before we go, next thursday, may 9th, 8:00 p.m., i'll be hosting a live town hall with former fbi director james comey here in washington, d.c. we'll talk about obviously today's hearing. he's also adding new material to his book "a higher loyalty" which is coming out in paperback. the focus will be on questions from the audience. look forward to it, tune in. that does it for us tonight. the news continues with chris cuomo and "cuomo prime time." i am quist cuomo live from washington, d.c. and welcome to "prime time." attorney general bill barr did not back down an inch before the senate committee today and that made strengths and weaknesses of his case and cause very clear. democrat on the senate panel who did get to cross examine the attorney general today, he's going to tell us what comes next now. and what comes next in the house now that mr. barr says he won't

show tomorrow. also, big question from today. how can the attorney general rationalize clearing the president on crimes that are driven by intent without knowing what the president's intent was? that's the big question for cuomo's court. we'll take it on. let's get after it. so the latest is that chairman nadler in the house says that the a.g. is trying to blackmail his committee by not showing tomorrow and he's threatening to hold mr. barr in contempt unless the full, unredacted mueller report is handed over. now the question is, should they subpoena mr. barr? why did they not? they had that available to them. mr. barr has no interest in changing perceptions about him, given what he said today, especially when it comes to suggestions that he's just covering for the president. we saw that when he made excuses on trump's behalf, parsing words

over what the president may have meant when he talked to don mcgahn and others. here's a sample. >> the president never directed him to fire, and there is a distinction between saying to someone, go fire him, go fire mueller, and saying, have him removed based on conflict. >> right, the problem is that that distinction is based on your intention. right in the words you use are a function of what you mean. but as far as we know the attorney general doesn't know what the president meant because we are told he never spoke to him about this. and certainly the president refused to be interviewed and never answered any written questions, even through his attorneys, about obstruction. so how does he know? how can he be so sure? let's ask somebody who had to put those questions to the a.g., senate judiciary committee member chris kunz, democrat from delaware. thank you for joining us, it's been a long day. >> it's been a long day indeed,

chris. it was i thought a very revealing hearing in front of the senate judiciary committee. my concern all along about attorney general bill barr that is donald trump, high pressure president nominated him because he was looking for someone to be his loyal counsel, his advocate, rather than the people's attorney general. and i think in the questioning before our committee today we saw that that's exactly what president trump has gotten. someone who has been shading things, characterizing things, shifting things in a way that favors the president's narrative and in a way that has made it harder for the american people to really get the benefit of robert mueller's hard work as special counsel. >>. the, so for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. or it doesn't matter but it's a matter of opinion. what difference does it make going forward? >> well, i asked a question today that i thought was directly related to our next election, to 2020. there was bipartisan agreement at the beginning of the hearing,

that given volume one of the mueller report which lays out chapter and verse how aggressively russian intelligence officials, russian intelligence officers from the gru, broke into and hacked into the dnc's emailed, hillary clinton's emails, shared those with wikileaks, tried to help donald trump, then the trump campaign failed when offered this help to notify the fbi. i asked attorney general barr, going forward in 2020, should a campaign offered dirt on their opponent by a hostile power accept it, or should they go to the fbi? he hesitated. he hemmed and hah wed. he said, that depend is, i'm not sure. if it's a foreign intelligence officer, perhaps. >> why isn't that an acceptable question any heard that with great interest. i want your take. my take was that he was trying to put the gotcha on you for not

being precise enough in the question. were we just talking about anybody from north korea? or are we talking about someone that you know is connected to the intelligence of a foreign/inimical power? how did you take it? >> i think he was trying to shape the question so that it did not implicate the actions of the trump campaign team in the trump tower meeting with russians who were proffering information, who they didn't know for sure were from the intelligence service. that's what i thought he was doing. >> now i want to play some sound of one of the answers that mr. barr gave today that kind of sheds light on where we are in terms of how to assess neutrality and any sense of impartiality going forward. >> i received a letter from bob, the letter that's just been put into the record. and i called bob and said, you know, what's the issue here? are you -- i asked him if he was suggesting that the march 24th letter was inaccurate. and he said, no, but that the

