will be house republican leader kevin mccarthy. thank you so much for coming. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org ] >> here's a look at our live wednesday. the house with at 10:00 a.m. eastern for general speeches with legislative business at noon. members will begin work on a bill that requires the president to develop a plan to combat climate change as outlined in the paris climate agreement. on c-span two the senate is back at 10:00 a.m. to consider nominations for judicial alabama. in texas and on c-span3, attorney general barr appears in front of two scheduled hearings on the mueller report, starting with the senate judiciary committee, live at 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> coming up next on washington journal, a preview of today's senate judiciary hearing with

attorney general william barr who is testifying on the mueller report for the first time since release. over the next three hours, we will share some insight and give you a chance to its release. we will give you a chance to comment by phone, facebook, and twitter. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ good morning from capitol hill on this wednesday, may 1. c-span's coverage of attorney general william barr's testimony on the mueller report begins on the "washington journal" and continues until 10:00 a.m. when the attorney general will face questions from senators on the judiciary committee. he will be in the witness chair until this afternoon. our coverage on c-span 3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern time and you can watch on c-span.org or download the free c-span radio app. this morning on the "washington journal" from capitol hill, we want to get your reaction to the attorney general's testimony and the mueller report.

democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, 202-748-8002. join us on twitter at @cspanwj or you can go to facebook.com/cspan. ahead of the attorney general's testimony, the washington post, the wall street journal, and the new york times all reporting that special counsel robert mueller took issue with how the attorney general characterize the report. this is what the washington post said robert mueller said to the ag. the summary letter to the department sent to congress and 24eased to the public march did not capture the nature, substance,, and work of the report.on of the

pedro echevarria with more on this news. 2: the democrats have taken to the post. general barrney going to tell us this or was he going to go through testimony on the subject covering this letter up? this man's credibility is in freefall. attorney general barr owes the american public an explanation. ag barr lied to the house and senate, let's call it what it is, he is only in the job to protect donald trump. as far as i'm concerned, he should not be the attorney general. host: more from the washington post reporting. when barr pressed mueller whether he thought the letter to congress was inaccurate, he said

he did not, but thought the neediest coverage was misinterpreting the -- in their call, barr took issue with mueller calling his memo a summary saying he never intended to summarize the report, but provided -- but provide an account of the top conclusions. we turn to all of you with that news and get your reaction to it. are up first, good morning to you. caller: thanks for the opportunity. i am frustrated with other bank --mueller that he did not give more information and i am glad he finally did say something to barr. i am sick of everybody talking like bobbleheads. in all my 72 years of living and watching politics, i have never seen such sad disrespect for

people. i am trying my best to not hate to allow people to have their opinions. the immaturity and the way some things have been handled has had me in the dumps. i am trying my best to love my neighbors better, listen to those who have different opinions and i need to just hush and let you want go on with more comments. so far, the comments i have heard are some of what i would make. thank you so much for this wonderful freedom of opportunity of expression. god bless all the republicans. god bless all the independent's and for heaven sakes, democrats, eachmuddling in between other. let's get a new president next time. host: alexandria, virginia, chris. democrat, good morning to you. caller: good morning.

i am just wondering, it seems like you guys are obsessed with this stuff. i used to be very middle-of-the-road, but this is pushing me the other way. yesterday you guys were talking about impeachment, today you are talking about the barr report. the lead in was a washington live hack show about how they knew all this about russia and trump. you guys are better than this. i know brian lamb left, but you guys are a puppet like all the other news organizations. host: a couple of things. he has not left the organization. &a is not doing the sunday q program, but he is continuing to do interviews in the coming months. covering the hearing today, it is a hearing on capitol hill, a big hearing and many people will be watching. ahead of that, we are giving all of you the opportunity to let washington know and people around the country know how you

feel about it, what you think about it. what questions would you ask the attorney general if you had him before you? he will be in that hearing room on your screen at 10:00 a.m. eastern sitting in the witness chair, taking questions from the members of the senate judiciary committee. let me tell you a little bit about the seats in the room. there are 25 seats reserved for the media in this hearing room. 10 seats reserved for the department of justice, these are in the first row of seats. there are 10 seats for the of five ando rows 10 seats for the minority side of the room. of course, there is room for .ublic seating as well the line has already started and there it is, people will be lining up to get into this room

today to hear for themselves in person what the attorney general has to say to the lawmakers. in washington, d.c., independent, good morning. caller: my point is barr should has beenhed because he lying to congress and the senate and he lied to the public, he just wants to be president trump personal --president trump's personal attorney. host: you think william barr should be impeached? caller: william barr because he gets up there and lies? host: what did he lie about? caller: you know he lied about when they were talking to him and thee senate congress. int: let me go to lucinda new jersey, republican. caller: good morning. i am a little bit disappointed once again on the way the media

is covering the new information letter ormueller telephone conversation to mr. barr. once again, the media is a little partial because they only reported part of the letter first before they repeated the second part of that level, which barr asked bob mueller the reportns and he did not any part of that letter just to protect the president. it is enough with the president of the united states is suffering based on the media reporting dangerous news. today, at this hearing, the question should be who originated the report to investigate the president and why was that committee held with the majority of democrats when we have a republican president? host: pedro echevarria with more

on today's hearing. serves onsh hawley the senate judiciary committee. will be asking ag barr what has been going on at the fbi, who was spying on the president and why? it is time we got answers. 12 republicans and 10 democrats on the committee. when it comes to republicans, those who are lawyers and have law degrees, here is the rundown. senator lindsey graham and his law degree from the university of south carolina. ted cruz went to harvard. mike lee went to brigham young. going on with republicans in the committee, josh hawley got his law degree from yale and senator john kennedy of louisiana got degree from louisiana state. pat lahey and dick durbin and mazie hirono getting law degrees from georgetown.

chris coons and richard blumenthal got degrees from yale and continuing on the democrat side, cory booker also got his law degree from yale. sheldon whitehouse from the university of virginia. amy klobuchar got her degree from the university of chicago law school and kamala harris from uc hastings college of law in california. host: mike in spring hill, florida. independent. hi, mike. excuse me, do i need to go to bill in delaware. democrat? caller: yes. host: it is your turn. caller: i wish you would get off of this. you people. every day, every day. when are they going to investigate joe biden, chris coons? host: investigate for what? tell people why you think they should be investigated. caller: because they are a bunch of idiots. $50,000 -- 50,000

jobs. joe biden is the most corrupt, no good person in the country. host: okay. all right. we will go to mike in spring hill, florida, independent. caller: hello. good morning. thinkd just like to say i when that report came out, attorney general barr knew more than what he was letting on and he summarized it in a way that was kind of misleading. he should have just put the report out the way mueller concluded the report and he should have given it to the american people and that way we would not have all this fighting. this administration seems to be disingenuous. there is a lot of information coming now and we can see there

is a lot of spin. everything is going to be partisan and nobody wants to sit down and analyze this. i think these hearings would be good because the american people are not stupid and they can see through a lot of this political smoke going on. host: will you be watching this morning? caller: i will be watching. i watch all the time. i am going to vote according to how i feel and what i see and the evidence i see. the evidence is stacking up that they are trying to cover something up. host: who is they? caller: the trump administration. host: did you vote for the president in 2016? caller: no. i did not vote for him because i did not like his tone and the way he presented himself. i think he is very divisive and

feeding on people's fears in this country. i think that is how he is governing. he is governing his base and doesn't care about anything else. host: for you and others who want to watch today, uninterrupted coverage c-span 3. we will show you the room as we have been in the washington 3urnal around 9:30 on c-span and you can continue to watch the entire gavel-to-gavel hearing. c-span.orgpan 3 or and you can listen if you have to be out and about today on the free c-span radio app. the headline, just two lawmakers have seen less redacted reports. barr offered access to less redacted versions so 12 members of congress, 6 democrats and 6

were publicans read-only doug andins, the top democrat lindsay graham opted to view it. a third, mitch mcconnell, said he planned to review the report later yesterday. that you can find in politico. hi, jim.w york, caller: i am really getting saddened with c-span. you guys are way over the top, do is -- you are doing bias by omission. if anything is negative about the president, you are quick to jump on it. when it comes to a democrat, you graze over these things. cover joe biden and the corruption with his son in the ukraine. move on and quit looking to jump on trump no matter what. severna park,

maryland, a democrat. caller: i am just shocked, not as a democrat, but as an american. the calls criticizing c-span for covington -- covering what is national, international news. i think there was a time if a foreign nation, especially russia, meddled in our internal elections, it would enrage an entire population, not just a single party. that is something i cannot wrap my head around. let's put aside potential obstruction or collusion, put that aside and focus on the fact that the president seems totally uninterested looking into the fact that russia meddled in our election and when he was in helsinki and said i take putin at his word, can you imagine if a democratic president did that? i think the callers that recently called in would have

outrage in the other direction. as an american, not as a democrat, it is really upsetting. host: let me ask you. what are you listening for today? you brought up the russian interference and the attorney general will be asked about that. is that the most interesting part to you? caller: absolutely. the case for obstruction may not be there. amazingly devastating happened to our country. host: that is sam's thoughts today in maryland. 10:00 a.m. is when it begins, our coverage on c-span 3. ahead of that's, ash ahead of that, your thoughts this morning. what do you think about the attorney general? and all thiseport investigation? host 2: in light of mueller's

letter and the misleading nature of barr's testimony at april 18 -- barr must bring the letter with him when he testifies and it is time to testify publicly. we showed you those on the committee that have agreed to give you a sense of their legal background. it was senator lindsey graham in an airous life served as force lawyer. likely served as general counsel for jon huntsman in utah and ted cruz serving as solicitor general. the legal aspects of background, josh hawley served as attorney general. as well as senator john kennedy. on the democratic side, pat lahey served as a state attorney in vermont. dick durbin legal counsel to paul simon.

mazie hirono was an attorney. cory booker served as a nonprofit attorney and senator kamala harris was the san francisco district attorney. independent, new jersey. caller: good morning. what is upsetting with me -- i am old enough to remember the 1974 hearings, republicans on one side, democrats on the others. there was no c-span then, but 24/7 coverage of the hearing. they were americans first. i am so upset, i cannot begin to tell you. think about what barr said. i am handicapped.

i watched what the man said. the man was specifically asked, did you talk to mueller? no. did mueller say anything? no. did he have any comments to make? no. you are lying. host: you are talking about the news conference ahead of the release of the report? caller: the point is he spoke to mueller and said he never did. had anymueller never comment. all of a sudden i thought this group of people who kept their mouth shut during the whole 22 hearing, -- all of a sudden he gets the report and all of a sudden the comments come from the group involved with the mueller group. wait a minute, this little

synopsis, you are glossing over. they were angry that he lied. something stinks to high heaven. statement,s opening which, by the way, you can read if you go to c-span.org, we have the opening statement from the attorney general and the mueller report, a link to that at the very top of c-span.org this morning. while you are watching today's hearing, you can reference that report. here is a little bit of what he is going to tell the judiciary committee members. it seems he is referencing the news this morning when he wrote it would not have been appropriate for me simply to release volume 2 of the report without making a prosecutorial judgment. the deputy attorney general i therefore conducted a careful review, looking at the facts found and legal theories set forth by the special counsel.

