is likely to touch on those areas. but i will point out it could be possible that in some of those areas, he s found exculpatory evidence. as a lot of your legal experts on this show will tell you, intent is the thing that drives an obstruction probe. so if he can show not just he would need to show not just that the president was involved in these things but that he intended to take these acts in order to obstruct this probe. and so without that intention, he could have found exculpatory evidence. we just know that these are the areas where he has findings, and we need to see, as this time line moves forward quickly, where he actually takes us in the end. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we re so happy to have julia ainsley on our team. jeremy bash, let me ask you a question you may have dealt with in law school. does any of this deal with the oath we saw the president swear
investigation. if you wanted to send a message, he is the ideal person to do it. i m going to put up on the screen some of what nbc news found that mueller is looking at in the obstruction probe because prior to today, one of the items was dangling pardons before witnesses, something john dowd allegedly did according to the new york times. could this action today, based on what evidence they find, also enter into that obstruction analysis? it sure could. basically, everyone agrees the president has what s called a right to pardon. he has a right to pardon someone, but if he s dangling out pardons in order to hinder an investigation, that is quintessentially what bribery is all about. as a litigant in a criminal case, the one thing you know you can t do is bribe someone. you can t give them $5 or $5 million and you can t offer a get out of jail free card. this isn t the only accusation today, this message that s being sent. the president s own lawyer john
aiming to finalize a report in the coming months on whether the president has tried to obstruct justice. their timeline had been early as may or late as july. that timeline hinged in part on reaching a decision on a presidential interview. nowx according to two sources mueller s team may be able to close the obstruction probe more quickly since they will not need to prepare for the interview or follow up on what the president says. when they say they may be able to close the obstruction part of their inquiry, that is not good news for the president or the white house. the resources familiar with the investigation say the findings mueller has collected on the attempt to obstruct justice including firing of james comey, the misleading public statement on the naturer of a june twnt 16
he s interested in what or when flynn had to leave, he was very interested in the pressure that he put on james comey not to investigate flynn. but these four areas that you just laid out there seem to be areas where mueller has collected the most evidence and is likely to touch on those areas. but i will point out it could be possible that in some of those areas, he s found exculpatory evidence. as a lot of your legal experts on this show will tell you, intent is the thing that drives an obstruction probe. so if he can show not just he would need to show not just that the president was involved in these things but that he intended to take these acts in order to obstruct this probe. and so without that intention, he could have found exculpatory evidence. we just know that these are the areas where he has findings, and we need to see, as this time line moves forward quickly, where he actually takes us in the end. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we re so happy to have julia
potential questions and they were working out kind of the scope of this interview. these are the things you can do when your client is not being subpoenaed by a grand jury but is sitting down for a volunteer interview. it means his lawyers could come with him. it could be an easier route for the president to take. but after those raids on michael cohen s office and hotel room that you just laid out, the president basically just said, no, i m not going to cooperate, and he s taking a much more aggressive stance. meanwhile, mueller s team is moving forward with an obstruction case with or without that voluntary interview. it s unclear whether or not they might try to subpoena the president then before a grand jury, but from what i ve been told, they really want to try to wrap this obstruction case quickly between may and july, and they may be able to do that even faster now that it looks like the president will not be interviewed. if he doesn t want to be interviewed, they don t need to