stools -- washington, his name will not be forgotten, thankfully. bargain an executive order signed by giant sharpie, mount verner will remain mount vernon with nary a condo in sight. that's all the time we have for with "cuomo chris." >> i thought i was going to be the crocodile. any way to get in the game. i'll take it. anderson, that was a keeper, thank you very much. welcome to "prime time." headlines are full of heat. but this is about what light the law sheds on what we just learned. the attorney general provided us with key insights today into what he is about. and where we are headed. he says spying, knowing the term is an insult to the men and women who work for him. everything he said was calculated and we will show you where it leads. cuomo's court is in session tonight. and a second case for our legal minds. why is the treasury secretary

involved in negotiating congress' request for the president's taxes? is that legal? also, a scoop on mr. barr. if he seemed calm in the chair the last two days it's because he knows exactly what he's doing. he has been there before. the proof of past maneuvers. the real battle has begun between this president and the rule of law. let's get after it. well, the president could not have said it better himself. listen to this. >> spying on a political campaign is a big deal. i think there was -- spying did occur. >> thinks. the attorney general using the lingo of the deep state coup today on the hill. sending democrats into a new tailspin. >> the chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails.

he is the attorney general of the united states of america, not the attorney general of donald trump. >> one pushback. he's not going off the rails. he is exactly on the right track that he wants to be on as the president has directed him. now, barr later attempted to clarify, saying he's not suggesting there was improper spying, which, by the way, is an oxy moron. he says the government may not have been in the wrong when spying on the trump campaign. but how do you start a probe and then say you've already come to a conclusion? and he's doing it at the same time that his own inspector general is already looking into the matter. what happened to being all about by the book? this is the no holds barr approach and it's very clear now. the democrats are preparing for battle against a very willing opponent. let's take it to mark mazzetti

and phil mudd, two men who understand this world of surveillance, how it's supposed to be done and versus what we saw today. phil mudd, the attorney general saying, yep, i think there was spying, a word i know you guys don't like in the counterintelligence business. i know it was going on. can't offer you any evidence, but opened up a probe into it, even though the i.g. is looking into the same thing. have you ever heard of this in a by the book look? >> i can't figure this out, chris. he knew what he was doing. let's give you two different answers. one, the answer to the question the attorney general gave, which is there is -- i think there was spying in the campaign. i'm looking at it. let me try if he had said just a few different words yesterday. how about more than a year ago, as you suggested in your opening, the inspector general over at the department of justice/fbi said we're looking into how the investigation was done during the campaign and we'll file a report?

everybody would have said, thank you, we know that, mr. attorney general. why did he use that word spying? i'm afraid that he used it because he already knew that it was loaded and he didn't want to say we already had an investigation under way before i got here. i don't like the language, chris. it makes americans nervous. >> mr. mazzetti, we both know, we all know the language was purposeful. the a.g. has been in this business a long time. he knows that that is a defamatory way to refer to surveillance, but wasn't today -- and you could argue yesterday. the a.g.'s pulling back of his cape and saying i'm back. we know who he is. we know what he did for president bush. isn't this the same? >> well, i don't know ultimately what his intent was in the past two days of testimony, but the intent, whatever it was, was very clear. as you said, it was quite purposeful. he was given an out to sort of say i haven't made any conclusions. he actually didn't take that. he said, well, certainly there was spying. one of the things that really

struck me the most that i don't think has gotten enough attention is he actually drew this historical parallel to what happened during the vietnam war -- >> yes. >> spying on protesters. i mean, this is like kind of the dark days of the fbi, the excesses of hoover and to bring that up, even if he says he hasn't drawn any conclusions, it did send this clear message, and recall this is the narrative that has been pushed for more than two years by house republicans. >> right. >> that the scandal -- >> word for word. concept for concept, including spying. they use it all the time because of what it connotes. in fact, though, he did say he drew a conclusion. he said there was spying and he ascribed animus. he at once said not necessarily the fbi, but other intelligence agencies, but then he said this about the highest echelons of the fbi. >> i do not view it as a problem that's endemic to the fbi. i think there was probably a

