Sense. Cascaded into shape. Val will join us and be our guest tonight. I didnt know you had her. I would have tried to steal her. Sorry, i would have stolen michael. Here is what i love about what we saw in yesterdays hearings, and you see this frequently in hearings with katy porter for example. You see the background of that congressperson coming out in the hearings in katy porters case, a law professor and val demings case, former police chief in orlando, florida with all of that Law Enforcement experience and watching what that informs in the way she handles a situation like yesterdays hearing was really kind of wonderful to watch. It was everything she said was just filled with her experience and then directly tailored into what the issues of the day were. And i would also say, dont i dont want to be weird but the fact that she was not only has such a Law Enforcement and distinguished career but she was chief for so long. Part of the way you can read that is the way she brings everything to a halt when she speaks. She has the chief thing going on where she owns every room shes been on and you cant help but hang on every word. She has the Natural Authority thing that makes you get in line. Youre used to that, rachel. Owning every room youve ever been in. Thats your thing. [ laughter ] well, that room. That room youre in right now. That one. That one. Maybe. Thank you. Thank you, rachel. Joyce vance published a new piece in Time Magazine in which she identifies what she thinks is the single most important question and answer in Robert Muellers testimony yesterday and because we have so much to cover tonight, we wont get to joyce vances most important question until the end of this hour but our first guest tonight will be congresswoman val demings, former police chief of orlando, florida who is the person who asked the question that joyce vance says is the most important question that was asked yesterday. So were perfectly book ended in this hour. Tonight, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee the day after Robert Muellers testimony says that the next step for the committee is to hear from the most important witness in the Mueller Report, the witness who delivers the most damming evidence of Donald Trumps obstruction of justice and crimes former Trump White House counsel don mcgahn. Here is chairman jerry nadler tonight on msnbc. The American People have to hear directly, for example, from don mcgahn as to he has to testify in front of the congress so he can say what the president said to him, what illegal instructions the president said to him. We have to hear from other witnesses who testified to mueller but we need to hear and the American People need to hear their testimony directly. This is blocked and were going to court to unblock it. Chairman nadler says Committee Lawyers will be in court tomorrow, tomorrow seeking to enforce their subpoena of don mcgahn as a witness, his name appears in the Mueller Report more than 500 times and several Committee Members asked Robert Mueller was don mcgahn yesterday. Your investigation found that President Trump directed white House Counsel don mcgahn to fire you, isnt that correct . True. The president told the white house staff secretary rob porter to try to pressure mcgahn to make a false denial, is that correct . Thats correct. Its accurate to say the president knew he was asking mcgahn to deny facts that mcgahn quote had repeatedly said were accurate unquote, isnt that right . Correct. Congresswoman val demings had two opportunities with Robert Mueller, first in the judiciary and Intelligence Committee. Here is what congresswoman demings asked in the Judiciary Committee. By Trump Campaign officials and Administration Officials impeded your investigation. I would generally agree with that. Later in this hour, you will hear joyce vance identify that question as the most important question of the day and explain why and explain how that question links volume 1 and volume 2 and this was asked later in the intelligence hearing. I want to focus on the written responses that the president did provide and the continued efforts to lie and cover up what happened during the 2016 election. Were the president s answers submitted under oath . Yes. Yes. What did you determine about the president s credibility . And that i cant get into. Well, lets go through some of the answers to take a closer look at his credibility because it seems to me his answers were not credible at all. Did some of President Trumps answers relate to trump tower moscow. Yes. Did President Trump answer followup questions according to the report there were follow up questions because of the president s incomplete answers about the moscow project. Did the president answer your followup questions either in writing or orally . And were now in volume 2, page 150 through 151. No. He did not. In fact, there were many questions you asked the president that he simply didnt answer, is that correct . True. There were many answers that contradicted other evidence you gathered during the investigation, isnt that correct director mueller . Yes. Director mueller isnt it fair to say the president s written answers were not only inadequate and incomplete because he didnt answer many of your questions but where he did, his answers showed he wasnt always being truthful . I would say generally. Leading off our discussion tonight is val demings of florida a member of the house Intelligence Committee. Thank you very much for joining us tonight congresswoman demings. Appreciate it. I know its been a busy week. Good to be with you, lawrence, thanks for having me. I want to go to what we just saw you questioning Robert