this is bbc news, the latest headlines: the north korean leader kimjong—un has arrived in the far east of russia for his first summit with president putin. he was welcomed by a guard of honour in the city of vladivostok. talks are due to get underway any moment now. we're told they've been delayed for around an hour. sri lanka's president has asked the defence minister and police chief to resign from their roles, a response to what the government's called "major lapses in intelligence". it's been confirmed prior warnings were not acted upon ahead of easter sunday's suicide bombings. more than 350 people were killed. heavy rain and floods have killed at least 60 people in durban in south africa, including a number of children whose bodies were pulled out from under a collapsed building. thousands have had to flee their homes. south africa's president cyril ramaphosa said climate change was making the weather wilder and less predictable.

it's about liz30am. time now for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i am stephen sackur. the mueller report is out and, to no—one‘s surprise, it has not settled the bitter arguments about whether president trump committed crimes worthy of impeachment. in fact, it has raised new questions about the resilience and integrity of thejudicial process. my guest today, preet bharara, was one of america's most powerful federal prosecutors, until mr trump fired him in 2017. he's written a book about doing justice, but is america consistently falling short?

welcome to hardtalk. thanks for having me. you had a long and successful career as a federal prosecutor, so you are in a very good place tojudge prosecutor, so you are in a very good place to judge whether the american people are losing faith in their system of justice. american people are losing faith in their system ofjustice. do you think they are? i think some people are. i think we have a crisis of confidence in the rule of law not just in the united states but in a lot of places. i think you have institutions undertake, i think some of the sabi is coming from the mouth of the sabi is coming from the mouth of the sabi is coming from the mouth of the president of the united states himself. he undermines denigrates his own intelligence organisations, he attacks the free press, he has people around him he

say things like their alternative fa cts say things like their alternative facts and truth is not truth and it makes you concerned. —— some of is coming from. he tries to get folks, as has been documented in the mueller report that you reference, trying to get people to go after hillary clinton, even though she did not win the presidency, and also trying to get people to lay off his political allies, like this woman national security adviser michael flynn, so that gives people pause. from the get go, you've decided to a nswer from the get go, you've decided to answer ina from the get go, you've decided to answer in a way that is frankly very political, and the politicisation of thejudicial political, and the politicisation of the judicial system seems me to political, and the politicisation of thejudicial system seems me to be one of the major problems in the united states. it surely that is a much deeper issue than just what donald trump has been doing for the last few years? there is a problem a lwa ys last few years? there is a problem always people think thatjustice is being done depending on party affiliation or partisanship or ideology, that is not how it is done. i used to say that there are three political parties in the united states, should be, there is democrat, republican and federal prosecutor. that means there should

be no politics in prosecution, there should be no politics in the courtroom. you are the us attorney for the southern district of new york, an appointment made by the 0bama administration, he wanted is kind of a powerful place. '5, and as president 0bama said when he collected the attorneys for a photo opportunity, he said i appointed you, you don't answer to me, you don't work for me. there is a reason why you have the tradition in my office, the southern district of new york, the nickname is the southern district of new york and even though it is true, the person at the top, united states attorneys are political appointment, none of the other folks are not supposed to be doing jobs based on politics. but honestly, when you in this book, very interesting reflections on the judicial system, the business of doing lawn, you write in the book when i entered the office in the

southern district of new york, do the right thing for the right way in the right thing for the right way in the right thing for the right way in the right reasons and do only that, that sounds wonderful but i'm just wondering as i come back to the point about us public opinion, whether the american public really believe that prosecutors today really operate on that perfect basis? is not to say that every prosecutor is perfect, in the same way that i am sure, sir, there is a mentor among the media that you are supposed to be objective and truthful, we do not always get it right, some prosecutors do not get it right either. it is important to make sure that you do things in the right way for the right reasons and make sure that that is your touchstone, if you fall short of it, correct for it and make sure that you collect to raise two ways. no—one is saying that the justice system is perfect in the uk or in the united states, the part of the

