hello, and welcome to "kqed newsroom." i'm thuy vu. coming up on our program, from voting rights to protecting dolphins. a look at the life and work of u.s. district court judge thelton henderson. plus meet the only woman so far running for governor of california. first, president donald trump says he would be willing to testify under oath, this just a day after former fbi director james comey gave testimony to a senate panel. comey was heading the investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race when he was abruptly fired by president trump last month. comey opened the hearing by saying the president had lied about why he was fired. >> the administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly the fbi, by saying

that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. those were lies, plain and simple. and i am so sorry that the fbi workforce had to hear them and i'm so sorry that the american people were told them. >> comey also said the president pressured him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser michael flynn. whether comey's termination amounts to obstruction of justice will now be taken up by special counsel robert mueller. joining me now is melinda hague, former district attorney for the northern district of california. thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure. >> you were u.s. attorney from northern california from 2010 to 2015. what was your reaction to james comey's testimony? >> it appears that the president of the united states directed the fbi director to shut down an investigation. it's shocking. it's improper. whether it's impeachment or

obstruction or an impeachiable offense, it's shocking and improper. >> do you think there's enough here to prove he tried to shut down the investigation? >> if you credit jim comey's testimony, it appears to be that way. the president excused others from the room, met with him alone, told him that he wanted loyalty, expected loyalty, asked him whether he wanted to keep his job, and then talked to him about mike flynn's investigation. >> you know, senator risch made a point yesterday of saying that president trump may have said "i hope you'll drop it," but hope is not the same thing as giving a direction. >> right. the words are not enough. the special counsel, bob mueller, is going to be looking at the entire circumstances to decide whether or not there was a corrupt intent to influence or impede the investigation. >> if you were prosecuting this, do you think there is enough to prove intent, to obstruct justice?

>> i would continue the investigation. i think there is circumstantial evidence of corrupt intent so far. the things i've mentioned, excusing people from the room and the other circumstances surrounding that comment. i would certainly keep the investigation going. i would talk to other witnesses. i would talk to jared kushner, to the attorney general, to the people that were excused from that room, to see what the president had said to them and anybody else that might have relevant evidence. >> what would be some of the challenges to filing criminal charges against a sitting president? >> well, there is a big debate about whether criminal charges can be filed against a sitting president. there are internal doj memoranda that address that, and to date have concluded that you cannot indict a sitting president. the special counsel hired or brought onto his staff somebody today, michael dreben, who works at the department of justice. he is known as a legal, you know, legal mind of the highest

caliber. i'm sure one of the things special counsel is going to ask michael dreben to do is look at the question of whether you can indict a sitting president. but it is an impeachable offense. >> the definition of an impeachable offense is very murky. it was raised with bill clinton, richard nixon, andrew johnson. there is not a lot of case law, if you will. it's basically what a majority of the house decides it is, and what two-thirds of the senate decides it is. >> so it's a political thing. >> it's a political question. >> deputy attorney general rod ro rosenstein is now in charge of the russia probe. you worked with rosenstein when he was a u.s. attorney in maryland. what do you think his approach to this investigation will be? >> he doesn't have much of a role anymore.

he appointed bob mueller as the special counsel. rod does retain supervisory authority over what the special counsel does. but there's a lot of transparency around that. if rod decides that he disagrees with any of the acts or the direction that the special counsel takes or wants to take, he can object. but he has to report to congress his objection. if he disagrees with bob mueller, there will be a lot of transparency around it and we'll all know. >> do you think he's willing to give bob mueller as much independence as possible? what's his style, based on what you know about rosenstein? >> rod is a career prosecutor, a career department of justice person. he has somebody who has served in republican administrations, democratic administrations. he's a straight shooter. i have confidence in rod in this role. >> you know bob mueller from his time in san francisco in the fbi. >> he was the united states attorney in san francisco.

he hired me, and i was his white collar chief when he was hire. >> and you also know chris ray w wray who has been named to be fbi director. >> i do. >> how are their styles different? >> they're similar in their level of integrity. for both of them, their level of integrity is unimpeachable. it doesn't surprise people to know that bob mueller is a former marine, he still conducts himself as the marine he was as a young man. chris wray is probably a little more personable. they both have high integrity and people have faith in them. i feel like the country is in good hands with both of them. >> if you were bob mueller, building this case, what would your next steps be? >> well, they need to be interviewing witnesses, and i'm sure they are and are planning to do so in the future. there are an awful lot of people who have been around the

