if we had confidence of the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. melissa: that was special counsel robert mueller breaking his silence in the last hour, saying his office couldn t charge president trump with a crime because of long-standing guidelines at the department of justice. those remarks appearing at odds with what attorney general william barr said a few months ago, you will remember, when he first addressed the release of the special counsel report. here s what he told reporters then about his conversations with mueller. listen. when we met with him, deputy attorney general rosenstein and i met with him on march 5th. we specifically asked him about the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking the position
are talking about comey? talk about before you are against it and then for it, the republicans loved and hated them, we are saying the same thing with mueller. now we love him, we hate them, which one is it? to this point, this entire thing is political. there is no question that the only way the ball moves as if public opinion moves. that is sad, because again, we re talking about article impeachments. this is serious matters. should be moved by politics but it will be. lisa: he s making the case, nothing to see her, we are doing things by the book, and a discussion doing the job. how does a square that with the fact that he was the one he release his own memos, government memos come to spur special counsel to stick? katie: if you want to make that argument that everything was done by the book, as many of the people who are part of this cabal said, if you have nothing to hide, why are you worried about an investigation shall this happen?
charge charge. his view, that of the attorney general rod rosenstein, was insufficient to bring a charge separate from the olc opinion. so there seems to be significant daylight between what we heard from robert mueller today and what the attorney general testified to just a few weeks ago, melissa. melissa: catherine herridge, terrific reporting as always. thank you for that. you re welcome. melissa: for more on this, let s bring in bret baier. he s fox news political anchor and the anchor of special report. that struck me and i met so many people as we watch this. william barr had said the decision was not made because of that thinking that you can t indict a sitting president, and the lg guidance. however, catherine herridge saying there that barr had said, we laid it out, we put it up against. could we put it up against ubs? no, he could be. it didn t feel like we heard that from mueller. it was night and day.
very few come in their quest for evidence. last week, when we were talking about this issue, we had a former doj attorney on the couch and he was saying there is a big difference between what the committees can do in the house now and what they would be able to get under impeachment charges. or, an impeachment investigation. they get more power to get a lot more of those documents. when you have jerry nadler saying, it is our job to investigate and to go after, they are going to want that extra power to go after whatever they think is the insufficient evidence. because the invocation there is that there was evidence but there is insufficient. capri: from what i took from that, is that it was on the conspiracy claim. but essentially katie: it doesn t matter. capri: under the underlying aspect of going to come he basically said he tried to prove a negative. katie: but they will go after it. guy: on the collusion piece of this, mueller as democrats
because of the olc guidance saying the president could be charged with the crime. if that was the case outside of the coconspirator argument, the big question is why we had a $40 million special counsel investigation in the first place if they do with the beginning that going after the president wouldn t result in any kind of indictment or charge. guy: and barr said that wasn t the case. katie: according to barr s office, they have this meeting on march 5th and they were in agreement. rod rosenstein, robert mueller steam, and bill barr, that this did not apply. that s the explanation. to. melissa: your final thoughts on the riverside. thanks, guys. more outnumbered. but allstate actually helps you drive safely. with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast. .and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can t do anything about that.