general sessions. and then bill barr was the attorney general. bill bowler told him there is no basis, had a giant falling, out barr resigned. and then he put acting attorney general, that person told him, basically, the justice department has no rule here. you have to have a legal challenge to it. legal challenge field cause there s no basis for. and then trump ignored the legal advice who s getting from his normal legal advisers. the white house counsel excluded from meetings, trump brought in these people who are part of his conspiracy to try and overturn the results of the election. there is nothing like this that s ever been seen before. the other thing that struck. we certainly weren t and, there although we were on the transition. the vice president claimed he didn t know about the electors plot. you ve been the chief of staff to a vice president and president. i don t buy that. i mean, i m interested in white your gut instinct was to that? hard to know what they did or didn
had all but exonerated the former president. and therefore, there was no reason to charge him. the memo essentially lays out barr s defense of that decision. the memo contends, mueller s report did not establish a case to charge trump with obstruction, who failed to establish any underlying crime related to russian election interference. but, as nbc has reported, mueller s report actually did identify ten episodes that could be considered potential obstruction of justice. as one former mueller prosecutor points out, that is just one a couple of high-level justice department officials were worried about. two senior staff say to bill barr that the reason he should make the decision is because, if the memo comes out, it might be read to imply that the president committed obstruction. this memo makes it clear that the reason that bill barr did not ask robert mueller to simply come to a conclusion is
rift. how some are profiting off of disproven election fraud claims. goes beyond the former president. as the 11th hour gets underway on this wednesday night. good evening once again, i m alicia menendez, in four stephanie ruhle. as if the current day controversies of the former president were not enough, we begin with new insight tonight into how donald trump may have avoided accountability in the investigation that consumed must of his presidency. late today, after a lengthy court fight, the justice department released a document related to the russia investigation. the memo was top secret and now we know why. former presidents attorney bill barr wanted to keep it a secret. in march 2019, bill barr told us before the mueller report was released, that the report had all but exonerated the former president. and therefore, there was no reason to charge him. the memo essentially lays out
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president should be upset with barr for mischaracterizing mueller s report. yeah, i think that the president heard what barr said and took that to the bank and then it turns out that the check bounced, right, and so what mueller was trying to clarify and asking barr to clarify by releasing his own summaries was exactly the more nuanced version of what the mueller report found so i think that s why mueller and barr sort of are at a little bit of odds over exactly what those findings were. final word, elie, on this explanation. i think the president got turned out. maybe he was jet lagged but he was making the point that mueller called out barr for being inaccurate. interesting. thank you. thank you all. thank you both, i should say. thanks, don. democrats arguing behind closed doors about opening an impeachment inquiry into president trump. but according to politico, house speaker pelosi wants more. she reportedly wants to see the president, this is her quote, in prison.