president with respect to the obstruction question. of course this investigation is much broader than that, it has to do with whether there was collusion between the trump campaign and russia, russian officials. the obstruction question is just one piece of it. but with respect to the obstruction question, i'm sure they'll interview witnesses. they'll want to know the best evidence of what the president was thinking and whether he intended to impede the investigation is probably what he told other people. >> would he be asking the white house for recordings he may have, particularly audio recordings? >> i would be surprised if that request has not already been made. i'm sure it has been. >> melinda hague, thank you for that legal perspective. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, thank you for having me. now for a political perspective on the impacts of comey's testimony, i'm joined by sean walsh, gop political consultant, thank you for being here. what is your reaction, good day or bad day for president trump? >> bad day for the country and

bad day for president trump. mr. comey in some respects looked like a disgruntled employee at his exit interview. but that said -- >> what makes you say that? >> he tried to push the issue, making allusions about his boss, jeff sessions, that there was more to the russian issue. he acknowledged he put the leak out on president trump. i think he looked poor in that regard, he didn't look as statesman-like as he could come off. >> what about president trump? >> he came off poor too. he's declaring victory, time to move on. you're not moving on. you've got a special investigator in mr. mueller and this issue is going to go on another year at least and maybe longer. >> republican risch of idaho tried to make the case that president trump did not order comey to drop the investigation. let's take a look at that. >> he did not direct you to let it go. >> not in his words, no. >> he did not order you to let it go. >> again, those words are not an

order. >> he said "i hope." do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter any other criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? >> i took it as a direction. this is the president of the united states, with me alone, saying i hope this. i took it as, this is what he wants me to do. >> and then later on, california senator kamala harris chimed in and said, when an armed robber holds a gun to your head and says i hope you'll give me your wallet, hope is not the operative word there. what does this boil down to, sean? is it a he said/he said situation, who is more credible in the court of public opinion? >> i think right now at this juncture it's a he said/he said issue, absent evidence or proof. that said, mr. comey set the stage for all of his memos to be investigated and examined by the

congress and certainly it will be investigated by mr. mueller. so we'll see. there's probably more evidence to come out publicly. it's not going to be good for mr. trump. >> trump's personal lawyer, marc kasowitz, has said, implied that comey is lying about the whole thing. house speaker paul ryan said the president is new at government, a novice at this, and didn't understand how to handle these kinds of relationships and conversations. does any of that fly? >> i think it all flies and it's all very credible. if you look at the speaking style of mr. trump and the way he engages and the fact that he hasn't actually been in elected office before, that he may speak very casually. but he's the president of the united states and you can't afford to speak casually in those instances. the truth is you should have either your counsel, your lawyer in the white house with you or have somebody else there with you for your own personal protection. >> reaction from lawmakers broke down pretty much along party lines. you have the democrats on the attack, some saying there's probably even enough here to lay the groundwork for a possible

obstruction of justice case. you have republicans who are defending trump. or not saying anything at all, staying very silent. ultimately, the question of criminal misconduct lies with bob mueller, the special counsel here. given how polarized the country is, what do you think are the chances that the country will have wide acceptance of whatever mueller comes up with? >> oh, i think at the end of the day they probably will accept what he puts out. he's a very credible person on both sides of the aisle. he's going to let the chips fall where they may. if he finds anything, he'll put it forward. i didn't see anything yesterday, candidly, that led to intent to obstruct justice. mr. comey admitted a cowardice or lack of will. he went in and had issues with mr. trump the first time and went in nine additional times and met with him. if he had concerns, he should have said, no, mr. president, it's not appropriate to talk about these issues or if we're going to talk about these

issues, i'll have the attorney general, his boss, in with him. that was his responsibility. >> senator feinstein alluded to that yesterday, saying why didn't you say to the president why this is not appropriate. i want you to look ahead to the 2018 midterm elections and what effect this drip of revelations is having on the gop's ability to forward its agenda. >> i think it's really problematic, from a congressional perspective, as well as getting action going out in their district. so i mean, right now you've got a battle going on in georgia to replace members of the trump cabinet. $21 million have gone into the democratic candidate's race. it's a close race. he may win the race. that said, democrats are motivated and energized to spend a lot of money in this midterm election because they see chaos in washington, particularly chaos in the white house, they see opportunities to pick up seats. >> meanwhile the gop is trying to fast track its version of the health care bill. they're in a bind on that,

right? >> they're in a bind for a variety of reasons. number one, it's like the, i don't like my -- you know, i love my teacher but don't like my school or other teachers kind of scenario. i don't like obamacare but i like my health care. so moving off of giving somebody an entitlement and taking that back is very difficult and almost never done. it's going to be very hard for the republicans. but if they want a tax cut plan, they'll have to score savings from somewhere, i think they'll have to score it from health care. >> we'll be watching this. this is going to be going for a long time, sean. >> it's a food fight in washington. >> republican strategist sean walsh, thank you very much. now we turn to the storied career of judge thelton henderson from the bench of the u.s. district court headquartered in san francisco, he heard cases from how we catch our fish to a massive overhaul of california's prison system. scott shaffer talks about to him about what he wants to be best remembered for, as he gets ready

