Of every american. All that on tonights msnbc special report mueller speaks starting right now. Good evening. Welcome to our special report on the Mueller Probe. Rob mueller turned in his exhaustive report on russia interference and obstruction by President Trump on march 22nd. And everyone wanted to know what it said. Robert mueller has concluded his investigation. He filed his formal report with the Justice Department, which announced this news at 5 00 p. M. Eastern on march 22nd. Attorney general told the members of congress hes committed to as much transparency as possible. The attorney general did not live up to that commitment and mueller stayed on the job for 68 more days. Quietly on the job until he stepped out at that Justice Department lek turn breaking his silence to address the public for his only time as special counsel. It also left a gap for others to characterize his report. By the time bob mueller spoke, he was fighting misperceptions about his own work fed by his own boss who announced to the nation that mueller didnt reach a conclusion on obstruction, implying mueller handed off that call to attorney general barr who was then announcing his view that donald trump did not obstruct justice. But the Mueller Report did not end with a section for barr to fill in the blank. It noted that congress decides whether to accuse a president of obstruction, not the Justice Department. And mueller was so concerned by barrs summary, he wrote a formal letter of obstruction to barr the next day which remains undisclosed as of this weekend and a second letter noting that he was not accurately texturing the Mueller Report and objecting to the public confusion barr created which barr later dismissed in the cattiest of terms. Yeah. The letter is a bit schmidty and i think it was probably win by one of his staff people. Blaming it on staff . Well, that appears disingenuous because we knew, barr knew, mueller personally reached out. Did anyone, either you or anyone on your staff, memorialize your conversation with Robert Mueller . Yes. Who did that . There were notes taken of the call. May we have those notes . No. Why not . Why should you have them . Attorney general barr knew that mueller objected. He avoided that when also pressed directly about it under oath. Reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsels team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th letter that it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the reports findings. Do you know what theyre referencing with that . No, i dont. Well, whatever mueller told barr in their call and those letters would give him some knowledge on that. Barr knew what he was doing when he up staged the Mueller Report with his televised press Conference Also on the day it came out. The Deputy Attorney general and ic concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. Mueller made it clear in writing he was not exonerating this president. And so the big obvious question becomes how different would things be and how different should things be if the first person america heard speak about the Mueller Report was mueller . As set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. The Deputy Attorney general and i concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. Kicking off our special tonight, former federal prosecutor john flannery, joyce van and euGene Robinson. Good evening to each of you. We have had some time to let it set in. Eugene, what does it mean that mueller has spoken . But spoken after so many others. Well, it makes a difference. Though it didnt go beyond the four corners of his 448 page report, but its important that we heard him speak those words, that we heard him say in his double negative terms i did not exonerate the president. A lot of people thought that he did. If you just watched fox news all the time and you read breitbart and you read the president s tweets and listened to him, you thought mueller had given the president a clean bill of health. And for some people that i have heard from in the last couple of days so gene, build on that point while i read to you what was known in public. If we had confidence the president did not commit obstruction, we should so state. Were unable to do that. This report does not conclude trump committed a crime, but it does not exonerate him, eugene. Exactly. It was there in the report. It was reported at the time. It was in the headlines at the time, but it didnt have the same impact that mueller had the other day when he came out hearing it from his mouth. That being one of the few points in the whole report that he chose to emphasize. It changed the weather in terms of how this report is understood. Joyce, the weather also had a lot of clouds, which makes it hard to see the sun, which provides the light from the office of Legal Counsel opinion, classic analogy. But take a listen side by side. What we didnt have until this week is the way that barr treated this to the way mueller did when it comes to the central question america has been discussing for months, which is what do you do if there is a crime committed by the president in office. We specifically asked him about the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion. And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position. So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principals under which we operated, and from them we concluded that we would would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. Joyce, now that mueller has spoken once and for all, what are we to take from it on that point . I think that there is some very fine legal arguments being drawn by the attorney general technically saying that mueller didnt go far enough down the road that the office of Legal Counsel memo compelled his decision. But those are really differences without a distinction. It is clear from muellers comments. It is clear from the report itself that the special counsels team operated in an environment where they knew from the getgo that they could not indict a sitting president of the United States, that the people ultimately with jurisdiction to do that would be prosecutors after Trump Left Office or congress through its impeachment powers. All through this, barr acts not as the peoples lawyer, not as we expect an attorney general would, with independence, but as someone who is always focussed on one goal, protecting the president. John, mueller speaks in a certain way, as Gene Robinson just mentioned. Right. But when you look at this, was it clear enough to you what he was saying, that congress is the one to take it from here . Absolutely. And he said on page 2 that he could not, he felt he could not, as a matter of law within the Justice Department indict. So hes very clearly saying that the only open path is impeachment. And he specified a number of instances of obstruction. And what gene was saying a minute ago in my opinion. Would he have said the word impeachment . I think he should have said the word impeachment. I think he was chosen by that dynamic duo, if you will, rosenstein and barr, to get to this conclusion that mueller would never contradict that proposition in the Justice Department, that you could not exercise the constitutional power to indict a sitting president. John, take a look, then, at the sound of both of them now. We have again for the first time, barr and mueller on the idea that, yeah, some things go beyond the doj. Absolutely. Special counsel mueller did not indicate that his purpose was to leave the decision to congress. I am told that his reaction to that was that it was my prerogative as attorney general to make that decision. The opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal Justice System to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. Joyce, when you hear that, is he nicely saying, unlike mr. Barrs claims, this is up to congress, not barr, but saying it e lie lip. I would sometimes find i didnt have jurisdiction as a federal prosecutor, and i would turn the case over to colleagues in the state system who might have a statute they could use. Mueller seems to be acting very consistently saying i dont have jurisdiction. So im putting this in the hands of people who do. When he says i, he means i, we, the doj. The report never says the special counsel cant indict but the doj can. I think that thats clear. And when mueller writes this letter and communicates to bill barr that he has concerns about the context, the nature and the substance of the way that the attorney general portrays his report to the public, thats an incredibly global criticism. And i think much of it stems from that clip that you just played where barr seems to say, no, mueller wasnt leaving it to congress. Muellers intent seems to have clearly been to leave it to congress. And, gene, where do we go from here . Well, there will be a lot of questions about william barr and his role in this. I mean, in most of those clips, he parses his words very carefully. In that last one, that is just a lie. He just lies and says that mueller wasnt saying leave it to congress when, in fact, thats clearly what mueller was saying and any intelligent person would understand that. Where we go from here is that congress has a decision to make. Congress has to decide. And there are of course political dimensions to that as well as legal and moral and constitutional dimensions. But it is now in the lap of congress. Mueller has outlined what looked to former prosecutors. And congress has to deal with that. Gene robinson, joyce vance, thank you both. John i will have you back later in the special for something we want to get into. Up ahead, we broke down some of muellers key decisions. Im thrilled to tell you for this special, president ial h historian john meacham is up next. And then mueller speaks and he speaks at this man, calling out Vladimir Putins attacks on our democracy and telling americans what to do about it. Michael mcfaul is here. You are watching an msnbc special report mueller speaks. Its not just easy. Its havingawalrusingoal easy roooaaaar its a walrus ridiculous yes nice save, big guy good job duncan way to go [chanting] its not just easy. Its geico easy. Oh, duncan. Stay up. No sleepies. Im missing out on our family outings because i cant find a bladder leakage product that fits. Everything was too loose. But depend® fitflex feels tailored to me. With a range of sizes for all body types. Depend® fitflex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. Depebut we all know werer paying too much for it. Enter xfinity mobile. Americas best lte, with the most wifi hotspots combined for the first time. When youre near an xfinity hotspot youre connected to wifi, saving on data. When youre not, you pay for data one gig at a time. Use a little, pay a little. Use a lot, just switch to unlimited. Its a new kind of network. Call, visit or go to xfinitymobile. Com. He assumed great responsibilities. He was chosen with great care. And he has my full confidence. I know everyone here joins me in saying you will be remembered as one of the finest directors in the history of the fbi and one of the most admired Public Servants of our time. Two president s who disagreed on war and peace, on politics and Constitutional Rights but agreeing on the character and service of Robert Mueller, a decorated marine with experience in vietnam. Mueller would register as a republican but follow a path of public service. Building the credibility to draw appointments from both parties and bipartisan confirmations by