welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight his name is in the media almost every day as he drills into trump's ties to russia. but who is the special counsel robert mueller? journalist garrett graph knows. he's written a book on him. he joins me live. also ahead, britain celebrates 100 years since women got the vote. the struggle for gender equal y ity is far from over. my conversation on the challenges facing women in our world today.

>> announcer: "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosalynn p. walter. good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london with a global perspective. the u.s. special counsel's investigation is gathering pace. and president donald trump has even told reporters he would talk to robert mueller under oath. but his lawyers are trying to convince him not to. fearful, according to "the new york times," that the famously free wheeling president might incriminate himself. so who is the dogged investigator? and why do they call mueller washington's straightest arrow? garrett graph is author of the threat matrix, the fbi at war in the age of global terror, and he joins me now from washington. garrett graph, welcome to the program. >> thanks so much for having me. >> we're going to drill down into robert mueller since so

much scorn and partisan fury has been poured over him recently. first i want to know, because today you have written about the investigation, and you're warning that it's not just one investigation, but it has several strands. can you describe that for us? >> sure. so we sort of speak of the mueller probe as if it's one thing. but it's actually really one -- it's really five probes in one. it's an investigation into prior business deals and money laundering, which is what has led to the indictments of paul manafort and rick gates. it's an investigation into the russian government's information operations on platforms, like social media, facebook, twitter, et cetera. third is it's really an investigation into active cyberintrusions. this is the hacking of the dnc, and john podesta's e-mail as well as the intrusions into state-level election databases.

the fourth is the actual contacts between russian officials, russian nationals, and campaign staff. this is what we have seen lead to the guilty pleas of george papadopoulos and michael flynn. and fifth is sort of this big overarching question of whether the president or any of his aides obstructed justice in the firing of fbi director jim comey and the pressure for comey when he was fbi director to look past the investigation into michael flynn. >> so this is much, much wider in scope than perhaps we realize. obviously, a lot of this is you following public information and putting all this together, public reporting. and you say a lot of investigation remains out of sight. and robert mueller is becoming increasingly a target of partisan warfare. but you call him, and many agree, that he has proved to be the straightest arrow in washington. i'm quoting you. what do you mean by that?

so. >> so he is someone before the last couple of months when he has become this lightning rod for the president's and his allies. bob mueller is a life-long career non-partisan public servant. he's spent almost 50 years working in the department of justice, and has been appointed or held top jobs in the last five presidential administrations, you know, and did much of his time actually in ronald reagan's administration, george h.w. bush's administration where he led the justice department's criminal division, and then for george w. bush he was the -- both an acting deputy attorney general, and then also the longest serving fbi director since j. edgar hoover himself. the final two years of which he was specially extended by bipartisan piece of congressional legislation that

passed the u.s. senate 100 to zero. i mean, this is someone who is seen as completely apolitical in a city where almost everything is mired in politics. >> and let's just go a little bit further into his past. because reading your book and hearing a lot of what people have said about him, even those who are criticizing him now, he has a sterling reputation, even before he became a public servant. he was in vietnam -- he volunteered, didn't he, for vietnam? >> yeah. this is sort of one of the great turning points and illustrative points of bob mueller's career is in the mid-1960s, before vietnam became the cultural hot potato that it did later, he volunteered to go to vietnam, volunteered to go to combat, led a marine corps platoon in the jungles of vietnam where he received a bronze star with valor for his -- his work in one

particular combat engagement where he led a team out of his marines behind enemy lines to retrieve a medical reportly wounded comrade. and then months later was actually shot himself through the leg and received a purple heart. this is someone who came home and then devoted basically most of the next 50 years to working for the department of justice. >> and again, almost everybody, to a man and a woman, talks about his sterling integrity, and his devotion to the job at hand without fear nor favor. of course, as you describe, when he came into being director of the fbi, it was just before 9/11. he was tasked with, first of all, shoring up a department that had failed to find these people, and to prevent it, but also to change the mission, right, the parameters of how the fbi tackles these kinds of

