involved but the investigators could have sought them because they are linked or in theory, the parent were using the children s phones or computers to have contact with journalists. so exactly how many democratic records were secretly seized? why were their families and children drawn into there? and were any republicans investigated? was this an explicit request from president trump? and at a higher level, what does all this mean for the justice department going forward? betsy a national correspondent for politico and just published an article in which william barr denied knowing anything, saying he didn t recall, hmm, getting briefed on the moves. she joins me now. betsy, there has been a lot of, well, cya spinning from william barr and jeff sessions which suggests to me that they at least understand, this doesn t look great. you know you re dealing with a big mess when barr and sessions don t want to touch it.
trying to get details about what was coming from wikileaks. joining me now is joaquin castro of texas on the house intelligence committee leading the impeachment inquiry. thanks for joining us. have you seen any conclusive proof that trump lied to robert mueller about this? he said he didn t recall, which is kind of a lawyer trick for not answering a question. right. well as you remember, jake, the president refused to go in front of and give live testimony to special counsel bob mueller and submitted written answers to certain questions in the questions oftentimes he would say that he didn t recall. so my mind has been wrapped up in this latest impeachment inquiry but i have to go back and check his responses to see whether he was truthful or not about that. the white house has cited a department of justice policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. so if democrats conclude that president trump did lie to mueller, i g i guess that woud
any direct contact with russian hackers or july dwran assange, nor any claim in the indictment of direct contact with the president as it relates to these charges, although, there is an intriguing reference to a senior trump campaign official having been directed to contact stone. i m not dismissing the significant of a federal indictment. but these are process crimes and don t go to the underlying question of possible collusion between the trump campaign and russians. and stone could arguably have avoided some of his current legal peril when asked specific questions by saying, he didn t recall. instead, for example, stone gave an emphatic no when asked whether he d texted an intermediary to wikileaks. the special counsel claims, there were actually frequent written communications. maybe stone lied. maybe he forgot. or maybe he wanted this fight? the only thing worse for roger
different and claimed over 100 times she didn t recall. starr acknowledges it would have been difficult to prove that she lied. he regrets taking on the monica lewinsky phase of the investigation but writes there was no alternative. starr says there are eerie parallels to his investigation and the robert mueller investigation saying both came at times when the american economy was thriving. then he was asked about president trump s comment that democrats would not impeach him because he is doing such a good job. if we don t have the rule of the law in the country, we have not done what the founding generations said. we are here to establish justice. that s the preamble of the constitution. that means the rule of law and everyone is accountable. starr went on to stay one of the message in his book is impeachment is hell and putting
this system. but instead of talking about that story that really matters to real americans we ve been talking about that torre a few times. what i want to talk b about now is kirsten nielsen. knows who threatened the united states democratic process. it matters and is significant. it matters because she said she didn t say it. she didn t recall. this is the biggest national security. of our time. and she is sitting there saying she doesn t recall. that s scary. she claire if rified it. she said russia wanted disruption. they did things for trump and against trump. she would not come out and say what the chairman said last week, that they wanted to help trump. and on that, she s not alone. in saying something that seems to be b i m going to say what my