the senate. He found himself serving in his sixth administration, the trump Justice Department with this special independent role that so upset the president. I think he is a total conflicted person. I think mueller is a true nevertrumper. Hes somebody that dislikes donald trump. I want to bring in president ial historian john meacham. Good to have you. What era did bob mueller come out from . Was he in a different standing than the way things work right now . He absolutely comes from a different era. You would argue that there is a line back to the founders of people who were ambitious and fallen and frail but were also given to public service. There is the kind of cold war bipartisan establishment that emerged after 1945. When you look at director mueller, you can see George Herbert walker bush, cant you . They are from the same ethos. They are people without saintfying them, they are people who believe in a system larger than themselves. They believe in a system above self. One of the reasons were in the moment were in is too few of us share that sense of National Purpose that will actually outweigh personal gain. When you watch this all transpire, particularly as we have discussed in our special tonight, this 60 plus days between him finishing his work and ultimately speaking, do you have the view that mr. Mueller expected a different reception to his written work . I do. I dont have any particular insight into his mind. But it would be it is not unreasonable to think that if you have given your life to law enforcement, if you spend the number of years he did on this report that he would think that the clarity of his prose in the report and the clear sense of what he found would have received a more receptive would have met with a more recentive reaction. Whats so interesting is it is almost as though mueller comes from an age where reason had a chance. Fact had a chance. But were living in an age of unreason and reflectionive ideology. Thats not to rom row mant size past. The 70s was no picnic. The 80s, people like to think that Ronald Reagan was this wonderful figure now. A lot of democrats thought that he was an absolute force for hill. So we dont have to row mant size the past to say there was more respect for fact than there is today. And that comes straight from the top. The president understands the reason hes president in many ways is that he understands that enough people want to hear what they already believe or something that fits into what they already believe as opposed to confronting the difficulty of changing their minds in the face of contrary data. Let me push you on that because we have engaged in a little bit of a kol colloquy. You are speaking about one element of it, which is the ideological agreement, and that may go to what people want to hear. What about the other element that i think trump understands in some ways of this era, particularly online, which is the sheer simplicity, the case closed tweet, the no collusion line that he fed to his own attorney general because even before you get to your ideology, we all know at times it is easier and calmer and feels better to just have the simple as opposed to the nuanced. And muellers speech for those who liked it or didnt like it, was nothing if not nuanced. Absolutely. It is hard to diagram some of those sentences. I have a hard time quoting them sometimes. I think you are exactly right. I dont want to fall into the trope of the left likes nuance, sort of the old john kerry line, and the right likes simplicity. That tends to be true right now. But if the one of the things we will have to deal with Going Forward in the country is if everything is reversed politically, will that tendency be reversed . It is an interesting question. I do think that one of the reason sound bytes work is they capture truths or at least they capture, as you say, they seem definitive. And the president is a master marketer. And, in fact, i would argue that he wouldnt be president if he didnt understand the vernacular of reality television. Arent they the most in touch with that . I mean, forget politics. Wasnt it Johnny Cochran who said, if the glove doesnt fit, you must have quit. A tweet before twitter that captured something, not something that accurately proved accurate in the legal sense but something that proved strategic in the courtroom. I think thats exactly right. And i do think it is a fair i think there are two fair criticisms of at least two of director mueller. One is the office we talked about this earlier this week. The Office Brought a knife to a gunfight or as you said a twitter fight. Brought a knife to a twitter feed. They did not have a Johnny Cochran esque summary of this. And that can be a problem. Ive always thought that one of the things that historically were going to look back at president obama for instance is he was less given less to piffy remarks in large measure because he saw all the complexity of it. You remember, tear down this wall from donald reagan. You remember, this will not stand from george h. W. Bush, so you do need that. What i think he did was i think the one criticism is did he really could he really not come to a prosecutorial judgment, which is an interesting question. But on this particular point that you are raising, did he fail to serve his own cause in the sense of the cause of justice by finding a way to present the report in a way that would resonate more in an echo chamber where i sometimes think of where we are now as were dealing on the right with chi ron conservatives, folks who get most of their view of reality or a good bit of it from whatever fox news puts at the bottom of the screen. I think thats a fair criticism. Yeah. At the end of the day, he did this great work, but it is not accurate to only loo