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. i am chris cuomo. the one handed push up -- 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 aide, 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. at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your manufacturing business.

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before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? 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 digging 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?

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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 .

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.

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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. to evaluate. >> 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." q to stamp out misconduct and the president hays not complying with it. the president is doing everything -- >> 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 job it is to oversee the government. -- executive. 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 damning 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. visionworks can do more than just make you see great.

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you're going to be seeing a lot more of him now. -i'm not calling him "dad." -oh, n-no. -look, [sighs] i get it. some new guy comes in helping your mom bundle and save with progressive, but hey, we're all in this together. right, champ? -i'm getting more nuggets. -how about some carrots? you don't want to ruin your dinner. -you're not my dad! -that's fair. overstepped. to save 30% on all the medications we carry. so go directly to petmeds.com now. 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. that got them through the midterms. 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 environment.

but, listen, this shows to go ya, or goes to show ya. that we had all this about joe biden and making people uncomfortable. the country and democrats. 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. twitter fame isn't going to get you across the finish line. >> 100%. and as i said to you joe biden's biggest challenge intraparty. >> is joe biden? >> is yet to come. they have to figure out who they want to be and whether or not he fits that perception of the party. we'll see. 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 russia and all of this stuff. you're going to want the hear it. >> we do know that it happened. july after the rnc, the campaign was told be careful about the russians that will be a great conversation. >> see you at 11:00. >> d-lemon, see you. 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. bar really is. he made the case for me today. the proof ahead. (door bell rings) it's open! hey. this is amazing. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? even when i was there, i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira can help get, and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts.

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all right. 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, however, on the dems' outrage saying mr. barr is off the rails is wrong. he is right on track. he is no holds barred 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, quote, 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 mailed a "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 president's 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 to it congress, he took it from mueller. why, if he saw it as a political consideration? what playbook is the aag following? this one. >> it was an illegal investigation. it was started illegally. everything about it was crooked. and this was a -- an attempted coup. this was an attempted takedown of a president.

hopefully the attorney general, he mentioned it yesterday, he is doing a great job getting started on going back to the origins of exactly where this all started and what they did was treason. >> from trump's lips to the ag's ears. 30 minutes later, barr said this. >> spying on a political campaign is a big deal. i think there is a spying did occur. >> he thinks. do you have proof? no. listen. >> have you any evidence 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 ag 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 to look at the roots of the russia probe, including any surveillance of the campaign is ongoing. yet this ag 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 it 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, obamacare, 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 pl plenipotent year on all matters legal. he is the president's lawyer. proof, want my tax, says the president? ask the ag. neither potus nor the ag have any say over the statute that was passed by congress and clearly lays out a process for obtaining taxes, has nothing to do with either of them. want the mueller report? i leave to it the ag. don't be deceived by barr's sense of calm. his ease is a function, not of clear conscience, but of comfort in the position, protecting a president from political scrutiny. this is who barr was in iraqgate.

who he was allowing then president bush to avoid scrutiny, blocking transparency. remember maya angelou, our poet laureate who taught us something powerful and process sake. when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. all right. thank you for watching. the news continue news here on cnn. thank you very much. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. thank you very much for joining us. you just watched our cnn town hall with washington governor and presidential candidate jay inslee answering questions from the audience for more than an hour, talking about his signature issue, which is climate change, as well as legalizing marijuana, criminal justice reform, and health care. they discussed a lot there. we've got to talk what we saw today from the president of the united states and his attorney general. did you see it? a two-man show. one bombastic and braggadocious. the other more