although we disagreed with some legal theories and felt some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction, we accepted the legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusion. we concluded the evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed and obstruction of justice offense. this is what he is going to tell senators when he sits down in his chair inside the dirksen hearing room this morning at 10:00 a.m. he is also going to tell them with the completion of the special counsel's investigation and resulting prosecutorial decision, the department's work on this matter is at its end aside from completing the cases that have been referred to other offices. from here on, the exercise of

responding and reacting to the report is a matter for the american people and the political process. as i am sure you agree, it is vitally important for the department of justice to stand -- notrom the political become an adjunct of it. that are that -- those other words the attorney general will deliver this morning. we are taking your calls from capitol hill throughout three hours of the "washington journal " leading up to the 10:00 start of the hearing which begins on c-span 3 and we will continue throughout the morning into the afternoon with the attorney general. go to c-span.org or the free c-span radio app. in columbia, maryland, a republican. good morning to you. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. what do you think about today's hearing or the mueller report? what -- i amis

concerned about the republican party right now. liar and he is a taking the country down. lied. trump system.ave a corrupt lied to the general american people about mueller's report. thedidn't they release mueller report? host: why do you think he lied? caller: i don't know, for donald trump. why would july for somebody after everything? host: let me rephrase. what did he lie about, in your opinion? why wouldn't he give the

report to the american people for everyone to decide on their own? host: okay. joyce, kansas, democrat. caller: yes. thank you for taking my call. i would love to watch the full testimony, but this network does not carry c-span 3 and i do not bee a computer were able to on the radio. i would like c-span's help. host: reach out to your provider of your cable to let them know. caller: i did, i don't get anywhere with them. i have called several times and asked them to carry it. they have so far refused. thank you. in california, independent. hi, todd. caller: good morning. a previous caller, i

think c-span's coverage of everything is neutral and balanced. that is first of all. report, thereer is ample evidence that shows all of trump's attendance and -- doendants -- they did not all those things on their own. they were directed by the president. he should be impeached and barr, something does not sit right with me regarding him. he is not being neutral. he is supposed to follow the law he should as mueller, have concluded one way or the other if trump committed a crime and i think there is ample evidence trump did commit the crime. he should be impeached and removed from office. host: todd's thoughts. pedro echevarria.

host 2: the president using the words of others on his twitter feed this morning. you heard from josh hawley. the president taking something from that on his twitter feed saying the democrats cannot come to grips with the fact there was no collusion, no conspiracy. we should be focused on what has been going on in our government at the highest levels of the fbi. no president in history has endured such personal, vicious attacks by political opponents. record is president's unparalleled. mitch mcconnell asked about the use of subpoenas when it comes to investigating russian interference in the 2016 election and he said my assumption is all of these issues are going to end up in court's. he said it looks like we are going to end up in court, we will see how it works out. it was the 18th of april the

justice department released a redacted version of the report and adding it was the end of a 22 month long investigation. host: our previous caller talked about robert mueller not reaching a conclusion on obstruction of justice. the attorney general omma when he held a news conference before the report was released was asked about this and here is what he had to say. we will get to that in just a minute. while we wait, let's go to doug in idaho, a republican. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: morning. caller: just have a couple comments about the mueller report and if there was no collusion, then they are really .annot be any obstruction the questions i think need to be was thee why investigation started?

who started it? and what is going on with why trump was being spied on from the very beginning? host: you want those questions asked by members of congress? caller: i would love to see those questions asked, . as far as the redacted version of the mueller report, mueller cannot release an unredacted version of it. it is illegal. them to ask for an unredacted version is asking barr to break the law and he cannot do that. host: you mean for members of congress? caller: exactly. members of congress can, but as far as releasing an unredacted version to the public, it is illegal because there is sensitive material in there that would be from ongoing investigations. host: politico is reporting that

a less redacted version has been congress,2 members of the relevant committee chairs, leadership, the ranking members, et cetera so far, senate judiciary cramp chair lindsey graham and doug collins are the only ones that have read it so far. in written statements, which you can find on our website, he also talks about providing the redacted version and says in his statement that there is only about 8% of the reported that has been redacted for the public . the less redacted version is about 2%. if you want to read his opening statement in the mueller report, you can find that on our website . let's play a part of the news conference with the attorney general where he is asked about why mueller did not come to a

conclusion on obstruction of justice. [video clip] >> when we met with him, deputy attorney general rosenstein and i met with him along with ed o'callaghan on march 5. we specifically asked him about the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking the position that he would have found a crime , but for the existence of the olc opinion and he made it very clear several times that that was not his position. he was not saying but for the olc he would have found a crime. he made it clear he had not made the determination that there was a crime. host: that was the attorney general at the news conference. when you go to the mueller report, this is what mr. mueller writes. olc opinion concludes a sitting president cannot prosecuted, it also

recognizes a president does not have immunity after he leaves office. if individuals other than the president committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. given those consideration, the facts known to us and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough, factual investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available. he goes on to write this, the special counsel, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. the evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent present difficult issues

that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. you can read this yourself if you go to c-span.org and find the mueller report and the attorney general's opening statements. rockford,m mike in illinois. independent. caller: i feel this is predetermined already and i feel this will be a dog and pony show. schumer and pelosi were at the white house yesterday talking to the president about splitting up money we don't have for infrastructure and they will be in charge of $2 billion of it. i hope you play that clip over that money and that offer. it is all because of the mighty dollar. what is happening is trump is the baker of the bread.

ig is slicing the bread. ties arewith the red making sandwiches and selling them to the american people. the editors of usa today pose questions they would like to see asked of the attorney general. saying two days after mueller's findings, the attorney general released a summary of quoted passages and substituted his own view that the innes -- the president was innocent of obstruction. why did he not allow mueller's words to speak for themselves? not beng president could prosecuted because it was interfere with constitutional duties, but a barr downplayed that fact, telling reporters mueller's would not have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion.

while he struggled with the rules and regulations he found finding, barr eventually did not feel bound by the same -- thetions and told question, does barr believe mueller failed in his responsibility as special counsel? some other questions from the editor saying how did ag bar look at the same evidence and conclude that the evidence did exonerate the president and also barrid -- how does consider it to be full cooperation. you can read that in the pages of the usa today, opinion section, questions the editors would ask of ag bar. host: columbia station, ohio, republican, ed. what do you think of the news out this morning? caller: mueller was a complete

bust. two years, 35 million dollars expended, he found nothing to read on his way out, he wrote that report with a copout with a free pass. 50 million people voted for trump in this country and he won the election. within two years or three, this attorney general will get to the real crime was the fake dossier paid by the democratic party, clinton foundation, $330 million later donated to her from russia and the ukraine deal to her foundation who started all of this with a fake fisa they lied about and did not tell the judges that it was a paid dossier. they covered up a little footnote. this will come out. this is against the constitution. this is a coup d'etat. of the democrat party. even the obama era, the last

year or so, he on mast -- unmasked everybody. 50 million people voted for trump. this is going to be a pony show. mueller did, when he wrote that report, he copped out. he had nothing. host: are you hoping republicans on the committee ask these types of questions that you are bringing up? will you be watching? caller: i am a conservative, not a republican. there is a lot of democrats that are a lot like democrats. look at romney, he is trashing trump. barr is straight up, he is a real attorney general. he did not meet on the tarmac with hillary clinton's husband three days before comey exonerated them.

she would've been indicted first year. over twoa little hours, the attorney general will be on capitol hill to sit down in the witness chair in the room.n hearing our cameras are outside the hearing and we are on capitol hill a block away from capitol hill -- from the capital. when the attorney general sits down for questions, the committee will have already negotiated with the justice department and the senators how long each senator gets to ask a question or questions for and how long this hearing will go. this is part of the process of setting up for these types of hearings. the former chair of the judiciary committee, senator chuck grassley talked to c-span yesterday. a republican out of iowa. he talked about the ground rules

for these type of high-profile hearings. [video clip] >> as former chairman of the judiciary committee, you lead a lot of these high-profile hearings, who gets to determine the format? >> the chairman. usually, unless there is any disagreement between the chairman or the ranking member, the top democrat, you consult with them about it. most of the time, particularly hearings on legislation, it is easy to work out. the only thing that was not easy for me to work out with a democrat leader was on judges. except for that, we had so much collegiality that all 61 bills brought out of committee were all bipartisan bills. the significance of a hearing is the public gets the chance to have an unfiltered view of what goes on in congress, they don't have to get it through the cable channels, they don't have to get it through the news paper.

c-span 1, numeral two, or 3 or the committees that stream. >> viewers watching tomorrow, what will they see? what will be the format? >> chairman graham will open with a statement, however long he wants. he will let senator feinstein open with any sort of statement she wants, they will announce and then you are going to go to the witness to give hopefully just a five-minute statement, but if he wants to go longer, you let him go longer. or ifing to seniority people come late, how they arrived late in the order of their arrival, each committee member usually gets seven minutes for an attorney general, sometimes 10 minutes. other witnesses, only five minutes. you go from republic into democrat, republican to democrat by seniority or the way they came in and ask any questions

you want to ask on any subject. or give a speech instead of asking questions. >> how does that clock work and the questions asked right at the end, who determines if one questioner or the attorney general -- >> i will tell you how i did it. if you would start a question with even one second left and it was a relatively short question with a short answer, i would let that go on for a minute or two. if you did not get it in in the last second, you were done, you go onto the next person. >> how do you deal with protesters at a high profile hearing? >> most committee chairman do it bit -- differently than i did. they would stop the meeting until the police brought quiet or until people were removed. i did not want one person or two or three people to think they could shut down the committee's

business. i always said to the law enforcement people that i am going to keep it going and you do your job, i am going to do my job as long as we could hear what was going on between the member and the witness. >> we have heard about disagreement about the format of nonmembers possibly wanting to ask questions on the house side. when do you think it should be appropriate for a nonmember to ask a witness a question at any kind of high-profile meeting? >> it should not be appropriate unless the potential witness subpoenaed or coming voluntarily works out something with the committee. otherwise you assume it will be the members of the committee asking questions. if there is anything different than the usual approach, which is as i just described, it seems to me you owe the witness the accommodation of whether or not he wants to do it. you insist it be done.

if you are going to insist and the person is still wanting to come, it seems to be there ought to be an accommodation. >> you had nonmembers ask questions at a recent supreme court justice hearing. >> that was a very special situation not only because it was a supreme court nominee, but because it was so sensitive when you talk about sexual harassment and we felt, on the republican side, that being all male, that is not true today, we have three women. i think three women on our committee now. it would not be the same now. when you have all males asking questions on sexual harassment, it is seems to be a pretty sensitive thing. we saw it out a prosecutor who was in the business of prosecuting sexual harassment to answer the questions so that

there would be sensitivity to the witness. we thought it was very important we be sensitive, have somebody sensitive to that. host: senator chuck grassley talking about the negotiations, the ground rules for these big hearings and today, the senate judiciary committee will be hearing from attorney general william barr. we are getting your reaction to the attorney general, how he has handled this investigation, the news conferences, and what you think about the job he is doing before he sits down to take questions from 12 republicans and 10 democrats on the senate judiciary committee. keep your calls coming in this morning, more of them coming up. first, pedro echevarria. just heard from senator grassley. we have taken a look at how they break down by age. it senator grassley at one of the oldest member. -- 67.kennedy, crapo

lindsey graham, 63 and thom tillis, 58. ted cruz and joni ernst also knew to the committee, 48. also 48.ee and sasse taking a look at the democrats, the ranking member, senator feinstein is 85. pat lahey, 79 and dick durbin, 74. mazie hirono is 71. senator klobuchar, 58. harris. is kamala younger members on the democratic side, 50 years old. host: that is the senate judiciary committee make up. they will hear from the attorney general today. c-span 3,ge begins on c-span.org, or the radio app. the attorney general is headed over to the house judiciary committee where he will be

testifying. we have coverage of that back-and-forth as well. the former chair of the judiciary committee was talking to john mcardle about the negotiations over whether or not the witness, in this case the attorney general can be questioned by counsel for the committee. that is a sticking point between the house judiciary committee led by democrats and the justice department. it democrats would like the attorney general to answer questions from their counsel, the justice department not agreeing to that yet. that seems to have not been resolved one day ahead of his testimony. john mcardle is on capitol hill with us outside of the dirksen senate office building where that hearing will take place. who do you have?

we are here in the hallway of the dirksen building, the second floor just around the corner from the hearing room with richard lanter from outside detroit, one of the first members of the public to get in line when the doors opened. why are you here today? >> i think this is history in the making. everything that has developed about the mueller report and barr's reaction, i want to see what is going on, particularly since what was revealed yesterday about the problem between mueller and barr. >> do you come to congressional hearings often? >> every once in a while, i do. it is great for the public to be able to come to these hearings. >> what do you do in your day job? >> i am an attorney. i represent victims of medical malpractice. i have been doing that for many years. >> what do you think of the attorney general of the united states? by his troubled

misleading the public and misleading congress. i am troubled because he is supposed to be the chief law enforcement officer of the united states and he is partisan. president trump said he wants his own roi count and i am afraid barr, who previously had adecent reputation, has gone rathole in support of this president. >> there is about 30 seats available for the public, you are tense or 12 in line. if you had a chance to be on the dais, what would you ask? >> that is a great question. whetheri would ask him he asked for an opinion as to whether he should have recused himself from the mueller investigation, whether he asked for that and if he did not, why he did not and if he did, what

was the answer ended he ignore it. ? i think he is -- he has proven himself to be biased in this regard. >> are you planning to wear your hat inside the room? >> we will see. >> tell me about the reaction you get to that hat. >> it is a great reaction because people think it is a maga hat and they come and see and then they want pictures with the hat. of course, i am biased, i think president obama will go down in history as one of the great presidents of all time. >> richard lender from this again, thank you so much for your time. host: one of the many members of the public that are allowed into the hearing room today. they have to line up outside to get one of those coveted seats. as john mcardle said, there is 30 of them for the public.

25 seats for the media and as we were saying earlier, there is also seats set aside for the majority in the hearing room. the minority, and also does the department of justice. they will get those seats behind william barr when he sits down at the table to take questions at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. we are getting your thoughts on the attorney general. melissa in daytona beach, florida. what do you think of the job mr. barr is doing? caller: i had to really get my thoughts together, so much has been going on since the time i picked the phone up and all these interviews. i am 76 years old. i believe the collusion is between barr and mueller, they want to protect trump. mueller could have interviewed donald in person. i know donald's lawyers told him not to. when donald trump -- i grew up in new york, was operating in

new york, he has a reptilian brain, very smart. he never took a fall, never got convicted or accused because he had people around him taking the hits. let's get to this report. we had something similar happen, the 9/11 commission, a very important investigation for the families of the victims of 9/11. as a bush administration at that time controlled all aspects of the investigation. bush andame time for cheney to give testimony, it was behind doors and not under oath. as far as lindsey graham and grassley, they have nothing more than locked doors for trump. the big question should be for people that have critical minds. why would the republican party put donald trump as a primary

contender? it would be like democrats putting howard stern. it is crazy, but it is not crazy. we are being played big time, people. host: that was melissa in daytona beach. elizabeth, new york, independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. firmther works for the law in new jersey who defended jared christiend governor also. he is a republican, i was brought up in that kind of household. kushner -- i have been told for years, is just dirty and corrupt and so is trump. hand-in-hand.

what is happening in this .ountry is very dangerous the spreading of fake news and propaganda and not looking at the facts and all of the up.ning, it is dividing us people are not seeing clearly, they are seeing what they want to see. that woman is right, people are getting played. does thet role attorney general have and that? to what i have seen in liedast 24 hours, he has to congress at least three different times including like specifically chris van hollen. of any he did not know discrepancies between himself and mueller and he received a

letter and was on the phone with him. that is false. host: all right. what do you think senators should ask him today, elizabeth? caller: i think they should quote him at the last time they spoke with him and, specifically, those questions, any --him if he knew of anything mueller would consider .alse or dubious they should quote him. and, by the way, he was considered the cover-up general back during bush. withheldeport where he

documents from, i believe it was congress back then for three years. host: you said the cover-up for bush. what do you mean? what are you referencing? what documents? caller: in the last 24 hours, it has been reported that he was called the cover-up general back then. i believe it was during the bush administration. , saw this report on msnbc particularly on rachel maddow's show last week. for three years, he withheld .ocuments from congress i know it was during the bush administration. i really think people should look that up, that report on the rachel maddow show on msnbc last week.

three years of stonewalling. host: that is elizabeth in new york. pedro echevarria with more on today's hearing. -- office of professional responsibility saying they have "serious concerns lowe's quote about the attorney general they accused of being misleading about the findings from the report. attorney general barr's actions raise questions about his decision to not recuse himself. whether he complied with department of justice policies and practices and demonstrated impartiality to continue overseeing the 14 criminal matters related to the special counsel's investigation. you can read more at the hill. when it comes to the committee's makeup and how they approached william barr in the nomination process, it passed out of committee on a 12-10 partyline

vote. when it came to the floor vote, all 12 committee republicans voted barr and all committee democrats voted against him. republicann utah, joining us this morning. what are your thoughts on the hearing today? caller: good morning, greta. good morning, c-span. good morning, america. i called on the republican line, but i would like listeners to understand i am a retired vietnam veteran and a 73-year-old gentleman that just launched his 73rd revolution around the sun. i just wanted to call in because i have a couple of issues i wanted to briefly address. first issue is i am a little disappointed and it is not necessarily with c-span, but with the political dynamics and that is all of these important hearings i feel are very relevant to keep abreast of and

well-informed of seem to be broadcast on c-span 3. is my satellite provider and i have asked them multiple and, to provide c-span 3 for some reason, they have chosen not to do so. i would like somebody to yank the line and get them off of dead center and start providing c-span 3. your screener suggested i could www.www. -- go to but i have -- i have a computer, but i choose not to play the game from microsoft to keep updating my operating system every time it pleases them. that being said, i run and on an old operating system and i prefer not to go on the internet.

my last closing comment, and i don't mean to hog the conversation, my lady, but i wanted to leave the listeners with one little brief story. i find listening to pedro that all these committee members are lawyers. my attorney once informed me ingt he was rais consultation fees by almost 100%. i shook my head and he informed me. i said all you lawyers are the same and he said to me at that time every time someone has a legal problem, who is the first person they go to? that is the lawyer and i said who made the system work that way? my last comment is regarding a story i once heard where new york had most of the lawyers and new jersey had most of the solid waste. host: i am going to leave it at that point and let you know the

reason why the hearing is on c-span 3 today. the house is in session and we are committed to bringing gavel-to-gavel coverage of the house on c-span whenever they are in session. the senate is in session and that is always on c-span 2. 3.ay's hearing is on c-span c-spanair willyou can watch itn tonight. we will follow-up on c-span. utah is where that caller was from. him wanting to have c-span3. we are taking your calls this morning on the attorney general's testimony. the job he is doing so far. and what you want to hear from him when it comes to the mueller report. what questions would you ask if you were a member of the judiciary committee? we want to show you another moment from his press conference

earlier this month and what he had to say about russia's involvement in the 2016 election. [video clip] thes you know, one of primary purposes of the special counsel investigation was to treat -- where is -- was whether -- was to determine whether the trump campaign or any associated with it conspired with the russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. volume one of the special counsel's report describes the results of that investigation. see, the special counsel's report states it is -- it's investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. i am sure that all americans share my concern about the efforts of the russian government to interfere in our presidential election. as the special counsel report makes clear, the russian

government sought to interfere in our election process. thanks to the special counsel throw investigation, we now know that the russian operatives who perpetrated the schemes did not have the cooperation of president trump or the trump campaign, or the knowing assistance of any other american for that matter. that is something that all americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed. host: that is william barr's news conference where he talked about possible russian collusion with the trump campaign. this is what the mullah report says about russian involvement. in this investigation, the evidence does not establish the president was involved in an underlying crime related to russian election interference but the evidence does point to a range of other possible motives animating the president's conduct. these include concerns that continued -- that the continued

investigation will call in to question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events such as advance notice of the wikileaks release of hacked information or the meeting between senior campaign officials and russians could be seen as criminal activity by the president, his campaign or the his -- or his family. if you want to read the mueller report yourself, go to c-span.org. you will find it at the top of our webpage along with the attorney general's opening statement for today. we are taking your calls on the washington journal up until 10:00 when the attorney general will testify. continue to call in and let us know how you think the attorney general is doing and what kind of questions you would ask him and how you think he has handled the mother report. pedro has more on today's hearing. now,: joining us right

stephen dennis who reports with bloomberg. guest: great to be here. host: tell us about what you are watching for at this committee hearing. guest: we are going to see democrats go hard after barr, especially now that there has been this revelation that mueller wrote him a letter because he was so upset with how barr handled the initial four page summary he put out on march 24 and that he felt the public was getting a misleading understanding of the report. that could undermine public confidence in the process. that is sort of the whole point of a special counsel is you want public confidence that the investigation is done without other considerations. i think that letter from mueller is going to mean a lot more heat this morning from the democrats. we were going to see a lot of that anyway.

a lot of democrats have felt that barr's initial letter and his press conference right before the release of the mueller report gave a misleading pages,ion of that 448 particularly on the obstruction of justice. a piece of it where mueller even references impeachment in his report and says this could potentially be something for congress. there is going to be a lot of tough questions from democrats but not republicans. every republican i have talked to is essentially satisfied with barr's conclusions, that the president did not commit crimes and they are ready to move on by and large. they want to go back and probe the origins of the russia investigation back in 2016. they want to probe the handling of the hillary clinton email investigation and they want to

hear what barr is up to. host: with three democratic presidential candidates on the committee, how does that shape the course of questioning today? guest: you have three presidential candidates on the democratic side, 20 presidential candidates already. this is a rare opportunity for them to get a national spotlight and create a viral moment. you have amy klobuchar, the first up and questioning. she has a little more seniority. and,lso have cory booker harris.is -- and kamala they can sort of feel their way through the hearing, but this is going to be a very well attended hearing where people are sort of going in and out of the room. they will be very intent and trying to put some points on the

board. -- that barr has been putting out there that he is the one to make these decisions and he did the right thing in exonerating the president and that is that. in particular, you will hear the democrats question whether he did not tell the truth to congress and maybe lined to congress when he appeared -- maybe lied to congress when he appeared before the appropriations committee a few weeks back, when he was asked whether or not mueller or his team was unhappy with his release and the way he did it and he expressed -- he did not have any knowledge of that. that testimony came after mueller had sent him that letter and after they had a conversation on the phone. he is going to get a lot of questions about whether he mid -- whether he misled congress and he will have to have some

explanation for why he didn't mention that before. host: do you see any friction taking place between chairman lindsey graham and ranking member diane feinstein? guest: there could be some friction over the issue of calling mueller to testify. the democrats are insisting that mueller also be called to tell his side of his story -- of the story. lindsey graham showing no interest in that. he previously said for him, the mueller report is over, no crimes, let's move on. to richard burr on the intelligence committee and he is convinced there is not a need to call mueller. house democrats want to call mueller to testify and previously, barr has said he would be open to -- or have no objections to him testifying but it is not clear, in his latest

testimony, his prepared testimony. he says the department of justice will not continue to that thatthe report, is for the political process. i think he is going to get more probing questions on whether mueller can testify and you will see some back and forth between democrats and lindsey graham. host: senator feinstein from california, senator harris also from california on the same committee. is that unusual? guest: it is not that surprising. this is not like the appropriations committee where each slot is seen as a certain chunk of money or influence for your state. the judiciary committee is like the supreme court committee. i don't think it is all that surprising. slots areittee basically chosen by the democratic leadership. they want to make democratic members happy and kamala harris wanted to be on that committee.

host: two women on the republican side on that committee. joni ernst and senator blackburn. what do you expect to hear from them? guest: that is a wild card here. if you remember the last big judiciary hearing was the kavanaugh hearing and republicans were not happy that they had no women there to question kavanaugh's accuser. acknowledged at the time they wished they had women on that committee. mitch mcconnell said he tried to recruit women for that committee before and failed. he managed to recruit marsha blackburn and joni ernst to go on that committee. i think you will hear similar questions from them as from other republicans. they have not been saying we need to hear from mueller. they have not been stepping out on this issue.

you don't get on this committee unless you are going to vote for judicial nominees, the republican agenda. it is one of the most partisan committees in congress, on both sides. host: no independent standouts when it comes to the questioning of barr. is that what you are saying? guest: it is unlikely. normally one of the most independent questionnaires is lindsey graham himself but he has been barr's biggest supporter in congress. he basically begged barr to take the job and urged the president to nominate him. you will not hear a whole lot of tough questions from lindsey graham probably. few republicans who occasionally ask probing questions. john kennedy comes to mind. a folksy wayf about him and asks questions

that sometimes trip people up. barr is a pro, he has been before many committees. i don't think he is going to be tripped up. on the democratic side, chris coons is the most bipartisan member of this committee. he likes to work with republicans and republicans like to work with him. i don't think he is going to go easy on barr in this hearing. host: stephen dennis watches the senate for bloomberg, reporting and talking to us about what to watch for that hearing. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: let's get our viewers justions to what they heard from stephen dennis about how this may play out this morning when the attorney general sits in that chair at 10:00 eastern time. c-span3 is where you will find our coverage. c-span.org or the free c-span radio app. randy in ohio, democrat. good morning to you.

what are you expecting to hear from the attorney general this morning? hear nothingect to but filibustering from the attorney general barr. i think what is most important here is that the democrats don't grandstand. they put as many questions in as possible. he needs to be questioned on why he cherry picked mueller's quotes and only put in the bottom half, where the top half was the most important part. reports thaten barr's wife and mueller's wife are very good friends. it seems to me that he should be questioned about any off the record conversations he has had. felt it neededer

to be put in writing. i highly doubt they did not have conversations. i think it is going to come out in due time. i think mueller did the right thing by not interviewing trump. it would have taken too long, probably into the election and that is what the white house wants. let's go democrats. there are three, kamala harris is my favorite. they better put it to him and don't let him filibuster. host: who else will you be watching? all ofi will be watching them. it is the 12 democrats i will be turning the channel on. host: what about republicans? guest: they won't say anything. they will grandstand and beat around the truth. they have nothing to say about

the breaking news about this letter showing there was tension. there would have been no letters. host: the wall street journal and washington post reporting on this letter mueller sent to the attorney general in march after the attorney general said to congress and the public, were able to read a summary of that quote because the attorney general said he did not want it to be a summary of the mueller report. we are getting your reaction to the hearing this morning. that caller was talking about the senator she will be watching, wondering who you will be watching today. what senators, what questions do you want them to ask and what will you expect the attorney general to say and how do you think he is handling this? you are looking at a shot of the public waiting to get into the hearing room. this is outside the office building and the public is lined

up because there are only 30 seats available in the room for them. they will have to wait and see if they are able to get one of those coveted seats in the room. when you go in, 30 seats for the public, 25 seats for the media. we were showing you earlier, you have reserved seating for the new york times, associated press, wall street journal. there are 25 seats for the media in this room. 10 seats reserved for the department of justice. these are in the first row. 10 seats reserved for the majority, the republicans. two rows of five on the majority side of the room. the minority also gets 10 seats reserved for them. seeill be interesting to who takes those seats. who sits on the minority side. house memberssee

coming to these high-profile hearings and take a seat in the room, to listen to what witnesses and senators are asking and how they are answering. it will be interesting to see if we see any house judiciary members because they will get to ask the attorney general questions tomorrow morning starting at 9:00 on c-span3. greg in ohio, independent. caller: hello, how are you doing? host: good. caller: that guy from ohio earlier took my thunder. the real collusion is all these democrats and obama. those people are going to jail, you watch. host: jack in illinois, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. party the republican after seeing the hypocrisy of what the party has become under trump and failing to uphold the

oath to protect the country and the constitution. mueller's report was clear on how the russians have co-opted our election and all the misinformation they are doing online and the people are falling for it. president trump doesn't even mention russia as far as attacking our country. he is basically helping putin with overthrowing our democracy without firing a shot. host: this is what you are interested in. what do you want to hear from the attorney general on russian interference? what do you want members of congress to be doing? why trumpwant to know and his administration have lied about their meetings with russian officials prior to the election and why they have not been held accountable on it. they all took an oath to protect

our country and yet they are all doing everything they can to help putin. next in indiana, democratic caller. caller: thank you so much c-span. agree with the caller just before me. we have been waiting for two and a half years to see this report and we were put on hold for three weeks so they could spin it. , and lied tosident the american people. maybe we might get some truth. i hope they put mueller on and at night so everyone can see and hear the truth. they need to release all of the information to congress, the

oversight. he is holding it all up. host: a completely unredacted version needs to go to congress. caller: yes. it would not hurt for them to let the american people see more of it. host: according to attorney general -- the attorney general statements this morning, only 8% of the mueller report is redacted. go to c-span.org and you can .ind his opening statements pedro with more on the attorney general statements before the house judiciary committee. host: members of the committee are sending out tweets in preparation for that hearing. this is donald demings of florida saying this confirms what democrats have been saying and what was obvious to anyone who read them all the report, the attorney general tried to

mislead the american people about what mueller found. before theppear house judiciary committee to testify under oath on thursday. lou, -- mischaracterize this report. is scared of barr testifying before the house judiciary committee on thursday? we will see what happens with that planned meeting tomorrow at 9:00. you heard about stephen dennis talking to us about women on the committee. joni ernst of iowa and marsha blackburn of tennessee, a bit of a profile of them. senator blackburn join the committee in 2019 and served as a former u.s. or prisoner driven the house from 2003 to 2019. she was a former business entrepreneur with a bachelor of science from mississippi university. senator ernst hails from iowa. she joined the committee in 2019 and served as the vice chair of the republican conference. a lieutenant colonel in the army

national guard, tired -- retired. host: back to calls. cindy in north carolina, independent. good morning to you from capitol hill. caller: good morning america. as an american, i think we should all be happy that there was no collusion in the mueller , and iof our president whyd also like to ask barr mueller did not investigate the obama administration. it was under his administration when the election was going on. why didn't they find anything about the russians and warned the president that the russians were trying to intrude? will you be watching some

republican senators to see if they asked those questions? caller: i would love to, but i can't. i will have to wait for updates. understand about the obstruction. if there was no collusion, how could there be obstruction? that would be my question to ask. host: will you have your phone with you? you can get the free c-span radio app and tune in as you go about your day. pat in new hampshire, republican. caller: i think it is pretty disgusting what they are doing to mr. barr, to try and harness his -- and tarnish his reputation. don't shoot the messenger but they are shooting the messenger. there were four different committees investigating.

how many more times to the need to go in and look? who said fox did not do the report. i watched fox news yesterday. long. reported all day host: you are talking about the letter that mr. mueller sent to mr. barr saying he did not like the way the report was characterized. caller: yes. they discussed that all day long. it sounds like mr. mueller is not happy with the way the media is reporting it. msnbc never reports anything positive on president trump. fox reports everything. if you do your research on which news channel's watched the most, was people get their news from fox and that is probably why the election was such an upset

because nobody was paying any attention. these democrats and the people who are pushing this thing need .o take a break just because you don't like what they found out, he is a liar? get real. host: i want to read from the washington post. the part you are talking about, the media. the washington post reports that when barr pressed mueller on whether he thought barr's memo to congress was inaccurate, mueller said he did not but thought the media coverage of it was misinterpreting the investigation. in their call, barr took issue with mueller calling his memo a summary, saying he never intended to summarize the report but instead provide an account of its top conclusions. democrat.yland, caller: good morning.

