Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. Howard fineman, an nbc news analyst who spent his tuesday in judge ellis courtroom marveling at Paul Manaforts wardrobe. Anyway, mimi, let me start with you. Define Obstruction Of Justice and is it something that has to be done in secret for it to be a crime . Sure, chuck. I want to answer the second part first. It does not have to be done in secret. The definition of Obstruction Of Justice, there are different prongs of it, depending on whether youre trying to interfere with witnesses or tamper with evidence. Its basically trying to impede an investigation corruptly, with corrupt intent, which simply could mean youre trying to stop an investigation because you dont like that that investigation is zeroing in on you or your close friends, so it cant be it has to be for a bad purpose and those would be bad purposes. And thats why this tweet right now looks so incriminating because whats happening you believe its very
prosecutors to not file the case. at a certain point they stopped and within a few days, craig was indicted. one other thing that s worth mentioning, craig s lawyers came out and suggested that this case was a disgrace. we had some close friends of craig who say they think this was actually if not politically motivated, an effort to make the mueller probe seem more politically even-handed, perhaps given in a little bit to trump s criticism that mueller had gone after too many republicans or too many members of his administration. in terms of on that last point, did any of the jurors who spoke publically or spoke with you about these deliberations describe their own either suspicions or frustrations with the prosecution having been brought? this wasn t mueller s prosecutors bringing this case. they spun this off to the u.s. attorney who ultimately brought
friends of craig who say they think this was actually, if not politically motivated, an effort to try to make the mueller probe seem more politically evenhanded. perhaps even giving in a little bit to trump s criticism that mueller had gone after too many republicans or too many members of his administration. in terms of on that last point, josh, did any of the jurors who spoke publicly or spoke with you about these deliberations describe their own either suspicions or frustrations with the prosecution having been brought? obviously this wasn t mueller s prosecutors directly bringing this case. they spun this off to the u.s. attorney who brought it. was that something jurors raised as well, why craig was prosecuted in the first place? one juror said he thought it was a waste of effort given the things mueller was supposed to be investigating. the juror said he was disappointed mueller hadn t brought any charges directly
witchhunt is over following robert mueller s 6 hours of testimony. but is it over? what is next? excellent question, donald trump waste no time declaring total victory and while mueller denied his report gave the president, quote, total exoneration, the president said it wasn t mueller s place to do so. there is no such thing. he didn t have the right to exonerate. that was something where he totally folded because he never had the right to exonerate and it was covered very well by congressman turner. not surprisingly democrats see mueller s day before congress a little differently. it was a very strong manifestation, some would even say indictment of this
there. and render every trump lie about what the report says, completely moot, destroyed. it did not exonerate him. certainly lending credence to the fact if president trump was anyone other than president he would be charged with not just one act but ten acts of criminal its justice and threats. you re thoughts on how we processed that information. i think it s the right call it wasn t mueller s fault, it was ours. realistically, 148-page report is hard for people to read, they re working. it s hard for anybody to read. we in the media did not do a good enough job of summarizing in a bite-sized way. it took us too long. the republicans did. why not get everything on a three by five card we just say over and over and over. that s what we have to do. the sorry thing is we put everything on the shoulders of robert mueller and he s obviously not a partisan and didn t want to be part of that.