Mueller about and that is reminding us all that the president did submit to written questions and answering written questions but as you illuminated, he did to put it mildly a terrible job of answering the written questions. He did a terrible job and lets start with director mueller not being able to comment on the president of the United States credibility. And then his answer regarding the written questions and we do know the president refused to do a sitdown interview, director mueller tried to get him to do that for a year, he refused but then obviously in his written answers, he was not always truthful as director mueller indicated. And the Mueller Report does comment on the credibility of other witnesses, comments favorably on the credibility of witnesses where it finds them credible and so Robert Mueller could have if he found the president s written answers credible said so. I think its reasonable to assume that if as youve just indicated, if the president thought or if director mueller thought the president was credible, he certainly would have said that. He even commented about the credibility of gates and cohen, Michael Cohen saying after thorough vetting, he was able to find their testimony about wikileaks credible, but he wasnt able to comment on the president s credibility. Bringing all of your years of Law Enforcement into what you heard yesterday, what is your assessment of the criminal liability of donald trump . You know, yesterday lawrence was actually a very painful day. You know, what we what director mueller confirmed is that russia interfered. The president didnt seem to care much about that. Matter of fact, he loved it and welcomed it and that he engaged in multiple instances of obstruction of justice to impede the investigation into russia interference. The section about don mcgahn where the president repeatedly asked him to get rid of the special counsel and then called in multiple times asking him like a mobster if it had been done. Yesterday was a painful day but clearly indicates why director mueller was unable to exonerate the president or find him innocent, basically, of any wrongdoing. You brought up the point that with the written questions they had followup questions after they had seen the answers, especially since the answers were incomplete and some they didnt answer at all and then the president didnt answer any followup questions. According to director mueller, he was strong there and said, you know, to a direct question, did he answer any of your follow up questions, no. And if you read the president s responses over 30 times, over 30 times the president said he did not recall or remember key instances or key conversations during the case. So the president i clearly understand after listening to director mueller why he was unable to exonerate the president. And in your career in Law Enforcement, youve seen cases that are slam dunks. Youve seen cases that are close calls, not sure. Should we charge . Should we not charge . Do we have here . Youve seen cases get dismissed in court. Youve and not been surprised and then sometimes surprised because you understand the various weights that evidence can have. Whats your assessment of the case against the president that Robert Mueller assembled in this report . Lawrence, when the report first came out and i had an opportunity to read it and remember as a member of both committees ive had an opportunity to read the unredacted version, as well. When i first read the redacted version, i was convinced then that the elements of multiple crimes was there and that we should have begun impeachment proceedings at that time. Certainly after reading the unredacted version and just everything being topped off with director mueller confirming some very critical portions of the report, i have no doubt in my mind as a 27year Law Enforcement officer, Police Detective and police chief the president engaged in wrongdoing and were it not for the department of justice olc opinion, he would have been indicted. Is it only members of the Intelligence Committee who have been able to see the unredacted version . I cant im not sure about that particular portion. I believe there are some limited members of the judiciary like the chairman but i know members of the Intelligence Committee have been able to review it. Can you give us some sense of how much more people would understand if they were able to see the unredacted version . Well, the unredacted version really has more to do with identifying information and sometimes when you know who is involved, it really helps you to better be able to piece the pieces of the puzzle together. Would you say the unredacted version would add to possible impeachment charges against the president . Remember, ive thought for a long time for four months now there was plenty evidence in the redacted version to begin impeachment proceedings but every bit of information, every bit of evidence certainly helps us get to the point where we need to be. Congressman val demings, thank you for leading us off tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. And the question that i was most looking forward to in yesterdays hearing was asked by congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. Why didnt you subpoena the president . We were almost towards the end of our investigation and had little success in pushing to get the interview of the president. We decided that we did not want to exercise the subpoena powers because of the necessity of expediting the end of the investigation. What did you think of the president s written responses, mr. Mueller . Certainly not as useful as the interview would be. By my account there were