press reporting had been inaccurate. he was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report. >> now obviously mr. barr would be nuts to just make things up that mr. mueller said, knowing that while senator graham may block him from coming to your committee, he's almost certainly going to appear before somebody of congress. so what he said there, two interesting things. one, it's about a phone call, nick collison the letter. we only have the actual text in the letter. mr. mueller does not mention the media in the letter but he does convey that because of what he calls mr. barr's summary, the public now has misimpressions and misinterpretations of what happened. mr. barr blamed the media for it. what's your take? >> i think robert mueller's goal in that letter was to further press bill barr, the attorney general, to release the summaries, the 10 and 12-page summaries of the two volumes of

his 400-page report. >> clearly. >> that's because if the summary of the second volume had been released to the public 25 days earlier than it ultimately was, it lays out a great deal of the troubling facts about obstruction of justice. it makes it clear that there were 10 different instances in which senior white house officials or the president himself directed folks to try and fire mueller, during the coursed folks to lie, directed folks to create false documents. that would have been clear. so that the sort of triumphalist narrative that the president and his defenders took to the press with for three weeks, that he was completely exonerated, couldn't have been sustained. so i think it's possible that what robert mueller was saying, well, you weren't misleading, you weren't inaccurate in how you characterized my report, but you weren't fully forthcoming. and you're leaving the public with this mistaken impression for more than three weeks, so

that it sets in the public's mind the idea that this report is far more exculpatory than it actually is. >> in terms of going forward, if mr. mueller comes in and speaks, say, before the house and says, yeah look, here was what i meant on obstruction, it was a close call, i couldn't make the call anyway because of the guidance and it wouldn't be fair to the president, so we didn't make a call because obviously as i say in the report congress can do this, and criminality is moot anyway is because you're not going to indict this president, so yeah, i wanted to leave to it congress. what does that mean that's any different than what you could do right now? >> i think it would be important for the public to hear that robert mueller didn't exonerate the president, that he conducted a wide-ranging and thorough investigation and uncovered ample evidence of obstruction of justice, but given the constraints that you just referenced, he left it to congress to decide what further actions to take with regard to the president. let me also remind you, chris, there are at least 12 other

ongoing investigations in other courts, in other jurisdictions, that were spun off of the mueller special counsel investigation. one of my core questions today was whether we can continue to have confidence that bill barr will supervise those ongoing investigati investigations in his role as attorney general in a way that really is impartial. >> it was clear from the questioning of yours and senator harris to mr. barr, he was very clear, i am not recusing myself, i don't think i have to go to the ethics panel about it, and it's going to continue on. so there a story to be told there as well. i think the biggest thing that you guys got today in terms of any kind of concession from barr is that he said, i accept all the findings of mr. mueller in this report based on the underlying evidence, which he then admitted he hadn't seen all of it. but if he believes everything in that. the is fair and accurate, then this president's going to have a lot to answer for when people understand exactly what's in

there. senator, thank you. i'll talk to you going forward. all right, so mr. barr actually blamed the media and mr. mueller today for any confusion. he blamed mueller for not reaching a conclusion on charges the president and took other shots at the special counsel as well. he also hinted to what we were just talking about, about further investigations. when asked about the white house, asking him to take on investigations, asking him to do things, he parsed. what do you mean, ask? what do you mean, do we talk? what does that mean about what he may do on other matter matte? coming up we're going to take it up with a great team of investigators, next. calling all sunscreen haters. you're gonna love this. new coppertone sport clear. not thick, not hot, not messy, just clear, cool, protected. coppertone sport clear. proven to protect.

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>> bob mueller is the equivalent of the u.s. attorney. i don't consider bob at this stage of the career a prosecutor. the letter's a bit snitty and i think it was probably written by one of his staff people. >> that's not very friendly. i want too bring in a great team of people who understand these issues and implications in law and furnishalism. phil mudd,. i want to talk about the takeaways of what this means today and going forward. mike, to your appreciation of now you see that barr, buddy-buddies with mueller no more, this is about protecting the president no matter who gets in the the way. we had senator grassley on this point with the a.g., take a listen. >> was it special counsel mueller's responsibility to make a charging recommendation? >> i think the deputy attorney general and i thought it was. >> now that was just a taste. in fact, it wasn't even that

