sometime after 11:00. we'll get our 1st look at the report. danny, on the issue of obstruction of justice, his thinking as to why it became his responsibility after the special counsel deferred on the issue of obstruction. was it a sound legal argument as to why william barr would make that determination? >> barr appears to have made that determination, because, he gave a brief speech about it as a prosecutor it's tear duty to make a final determination. if you read between the lines, you could see a subtle jab at robert mueller for simply amassing the facts and leaving that final duty to the attorney general to make the determination based on this collection of facts because barr views it as the obligation of a prosecutor. prosecutors he say don't amass facts and put them out there for the public to digest. prosecutors make decisions, prosecutorial decisions. >> pete williams, posed the

question, pointed out this is not any would be defendant. this is the president of the united states who could to the be charged under the guidelines of the department of justice abides by so was it, in fact, necessary in this particular and unique instance for the attorney general to come in and render this legal judgment when robert mueller chose not to? >> that's exactly right. the president is the one person, possibly in the world for which different rules apply, because if he cannot be prosecuted because of that olc opinion, then maybe it is relevant for the public to know what facts were amassed about him and what conclusions were drawn these are critical, if you believe in the eunitarian exec -- uniitarian theory, if you arrest him, you arrest the entire executive branch, there is a longstanding principle a sitting president cannot be indicted. >> chuck, you have been watching the last half hour. it seems the take away would be

a clean bill of health for president trump. >> well, bill barr did, went further than many of his contradiction or his supporters thought he might do this morning. but i do think it's worth noting and i'm curious of our legal minds up there, including you, satisfyia, what you made of some very carefully worded ways he said certain things. i thought the wikileaks portion was fascinating when he said this the special counsel investigated whether any member or afilliate of the trump campaign encouraged or otherwise played a role in these dissellation efforts, getting the e-mails out there. he says this under applicable law, it would be criminal unless the publisher participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy. it leaves open somebody helped with the sorting of the e-mails, somebody helped wikileaks with this. they couldn't prove the person that helped necessarily was a part of the original hacking in there i thought that was

interesting, obviously, you guys have been dig ig into the very careful way he has worded their decision on obstruction, with i the more you read his details, it does seem as if they were essentially saying, only the president in this case you would not be bringing charges against. >> well, i thought he actually put that whole issue aside. it seems like he's trying to say this whole question of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted. let's take that off the table. i thought william barr went very far in trying to establish the factual innocence saying essentially that the president did not possess the requisite mental state. >> that is why he used those words in one reporter's terms, seems so generous to the president's frame of mind. i think, matt, he was trying to say, look, he cooperated. he may have felt frustrated by it, but his actions spoke to his cooperation, so how can i bring

as a prosecutor an obstruction, a corrupt intent, within i have these facts before me. so he framed it to explain his decision. be to you your point, it sure comes across as he is quite sympathetic to the president. >> those remarks all to me felt he was preempting what we are going to read later today. he noted there were ten acts of obstruction examined. he said he and the attorney general disagreed with some of his reasonings. >> that tells me, it's to put out this narrative before we read the report that the justice departments a constituted by himself and the deputy attorney general don't agree with what you will read later today. i think so he's both taking off the table the idea that the president can't be indicted and to preempt any conclusion that congress might reach when it makes its own factual determination about whether the president's actions constitute acts of impeachment.

>> let's go to halle jackson. tell us what you are seeing. >> the president clearly couldn't help. he must be thrill. he is tweeting now a rift off the popular television show "game of thrones" writing simply game over in the front in the top left. he writes, no collusion, no obstruction, for the haters and the radical left democrats, game over. this is the president's pre-report release victory lap if you will. hissed a many instration is clearly trying to set what they believe is the narrative for this before anybody, as you all have noted to see the contents of the report itself. there is a couple things onote of this news conference, first this critical piece of information, the white house counsel's office asked to review the redacted report for reasons of social executive privilege. according to bill barr, the

president decided not to assert privilege. there is another piece that the president's outside attorneys, jay sekulow, rudy guiliani, others, at some point earlier this week asked to review the redacted copy. the attorney general said that is based on precedent. he had reasons to allow that and the they did not request any redactions nor would they be allowed to do so. >> that said, this is a political landmine that undoubtedly you will hear some in congress infuriated the president's outside attorneys had a chance to see the report before they had a chance to review it upon its release to the public. there is a piece on the protection of the president here. savannah noted a question to the tomorrow related to the idea that he seemed to be generous to the president. he repeated this very specific phrase. no collusion, several times. >> that cannot be a coincidence, that is a phrase we have heard from the president repeatedly, keep in mind, the word collusion no, crime would be for example

conspiracy to undermine the united states, national security. but barr specifically used that phrase multiple times, which i think is what led to some of these questions and this criticism about whether the attorney general is asking more like a defense attorney if you will for the president rather than the attorney general for the united states. the attorney general had the opportunity to answer that question a couple of times, he did not. he went after the questioner and the way the question was framed rather than, for example, asserting his independence from the president. so i think there is a lot to unpack and all of it happening before anybody has had a chance to see any more than 75 words from this special counsel repor report. >> and we are working a little in the dark here. we have not seen the report. it has not been released to the public or congress. we can only take william barr at face value. >> he gave us a lot to chew on, didn't he? i want to go to construct

rosenberg, an experienced partner at the department of justice for many years. what did you think bill barr said today? >> satisfy narcs i think you made an important part earlier when you talked about the level of intent that's required to show that someone committed a crime such as obstruction. so bill barr explained today the president -- and i thought this wording was odd -- had a sincere belief that his presidency was being undermined by political opponents. now, in order to have a sincere belief, have you to have everyday and perhaps the best way to do that would be to talk to the president. but we are pretty sure that never happened. so one lingering question for me regarding intent, savannah, is how do you determine someone has a sincere belief something happened when you never had a chance to interview that person. from troubles me, book reviews are interesting. but the book is always more telling. >> well, the book is coming in a

matter of minutes, chuck. it is interesting when you drill down and look at what he said on this issue of obstruction and the president's state of mind. he did include facts favorable to the president's state of mind in what we called facing relentless speculation. he did not conclude in the interest of completeness the other facts not as favorable as to his conduct. did that catch your attention? >> i'd did. as prosecutors are trained, one thing we are trained during a trial is draw the sting. we front any weaknesses in our case to the jury. it's an appropriate thing to do. because you want to tell the jury in our your own words what in your case is lacking, not leave that to a defense attorney to do that in her opening statement whamplt barr seems to be doing is draw -- what barr seems to be doing is drawing the sting, but in the opposite way. he didn't provide to the press or the public anything that disfavored the president.

and so it didn't seem to me to be a straight ahead fair recitation of what we will see later today. he was drawing the sting for the president and that troubles me. >> chuck, let's look ahead here, we're using the term he was generous towards the president. were any of the statements he's made, will they provide defense a cushion for president trump vis-a-vis what's happening in the southern district of new york, those cases still going forward? >> perhaps, politically, lester, no, not legally. in the end, prosecutors are gordoned by facts and law, so mr. barr's characterization of what the president did or thought or felt ore believed really doesn't matter very much. to the extent the ongoing cases in the southern district of new york and i continue to maintain by the way that that is really important stuff for us to keep our eye on. those cases will run their own course based on near own facts and the law that applies to

those facts, not on anybody's characterization of them. >> thank you very much. >> we will have a busy day. we have not seen the report. we are going to see it. we will be assured. 400 pages. we will have teams in place going through that. that will wrap up our coverage for this hour for right now. but there is much more at nbc news.com and on msnbc. >> we will be more on air live as soon as the mueller report is released and publicized. most of you will turn to "today." this is an nbc news special report. this investigation into a man police say walked into the cathedral overnight with all the ingredients for a fire.