more than 30 times when the president said he didnt recall, he didnt remember, no independent recollection, no current recollection and i take it by your answer it wasnt as helpful. Thats why you used words like incomplete, inprecise, inadequate, insufficient. Is that a fair summery of what you thought of the written answers . That is a fair summery. I have presume that comes from the report. Sir, i ask this respectfully, by the way, the president didnt ever claim the fifth amendment, did he . Im not going to talk to that. Nobody told you you couldnt subpoena the president , right . No, we understood we could subpoena the president. Did you have sufficient evidence of the president s intent to obstruct justice is and is that why you didnt do the interview . No, there is a balance how much evidence you have to satisfy the last element against how much time are you willing to spend in the courts litigating the interview of the president. The reason we didnt do the interview because of the length of time it would take to resolve the issues attending to that. Joining our discussion now is Sean Patrick Maloney of new york. Congressman, thank you for asking the question that i wanted to ask but it was such an obvious question and i was sure someone would ask it. Do you feel it was answered . Do you feel you now know why they did not subpoena the president . Yes, i sure wish they had, though. I think its very important to listen to what the director said and what he said is by the way, they wrote this in appendix c and volume 2 they had significant and substantial evidence of the president s intent to obstruct justice and they said a bunch of cases where it you know, those cases point out that you frequently show intent to obstruct Justice Without an interview of the investigation subject, thats often how it works because people dont admit they were trying to obstruct justice and in those cases, its more than enough to infer intent and when you say you have substantial and significant evidence of the president s intent, my point was simply they are telling us on those pages that they thought they had enough. Yes, and i had found that use of the word intent and i have to say it surprised me when i landed on that use of the word intent because how would you establish intent without talking to the witness but as you point out, they believe that they had so much information that it clarified intent, but, but, the report does not then say what the intent was and Robert Mueller didnt say that yesterday. Well, thats because remember the special counsel is basically in a box. He cant prosecute the president and he said that fairness concerns would prevent him from accusing the president of a crime without giving the president the opportunity he would have to defend himself in a normal situation where he was charged with a crime. Therefore, this is the most you can do. In other words, you can forgive the special counsel for laying it all out on ten different instances of obstruction saying he had sufficient evidence without an interview of the president s intent, a key element and believing that the attorney general would care about that and wouldnt lie about it to the American Public or dissemble or hide it for weeks. By the way, that the congress would care. I think he told us everything he could tell us under the departments rules and under the fairness concerns they were operating under. Yeah, those department rules that prevented him from discussing deliberations was an enormous thing to leave out. You could have asked him about the discussions of the office about this decision to not issue the subpoena but what about the part of his answer where he said we basically just didnt want to take the amount of time given that there was no time limit on the investigation, why would he be concerned about the amount of time it would take to enforce that subpoena . Yeah, i think thats a hard question and im disappointed that they didnt take that time. I served in the white house when a president was put under oath for hours before a grand jury on videotape under oath and that was because the independent counsel had subpoenaed the president. That was president clinton and that was the moment they had to see him answering questions under oath. Donald trump should have been put in a chair and asked tough questions and i regret that. Respectfully because i believe here the special counsel was telling us something important, which is that he had a he had substantial and significant evidence. Those are his words of the president s intent to obstruct justice and they lay it out chapter in verse and under constraints previous counsels were not under. In a sense, this is the best you were going to get. Big distinction he was not an independent counsel like ken starr and unfortunately for Robert Mueller and his team, that meant they could be fired at any time and there was the president of the United States in effect publicly threatening to do that. Then there comes a day in don mcgahn testimony where they discover the president has already a couple of times ordered Robert Mueller to be fired and one of the questions i was wondering about which no one got to yesterday but further investigation it will come out, was Robert Mueller or anyone in the mueller team concerned, concerned about the possibility of being fired by the president and if they were concerned did that affect the speed of their investigation . Did that in effect speed them up . Might that explain why Robert Mueller felt there was in effect a time limit with the threat of being fired by the president . I suppose thats possible and there was, remember, a brandnew attorney general comi