i would like to thank all of the cable subscribers for keeping the ship afloat. , i would've. barr -- i would want a few baseline questions about where he graduated, -- his statementm last week, was that a substantial material lie? if that being the case, he perjury -- he perjured himself and should resign. host: guy with his questions in maryland. john is outside the hearing room. about 19th back in line is samuel taylor from omaha,

nebraska. what brought you here? caller: visiting my brother -- >> visiting my brother. host: what do you want to hear from the attorney general? him hist to learn from perspective on the whole mueller report. , and i in at the end want to hear how he responds and what he viewed on both sides, and also spying on the trump campaign. host: what do you think of the attorney general? >> he has done the job before. i think he is doing a great job. he is going to work with both sides and he is fulfilling his promise to be transparent. that is why he coasted through on his nomination. host: will this be your first congressional hearing? >> live, yes. host: what other hearings have

you watched? >> i watched the one with cavanaugh. that was the first one i watched like every minute. i was excited when my brother told me about this hearing. i recently left my job at fidelity investments. i was thinking of moving out here and joining the hill. to senators watching, i want be understaffed if you are on my side, which is maga. i am a trump supporter. i love the president. who work with him, i would love to join your staff. host: when you meet up with your brother, what are you going to talk about? >> the interview, the part of the hearing i am able to witness and the network. host: samuel taylor is from omaha, nebraska, waiting to get

into the hearing. there are 30 seats and he is 19th back in the line. host: 90 minutes before we will see the attorney general put up his right hand and take the oath and sit down and take questions from members of the senate judiciary committee. they will have him until this afternoon. they are scheduled to go into the afternoon for his testimony today. he will be over on the house side tomorrow morning. both of those hearings today and tomorrow on c-span3 and you can watch on c-span.org. we are getting your thoughts on the attorney general and the job he is doing. like in wisconsin, independent -- mike in wisconsin, independent. you had a couple graphs from the washington post. upould like to read further

every buddy has been calling in and disparaging barr. i think people don't get the full understanding of what is going on and the only read the headlines and don't get the full gist of what is going on. they have to read further down the article and i think it is pretty discouraging, people calling in about barr. if they learned more about what was discussed before conclusions, maybe we would have a more unbiased opinion. host: let's go to connie in illinois, republican. we are talking about the washington post a while ago. the washington post came out last week, i guess they thought

it would be published that all their fake news and everything was going to come out, so they published a piece saying fox news had it right all along. host: which is what? what did fox have right? conspiracy.e is no there is nothing. that was testified to on capitol hill by james comey over a year and a half ago. out thoroughlyed he had zero ties to russia and what was being put ,ut and most of the newspapers and comey said it on capitol hill under oath, fake news. host: connie's thoughts.

pedro is on with more on the attorney general. host: we heard of you talk about the background. when the attorney general was being considered for the position, he had to fillet a questionnaire. you can find out more about the responses. works inarr currently washington, d.c. before becoming attorney general. on may 23 of -- may 23, 1950 and got his degree from george washington university. and lists all the places he worked including a stop at the attorney general's to 1993, deputy attorney general from 1990 to 1991 and assistant attorney general from 1989 to 1990. all of that information is available if you go to the senate judiciary committee website. host: vanessa in washington,

d.c., a democrat. what do you think about the attorney general? caller: good morning. to be honest, i am not that in president trump's attorney who is acting as the attorney general. it is so evident this president and his administration and his base are just corrupt to the core. i am flabbergasted. a lot of the calls coming in saying there was no collusion, no obstruction when in actuality that is not what the report said. you can tell people are not reading the mother report. -- the mueller report. the best thing we can do is get out and vote in 2020. it is not mueller's jump to handle this. it is our job. host: who do you trust in all of this? caller: say again?

host: who do you trust? who would testify that you would believe? robert mueller? caller: absolutely. i believe mueller was fair on both sides. he went out of his way not to put this president under any bad light. that was one of the reasons why he didn't put through any charges for obstruction of justice. because he knew the justice department wasn't going to indict the president. he didn't say anything so the president didn't have -- would not be able to defend himself. i would believe mueller. i don't believe barr. i don't believe anybody in the republican party. they are just enablers. host: have you read the report? caller: i did. it was a good read. it was boring in the beginning. host: 448 pages. you can find them on our website, c-span.org.

massachusetts, republican. go ahead, mark, missouri, independent. caller: i am calling into comment on everything going on. that it hasgasted gone this far. the democrats have investigated donald trump, the mueller team for over two years. anything not found that would show that the trump campaign colluded with the russians. this has gone on for over two years is what this has gone on over. it is unbelievable that they just can't leave this alone and say it is what it is and the democrats just keep pushing to

find something. whatever happened to being innocent until proven guilty in our country? mentioned of you have that you would want the senators to ask the attorney general about what he knows about potential spying on the trumpet administration -- on the trump administration by the justice department under the obama administration. this is what the senator from iowa, chuck grassley told c-span yesterday about the type of questions he is planning to ask the attorney general. [video clip] >> what questions do you have for the attorney general? hearing,n oversight you could have any questions you want on any subject but as related to the mother hearing, and -- related to the mueller hearing, now that we have the report, we read the report and there were no crimes committed

and there was no collusion and having that come from mueller gives it a lot of credibility, so i am going to then follow up with what barr said he might do but also i have been interested in the follow-up, how did this 2015 beforeart in it ever got to the investigation that mueller pursued because there is evidence that certain people in the fbi and cia may have colluded to get this going and we know that the democratic national committee and hillary campaign paid for the steele dossier and it turns out nothing was found wrong with collusion. the extent to which the justice department ought to be following up on that and barr indicated he might follow up on that. that is what i am going to be interested in.

i will not be the only one. >> how much do you think tomorrow's hearing is going to be looking back on the mueller report versus looking forward to these other questions you have? >> it might be divided by political party. i think democrats are very anxious to pursue, maybe the president did something wrong and want to find out what barr might think about that. obviously if there was going to be something wrong, barr could have indicted and there were no indictments of the president. there were 20 indictments of other people. are going to feel somewhat concerned about that but more concerned, was there political involvement with people at the highest level of the fbi and the cia to get this thing started in the first place in an anti-trump way, that they did not want him to be

president? on thehuck grassley questions he plans to ask in today's hearing, the origins of this report. john has more on that this morning. joining us outside the senate judiciary committee hearing room is morgan of the hill, national security reporter there. republicans say they want to focus on the overages of the fbi investigation during the 2016 election. can you talk about what sparked the original counterintelligence investigation? guest: the fbi learned from an australian diplomat who worked on the trump campaign as a foreign policy advisor, that the russians had damaging information on hillary clinton in the form of emails. this was something we saw play out with his guilty plea. it was put together with news

reporting and more investigate as the information investigation special counsel robert mueller conducted came about. the fbi learned weeks later the russians released act -- wikileaks released hacked emails that related tot -- later tied to the russian plot to interfere in the election. that is what got the investigation going because the fbi wanted to figure out what those two things had in relation to one another, investigate whether the trump campaign had contact with the russians and what those contacts amounted to. host: we hear steele dossier a lot. who was behind that? guest: the dossier was compiled by a former british intelligence agent. he had been an informant for the fbi previously. he was hired by a research firm with ties to democrats to research links between trump and russia.

details fromned steele and those details were used in part to justify a surveillance renewal application on carter page, a former trump campaign foreign policy advisor who had contact with russians and drew scrutiny from the fbi. host: what is the foreign intelligence surveillance court? caller: -- guest: the court is what the fbi needs to apply to for a warrant in order to surveilled an american -- surveil an american. page.anted to surveil we saw a heavily redacted version of the surveillance warrant released by the justice department last year. a central focus of republicans because they say the fbi used -- abused surveillance authorities

because they did not disclose or theas their contact connection between their research and democrats. host: another name that has come up. remind us of who is. guest: he has drawn a ton of scrutiny from republicans and president trump and has been criticized in trump j kate tweets and he called on the department -- justice department to fire him as well. he works for the justice department. he testified before republicans who investigated the origins of the fbi investigation last year. according to a transcript released of his testimony, he -- duringhis contact ele contact with steele, ste told him they believe -- the russians believed they had trump over the barrel. he has drawn scrutiny because his wife worked for the research firm that paid for the dossier.

host: other names, lisa page. who is that? guest: very heavily scrutinized by republicans. former fbi officials, both of whom worked on the russia investigation. they were the subject of a department of justice inspector general investigation that uncovered text messages between the two of them that discussed trump in negative terms before the election. republicans have looked at those text messages as evidence that the agents who on the original counterintelligence probe were biased in that decision. host: we have seen the redacted mueller report, what did it have to say about all of this? guest: not much. it goes through the details on papadopoulos and page. it mentions the surveillance warrant. it refers to the dossier as unverified research that was compiled. dossier, published the

which many of the details remained unverified, right before trump's inauguration. answer unknown questions about the dossier, the mueller report. it is important that -- it is important to note that mueller was not tasked with investigating the dossier. host: looking ahead to 10:00 this morning when the attorney general is set to testify. what are you interested in hearing about and how much do you expect this conversation we had to play out on the floor? guest: republicans will try to ask barr about the origins of the counterintelligence probe. this is something barr has said he is reviewing. in terms of me and other reporters, a lot of people are

focused on the revelations last night that mueller was dissatisfied with the attorney summarysummary -- the's -- the attorney general's summary. i think it will be a big focus of the hearing today and it will be interesting to say -- to see what the attorney general has to say. i think that is going to be a large focus. host: are you going to be in the room? guest:. . i will be it is going to be -- guest: i will be and it is going to be very exciting. host: another hearing tomorrow in the house judiciary committee. guest: that is in the air because democrats are squabbling over the terms. the house judiciary chairman wants to have committee staff question barr.

and the justice department have fought back saying that is not what he agree to. it is a question of whether he will show up and if he doesn't, seek -- whether he will seek to subpoena him. host: national security reporter with the hill, thank you for your time. -- with the hill, thank you for your time. host: your thoughts on the attorney general's testimony before the judiciary committee this morning. 10:00 eastern is when that begins. c-span3 is where you can watch it. or download the free c-span radio app. doreen in massachusetts, republican. your thoughts. caller: my question for the attorney general would be, why didn't mueller come out and say directly yes it was obstruction of justice or no there was no

obstruction, rather than have this document that is going to be scrutinized and investigated and another two years of the same thing, when he could have finished it, yes or no. host: what do you think about the attorney general having to make the decision along with rod rosenstein about this question of obstruction? caller: i think he made -- she read the report and according to what he said, he did discuss his decision with mueller and with rod rosenstein. i would think that his reporting would be accurate. his decision was accurate, especially since he discussed it with the two of them. i don't think he would be lying on that. that is what i would ask. host: joseph in florida,

democrat. caller: good morning. educator ined is thisand my opinion document, the mueller report is extremely important in american history. my suggestion would be that it be made required reading for high school and college students , material for very interesting classroom discussions. i have in front of me a document titled u.s. citizenship and immigration services. 100 civic questions and answers. this is a document that shows a test that is required for anyone wanting to be a naturalized american citizen. i want to make a reference to question 12. is the rule of law? the four possible answers are

everyone must follow the law, leaders must obey the law, government must obey the law, and no one is above the law. this is a question that i would like to address to mr. barr. root ofthis is at the what is going on right now. the rule of law is extremely important for our nation. we should thank god we have a constitution on a division of powers, checks and balances and even though it is difficult and stressful, i think we can grow from this process. thank you very much. host: david in las vegas, independent. caller: good morning. do, for god sakes, do not make the mueller report required reading.

high schools and colleges are dumbed down enough already. what was the genesis of this investigation? host: what is your point? caller: wasn't it that the dnc server was hacked? host: and? caller: wasn't that the genesis of this investigation? host: your point? proof: we have never had that the server was hacked. we had our intel agencies come out and say unquestionably russia hacked it and yet there was never an investigation into the server. we took the word of an operative hired by the democratic party. indiana,th in republican. what do you want to hear from the attorney general? i would like him to

-- thep and say prosecution is just going to get bill clinton and loretta lynch. he got on that airplane. he obstructed the law. there is no way out of it. when is he going to be held accountable. host: who obstructed the law? caller: president clinton getting on the plane with loretta lynch. outot on the plane to find why -- what comey had to say about what was going to happen to her. host: pedro with more on today's hearing. host: lawyers consisting a majority of those sitting in the senate judiciary committee. as the graham serves chairman, getting his law degree from the university of south carolina. from texas, senator john cornyn, ted cruz is from harvard. mike lee of utah from brigham

young. senator john kennedy from louisiana state. that is on the republican side. democrats, pato lahey, dick durbin, getting there agrees from georgetown. chris coons and richard blumenthal and cory booker getting degrees from magnet universities law school. kamala harris getting her degree from uc law. host: 12 republicans, 10 democrats. who will you be watching? what questions do you want them to ask the attorney general and what do you want to hear from william barr? sharon in kentucky, democrat. you are next. caller: how are you? host: good morning.

is --: the things that the thing that is so amazing to me, the gentleman who talked to you from nevada, he said what really did get this going? that is the overwhelming thing i think bothers most americans, how much is our government doing now to protect these elections that are upcoming? questiond be my first to the attorney general. the other thing is i think there was a lady that called and she was talking to you about the summary that william barr had and thatn 1989, summary from what i had read had generalth the attorney

at that time, asked to provide the memo offering detailed legal rationale for the summary that he wrote, stating that our country could forcibly take into custody, a person in a foreign country without the consent of that country's government. his 13 he offered in page summary, that our president could effectively ignore the charter and do this. summary, these summaries that our attorney general, it seems like he likes to write summaries. i'm sure he is a very smart man. i'm sure he is very learned and i'm sure the president has him because he is his friend.

however, here is the thing. concernedmueller is about the department of justice. general isrney concerned about the president of the united states, where does that put us, the american people? we have to have someone looking after us. part i will take the first of your comment this morning about what is congress doing or what is the government doing to prevent russia from interfering in our elections again. senate minority leader chuck schumer talked about what the senate needs to do regarding election interference. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> we are going to focus on doing some things against russia so that they will not interfere with the elections. additionalould pass

sanctions against president putin, his cronies and other adversaries considering similar maligned activity. there are some bipartisan bills on sanctions we will be pushing. second, we should commit to serious resources to election security. got $380 million for election security for the 2018 elections to be spent by states. one of those government programs put together and was spent very well, everyone agrees. we will push in the appropriations process for significantly higher numbers. senator klobuchar is leading the charge on election security legislation which is bipartisan. we have a good chance to get these things done.

we have to hear from the intelligence and defense communities about the threats to 2020. today i am requesting that leader mcconnell schedule and all senators classified briefing with the leaders of the departments of homeland security, fbi and cyber command to inform senators about the threat of foreign intelligence in the 2020 cycle. the senate can do these things quickly. each one is bipartisan, each one should not be controversial. we cannot sit there and twiddle our thumbs while russia aims to interfere with our elections once again. host: the minority leader from yesterday, talking about what he wants to see done in the question of russian interference. the attorney general is sure to get questioned about that this morning when he sits down at 10:00. outside that hearing, john is there with more members of the public waiting to get in. line outsideg in

the senate judiciary committee hearing room is -- of corpus christi, texas. >> we were interested in seeing what more we could learn from the mueller report. we feel like the facts we have been given are not enough regarding what has been publicized before and the fact that we had heard about what happened in the white house. we are hoping to learn more today. host: corpus christi is a long way from washington, d.c. >> we enjoy coming to washington to watch our government in action. we happened to be in town when this hearing was going to take place. we got up early this morning and got in line and we feel like it is going to be a historic meeting. we hope the senators ask the tough questions and mr. barr answers with honest answers. host: what is a tough question? >> what is really going on? this hearing about -- is about

russian involvement. i don't know how much we are going to get involved in the mueller report. mr. barr had not represented the mueller as i understand an honest fashion and we would like to get some truth back in washington, d.c. host: when did we lose that truth? >> that is a loaded question. i will say 2016. host: how many hearings have you come to? >> this is our first live hearing. host: what other hearings have you watched? >> we watched the cavanaugh h hearing. kavanaug we watch the confirmation hearing for barr. we thought he was going to be pretty fair-minded. we have changed our minds. host: when did that change? >> after the mueller report. host: what are your plans after this hearing? >> not sure. host: from corpus christi, texas.

thank you so much for your time. host: those folks waiting to get into the hearing room this morning. there are 30 seats reserved for the public. 25 for the media. there are seats reserved for the justice department as well as the majority and minority side of the senate judiciary committee. 12 republicans, 10 democrats. those two folks were talking about wanting to hear the attorney general react to the news that broke overnight. was not happy with how the report was characterized by the attorney general. it seems the attorney general in his opening statements this morning is addressing that. he writes it would not have been appropriate for me simply to release volume two of the report without making a prosecutorial judgment.

the deputy attorney general and i conducted a careful view -- careful review of the report. although we disagree with some of the special counsel's legal theories, we felt some of the episodes thought they did not ao obstruction as a matter of law, we accepted the special counsel's legal framework for purposes of our analysis and evaluated the evidence as presented by the special counsel in reaching our conclusion. we concluded that the evidence developed in the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed and obstruction of justice offense. the attorney about and what questions you would ask him this morning. aranda in pittsburgh. independent -- maranda in pittsburgh. independent. comments,couple of barr's any connection between the russian government and wikileaks, and robert mueller's

the trump campaign working with wikileaks and there is a congruence between all of the indictments of stone and metaphor and transplants with jersey. how can caller say that the trump campaign has no connection with russia when robert mueller report about the trump tower towerg, the russian trump real estate deals and various lives and conversations that were covered up? host: what about the connection that has to be made under law for it to be conspiracy? they have to have agreed that this is something that they were going to do together, work together. caller: i agree with that, the intent is a requirement for conspiracy, which is difficult. but that is the next question -- that leads to the next question of obstruction, if the police

raided a house and they flash drugs, that is obstruction but you cannot prove a crime. great deal outside of this that people need to consider. i am hearing a lot of trump supporters accusing the left-leaning bias but they will not criticize the right-leaning bias. host: will you be watching? caller: i always watch this. host: c-span3 and c-span.org and the c-span radio app. >> lawyers with legal experience on the republican side, lindsey graham, an air force lawyer, john cornyn served as the texas attorney general. mike lee was the general counsel for governor john huntsman, ted cruz as the texas solicitor general and josh hawley as the

missouri attorney general, and john kennedy serving as attorney. democratic, pat leahy as a state attorney and dick durbin was the legal counsel for paul simon and sheldon whitehouse was the rhode island attorney general and clover sharp -- chris coons was an attorney, richard blumenthal as the attorney general feared -- general. cory booker was an nonprofit attorney and kamala harris was the san francisco district attorney. they select -- they have a chance to get a look at a less redacted mueller report made available by the attorney general. it was provided to select members of congress. politico says only two members that took advantage of that, lindsey graham, as the chair of the city -- and doug collins,

the ranking member of the house judiciary committee. they says barr offered the less redacted report to 12 members of congress, six democrats and six republicans, but only those men to give image, mitch mcconnell said he planned to review the report later on tuesday, graham said what is under the reduction reportimpact on the underneath the reductions and it had no bearing on the conclusion. that may play out in these hearings. how much of this report is redacted? the attorney general answer that question in his opening statement, we made every effort to ensure that the reductions were as limited as possible. according to one analysis, just

8% of the public record was redacted. in my understanding, less than 2% has been withheld in the minimally redacted version made available to congressional leaders. that in his opening statement this morning, you can read it at -- it is atis that the top of our webpage at the link to the full mueller report. crystal in wilmington, delaware, republican. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. voice.me, i have a horse i want to comment concerning the hearing from barr. -- i am aat i am prior democrat. i have now turned republican. the reason i did that is because my parents were democrats and i was following suit. the african-american, it was the

thing to do. ofn i looked at the policies -- and my personal values, that is when i changed to republican. that was years ago. i was a clinton supporter when he was president. i have an open mind. i am so embarrassed at our country for having years, two years of saying we want the mueller report to come out and then everybody will accept it. mueller had the opportunity to say, i see that there is instruction -- of instruction -- obstruction but we cannot indict a sitting president. statement that he could not say he did obstruct and he did not exonerate him.

if he cannot say that the president obstructed beyond a reasonable doubt, that should have been the end. there is no reason to say neither can i exonerate him. when we go to court, if we cannot be proven guilty, all they say is, we could not prove that she did this and the cases dropped, dismissed. nobody goes on to say that we cannot exonerate her. democrats,d that the they should have more to do. do something with your majority in the house. americans, ofs going on and on and on. host: let's listen to this attorney general at his news conference on obstruction where he was asked about the decision, mueller's decision to not reach

a conclusion on abstraction of justice. william barr: when we met with met --n rosenstein and i ron rosenstein and i met with him, on march 5, we specifically asked him about the opinion and whether or not he was taken a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion and he made it clear several times that that was not his position. he was not saying that but for the olc opinion, he would have found a crime. he made it clear he did not make a determination that there was a crime. report, the mueller special counsel says while the olc opinion concludes a sitting president may not be prosecuted, it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the president's term is permissible.

thatpinion also recognizes a president does not have immunity after he leaves office at if individuals other than the president committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. the facts known to us and those considerations and is -- and the strong public interest in safeguarding the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual investigation to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available. robert mueller goes on to say this, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit a fraction of justice, we would so state. justice, weon of would so statement under the legal standards we cannot reach that judgment, the intent revives difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.

while this report does not conclude the president committed a crime, it does not exonerate him. your reaction to this ahead of the attorney general's testimony on capitol hill this morning. he will -- the hearing will start at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span3. caroline in new louisiana, democrat -- in louisiana, democrat. after listening to what you just read, i think the report in itself and the way mueller stipulated his leaves all the room in the world for any attorney addressing an indictment to move forward. the report conclusively says there is criminal activity and people were arrested for those

activities. they do not stipulate it is , heuse of the president would have been a part of the indictment if he was not president. indiana,ard in independent. yes, i have confidence in william barr -- i do not have confidence in william barr, we should get mueller to testify in public hearings in congress. this is an outrage. i do not know how any reasonable defense of what has happened. host: give us examples of why you think the attorney general cannot be trusted. caller: in what you just read just prior to me coming on, or a few seconds ago, it laid out the obstruction of justice that

mueller had reflected in his report. he laid out the fact that, --ause of the legal office olc says that the guidelines are they cannot indict a sitting president because it would interfere with his constitutional duties to execute his job. because of that, he was not going to go through a prosecutorial decision in determining this. he made it clear, this is very important event in our history, we have a president who is a criminal. clearly a criminal. he goes through the obstruction of justice items and lays out each of the items for our memorializing these events so they can be taken up by congress

to impeach. if congress had a patriot in the senate to follow through with convicting this criminal, we could did him out of office -- get him out of office. there should be universal outrage of what is happening. , the way the report is broken down, the first volume talks about the evidence related to conspiracy to commit a crime. but in terms of collusion, they made it clear collusion is not a legal term. therefore it is not -- collusion forward orried analyzed in mueller's review. the elements and volume one, there is evidence of collusion.

