Is prepared to roll over and play dead. Congress shouldnt be calling peoples tacks ju taxes just to if they can get dirt on the person. Announcer this is new day wday with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Could contempt be the work of the week . No certainly seems to be the word of the morning. Steve mnuchin, treasury secretary, is saying no to an official request from the ways and Means Committee to turn over the president s tax returns, saying it lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. For what it is worth, there is a law that says the irs shall furnish the returns on requests from congress. Mnuchins move sets the stage for a legal battle, one that could be a long legal battle over the president s taxes. Justice Department Officials and House Judiciary Committee staff will meet today to try to work out a deal for a congressional access to the Mueller Report. This comes ahead of a planned vote tomorrow on whether to hold attorney general william barr in contempt for defying that subpoena to turn over the full, unredacted Mueller Report to congress. Joining us to discuss this and more, we have David Gregory, cnn political analyst, brianna, cnn contributor, and jeffrey toobin, chief legal analyst. Jeffrey, once and for all, is congress entitled to see the full, unredacted Mueller Report or not . Well, lets put it this way, there has never been a court, ever, that has said congress is not entitled to a tax return first, the Mueller Report. Oh, im sorry. The Mueller Report. Isnt there precedent that things like the starr report i know it is different but are released to congress . Are they in the right when they want to see the unredacted report . That one is a little bit of a closer question, the Mueller Report. Grand jury material usually requires a separate court order in order to be disclosed outside of a certain numerated list of people. That court order has not been obtained. If the Justice Department wanted to cooperate, if the Justice Department wanted to share the Mueller Report, theres no doubt that they could. They could set the process in motion. They havent done it. In terms of a subpoena, i think that issue is closer than the tax return issue. Lets talk about the tax returns. Okay. We seem to be served a feast of no this morning. Right. Tax returns are a separate issue. It is a law they shall be furnished to congress upon request. Yes. Any legal basis to withhold them . That one seems, to me, a simple issue. The law says shall furnish. They havent furnished the tax returns. This idea that Congress Needs some specific legislative purpose which, by the way, i think they have anyway, but the idea that the administration can look at the motives of congress as opposed to simply the result of the voting in the ways and Means Committee seems to me wrong under the law. As you pointed out in your introduction, long legal fight. All these issues, once they go into cowurt, even if congress i correct on the law and wins, is likely to delay for many months. We are now, you know, a year and a half away from the election. David gregory, some of this stuff is being negotiated today, this morning, on capitol hill. If they cant work it out, and if it leads to contempt, whats the significance of some of these highprofile officials being held in contempt . Weve seen it before in the Obama Administration, attorney general holder held in contempt over that fast and furious controversy around border shiesh y issues. It was seen as a symbolic move. You have two sides here. You have Congressional Democrats and you have an administration, both thinking the other side looks really bad in this fight. Theyre looking at the politics of it. Theyre looking at, you know, the larger implications of accountability on the democrat side, versus fishing is the view on the administrations side. They both think each other looks bad. I think there is a chance the Justice Department would like to diffuse this a little bit and come to some kind of accommodation. To me, the larger question, too, for democrats is, what is the end game that theyre driving at . Do they want to initiate impeachment proceedings, or do they want to keep churning and keep elevating the idea of accountability, where theres not been a lot of accountability of this administration . Accountability might be an end in and of itself. You might not need impeachment. Yeah. It is a good point youre bringing up there. Two numbers i want to raise. One, talking about fast and furious, where eric holder was held in contempt, ultimately, moe most of the documents congress wanted they got, but it took three years. Three years. Time matters. The other number i think matters a lot this morning is the president s Approval Rating. Gallop has a new poll out this morning. 46 approval which is still underwater but it is the highest number hes been in. Other polls show the same thing. The president s approval has ticked up. If youre in the white house or his political operation right now, why not fight it . People are saying, hey, people are liking what im doing with the fight, where things are. Why not keep going . Especially on the heels of the good economic report we got last week. Gdp growth continuing at better than expected rates. You also got a very good jobs report. The Unemployment Rate is at decades low. You have a president who says, on the one hand, look what the democrats are doing. They cant find any other issue to take up with me, so theyre on a witch hunt. Nothing is good enough for them. Why do they stop at the Mueller Report . The president is saying, look what ive done for the country. Look at the economy. If the democrats want to impeach me, you cant because the economy is doing so well. Bill clinton would have said, hey, i have something to say about the theory, too. That having been said, some may disagree with the president s rhetoric, his tweets, but if theyre comfortable with where they stand economic, they may overlook it. It is difficult for democrats to figure out what the path should be. They feel justified in their oversight role, but they recognize that they may be causing the president s arrival ratings to go up. I doubt the congress is causing the Approval Ratings to go up. The president thinks, were done. People have seen it all. I won. First of all, were talking about, like, a very small change in an Approval Rating that has hardly changed at all since donald trump became president. The idea that the american publicwatching jerry nadler and saying, no, hes not a good chairman of the committee, im speck spectacle of that. Do you think it is economic based . Yeah. The president gets credit for it. The idea this is different from what went on in the Obama Administration, when eric holder was held in contempt. Those document requests, those oversight requests were the subject of negotiation with congress. Theres been no negotiation here. There has simply been no, on everything, on security clearances, on background checks, on taxes. Taxes. You know, congress either exists as a separate branch of government or it doesnt. Congress is trying to assert its role. I dont think the Approval Ratings have anything to do with that. I agree with jeffrey to some extent. I think the big overhang is the economy being strong, the markets being strong. What people should be worried about is the brinkbrinksmanship china, the effects on the market and the broader economy. I think this is not a big macro game. I think what the Judiciary Committee does with regards to questions of obstruction, impeachability, and on a separate track, the tax returns, it is a fight. There are constituencies for this. The context of a primary fight on the democratic side means that there is an activatedstitu wants accountability of this president. That wants to see aggressive candidates saying, were