I offered bob mueller the opportunity to review that letter before it went out, and he declined. I asked him if he was suggesting that the march 24th letter was inaccurate, and he said no, but that the press reporting had been inaccurate. He argued for putting out summaries of each volume, the executive summaries that had been written by his office. He was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report. Paul robert ray served as independent counsel during the whitewater investigation. Welcome, sir. Good to have you. Nice to be with you, sir. Paul so you have this dispute, mueller versus barr. What do you make of that letter that mueller sent to barr complaining about the fourpage memo . I think the attorney generals testimony was consistent with the tenor of the letter which said that what was disturbing to the special counsels office was public confusion as a result of the release of the march 24th letter by the attorney general. So i think all of the hullabaloo in the congress and in the senate particularly with regard to the attorney generals testimony seemed to me to be overblown, since it was consistent with the phone call, the attorney generals testimony and the letter itself. What they objected to was public confusion about not understanding exactly what the special counsel thought about this process. Paul heres my problem with this. Mueller worked for barr. Yes. Paul once barr was confirmed. He turned down the opportunity to look at, according to barr, to look at barrs fourpage memo. Now, arent you supposed to, if you work for somebody, say sure, id be glad to look at that and if you have any objections, raise them with your superior. Ive thought the same thing and i think what i would say about this, although this may be with the benefit of a little too much hindsight, if i were the attorney general to do it over again, i would probably have insisted. In other words, look, its bob mu muellers right to say i handed off my report, its now your job. Paul then you cant complain about it afterwards. The only way to have prevented this sort of backbiting that went on which is unfortunate, because my hope was the department of justice would speak with one voice, and the only way it could have been avoided is if the attorney general, and again, this is too much 20 20 hindsight but i will say it anyway, he should have gone back to bob mueller and said please, its important that you read this. What that would have done would have prevented exactly what you said, which is once having had the opportunity to review that fourpage summary, there would not have been the possibility to have the backbiting afterwards to say hey, you know, now im going to quibble with what youve done. Paul okay. What about the failure of mr. Mueller to reach a prosecutorial judgment on obstruction of justice . Do you think that was an obligation . I think a lot of people are mystified about that. I do strongly believe first of all with the report. I have no problem with everything thats contained in the report, with the exception of one sentence and the one sentence is about exoneration. I do not believe it is the job of prosecutors to make extrajudicial comments about exoneration. Thats not what prosecutors do. They make a single, as the attorney general explained, binary decision, this is not news paul indict or not. Right. You either have sufficient evidence to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and bring charges, which is to say that you believe in good faith that you have sufficient evidence to persuade a jury of the fact that a crime was committed, or you dont. Thats it. Thats all you do. And the subsequent white House Counsel letter to the attorney general is a fair criticism of the report with regard to that precise issue, meaning its not fair to the president to be having, you know, an extended discussion as a fact gatherer writ large to decide what you think about the president s conduct, or any persons conduct who is the target of an investigation. Thats not what prosecutors are supposed to do. So it sounded an awful lot in some quarters as being comeyesque. In other words, im not going to charge this person, but im going to criticize him on my exit strategy on the way out the door. I think that that confuses, frankly, that confuses the public and its unfortunate because its stepping outside of the normal and appropriate role that prosecutors play, a limited one, in our constitutional system. Paul okay. So mueller then decides were not going to make a prosecutorial judgment about obstruction. Then attorney general barr says well, with rod rosenstein, his deputy, we are going to make that and we are going to look at the factual analysis that was laid out. I think that it had to be done. Paul did that have to be done . Yes. Paul was that fulfilling a duty as attorney general . I dont think thats one that you can avoid. I think ultimately, the Decision Maker and frankly, i will say this. I dont know what bob muellers thinking was on this point ultimately about why a traditional prosecutorial judgment was not made. Paul its not clear in the report, by the way. Its not. The democrats are saying to the contrary. Theyre wrong. You know, if you believe the attorney generals testimony, which i do, that he went back to bob mueller three times to say i want to be sure i understand that youre not avoiding that decision because of the departments policy and the office of legal counsels memorandum from the watergate era that you cant indict a sitting president. I accept that. I dont know what the reason why he avoided that decision. I suspect that i know, and that is he said in the report that it raised some serious questions both with regard to fact and law. I think there was also a policy judgment and i think if he had recommended charges, the likelihood was that he understood that the attorney general would have overruled him, because the attorney general has a very different view, i think its clear, about obstruction of justice as it applies to president ial conduct. Paul but since he made no judgment, barr stepped up and made that judgment, lot of democrats on capitol hill are saying oh, my god, you did something you shouldnt do. But youre saying thats the attorney generals responsibility in that context. Not only responsibility, but its his duty to do so. Ultimately, the department decides whether its appropriate to bring charges under the criminal law. That is not a responsibility of the congress. The congress only has Oversight Authority and the decision about whether or not to commence impeachment proceedings. It doesnt have the power under our constitutional system from the very beginning, in the constitution, the executive authority rests with the president and derivatively to the department of justice about enforcing the law. Paul right. That is not a congressional prerogative. That is exclusively the prerogative of the executive branch. Paul all right. Robert ray, thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you. Paul when we come back, as President Trump and his administration fight back against congressional investigations, are democrats pondering a new and narrow path to impeachment . The articles of impeachment for president nixon, article 3 was that he ignored the subpoenas of congress. Cookie cutter portfolios. Fisher investments tailors portfolios to your goals and needs. Some only call when they have something to sell. 