you talk about the meeting at the trump tower. donald trump said russia, if you have emails, we would like to have them. the russians made an attempt to break into hillary clinton's email. this is an outrage as far as i'm concerned. i do not know why there is not universal condemnation about what is happening. republicans are defending this criminal. host: sounds like you would like the house to move forward with impeachment. it would take two thirds of the senate to approve that and that means you need 67 senators to say yes on impeachment and 20 republicans, given the current makeup. are you still there? republican.ois, caller: good morning and thank you.

the one lady who called in and said she would not trust any republican or anything the republican party says but she trusts mueller and he is a republican. it does not make a difference who is in power, your party is the way you think and it will not change anything. buted to be a democrat since this walkaway campaign, it opened my eyes and people should realize and look at this man and what he stands for and what he went through. --s country is instead jake in sad shape. host: democrat, james, your turn. caller: talking about wide trump was investigated to begin with, intelligence officers of our allies were following russians five. does russian spies -- russian

spies. they noticed trump political people were talking russian spies and our people started investigating. son got on tv and said we have all the russian money we need. this bank is being investigated for money laundering and tax evasion. where did trump's money come from, we got all the russian money we want. he wanted to give vladimir putin a penthouse in his trump tower when it was built. million, what50 else would donald trump give putin? he tore up the translator's notes when he had the meeting with food and -- putin.

they try to set up a secret line between the white house and , thea through the embassy russian embassy in washington, d.c. please wake up. host: what does that amount to? caller: that amounts to a corrupt, i think he is a treasonous to this country. he needs to be removed from office. all of those -- you had a group of republicans senators who went to russia before they voted on taking those sanctions off of them. i want to know if they got money in their bank account. host: where did you learn that? want today's hearing, you may see familiar faces on the democratic side with candidate for president who will be questioning william barr.

cory booker of new jersey,, harris, california, amy klobuchar, longest-serving member of the committee, democrat from minnesota. the committees investigating the there are crossover when it comes to members of the intelligence committees. cornyncan side, john serves on both judiciary and intelligence, and ben sasse, republican of nebraska. dianne feinstein, the ranking member of the committee today, also serving on the intelligence committee, and kamala harris of california. the president, looking at the hearing, not mentioning it directly but his twitter feed, no collusion, no extraction -- no obstruction, how can you have obstruction when not only was the no collusion but bad actions

were done by the other side to create -- the greatest con job in the history of american politics. why didn't president obama do anything about russia before the election when told by the fbi? he did nothing and had no intention of doing anything. host: kevin in michigan, independent. good morning from capitol hill. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was thinking about all of the people going after donald trump of the collision. and we find out that there was none. withverybody was information, adam schiff says i had proof there was collusion but there was none. and the media. they have been going after this guy for two years. probe --se to an panel

anal proble. devicesclinton smashed and deleted 30,000 emails, as much proof as you can get of unstructured of justice. --obstruction of justice. we have a two-tiered justice system, one for democrats and one for republicans. it doesn't make any sense. host: we are waiting for this hearing to begin at 10:00 a.m. eastern. the public has lined up outside of the hearing room. there are 30 seats available for the public this morning for them to sit down and listen to the attorney general answer questions on the senate judiciary committee members. there are reserved seats inside the hearing room for the media, 25 seats and you have reserved seating behind the attorney general for the justice department, staff that will be joining him and you have the 10

seats for the majority and 10 seats for the minority reserved inside the hearing room. on c-span3, our coverage starts at 9:30 a.m. eastern and we expect to see the attorney general as we get closer to 10:00, that is when the hearing will begin. the chairman will start and c-span3 will stay with it throughout the hearing, throughout the questions and answers, and to the afternoon until it is finished. you can watch it again at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span or follow along on c-span.org, or download the feet -- free c-span radio app. chris in indiana, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i want to say what the last caller said but i want to say is all out lying to people because either you

believe donald trump is innocent or you hate him. you either think obstruction is a thing, or you think it is not. something wrong with the news in this country when different sides have such divided views. they want blacks and whites to fight. they won't republicans and democrats -- they want republicans and democrats to fight. ,o matter what you believe people's hearts are in it. america is on a bad path. emily, democrat, san diego, your turn. caller: i just wanted to mention if trump was not guilty about what happened in the election of

2016, why he fired james comey? and let him follow the investigation. host: you think that alone is obstruction? caller: yes, more proof. host: what happens? how do you want members of congress to react? caller: i want them to bring james comey into the --estigation and say that and fire him. >> washington times takes a look at the pigment as legislators returned back from the two week break. it is reported that as they return, the appetite for impeachment is low, even in the wake of the release of the special counsel's report and a resolution introduced by a michigan them are cut to begin impeachment proceedings picked up supporters on monday, the

number rose from two to seven, omar but aoc and ilhan none among committee chairs or caucus leaders. more of that at the washington times. go to the daily beast, a story about adam schiff of the house intelligence committee, a new higher, the former chief of the fbi financial crimes section. the daily beast says it is a significant higher that will bring expertise to the committee's efforts to scrutinize president trump's financial dealings, a committee source said that he started this week. read more of that at the daily beast. host: rhonda in elizabeth, west virginia come independent -- virginia, independent. how do you think the attorney general is doing?

caller: i have no problems with him whatsoever. i want you to know that there are people that can read that report and understand exactly what they have read. i knew it was going to be from a prosecutorial viewpoint. i knew it would not have any defense and it. i am a criminal justice major and i graduated college with a degree. i read that without a problem. the incidence they want to claim for obstruction, if they had found a conspiracy, they could have role that together and indicted the president. but, against doj protocol had they found conspiracy, they would have indicted the president. because they did not, i concur with everything -- the only thing they had not done was mueller put in about not being

able to exonerate the president but that was not his job. host: you wish he had not put it in their, muddies the waters? caller: exactly, his job was not to exonerate. that is not what a prosecutor does. host: she read the report and if you want to, or reference it while you listen to the attorney general testified this morning, go to our website, sees.org and you will find a link to the mueller report at the top -- c-span.org and you will find a link to the mueller report at the top along with barr's opening statement. denise, college park, maryland, democrats. excuse me, alan in alabama, republican. caller: good morning. i have been following this the whole time. i am having a hard time believing any of it because the democrats have been wanting to impeach trump every sense --

ever since he was elected. they spent $40 million on this investigation. there was nothing of fact about collusion. host: what is your reaction when you hear that, according to reports, usa today says that the mueller involved -- investigation made money because of the fines and the assets he seized from people like paul manafort. caller: that had nothing to do with russian collusion which started the investigation. , theythey made money searched to find something but if you look at it, other than the whole collusion investigation, there is nothing there. it is a waste of that money. host: let's go to denise and college park, maryland, independent -- excuse me, democrat.

caller: yes. good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i wanted to make a couple of statements. need to bearr impeached. they are both crooks. we know why barr came into office. they said that no sitting president should be impeached or criminal charges brought against them. said --ious color who caller, why do you need to trust the news, you just need to listen to trump and barr and the other republicans. just listen for yourself. i do not understand why it is so hard to understand what they're doing. obama.as a problem with everything he does he puts it back to obama who is not an office, who is not up for

impeachment. and as far as congress impeaching him, i believe they should do that, but i also believe they should further the investigation, they need to hear from more and need to hear from barr. denise, what questions should democratic senators on the senate judiciary committee ask of attorney general barr? >> -- caller: one question? host: yes. one question. caller: one question would be, why did you come out and read that report before no one else read it? and why did you lie when congress asked you that mueller had any problems with his final

letter? why did he lie and say that he did not know. why didn't he tell the truth? host: those are denise's questions. in tampa, florida. independent. caller: it is overkill. like democrats are watching movie and one a different ending. there is no different ending. it is over. there is no collusion or corruption. no obstruction. i do not like where they say russia interfered with the election, they try to influence voters, they did not interfere with the election. i saw a poll where 40% of democrats think their votes were actually altered. people think their votes were

altered but they were not altered. they did not block a polling site or intimidate people. you have commercials on facebook , i do not care if hillary clinton had a trillion dollars in ads, i would not have voted for her. people should know by other means who to vote for, research it on c-span, go to the candidates websites, listen to townhall meetings. they do not have to be influenced by a commercial on facebook. it is overkill. there will not be anything between the lines of the mueller reports that is different than what is already been said. host: a busy day on capitol hill. we are just a block away from buildingal and the next to us where we have been

showing you the activity outside of the hearing room as the public lines up, staff, senators , the people interested in being here on capitol hill to see in person the attorney general testify before the senate judiciary committee. our cameras will be in the room bringing it to you on c-span3 throughout the day. c-span.org and the free c-span radio app. >> the house intelligence committee chair adam schiff sent out a tweet on his twitter feed and said the attorney general should resign, he misled the american people would be an mueller accurate summary of the mueller report and misled congress when he did not a knowledge mueller's concern, how can he impartially administer justice. he can't. a republican said that adam schiff said in march that he had more than circumstantial

evidence that president colluded with the russians, evidence he has not produced and mueller could not find, maybe adam schiff should take his own bad advice. i congresswoman saying that the reporting from last night is consistent with what we have been saying all along, the attorney general's ready -- release of the redacted report did not get the substance of the investigation, no attraction no collusion is a con. host: pennsylvania, republican, ron. what do you make of this? caller: it is may 1 and the american citizen says mayday, mayday, we need help. this is like a modern tower of babel. for those who understand the biblical analogy. i am an average, everyday citizen and my question to the senators and two attorney general barr, this comes through so clearly, how could there be

any obstruction of justice if there is no identified crime? you you cannot obstruction a non-crime? host: what about trying to stop an investigation of a crime? ?aller: what, he fired mueller the president can fire someone who is insubordinate. i forget the word you said. interference,- the president did nothing to interfere with this investigation. he let it go on for two years. host: got it. on the question of russian interference and alleged assistance from the trump campaign, this is what the attorney general said at his press conference. one of the primary purposes of the special counsel's investigation was to determine whether president

trump's campaign or any individual associated with it conspired or coordinated with the russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. volume one of the special counsel report describes the results of that investigation. as you will see, the report states that his investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. i am certain that all americans share my concern about the efforts of the russian government to interfere in our president election. as the special counsel report makes clear, the russian government look to interfere in our election process. but thanks to the special counsel's thorough investigation, we know that the russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did

not have the cooperation of president trump or the trunk campaign, orrunk the assistance of other americans, something all americans can and should be grateful for to have confirmed. host: there is what the mueller report says, in this investigation the evidence does not establish the president was involved in an underlying crime related to russian election interference but the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the president's conduct. they include concerns that continued the investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events such as advance notice of the wiki these release of hacked information or the meeting between senior campaign officials and russians could be seen as criminal activities by the president, his campaign, or his family. to read this or more from me mueller report go to c-span.org

where you can find it at the top along with the attorney general's opening statement. minutes away from his arrival on capitol hill. we understand that he is on his way and he will go over to the senate office building and into the senate -- hearing room and into the witness seat where he will be there well into the afternoon to take questions from the senate judiciary committee. north carolina, democrat, what do you think of the attorney general? caller: well, i think he obviously lied to protect trump. he would not gotten the job if he had not. how stiff and our two thirds of it -- how stupid are two thirds of this country? it is obvious he lies. another one bites the dust. everyone trump touches turns to do-doo because trump is

oo-doo. caller: i do not think trump came up with the idea to have russians interfere with the election, he got caught up in it but he is lying about something. for a lot of people, you can support whomever you choose, but ,et's say this was barack obama whether he lied or is not lying, if this was barack obama, republicans and democrats would have in peace tim a long time ago -- in peace him a long time him-- in peace -- impeached a long time ago, the fact he is a white man, it is overlooked, people supposed to be for the american people, make sure the country runs in the proper fashion. they are feeding into this

nonsense and it is scary for me. my husband served in the military for over 20 years and the fact that a lot of these people consider themselves patriotic and seeing this nonsense happened, whether true or not, and the rushers -- russians were involved in interference and everybody is having a blind eye to it. host: i will leave it there. stiller, the actor, he got out of the car that pulled up into the office building. not sure if he is here for the hearing or another purpose but that is who that was on your screen. lyndon franken, north carolina, democratic caller. -- linda in franklin, north carolina, democratic caller. caller: i am tired of trying to get trump. the country needs to get on with this business and move forward.

the democrats seem to have stalled everything that trump tries to do. host: what questions do you think should be asked of the attorney general? host: we will move on to heidi in nevada, republican. what do you want to hear from the attorney general? caller: good morning. i would like to know why, in the very beginning, when they suspected the russians were trying to interfere with our elections, why they did not go to the trump campaign and inform them? it seems to me they were trying to take him out from the beginning. and that the collusion, it was a witchhunt. host: ok. tweet fromr found a ben stiller about why he is here on capitol hill, it is an honor to visit congress this week with refugees to share incredible

stories in the humanitarian need of refugees eight years since the start of the crisis. that is the reason you saw ben stiller on capitol hill. h and north rut inolina, independent -- north carolina, independent. caller: hi. today, there has been an investigation for two years and this is another one of their meetings, the republicans and democrats will show off in front of the camera. that is all it is, they are not looking for answers, just a way to show up and get votes. i do not trust either party. host: who do you trust? caller: i do not trust either party. when i vote, i try to

investigate the person and i am voting for and i do not pay attention to parties. hearingat if at today's there was counsel for the committee's asking the questions and not senators? would you watch then and believe and trust the questioning then? caller: maybe. maybe. , why have question is they spent so much money? millions and millions of dollars investigating. today, i wonder what it will cost today to have this meeting where they get to show off in front of the cameras. i would like to know the price tag. host: the price tag for a hearing like this. outside of the dirksen senate office building, several cars pulling up.

not sure who is getting out and if they are related to the committee hearing. there is the attorney general, william barr, making his way into the dirksen senate office building. he will probably go through a backdoor into the committee room. and make his way over in a matter of minutes to the witness chair inside of that hearing room. expected to get underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern. our coverage of the hearing on in at3, the house coming c-span at 10:00 and we will have coverage of that. we are covering this hearing on c-span3 this morning. and c-span.org or the free c-span radio out -- app. >> the attorney general faced the same number of people when it came to the confirmation process and if you go back, the committee votes on william barr

and who voted and how, a 12-10 party line vote. the final vote on the senate floor, all 12 committee republicans voted for him and all democrats voted against him. that may play out in some way as the attorney general faces them again today. we have been hearing from viewers about the questions they would like to hear. from twitter, viewer reaction, david says i would like to see question two barr that acid the treasury part may cannot release his tax information to the committee. were there laws broken during the investigation like spying on a presidential candidate? it goes on from there. creating a fake dossier is his viewpoint. why are you barr asking silly questions instead of being in your office investigating a possible

conspiracy against the president? host: a follow-up for our viewers, we are covering the he isg with ben stiller, a goodwill ambassador for the united nations human rights commission. he is testifying with refugee agencies -- excuse me, testifying with the president and ceo would be rescue committee before the senate foreign relations committee at 10:15 this morning. you can watch that on c-span.org. in, we areouse comes taking your calls as we have 15 minutes left to get your reaction to the hearing this morning. we want to hear your thoughts on what you think of the attorney general and the job he is doing. albuquerque, new mexico, democrat, jeff. caller: my question is whether attorney general barr can be

this hard for lying to congress for lying tobarred congress and if he is, can he served as attorney general? host: sounds like you do not think he is doing a good job. what do you think congress should do about it? hill is a story from the that says 12 democrats have asked the justice department to investigate william barr. do you agree? caller: he has already like to 10gress on april 9 and april stating that he has not had discussions or any ideas of what mueller really felt about what he reported in his four-page letter. it is true that he did no that was upsetat mueller with the misrepresentation and the democrats need to question him about that specifically. and specifically go after him in terms of this bar meant -- this

colorado, in republican. caller: good morning, how are you? host: good, what do you think about the attorney general? caller: i could use expletive word but you would not allow them on air, the investigation should not go on, it was proven from the beginning that trump did not do anything wrong but we are spending taxpayer dollars, our dollars on frivolous investigations that will continue on for another god knows how long. it all started with obama and hillary, they are saying obama did not do anything wrong and hillary was found innocent but hillary is guilty as hell and obama was right behind her. they need to be investigated and

they should have started that at the beginning when lisa page said there is no evidence for us to open an investigation on the president. spoke with chuck grassley, republican of iowa on the judiciary committee yesterday, he says he will ask those questions this morning. will you be watching? caller: yes, i take the day off of work so i could watch. host: you did? caller: this is pretty important in our country and everybody should pay attention to what is going on and be proactive. we are losing our constitution and government. they are treating it like it is their government and our constitution is being walked all over and stepped on and changed and illegal things are going on. everything on the hill is crazy. >> reaction from congress, jim jordan with a tweet saying

that elijah cummings should read the story before barr pressing mark meadows said, mueller criticized the letter but mueller admitted the letter was accurate. relevant, likeer complaining about a movie trailer two weeks after the full movie comes out? is washington post story expected to shape the conversation with the committee and if you want to read it, you can find it at washington post.com. host: mark, sebastian, florida, independent. we are on capitol hill getting your thoughts on the attorney general's testimony in about 10 minutes. what do you think?

caller: i was hoping a question was, was the department of justice, not allowing robert mueller to testify? i feel like most of the stuff could be cleared up if you had robert mueller go on to the hill to testify about his findings, rather than hearing it who hasnd from barr, person aboututhful the process. host: i do not think the justice department said he cannot testify. caller: right. host: i think william barr said he was open to him testifying. caller: that is what he is saying but it does not seem like justice isent of allowing him. they are putting up guardrails

to hinder him from testifying. that would be my question for barr when he is on the hill this morning. a -- asked him in good faith to allow barr to testify. host: print photographers are taking pictures and getting situation -- situated. photographs that photographers from all -- photographers from all publications taking pictures of the witness table, the cameramen as well trying to get an image before the hearing get started. a 25 seat -- there is 25 seats for the media and you have print publications in the back who will be covering this as well. behind the minister will william

will be sitting, there will be department of justice officials, the first row is for them. 10 seats for the majority and 10 for the minority. we will see who shows up for those. 30 seats remain for the public to get in and hear from william barr. senators of the judiciary committee, 12 republicans and 10 democrats. michael and walnut creek, california, democrat. caller: i want to hear what the after this of this investigation -- and for this? i have heard people talk about the attorney general ethics, i question the special counsel's ethics. he set up his own investigative crew and that crew was basically all democrats. if you look at most of them, they were on hillary's -- what

was supposed to be hurt the partyrty -- her victory on election day. host: nathan in baltimore, independent. question really is, when the report is saying, ok, there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia. it says it does not exonerate him. what i would like to see is more inquiry about the details of what happens during the trump campaign that did not exonerate him. i need more details. host: ok. let's go to floyd in jonesville,

virginia, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning. i think trump is innocent of this and he reports said he was innocent of it. what worries me is what the democrats will do when the investigation of the democrats takes you back to obama. will there be riots in the street? whenever the democrats see -- what the democrat voters see what the democrats have done, doing trump the way he has been done when the democrats are at fault. they believe in killing innocent babies. who could be more christian than an innocent baby? they believe in killing them. host: some of the senators are making their way into the hearing room, senator kennedy, republican, senator durbin,

democrat, taking their seats. we are waiting for the witness, the attorney general barr to make his way into the hearing room. that will get started at 10:00 a.m. eastern. to watch this room unfold uninterrupted go to c-span3 where our coverage will be of the hearing today. you can switch over there to watch gavel-to-gavel coverage of this hearing with the attorney general. and on c-span.org or the c-span radio app. we will play it again at 8:00 tonight on c-span. the house hearing tomorrow at leading uppan3 and to that we will be taking your calls tomorrow on the washington journal. we have a few minutes left before the house starts. pedro with more on the mueller letter.

>> the democrats on the house put out a letter from robert mueller to the attorney general, the subject of the story in the washington post this morning. while we understand the department is reviewing the full report to determine what is appropriate, we are working with you to complete, that process should not delay the materials, release at this time would alleviate the misunderstanding and answer congressional and publish questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation. there is more to this letter but go to the house judiciary democrat page you can find a link online. host: the house judiciary committee links to the letter that robert mueller sent to the attorney general about the characterization of the mueller reports. let's get in a few more calls. las vegas, democrat, ernest, what do you want to hear from the attorney general?

caller: i do not expect to hear anything from the attorney general, he has said what he will say. this two years of watching trump fiasco, if the people cannot see what is going on, we are in big trouble because it is so obvious what the russians, they are listening, and the corruption and everything else. people calling in on lines i know are not democrats or republicans. this country is in big trouble if we step back a little bit and start using our heads instead of our emotions. host: bobby in in the -- in alabama, independent. caller: good morning, how are you? host: good morning. caller: i would like to talk about disrespect. please, hey trump, is president trump, he is the president of this country and he

deserves all the respect. if you do not like president trump, that is fine, you do not have to, i did not like president obama but he was the president. and the american people need to educate themselves. do not be spoonfed by msnbc and cnn. do not be spoonfed, educate yourselves. the president has the right to fire james comey for any reason. by firing james comey, you are not cutting off the head of the snake. because the head is still there with somebody coming in behind him. we know crimes of been committed , been committed by the fbi, hillary clinton, and a whole

bunch of other people. educate yourself. please. bakersfield, california, republican. theer: i want to know why investigation was started, three weeks before the election, when donald trump -- host: we have to leave, the house is in session. live coverage on c-span two and c-span3 for the barr hearing. 9. i hereby appoint the honorable henry cuellar to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2019, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the

parties. all time shall be equally al he located between the parties and in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. each member other than the majority and minority leaders and minority whip will be entitled to five minutes. the chair recognizes the the gentlewoman from ohio, miss beatty, for five minutes. mrs. beatty: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i rise today to express my deepest gratitude and to recognize the career of david p. blum for retiring as president and c.e.o. of ohio health after 36 years. he became president of grant medical center located in downtown columbus in my district. dave set out to make health care more access isible to underserved and diverse populations. providing