going to hold this president , his feet to the fire. On the other side, you have republicans who are united around trump. You know, i heard the other day that theyve got a financial operation, a bundling operation for campaign contributions, similar to what President Trump did. It is a sign of the republican ranks being united behind this president. It is a very healthy, strong sign for a president who is heading into a reelection campaign. Like the bush rangers. Well talk about that with maggie mayhaberman in a bit. One last fine point on this, the democrats had been threatening contempt now for weeks. They have been threatening action for weeks. It hasnt happened yet. Is there a risk, and david was mentioning there is a ground swell from democratic activists, they want to see action. Do democrats have to do something . Well, this puts them in a tough spot. Their mind shouldnt be based around 2020 solely. They have a job to do. They are a coequal branch of government. Bill barr says, my job is to defend the office of presidency. Congress says, our job is to set a precedent, as well, and uphold the law. We dont want future congresses, future president s to have to be stuck in this same type of situation. We have a job to do. We have laws to uphold. How much pressure should we be putting on this administration to follow through versus how much should we be focusing on pressure were getting from constituents . It is a tough line there. This administration is not helping at all by not giving them an inch at all. Lets talk about the letter. Now signed, at last check, by 566 former federal prosecutors. Do you have the counter on your computer . It keeps going up. I keep it in my head. They felt so strongly about what they saw in the Mueller Report that they felt compelled to write a letter and sign it. Here is just a portion of that. Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in the special counsels report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting president , would result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. Ellie, one of our contributors that was just on here, made the point with 566 it cant be 566 angry democrats, as the president likes to say. These are republicans. These are nonpartisan people. These are Law Enforcement officials. Not even law professors who are a liberal group. Im one of the prosecutors and spent years in the Justice Department. My colleagues were not angry democrats. These were basically people who devoted much of their lives to Law Enforcement. You know, when you sit down and read the Mueller Report, as i have over the past week after the sort of chaos of it just coming out, i mean, you know, what you get out of the second part is a picture of a concerted effort by the president to obstruct this investigation from even before the day he took office, throughout the period covered by there. You know, it is true that it is a unique situation because, you know, an ordinary person who is under investigation for obstruction of justice cant fire the fbi director. The president is in a unique position. Certainly, if you compare it to richard nixon, if you compare it to bill clinton, both with the obstruction of justice, this is greater, i think. Thats why you get the bipartisan reaction. If David Gregory is asked, is this enough to indict someone who is president of the United States, would it be a simple yes or no answer . Id be inclined to say no because he didnt. He didnt perhaps out of an abundance of caution, of wanting to be fair to the president who didnt have a form to challenge his accusers, but i think the drama underneath these questions, this ultra hypothetical, because we are talking about the president , this isnt any other case, is why didnt mueller push, no matter how long it took, to get the president under oath, so he could ask questions that may have gone to the question of intent . Did barr, as he said, really talk to mueller, and mueller said, well, i really wouldnt have brought these charges anyway . I mean, this is now going to be the drama and the inquest that plays out on capitol hill, to try to get underneath, you know, this big question of why not . Why not pursue it . I think it goes to the point of saying, this is not a criminal case. This is an issue of potential impeachment. Because it is a president , these are a question of high crimes and demeanors, not a question of whether youd brought the case criminally. It may be a more productive tactic at this point for democrats to push to hear from mueller, opposed to the ongoing battle with barr. Barr said he had no problem with mueller speaking. Barr is muellers boss, until mueller decides to be a private citizen and leave the Justice Department. For democrats to pursue that route, to say we must hear from mueller, may be a wiser falk ti tactic. Is he waiting for his paycheck . Why is he still an employee . He devoted two years of his life. We thought itd clear everything up once we got the Mueller Report. You know, i think we were a bit too optimistic in that trauhoug process. I would imagine this is frustrating for him. We know it is because he wrote a letter. And a phone call. Thank you, all, very much. She called on attorney general william barr to step down during a fiery speech for his handling of the Mueller Report. Now, shes calling for an investigation into the attorney generals communications with the white house. 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[ loud crash ] yeah. Hell figure it out. Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty essential for the cactus, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. Because there are options. Like an unjection™. Xeljanz xr. A oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. Xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma have happened. As have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, low blood cell counts, higher liver tests and cholesterol levels. Dont start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. Your doctor should perform blood tests before and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if youve been somewhere fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Needles. Fine for some things. But for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. Ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. An unjection™. Youll remember last week when a democratic senator delivered very strong words to attorney general william barr and called for his resignation. The American People know you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once decent reputation for the liar who sits in the oval office. You know the difference but youd chosen to be the president s lawyer and side with him over the interest of the American People. Joining us is the seb torre, mazie myrhirono. Bill barr appears not to be resigning, so sounds like youre calling on the Inspector General to look into bill barrs communications with the white house. What are you hoping to find out . We have concerns about the 14 referrals that mueller made to other prosecutors. We want to make sure that neither barr nor the white house will interfere with those investigations. Okay. Is the Inspector General going to look into this . I dont know. Lets hope so. Somebody should be concerned about the rule of law. I have to say, alisyn, that was the most disheartening aspect of the barr testimony, that he does not adhere to the rule of law. He thinks that the president can do basically whatever he wants. If the president thinks he is innocent, he can do whatever he wants to stop an investigation. Certainly, this president did. Look, the attorney general, bill barr, has been on record, in fact, he was certainly on record in the 19page unsolicited memo he wrote, about how much he believes in executive powers. Now