Easi easily. I completely agree on the delassification like that. The sources and that set a new precedent. It will be different for the investigation, turning over materials to congress. You turned over thousands of pages, in the middle of the investigation, now that it is closed you cant tell me you have any reason to hang on to that similar information. So good news and bad news for you. Were not going anywhere. Thats the bad news, the good news is it is your table now. Well, is that what happens . 30 seconds, now im supposed to throw mtp daily. All right, so this is what
they call weird vamping in this business. A better handover in person. We should be doing it more often. We were told that at 5 00 if something was going to happen that right now, and this is what it says in the relevant regulation that if if is happening right now it is happening right now. There is a report of a brief notification with a outline of the reasons for him turning in the actions. So right now supposedly if it is happening, someone is briefing jerry nadler and Lindsey Graham with some form what could they be telling them . They could be telling them the investigation is finished, he is not bringing any further indictments, and what will they say about the other things about the president are we convinced there is no more indictments . No, but i would think if he
is turning in the report today it means that is the end of his work. It doesnt mean there is no indictments coming from other offices. There bha pieces of the nafgs are handed off. I think it means the Special Council riddle many this, there is a sealed indictment of assange. We have been just told that Attorney General Barr has the report. There it is, chuck . I saw a flash of light. You did . I got a wave. This is monumental. Robert mueller was appointed Special Council i think nine days after donald trump fired jim comey, 22 months ago, they had a goal of finishing before the two year mark, they met their goal, they have been trying to wrap, i think, for about a week. Folks are leaving, a few of the prosecutors have new jobs teaching and doing other things, their work is done. The Mueller Probe is officially
over, that report has been handed to the Attorney General, bill barr, former National Security official telling me he becomes the most important person in the country. And well be talking about bill barr as much as bob mueller. He completed another tour of duty. It is time to go home. Im sure they consult with the Attorney General. There are loose threads, things to finish. Im sure he will be asked to testify, but the pressure and the attention now switches to the Attorney General and what he does with this thing. Why dont we play what the Attorney General said at his confirmation hearing. Lets play that sound. Im told we dont have that yet. Our Control Rooms are still trying to figure it out, but he did okay, let me say the republican and congress will be informed of the special
Councils Office. Barr says consistent with regulations and the law, yes. He says the special Council Report is a report by the Attorney General. He believes he will take this into his own hands, does that mean he writes his own version of this report . Is that how he could be reading that . I think which he do it one of two ways. And that could mean taking it and redacting classified information, it could be going to congress, it could mean taking out any jury information. It could also mean that he writes his second report all on his own. If i were him i think i wouldnt want to take on that new pressure to make this decision after bob mueller conducted a twoyear long investigation, someone, the American Public ought to have trust in, i want
the American Public to look at what his conclusions were, not my version of his conclusions. Chuck did a great job talking about the Changing Of The Guards, and now Attorney General Barr is really the most po important person in the world right now. But there is something else. Something else that we need to flag which is in a really something important happened in november that will play into this which is the Changing Of The Guards and the democratic house. Now the house has a big role to play as well. Making sure this report bec thi. What is the difference between declassification and redactions . My understanding of a Process Level is that once this step had been taken, once the report was transferred from muellers super
vision to barr that process begins, but they have not read through report. So that process is under way and it would be my guess no decision has been made about whether or not to follow redactions. Bob mueller could have been asked to produce an unclassified version of the report at the same time he produced a classified version. That happens as well. He was involved in the declassified version. I think what youre looking at it something that doesnt happen. And that is a way to slow on it. You have to be very careful. I will not put it through a
declassification process. It is an agreement for the staff that the White House Council reserves the right to exert Executive Privilege later. Lose interviews, i dont want them released to the public, that is a real test for bill barr. Will he fight the president in it is a big test. It was a changing of the guard. They spent 30 hours that we know of with Robert Mueller, they have a team now with more aggressive ideology. I hear that Jewelry Ainsley is ready at the Justice Department. You were told when you can go to
lunch or not. Robert mueller has concluded his information. At this moment the Justice Department is Alerting Congress that the investigation is over. Once william barr gets a chance to review the report, he will then submit that to congress and well be expecting that as soon as this weekend. Again, Robert Mueller concluded his investigation into ed mdlin election. We will give those conclusions to congress as soon as this weekend. Is there any reason to believe this means for sure there are no sealed indictments that get unsealed today . Anything like that or is that stuff we dont yet know . That is something that we dont yet know. Anything under seal we would not know about. We dont even know the
conclusion yet. We just know it is over and he brought this here. If there is other prosecutions they have to be spun out to different u. S. Attorneys offices. Robert mueller and his position of Special Council is over. The investigation has ended. So, chuck rosenberg, does that tell you anything about what you think is in this report, which does mean donald trump junior, for instance, should be like phew, dodged a bullet . I dont think he should exhale deeply yet. I always believed the Southern District of new york have a lot more running room than mueller did. It was a really important one, dont get me wrong, but it was much more narrow. In terms of what Southern District of new york could be looking at that includes the inaugural committee, the trump foundation, individual instances of financial fraud, plus the
campaign finance violations. I dont know if exhale deeply just yet. Nicole, do you think that democrats can sit and say the sdny or congress i dont think democrats are in the box. I think republicans have been check mated. I think they will have to look at a report from mueller that they had to claim when it was bill clinton that it was Obstruction Of Justice. Theyre older than dirt so they were all there with more hair. I think republicans are the ones in a box today. They will have to decide in the coming days and weeks if they give a you know what about corruption havent they already made that decision . None of us have read the report, we dont know what
informs there, if it details witness tampering, the lies were not about venezuela, canada, the u. K. , north korea, there may be some coming about north korea, they were about russia. I think we dismiss the findings at our own peril. I think it will be about rorwher or not republicans still care about Obstruction Of Justice and whether or not we see everything that mueller found. Let me check in with jeff bent bennett. The white house is ready with their statements and lawyers, how are they feeling. What do they know or dont know . How soon will they share report with the white house. When the Special Council did investigate that, they will be out with a statement. They have not recieved that statement yet, they travelled to
florida with the white house counsel, and Sarah Sanders who as i understand it was not expected to travel to florida this weekend. We also have not heard from the outside league team. Rudy giuliani was talks to some reporters, and we have seen President Trump himself really escalate this No Collusion Mantra he has been sticking to for weeks. He personally and professionally attacked Robert Mueller, he tried to paint him as the leader of the soft coup trashing the millions of votes that trump got. And he say its will be hard to oust me because were doing such a great job. I can tell you that the reporter there is in florida have been
told to stick around until 7 30. Another indication that we could hear from the president about this later. The president at this point probably wants to speak. Ken, i want to remind people of muellers track record here. These are the guilty pleas, the indictment, stone, 25 different members of russia negligence and russian officials. This was not a if this was a witch hunt, it is the most successful in American History. He caught a lot of witches, chuck if is a remarkable record. More than we could have anticipated. Not only the vast expanse of charges against russians and laying out, but indictments of
people very close to the president. The campaign chairman, his personal lawyer fwhb that respect it has been a very significant investigation that will go down in history. At the same time many people will be surprised that no one no member of the Trump Campaign has been charged with conspireing with that russian interference record. We have to wait to see what the report says about all of these suspicious contacts about the russia russians, if he was warned, what he did with the warnings, how he behaved and how Robert Mueller evaluates that. That is a missing piece here. The table has changed a bit. Nicole is still here. We have sahill kapur, dan, make sense of this day now. We invoked your name earlier. We were joking about the waiting for the mueller game, and you
get to say today or tomorrow, today is today. Today is the day, we have waiting for today in a long time and were still in the dark and that i think is the sub fans of where we are at this minute. We will continue to wounder what is in that until the att he wil with the report that he has been handed. And as nicole is saying, there are things we dont know, what conclusions he may draw on aspects of this investigation. The president has been insistent there was no collusion. And yet the biggest question is still unanswered and thats what we wait for. Lets take a big picture look at this. Think about if we didnt know anything about any of this. And it all came out at the end. Everything that we witnessed in
public. Calling for the hacking of Hillary Clinton, going to the meetings with sergei kislyak. Here is what will happen, even if there is a fight and we dont get access to this report for a long time, the committee has 50 of the individuals that agree to provide information. That is what our Congress Wants. Democrats are gearing up. They want to make sure the full report and the underlying materials are released publicly or to members of congress. I asked about what is next, they said transparency, transparency, theyre worried the president or
staff may try to meddle and choose who sees what. Lets go to Julie Ainsley now, go ahead and read it thats right, the highlights here, we have a lot of the whole thing, okay, this goes to the ranking members of the Judiciary Wh Committee from house and senate, i write to notify you that pursuant to the statute that robert s. Mueller iii has concluded his investigation in the 2016 election investigation and related matters. The Special Councils regulation says i provide a description of instances, if anyway, in which the Attorney General concluded that a propose thd actiesed act
Special Council that it was so inappropriate or unwarranted that it should not be pursued. There was no such instances during the Special Councils investigation. Let me pause you there. That reminds people, that means he did not ask for an indictment or subpoena and get it denied by any Attorney General. Thats right, that there was no overt on instruction or interference. Acting is important because Rod Rosenstein most of this. This is a key paragraph here. Ly go to this, the Special Council submitted to me today a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions, he has reached required by the statute, im
reviewing the report, im reviewing the report and anticipate that i may be in a position to advise you of the Special Councils principal conclusions, principal conclusions, as soon as this weekend. Very soon, were already in friday afternoon. I have one more expertise pieced do it, separately i intend to consult with the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller to determine what can be released to congress and the public into he will consult with rosenstein and mueller for what they can release to the public. It will be consistent can the special Council Regulations and
the long Standing Practices and policies. You can read there, will they give us information about people they dont prosecute. It is like in the Hillary Clinton case. I will keep you informed as to the status of my review. And he concludes and says i have so determinedly disclose this later to the public after delivering it to you. Very nice, julie. This weekend do you think he will tell us the big conclusions this weekend . So they have been preparing for this. In Hindsight Everything is clearer. So Rod Rosensteins replacement was set up a long time ago. He stayed put to help with this moment, his office has been
overseaing the Mueller Probe, they have interacted for as long as the probe has been under way into there is some institutional its not like barr showed up and he was handed this, Rod Rosenstein is there, they have been dealing with the hill on all of those attacks for many months. Let me bring in Pete Williams here, given the fact that the Attorney General promised something as soon as this weekend, does it also indicate that mueller himself has been working with them with pieces of the report sooner than we thought . Likely briefing them, and remember he knows what they have been up to. But what the Congress Wants to know and the public wants to know is not what they will talk about this weekend. He will tell them who mueller prosecuted. Who mueller prosecuted and declined to prosecute, that we dont know and how much of that will be made public. I dont know how much of it i can tell you and i dont know when can tell you that. Officially we thought there might be a date certain. There is not there is just a commitment this weekend to tell them the very bare bones thing that says all the Special Council because when he prepares his report is say here are the people i prosecuted, here is the people i didnt and why. So the meat of report is not coming this weekend. Whats your sense of the white house getting a heads up and what did they get a heads up
on . We know we can talk about what was talked about and what wasnt. The president can demand anything in the Executive Branch. Well i would thans normally by telling you what practice as been in the past and what precedent is. There really is not one in is the First Special council to stick with the rules after it was written. The First Special council made everything he did public, he had an public report, this is justice officials made clear they want to follow the rules on this. I cant tell you what the other things may be in the path. I have eric swalwell, he is on the phone now, you have by
now im sure read the letter from the Attorney General. Were going to get some information this weekend on prosecutions and decisions where does Congress Plan to go . Where do you plan to compel more transparency out of the Justice Department. Yes, im also on the house Judiciary Committee, so first, the American People will see every word, every comma, every period of this report. The president is outnumbered now in a way that he was not before. We have the Subpoena Power and the precedence of the judiciary. It is just a matter of time, but the American People gave us that power. So we will see the report. Second, dont think i and most of my colleagues will accept the report unless its voracity is testified to by bob mueller. There will be a lot of questions
whether or not he was pressured to wrap this up. If there was any political do you want him subpoenaed . Would you compel him to testify if he doesnt want to testify . I will leaf that to our chairman, but i think we need to hear from bob mueller, i think the country would built from hearing from bob mueller, there has been too many issues with this president , and they sent an u unsolicited letter, but what we do now with this report will very much determine whether or not the rule of law still stands. This report was concluded without interviewing the president of the yies in front of a garage jurand jury. Will that be known as a mistake
or not . I believe the president will have no credibility to attack the report. E was given the question, he had an opportunity to go in and sit in that chair. He did not, and so the state of the evidence does not conclude his testimony. One other quick question. Your chairman today essentially said the white house is stone walling are you about to vote on subpoenas . Thats the next step, we dont want to go that route first, those days are over. I appreciate you finding a phone for us, and giving us your views on this. This is the day, it is an an antiical antiically manti anticlimatic as i thought it would be. Why should people not feel as frustrated as they do right now . I think congress may be briefed, they will say who is indicted, who wasnt indicted, that might be interesting. For legal reasons, evidentiary reasons, it might be interesting to hear if that did go to congress, those are two immediate highlights. Third is that the Mueller Investigation is over, it has
been concluded. I checked the dc district court, the federal court in dc. There is no indictment thats have been unsealed there that have anything to do with Robert Mueller, and the Regulation Calls for when the report is submitted it is over. Is there is it the specific indictment that im most curious, is the assange indictment. I think when you look at that indictment and where it was and look at some of the mechanics dmind it it, im not clear that was an indictment brought by the special Councils Office and that it was not already there before. So i think that there is a possible that information could have been added to it, there is
a sealed superceding indictment. I think that is pormt. I think the second thing is yes, it is true, that the legal jeopardy is Out Of The Woods from a federal standpoint. There is certain members of the Trump Organization and the trump inaugural. But i think if youre going to see anything specific to Robert Muellers commission, and boy did he hold the guard rails close there, not stepping beyond anything involving russia, anything involving contacts with russia, looking into what russia did, he indicted a fair amount of russians, but it is over today and that is significant. So there is a thing here, we
have a top line summary. And what else did he send, if he sent anything, as far as here is the other stuff they did. They have been working on this since late august. This is not a report they put together. There is conceivably here, there is a lot of information beyond just the general summary. But on the point about what happens in terms of indictments, i learned around that same time period, there was four other u. S. Attorneys offices where other parts of the investigation had been seeded. The stone case in dc, so it doesnt mean that corsi wont be indicted. Yeah, there was four office thats received cases at the end of the summer. Yeah, and you when they
looked into deutsch bank, and now theyre saying were going to take an mri to the Trump Organization. All of these things are insignificant. And noir not theyre not unr. The show of Deadline Mtp Daily continues. We went overtime. If this becomes a twohour show it will become deadline mtp, right . John brennan, what was fascinating is mueller took over an active investigation it had been started by the fbi, it took place when you were on the National Security team. I dont want to go through everything that you said, nobody was more alarmed by the things that you saw than anyone in the National Security team than you. You have been very confident in
bob mueller, boy has he played by the district rules of this statute. Does it bother you that he never tried to subpoena the president in front of the grand jury . No, i have tremendous respect for bob mueller, his professionalism and doing what he thinks is right and best as far as his mandate is concerned. In the summer of 16, i was concerned about what i saw the russians doing. As i testified i was concerned about information related to u. S. Persons who was engaged in into actions with russians and i referred that to the fbi, so since the end of july this investigation has been ongoing. Now Robert Mueller, there could
be sealed indictments coming forward, but i hope that my colleagues are actively working these issues still. You brought up active in 16, you brought up starting in essentially january of 17, pretty much every single month the president tried to stop this investigation. Every single month. Ask k you imagine him not dealing with the Obstruction Issue in this report . Whether it was trying to get him to drop the case against flynn, fist every month, and then trying to rattle, trying to get unrescuesed. It has to be haunting the president right now, can you imagine him not dressing the on Instruction Issues . I think he would have to, but again it is a question of
whether or not a sitting president is forthright. But again, i dont know what is there. And it is very tantalizing. The letter that william barr sent to the congress in terms of he would be able to give them some insight as soon as this weekend, he recognizes that time is of the essence. The spotlight will be so intense on what might be there. Let me give you a taste of what Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi put out for a joint statement, theyre calling for mr. Barr to make the full report public and provide their underlying documentation and findings of congress. Attorney general barr must not give President Trump his lawyers or staff any Sneak Preview of the findings or evidence and
they are not allowed to interfere in what is made public but there is a Executive Privilege argument they can make. One of the explanations that i found out about about mueller not subpoenaing the president , is it makes it easier to do that. You can hand over the evidence around the president s conduct around obstruction or otherwise if it is not grand jury evidence. Mueller and the people on his team knew this would always be a political process. It would also be incorporated into a political process in congress if is easier to transfer that evidence than it is grand jury evidence. The watch word is transparen transparency. That is their final statement. The dam has held in terms of Public Opinion on this because people are expecting to get to see this report. We saw in a cnn poll last week 87 of the American People expect to see this report. We had a nonbinding unanimous
resolution in the house, bipartisan, saying the report should be made public. So i think that Public Machiopi is on the side of the democrats. Pushing not only for the report, but for the underlying documentation and you can see the arguments theyre teeing up. Theyre saying in the last congress the Justice Department did release classified investigation for example around a Carter Paige Fisa warrant. More pressure on bob barr sorry, william barr. Bill barr, Sarah Sanders, they intatement. It is taking its course, pursuant to the Attorney General, Attorney General Bar will determine the appropriate
next steps. Holden pattern. Yeah, the pelosischumer statement is important. Pretty aggressive. Yes, and they have tweeted every democratic official in a quick way they basically made that point, this report has to be made public in full with the und underlying documentation. I believe i have a call for the release of the report. Because of the grand jury answers, i understand when he responded in his hearing that i will see,ly make as much of it public as possible. But he cant give you just an unequivocal i cant just hand you everything. How can he use that to sit on the report. I have to make sure this when
does a reasonable amount of time . How is he going to find out what the white house may consider protected by Executive Privilege. It seems to imply that. I would think that lbob mueller understands the firestorm. He may have written in this a manner that separates out that sensitive information, so something can be pushed out without any redaction whatsoever. I have been saying it for awhile, just put it all out there. Put it all out there, how about dont redact anything. A member of the Judiciary Committee joining us, thank you foi and senator
snoo schumer and their joint statement. They want full transparency, the full report public, there are some legal issues, but what is a reasonable amount of time in your view for the Attorney General to deal with those issues before giving you as much as he can give you. I think the speaker and the leader are exactly right. The American People want this report. It belongs to the American People, and this investigation was an attack on our democracy. And they have to investigate if there was conspiracy or not. We have to get it released. The American People need have confidence not only in the findings, but in the way that this conclusion is handled. And you know this is certainly mr. Barrs statement that sounds like he will tell us who has been indictmeed and who has not. We need know what facts they have and what evidence they collected so the American People can fully understand what happened here so that congress can take whatever necessary action is appropriate. If do you want to see the Special Council in front of you. Do you think Robert Mueller should be the run to terribly tell you about his findings . I think it would be very useful if mr. Mueller came before the committee and walked through the report and gave context to the facts or findings that he made. That would be limited by the methods and i think he can tell the story of what he discovered in this very exhaustive investigation of two years. Which lead to many indictments, many convictions. The American People have a right to know what happened. Who helped them, who tried to obstruct justice, and i think walking through that report and sharing it with the American People are incredibly valuable. I will let the American Public determine whether or not you can do that, but let me ask you this. Now that you have the Mueller Report, should your focus be on the Mueller Report or should you also be doing all of these other things and politically do you at all worry about creating more fog for the American Public that they stop paying attention to what youre doing. No, locok, we have a responsibility to do both things. We have prove than we can. We passed hr 1, transformative legislation to raise ethical standar standards. We have started hearings on
legislation. We passed universal background checks. We proved that were getting the work done for the American People, at the same time they elected us us to hold the administration, making sure we do our constitutional responsibilities, they need to know the facts, they need to know what administration is up to, and they need to make sure the checks and balances are working. We have to do both things and we have proven we can do it. David siciliny. Thank you very much. I want to bring in sam nunberg with us. He is the only person with us that has been in front of the grand jury of the special
counc council. As snan omeone that is part of process how confident are you in the findings, you said before you were impressed with what they knew. It was the release of the wikileaks. The answer that we dont have yet is who are these people that were talking to roger stone . And whether or not the president directed anyone at the campaign to try and correlate any release for the wikileaks. And will we see any more information about anything dealing with the transition. That was something that was brought up to me numerous times in my voluntary by the Special Council . Yes. And he never had one public indictment having to do with the transition or the inaugural committee, correct . No, these indictments essentially stopped, you look at three indictments, right . The private russians, the gru, and then you had these and the indictments stopped there, it will be interesting to see, everyone from trump allies, we said, i dont know if i am one, but we all said we want transparency to see this full report. What im interested to see is whether or not the president will stick to that. I they is a fair point. I have Mitch Mcconnells statement here, guys, here is what he says, im grateful we have an experienced and capable Attorney General to review the report, Attorney General par now needs this time to do it. He said he intends to provide as much information as possible. I sincerely hope he will do so with as much transparency as possible. At least it is bipartisan, the calls, right . You can say it is the calls and you can read into that what you might want to sbreed that. It is the hedge, right . Trump took a strategy of taking down a vietnam war hero, Robert Mueller, Mitch Mcconnell saying in case it is not so bad for trump, lets take a peek at it thats where the Republican Party is today. Joiyce vance is also here wih us. You know at least a Little Something about how these processes work. What help the viewers at least with the anticipation or frustration. re all john snow tonight, we know nothing at this point, it will stay away for a little while. Something that is important is that he commits early on to transparency. That is good, and he leads off in the first paragraph by
telling us there was no requests made by the Special Council that he or Rod Rosenstein denied. That means they did not ask to indict someone and got turned down, that means they did not ask to subpoena the president and got a response saying they could not do it. Here is the problem, a decisi decision it might mean there was no crime committed. It might mean there was not sufficient evidence of guilt. There is a lot of room to run here. Well have to see the conclusions that he reached and we dont know what we will learn. Let me introduce one of those things, Paul Manafort cooperated and then didnt. He could have provided information that would have helped, but it is circumstan
circumstantial. That happens especially in a corruption case. They will hit a wall. But prosecutors are not in the business of dieting people based on suspicion. It is only when they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Other times you find out that people you have been investigating are, in fact, innocent. It is a weird day on capitol hill. It is so busy, so not busy, she is in manchester, new hampshire, because thats where half of the u. S. Senate is these days. Kacie, you have sources, you have technology, what are you hearing from members of congress that you have been checking in with . Well, chuck, everybody is waiting to figure out a little more about what is in this
report. Right now it is all hinging on that commitment in that letter. The Attorney General saying there are no instances where i interfered, i have to go through all of this, and hopefully that will be my end goal. Ill see what i can give to congress and the public. As you know that is where the fight will start to play out if in fact what sbar able to provide comes across as being a less than complete accounting of this investigation. Now clearly we know that there are, as Joyce Advanvance and ot have been talking about, there is other cases in the Southern District of new york and elsewhere that the department of Justice Policy would have normally redacted or prevented from being made public. I think it is a delicate balance
there. We have Lindsey Graham tweeting that he has been notified and he points to this Transparency Thing specifically. The department of justice seems to recognize that making an effort at transparency would be a real political problem for them, having the president coming out saying i want people to be able to see this. If it is hidden people can project whatever they want on to it. That is where i think we could turn to go next. Barr said he may Start Talking to congressional leaders in the next few days. I think i know exactly where your stand up is, what Street Corner youre on. Its the palace theater, we all know it so well and were going to know it really well in about a week. I have to go to tom winter, we have a little breaking news,
thank you, kacie. Breaking news is there will be no more indictments, a senior Law Enforcement official with what to you a few moments ago that per federal regulations, the moment that special counsel Robert Mueller trans mitted this report, that absolutely concluded the investigation. And based on the nfction, we have in our sourcing and our reporting, thats it. There is no further indictment thats will be offered up by the special counsels office. Obviously, as youve been talking about, chuck, it is possible that information derived during the course of the investigation, we saw for the Michael Cohen search warrants this week that information that mueller may have come upon or evident that they may have developed or could be used by other u. S. Attorneys offices in other parts of the country to eventually lead to cases right now. Thats it. Robert muellers office is done today with the exceptions of the cases that theyve brought to
the u. S. Attorneys that work on that case thinking the roger stone trial, for example, and obviously its not like they just turn off the lights and roger stones free to go. There is no big kind of elephant in the closet so to speak that is about to come walking out. All right. That is an important thing. There is a lot of speculation in the air on that. An important moment there. Tom, thank you. And control room. I was trying to send you signals. The president today, nicole, today went after bob mueller again. Thats the point. And so, you know, its nice when congress is trying to say lets see what we got. We should look at it first. Donald trump is smearing bob mueller, the only fbi director in American History to have had his ten year term extended. Not about it republican president who appointed him, but by his democratic successor. And the conspiracy goes like this republicans bob mueller and republican jim comey found a tree house and its ludicrous. It is. Heres what the president said in an interview on fox business today. Deputy that didnt get any votes appoints a man that didnt get any votes. Hes going to write a report on me. I had one of the greatest election victories in history. But think of it. I have a Deputy Report a man to right a report on me and make a determination on my presidency. People will not stand for it. To your point, chuck, what have we seen throughout this entire episode . Weve seen the only consistency here is this president just bludgeoning Robert Mueller. This president and everyone around him telling lies. Lies that weve proven in real time. Lies that have proven to be lies as a result of these prosecutions. So we need as American People, as the media, as congress and whatever form it comes out that is legal and in accordance with u. S. Laws and an as to why the lying and why the attacks. And there are two plausible lines here. One, is that there was a financial interest here. There was a financial stake with the trump tower. And that president never expected to be lekt and that he was teeing things up for himself to have a big pay day in moscow. The second one is that there was an actual conspiracy. There is an explanation for why the russians knew to micro target, for instance, people in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, africanamerican voters on criminal Justice Reform in florida. I mean heidi, she is blessed by the substance of this. And its core. Andy said this on the book tour. There was an open question about three things, one, whether the president was working for russia or if mike flynn was a target for blackmail. Three, you know, whether the
counter intelligence investigation being full was going to yield these answers. You know, the thing about this do you think how do we put this Toothpaste Back in the tube . This is long term damage. I mean, beyond long term damage. There is 40 of the country the president spun up believing that the rule of law in this country and, frankly, that youre going to have 40 on the other side if the president does sort of Banana Ruckus in this. This is i dont know how we put the Toothpaste Back in the tube. Were going through stormy waters, clearly. I like to think that the strength of our institutions is going to prevail. And we have to see whats on the right country. But clearly it is a very difficult time and were going to emerge from a strong. They say nice things about them. According to the United States of america, so in weird way, the Mueller Report which is about how much all this influence, its painfully obvious how it is to influence him. We have seen this repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly. But at this moment, there is a tremendous amount of responsibility that is now on shoulders of the democrats in the house. And the leadership its too what they are going to do and how theyre going to handle this and how theyre going to handle it intelligently and with a way that will give confidence to the American People. And as john says, there is an electoral process underway. Those two may, you know, they may run right into one another because this is going to go on for a while. But those are the two moments, those are the two places where this will get not resolved but adjudicated. He thinks about these things a lot. The editor in chief on the blog. So, ben, how do you hope
congress handles this . Well, first question is what is it they are supposed to handle, right . And that, of course, goes to the issue you guys have been discussing for the last hour which is whats in the report . The initial question for congress is pursuant to congresss and the house of Representatives Authority and responsibility to determine whether the president should be impeached, is there any evidence in here that would constitute grounds for impeachment . The second issue, assuming the answer to that is no, the Second Question would be is there remedial legislation that you would need to address some of the issues that the special counsel did find . And then the third issue is simply one of public exposure and accountability. Assuming there is no legislation and dont give anybody, voters know what happened to answer the questions for themselves before they decide whether to reelect
this person. You are told okay, the impeachment process, there is the voters have one more say or you wait until the second term. I mean if you look at our last two impeachments in my lifetime, boenl were second term ones. But he might have and resolve this and then well think about it. So that is certainly correct. But he would also say he would be appalled that congress had a waited for the Executive Branch to conduct this investigation of itself. And he would say you are a he could branch of government. Make your own investigation and come to your own judgement under your own oaths of office about
whether the president is fit in office. It is interesting. Whose decision is this going to be is it the Perfect Eztial campaign that will determine how aggressively democrats feel they need to go after that. Is it the leaders or the people who are they are following . Right. And the president ial candidates are going to follow the base. We can see that already happening. That the president ial candidates are going to be farther out on the edge on not just this but all kinds of things and the leadership will be. And i dont know at this point whether that will be Strong Enough to force and leadership in congress. That is the fear and we see what is in the report. They know the history of impeachment and what happened
and they were not bipartisan. Its done. They shook his head and i gave you and why did you defanning it . Sorry. The point that ben is making is the actual people. The congress is a coequal branch of government. Its been so rad wills and undermine bid the partisanship that is there, theyve not been able to fulfill their constitutional responsibility. He needs to be compelling, overwhelming and bipartisan. I have not seen yet the republicans rise to this occasion. My response earlier about republicans being checkmated has the roots and he impeachment and