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I said that we did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction offense, which is the job of the Justice Department, and the job of the Justice Department is now over. That determines whether or not theres a crime. The report is now in the hands of the american people. Everyone can decide for themselves. Theres an election in 18 months. Thats very democratic process. But were out of it. And we have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon. Paul that was attorney general william barr wednesday, defending his handling of special counsel Robert Muellers report, and suggesting that democrats are using the legal system for political purposes. Lets bring in our panel. Wall street journal columnist and deputy editor, dan henninger, columnist kim strossel and jason reilly. Kim, lets start off with this charge by nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, that bill barr lied to congress. Is that a fair charge . No, absolutely not. For context, you have to go back three weeks to when barr testified in front of the house and right before then, there had been a leak to the New York Times that some of muellers staff was unhappy with this summary that barr had sent to congress. Paul right. He was asked in the course of that hearing if he knew anything about those staff people who were unnamed, and he said no. Now, democrats are saying well, you had this letter already from bob mueller saying that he wanted you to release more of the report that he felt that it wasnt getting fully in context of everything he had said, and as barr correctly said, thats a very different question. I answered truthfully to the house. I did have this letter but i had spoken to mueller, he said that nothing that i had written was inaccurate or incorrect, but rather, he felt the press reporting about this had not been fulsome enough which is why he wanted more of it out. Paul jason, i dont understand why, if youre bob mueller, you would resist the opportunity barr gave him to look at the fourpage memo he was going to send to congress, then he sent a letter afterwards saying i didnt like it, but i didnt want to look at it . I really believe kim is right, they are making political hay out of this. Barrs interpretation does not matter at the end of the day. He released the report, very lightly redacted and if you want to see an even less redacted version of it, you can go see it. Paul senior members of congress can go see it. But he made that available, too. And thats the bottom line here. I think this is not congressional oversight. This is bullying, frankly, is whats going on here. And you know, if the my problem with this is that the report didnt say what a lot of people in Congress Expected it to say, lot of people in the media expected it to say, and what we are seeing is a frustration here on their part. I dont think it makes the special counsel look bad so much as it makes Congress Look bad, frankly. Paul whats the to what end the bullying, dan . Whats the purpose here politically . Why make such a huge deal out of william barr . Well, i think the reason for this is William Barrs testimony before congress on april 10th, when he suddenly announced that he, the Justice Department, the attorney generals office, would look into what he called spying on the Trump Campaign, which he then defined as surveillance of the Trump Campaign during 2016. This all sent shock waves through the washington community, because no one expected that anyone was going to take a retrospective look at page, the fisa warrants, what caused them to exist, the steele dossier, where that came from, theres now some suggestions that was russian disinformation itself. As he said, i want to know how all of this happened. Now youve got this New York Times story about the fact that an fbi controller, operative, was interviewing George Papadopolous in a london barr, misrepresenting herself as a professors associate. All of that i think is what the intention is to delegitimize and discredit bill barr before that report is produced. Paul maybe intimidate him in order to not go all the way, maybe. Some people, some of these things could be criminal indictments, because there have been criminal referrals already from congress about certain individuals, and in the origin story here, how did this fbi surveillance of carter page, how did that start . This is what barr is looking into. Right. You know, one of the big pieces of news out of the hearing this week, although it got almost no attention, was bill barr confirmed that the department of justice has multiple criminal leak investigations going on. Which of course, we have had a massive problem with former and current officials leaking classified information which is a felony punishable up to ten years. So it looks as though theres some progress being made on that. But dont underestimate the significant number of people who have something to lose, not just from political reputations, but other potentially disciplinary actions, et cetera, from what may come out of these findings in the end, and i think that that is provoking a fear and then exactly as dan said, this attempt to delegitimize barr before he can put these findings out to make it sound as though this is partisan, whatever he reveals. Paul we dont have a lot of time, but barr is refusing to testify before the house. He walked away from that. He said im not going to testify. Is that a mistake, and is the administration making a mistake by resisting so many of the subpoenas here that the house has all administrations resist attempts to shed light on their internal workings. The Obama Administration did the same thing when it didnt Want Congress poking around in its internal deliberations and so forth so its not normal. I think whats really being obstinate is congress. Negotiating the terms of the questions is commonplace. They are asking you to do it our way or we will hold you in contempt which, by the way, is what congress did to eric holder in the past administration. So that would not be unprecedented. Paul thank you very much. When we come back, despite the ongoing battle over congressional investigations, President Trump and Democratic Leaders say they are forging ahead on a 2 trillion infrastructure proposal. So is a deal possible, and what will the president give up to pay for it . 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Obviously the roads and the bridges and the highways, obviously water, but also, a big emphasis on broadband that every american home, we believe, needs broadband, an emphasis on the power grid, so we could Bring Clean Energy from one end of the country to the other. Paul Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer this week following a meeting between Congressional Democrats and President Trump at the white house. The two sides agreeing to work toward a 2 trillion deal on infrastructure. No word yet on just how they will pay for that spending blowout. We are back with dan, kim and wall street journal editorial page writer julian melcher. Dan, is this a real deal or happy talk . Well, you know, republicans on capitol hill are kind of aghast and agog that trump would agree to 2 trillion in infrastructure spending. Paul they werent in the room. And they werent in the room. But we can explain this. Donald trump is a real estate developer. He loves to pour cement. You know that, and i know it because when he came in, he told us. He just explained at great length the wonders of drywall and cement pouring. Hes into this sort of thing. As a political matter, i think both the democrats and donald trump understand that this isnt going much of anywhere. They will be able to go out on the campaign trail, especially trump, and sort of appeal to his guys, his base, construction workers and people like that, that i am fighting for your interests and im going to try to push through an infrastructure bill which will bog down in congress. Paul well, youve got to get it through. Youve got to get Senate Republicans on board. Theyre saying not going to happen at 2 trillion. Then theres the financing issue. I mean, is there going to be any Common Ground about how to pay for it . No, i dont