andrew: i think he could always do that down the road. but i think if they thought that michael cohen was the key to making a collusion case where there was a real concern to be doing espionage that there is no reason. melissa: what if it s a totally different crime? what if they re just looking for anything that would be a crime? harris: i do think any of us would be open to a crime but what we would be open to that has been this whole trap argument of if there s any point of inconsistency, but that look like flying and ending memory can force you to do that. a lot of things. i think that s where we may be laid bare with that. andrew: this has been the big objection to the investigation. at the beginning of the investigation, with a big objection to this has been is that in this country, was supposed to happen is we have a crime and then you assign a prosecutor. lisa: is the payment of crime, the origin of this with michael cohen? andrew: it could be. it s more likely that
have to always evaluate with this kind of a thing is what is the client comfortable with? so trump previously had lawyers who were of the man to let s try to work this out with mueller quietly behind-the-scenes. that might ve been a perfectly fine legal position, is not with the president likes. the president likes to fight and the president may have had a better understanding of his lawyers that what he is in is a public controversy over impeachment. to be he s got polling that shows people want him to sit down so he can answer to that then the rudy giuliani can make something different. lisa: what you make of the recent news that he s not going to bring forward any evidence of collusion in the paul manafort case? andrew: under the rules of criminal procedure and evidence, if he were to bring in any evidence of collusion, then he would have to provide discovery of all that he s been investigating and all that he s been trying to keep under wraps. i think there s certainly
andrew: because of special counsel is actually subordinate to the justice department. this is not an independent counsel, its independent doj. so there is office of legal counsel, this positive opinion in the justice department at the president, sitting president can t be indicted and there are so many structural protections in our system that would prevent a president who didn t want to be indicted from being indicted that no one, no prosecutor is as sophisticated as mohler would ever have got into this thinking indict the president. so i ve always thought that has been about impeachment from the first and to go to your question, i think what you get at the end is a report which the special counsel regulations provide for where i would imagine that where you may end up coming out is there s no collusion, there s no prosecutable obstruction, whether congress thinks there s obstruction in the way of misdemeanors is something for congress to decide and i think
evidence that he is been pursuing and there are strands that have to do with connections with russia. i ve always thought collusion is a weasel word. prosecutors don t care about collusion. kennedy: is also a political term that is so incredibly loaded but it s interesting because as public opinion works against robert mueller, you wonder what happens if he doesn t have anything? what happens? if you remember with the hillary email server investigation, we kept hearing these big weeks and it felt like we were building toward a scenario until the moment that james comey said that he was not suggesting the charges. harris: just a few weekends ago, we learned that mueller was never going to indict. what i understand you re saying is that was never the goal in the beginning but to actually get it from reportedly from that team for someone there is really startling.