washington journal continues. president and cofounder in a long time investigations of the presidential nature joining us to talk about the investigation good morning. >> a pleasure to be here. >> give us your history not only with the white house but the senate to the presidential investigations. i started life as a lawyer as aa litigator in a law firm rehired by rudy giuliani to be assistant u. attorney 30 years ago last month he in. spent six years there i love that work i was lucky enough to work with terrific lawyers

the six years i was there down the hall from me was jimme call me who also started in i that office i moved to work for joe biden as his general counsel on the senate judiciary committee working on constitutional and criminal law issues in994. 1995 i moved to the clinton white house where i spent two general counsel for the white house office essentially working ohe underpinnings but to bring in a former prosecutorecause of the independent counsel investigation and the congressional investigating committeesst just starting to investigate president clinton. i was my life two years and going on to foreign policy over the last 20 y years.

>> as you look at the investigations what about the current state of the investigation s and how long before we see a resolve? >> somebody who has watched the clinton impeachment go forward with many complex washington scandals so thinking about the mueller investigation with what we know coming out in the press with a couple of pieces were laid out that i think will be happening in the coming months the first piece looked at how will mueller wrap up his investigation? number one he is reac end of the investigation. i know there are new revelations every day but you have to understand thatha we only know a tiny fraction as outsiders what is actually going on in the criminal investigation.

it is like an iceberg 7/8 is underwater we only see a fraction of it and often we only see it a mon later so i think he is further along than most people think. one of the reasons i believe that because of the intense discussions whether or not to interview president trump clearly that will be one of the final stages of the .nvestigationbe remember how to jim call me and his e-mail investigation with hillary clinton? july 2 withhe interview july 5 he announced the findings so you feel he is coming to an end. tee7 what is the difference to

be subpoenaed for an interview? this is what they faced 20 years ago he was sued in the paula jones case for sexual harassment and challenge that all the way to the ame court that a president must be subjected to a civil case and must accept and appear if called to testify but the court made clear he is the president you have to make allowances to fit his schedule he has important responsibilities but the civil case can go forward and thestify any judge will tell you that if mueller subpoenas the president was clear court

precedent that the u.s. person nixon case to turn over the watergate tapes. and whether they are required to testify no president wants tono be handed that subpoena at the end of the day the lawyers negotiated a limited time and then to testify from the white house they didn't have the that is not what you would have with the grand jury and then to watch it live on tv now it is negotiating

tackett on -- tactics mueller -- robert mueller has that power and the president would rather do it voluntarily tee7 rudy giuliani directly involved in what about his rolele. >> he is a very good negotiator and then the president can relate to him. but the law of precision helps and sometimesti observation helps i think he is obfuscating the ring up a lot of arguments but then to make it seem so confusing and so vague that they lose interest

or frankly whatever robert mueller does may not be that important.. i do think robert mueller will issue his report this summer. he doesn't want to interfere with the midterm elections that is why jim comey was criticized to post to the elections that is a constitutional rabbit hole. so we will produce a report this is different from the starr report a few years ago. it required him to write a report and then sending that to congress. so the special counsel governing this matter and then

he could just sit on the no requirement to make it public but then he also has to comply with grand jury secrecy rules and and it makes you wonder if we ever will see a full report in public because of the classified nature and secrecy.d d s for their consideration because president trump has made it clear he doesn't want that report to go. forward. you are on thein with nelson cunningham go ahead. >> caller: >> comparing this to clinton and nixon and so forth but

that is a contrived situation to make a list like something happenedha and now we want the president to determine on the interview. that doesn't even make sense. who will comment or interview on something that they never set up in the first place that it was a contrived situation from what ited appears? all ofof that? >> you are referring to what is called the spy gate and firstto of all it is clear from the facts that the investigation actually began because of the information passed on in the spring of 2016 that they had tons of e-mails from the democrats in

july when they were dumped through wiki leaks based on cap adopt a listen when they heard to contact the trenton ministration they went to their longtime source a political appointee and then to contact those individuals i know it has been called spy gate i don't think it is contrived but what any of us would want the fbi to do if we had evidence of foreign government tried to interfere with a political party and in washington d.c. go ahead democratic line. >> caller: hello. i know the intelligence business very well.

i think robert mueller is doing a great job and to your guest he is a breath of fresh air. i like what you are saying and with that investigation we will find out this man is an enemy of the state and we cannot allow him to continue with united states of america but i will protect united states of america. >> what is your question spifically? >> sca you inform our people across the nation to fact check their news?

>> this is exactly why somebody like robert mueller is who wegu need he himself is a longtime republican political appotee who has put together a staff of career current and formerrm prosecutors, i know there are claims that they are angry democrats can stars investigation 20 years ago was staff with many, many republicans and even those who work foren starr the current secretary of labor worked for ken starr the solicitor general, his team was heavily republican but i will point out that dark himself was republican but what we have here is robert mueller who is a republican appointed by a republican appointed by donald trump and robert mueller over 30 years has been a legend in lawge enforcement. long before he was fbi director.

he has widespread trust and very few ever questioned his ethics or his standing or his work ethics and at the end of the day he h a report to answers as many questions as possible to lay the matter to rest and i think we are lucky to have somebody like robert mueller and lucky that he comes from republican roots because i think it will help persuade on the investigati tee7 tee2 is our guest. huntsville alabama republican line. >> caller: >> good morning. the dossier bought and paid for that generated the

interest in this collusion repeatedly has been brought to th american people with instigation.n this it was the start of a small conspiracy and in my mind. as a republican i voted for the president i support a lot of things are happening in the country trump is in some good things obama did somedo good things i am looking forward to get to the bottom of it i don't think that has to be the absolute full front of the news each day and that the hate has to be spewed from every new stion have the department of investigation take a look and keep in mind the one thing we are missing

we share the space station with russia we share our projects and we tend to get back from the space station with russia they are an econth of texas they are not our largest threat. conspiracy collusion. we are not that worried about them. >> you make a very good point that it would be good ifhi happened more quietly or the investigation could proceed without as muchul noise investigators do their best work they can put their heads down and review the documents without a cacophony of noise all around. we have two reports that a think will give us a lot of answers in the coming months. one is the inspector general's report with the internal policeman as it were at the department of justice who has asked to look into how did the

clinton e-mail investigation handled into the trump campaign? michael horwitzas inspector general and he is a very serious lawyer and investigatorio's report will come out maybe as soon as this week and we will learn a lot from that and then robert mueller so it is good for all of us to hold her breath to wait to draw judgments of thin wived or if someone is the devil until we have the reports in front of us. >> the president raise out the possibility for him to pardon himself in this matter. first of all what is the legal standing of that and what about you raising that issue? >> nobody knows it has not come up or ever has been

decided by this up in court we have the proposition no man is above the law and that suggest that somebody should not be his own agenda -- adjudicator but hasn't been tested but it is a red herring because wle the president might have the power to pardon himself about crime clearly he doesn't have the power to protect himself from the impeachment because the constitution says the president shall have power to confer pardons except in cases of impeachment i don't know if robert mueller will and i the president i don't think he will bring him to bear on criminal charges so he doesn't have a need to pardon himsf if he does recommendch impeachment then it is clea he cannot pardon himself from the impeachment. >>host: go to texas democratic line. >> caller: good morning.

why is there aggression around every corner with this trump guy? it is ridiculous. we know that he lied the way they use llc we know they have thenohow to launder money and to hide money and he acts so guilty he will do anything to win that means colluding to conspiracies with russia and he acts like a guilty man so what can we say? >> robert mueller has put together a team that is perfectly designed to get into the very issues that you raise. former prosecutors are out there on criminal tax fraud

and complex organizations and cybercrime these are the best that ty are they have now been spending one year to investigate and gathering all the documents and interviewing the witnesses. if there is one there the will find it and they all come out of career prosecutorial services if there is not a bear there they will acknowledge that.kn >> talking about paul in fort witness tampering what about that charge in the larger scope of the investigation and how does he play a role? >> right now he is in a key position the only the only person he only american indicted by robert mueller who is not yet pleaded guilty. michaell flynn even the man in fort codefendant have pleaded guilty.

he sets that are out there he has one trial in july and another in september. frankly just looking at this from cold-blooded prosecutor standpointnt he is a dead m walking. sixty-nine years old facing counts in both jurisdictions they are ironclad taking millions of dollars from thehe ukrainians the russians sympathizing ukrainians and field to report himself as ao foreign agent failed to pay taxes on the money a he hid it through offshore accounts. cut and dry. his codefendant has been a guilty and is cooperating with the prosecutors he is 69 years ol the only way he will ever avoid spending the rest of his life in jail is if he pleads guilty and cooperates. what we see right now is d a dance between robert mueller and manafort trying to get him

to cooperate and plead guilty and i think this move looking to revokee his bai bause manafort reached out to witnesses in the case and said this is what i have been saying about you will agree with that? i am paraphrasing a classic attempt to shape it witnesses testimony it is outrageous for someone to reach out and do that directly and robert mueller is using that to increase the pressure on manafort if he does plead guilty and plead to cooperate, that is the last milestone along with the interview that we still have standing before robert mueller completes his investigation. >>host: republican line good morning. >> caller: good morning mr. cunningham.. you are a lawyer and a member of the bar so i assume you'll answer truthfully.

do you think hillary clinton was a foul and because she destroyed e-mails submitted by u.s. congress and also when the attorney general and jim comey, when they took the information from the dossier to the fisa court for the surveillance of u.s. citizen, do you think they miss use that for the hillary clinton campaigney? >> those are two very good question first on the e-mail investigation, this is

someing i know way more about than the average bear because in my job at the out mom -- white house i oversaw the white house email policies of 20 years ago i was an expert in something nobody knew anything about. keeping documents in a private server was unorthodox maybe not wise but i see nothing and never saw anything that made it illegal like the secretary of state took physical papers and decided to keep them in me oe rather than in her government office.at then if they are classified information it turns out there was a smidgen of classified the lowest level and did not criticize her for that. but you cannot say she was a felon for t doing that for keeping her papers in her home office instead of the state

department office but talk about the destruction of e-mails? as i understand it, there were e-mails accidentally destroyed by an employee at all and there is any reason to believe that hillary clinton ordered that so i thank you have a hard time with that i may not be right but i do believe that jim comey could reconstruct many of those e-mails from other sources and devices. no on the second question which was, i apologize. isse>> i m yrd buit was a good one. [laughter] >> alaska democratic line. >> caller: i am on the republican line i thought i must have misdialed. >>host: go ahead female tell me where the spy from the hillary campaign was from?

they were affected by the russians why aren't we given the information about the spy with the hillary campaign? >> there is not any evidence that i am aware of that the russians were reaching out to the clinton campaign except by illegally hacking their e-mails. there were no contacts between the clinton campaign and the russians. manifests contacts but it is simply not the same situation actually. but was there something wrong with getting theth fisa warrant? you have to remember a few things the fbi waited to begin

the fisa investigation and tell he was no longer an advisor to the campaign. and then waiting until after he severed the ties of the w campaign and then applied fo the f warrant. >> second none of us is seeing the full affidavit that has been a lot of back and forth with the paragraph that indicated to the board that there was some opposition research involved in the dossier, none of assessing the actual language but four years in the eyes of the fbi a target of russian attempts to recruit him three years before. this happened subjected by

repeated attempts by intelligencent officers the fbi said please don't they are trying to recruit you and he would laugh them off but at the height of the campaign and said he did not meet with russians but the fbi evidence he met with russian officials that would raise questions in my mind. >>host: the last call go-ahead. >> thank you for taking my n very interesting thisng i have be following this but when you going to force the president with his tax returns would end this investigation? >> great question. as a prosecutor the first thing you do is get all the

documents that you can. robert mueller has been on the job about a year i am sure one of the first things he did was send over a requeor dond trump and related entities there is a process i can get those returns they have to keep them secret there are certain procedures to make sure they don't become public but it ivery straightforward to make the proper shelving and i'm confident he has those. . . . . >> i think it will give us confidence that a and of the day

there's a fair process. >> you mentioned that when you see this wrapping up? >> july or august. rudy giuliani was told septembe. i think we can believe him. >> thank you for your time. >> tinai, usa gymnastics president, steve penney of former michigan state university president discuss sexual abuse of athletes. they spoke in front of a subcommittee. also try,estimony from the 2019 budget request. she was before the senate appropriations subcommittee. that starts at 10:00 p.m. eastern on cpan. >> see spence what "washington journal", live every day with new some policy issues that

impact you. we'll talk about tuesday's primary. and paul go start discusses divisions within the republican conference on immigration policy. then, david talks about the democratic messaging going into the midterm election. watch "washingtonournal", >> hlthnd human service committee met to discuss the policies and priorities of the department. he will speak between the house education and workforce committee. that is live on c-span three. >> this week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of robert f kennedy. >> the last few weeks, robert

francis kennedy was enjoying himself. he really enjoyed getting out amon the people. he enjoyed the physical contact. he refused police protection because he said all the people wanted to do was to touch him, not to hurt him. >> on real america, unreal america historyv, watch the cbs news special report from june 6, 1968. the night robert kennedy died. >> they quickly decided to transfer him to good samaritan hospital where the facilities were better for a delicate brain surgery. mrs. kennedy was with him. >> the suspect, and identified wa