good of one. i'm going to have them find something better. there was a lot of discussion about what mueller should have done and what mueller was supposed to be about there are your take? >> barr was clearly throwing his old friend and colleague, bob mueller, under the bus. i mean, he criticized him on multiple levels. right from the get-go he said he met with mueller on march 5th and talked to him about the upcoming report and said, he told him, make sure you identify grand jury material so we don't have to get into a protracted review that's going to delay this. and he says mueller essentially ignored him, that he gave him a report without identifying -- >> so much more work thank you surprised and that's the reason it was delayed. he also said something else that plays to the republicans. the republicans today, they didn't want to talk about whether or not there was obstruction. they didn't want to talk about any of it. they wanted to talk about spying, they wanted to talk about how the real russian collusion is with the clinton campaign paying for a dossier that was used with russian

agents and that was money given to russia, essentially, that's collusion, and bill barr, when asked about it, was like, well, yeah, i guess you should have looked at that, i'm going to have to look into that, oh, yeah, the spying, you probably should have looked into the roots. what does that mean? that wasn't part of the purview of mr. mueller, was it? >> barr makes clear he buys into the republican argument on this. there is an inspector general report that's coming in the next few weeks that's going to have a big impact on how this plays out. if the ig finds problems in the way the fbi used the steele dossier and the fisa warrant, that's going to play right into the republicans' hands and it is going to change the debate on this somewhat because that would give an imprim may tour from an independent ar bit tore that argument. we don't know that that's what he's going to find but that's the ball game on that score. >> susan, one thing in the weeds, it's going to be relevant to people and hopefully i'll remind them them and they'll say, that's why he said it.

carter page is going to be a big thing for republicans. they're going to say, the way you got that fisa warrant is bogus. mike mu casey, former a.g. under president bush, friend of the show, comes on and says, that carter page fisa application, probable cause of a crime, they never charged him, what does that tell you? that wasn't the standard for getting the fisa application on carter page, was it? it was probable cause about his connection to a foreign agent. they didn't have to charge him with a crime to justify that the surveillance was worthwhile, did they? >> exactly. they didn't have to charge him with a crime. any individual who has worked in the intelligence community and the department of justice who read the mueller report would understand that it would have been appalling for the fbi to have seen the level of -- that level of evidence and not have at least looked into it as a counterintelligence matter. a fisa warrant is an extraordinarily high standard. the government has to go before a federal court, a federal judge. yes, it is secret. yes, it as little bit different from the ordinary process. there is absolutely no

indication that anything improper occurred, anything irregular happened. of course the inspector general's report will come out. >> sure. >> that's going to be important. but if the fisa force itself believes there was any kind of issue, they would be looking into this and there's just no indication whatsoever, either that there was a problem with the manner in which they obtained the fisa war rapid, or that they lacked proper bread case here. there is an bun days of proper bread case here. any individual can see that from what mueller produced. >> they were looking at carter page before the campaign for certain activities. second point, how mr. barr rationalized his explanations on obstruction today. here's a key piece of sound about that from the hearing. >> the president could terminate that proceeding and it would not be a corrupt intent because he was being falsely accused. and we now know that he was being falsely accused. >> do we now know that he was being falsely accused or do we

now know that there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt in mueller's estimation that there was a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy? aren't those very different things? and how would he know what the president thought? >> certainly we saw a report that said, lots of collusion, no criminal conspiracy, which is something quite different. even on its face, some sort of legal argument, the primary argument barr is making to say the president of the united states did not commit a crime in the face of the overwhelming evidence we see on that very point is this notion that there's no underlying crime. if you haven't committed the krund lying crime, you can't therefore obstruct justice. that's just wrong. the underlying crime had occurred. for example, michael flynn had lied to the fbi. that's a crime to which he pled guilty. the investigation that the president was obstructing was into that behavior. it was into russian interference in the u.s. election. certainly bob mueller has laid out the overwhelming evidence of the existence of that crime.

and so really this argument that bill barr is making again and again and again to basically say, well, if there's no underlying crime there can't be obstruction. it's just wrong as a legal matter. it's just not supported by the facts. i think it really does go to a really important point which is, this is the attorney general reassuring the american people that the president of the united states did not commit a crime while in office, and he is not remotely convincing on that point. >> except at the end of the day's politics, even thousand you were in the business of intelligence and intelligence analysis, how do you think this came out today? >> i did a lot of hearings. take this from a different optic, barr's optic. you're walking into a hostile hearing. let me give you one bar. it is not going to go well. he walks out of the hearing and a couple of things happen. bottom line, barr one. item number one that happens, how much was president trump discussed today and how much was president trump hammered by the other side? barr is taking all the heat.