to retire. >> thanks for inviting us into your chambers. >> glad to have you, my pleasure. >> you went to work for the justice department right after law school, for bobby kennedy. >> that's right. >> you were in the south, you met martin luther king. what was that experience like? >> it was a very dramatic experience for me. bobby kennedy and his brother, john f. kennedy, had decided that they wanted to use the resources of the civil rights division for voting rights cases, their theory being if you could get the blacks the franchise, that would change the politics of the states. the way i got to meet martin luther king, when i was in birmingham, and king was leading the demonstrations there, the children's march, there was only one place a black could live in birmingham, and that was the a.g. gaston motel. so we both lived there. i hung out with king and andy young and james bevel and all of

his assistance. it was a fantastic experience for a young kid just out of law school. >> let's fast forward a little bit. 1980, president jimmy carter and his final year in office, names you to the federal bench. obviously you were confirmed. >> right. >> do you think today somebody like you could be confirmed to the federal bench? >> no. i don't think i could be confirmed today. i don't think i would be confirmed today. the politics have changed of judicial appointments, both at the district court level and at the supreme court level. in the hearing itself, it wasn't controversial. we were all in a room before the committee. the judiciary committee. and they pretty much lobbed softballs at us, you know. well, mr. smith, what kind of temperament do you think a judge ought to have? oh, i think he ought to have a nice, even -- it was that kind of -- >> even republicans were saying those kind of things? >> yes. and we all got up to go, and

strom thurmond's chief aide told me to wait, mr. henderson, would you wait. >> the senator from south carolina. >> senator from south carolina. and so he came in and in about 15 minutes. he opened a file and looked at it and said, mr. henderson, i see you belong to a lot of groups that have letters in them, initials in them, aclu and era, crla. these were boards i belonged to, liberal boards. and i realized after this was over and i reviewed it what he was letting me know was he didn't like my being on those boards. but i know now he wouldn't just let me know he wouldn't like it, he would block it. i have no doubt that i would not be confirmed today. >> you have handled some very high profile and controversial cases. and i want to ask you about the

prison case. and that one went up to the supreme court. >> right. >> and ultimately you were affirmed, and your judgment was that the prison health care system should be handed over to a receiver, that the government, the state government, just couldn't do the job that needed to be done. >> right. >> what impact do you think that decision, that case, has had? >> oh, i think it's had a huge impact. and it continues to. and it saved untold number of lives. one prisoner was dying every six days for lack of adequate medical care. that's a lot of lives. that's no longer happening. most of the prisons now are pretty close to the level of care that we get out here, outside of prisons. so it's a profound change. >> i don't know how many hundreds and thousands of cases you've handled over the past 37 years, but is there one that -- or two that you're particularly

proud of? >> there's one that i think is probably the most popular case i've ever had. and it's my dolphin-safe tuna case. many dolphins were being killed years ago when that case was filed because dolphins swim over tuna, and that's how the fishing boats find the tuna, they see the dolphins swimming and they throw a big net around all of them. and hundreds and hundreds of dolphins were being killed. and so they passed legislation that required monitors to go on each tuna boat out to sea to count the dolphin kill. and i enforced that order for years and years. i would get at least a half dozen packages and letters from schoolchildren around the country, everybody loves the dolphins. >> and they're for the little guy. >> they're the little guy.

>> how do you want to be remembered? >> i would like to be remembered as a judge who cared about everyone who appeared in front of him, who did his best to make sure that there was a level playing field, someone that gave everybody their day in court. and i've gotten great satisfaction over the years in doing that with people who came in expecting to be given the short shrift, and i would give them a full hearing, take whatever time it took, and then rule against them. and i've had them thank me because they had their say and i'm proud of that. >> you're retiring at a time when the voting rights act is being weakened. >> yes. >> voter i.d. laws are in force in many states, although some have been struck down. >> mm-hmm. >> how confident are you going forward that, you know, the arc of justice is going to continue

to bend in the right direction? >> i think that this is a step backward, the things you've just described. but i think that's been the state of civil rights progress. two steps forward and a step backward all the way. it's never been a steady progression. and i think we will continue to make progress. i'm an optimist in that regard. >> thank you for talking with us and for your decades of service on the bench. we wish you the best. >> thank you very much, my pleasure talking to you. on to the gubernatorial race. california has never had a female governor. one woman is hoping to change that. delane easton reserved two terms as state school superintendent. earlier today she spoke with scott shaffer about why she wants to be governor.

