counsel robert mueller himself, many of those claims fall apart when you look into his background, politics, and track record. cnn s senior legal analyst, preet bharara joins me to discuss. preet, the fact of the matter is that robert mueller is a life long republican, so for republicans to now paint him as some liberal renegade, that doesn t hold any water, does it? no, it would seem not to. snonl he a lifelong republican, he s had bipartisan support for the duration of his career. back when his ten-year term was expiring in a country of 330 million people, both democrats and republicans together decided that the person they wanted to be in that job for another two years was robert mueller. rather than president obama with republican support pointiappoin someone else, they changed the law for another two-year term.
lawyers painted very optimistic timeline of the investigation. they re saying they expect it to wrap up in the new year. they expect the white house to be cleared. people who are close to this investigation, other lawyers who are involved, are much more skeptical saying there s little indication that mueller is wrapping up his work. at a key tipping point in all of this could come later this week when mueller and his team are supposed to sit down with the president s lawyers. and the president s lawyers want to get a better sense of where this investigation is going. is there anything else you need so we can close this? the concern is that if this meeting doesn t go the way the president wants, there could be problems. that s the rub there. what if the president doesn t get what he wants here? is there concern he might be frustrated with the outcome? not only that he would be frustrated, but more frustrated than he was initially because he hoped to be exonerated and this deadline s
aware of what was going on in the drafting of this statement. it might have seemed like an ordinary day but of course viewed in light of the mueller mueller investigation, where do you think the mueller investigation is? and what happens to such a a large effort when something like this comes along? brian, it merits repetition. that meeting back in june 2016 was direct evidence that the trump campaign knew in advance before attending the meeting that the russian government was attempting to interfere in the 2016 election. and by participating in that meeting at the highest levels of the trump campaign that is leading mueller to look at whether there was foreknowledge that the campaign willingly participated and in fact agreed to attend the meeting and agreed to discuss the interference. i think for the president then to lie about it just shows that he is covering his tracks. the fact that adoptions were discussed at that meeting doesn t render his explanation
stance toward russia. one thing to look for by the way when he meets with putin is is it one-on-one or with the other adults in the room? the adults have obviously tried to stage this as a meeting between two delegations where the president will be there with all of his advisers and putin on the other side of the table with the same. so they re clearly conscious of the need to come out of this, looking strong and tough. i don t know what issues the president s going to raise, but if this meeting doesn t arouse his competitive instincts i don t know what s going to. can you address this question of adults in the room which is emerging as a theme this hour. my understanding is that two senior members of the national security council, hr mcmaster and his deputy were both in the room when the president met in
getting mr. namazi released and how much influence do they have here at the talks as well. to what respect do they actually speak for the hard liners in iran and lead the iranian security forces which are active in syria. it is a big step forward that the iranians here at the table and all parties are coming together to try to solve the syria crisis. the big issue here on the table, alison, is the future of bashar al assad. there is america and allies who say assad needs to go and the others on the other side who believes there needs to be political transition in syria. they believe assad could be part of it. no one believes there will be a solution to the problem here in vienna today, but the fact they are meeting and if this meeting doesn t completely collapse and fall apart, many will see it as a success. you look at the arrest of the iranian-american and you think about the complicated