the president is taking no heat after 2 1/2 years where the president's getting hammered. if i'm walking out and i'm the white house i'm saying, my attorney general just took one for the team. that's a success. second and final success if you're barr, you're going to go in talking about the investigation, you're going to go in talking about issues that have been on the headlines every day. how many deadlines today for middle america? if you're going into that hearing, i'm saying, i don't want to walk out with a success, i want to walk out ensured that i didn't drop a bomb that embarrassed the white house. so it's not only the president's name, it's any bombshells. if i'm him, i'm walking out saying, not bad. >> that would be successful if he was the president's defense attorney, if he was the president's private counsel. to the extent that he actually viewed that as his job, i agree, it probably was successful. the problem is he's the chief law enforcement officer and the attorney general of the united states. he works for us, not for donald trump. >> what this does tee up is bob mueller's testimony. i think that is going to have more of an impact than anything

that happened today. and look, i mean, mueller has not spoken. he doesn't like to speak at all. he's not a loquacious guy. he doesn't do interviews. he doesn't like to give speeches. we're going to hear from him the first time. we probably should have heard from him before. but this was his report. how does he present this? how did he analyze? and how does he explain why he did not make a call on the obstruction issue? >> that's the key. >> that is the big -- we read that letter and you listen to barr's testimony, and at least part of the subtext here is mueller was upset at the criticism he was getting after barr's letter for not making the call. >> right, understood. >> and that's why he wrote the letter. >> that's a perfect stopping point. when we come back, what is the way forward? what would need to happen to change the state of play as it stands right now?

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that's why we keep telling you to read it. you're going to hear it being spun all the time. for example, multiple accounts of the president calls for investigations of political rivals.

when the attorney general today was asked if he has been asked by the white house to launch them, listen to this. >> has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone, yes or no, please, sir? >> president or anybody else. >> seems you'd remember something like that, be able to tell us. >> yeah, but i'm trying to grapple with the word suggest. >> absolutely he's trying to grapple with it and i'm about to explain why. phil, susan, michael, thank you for sticking around. so phil, the reason he's grappling with it because he's not there as the a.g., because if he were there just as the a.g., he'd say, yeah, here's exactly what they said. it is not wrong for the white house to suggest an investigation of somebody. it would be wrong for you to do automatically whatever they say as attorney general. who disagrees? >> i do disagree. >> if the white house were to come to you, we think you should look into something, that's not wrong? >> we have a basic principle of

law enforcement independence. yes, of course the president oversees the department of justice but there is a reason why there is a process by which communication about specific cases only go through the white house counsel's office. and it's because a justice system that is wielded against the president's political ene enemies or for political purposes or for anything other than the actual administration of the justice, that would be deeply corrosive to our system. we have elaborate procedures designed to avoid exactly the perception of something like that -- >> the perception. but the idea, mike, i don't need to tell you this, you know that presidents have said to their ags that things deserve attention that people deserve attention. how you process it is fine. >> policy matters, yes. but when you get into particular criminal investigations, pretty much since watergate, it's been a no-no for presidents or white house officials to make particular suggestions to attorneys general to investigate particular people. and i thought that was, you know, one of the most important

parts of today's testimony. >> right. >> that harris questioning. because clearly barr knew there was something -- >> that's right. >> -- where this came up -- >> that's my point is if he was playing it straight he would have just said, yeah, they've talked to me about a few things but we do what we want to do here. he didn't. he said, let me think. how do i stay clear of this situation, phil? what do you mean by who? what do you mean by asked? that is a lawyer giving an answer to insulate exposure. >> time-out, there's a penalty flag here. >> go ahead. >> there's a difference, as you're suggesting, between saying, let's talk about a case, and should you open an investigation. let me take you back in my old world and make this crystal clear. we get intercepted communication that shows there's extensive operational affidavit by al qaeda or isis in los angeles, new york, chicago. you go into the white house, you have a conversation, and this would include the president, maybe his legal counsel. the conversation says, this is what's going on in new york, we're looking at these al qaeda people in new york, they might have some connections there. for somebody to sit there and say, well, we think you should

open up an investigation on these other people in the intercepted communications? that's weird. that doesn't -- that's odd. i can see them saying, we're interested in how this investigation proceeds. but for them to tell the legal people at the departments of justice and fbi, here's how you should proceed with an investigation in my world, that's odd. >> you really think that barr was thinking about a question about counterterrorism in that -- with kamala harris? >> no, obviously. what i'm saying is there's a clear parallel. for the white house, whether it's counterintelligence, counterterrorism, criminal case, to say, that's a very interesting case, we have recommendations on how you open up an investigation. what? what that is? >> the reason harry was asking the question is because there are multiple instances described in the mueller report in which the president of the united states directed the attorney skrn general and other individuals to investigate hillary clinton. that is abuse of his office. there is no constitutional or other theory by which you could

justify the president making that kind of request. so harris was asking, question know that he made that request of jeff sessions and other individuals, has he made that request of you? and bill barr should be in a position to be able to say, absolutely not. >> that's my point. and then when he was asked, i think it was by lindsey graham, i don't knowing i lost count. someone said to him in this kind of very semiautomatic bullet point, do you agree with this? do you think there was spying, yes. do you think they need to look, yes. do you think the dossier was a problem, yes. do you think we need to look at clinton, yes. it was all the way down the line of checking every box of consideration for the president. where does that take us next? >> look, you know, the discussion of the evidence in the mueller report was kind of limited today. there was some -- >> because he said he didn't look at all of it. >> there was some time spent on the mcgahn issue and the fact that the president asked mcgahn to write a memo that was false and he didn't actually try to order him to fire mueller. but, you know, there is so much else in that report.

consider the conversation the president has with corey lewandowski in which he's telling him to go to jeff sessions and have him curtail the investigation to avoid investigating what happened in the 2016 election, but to focus on future elections. aside from the question of how you investigate something that's going to happen in the future. >> right. >> the absurdity of that was, that was -- clearly shows what the president's intent was, what he was trying to accomplish in all these -- >> not according to the a.g., and they give him great shelter because lewandowski didn't do it. endeavoring to obstruct. they could have said, yeah, but you were trying to, even if the guy didn't do it. but mr. barr didn't want to touch any of that today. my question is this. at the end of the day there's exposure to mr. barr, that he's been playing favorites instead of playing to the constitution, being about the book, the way he says he is. fine, so what? where does that leave the democrats going forward? what has to happen next to change the state of play from where we are right now?

>> i don't think it's just about the democrats. the reason why we have things like special counsels and independent investigations is because it's really important for the american people to believe that there are unbiased investigations that they can understand what has happened at the highest echelons of government and that they can believe and have faith in the findings. >> you got the report. >> essentially what barr has done, what mueller's letter accuses him of directly, is inserting himself into the process such that he has stripped out the perception of -- >> right, but you have the report, you'll have mueller. then what? where do you go with this? >> i think this is pretty simple. nancy pelosi already told us. we don't have substantial information allows to us go to where a lot of -- some of the fringe democrats want to go impeachment. >> not so fringe at this point. >> i don't think it's fringe. >> my opinion, they're fringe. my point what is she's saying is now we're going to proceed potentially with calling people like don mcgahn, like robert mueller. what's the suggestion from her?

we need video that is somebody on tv to give us a bombshell where the american people say, i didn't read 450 pages, but don mcgahn just told us the president asked him to lie. >> you think they'll go through all of this again? you think the people will tolerate that? >> one important piece of news other than mutual mueller and mcgahn is clearly the most important witness we need to hear from, but barr said today, we haven't waived executive privilege on mcgahn. >> right. essentially it up to the president if mcgahn testifies. >> which they may make a move to block him from testifying. >> this was an a.g. today who keeps saying, the president fully cooperated. i don't know -- of everything that was said today that makes the least sense to me. he didn't give mueller so clearly what mueller needed, although i don't know why he wrote in that report -- but we still have what we needed. no, you didn't. you couldn't make a decision. the president obviously didn't testify. he didn't answer a single question about obstruction. he didn't answer any substantive questions about his presidency. >> congress is to proceed on an

impeachment inquiry. inquiry is not the same thing as impeachment. impeachment inquiry is saying, we still have questions. we do not have all of the answers yet so we are going to do the duty and the constitutional function of our branch to hold hearings and get answers for the american people. >> i just think they've got a fatigue factor. these are all good points. we're going to see what you want at the end of the day. people will be looking at polls to see, is there any energy for people to want more examination of this? susan hennessey, michael lessi cough, phil mudd, thank you very much. more key moments that left the a.g. flummoxed today. questions he hedged on. those are going to be the ones that reveal gaps going forward. so let's bring in the legal eagles to take this on in "cuomo's court" next. tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.

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the united explorer card makes things easy. traveling lighter. taking a shortcut. woooo! taking a breather. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com. bill barr, the attorney general, was clearly trying to clear the president today, especially on obstruction. that's not a criticism, it's a matter of fact. here's how he talked about the president, for instance, asking don mcgahn to get rid of the special counsel. >> the president never directed

him to fire, and there is a distinction between saying to someone, go fire him, go fire mueller, and saying, have him removed based on conflict. >> yeah, and the distinction is based on intent. this would be all about the president's intent. the question is, how does mr. barr know what was in the head of the president at that time? let's discuss this and more. "cuomo's court" is in session. jim simultaneouses, asher r ramgappa, thank you to both of you. the president did not testify. we know why. he did not answer any written questions about obstruction. we know why. how does mr. barr have complete confidence in what the intentions were and were not of the president? >> well, he has to go on the conclusions of mueller, and clearly that he did that here in terms of reading the facts that were in that report and taking them as true -- >> mule der not divine his

intentions, we know that. >> and if he's -- i understand, but if you're looking at it on its face and you're looking at what was characterized in that report as a problem with conflicts of interest and a concern about conflicts of interest, first off, it's not don mcgahn's job at the time to look into conflicts of interest. that would have been the justice department's job. that's likely why don mcgahn didn't take it up in any way, shape or form, among other reasons. in terms of conflict of interest, was not his job to assess those conflicts of interest as white house consell. nor his job to raise it to the department of justice. that's the job of rudy giuliani, jay sekulow, the president's private lawyers. so in that sense don mcgahn represents the white house in the context of it being the white house and the president as the president, not as a personal individual. >> all right, fine. but asha, that is fine and true and well reasoned but off the point. the points did the president tell mcgahn to do something, to get rid of him in the a.g. says, i don't think he meant it that

way. he didn't use the word "fire." there are alternate meanings of what could have happened. where do you get the confidence in that? >> well, you left out another key component of that clip which is after the president asked mcgahn to get rid of the special counsel, he then asked mcgahn to falsify a paper trail so that it never showed that he made that request. so that itself there shows a corrupt intent. it shows that he's trying to conceal what he was in fact trying to do. as far as barr can know, he cannot. as you mentioned, there was no interview done of the president. there were no written answers given. so he has only mueller's evidence, which he admitted today in his testimony that he himself has not reviewed. if what he's doing is what legal scholars say is a day novo review of all of it brand-new, he has to go to the underlying evidence, and he basically admit head didn't do that.

from what i could tell, he's barely read the report. >> although he did say he accepts all the findings of mr. mueller, which i think is going to come back to haunt him. he also gave us a little window into how he saw the process here in terms what was rules were okay and not okay. listen to this about the use of him and mr. rosenstein in this analysis. >> i am informed that before i arrived, he had been cleared by the ethics officials. >> of what? >> of serving as acting attorney general on the mueller case. >> how about making a charging decision on obstruction of justice? underlying owe offenses which include him as a witness? >> you know -- he -- that's what the acting attorney general's job is. >> to be a witness and to make the decision about being a prosecutor? >> well, no. but to make charging decisions. >> so what's the point here? the point here, jimmy, is that rosenstein might have been a witness in the matter that he then decided, with mr. barr. if he's by the book barr, why didn't he go and get ethics

clearance on whether or not rosenstein needed to be recused on that? >> look, rosenstein was appointed acting attorney general as it related to overseeing this investigation. certainly he can make charging decisions relative to that and ethics officials would raise it. certainly no one's going to question the integrity. at least democrats said rod rosenstein was the savior of the mueller investigation, now they want to turn around and attack barr, make rosenstein a foil, rather than just sticking to their guns and saying, look, rod rosenstein is a standardup guy, a good lawyer -- >> jimmy -- >> -- well respect, and can make these judgments. >> that bothers you but you just saw a.g. barr, who says he's 30-year friends with bob mueller, throw him under the bus and sit there and implicate mueller in an alleged cover-up -- >> two lawyers -- let me respond. you saw two lawyers disagreeing on points. we fight as lawyers all the time in court. we have disagreements internal to our offices all the time.

that means we're not -- that doesn't mean we're not friends at the end of the day. >> he allowed bob mueller to be implicated by republican senators as part of a cover-up of clinton's campaign investigation. and we all heard it. asha, weigh in on this. jimmy, let me let her get in. >> yeah, go ahead, go ahead. >> with the rosenstein issue, barr was being completely disingenuous. let's remember that the whole reason that the special counsel was appointed was because there was at least an appearance of conflict or possibly a conflict because of the involvement of jeff sessions and rod rosenstein in the firing of james comey. that's why you have this interest prosecutor. even if rosenstein got ethics clearance to be able to supervise that investigation, to then act as a judge in a case in which he himself is a witness is a completely different ethical issue. and would require a separate -- >> he's a prosecutor, asha, you know better. >> -- ruling internal ethics -- >> he's not acting as a judge,

in the role of a prosecutor -- >> when you are making -- >> separations of powers here and the executive branch versus the judiciary, no. >> jim, read the regulations. the special counsel steps in to -- >> the special prosecutor like barr said is like a u.s. attorney. who does the u.s. -- do the u.s. attorneys report to? the attorney general. in this case rod rosenstein. he was supervising the investigation and had a right to make charges decisions. >> i got that point as to why you think -- >> chris, federal regulations -- the regulations gave the special counsel the prosecutorial and declamation decision surprisely because the d.a.g. and a.g. were conflicted and can thought make that decision. >> no one ever said the d.a.g. was conflicted, absolutely not. no one ever made a determination that the deputy attorney general was conflicted in this matter. if he was conflicted, he

couldn't supervise it. the ethics officials would have opined -- >> creating a special counsel -- read the grounds for the appointment of a special counsel. when there may be an appearance of any kind of conflict, that is when a special counsel is appointed. he cannot -- so that you can give those prosecutorial decisions to someone who is insulated from the people who may be unable, for either appearance or actual conflicts, from being able to do that. >> why have someone supervising the investigation? >> all right, so let's leave it there. >> because the supervisory mechanisms offered more oversight. >> right. we'll leave it there. >> so the guy that's overseeing it had a conflict? >> exactly right, the guy who was overseeing it saw a conflict once it started in, then it was about what do you do with that conflict in the question is did mr. barr consider it? did he look at it? he's supposed to be by the book. by his answer today in the hearing, he didn't know why they were asking him. as promised phil mudd is

coming back because we want to know in a segment called "gtk," "good to know." after today, what was it good to hear about and to understand for the path forward? we'll get that right back.

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with an extra-large applicator and full-coverage formula. it shapes, covers, and contours. so much more than concealer. in 25 shades. new infallible full wear concealer the attorney general testified for five hours today. now there is a lot that can happen there. phil mudd highlights three particular points in "good to know." phil, your first point, barr

won. what does that mean? >> heck, yeah. you're looking at this saying, why didn't he answer this question, that question, the other question? if you're going into that hearing and you have a connection with the white house, you might walk out with a couple thoughts. number one, did the president get embarrassed? the answer was no, he didn't. number two -- >> to have an a.g. who seems to be acting as his personal counsel -- >> that's what chris cuomo thinks. if you may be an a.g. who says, i was just appointed by this guy who likes to trash people. you walk out saying, the president didn't get embarrassed here. obviously the president has tweeted saying, i was pretty happy with this. second question, how many headlines did barr give them beyond saying what i told you in the letters i gave you is what i believe? i don't think he created headlines. you may not like it but i think if you're barr you're going out saying this wasn't going to be good, i walked out okay. >> your second point is it's good to know what happened to russia. >> what happened to russia? remember, this is a little boring. he's not only the attorney

general of the department of justice, he oversees the fbi. the initial charge to director mueller, special counsel mueller, look into russian interference in the american election. you would think the oversight committee might say, can you offer us some perspectives going into 2020 about what the american people, they didn't even talk about that. >> there was some perfunctory talk. how do we help campaigns better. not as deep. >> not even close. >> third point. senator graham, you believe, had a role of oversight that he punted on, how so? >> oh, come on. this is a judiciary committee looking at law. there's some legal issues here. senator graham says not only are we done here but the most significant witness, robert mueller, we're not even going to bother to call him, that's oversight? he could have asked basic questions of mueller that are non-partisan. >> such in. >> director mueller we're going into the 2020 election, you're a legal professional, are there ways we can help silicon valley,

for example, with laws to stop russians from interfering with american companies? that's not democrat, that's not republican. mueller saw a lot of information about russian interference. why didn't the oversight committee consider asking mueller, should we change our laws? let me give you another question. you're one of the very few people, director mueller, who will ever be a special counsel, you've been doing this for a couple years, are there ways we can clarify special counsel responsibilities in the future? non-partisan question, and lindsey graham says not only are we not going to do oversight, we're not going to call the most significant witness for the most significant judicial investigation on politics since watergate. what the hell was that hot mess? >> hot mess. a spicy disaster. phil mudd, thank you very much, good to know. >> good to see you. we're taking a break. a lot of attention on bill barr. phil's right about that. but there's somebody else who deserves our time tonight. an amazing hero, an act of

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it was an amazing act of bravery today, someone who put duty to others before anyone else. we saw too many senators and an attorney general doing little more than serving their own selfish interests, it's ironic an example of how we should aspire to be was largely missed

today because many of us were f fixated on people falling short in a senate hearing, another deadly school shooting yesterday at the university of north carolina, charlotte, last day of class, gunman enters a packed class, the kids had nowhere to go, that's when a special young man in that class, riley howell, just 21, looked like a blond tarzan, saw the gun and decided to run right at the gunman, knocked him down, led to his capture, the move that saved so many lives but the move also cost riley his own life. >> you're either going to run, hide and shield or you're going to take the fight to the assailant. having no place to run and hide, he did the last. but for his work the assailant may not have been disarmed.

unfortunately he gave his life in the process. but his sacrifice saved lives. >> sacrifice, literally a holy act, and that's what this was, someone doing something that was bigger than themselves, we all wonder what we would do in a moment like that and it's hard to imagine, not for riley's family. they say this is who he was, a young man who looked out for his young siblings and cousins who idolized first responders and was torn between college and volunteering for the military. >> he has always wanted to serve. and it was a logical thing for him to go towards the shooter to take care of everybody else. and that is the hero, and that's the way he would have wanted to go. >> that's his aunt on the phone there, her voice steady, calm in the midst of drama, just like her nephew riley, one of two who were taken, four others were

injured by yet another deranged person with dark intentions and access to a weapon. after these shootings we all wonder how to make them stop. we wonder if we know how. we're stuck in that position on this issue and a number of challenges that surround us. riley should be a reminder of what true resolve looks like. you see a problem, you go right at it. his literal manifestation of what is merely a metaphor for the rest of us is proof that if something means enough to you you can make it happen. riley had to know what was likely when he ran at a gunman who could see him coming too, and yet he did it, whether or not he made a calculation or a spontaneous move, whether he thought about it at all, he decided to do something in the hope of stopping a problem. i'm not lionizing or exaggerating for effect. i can't think of a situation that would be harder than the one this kid faced. i don't think i could do what he did. but he did it and that is affirmation of what is possible from people. not everyone just takes care of

themselves. all these cries about our collective decay, not everyone. not this kid. so on a day when so many of us are lamenting how pointless or politics seem, all the division and the emphasis on the negative, we see in a crisis that there is still potential for somebody to do something that is the highest form of humanity, true sacrifice for others, no matter the cost. i'm sorry for his family, their loss and all of the affected families. but i'd also want to thank riley howell for reminding us that we can be so much better than we are, even against all odds and in a moment of dire crisis, that people can do amazing things for others. i hope people always remember this young man this way, and i hope we all remember that we can make a difference as well. thank you for watching us tonight, there's a lot of continuing coverage. that means "cnn tonight" with don lemon, starting right now.

>> you always wonder what you'd do in a situation like that but you never -- you say i would fight back. you never know. that young man is a personification of a hero. he points out what's a hero in this country, especially considering what's going on. >> it always amazes me when people find the best of themselves and the worst of a situation. it's natural for us to think about what we would do. but to me it's enough to know there are people out there, young kids, who have in them greatness in a moment that calls for it. that's what that was. it's horrible that he took his life but he saved so many others. >> i'm glad you did that. i got home last night, i was in l.a. and i talked to my better half and he said, did you -- what about the school shooting? i said, you know, we had too much breaking news we didn't get to it. that's what happens when -- that's what's happening a lot with all the chaos and everything that's going on in washington, it's not that we don't report on those stories, maybe they go digital or get on