Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Over 30 hours with the white House Counsel, misspelled only, with my approval for purposes of transparency. The Washington Post reports that mcigans own lawyer has told the Trump Legal Team, mcgahn does not believe he implicated the president in any legal wrongdoing when he spoke to the special counsel. Meanwhile the president s lawyer is now in Damage Control mode. Earlier tonight, he explained that and he the president s former attorneys are now aware of what was in mcgahns testimony. John dowd got a political version of what mcgahn said during that period of time. John, of course, because of what happened over the weekend, went through it thoroughly. Ive been on the phone with him for hours and gone over it with him. When it first came out, i didnt know the details of what mcgahn said. Now do i. I knew not to worry because if the president said anything criminal to the counsel of the white hou
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Former Chief Of Staff at the cia and at the pentagon. Robert, i would like to begin with you. What is the degree to which the trump camp was Caught Off Guard by just the idea of 30 hours of don mcgahn testimony in front of the special counsel . Its not tonight trump camp Caught Off Guard. It was mcgahn himself a year ago who was found this whole strategy by john dowd and ty cobb, the president s lawyers, to be off. Mcgahn didnt agree with the Cooperation Strategy when it came to the mueller probe. He advised against it. He went along with the cooperation, setting the over 1 million documents from the white house and offering his time. In fact, i saw mcgahn go into muellers Office Around 6 00 a. M. One morning when i was staking it out. He was fully cooperative then and ever since. Theres some reporting. Hey, joyce, cobb and dowd, their decision to waive
during a similar investigation. So a little
Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters in new york. Day 578 of the Trump Administration. And tonight the president of the United States is coming off a vicious string of personal attacks, comparing people to dogs and rats and calling Robert Mueller discredited and disgraced. He is neither. And now tonight the president is talking about what is at the heart of all of it. The russia investigation. Now that he knows his white house lawyer has testified fully before the mueller team. This afternoon, reuters interviewed President Trump. They report, he is, quote, worried that any statements under oath he provides to special counsel Robert Mueller could be used to bring Perjury Charges against him. Quote, trump echoed the concerns of his top lawyer in the probe, Rudolph Giuliani, who has warned that any sitdown with mueller could be a perjury trap. Reuters quotes the president as saying association if i Say Something and he, meaning comey, says something, and it is my
Brian W
Separate. And why your reporting is ev even he didnt read the letter and approve it. In the letter friday he said it would be muellers principle conclusions. Thats not the case. On page three he didnt have a principal collusion. Its barrs that there wasnt obstruction of justice. Everybody stand by. This is cnn breaking news. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am wolf blitzer in washington. After nearly two years, we now know the main conclusions of Robert Muellers russia information. A fourpage singlespaced summary was released by the Attorney General of the United States, bill barr. Part of the report reading and im quoting now. The investigation did not kid not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or
coordinated with the russians government in its election interference activities. Rudy giuliani told us the findings were better than he expected and President Trump just responded as well. It was a complete and total exoneration.
and we know that mueller said there was not a conspiracy, but it certainly looks like they were trying to have those contacts or they were thinking about having those contacts. and the president still has not admitted that russia has interfered with the 2016 election. and so this to me says a lot about what the administration was doing and is a really important point for us to think about. and eliott, do they mean anything? the mueller report has already said, as anne mentioned, there was no conspiracy. but again, the question was even if there wasn t there is an argument to be made there was, but they ve made the finding that there wasn t conspiracy. this conduct that we want either a presidential campaign or a president of the united states to have been engaging in? and remember, congress has a different standard than the reasonable doubt standard or probable cause standard that would have driven or dictated the findings made in the mueller report. the ball is in congress cour