crimes. >> absolutely. you know, he started his fbi director on september 4th, 2001. and on the morning of september 11th was actually seated in the director's office, receiving his first briefing on al qaeda and the investigation into the bombing of the uss coal, which happened a year before at that point. then received word of the unfolding terror attacks and sort of his life and the life of the fbi changed dramatically. and he led this -- very intensive transformation of the fbi from what had been a traditional domestic law enforcement agency into something that is really an international intelligence agency now. focused on counterterrorism, cyber -- counterespionage, an immense transformation of the fbi from its early days. >> now let's turn to president trump's partisans. robert mueller is pulled out of

his own private practice. he's brought back into this public investigatory special counsel role, and newt gingrich said way back then robert mueller is a superb choice, he has impeccable in honesty and integrity. the media needs to calm down. you say, and obviously newt gingrich felt, and others, that he was going to conduct this investigation by the book. has he shown anything other than doing that? >> no. and, in fact, what we have seen is that he has conducted this investigation in precisely the way that you would expect bob mueller to be leading an fbi investigation. i mean, this is, in many ways, despite the unprecedented public

uproar around it, a very simple, straightforward fbi investigation. they've been using the the fbi is deeply experienced at taking down organizations, you know, drug cartels, street gangs, organized crime families. and so they start off the outside, start at the bottom and work their way in concentric circles into the center of the investigation. that's what you saw with gorge papadopoulos, what you saw with paul manafort and sort of with the first charges coming in an unrelated former business scheme. and sort of working their way into where the investigation is now, which is closing in on an interview with president trump himself. >> well, that's the next issue because now "the new york times" reports that his lawyers do not want him to do that, or at least many of his lawyers don't want him to do that, they're worried about what he might say under oath, or what he might say that might come back to haunt him. and to that end, newt gingrich

again appeared on fox and said the following -- this is the same guy who praised president trump when he was appointed. >> five or six hardened, very, very clever lawyers, trying to trap him, would be a very, very bad idea. >> what do you make of the "new york times" reporting that his lawyers don't want him to talk under oath? >> well, i mean, i think anyone who has watched the president over the last year or the last two years on the campaign trail would agree that this is going to be -- it's going to be incredibly hard forhe esident to sy on message and to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. this is an administration, and a president that sort of lies about things big and small on an almost daily basis. >> let me finally ask you about the bigger picture of the nunez memo, and what it says about confronting america's premiere law enforcement agency.

do you think this memo, the precedent it sets, but also the attack on mueller and his investigation, is going to derail or corrupt or damage the investigation? >> i don't know that it's going to necessarily damage the investigation. it is certainly very explicitly been aimed at corrupting the public impression of the investigation, sort of very purposely trying to obfuscate and muddy the water. it is a huge challenge in this is that the republican party in general and the president in particular is doing tremendous damage to the fbi's reputation. and it's important that the american people be able to trust its national security apparatus. the fbi and the intelligence community at large in a crisis. >> all right. we have to leave it there. garrett graph, thank you so much indeed. now to a struggle for

justice that's lastedore than a century. women's rht to vote. today britain celebrates 100 years since some women received that vote after a tireless struggle by suffrajettes, led by campaigners, like susan b. anthony, america won its right to vote two years later. britain celebrates this milestone as women's right not to be sexually abused or rights to equal pay are in the spotlight today. women have made giant leaps forward, but there are still many miles to go. joining me to discuss britain's longest continuously serving female parliament, and alfred -- investigating women's rights in africa and the middle east. welcome to the program. how difficult was it for women to get the vote? i mean, did they just have a little struggle, or was it really sort of a large task? >> it was an enormous task.

and sometimes people have been commenting today and talking about when women were given the right to vote. no, they fought for the right to vote. and the very proposition made the establishment fight back. there was imprisonment, forced feeding. and they had to battle for it. it was a very subversive proposition. it was that women should be able to vote on equal terms with men, and men were not going to share it. they didn't just say that's a great idea, we'll change that's always done. it's a great story of struggle, one that we should internalize now as we struggle for more rights. >> let's just be absolutely clear, 100 years ago today only some women got the right to vote, women who were 30 years old, women who had property, women who were educated. did that leave a whole load of women behind, do you think, women of color, lower class, working class women? >> well, i think it was a

steppingstone. and ten years later more women got the vote. so i think it's bit by bit. and you have to take whatever gain you can. and then make further progress. >> and who is that on your lapel there? >> this is millicent faucet. i know you've been admiring it. >> i will definitely, it looks to me like it was a christmas tree ornament, and i will use it on my christmas tree this year. so she was one of the first to secure the rights for women to vote here. in fact, a statue is going up in westminster. when it comes to women around the world, and your specialty is in north africa and the middle east, obviously lagging way behind, not just the uk, but the rest of the world essentially. how long is it going to take for those women even to approach 100 years ago? >> it's going to take a while.

but actually the last year we've seen a series of reforms in women's rights in the region. one after the other. it's because of legislators, jordan, lebanon, that was helped in part by the female legislators there. >> but what about when we all sort of take, as the sort of baseline, saudi arabia, and everybody knows that in saudi arabia, women have almost no rights at all. but now comes this new crown prince who's promised a whole load of things, not just the right to drive. is that serious when you as human rights watch do the analysis, is it really going to happen, and is it really going to make a difference? the reforms we've seen so far have been the result of women themselves. the right to vote and stand for elections was two years ago. that was before the crown prince was in place. that happened after ten years of

women fighting for that right. they still had a lot of challenges. just as an example, for instance, less than two months after 38 women won as counselors. they were not allowed to sit in the same room as men. they had to sit in a separate room and go by webcam. now we have a crown prince who seems to be modern and he's advocating for changes, including for women's rights. but those changes are still very limited. so in april of this year we saw the -- april 2017, the king decreed that they would banish arbitrary restrictions on male gardenianships. if there are no rules around it anyway. that means hospitals for instance who require male guardian permission for medical procedures, which there was no law for, but they do. that would be banned. >> every saudi cannot put a not

in front of the other without a male giving her permission, and sometimes it's her son or her nephew. >> the male guardianship system requires women to have a male guardian, their son, father, brother, uncle, any one of them. birth to death, that will always be a perpetual minor. they have to have this consent to obtain a passport, to marry, a whole series of things in their lives they are required to have male guardian consent. the decree in april of last year meant arbitrary restrictions could no longer be applied. the king asked for a review. to be provided to their office, suggesting there would be a review of the guardianship system. nothing has changed since then. >> when you listen to ross ner, what was it like when you entered parliament? was it they put out the red

carpet for you? was it easy? >> not at all. when i first was in parliament, there was only 3% of us women and 97% men. most of the men felt actually that a woman's place was in the home, not in the house of commons. we got mugs for ourselves printed with a woman's place is in the house. and to say we're entitled to be here. but the idea that a woman who was, you know, a married woman who was pregnant, as i was when i arrived in the house of commons, it's like no, she should be at home, not speaking up in the house of commons. so it was an argument, a really strong argument. >> so it is extraordinary that you talk about being pregnant , even today there's this auras around the prime minister of new zealand, who's announced she's pregnant and that her husband will stay home as the stay at home dad. and a big fuzz was made over

tammy duckworth, the first to be pregnant on the job, so to speak. it's still an issue, all these years later. >> well, it is. because, you know, we fought to get rid of that part of the marriage vows which required us to promise to obey our husband. but what we should have done is put in the marriage vows that our husbands should promise to share looking after the children. but we missed a trick there. and looking after older relatives. because the unequal division of labor in the home is something that it means that women are still not on an equal footing with men outside in the world of work or governmental politics. >> we are, right now, in an amazing moment, the me too moment about refusing to put up with institutional and systemic sexual abuse, and worse, and gender equality. we're doing that in the west. what about women in africa, in asia? they don't even get a look in, do they? or do they? do they have financial independence? >> there's still a huge way to

go for women in the middle east and north africa. they're really behind the rest of the world when it comes to protections against violence against women, status laws, unequal in marriage, and custody and inheritance. obedience, in several countries in the region women are required to give obedience to their husbands. when they leave the home, they will be sent back to the home because that's what's required. in saudi arabia, it goes further, parental disobedience is a crime. you will be filed in court by your parents because you've left them or are considered to be disobesient. >> harriet, all over now, not just in politics, but in every workplace you can feel a sort of agitation to reach this milestone, equal pay for equal play. is that just a fantasy? do you think it will ever actually happen? and what will it take? >> well, i think it will happen because what we -- it used to be the case that if you suggested

that women should be paid equally to men, it was very frowned on because after all, here was the role of the breadwinner. it was threatening his role s.a.t. heas the head of the household for women to be paid the same as him. we won the argument over the decades that a woman was doing the same or equal value of work, he should get the paid the same. we won the argument, but not the reality. now the light is being shown on it by the legal requirement for employers to publish the gap between what they pay their women and what they pay their men. and at this point women are going to really front them up and say, well, you've said for ages you don't believe in unequal pay and you think it's unfair. now you've got to give it. so i think that actually we are in a very big moment on equal pay as we've been in a big moment on sexual harassment following the harvey weinstein revelations, where the internet has spread all the information

from the states to uk, and women here have risen up and said, actually, it's been going on for years here. and we're not going to put up with it either. the internet's a great opportunity for -- to troll women, and also an opportunity for women to work together and express solidarity. >> is there anything like a me too movement in the middle east, in africa right now. >> there have been several campaigns actually. at a national level. in saudi arabia, after we published a report examining the impact of the male guardianship system on women in saudi arabia, women were coming out online with video testimonies explaining how it impacted their lives, what it meant to them. it was a massive snowball of a movement that took a life of its own. because of that we're seeing the reforms we're seeing today. not really just a young prince that comes out of nowhere. it's a driving force. >> you're saying the internet is a great way for women to support

themselves. even though it has been a terrible way for women to be trolled. that's important, isn't it? i have heard a lot of women saying that sometimes they think it's just not worth the anguish to put themselves up, whether it's to stand for office or whatever it is, because of the relentless abuse that they take. is there a way to blank that out, to ignore that? >> well, i think it's a particular problem for younger women, and for black and minority ethic women, the temerity of them to speak out enrages men that want them to stay home. any member of our party that's caught -- i also think that threats, which are online, which actually threat violence, they should be regarded as much as a criminal offense as to do it to somebody's face. and the prime minister actually is looking into changing the law

on that. but actually the internet is a great opportunity, instead of us just talking around our kitchen tables and giving solidarity in our neighborhood, or at the school gates, we can actually work together internationally. i'm hoping at the end of this year we're going to have an international conference of women, members of parliament, from every country in the world, in the house of commons, and we can all talk about the battles we face. and then afterwards set up a giant group which will be full of complaints about men, i'm sure, but will all empower us. >> but so actually, picking up on that as a final thought, it's obviously, i assume, you're not all campaigning to have women dominating men. there's got to be some kind of gender parity. are men ready to play their part in equal rights for women? i'm asking you this in 2018. >> well, i have been really pleasantly surprised. and really delighted by actually a day i never thought would come of young men in the house of

commons, members of parliament, who i call the sons of the women's movement. i mean, they actually recognize that their wives are working, they feel they should play their part. they are a new generation. that brings huge possibilities. >> and in your part of the world, the world that you investigate, do you think men are realizing a bit more that actually it's to everybody's benefit, including their own, if their women are empowered? >> absolutely. i think there are some men who are really empowering women, particularly fathers and brothers, so in saudi arabia for instance as i'm talking about a lot about, they were the ones helping women to drive. they were teaching them to drive long before the ban was s to be lifted, they' been doing that and have been supportive. in other countries as well, we're seeing some men being -- some of the women, human rights defenders, for instance, are able to do the work, they have supportive families, including male relatives. we do need them on side and we're getting more and more on

side as we go on. there are real benefits to them in order for women to be able to drive or to be able to go to work and be able to do things in society. there's a growing realization of this. there will still be a battle by men from now and 100 years time. we have to press them. >> thank you, very much, indeed for joining us. a reminder of how far we've come, and yet how far we still have to go. that is it for our program tonight. and thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs. join us again tomorrow night. >> announcer: "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosalynn p. walter.

>> you are watching "beyond 100 days" on pbs. >> the dow jones was up and down after a massive fall yesterday. >> it seems wall street is nervous because main street is doing better. that has implications for investors around the world. the white house is weighing whether to declassify the democratic memo on trump and russia. >> donald trump was extending the fig leaf to democrats last week. this week, he is accusing them of treason.