point of the books to learn things we did right, things we did wrong and that is a good for everyone to do. before we get back to donald trump because in your powerful open statement, you raise lots of issues i want to get back to, let's take very seriously your record in new york because the people do not know, the southern district of new york includes wall street, manhattan, includes wall street, manhattan, includes taking on everything from organised crime to potential international terror, to have cause wall street and the financial services industry itself, so you, for the eight or nine years that you're in charge the southern district, you have a massive portfolio of crime fighting in the records suggest that you did a great job of persuading the fact that you are serious about taking out financial climate in reality, he did not achieve a much. that is a broad statement, i do not think any other offers in the united states of america brought more cases of

prosecution, more gang, mafia, financial fraud prosecution, more gang, mafia, financialfraud prosecutions. prosecution, more gang, mafia, financial fraud prosecutions. if prosecution, more gang, mafia, financialfraud prosecutions. if you are referring to the issue of the financial crisis and leaders... well, he didn't say that sir. financial crisis and leaders... well, he didn't say that sirlj financial crisis and leaders... well, he didn't say that sir. i need to get specific... specific and rigourous questions are helpful in order to have dialogue, not to you know denigrate you here. there were leaders of the financial institutions, of banks, who are investigated by many, many officers, including presumably by prosecutors and many other folks including presumably by prosecutors and many otherfolks in including presumably by prosecutors and many other folks in the including presumably by prosecutors and many otherfolks in the uk including presumably by prosecutors and many other folks in the uk as well, including in the uk and although it is frustrating and not a satisfying answer to people because the financial crisis caused a lot of harm to a lot of people, law evidence has limits and hundreds if not thousands of career prosecutors, agents of the fbi, the irs, securities and exchange commission could not find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard in the us, to indict the head of a financial institution. that does not mean that there was not unreasonable, negligent,

corrupt, greedy behaviour, but the law requires you be able to prove intent on the part of the individual in charge beyond reasonable doubt before we can go forward and there may have been a lot of things that went wrong and a lot of things that people should be held accountable for those cases were not there and thatis for those cases were not there and that is the best you can do, as oversight in the book at some length. yeah, but the fact is you bathed in the plaudits of being the tough guy in the prosecutor's office, i think time magazine ran a cover, this man is busting wall street, all about you but then the reality, according to a legal a nalyst reality, according to a legal analyst who wrote the book all about the justice department and analyst who wrote the book all about thejustice department and its handling of the financial crisis, he concluded this, it is an utter mess that preet bharara did anything significant about wall street. the insider trading cases that he handled were secondary issue, it does not have anything to do with what was most important, the systemic corruption of the banks and when it comes to prosecuting wall street and the large corporations, they are, that is you and the

federal prosecutors, chickened out. he has a bone to pick, i do not know that he has suggested evidence beyond reasonable against any individual. i do not think he has been to law school, i do not think he has ever been a prosecutor, so you can say whatever you want to say in his book. you can only do what the law permits. hold on, let me finish my statement. the people think that you should be able to put someone think that you should be able to put someone in prisonjust because think that you should be able to put someone in prison just because you are angry with them, if they committed negligent conduct, than think about what kind of country we re think about what kind of country were living in because that means that lots and lots and lots of people would be subject to going to prison at the hands of a powerful prosecutor. but i come back to what i opened up with, that is the faith of the public in the system. we know that the financial / involve some of the titans of wall street taking some desperately responsible decisions, which damage the lives of millions and millions of people. absolutely. (crosstalk). hang on, let me finish my thought. this is the thought, if people are to

believe in the system they have to see that those responsible for those terrible behaviours are punished, are held to account and after 2008, 2009, they did not see the system work in that way and that is corrosive to faith in the system. yeah, ithink corrosive to faith in the system. yeah, i think a lot of people who have had their belief and faith in the system undermined because they believe that folks committed crimes. again, there are limits to what the law can do. there were lots of people who are upset that based on robert miller, based on their understanding of the facts that president of the united states has committed crimes both of conspiracy and obstruction, and robert mueller, i think is in many ways beyond reproach, said look, out in 488 pages, it may be unsatisfying to some people, particularly political opponents of the president, but if the facts of the law are not there then the facts in the law are not there. so you saying in essence, whether we're talking about the ability to hold to account some of

the titans of wall street who were responsible for the crash, or at least very much involved in some of the decisions that lead to the crash oi’ the decisions that lead to the crash or indeed if we're talking investigation of the trump administration, the law is an ass. no, i'm not saying that the law is an ass. we prosecute what we can prosecute. lawmakers could decide in the uk or elsewhere that if you are the uk or elsewhere that if you are the head of an organisation and something happens on your watch and your negligent, right, the standard of proof being negligence and you can go to prison for that number of yea rs, can go to prison for that number of years, then we will prosecute those crimes. people decided that that is a dangerous standard to have. also ways in which titans of industry have been able to immunise themselves and have plausible deniability, just like they do in my families. you have to be able to show that the head of the firm, in order to hold them accountable, did certain things. either way, you talk about criminal prosecution, there

was no regulatory action, even with a lower standard of proof, brought by any regulatory agency in the united states or any other regulatory agency elsewhere in the world for that matter. and shareholders did not punish people as well, so lots of different ways to hold people accountable. i agree that people at the head of those institutions are hurt the world economy should be held responsible, cannot always be done to a criminal process. let's move on now to what you at the very beginning of this interview told me was the corrosive impact of the trump presidency on the perception of the rule of law in the perception of the rule of law in the united states today and let us just unpick what happened to you because they use out in that very important office in the southern district of new york in late 2016 when trump won the election and then of course, there was the interim and the inauguration in january of course, there was the interim and the inauguration injanuary 2017. he was doing office and as i understand it, donald trump called you and your face that he wanted you, despite the fa ct face that he wanted you, despite the fact that yourjob face that he wanted you, despite the fact that your job was face that he wanted you, despite the fact that yourjob was a political

appointment, he wanted you to stay on and yet two months after that, you were gone, you were fired. what happened? i don't know, you will have to ask donald trump when he comes here for a state visit. have to ask donald trump when he comes here for a state visitlj have to ask donald trump when he comes here for a state visit. i was not only called on the telephone, i was invited to trump tower, i met with him, joe kushner and steve bannon, one of whom is no longer there. i met him on the 27th floor of trump tower, had no intention to have that job of trump tower, had no intention to have thatjob any period of time, much less seven and a half years. he asked me to stay, at some point he started calling me, which i thought was unusual inappropriate because as isaid, was unusual inappropriate because as i said, there should be some arm's—length distance between the local prosecutorialjurisdiction over a certain person, the president's businesses, his foundation, his businesses and all other side things. —— his organisations. when he called me in march 2017, i know it sounds extraordinary to people but i believe in independence, i believe in making sure that no—one can doubt

that i was independent in the way i was doing thejob. the that i was independent in the way i was doing the job. the attorney general‘s chief of staff —— president's chief of staff agreed with the not knowing what the nature of the call was to be, should not speak to the president. 2a hours later, i was asked my resignation. i cannot say the fact that those two things were connected to each other but it seems unlikely that they were not. it is very interesting to reflect on how history might have been a little different had you stayed in post because we now know that obviously, new york city was one of the epicentres of the trump organisation's activities, some of the key meetings that robert mueller investigated took place in new york, we know that michael cohen, his personal lawyer, operated out of new york. you, how do you stayed in the post, would have been intimately involved in some of the spin—off investigations that came out of the robert mueller investigation and

indeed the federal prosecutions, investigations of the trump 0rganisation. —— had. looking at it from outsiders you now do, do you believe you would have handled things in any way differently from how they have been handledyeah, i meani how they have been handledyeah, i mean i can't tell what they are doing internally. what i can tell externally, they are going where the law ta kes externally, they are going where the law takes them. they're doing things that are important to do and i'm pa rt that are important to do and i'm part of the folks were doing the work that they are doing. again, i don't know what i would have done, i don't know what i would have done, i don't know what i would have done, i don't know how long i would have stayed in office and been permitted to stay in office, even if i had not been fired on march 11 because as you may know, my view is —— your viewers may not know, my predecessor accused himself from the proceedings because he felt that he was accused by the president. i was under no impression that i would be permitted to stay for some time after the robert mueller investigation was concluded. if we look forward now

because donald trump, as you know from his tweets, is claiming com plete from his tweets, is claiming complete vindication, exoneration, game over, he says anything that happens from now on is just unacceptable harassment of a president in office but are you seeing things in the southern district of new york on the way they are going after all of the michael cohen connections and investigations, the trump 0rganisation investigations, the trump organisation and its financial operations, are you seeing things which you think could bring trump integrated jeopardy that he has already faced? just from the reports, i do not speak to the folks in the office anymore. a civil suit against the trump foundation, revealing and exposing that it is not manage properly and that if the administration has some of the same flaws and issues it could be in trouble. the michael cole interface is significant also because the

southern district office endorsed him in co—ordination with the president of the united states so they clearly feel there is a criminal exposure. it comes back to faith in the system, the pollitt isolation of the system. the new attorney general, the law enforcement agent if you like, william barr, handpicked by the president, who handled the mueller report in a way which democrats regard as unfair and unacceptable. william barr is in the post. in the southern district of new york, he has his own manjeffrey berman who has his own manjeffrey berman who has thejob has his own manjeffrey berman who has the job you used to have. in this political appointees, can you have any faith that these

investigations will go where they need to go? i wrote a book, my name was in the indictments. bob mueller, everybody knows his name, but the everyday work is done by fbi agents, career prosecutors who do theirjobs every day. william barr is not getting into the trenches and connecting the dots. i have faith in the men and women who do theirjob and make recommendations. if it is a case that someone has interfered at a high level i have confidence that the integrity of the people in the lower levels will push back, design noisily if necessary, to make sure political decisions are not being made. let's get into the detail of what we learn from the mueller report. we have seen more than 440 pages. have you read some of it or most of it? i made my way through

the whole thing. what do you think of robert mueller‘s conclusion that despite the evidence of this meeting injune despite the evidence of this meeting in june 2016 despite the evidence of this meeting injune 2016 in new york — ironically at a time when you were still the attorney for the southern district of new york, a meeting where a russian intermediary met with donald trump jr, jared where a russian intermediary met with donald trumer, jared kushner, paul manafort and the clear intent, certainly as we know it from donjr, was to gather dirt on hillary clinton. according to robert mueller that cannot be regarded as the basis for a collusion charge against donald trump. first of all, there is no such thing as a collusion charge. it isa no such thing as a collusion charge. it is a word used byjournalists and the president to say this is the bar and standard. it is an informal time of people working in some kind of way for the mutual benefit of each

other. having some knowledge of what the other party is doing, which is a different thing from criminal conspiracy which is very particular what you have to show. an agreement to do what you have to show. an agreement todoa what you have to show. an agreement to do a particular thing which is unlawful. the unlawful thing charged on russian intelligence was hacking various e—mail accounts of the dnc and people associated with hillary clinton. i am disappointed that he found no evidence of people in the trump campaign you beforehand and participated in and were involved in the hacking of those things. he also — some people disagree but i respected that it is not so clear that the intent of donald trump's child was to engage in criminal activity. what about the decision, again, that mueller took to avoid a

conclusion on obstruction of justice. he gathered plenty of evidence but then he walked away. he said that if he had total confidence that there was no obstruction of justice i would so stayed. so he did not tell us he believed there was. how did he handle that? it is a little bewildering and i think lots of people have been surprised about it and of people have been surprised about itandi of people have been surprised about it and i am one of those people. it is important to hearfrom robert mueller directly. we can infer some things from what he says on the report. we can infer that he decided that because there is this legal conclusion by the justice department, the legal interpretation of the american constitution is that a sitting president — unlike in israel — cannot be indicted. robert mueller said that if he had

sufficient evidence it would be unfairto make sufficient evidence it would be unfair to make that declaration because against the backdrop of this opinion that you cannot prosecute a president, he would not be able to defend his name in a trial. he left theissue defend his name in a trial. he left the issue to congress and potentially to future prosecution if and when the president of the united states leaves office. he isn't clear to say we haven't preserved the evidence while it is fresh. do you think the democrats, who seem to be divided on this issue, should push the impeachment process? elizabeth warren saying absolutely, definitely yes, others like bernie sanders saying it could be a political trap and could backfire and we should think very hard before we do it. my perspective is one of the former prosecutor and lawyer. the democrats may have political ideas and think