failure among a group of leaders there at the upper echelon. >> so a second conclusion, phil. not only do i know there was spying, but i know that the people at the top of the fbi screwed up. where do you get that except for breitbart? >> no, i -- chris, i'm going to disagree with you on this one. if you look at the inspector general reports on the leadership of the fbi, including what the inspector general, i didn't like the inspector general when i was at the bureau or the agency, they're tough. what the inspector general said, for example, about comey's handling of the clinton investigation was not positive. if you go back and review it -- >> true. >> -- comey got hammered. >> and a fair assessment. >> that's right. so my point -- but going back -- >> but he never mentioned anything about spying and saying that it was attributable to the fbi heads. >> that is exactly right. if you're barr, you have an option for how you present this. you can say, well, you should have suspicions about the leadership of the bureau and i think spying might have been

going on. or mistakes at the bureau already exposed by the inspector general. if i find out things went wrong, i'll fix those, too. big deal. it's on page a-18 of the "washington post." he chose to make it page one and i think that's the problem we all have. >> mr. mazzetti, what is the good reason for starting an investigation that is simultaneously being investigated by the i.g.? >> it's unclear exactly what his plan is. there has been some discussion in the past two days about putting some team together to examine it. we know the i.g. is coming to a conclusion, so is it to basically pick up where the i.g. left off? the scope is still unclear. >> hold on a second. let's go step by step for the uninitiated. that's not how it would work. the i.g. would finish and there may be a recommendation for prosecution from the i.g. because of what they do or do not discover. that could be referred for further action by the doj. but while it's still being investigated, barr said he put together a team. how do you justify it?

>> right. he did say that. and, you know, one would think that a lot of these answers will come from the i.g.'s report, and there are still outstanding questions, right? what were some of the efforts by the fbi after it opened the counterintelligence investigation to gather information, including among some of trump's current and former advisers? there was a confidential informant used to go after some low level figures, including a campaign aid, george papadopoulos. there were some meetings in london with this individual. we'd like to know more about that. so it's not as if there aren't pertinent questions to ask, but you're right to actually say in public in testimony that there was spying and he had drawn that conclusion was striking to me. >> and also, phil, just to get some context here of what seems to be intention. look, let's put it all on the table. let's be clear. nobody said there was no

surveillance. it's when you call it spying and you know the upper echelons of the fbi screwed up, you are ascribing animus. for barr to say i don't know that anything was done wrong. that's double speak. listen to jim clapper about his concerns on this. >> it has all kinds of negative connotations, and i have to believe he chose that term deliberately. >> so now that's about using basically a bad word, but here was the a.g. himself about the idea of using the word spying. >> do you want to rephrase what you're doing? because i think the word spying could cause everybody in the cable news ecosystem to freak out. >> i'm not sure of all the connotations of that word that you're referring to. >> what do you think, phil mudd? do you think he is? >> oh, come on. give me a break.

>> don't freak out. >> everybody -- i will freak out. everybody in america when you heard the word spy thinks about 007. they think about nasty things that are illegal. let me make this really boring on the cuomo show "prime time" for 20 seconds. what we're talking about is the department of justice and the fbi investigating for them, going to a court of judges who are both republicans and democrats in washington and saying, we have this information about an individual. we'd like to conduct surveillance of that individual, maybe reading their email. yawn. then you say purposefully for someone who has decades of service, that is mr. barr, were spying because the alternative -- explaining what is the process is is too boring. yeah, i think he was purposeful in his language and i don't think it's appropriate. >> fellas, thank you very much. i keep cautioning to be deliberate here. let's see what he does, but the last two days this a.g. has said things that predict action that is a cause for speculation at the least. given his past, especially.

mr. mazzetti, mr. mudd, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> now why do i keep bringing up the past? because it's prolog for the president. this is bill barr's second time around as a.g., and i'm telling you where he has been before is predictive of where we are headed. i'm going to show you stunning similarities. and here's a tease on it. it ended badly the last time. barr arguably put a president before the interests of the people. then something else we have to take on tonight. another perversion of the law. congress' request for the president's taxes was denied tonight by the trump treasury department. they say they need more time. where does it say that the treasury department gets any time? a look at the law ahead.

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here we go again. the attorney general is going by the book. it just happens to be a playbook that he wrote himself. one designed to protect the president. maya angelou told us when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. now, be fair, we have to wait and see what this a.g. reveals of the mueller report before judging, but his comments the last two days take us back to the early '90s. that's when mr. barr was a.g. for a president dogged by questions of back door deals, favorable behavior disorders a dangers despot and the question of how much information the public should see.

sound familiar? back then the scandal was iraq-gate. the potus, george h.w. bush. the issue, whether the president ignored u.s. laws and let saddam hussein use u.s. money to buy weapons. now, in that case there were calls from federal judges and congress for an independent counsel, which bush himself called, guess what, a witch hunt. he turned to his a.g. to run interference, and that his a.g. did. barr refused, saying democrats failed to, quote, identify any particular person alleged to have committed a crime or to describe any particular acts alleged to constitute a crime. sound familiar? sounds a lot like what you're hearing from team trump these days, no? >> where's the crime? we haven't even named a crime. >> there is still no evidence whatsoever of russian collusion. >> there also was no crime. >> barr gamed the system at that time. he didn't break the law. not accusing him of that. he just waited for the old

independent counsel regs to expire then he appointed a special examiner, a retired judge. less time, less money, less freedom to dig deeply. by keeping it in house, mr. barr was able to draw his own conclusion and made sure as little as possible was made public. and he said then he was just playing it by the book. just like he did on obstruction with mueller. not illegally, but certainly a rigged game. his warning at the time was that we cannot allow the criminal process to be used as a political weapon for our partisan purposes. irony. by sitting on the results that's exactly what the a.g. arguably did. by failing to be transparent, he empowered his opposition. here is the lesson about our potential future. suddenly it wasn't just about the underlying concerns, it was about the cover-up. iraq-gate became a cudgel to hit the bush administration. the "l.a. times" published more

than 100 stories dig into the scandal. "the new york times" labelled the a.g. cover-up general barr. not catchy, but it was convincing. it wasn't until the clinton administration, with a.g. janet reno, that the public got a full report. in the end, president bush was cleared of any criminality, just like this president has been, and just like then, barr now clearly and consistently claims to be going by the book while clearly advancing a no holds barr approach to protecting the president's interests. the outrage at his comments over the last two days suggest this a.g. is ready for round two. so, the political question becomes this, the intersection of law and politics here is, is this okay for the a.g. to do? is it a good play for the president? that's the premise for a great debate. let's have it next. pushups read. up. up. down. down. ah ah! that's one. up.

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xfinity watchathon week, free. now through april 14. . this is heady stuff we've seen the last two days. the attorney general said today he thinks the government spied on the trump campaign. he said he has no proof. then went on to blame the top echelon of the fbi for the spying he says he can't prove. this makes no sense coming from an attorney general, but it makes complete sense coming from team trump. >> this is a deep state political hit job now spying on an opposition party campaign. fbi spies during an election. >> they don't want the american people to know that the doj and fbi use political dirt from one campaign paid for by the democrats to go and spy on the

trump campaign. >> when i said there could be somebody spying on my campaign, a lot of things happened. it was like it went wild out there. >> so here's the question. did our attorney general just make it clear that he really is the president's attorney in general? and if so, is this good for the president long term? let's use that as the start of a great debate with van jones and scott jennings. scott jennings, let's start on the plus side. why is it good for the president to have his a.g. being an overt political friend? >> well, i didn't see his testimony that way. i heard attorney general barr today say that he has concerns and that he wants to look into the surveillance and the investigation that was going on from the fbi and the intelligence community into the trump campaign. he said he needed to find out if it was predicated properly. so i don't have any problem with the attorney general exercising some oversight, and i hope, frankly, that he comes up and says, you know, i looked into it

and everything was done above board. that is the outcome we should desire, but we need an outcome because a heck of a lot of americans think something funny went on here. >> here's the problem. there is something funny going on. first of all, van, he said he thinks that there was spying, not that he's looking into it, and he already concluded that, despite the fact that the inspector general for the department of justice is looking into it right now, not making it necessary for a secondary probe. that's funny business, no? >> i mean, listen, if barr had said what scott just said, there would be no story, there would be no controversy because that's exactly the way you're supposed to talk about this stuff. there may be something to look at. i'm not sure we're looking into it. that's not what he said. that's not what the attorney general said. he said spying and spookery and all kinds of other stuff and now people are going nuts because there is something happening with the department of justice right now. people were at first very happy to have barr there. they said finally we're going to have an adult watching the shop.

and he started doing stuff to cost the confidence of the democrats and cost the confidence of other people. first coming out with a four-page memo that very quickly -- some of his underlings said wasn't accurate, wasn't full, wasn't complete. then he goes and throws the word spying out there. these are not the things that an attorney general should be doing if he wants to reassure the country that we have the independence that we're supposed to have in the department of justice. he's starting to do stuff that is scaring the heck out of people because it looks like he's playing a political game rather than playing it down the middle the way you want an attorney general to do. >> are you worried about what this means for the president, scott? because if he doesn't release information that satisfies people's curiosity about mueller, if he starts taking on all of the kind of tit for tat tactics that the president has suggested, how does the president get closure on the mueller questions? how does he get cleared that the rule of law is what he's about instead of using it and bending it to his open needs? >> well, the great thing about

this process is he has a real good chance to prove himself. he's going to release the mueller report to congress here very soon, he said hopefully next week. hope inery in a short order after that he would come back before congress and say i looked into this other issue i mentioned and here's what i found. so he's got two opportunities in the next few weeks to show people that the department of justice is being properly run. and i have every confidence that's exactly what he's going to do. what i don't have confidence in is that the democrats are going to accept outcomes. he's clearly going to make redactions in the mueller report and they're not going to accept it, when in fact he should be redacting some material. so i'm worried that he's going to do his job but it's never going to satisfy the president's political enemies. >> isn't that exactly what is happening now in reverse? van, mueller came out with conclusions, couldn't make a decision on something, which gave a very strong suggestion that there was enough potential proof of obstruction that he couldn't make a call, so mueller made it. not in the rule book. >> right. >> now he has his i.g. looking at a question. he must not like that it's not coming out fast enough the way

he wants to, so he's going to look at it. that's not in the rule book. how is that showing that people can have faith in outcomes and there won't be political reprisals when this looks exactly like that? >> i mean, one of the things that we tried -- pride ourselves on in the united states, there are some institutions, not that any of them are perfect, some institutions that try to maintain the appearance of being above partisanship. the department of justice is one of those. not to say that you haven't had scannels, but at least you had the appearance. you had comey come out and put on a circus and a show around hillary clinton's investigation. that seems to have just thrown this entire process to a different level where we've never seen it before. comey comes out, he does his circus, he does his show, then he does something else. now we've got barr, who rather than saying we are not ever going to do this again, we're going to restore the fbi and the department of justice to the normal way of doing business, he shows up today and throws more

fuel on the fire of disrespect and lack of confidence in our institutions. and that is one of the big things we have to worry about going forward, long after the trump administration has moved on to other things, you're going to have a country that does not know whether our courts, which are being packed right now with right-wing judges, our our department of justice or political institutions. >> listen, i'm okay with the packing of the judges. elections have consequences. and you make the points that you want to make. i don't think it's right for conversation now on the democratic side to find ways to hold them up. elections have consequences. and appointees have to make it through, otherwise you're going to have it revisited on you. >> then obama should have had his pick. >> he should have. that kind of tit for tat and what happened with garland was wrong and it feeds disaffection and ends up lowering people's expectations and we get lesser and lesser quality people that run for office. two things that happened today that worry me from a factual perspective. i couldn't believe that the a.g. didn't know the correct answer

to. the first one was this when he misled people about what the campaign was told about what to look out for with russian interference. >> they had two former u.s. attorneys in chris christie and rudy giuliani involved in the campaign, and i don't understand why the campaign was not advised. >> but they were advised. right after the rnc. i mean, we all know this. this is a matter of simple fact. so either this a.g. doesn't know. that's scary. that the campaign was told be careful, the russians are trying to make lots of trouble for us, be careful. or he does know and he's trying to deceive. that leads me to my second concern, scott, with the aca, why are you litigating it? because we're in litigation so we take a position. right. you're only in litigation because the president told you to. he leaves that out. then he says, well, listen, don't be upset, the president has a plan to replace the aca. that's not true, scott. everybody knows there is no plan until after the 2020 election. these are material misrepresentations of fact by the a.g. why? >> well, i think we need an

accounts of what the trump campaign was told. i know we think they were told something. i'm not sure we know exactly what they were told. there are other people involved in the campaign that say they weren't given a full accounting of how exactly they were being surveilled. so i think if what he accomplishes here is getting a full accounting of what they were told and when and what they were told appropriate, that is a good outcome because there are a lot of people in the republican party who think maybe the trump campaign was not given the full picture of exactly what was going on. so i think there are different opinions about how much they knew, but if what barr accomplishs is get it all out, i don't know why anyone in the general public would have a problem with that. >> well, get it all out, i'm with you. i'm a journalist brother. more better, more better, but, van, do you think your party is up to this challenge? this a.g. has fought this fight before, and i would argue won. i would argue he won iraq-gate. he kept president bush away from scrutiny. he made sure there was no

outside counsel and you didn't learn about how much high jinks there were until an administration later. >> i was very proud to see speaker pelosi and others calling it like it is. this is off the rails. we cannot adapt to absurdity. you cannot have the department of justice, the head of the department of justice, the attorney general, the top cop saying people in my organization, my agency are spying, but i don't know how and i don't know why and i have no facts, but they're spying. hold on a second, guys. you can't even in a normal context if it's your job have the boss come out and accusing people of crimes and have no facts. so part of what's going on here is i do think the democrats are going to have a hard time holding the line against the kind of stuff that we're seeing, but i do see nancy pelosi's up to the fight and i see other democrats who are ready to fight. look, i wish we could focus just on basic issues. people say, you know, the voters have moved on. they want to talk about other

stuff. history has not moved on, though, and history is going to hold everybody accountable for what's going on here and getting to the facts. >> van, scott, thank you very much. certainly to be continued. all right. let's keep with the theme of coordinated attempts to protect this president by people who are supposed to be protecting you and your interests. news tonight from the treasury department on whether or not congress will get to see the president's taxes. i'm telling you, that's already a problem. forget about the deadline. this man should have never been setting a deadline. secretary mnuchin says i'm not handing them over. why is he involved? let's take a look at the law and what it directs and figure out how the hell we got where we are right now. next. whew, 7 more weeks til the baby comes. and we still need to renovate the nursery... and patch that mystery hole. this is why we sofi. with sofi's no-fee personal loan, borrow up to $100k for home projects.

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i am the law and order candidate. >> reconcile that with our present predicament. first, the attorney general, maybe at the direction of this president, we don't know the details, but certainly taking the ball from bob mueller and congress to make the call on whether the president obstructed justice. that is not in the special counsel guidelines. it's not in the law. then we have steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, giving the president cover to hide his taxes. here is the statute. please read it for yourself. it's from 1924. it's never been questioned. it's also never really been used. it says "the secretary shall furnish the committee with any return specified." where does it say he gets to ask for time?

where does it get to say that he is negotiating any of this? there is no wiggle room. shall means what you think it means. must. let's bring in a bonus cuomo's court. elliot williams, jim schultz. jim schultz, i toss the ball to you first. what am i getting wrong here? the statute is as plain speak as you can get, written back in 1924. this is how to works. this is what you do. do you did we get here? >> look, the president's lawyers are already out there making the argument that there has to be a legitimate legislative purchase -- purpose -- not purchase, purpose to the request and that in this case harassing the president or anyone else politically for political purposes, their argument's going to be that it's not a legitimate purpose and it wasn't the intent of the statute. but you're right, the plain language on its face says shall furnish. they could likely take some time and the court would give some time. >> i hear the argument. here's the problem. let me bounce it to williams.

they haven't gone to court to challenge an order. they haven't gone to court to challenge this. they've used the treasury secretary as a proxy for their own legal case. how is that okay, mr. williams? >> oh, it's not. chris, let's have a little quick history lesson here. go back to 1924 and why this law was written in the first place. it was written to protect against misconduct and unfair dealing by a president of the united states and other elected officials. this was written after the tea pot dome scandal of the 1920s that brought in president warren g. harding. so this is exactly the purpose that this statute was written for, right? so we want to ensure as a country that the president of the united states and other elected officials are not engaging in misconduct. financially. and to be clear, like you said in your tease, chris, the statute says shall. there is not, you know, we're all lawyers on this panel. you know, sometimes there is language that is unclear. there is wiggle room or whatever. this is quite clear on its face that this is an individual, you know, it's an individual set of

tax returns, and so the president really doesn't have an excuse here. this idea of, well, i was under audit and so my taxes -- >> that's never been an excuse. that's something he says a lot and that is supposed to be a proxy for proof. it isn't. being under audit is not a reason to not produce taxes. he can say any lawyer will tell you that. that's not what the irs will tell you. jimmy, just be clear about this. >> the audit issue, chris, isn't going to come up in the context of this case. >> the president keeps bringing it up. that's what i'm trying to say, he's distracting us. i'm not saying he doesn't have a case to make. i'm saying he's not supposed to use the treasury secretary as his lawyer in this situation to fight his fight. >> he's not using the treasury secretary as his lawyer. so the treasury secretary can make a determination or the irs commissioner and treasury department can make a determination on this. >> no. no, it says shall. >> that's on congress, chris. procedurally, then it's on congress to hold them in contempt. >> did you just say that line through gritted teeth, jimmy? did you just say something through gritted teeth? >> no, i was just finishing.

it's up to congress to hold them in contempt and go to the d.c. courts after the fact to actually hold them in contempt and ask for relief seeking to produce those documents. >> but wait a minute -- >> then a court gets involved. >> elliot. >> the president doesn't need to go at this point in time to protect those documents. it's a decision that the treasury department can make. >> all right. jimmy -- >> they have an argument to be made. >> jimmy, i hear you. don't filibuster. one point at a time, jimmy. one point at a time. jimmy, one point at a time. elliot -- >> yeah, all right. >> that is not how litigation works when you don't like the operation of a statute. the irs gets to figure out whether or not they want to comply. why would they think about whether or not they want to comply unless they were advancing the interests of the president of the united states? >> and, again, chris, just big picture here, look at what's at issue. every single president of the united states since richard nixon has made their tax returns public. every single presidential candidate of both parties since i believe -- >> and nixon was under audit

when he did it. >> again, as we said, the audit issue has no bearing here on congress' ability -- >> jimmy agrees with that. >> i agree with that. >> but i think, you know, we're getting into the minutia of this 1924 statute. a basic norm of government violated by this president, "a." "b," we have a statute designed to stamp out misconduct and the president hays not complying with it. >> first off, there wasn't a basic norm of government, it was a basic norm of presidential campaigns. what about this, chris? the senate finance committee, chris, is republican right now. so the senate finance committee now wants to ask for the tax returns of nancy pelosi. >> okay. >> of a number of democrats in congress. >> okay. >> for the sole purpose, just like the diplomats want to do to -- >> that's an assumption. >> to politically harass -- >> that's an assumption. don't make that argument in court. don't have the treasury secretary make it. >> not legitimate oversight or

legitimate oversight purpose. >> the treasury secretary doesn't get to make the case -- >> so they will argue it in court, chris. >> moreover, chris. >> at the appropriate time when congress seeks to compel them to produce this information. >> you're forgetting -- >> elliot, you got to fight your way in here. this is a dog fight on this show. get in. >> no doubt. no doubt. i think we're also forgetting congress' role as a co-equal branch of government whose jobto oversee the government. look, i've had the pleasure of working in both blanches of government. we should be welcoming congress investigating the united states. >> that's right. >> put the nancy pelosi question out of this because that's irrelevant to congress, chairs of congressional committees overseeing whether the executive branch is being run effectively, whether the head of the executive branch -- >> hold on. >> hold on. let me finish. i let you finish. either head of the executive branch or as a candidate for president, either is engaged in

financial misconduct. particularly given that i think 11 jurisdictions around the country are investigating him, including for financial crimes and financial misconduct, it doesn't stretch logic to think that we should as a country be entitled to review these tax returns through the chairs of the committees. and, remember, one more thing, this congressional provision actually is less expansive than former folks have done because this would only be a closed session of congress by the chairs of the committee. >> fair point it it doesn't get to everybody. >> it wouldn't be released to the public. >> we wouldn't be here. i'm out of time. i'm out of time, fellas. >> oversight and the statute. that's what you're doing theory. the statute on its plain face would allow a senate finance committee to do just that. >> both circumstances there is -- >> let's just be very clear, elliot and jimmy, we got to agree to this, the only reason we're here is because the president wouldn't put out his taxes. i don't know that anything is going to come out in them that is going to be so daminning to begin with. this is a situation where the cover is going to be worse than

the reveal. jimmy, elliot, appreciate it. thank you very much, fellas, for making the case. just minutes away now. you saw the new box on the bottom. cnn's 2020 town hall, the next presidential candidate at bat is washington governor jay inslee. and we're taking this up. twitter's credibility such as it is took a big blow today. hey, you democrats, you think you represented the right way on there? some facts you're not going to like. and d. lemon, you may like him. next. nothing says spring like fresh flowers,

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democrats are united when it comes to opposing this president and his machinations with his different members of his cabinet, but within the party, the democratic party itself, there is an identity crisis. moderates versus progressives. if you're part of the conversation on social media, you probably think the party is lurching to the left. progressives all but taking over. but a "new york times" analysis of new voter data revealed something else. the democratic electorate online is not the actual democratic electorate. in fact, all those outspoken dem leaning voters are outnumbered by just about 2 to 1 by more moderate, more diverse and less educated groups of democrats who do not typically post political content online. it is they who will decide the democratic presidential nomination. let's bring in d. lemon. now, i will certainly get beaten

up on twitter for what i just said. >> but i'll take my bow here. because i always -- >> oh, please. >> i always say the loudest voices aren't necessarily the majority and they aren't always right. and you know i always get on you because i say, chris, why do you respond to people who have two followers? >> because i'm engaged. not hoity-toity. >> oh, my gosh. that's not even it. what i'm telling you is they don't even represent the electorate. twitter is an outrage machine. >> true. >> the headline would be, no one on twitter was outraged today. >> fair point. >> i think in this there is a lesson for democrats, and i also think there is a lesson for the media as well, and i think there is a lesson for conservatives. number one, we'll start with conservatives. it says that this party is not the group of socialists that you're making it out to be. for the media, it means you should pay less attention to those loud voices and the criticism from online. and for democrats, is that it

you should be more concerned about your traditional democratic center-left candidates because they are probably the ones who will get you to the presidency -- >> you know what, though -- >> more so than the progressive media. >> because the media vibes so much off of progressive twitter. it's easy. why dig for real sources when you can get some guy on twitter whose face may or may not be his own as a source for your reporting. it brings fame to the new women warriors in the part. aoc comes to mind. she's already a set of initials in the political parlance. you know who gets it? pelosi. she has been saying all along, impeachment, i don't know. new green deal? i don't know. let's stick to traditional bread and butter issues. she believes that's their ticket going forward. i must say as a point again interest, don lemon, you do refer to yourself as the twitter king on your page, do you not? >> yeah. because i know how to use it.

>> oh. that's what makes someone -- >> i don't waste my time. >> someone twitter king? >> i don't waste my time on things -- i use it when i have to, but i've sort of backed away. it's become really, really a terrible, toxic this goes to show you that we had all this consternation about joe biden. >> not us. >> i meant the country. 71% of california voters said it wasn't a big deal. most democratic voters say that is not a big deal. they were making too much out of it. they would give joe biden the benefit of the doubt and he is still the leader, even though he's undeclared, a lesson there, a traditional democrat, maybe start thinking about that. twitter fame isn't necessarily the person who's going to get you across the finish line. >> 100%. as i said, i believe to you, maybe in a segment exactly like this one. joe biden's biggest challenge

intra-party are yet to come. he still has to worry about being eaten by his own. that is fair. >> i'm going to have an amazing conversation with the former director of national intelligence about were they briefed, the president said he wasn't briefed on all these things russia and stuff. >> july, after the rnc, the campaign was told be careful about the russians. great conversation. bill barr's spying comments, that's what don's conversation is going to riff off of, it obviously struck a big chord today. but i don't think you should be surprised by what you heard. i think you should be prepared. i made a case yesterday about who mr. barr really is. he made the case for me today, the proof ahead. that's some great paint. that's some great paint.

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simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. we argued last night that mr. barr is not neutral. now that argument is all but confirmed as fact after yesterday and today. during which we have never seen an official more openly flout the same rules he purports to adhere to. one pushback on the dems outrage saying mr. barr is off the rails is wrong. he is right on track. he is no holds barr when it comes to serving the interests of the man who picked him. the evidence. comments back in 2017 that the probe was unnecessary. promoting the president's notion that the entire probe is "taking on the look of an entirely

political operation to overthrow the president." that it is all but impossible for potus to obstruct justice. a few months later he e-mailed "the new york times" reporter to swipe at hillary clinton while attacking the mueller investigation again. i have long believed that the predicate for investigating the uranium deal as well as the foundation is far stronger than any basis for investigating so-called collusion. june 2018 completely unsolicited, barr sends a memo to the doj saying the same thing arguing the president is above the law essentially. look at his own language." there is no legal prohibition as opposed to a political constraint against the presidents acting on a matter in which he has a personal stake." remember that. he said that then. but when mueller said i can't make a decision, ostensibly leaving it to congress, he took it from mueller. why? what playbook is the a.g.

following? this one. >> this was an illegal investigation. it was started illegally. everything about it was crooked. and this was an attempted coup, an attempted takedown of a president. hopefully the attorney general, he mentioned it yesterday, he's doing a great job getting started ongoing back to the origins of exactly where this all started and what they did was treason. >> from trump's lips to the a.g.'s ears, 30 minutes later barr said this. >> spying on a political campaign is a big deal. i think there's a spying did occur. >> he thinks. do you have proof? >> no. listen. >> have you any evidence that there was anything improper in those investigations? >> i have no specific evidence that i would cite right now. i do have questions about it. >> questions.

but he already came to a conclusion. the attorney general? that's not playing it by the book. that will become a mantra. the common frustration that feds never talk about ongoing investigations, and that's playing it by the book. now this a.g. gives a conclusion before an investigation has even started. by the book you don't open an investigation into something that is already being investigated by your own inspector general. and a look at the roots of the russia probe, including any surveillance of the campaign, is ongoing. yet this a.g. has started his own team. that's not going by the book. saying there was spying. that's a dirty word for surveillance. usually used by opponents of our law enforcement community, not by its head. that's not by the book. saying today the campaign was an informed of russia interference when it was in july 2016 right after the rnc, that's not

playing by the book. finding ways to limit disclosure of the mueller report, taking the decision on obstruction from mueller, misleading congress about the president litigating the aca, boem care, saying he has a plan to replace it. misstating that the administration had changed the rules to prohibit family separation. none of that is by the book. so the president has clearly made this attorney general his pleni po tentiary. he is the president's lawyer. proof. want my taxes, says the president, ask the a.g. neither potus nor the a.g. have any say over the statute that was passed by congress and clearly lays out a process were obtaining taxes, has nothing to do with either of them. want the full report. get rid of the aca?

go at it, a.g.? don't be deceived by barr's sense of calm. that's not -- his ease is a function, not of clear conscience, but of comfort in the position, of protecting the president in political scrutiny. this was who barr was in blocking transparency. remember maya angelou, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. now time for cnn's big time presidential town hall. governor jay inslee starts right now. good evening, and welcome to a cnn democratic presidential town hall. with governor jay inslee of washington state. i'm wolf blitzer. governor