substance in his fourpage memo released march 24th of the investigation. Barr just moments ago dismissed muellers words that criticized him as attorney general. Theres nothing in Robert Muellers letter to you about the press. His complaint to you is about your characterization of the report, correct . Well, the letter speaks for itself. The letter is a bit snitty and i think it was probably written by one of his staff people. A bit snitty. Barr today explaining how he came to clear the president of obstruction of justice, despite ten areas of possible obstruction detailed in the Mueller Report, as the attorney general sparred with democrats over contents in the report and whether barr had perjured himself in previous testimony. There was also another split with republicans bringing up the Hillary Clinton email controversy and Text Messages between fbi officials bad mouthing then candidate trump. Lets bring in cnns manu raju, whos on capitol hill. And manu, why is chairman graham saying he will not call mueller to testify . Well, he wants to focus on the start of the russia investigation, which he believes was handled poorly by the fbi. He did say he plans to send a letter to Robert Mueller, asking him to detail anything he disagrees with, with the way bill barr testified. But that is not enough for democrats who want bob mueller to testify and who are contending that bill barr lied to congress. It was my baby. And i was making a decision as to whether or not to make it public. Reporter attorney general bill barr, defiant while under fire for his handling of Robert Muellers report. Hours after new revelations that the special counsel expressed concerns about how barr summarized the findings of the sweeping probe. I asked him, you know, specifically, what his concern was. And he said that his concern focused on his explanation of why he did not reach a conclusion on obstruction. And he wanted more put out on that issue. Reporter barr said he spoke to the special counsel about the concerns. I asked him, you know, specifically, what his concern was. And he said that his concern focused on his explanation of why he did not reach a conclusion on obstruction. And he wanted more put out on

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