this morning, a new jersey man is in police custody after he tried entering new york city's famous st. patrick's cathedral with two gasoline cans, two bottles of lighter fluid and two lighters days after a devastating fire erupted in the iconic notre dame cathedral in paris. about 8:00 p.m. a man identified at mark lamperelo parked his minivan on fifth avenue in front of the church and began walking around the area. returning to his vehicle he pulled out the flammable items and tried to enter the cathedral but was quickly stopped by a security guard who directed him out of the church. the guard notifying two counterterrorism officers posted outside the cathedral about the incident. police calling lamperelo's ansen inconsistent and evasive. >> his basic story he was cutting through the cathedral to get to madison avenue, that his car had run out of gas.

we took a look at the vehicle. it was not out of gas and at that point he was taken into custody. >> reporter: authority here in new york say they do not have a motive and cannot say if he was inspired by the incident in paris. >> it's hard to say exactly what his intentions were, but i think the totality of circumstances i we would have great concern over. >> reporter: now this morning the suspect hasn't been formally charged. police say it's too early to call this attempted terrorism, but they do say, guys, that his actions were very suspicious. >> kristen dahlgren at st. patrick's thank you very much. >> from that scary situation just a few blocks away to denver where area schools are open following the end of a massive man hunt for a young woman accused of making credible threats just days after the anniversary of the columbine shooting. she was found dead. joe friar has more on this.

joe, good morning. >> good morning, craig. students at hundreds of schools in the denver area will return to class today. they stayed home yesterday. authorities search for a young woman accused of making threats that had this region on edge. the man hunt is over with a grim discovery in the snowy remote mountains of colorado. wednesday authorities found the body of 18-year-old soul parks ez dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. >> at this point it looks she was alone and she took her life with the weapon. police say she legally purchased that weapon, a pump-action gun on monday. the owner said she seemed normal and passed a background check and the entire transaction took just 20 minutes. >> she said she was out here visiting friends and wanted to go shooting and possibly hunting. >> authorities say paiz who flew to colorado from florida monday

made credible threats a denst denver area schools prompting hundreds to close and students forced to stay home including those at columbine high. >> i think it was the right thing to do given the circumstances and all of the unknowns and certainly since we live near columbine. >> police say she was obsessed with columbine and police uncovered what appears to be her online journals and for months she wrote disturbinge entries about columbine and she even inquired about buying a shotgun in colorado. authorities have not confirmed if the posts are hers. at miami beach high school where paiz was a student, stunned reactions. >> she had such a pretty smile, and she just -- i don't know, it's shocking to hear what she wanted to do. >> valentino gomez has known paiz since elementary school. >> i never saw it coming. it was very surprising, at first. i didn't believe it. i didn't think she was going do anything. >> investigators are gathering

more evidence at paiz's florida home. police say her family has been cooperative. >> they are actually grateful that no one else is hurt. >> while schools are set to reopen today officials say they're taking no chances and increasing security. >> we're very concerned that we may get a copycat threat of the same kind that tries to bring about this level of disruption. >> columbine is still moving forward with 20th anniversary events including a vigil tomorrow and remembrance ceremony on saturday. this community wants to focus on honoring the 13 victims, 12 students and one teacher who lost their lives. nah and craig? >> joe fryer in colorado. thank you. we'll have more on the columbine anniversary coming up in our next half hour, including hoda's powerful conversations with survivors and family members 20 years later. how they have moved forward, and how they've tried to rebuild their lives. >> look forward to that. lots to get to this morning including ivanka trump the first daughter and white house senior adviser wrapped up her first official visit to africa making

headlines for what she's saying about turning down a very high-profile position she says her father offered her. nbc white house correspondent peter alexander has that story. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. first from ivanka trump on the mueller report. she says she has never expressed concern about the findings and says that that hasn't changed. her focus this week has been on the other end of the planet promoting a global women's initiative in africa. a region her father privately disparaged. ivanka trump making her way back to the u.s. after finding her groove in africa. crossing the continent to tout economic empowerment for women, touring a textile business run by women, trying her hand at the loom and sampling traditional ethiopian coffee. earlier in the week, mrs. trump paying respect to the 157 lives lost in last month's deadly plane crash. america's commitment to africa is clear. >> so our actions are speaking

for themselves in terms of our dedication to seeing africa prosper. >> reporter: still, the trip is renewing scrutiny of the trump administration's stance on africa criticized for not expanding aid and other resources to the region and for the president's derogatory comments last year calling haiti and african nations s-hole countries. during an immigrate meeting. on this trip, the first daughter and senior white house adviser weighed in on issues at home also. including the flood of migrants across the southern border. >> there's no other way to field this than extremely pathetic for these families but we also have to protect the people within this country as well. >> reporter: president trump lavished praise on his daughter even suggesting she lead the world bank. >> what was the pitch to you? >> it was a question. >> yes? and you said, no? >> i'm very happy doing the work

that i'm doing. >> are there any other positions he asked you about? floated you for u.n. ambassador as well? >> i'll keep that between us. >> reporter: her father going even further in a recent interview with "the atlantic" saying if she ever wanted to run for president i think she's be very, very hard to beat. a suggestion ivanka trump brushed away. >> there will be -- >> no. >> reporter: as for the 2020 presidential campaign, ivanka trump says she is much more focused on policy than she is on politics and said in her words she's not really a political anim animal. craig and savannah, back to you. >> thank you. back to al for the forecast. >> our friends out west experiencing a great day today. lots of sunshine. mild temperatures. severe storms are getting themselves together throughout texas and on towards the midwest. we're going to

. good morning, i'm meteorologist carri hall. we are looking over the north bay. the temperatures will be heading up to 71 degrees, 83 in napa, much warmer than yesterday in our inland valleys, reaching into the mid-80s as well as san jose reaching 82 degrees. we will have a cool down tomorrow. a little more of an ocean breeze, that keeps our temperatures comfortable,

reaching 72 this easter sunday. >> all right. >> thank you, al, just ahead, and i heat driver trapped for more than a day. we will show you how he was saved. we will introduce you to a jeopardy rant. the unusual strategy this guy is using to bring big bucks. first, this is "today" on nbc.

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rooms. well, something for you this morning. to smile about. >> we will be warming up, feeling a little like summer across the bay area. a like look outside in san jose, we are starting out with a cool start. we will head into the low 80s today. so we are looking at a high of 82 degrees, 77 in oakland. 81 in santa rosa, san francisco reaching 71 degrees, after a spike in temperatures, it will cool off in time for the holiday weekend, it will be low 70s for saturday and sunday. let's head over to mike. >> the san mateo bridge, north 101 at keho, a crash cleared. the freeway is clearing out. the arrow on 880, we have a crash reported in the middle of the roadway. still an suv with multiple flat tires, between one and four tires are flat.

the northbound is slow, that's standard, slowing north 880, a france fire is reported on the shoulder. back to you. >> we will have another local news update in 30 minutes.

. you have just set a one day record again. $131,127. >> we are back at 7:30 on this thursday mornight to the >> let's get right to the headlines. lawmakers and the public will get their first look at a

redacted version of robert mueller's report. the nearly 400 page report on russian election interference and obstruction is stirring controversy even before it's released. the attorney general scheduled a news conference this morning before the report is made public. also this morning house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader chuck schumer is calling for mueller to testify before both chambers of congress if possible. >> roe of boeing took a flight aboard the 737 max plane. making steady progress toward certification. 7367 max jets grounded. after the flight the ceo reiterated the company is committed to safety. >> safety is our responsibility. we own it. the work of our team will make the 737 max one of the safest airplanes ever to fly. >> the faa says it will require pilots who undergo additional

computer or ipad training but not simulator training before 737 max jets are back in the air. even that could still be months away. uptown on the prosecution case of robert kraft. issued a temporary order that blocks release of hidden camera video from inside the spa. the decision was announced after prosecutes in the case said they end interested to release that video. final decision on the tape will be made april 29th. craft pleaded not guilty to two counts of solicitation at the orchids of asia day spa in jupiter, florida. breaking overnight an elite diver who took part in last year's rescue of the thai soccer team found alive after he disappeared exploring an underwater cave in tennessee. >> nbc's kerry sanders joins us with the latest. kerry, this is a wild one. >> reporter: first of all, cave diving is such a dangerous hobby

to have. in this case the divers were in a passageway so narrow two divers couldn't swim past each other. the water is so murky you couldn't see your happened in front of your mask. luckily in this case the diver has a story with a happy ending. this was the moment when a missing british cave diver emerged safe and unhurt after being trapped and lost for some 27 hours in a treacherous watery cave. emergency officials were elated. >> he was awake, alert, and oriented. >> josh, an experienced diver, was with four others exploring the remote cave when they somehow got separated. >> five went in the cave. when they came back out, they realized they were missing an individual. >> reporter: they tried for hours to rescue him before finally calling 911. tennessee authorities immediately calling in the country's top specialized rescue divers.

>> it was very silty, dangerous, low cave. >> ed sorensen arrived first. with no time to waste, went into the technically complicated cave dive alone. >> it wasn't very far, just a lot of ups and downs, jagged rock turns, silty, low, low, low visibility. >> reporter: after navigating the narrow space, sorensen discovered him in a large air pocket waiting to be rescued. >> there he was, calm as could be. he said thank you, thank you. >> just last summer he played himself the part of rescuer as a member of the british team who helped save 12 young soccer players and their coach for a cave in thailand. his experience possibly saving his life. >> he's a consummate professional, so he did a great job in aiding his rescue. we were in and out quickly and smoothly. >> after being trapped under ground for more than a day, he was healthy but hungry. >> his only request when he got

to the surface was that he wanted some pizza. >> that is understandable. i hope he got it. kerry, you're an experienced diver. i don't know if you've ever done caves like this one. i was curious the appeal. it's so dark, you can't see anything. why do people do it? >> divers who go into caves like this say they do it not only for the adventure, they have a sense of exploration, they are explorers. i have been into a cave not like this one where you cooperate see your hand in front of your face. i was taken in by an experienced diver. when the lights are turned out, it's so dark. you've never seen darkness before. it can become disor yepting, you're not sure what's up and what's done. in this particular case the diver was experienced, eyes a rescue diver. when he got into the void with air, he was able to keep himself breathing. the water was 55 degrees. he had hypothermia possibly setting in, he kept his body up. the fear was even though he was

in that area, the air was beginning to run thin. he had a tank like this one. he could have bled it to fill it up. his tank was almost empty. he might have had six or seven minutes added to three hours. at the end of the day, guys, this is a hobby that is a very small select group of people who are looking, as i said, adventure and exploration. interestingly, guys, these guys from england who are here right now say they are going to be diving again as early as tomorrow back in another cave. >> okay. i guess it's because it's there. that's the answer mountain climbers give. >> sounds like a hobby you'd be interested in? >> not unless there's a nice wall of wine. a wine cellar down there. >> i'd like to explore that. >> meantime we are talking about this line of thunderstorms causing big problems. in fact, we are still looking at rainfall rates going upwards of 3" per hour. that's a big problem. this is a slow-moving system.

as it pushes to the east, we're looking at strong storms. heavy rain with a flood risk from new orleans all the way up into the midwest. there's strong moisture plume coming up like an atmospheric river plus a powerful jet stream powering these storms. it's a slow moving system. typically a system like this would move 800 miles between now and friday. this one is only half that typical speed. that's going to enhance the flooding. saturday up and down the seaboard a real mess. airport delays. we are going to be looking at major problems. a lot of heavy rain. the soil is really saturated from st. louis to the east. there's nowhere for this moisture to go. we're probably going to see some good morning, i'm meteorologist kari hall. this is a live look outside in dublin, 580 rolling smoothly. it will speed up. the tri-valley, we will see highs up to 84 degrees, 82 in

san jose, san francisco reaching 71. santa rosa expect a high of 81 degrees, after this spike in temperatures, we dom back down in time for the holiday weekend, mostly sunny skies, easter expect a high of 72 with sunshine. >> al, thank you so much. still to come, ancient jerusalem, the city of david, we got a chance to innerth remarkable relic. the columbine school shooting. hoda talks with survivors and family members, about moving forward, finding the strength to forgive. that's right after this. strengt. that's right after this. it's complicated. are you asking enough questions about how your wealth is being managed?

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♪ good goes around and around and around and around ♪ and now try new maple cheerios. we are back. we are back. 7:42 with in-depth today. believe it or not saturday marks two years since the columbine shooting and claimed the lives of 13 people. >> at the time it was the worst school shooting in u.s. history. hoda sat down with the people there rebuilding their lives and she asked if time has given them peace. >> the people around me were running and there were screams. they sounded ter tied. >> shots being fired inside the school. >> about 75 yards away, i saw a gunman coming towards me. >> we do have fatalities.

>> i saw them come into the library and treat human life like it was a game and play god. >> the bullets took 13 lives and tore through an entire community. now 20 years after the massacre at columbine, we find families who forgave, students who returned, and a principal who kept them all together. >> we want to understand how you guys are all came back from that day. >> all these people that i was praying for, 30 minutes later their brothers and sisters were -- their brothers and sisters were showing up. >> but not your sister. >> the nation stood still as 16-year-old craig scott shared the gruesome details of the sister he had lost and the friends he saw killed. but what lingers is a simple guest you're. >> in your moment of the utmost grief, you held his hand.

>> yeah. i went on the "today" show to give my friend's dad a hug. i started to get emotional. isiah's dad reached out his hand and put his hand on mine. it was just a very special moment. >> that connection, amidst the heartbreak, led to a life's purpose. >> each and every one of us in this room has a great capacity. >> through his sister rachel's story, craig now preaches compassion to teens across the country. >> the shooters wanted to make a negative impact on this world, so my decision was i want to leave a bigger impact but in a positive way. >> his mother, beth, says she honors her daughter by letting go of hate. >> i think that bitter is a road a lot of people would have gone down, but you went down the path of forgiveness. >> forgiveness isn't saying this is okay it happened. forgiveness is giving yourself

permission not to make it your life sentence. >> beth says she blames the gunman but has since made an unimaginable connection. >> there's for giving and then meeting one of the shooter's moms. >> we both lost our children, but she had all the shame, reproach, the hate. i asked the lord, what am i supposed to say to this mother. the lord said, ask her who her son was before april 20th of 1999, and i did. and tears just rolled down sue's cheeks. she said nobody wants to know anything about my little boy that i raised. i saw a mother's heart. i had that same feeling for rachel. >> from those who found forgiveness to the students who returned, now teachers at columbine with lessons of their own. >> one by one, all of you chose to come back to columbine. >> it truly is like home. everybody just checks up on each other.

>> i think if you asked me as a senior, i would say, yeah, i'm never coming back. to find meaning and purpose out of a tragedy and not let it break you is really powerful. >> chris, are you a different kind of a teacher because of columbine. >> the fact that i'm a teacher at all is because of columbine. how i model myself in the classroom is based off of 1999. >> i remember our first day back into the building, all of the parents lined the sidewalk. so as we were walking in, it just felt like there was protection all around us. that was really powerful. that gave me a better understanding of the strength and resiliency of the community. >> who were the helpers when you were students in that moment. >> that guy right behind us. >> absolutely. >> mr. d was here. >> from these former students to the man who inspired them all, the principal who taught a community how to heal. >> i wondered how you endured those years.

you were helping and you were broken. that takes something special. >> my counselor was on speed dial. i kept envisions that gunman. if i heard a large sound, i had a meltdown. this is where my counselor helped. he said, frank, if you're going to continue to be the principal, you can't keep having these images of walking over kids that are dying. you need to celebrate their lives. now i saw lauren townsend playing volleyball, rachel scott on the stage. that's what kept me going. >> did you ever feel guilt? >> all the time. those kids walked in my school at 7:00 a.m., mr. sanders walked in, and they never returned home. that's something i have to live with for the rest of my life. i made a promise there's nothing i can do to bring back the 13 but i'm not going to allow them to die in vain.

each morning i awake and i awake reciting the names pft beloved 13. >> he vowed he would remain at columbine until every child touched by this tragedy from kindergarten up had graduated. >> i'm going to love you for the rest of my life and the rest of your life. >> he kept that promise. in 2014, columbine's beloved principal soared from the rafters, overcoming his fear of heights with the final lesson for the students he calls his kids. >> there's a column bypabine sl and it is -- >> we are columbine. we are columbine means whatever happens to us, we'll always have that special bond and no one can ever take that away from us. >> my god. >> there is so much wisdom in that six minutes and what those individuals were able to overcome. i'm so moved by it.

i think hoda did a beautiful job, and our producer. i think it's such a picture of grace. >> to think that all these people could have had the tragedy define their lives in a different way. to see how all of them used that tragedy to lead a life of purpose, you're right. >> the positivity is really uplifting. >> we should men's we have a lot more from the survivors on the website. as mentioned, they have so much wisdom to offer. we should hear it. it's at today.com. >> that's how we should remember columbine as well. coming up, more frontiers of faith. savannah's trip to the jerusalem of the bible, and the ancient treasures she helped find there. you're an archeologist. >> for about ten seconds. >> but first these messages. .

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( ♪ ) good thursday morning, right now, it's 7:56. we start out cool across the bay area. here's a live look outside in palo alto as you get ready to head out the door. look at highway 101. our temperatures at 8:00 will be 54 degrees, quickly warming up today. we no from mid-50s to the upper 70 by early afternoon, eventually reaching 82 degrees in pal loal to and san jose and in concord today, look for a high of 85 and 77 today in oakland. after this spike in temperatures, we'll start to cool off, just in time for the holiday weekend, biel be up to 70, breezy winds and saturday looks nice, 72 it will be worming up, back into the 80s, san francisco, 70s today, only reaching the lower 60s for

easter sunday. let's get an update on how the roads are moving now with mike. >> we have a traffic alert on the open of your screen, hasn't so say, southbound, 880 is also jammed up, distraction at the interjiang, now a car fire as well, it sounds like a battery may be an issue. checking that out. bound at 880, at thornton, more slowing in freedom and west highway 4. >> thanks, mike. happening now, awaiting the mueller report, the world should get its fiers first look our time. nbc news will break into regularly scheduled coverage, programing of a special report, the president and democrats already responding, link to a home page, including a wrap of this morning's news conference by wumt william barr, people are

gathering at the moment the earthquake struck 113 years ago, on our home page, the full story and video from this morning's coverage. fallout from the redacted muller report. overnight reaction from the bay area and washington as we get our first look at the investigation on russian e . fallout from the redacted mueller report. reaction from washington as we get our first look at the russian election interference. plus, with retracking the forecast as you make plans. >> join us tomorrow morning at 4:30 a.m. living joyfully.

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it's 8:00 on "today." coming up, report released after acoming up, report released aftr a two-year investigation. the american people get their first look at robert mueller's report. democrats already blasting the timing of the release. >> attorney general barr is not letting the facts of the mueller report to speak for themselves. >> now calling for the special counsel to testify before lates. plus, digging in. this is very much a live excavation site. you are finding things every day. >> every day. >> our journey to the city of david where i have the rare opportunity to unearth some incredible treasurers. get in there?

>> get in there. who is crushing it? james making history once again. >> you have set a one-day record, again. >> how the professional gambler is a real game changer making big bucks with bold strategies. could he become the biggest winner ever, today, thursday, april 18, 2019. >> here from philly. today is my mom's birthday. >> family vacation. >> from vegas, go knights. >> best friends from maine. >> watching "today" on maternity leave in virginia with your newest little fan. >> we're here for charlie's fifth birthday. >> morning. welcome back to "today "request t . hoda is enjoying her time with baby hope. >> good morning.

>> if she's watching, good morning, ladies. >> by the way, maybe we can get hoda to do a shoutout. you as well. we would love to hear from you. use that my today plaza hash tag. we will put you on tv. it's like you are at the plaza. >> you are right there virtually. let's get to your news. congress and the public are getting to see the mueller report on russian campaign meddling and obstruction. coming weeks after the special counsel sent his findings to the attorney general. kristen welker on the story for us. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. president trump is already claiming victory, tweeting out the words, game over against a game of thrones backdrop. it comes after attorney general william barr's press conference this morning in which barr offered a strong defense of president trump before releasing the report to the public. he stressed that investigators found no collusion between the trump campaign and russia.

he hammered that point home multiple times. no criminal evidence of obstruction. barr said he gave the white house counsel and mr. trump's outside lawyers advance access to the report. they did not ask for redactions based on executive privilege. here is how barr summarized it. >> as the special counsel report makes clear, the russian government sought to interfere in our election process. but thanks to the special counsel's thorough investigation, we now know that the russian operatives who perpetrated these 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. >> reporter: democrats are outraged by this rollout. they call on mueller to testify and calling on the full release of the report.

income tested a new weapon. it would be the first significant weapons test in nearly half a year. however, experts say it was likely some type of -- here is lester holt and savannah guthrie. >> good day. we're back o good day back on the air. redacted mueller report is now public. it's been posted on the department of justice website. >> 400 pages in length, not counting exhibits and other documents. it's now live. it's public. we will put it on nbcnews.com. as we go along, we will read it along with you. we know the top line legal conclusions here. number one, there was no finding of conspiracy on the part of the trump campaign or president trump himself to conspire with the russians to meddle in our elections and we know the attorney general took the evidence that was provided by

robert mueller and made a legal conclusion that there was no sufficient evidence for obstruction of justice. earlier today, we heard from the attorney general as he discussed some of the reasons for his findings. he talked about some of the redactions, which is a fancy legal term for saying some of this report will be bloacked ou for a variety of reasons, investigations, classified investigation, grand jury material. he sought to release as much as possible. now the report is being released publically. it's going to capitol hill. >> what is happening in this news conference today, william barr laying out a strong case of vindication for president trump. if you just base it on his words and what he talked about today. now come the details, we will have a look inside as to what the mueller report says to the extent we can, with the knowledge that some is redacts for various reasons. we will particularly want to hone in on the decision not to pursue obstruction of justice charges.

we understand this document will list some of the areas that would point to potentially obstruction of justice and the view from the special counsel on why he couldn't come to the decision -- >> a lot of open questions. we have those top line legal conclusions. we don't flow wknow why robert r chose not to render legal judgment. there were 23 months, 500 search warrants, several guilty pleas, trialing st ins stemming from t. we will find out what the evidence is. i believe kristen welker is at the white house. the president is getting ready to have an event unrelated to this. he may make remarks on this. what is the white house view of what they heard so far from the attorney general? >> reporter: so far, you have the president essentially claiming victory, savannah. he tweeted out, game over, against a game of thrones backdrop. the reason for that is because

you have the attorney general bill barr who held that press conference and essentially said that there was no determination of -- there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia. no evidence of criminal obstructi obstruction. from president trump's perspective he will argue that's total vindication. the president's legal team already out saying that this is essentially a slam dunk for them. but, of course, the devil is going to be in the details. barr also said that mueller was looking at ten potential examples of possible obstruction. so i have been talking to some of the president's allies who say that's where their focus is going to be. i know the president is about to start talking. >> he is making remarks at this wounded warrior event. let's see if he talks about it. >> thrilled to host the wounded warrior project. it's been a long relationship i've had. the soldier ride is something very special. few people could do it. including me. i hate to admit it.

i hate to admit that, general. but clutding me. we're deeply honored to be in the presence of true american heroes. i want to thank -- >> we will listen to this event. if he remarks anything about the mueller report, we will certainly bring it to you. as mentioned, the department of justice at long last has put on its website this actual report. our correspondent pete williams has been looking at it. i hope you are a speed reader. what are you seeing so far? >> reporter: let me start with a dramatic moment, according to the special counsel report, when the president was told on may 17 that this whole process of special investigation would be started with the appointment of robert mueller. i'm going to read from a portion of the report that describes that moment in the oval office. it says, when the president was told a special counsel had been appointed, the president slumped back in his chair and said, oh,

my god, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, i am -- then he used a form of a word that begins with f. i am f-ed. the president became angry and lamb ba lambasted the attorney general for his decision to recuse from the investigation saying to jeff sessions, according to this summary, how could you let this happen, jeff? you were supposed to protect me. then, according to the summary from robert mueller, he said the people in the room -- everyone tells me if you get one much these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. it takes years and i won't be able to do anything. this is the worst thing that ever happened to me. closed quote, according to the mueller report. the president then told sessions according to the report that he should resign as attorney general and, in fact, according to the investigation, jeff sessions did submit a letter of resignation but that was never accepted by the president. the report goes on to say that

at one point there were press reports that then white house counsel don mcgahn was directed to fire the special counsel robert mueller and that the president urged white house officials to tell mcgahn to deny this. but according to what was said in this report, mcgahn said he wouldn't do that and said -- "poker after dar mcgahn said the media reports were accurate in stating the president directed mcgahn to have the special counsel removed. of course, obviously, that never happened. let me give you some overall -- step back from that dramatic thing a little bit and give you some overall sense of how the special counsel report is put together. i'm going to direct you to -- it's in two volumes. we have been handed these two volumes in three-ring binders. i think one question that people may have is, how heavily redacted is the report? section two, which deals with

the investigations of potential obstruction of justice, as you can see, is very lightly redacted. the other three-ring binder we have been given, section one, does have more extensive redactions. here, example, is a page of what one of the pages looks like. the section one part, about the investigation of russian meddling into the election, has more redactions. they relate to, in many cases, harm -- they say harm to an ongoing matter. as you may recall, this is one of the categories that attorney general william barr had said would be used to redact some of the report that's going to the public. although, he said this morning that members of congress would be able to see that. on the question of obstruction of justice, the report said that it looked at several actions by the president as potential actions of obstruction of justice. many of them we were familiar with.

the dinner with comey, the firing of comey, the dinner which he asked for comey's loyalty in january of 2017, the meeting in which he asked comey to go easy on flynn. the report says that the president did not know about flynn's discussions with the russian ambassador at the time they were made. was only told when the justice department told the white house what he was up to. it also said that as they analyze that issue, as a potential obstruction of justice, just to give you an indication of the kind of thinking that mueller says went into his decisions about whether to say actions constituted obstruction of justice, the report says the president never connected in his mind flynn's discussion with the russian ambassador with what the president called, according to the report, the russia thing. in other words, the special counsel's investigation of the president's conduct and the campaign's conduct.

it also talks about the mueller team looked at the president's request to comey repeatedly to say the president was the subject of an fbi investigation and to lift what the president regarded as a cloud. i should say the report basically absents s -- accentss interactions with the president that was memorialized. it talks about another potential issue of obstruction of justice that was investigated by mueller was the president's outreach to the intelligence community, to the director of national intelligence, the director of the nsa and the cia about the russia investigation. the president's rationale for firing comey and the president's involvement in issuing a statement -- this has been much reported and debated about the infamous june 9, 2016 meeting in trump tower between russians and senior trump campaign officials. you will recall that the

president was involved in setting up an e-mail about that that was supposedly about adoption and admitted the fact that the russians offered to provide the trump campaign with what they called dirt on hillary clinton. some other facts that were in the mueller report is the discussion here about why they decided to leave it open about whether these actions amounted to obstruction of justice. among the factors they considered, the president had the authority to fire james comey because he is the head of the executive branch. he could do that. some evidence the report says indicates that the president wanted to protect himself from an investigation of his campaign, but the report says, the evidence does not establish that the firing was intended to cover up any kind of conspiracy between the trump campaign and russia. a couple of other notes.

let me pause and catch my breath. mueller believed that he had the authority to subpoena the president. he concluded that was a legal question about whether somebody in his position could, in fact, legally put the president to a subpoena and concluded that he did have the legal authority to do so. but decided that it would -- the negotiations were so protracted it happened at a very late stage and by then, the investigation already knew enough based on what had been publically stated. there was an appendix to those two notebooks i showed you. this appendix that we got in our copy of the binder and one of the things it has in it is the president's written answers to the questions from mueller. i haven't had a chance to go through that yet. we are going to get the full copy of the written answers to the questions that the president gave him. >> pete, let me ask you -- let you catch your breath.

this is amazing, you are able to digest this so quickly. there's no interview with the president. they thought they had the right to subpoena and didn't. is there any talk about how they gleaned intent or no intent? >> yes. based on his conversations with other people, his actions. they say, for example, lester, that his actions toward the special counsel shifted after his early alarm that i read you that very dramatic account about, after he was initially told about the special counsel, he sort of laid back and let mueller do his thing. but then when it became clear to the president that he himself was under investigation for obstruction of justice, the report says the president's tone changed. he began to tweet about mueller and about his investigatorinves criticize the attack. that's the beginning of the

infi infamous attack. that's one factor. what they came down -- they said, for everything that they looked at, the president either had the authority to do it or the intent wasn't clear enough. they hang their hat a lot on the fact that it didn't appear he was trying to cover up some crime. in other words, having concluded that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia, having concluded that the president didn't do anything wrong, they said that's a factor we have to consider. there's an interesting discussion -- let me see if i can find it. there's an interesting discussion, i think, in some of the loose pages i pulled out of there, charlie, about the fact that they looked at whether they could charge the president with obstruction. i don't find it right here. but my recollection is that they concluded that they actually probably could charge the president with obstruction, because it was not a crime that was directed at his ability to

do the job or his official functions in office. they basically say that it was not a showst stopper for them, e policy under republicans and democrats that you can't indict a sitting president, that they say was not a concern, because they actually not only got past that constitutional problem but decided they probably could charge the president with obstruction, if they thought the evidence was there. >> pete, just so people understand, i want to pause right there. i don't want people to understand. they are saying, we know the department of justice has a rule that says you can't indict a sitting president. what you read in the report is that the mueller team found that was not an impediment. if they had the factual basis, they would have gone ahead and charged, as i understand you saying it, but they found they did not have sufficient factual basis. is that correct? >> reporter: correct. that was -- in other words, it wasn't that they thought -- if

it was anybody else, they could have charged him with a crime. because he is the president, they couldn't, that was not the thinking. >> i'm looking -- we are trying to read along with you, so you can catch your breath. i'm noticing that with regard to the collusion part, the conspiracy part of this report, it does say that there's not sufficient evidence to establish a crime. it does say that there were -- investigation identifies numerous links between individuals with ties to the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. it says the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. then it gets into some of the technical/legal statutes. what the prosecutor is asked to do. to see if there's a crime that could be established by those facts, if they meet the technical aspects of the statute. we're all going to law school today. go ahead, pete. >> reporter: let me back up on the section we talked about. i found the section that discusses this.

it says, the department of justice and the president's counsel have recognized that the president is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that does not implication his constitutional authority. in other words, it was doubly not a show stopper for them, not only did they -- were they aware of the justice department policy, but they also said they separately concluded and the president's counsel agreed that a president could be subject to a charge of obstruction of justice. they found the evidence didn't meet it. a couple of other tidbits from the report i have seen in the brief time i have had to look through it. you will recall that there was -- this remains controversial to this day. early on in the investigation, the fbi got this dossier from a person who had done work for british intelligence.

one of the allegations in it was that there was a compromising, salacious videotape -- this was the allegation -- that was made when the president was in a hotel room in moscow, a conduct that involved some women. according to the report, a russian businessman told michael cohen, who was then at that time the president's well-regarded personal lawyer, about the moscow tapes. this russian businessman told the investigators that the tapes were fake but had never told cohen about that. >> pete, i want to go back to something that william barr said. he says, the special counsel's report acknowledges that there's evidence the president was frustrated by his belief that the investigation was undermi t undermining his presidency. were those barr's words? were they referred to in this report?

>> that is a summary. i have to say that the way barr described what he called the top line or bottom line conclusions of the mueller investigation tracks very closely with what i have been able to read. his summary of what the investigation says is pretty much on point here, i think. you come up in this report because one of the things that mueller looked at as is well-known is the interview the president gave with you in which he said that one of his motivations for firing james comey was the russia thing. that was one of the factors that the independent counsel -- or the special counsel looked at. >> pete, hang there. i know you will continue to read. we have the benefit of some great legal analysts at our table. i know you both are looking at it. i see it on your screen. what pops out so far? >> it's been 22 minutes since the report has come out.

i do think that's important. this is a 400-page report. all americans need to pause, read the thing and then dissect it. there are a couple of things that stand out to me. number one, mueller goes through ten different episodes of possible obstruction of justice. so far, i haven't read anything that said he concluded there was nothing there, that there was no crime or anything like that. rather, after discussing the ten episodes, mueller then goes through a whole explanation of why the president's legal theories are wrong. he says they, quote, lack merit and that they are contrary to the litigating department of the department of justice. when it comes to that key obstruction of justice investigation, mueller couldn't resolve it because he wanted congress to. that's what his predecessors did. >> is it clear he wanted -- >> he doesn't say anything one way or other.

when you are writing this report, if you are a special counsel and you know, what have my predecessors done? they haven't resolved it with nixon where the evidence was overwhelming. mueller is writing against the backdrop of that history. he doesn't resolve it. he leaves it for congress. it's barr who comes in and inserts himself into the process and flips it. >> is it possible that mueller operating under different statutes than those other counsels sought the attorney general -- he is leaving it for somebody to decide. it's not him. operating under the statute that i believe you helped write. is it possible he thought, the attorney general should render this judgment? >> i don't think so. the special counsel regulations that we wrote in 1999, were patterned on leon jaworski. if mueller is writing this, he will say the most obvious precedent is what my predecessors have done. >> from a legal standpoint, ten items of potential obstruction,

does the number change the ultimate conclusion, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten? >> legally, i don't think it does. i think practically, it does. this is a really remarkable thing to have a sitting president have ten different episodes of possible obstruction of justice. that just shows where the bar has moved away from past presidents. >> again, the question of intent looms large. >> absolutely. under an obstruction of justice investigation, you have to prove a corrupt intent. what it looks like -- we're starting to look at this. it looks like barr decided, you have to have some sort of underlying crime in order for there to be obstruction of justice. it can't be you obstruct something, an investigation into something unrelated, that isn't a crime. >> we should note that a lot of our pages look like this. probably not as heavily redacted as many people expected. >> i think pete pointed out -- it seems to be the case -- the first part of the report, which

has to do with this issue of conspiracy and also the russians' efforts to meddle in our election, those seem to be more redacted. you are more likely to see classified information. >> they list them. harm to an ongoing matter. >> danny, you are reading it there. what pops out? >> what pops out is as many suspected, from the early parts of the investigation, mueller concluded that he cannot charge a sitting president, based on that olc opinion. that guided his decision to not make a pros ecuting decision. prosecutors allege people committed a crime. then we have an adversarial process that allows them to tell their side of the story. that never would have been available here. consequently, because president trump would not have the opportunity to defend himself if mueller simply made a conclusion that he committed a crime without being able to charge

him, that justified not making a decision. >> it's interesting. i don't know if pete is still with us. i thought pete saw in a section that that wasn't necessarily the determining issue, that actually they had kind of overcome that hurdle, so to speak. pete, this issue of the olc guidance. i'm confused. >> that's my reading of it. >> you know what? professor, you do have to actually read the report. we're all in this together trying to piece it together. as best we can. to determine what it was. there is this guidance out there that the department of justice and robert mueller being an employee of the department of justice would have abided by. pete has read a section of the report that suggests that they felt it does not extend to an obstruction crime, it can't mean that. it seeps like that was a legal judgement they made. >> absolutely. the president's lawyers evidently went to mueller and said, you can't apply the obstruction of justice statutes

to us as a constitutional matter. you will restrict the president's power. that was the argument made in the argument that bill barr wrote last summer. the mueller team rejected that. that's one thing that's in the report in which they say, a president can obstruct justice. it's not interfering with his constitutional responsibility. >> i'm looking ahead here. they talk about the trump tower meeting. they spoke with every participant except skya and donald trump junior who declined to be voluntarily interviewed. >> that's one of the questions that loomed over this, who had been interviewed, who asserted their fifth amendment, who was not subpoenaed. of course, the biggest question was -- perhaps answered in these pages -- why mueller did not pursue a sit-down interview with president trump. he did accept written answers to questions but chose not to subpoena him and go into the

legal fight that would have ensued. >> that's what i found so interesting about barr's press conference earlier, which is a very unusual thing for a sitting attorney general to do in advance of the report coming out. he said, well, i don't think there was intent because donald trump was frustrated. that's not the way you hear criminal prosecutors talk. it's not if you haven't actually interviewed the president. that didn't happen here. how barr made that determination is something that i think all americans will be asking. >> let's go back to pete williams who has continued to read ahead of us. we need a breath here for a second. what more do you see there? >> reporter: let's dip into volume one a little bit, which is the investigation and whether any members of the trump campaign illegally were involved in the russians in helping them meddle. the conclusion was they didn't. let me read a little to you. the investigation identified numerous links between individuals -- if you want to follow along, i will tell you,

this is volume one, page nine. this is the third full paragravpar paragraph. individuals associated with the trump campaign, the evidence wasn't sufficient to support criminal charges. for example, it says, the evidence wasn't sufficient to charge any campaign official as an unregistered agent of the russian government or any other russian principal. as for that june 9, 2016 meeting and the wikileaks releases of hacked material, the evidence wasn't sufficient to charge a criminal campaign finance violation. it says also, the evidence wasn't sufficient to charge that any member of the trump campaign conspired with representatives of the russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. that's a key sentence out of volume one. it does go on to say that several people identified with the trump campaign lied to the

special counsel and lied to congress about their interactions with russian to fi affiliated people. we're familiar with the ones charges. most recently, roger stone. >> standby there. we have the president's person attorney who has theededed a -- advantage of having seen this. what's did mueller determine on obstruction and the reason he felt he could not make that judgment call? >> because they had the insufficiency of the evidence that they had could not reach the standard necessary for an obstruction charge.

the way they put the report out -- you will get to it as you read it. they will talk about a particular act. as it relates, for instance, there was -- remember the questions surrounding general flynn. when they went to look at the general flynn comments, what happens is they make the determination that there was not evidence that the president knew that flynn had discussed sanctions, and there was not an impediment to the ongoing investigation of general flynn. so those were two conclusions that then prevent you from making a determination. remember what they say at the end where they say, we don't exonerate him, but we don't find criminal conduct either. generally, a prosecutor's job is not an exoneration. this is not the way it would normally be written under the justice department manual. what bill barr said today is important. even though they disagreed with

the legal theory that was being advocated by bob mueller's team, by the special counsel, even looking at it through that lens, they found no obstructive acts. >> a big question here, of course, regards the president's intent. one thing the mueller team did not have the advantage of was a sit-down interview with president trump. they asked and did the president decline to sit down and be interviewed? >> the president took the advice of his lawyers, which was we produced dozens of witnesses, 1.5 million pages of material, count lless hours of testimony. no executive privilege was asserted. the president responded in writing to a series of questions that we thought were appropriate for the president responding to. our advice to the president was that they did not -- the threshold on the espy test to have an in-person interview. >> did the written questions that he answered, did they have to do with the issue of conspiracy or collusion?

did it have to do with these obstruction matters? >> we answered questions related to the original mandate of the proceeding, of the inquiry, the russian collusion portion. of course, the conclusion on that is that the investigation did not establish members of the trump campaign coordinated with the russian government in its election activities. the collusion aspect predated the presidency. so you didn't have the same degree of article 2 issues that you would have had on issues once the president was sworn into office. even because we have a transition act, even during the transition issue. you are in the report, lester. >> thank you. >> we have heard. >> looking at the obstruction of justice question, you said on advice of counsel, the president did not testify personally. why was that? why would he be given that advice? was there a fear of potential

perjury? >> no. the reality -- this was the opposite of the way the clinton inquiry went. they were fighting over every document and witness. we decided there would be a complete transparency and cooperation. that transparency and cooperation with tendering of those documents, including senior white house officials, once that was done, under the governing law of the d.c. circuit, they did not meet in our view the standard upon which they would be entitled to an interview of the president. >> there is entitled legally and there's a matter of being forthcoming and on the part of the white house saying, we gave all those documents and there's no dispute about that. why not have him just come down and sit down and clear it up and answer those questions? it sounds like part of the reason mueller says he can't decide is because he didn't have

the benefit of that conversation. >> here is what you've got. bob mueller states that they did not seek a subpoena. they said they thought they would be entitled to it. they didn't seek it because they received all this information from witnesses we provided and documents we provided. what's interesting about that, under the law in the district of columbia, once you have given that information, without any hindrance, it was given to them, that they are not entitled to sit down with the chief executive, with the president of the united states. we followed the law. not just for this president but for any future president. at the end of the day, what this became about was this russian collusion investigation, that's what started this. it started under the crossfire hurricane in 2016. when you go through the main issues that you have talked

about on air and have covered, the situation with the trump tower meeting in june of 2016, read that in the report and read the conclusion. the lester holt interview. because we were able to provide -- you gave access to the transcripts of the -- you put them on the website of the entire interview. the president said, if i fire james comey, i realize it's going to extend the investigation. everybody was clipping that out. we put that in. they drew that conclusion that that was not for that reason alone, that was not an obstructi obstruction. the reason you have a decision to be made of whether a witness or client sits down to talk to the prosecutor is based on the evidence presented. we're governed by our cannon of ethics and d.c. bar rules as well as the go-- >> jay, let me ask this question as the only non-lawyer in this conversation. this appears based on what we have seen a good day for the president here. let's talk about the american public.

given those ten items listed, i think more than ten, of potential obstruction of justice, should we feel better or worse about our president today? >> better. number one, every american should be glad to know that there were no attempts by the president or people that were with his campaign to interfere as the russians were doing in the election. that's clear. with regard to the obstruction, remember the basis upon which the president was responding to each of the acts that are discussed in this report. he is responding based on the fact that he was under an investigation that he knew was not right and was -- let's be realistic, irregular from the outset. we don't have to rehearse those facts. what he did -- this is what's appropriate. he responded. look what has happened. bob mueller completed and delivered his report. the fbi concluded its investigation.

the process went forward and was completed. >> real quickly -- >> there was no obstruction. >> fair enough. we're looking at the document. it says that exact thing. the question i always wonder when i think about this and this two-year ordeal, do you think the president made things harder on himself by being so vocal, by firing james comey, trying to fire the special counsel as is established in this report, by railing against bob mueller, by calling it a witch hunt and hoax? can you imagine in which he just said, if there was russian collusion, i'm going to get to the bottom of it, i want our law enforcement to do that, i will wait for their judgement because i'm confident in their behavior and that of my campaign. didn't he bring this upon himself in a way? >> i don't think so. the president knew this investigation from the outset was not justified. he was being treated unfairly. look what was learned during the course of this investigation.

even under bob mueller's watch, thor regularie eirregularity ar. all of these issues. if you are the client under that scenario, you are going to respond how the president did. he had the right do it. >> by the way -- >> there were numerous campaign contacts with russians. you admit it was a fair subject matter by our fbi. >> here is what i'm going to tell you. this investigation was going on since 2016. there is no there there was said months after it started. they knew there was nothing there. they morphed this into an obstruction case. it ended up being no obstruction. >> the president again calling this a hoax. >> i hope it doesn't to another president. >> can you call it vindication and great for us at call it a hoax? >> it is.

the basis upon which this investigation took place, including the war rarants were irregular, illegal. american citizens shouldn't be put through this. of course, the president has been vindicated, because not only has the -- it's very important here. not only has bob mueller concluded that there was no collusion with the russians, which was the basis upon which this started. i'm hopeful that every american is glad to know that. number two, i think equally important here, that even under a twisted theory of obstruction, i call it obstruction by tweet, even under that twisted theory, they could not write up a report on obstruction. it's a lengthy, reluctant declination letter. >> thank you. >> we continue to read on this

report. you listened to the interview -- >> wait a minute. >> you are seeing the sausage making. >> he has another appointment? >> the attorneys do a round robin of the networks. what did you think? >> i think the spin is beginning. we just started to hear it. four things that i thought he had problems with. your question, why didn't trump just go and talk to mueller and clear all of this up? after all, trump today and for two years has been saying, i did nothing wrong, it's a hoax. why didn't he ever say that under oath to mueller? there's no answer to that that he gave except hiding mind some d.c. circuit case. as a matter of prudence, you would expect a president to clear this up. number two, he said, we only -- trump only talked to mueller or gave written answers about the original mandate, which he said

was the russia investigation. that is flatly wrong. the original mandate that mueller had was the russia investigation as well as obstruction of justice. the special counsel regulations say whenever you give the mandate to the special counsel, you also give an obstruction mandate. it's part and parcel of that. number three, most importantly, he tried to make it the president is saying this shows it's a hoax, total exoneration. quote, 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. they pointedly don't. this is not some sort of exoneration memo for the president. bottom line conclusion is theirs. fourth and finally, mueller comes out vindicated. you heard him say, the president said this was a bogus investigation.

there's evidence that shows text messages and so on. mueller has page after page showing the russians interfered with the election. that's exactly what the president said didn't happen, this was a hoax. it might have been a 400 people person on the laptop. this is a devastating report that shows the russians did interfe interfere. >> the attorney general said that as well. we have a piece of the report. going to this issue of obstruction. it says, substantial evidence supports the conclusion that the president went further and in fact directed white house counsel don mcgahn to kocall rosenstein and have the special counsel removed. the president directed him to tell rosenstein not only that conflicted existed that mueller has to go. he is a credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the white house. this had to do with what the evidence is in the report of whether or not the president had

tried to have the special counsel fired. >> does this put this to rest? does this sit out there for a new administration, a new attorney general to pick up? >> it does not put anything to rest. as we all study these pages over the next several days, there are going to be many things in there, things -- as we sit here, that we have not seen because there's so much in this report. building on what neil said. that statement by mueller that if we clearly saw there was no crime, we would so state, is unusual. they don't write exoneration reports. the fact that they said we would have exonerated him but we chose not to do so is very telling. the standard for doj is more than just probable cause. the doj manual says so. they have to believe that they can prove the crime beyond a reasonable douse. that leaves a gigantic spectrum

of evidence in between where somebody may not be charged, maybe not be exonerated, but they did something. that's what we're going to see in this report. >> i think that's a really good place for us to pause for a moment. in fairness this big report ultimately concludes the trump campaign and its associates did not include with russia's efforts, which it establishes, to meddle in the election. yes, russia tried to meddle in our election. no, the trump campaign or its associated can't be prosecuted for helping them do so. it doesn't render whether these amount to obstruction. that is the state of the case. that's what this report establishes. the details we pour over as we speak, go to, what was the evidence? is it this close, just this

side, just barely able to be prosecuted? is it far, far away from a crime that could be prosecuted. i think that's where our discussion is right now. how close did it come to a crime? was it a mile away or was it just on the very edge? for people at home watching, want to understand are we nitpicking? i think that's where the discussion has to be as you try to pour over this report. >> there are three audiences. one is the prosecuting community. they are absolutely -- this is a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, a high standard. it's saying, we couldn't commit a crime -- we couldn't find a crime with respect to collusion. there's two other audiences. the american public, they don't want a problem who skate bs by it's not beyond a reasonable doubt. that's not an appropriate place for any president of the united states to be. third and most importantly is the congress. these obstruction inquiries in the past have always been

resolved by the congress. i suspect that with these ten episodes, with the one we saw on the screen about mcgahn saying you tried to fire the special counsel, that's something congress is going to have to look at. >> the president is responding. he started the day off with several tweets. now in reaction to the news, he was at an event and spoke about this report. here is what he had to say. >> i'm having a good day, too. no collusion, no obstruction. this should never happen to another president again, this hoax, it should never happen to another president again. >> notable that no collusion has been his mantra for the last several months. we heard that repeated several times by the attorney general in his remarks about an hour or so before we got this report. i want to go back to pete williams right now who has been digesting just as much and as quickly as he can this report.

pete? >> reporter: back to savannah's point about how much of this obstruction stuff is right on the edge. let me give you an example of -- if you want to follow along in your souvenir program, it's page 132 of volume 2. they talk about the president's public statements and some of his private communications with either paul manafort or his lawyers. it says that -- this is looking at whether he was trying to influence manafort by dangling pardons, talking about the prosecution. it says evidence concerning the president's conduct toward manafort indicates that the president intended to encourage manafort not to cooperate with the government. the report notes that the president called him a brave man, said he was refusing to break, said this idea of pleading guilty in exchange for reduced charges, which the president called flipping, which prosecutors call flipping, should be outlawed. the report said the president intended manafort to believe

that he could receive a pardon, which would make any cooperation with the government as a means of getting a lesser sentence unnecessary. nonetheless, it says, there are alternative explanations for the president's comments, including that he genuinely felt sorry for manafort or that his goal was not to influence the jury by making these statements but to influence public opinion. the president's comments also could have been intended to continue sending a message to manafort that a pardon was possible as described earlier. the president made comments about manafort being a good person after declining to answer a question whetherabout whether would pardon manafort. that's one slice on whether the president's actions were intended to influence the justice system and constitute obstruction. >> what strikes me about that is, the reason that these facts

that you just laid out are capable of multiple interpretations about what was the president's intent is because there was no interview with the president and because there was ambiguity to that question of his intent, that's one of the reasons we see as to why mueller felt he couldn't make a conclusion one way or the another whether this was -- amounted to obstruction. that's a key strategic legal decision made by the president's lawyer that seems to have been quite beneficial to him from a legal perspective. >> reporter: i think that there are several questions here that this report doesn't answer. number one, why is it -- we understand what the report says, that the evidence pointed in two ways. many prosecutors other than folks at the justice department have said, he's the special counsel, it's his job to make the decisions, why didn't he? we have what he says about the evidence pointing in two directions. william barr felt he could make

the conclusion, why didn't robert mueller feel he could make that conclusion? we will have to wait until mueller testifies. william barr said he had no objection to mueller testifying to answer these questions. that's one thing. secondly, why didn't the special counsel insist on interviewing the president? you see what they say in here that they thought they had enough based on his public statements and the staments of other people around the president. they decided it was near the end of the investigation and there was no point in dragging it out. finally, on this point that you two have talked about here -- frankly, jay brought it up. this up usual statement by a prosecutor that they didn't exonerate the president. many former prosecutors have said that's an odd thing for a prosecutor to say. they either bring charges or they don't. >> let me go back to the notion of why they decided not to pursue the interview with the president. you said they had what they need. did you get the sense they felt the clock was running out, that

they simply couldn't keep this investigation alive any longer? in a word, yes. >> that's interesting. there wasn't any technical reason that they couldn't keep going. perhaps there was a political one. >> it makes me wonder. they weren't living in a vacuum. they were watching us and a country that was -- when is it going to come out? >> it's interesting he says that. go ahead, pea. >> reporter: i was going to say, we should think about how extraordinary this is. we have 400 pages of a report that was -- if you read the special counsel rules that our friend neil helped draft, they say that the special counsel should submit a very brief report to the president on prosecution and declination decisions and it was never to be made public. the commentary on the rulesp

published is that they were required to submit a public report and it tended to make investigations drag on. the word they used was it made prosecutors overzealous. clearly, mueller's people wrote this with the understanding that it was going to become public. it really is very surprising how much we're seeing here. >> back to this issue of intent. here they are say, we don't need to do an interview, as i understand it from what pete is reporting. we have other information that speaks to his intent. it's unnecessary. but at the same time, they then don't make the ultimate decision because it's ambiguous as to what his intend is. >> we expect to see mueller in front of congress. >> they called for him. the democrats are trying to get muler in front of congress. maybe he will have a better explanation. does that strike you? >> it's important to understand that obstruction charges don't require an underlying crime if

you are deceiving federal authorities or agents. but in this particular case, it is relevant to look at the intent behind why the statements were made, why this conduct occurred. if there's an innocent explanation -- innocent i use loosely, that's the kind of thing that this report would have considered. the challenge is with the president. he is unlike any other potential target that the do sj deals wit >> loose talk and just bravado could insulate you from a charge? >> you could go back earlier. the special counsel concludes this was an investigation into obstruction that began and ends with the conclusion that i cannot charge this president. so that guided the investigation all throughout. you look at all these very suspicious activities, ult p ultimately it's for the public to decide if those are

impeachable. >> pete, you want to get in on this? >> reporter: yeah. if you want to look in your report, look at page 13. >> which volume? >> reporter: volume 2, page 13. this is where it says, we did try to interview the president but after more than a year of discussion, they say, the president declined to be interviewed. so they say, he did submit written questions. then the special counsel says, we thought about actually subpoenaing the president. first we had to decide whether we had the legal authority to do that. it says, ultimately, while we believe that we had the authority and the legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to get the president's testimony, we chose not to do so. we made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation and we also assessed that based on the significant body of evidence we

had already gotten from the president's actions, his public statements, his private statements, describing those actions, we knew enough to understand the relevant events and make our assessment. make no mistake, as neil and danny can say, if they had decided to start a court fight over whether the president can be subpoenaed and forced to testify before a grand jury, that would have taken maybe a year to resolve. it would have gone to the supreme court. it would have gone to district court, then the court of appeals and the supreme court. it would have taken a long time if they decided to do that and the white house resisted. >> i still have the same question. what they are saying is, it would have been a big fight, it would have taken forever. but we had enough information. we have all this his public statements. we have a good sense what have his intent was. but then they don't make the ultimate decision. they don't decide -- that's the part i can't connect. >> i think that's because we're being influenced by barr's press conference in which he made it

seem like there wasn't evidence for intent. you just heard this. you pointed on exactly that question. what is the evidence of intent? this is going to really clear the president. i think i'm starting to see stuff in the report that's actually really bad day for the president. let me read to you page 290. the president directed mcgahn, his white house council, to have rod rosenstein have the special counsel removed. here is what the report says, quote, mcgahn -- the president's lawyer -- spoke with the president twice and understood the directive the same way both times, make it unlikely he misheard or misinterpreted the president's response. mcgahn decided to quit because he didn't want to participate in events he described similar to the saturday night massacre, packed up his office, prepared

to submit a resignation letter, said the president asked him to do crazy s word. that is not a good day. >> criminal? >> i think it's at least obstruction of justice in the criminal sense and certainly in the congressional sense. >> so much of this is framed legally. so much is framed morally. that will be the judgement of the american people, whether it's on a legal basis or as i asked jay, is this -- should americans feel better about their president? >> exactly. morally, this is the president's own lawyer saying, you are asking me to do crazy stuff, this is akin to the saturday night massacre in watergate and i have to resign. >> ultimately, what i keep coming back to is that mueller had those facts, obviously. we're reading from his report. he doesn't think that that is sufficient to establish a crime of obstruction of justice. i think we understand him to say -- it's not just because he is a sitting president.

>> i don't know that he can't find the obstruction charge. i think he is saying as his predecessors have, that's the responsible for congress to determine in the first instance when we are talking about a presidential level inveigation. >> i know. if that's true, i'm going, well then why were you doing this in the first place? >> to find the facts. first pla? >> at the time it was controlled by republicans and they were investigating ben gozy, and there was only one place to do this. >> you thought that his jobs were to find the facts, mar shall the facts. >> yeah, now there is someone else to carry that football for them. >> and the next few years will refer ultimately to the russia investigation, let's go to andrea mitchell for that.