about the bill clinton impeachment and the negative effects of that. i would like congress to do its job. not necessarily going forward with impeachment, but talking to the president ‘s council et cetera and see what they have to say. you have written this book, doing justice, you take seriously the need to persuade america and the world that the us system works but if it goes through the us congress and there is an impeachment process, you are going to hear — and we heard it already from jared kushner — was like this, the investigation has been a hugely damaging distraction to this country, far more damaging than any russian interference in the election. if you want a system that people have faith in, that is not politicised, sickly involved with

politics — is impeachment way to go? people will view the result of an enquiry as a just and fair, the people involved are fair—minded. i understand jared kushner. people who are within the ambit of investigation never like it. i have never had anyone send me flowers and chocolates. to say that the investigation has damaged american standing, what could respond by saying the activities and the conduct of the president that necessitated an investigation that was started by his people — robert mueller was put in place by the deputy attorney general of donald trump — it is the conduct that causes the problem not the investigation. when congress precedes, i think they have to do it soberly and carefully and a politically and only then will people have confidence. thank you for being on hardtalk. it's a

pleasure. thank you. hello again. uk forecast in just a moment but first of all we are off to mozambique where it looks like we've got another weather—related disaster on the way. another cyclone, this is cyclone kenneth, picking up strength and it's going to make landfall thursday afternoon in northern mozambique and bringing you through five days of forecast here, you can see the problem. once the storm has made landfall, it stops moving and we will see torrential falls of rain in the same area day after day. we could be seeing, getting on for a metre of rain over coming days combined with a storm surge 2—4 metres high which could bring coastal inundation and looks

like we will see another round of devastating flooding across mozambique, particularly in the north of the country. here in the uk, our weather has changed. it's turned a bit cooler, we've got unsettle weather over the next few days with rain or showers but also temperatures have eased over recent days. it will feel cooler as we head into this weekend combined with strengthening winds as well. now, today we'll start off with some reasonable weather around. in scotland and northern ireland, a bit of brightness or sunshine first thing. showers across england and wales from the word go push northwards. in terms of being cloudy, the showers get heavy with hail and thunder mixed in. some of those downpours will be quite lengthy as well as they drive their way northwards. in the south, perhaps turning a bit lighter today, a bit more sunshine, temperatures down on recent days, 13—16 degrees and quite a breezy day coming up, really. going through thursday evening and overnight, further wet weather for scotland, showers working in across parts of western england, and wales,

perhaps some lengthier spells of rain through northern ireland through thursday night and into the early part of friday morning. friday, on the face of it, although it's quite unsettled again, there'll be some bigger gaps between the showers and perhaps some more in the way of sunshine for particularly eastern areas of scotland for a time, but it's not completely dry, you will see some further showers moving in through the afternoon. some of these are likely to be heavy and potentially quite lengthy in places. gusty winds around too. temperatures 13—15 degrees celsius and then through friday night and into the weekend, we see this area of low pressure diving southwards, tightly squeezed isobars, it's going to be a windy spell of weather. the strongest winds of this stage, targeting probably south—west england. gusts 60, 65 miles per hour, something like that. outbreaks of rain, widespread, and it's going to feel quite cold, notjust on account of those strong winds, heavy rain but also those temperatures. we'll be looking at highs of between 10 and 13 degrees. you can forget the 25 we had a few days ago.

this is the briefing. i'm sally bundock. our top stories: a guard of honourfor the north korean leader as he arrives in russia. the first ever summit between kim jong—un and vladimir putin is underway. top sri lankan officials lose theirjobs over the intelligence failures before sunday's attacks as new details emerge about the bombers. prince william takes part in anzac day commemorations in auckland as new zealand, australia and turkey honour their fallen. in business — ‘liked' by wall street again. facebook shrugs off privacy concerns as earnings surge