>> thank you for coming in. >> great to be with you, scott. >> jerry brown's term is up next year. why are you the best person to do it? >> i have a proven track record, i have a brass backbone, and i have an understanding of what california needs to move ahead. >> when you say a steel backbone, what do you need that for? >> you need to be able to look people in the eye and say, we need to put children first, children and education are supposed to be come first. it's in the state constitution. it's not happening. >> where are we falling short? >> we've dropped down to 50th in the nation. to be number one in the nation for prison expenditure and 41st per pupil, that's just wrong. >> are you saying the governor doesn't make children and schools the priority, and the

legislature, which is controlled totally by democrats? >> i think both the governor and the legislature need to focus more on education. i appreciate the frugal nature of jerry brown. he's done a fine job of balancing the budget. but now it's time to get our values straight and put children first again. only 3% of the state budget went to child development. 20% of the cuts in 2007 and '08 came out education development. community colleges, csus, and ucs are all being starved. it's time for california to do what those coming out of a depression and war figured out how to do, which is put our children first. >> what do you spend less on? >> you found other ways to do things. you spend less on prisons. you shouldn't be number one on prison expenditure. you shouldn't have two prisoners for every prison guard. >> is that a union thing? >> probably. we need to find a way to do this more efficiently. there's other things. you know, if we had benchmarked taxes on transportation to what our parents and grandparents were paying, we wouldn't have

this big fight over whether we're going to raise taxes. they should have been going up steadily and progressively instead of all at once. having said that, we do need to raise taxes for transportation and infrastructure, because 23 counties have sales taxes locally but there's no statewide systematic improvement of infrastructure in california. >> the governor just signed a bill that's going to raise the gas tax 12 cents a gallon come november to pay for infrastructure, roads especially, and public transit. do you support that? >> i do. but it should have been done gradually over a longer period of time. it still should be benchmarked in the future. having said that, california has -- we're taking people's time. time is money. because we are so slow in transportation. and we've been so inefficient generally in infrastructure. that's partly because we don't do long range planning. >> there is a report out this week that 75% of black boys in california do not meet the california reading standard.

that's sort of scandalous, isn't it? why do you think that we accept that? we would never accept statistics like that for, say, police or fire response or prisoners, you know, recidivism. right down the line, all the things that government does, why do we accept that for schools? >> i don't accept it. that's why i'm running. frankly, the system right now in california is terribly broken. you can get better preschool and child development opportunities in oklahoma and georgia. every native californian should be shocked and ashamed that that's the case. we are a state that is not investing -- kindergarten is not mandatory in california, that's outrageous. especially since we have the finest research universities in the world and they tell us, the most important learning is zero to five. >> one of the litmus tests for democrats is whether you support single pa single payer health care in california. >> i'm for health care for all.

i'm not absolutely wedded to the only option is single payer. there are only three countries that have single payer. canada is one, cuba is one. the fact is most of europe, all of europe has a different approach. i think you ought to be more open to doing health care for all. >> what does that mean? how do you accomplish it? >> it means that every single person in the state of california should be protected from disease and infection and all the rest of it without bankrupting their family. we had a doctor testify at the legislature, he had just seen a little bit boy that came into the emergency room 107 degrees of fever. they saved his life but he lost hearing in one ear. the doctor testified, that was more than $50,000, many years ago, that it cost the state of california, because it was done through emergency room instead of by giving the kid a few antibiotics. >> california is setting itself up to be the chief resistance to donald trump. how would you approach the trump administration if you were governor, especially different from what's being done right now? >> for years republicans have

been yelling about how wonderful the 10th amendment to the constitution is. it says any power not given to the federal government is reserved for the states and the people. california needs to have a brass backbone and tell the trump administration, do not tell us what to do when it comes to our citizens and our residents. >> short on time. quickly, you're down in the polls. you're the dark horse. in the last poll you're about 3%. how are you going to turn that around? >> i'm going to get around to every part of california and do what i've done in the past. i've won 14 elections. i wasn't supposed to win any of them. the truth is, i was a bernie style candidate before bernie. i'm going to run a campaign that's grassroots. the public at large i think is going to respond to somebody who is going to stand up for children, the environment, economic development and infrastructure. >> de lane, thank you so much. >> thank you, scott. that does it for us. for more of our coverage go to kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for watching.

captioning sponsored by wnet on this edition for sunday, june 11: attorney general sessions to testify about russian meddling in the 2016 election. also, the story of the only bank criminally prosecuted for mortgage fraud after the 2008 financial crisis. and, surviving the mass shooting in orlando's "pulse" nightclub. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided