captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, w'm judruff. on the newshour tonight, there,a finally, f to see. attorney general william barr releases a redacted version of the mueller report to lawmakers and the public. the special counsel finds sweeping election interference by russia, and numerntacts with the trump campaign, but no iminal conspiracy. it also explores whether the president obstructed justice, but doesn't come dowon either side. we will break down much of what's in the report and ask what it adds up to. althat on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs

newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> babbel. a la real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org.

>> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. med developing countries. on the web at leon.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at nd.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the cobloration for broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the long wait is over: special counsel robe mueller's report on his investigation into russian ties to the trump campaign and the trump presidency is finally public-- at least, in redacted

form. but the debate over the findings and heir implications isut anythingver. the president asserts he has been exonerated, but democrats insist that's a whitewash of what the report really says. and, they're accusing the attorney general of trying to spin the findings in the president's favor. the redacted report pages, broken into two volumes: on whether the trump campaign copired with russia to n.terfere in the 2016 presidential elect esident trump obstructed justice during the investigation. attorney general william barr offered his own summat before releasing the report to congress and the public.ss first, on : >> the special counsel confirmed that the russian government sponsored efforts to illegally

interfere with the 2016 tresidential election but did not find that thp campaign or other americans colluded ins. those effo >> woodruff: the report's actual language says the evidence was "not sufficient" to bring criminal charges. but it does outline numerous contacts between trump campaign advisers and russia. it cites ten key episodes that investigators reviewed. ey include the president's january 2017 dinner with then f.b.i. director james comey, inl which mr. trumgedly asked for loyalty, and his request that comey publicly state that he was not under any criminal investigation. nmey was ultimately fired may of 2017. that same month, special counsel robert mueller began his investigation. the report says mr. trump was

extremely agitated about the probe, and complained bitterly: "this is the end of my presidency." it further says the president tried that june to have mueller fired overleged conflict of interest. but then-white house counsel don mcgahn refused, citing "a fear of being seen as triggering another 'saturday night massacre'," referrin infamous incident during watergate. ed the end, mueller determ that president trump's efforts to influence the russia probe were mostly unsuccessful because his advisers refused to carry out his orders. he went on to say mr. trump declined to be interviewed, and that his written answers to questions, which included dozens of "no memory" answers, were inadequate. but the special counsel says he decided not to subpoena the president, believing that would trigger a long court battle and delay the investigation.ul

>> after car reviewing the facts and legal these are -- >> woodruff: attoriay general wibarr repeated his own finding there is no basis for a criminal case. >> the deputy attorney general and i concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. >> no >> no collusion, no obstruction. >> woodruff: for his part, the prident claimed total vindication, and called for an investigation of the investigation. >> we do have to get to the bottom of these things, i will say. this hoax, this should never happen to another president again.uf >> woodr but in new york, the chair of the house judiciary committee, democrat jerry nadler, said the report isdi anything but vtion for the president. >> even in its incomplete form, the mueller report outlines disturbing evidence that president trump engaged in obstruction of justice and other misconduct. >> woodruf nadler said he will

now subpoena the entire report, and he called for mueller to testify before his committee by may 23rd. democratic adam schiff chairing the house intelligence committee weighed in today from burbank, california. >> the facts that are now established by thiport are damning. whether they could should have resulted in the indictment of the president or people around him,hey are damning, and we should call for better from our elected officials.ta the ard cannot simply be that you can do anything you like as long as ycan declare at the end of the day "i am not a crook." >> woodruff: top democrats joined in condeming attorney general barr's depiction and handling of thmueller report. twitter, senate minority leader chuck schumer blasted barr's mning event as a " foraign press conferen the president. and, house speaker nancy pelosi tweeted that barr "confirmed the staggering partisan effort by

the trump administrati to spin [the] public's view of the #muellerreport." barr acknowledged today that the president's lawyers reviewed the final redacted version of the port before it was made public. he said the white house decided act to invoke executive privilege to redany further information. barr is e to testify before the house and senate judiciary committees, early next mon. we want to take some time now to walk through the report with our white house correspondent yamiche alcindor, capil hill correspondent lisa desjardins, foreign affairs correspondent nick schifrin, and npr's justice correspondent carrie johnson. hello to all of you. this is a team that has spent the entire day working its way through this 450-page report. let's talk abo but theiggest takeaways and,, liarting with you. >> we're talking about tissues of obstruction of justice, which

we know is an on question going into the report. as suspect, there were no colusions but were striking sentences about the approach here. this one, inrticular. mueller wrote, the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful but largely becau the persons surround bid the president declined to carry out his orders or cede to his requests. mueller is saying the president did try to e influence tse investigation bus, in large part, was not able to becauses ders were not followed. overall, special counsel mueller laid out 11 differecidents that he explored, some are said to have substantial evidence of obstruction oruobstion, some no. there's a spectrum. woodruff: yamiche, what is standing out? >> essentially special counsel mueller said the president was trying to ince taf to influence the investigation, but a shield of people around himd stopm from doing thingsth

ey considered and described as crazy. i want to read a tweet theen pressent outout moments ago, "i had the right to tend whole witch hunt if i wanted. f could have fired everyone including muellerwanted. i chose not to. i had the right to use executive prilege, i didn't ." it's important to note thet presids been tweeting he was exonerated and vindicated, but in the report the president is not exonerated andue robert mer writes about that. he says, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts, the president did not clearly comit obstruction of justice, we would so state. based on facts and lack of standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. while the report does not conclude the president did not commit a criernlings it does not exonerate him. robert mueller talks about the fact that it was very difficult to decithde w or not the president had criminal intent. what we see now is the president really saying i'm eonerated, but robert mueller not fully backing that claim. >> woodruff: so let's go to

the justice department and carrie johnson. ly,p us understand why, leg the special counsel made the decisions he did and, if you could work into that what we heard going into all of this from the attorney general. >> sure. so it's been an open question as to why the special counsel decided not to make a call on obstruction. we do now, having read the report, have an insight into that. the special counsepoints out that there gs d.o.idance that says you cannot or should not indict a sitting presihent whilr she is in office. there's also an arument that the president cannot obstruct erwisee by taking an ot lawful action, doing something like hiring or firing the f.b.ir direwhich he did to james comey in 2017. but the special counsel aluated all the arguments and determined it is, in fact, possible for a president to obruct justice for some

purpose. it's app 07 question as to whether any president can be charged after leaving office an certainly this special counsel left open the option for congress to take the ball and run with it, perhaps a matter of impeachment through the house judiciary committee commit committeey. we know attorney general william barr said he disagreed with some of the special counsel's finding and analyses, and also before he became attorney general sent a 19-page memo unsolicited to the justice department in the white house arguing mr. trump could not have obstructed justice byfi ng james comey. >> woodruff: we'll talk about that as the program goes on. nick, yohave been looking at this from the russia perspective. walks through some of the extensive eefforts by the russians to influence the 2016 caaign. >> yeah, we learned a lot about what the special counsel kales a sweeping and systemic effort by russia. we learned how successful it was

at targeting and contacting trump officials and we talked about, judy, one of the main efforts was the social media camign, and that was t cus from a building in st. petersburg twent to a couple of years ago. there it is, the internet research agency fullf hundreds of russians pretending to be americans online, and they were creating fake accounts and posts, especially on fook, and these werebodivisive issues, trying to royal the unit states and trying to convince people president obama was trying to create false claims about president obama. and the trolls targeted the trump campaign specifically asking for things like signs, promotion and coordination. campaign officials were relying to these russian trolls, but what's important, the special counsel says there's no evidenc that thampaign officials who were replaying knew that they were russian because, remember, these trolls we pretend tock american, an that's why those campaign officials aren'ilty of conspiring with russia.

the second half, of course, is the hacking that russia did, anh e were three main elements to that. they really targeted the d.n.c., as we've talked about, targeted the democratic congressional campaign committee, they targeted individuals and entities and elections, administrations and states, and they disseminated everything they targeted -- they hacked through kileaks andouts others. we heard trump campaignta officials wering to then candidate donald trump about wikileaks and coo wrdinating wikileaks. but the attorney general said today wikileaks was not part of the original hack, therefore, it did no at commrime. therefore, talking to wikileaks is not a crime. but it was part of a rtal ef by the trump campaign th was consistent interest in hacked materials, and that interest culminated in a speech that candidate trump made on, july 2016. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find th

30,000 e-mails that are miss >> and we learned, five hours after trump made that statement, military intelligence in moscowc targeted hillanton's personal campaign. up until then, they'd targeted another aspect, so they were apparently listening. >> woodruff: so many threads with regard to russia. lisa, let's come back to obstructn and what the president was doing to stop or slow down this investigation. what do we see? >> i mentioned the eleven things special counsel mueller looked at. if you think of them as being on a large dart board, some farther away and some closer to obstruction, one closest to the bullseye represent the president's attempts to influence the special counsel'st ination himself. it accuses him of trying to fire special counsel muelle directly, also trying to block the investigation of himself by

saying -- trying to limit special counsel mueller eels powers to not investigating orump or his campaign and als asking the white house council to lie. there is a lot in this report, and these areas, edy, are ones in which special counsel mueller says there isid substantial ce that the president acted with the intent to use his power but he so in these cases were not able to rs for at the powe variety of reasons, mostly because his orders were not followed. >> woodruff: but they documented time and again how he was trying, in conversation with the people around him, to get him to do things. >> to protect himself against this investigation. >> woodruff: yamiche, let's talk aatut the specifics e learned about the former white house counsel, his role and in the role of the attorney general in all of this. >> well, there are times when the muelrer ort reads like a novel and you have a president calldg people and tweeting an trying his best to influence the mueller investigation in any way he can. here are three exs that

deal with the white house counsel don mcghan and former attorney general jeff sessions. the first is that the president wanted corey lewandowsca, the formeraign manager, to actually have jeff sessions deliver a speech where he would call the mueller investigation unfairnd where he would say that robert mueller was actually trying to subvert the constitution. the president didn't say that tweespecifically but corey lewandowski passed it off to a white house aid who flt uncomfortable and didn't it, so we have an example of th president wanting something to happen and it didn't happen. second, he pre sessions, former attorney general, to recuse himself repeatedly. he called him at home, spoke to him in the oval office, tweeted about it. over and over again, the president did that. the third e the prsident basically tried to get don mcghan to say at the president never tried to fire jeff sessions. he actually called domcghan at home when he was angry with jeff sessions and said you need to

get rid the special couel and you need to get rid of this problem. so, in thitrcase, he wang to get don mcghan to fire the special counsel and really trying to use his power as the president to do tha it's important to note that attorney general wilarr this morning said the issue of obstruction is something the special counsel diad not ve the congress. in the report over and over again about congress, and i mention that because the three instances i laid out could come a road map congress might use to start trying to get information from people like special counsel robert mueller who we know the house judiciary committee and house judiciary chairman has asked to come afd testify beore congress. >> woodruff: a lot of new information there in the report, especially about the the efforts to get don mcghan to step in.le me come back to you, carrie johnson, at the justice partment, and ask you abut the meeting at trump tower in june of 2016. what did we learn about that meeting? and also about the statement

that wrw made afds by the president's son? >> yeah. not in only in terms of both conspiracy and collusion as the president calls it but obstruction. >> with respect to conspiracy, the special counsel seems to have evaluated the meeting which seems to be about russian sanctions not adoptions and determine that the trump campaign was willing to accept something of value from russia, mething of value being dirt, opposition research on hillary clinn, their political opponent. ultimately the special counsel seems to have concluded that the oeople in that room, the americans in that m, including donald trump, jr., former campaign chairman paul manafort, son-in-law jared kushner and others didn't have nye requisite criminal intent to charge them with a kind of campaign finance violation. trnow, on the obstion side, of course, when parts of that meeting began to come to light president trump played a personal role in sending out a

misleading statement from his white house to explain what that meeting was about and the involvement of his son donald trump, jr. e special counsel there found those statements to be false, but, of course, lying to reporters is not a crime. lie to investigators is. the investigatorsaid the president seemed inordinately concerned with public relations there. income, a top white house aide and jared kushner both told the president if the e-mails jrinvolving donald trump, . and the trump tower meeting came t, it would look very very bad. >> woodruff: well, there's so much here to t ilk about and want to try to get around to all of you with another question, other aspects of ts. nick, speak about what stood ou to y the context between the president and people who were trying to influence him the russians. >> the links between russia and the campaign and none werecr inal. but they were business

connections. we learned a lot about the trump campaign attempt to create trump tower moscow. there were invitations to russia by the president to visit russia and campaign officials, policy decisions, relief on nctions, softening policy on ukraine during the republican national convention, even a consideration to allow russia to control eastern ukraine and many offers of assistance, the main one we just heard from carrie johnson, that meeting in june 2016 between russian lawyer and members of the trump campaign, as carrie said, the special counsel said peckeddent prove the intent to have the people in that meeting at that there was no dirt given, and, so, therefore, there's no val what the campaign officials took and, so, therefore, they did not commit any kind of campaign finance violation, which is the law that special counsel talked about for pages whether they would have. so so many lin, and, yetne of them deemed criminal.

>> woodruff: so finally, let's look ahead. esat does it look like com next with congress, lisa? >> two issues, one is atrney neral william barr. we've seen letters from nancy pelosi and chuck schumerti bl him. the spial counsel will testify likely before congress in coming weeks. now congress has to wrestle with the deits is cigs of how it handles impeachment, specifically demrats. miche mentioned mueller went to great lengths to say congress can per ssably criminalize certain obstructive conduct by the preside. that is another line that's going to be part of the road map i think yamiche mentioned for democrats that we're going to pay a lot of attention to. one other thing, in the last hour, judy, top republicans, the number two democrat in the house and intlligence chair schiff have said they do not think this

leads them to move towardpe hment. >> woodruff: fascinating. i will talk to congressman jeffries in a moment. ia mix what does the white house say is next? >> psident trump is feeli good about where the narrative stands as it relates to the mueller report. however, white house press secretary kellyannconway told white house reporters including myself that there should be an investigation of the investigators, that there should r a look into how this got started, whethert these were done in the correctaway. i also spoke to the president's personal lawyer rudy giuliani, he tells there's supposed to be a counterreport released in the next day or so or nexet wek. we're not sure what's going to be in that report, but you can be sure that the president is saying this is clear that this s something that was opinion fair, presidential harassment, d. the president sai but even if the president feels good, the white house is still on the offense here. >> woodruff: rrie johnson, justice department, what are they looking to next?

work is not done. the most tantalizing parts to have the report was in the appendics, saying special counsel mueller and his team had referred 14 cases to other prosecutors, 12 cases are redacted, blacked out, under seal. there's still a lot of workin on behind the scenes. some day, it's going to breakub intoc view. >> woodruff: and i know you will continue to report as our entire team is. j carrnson at the justice department, yamiche alcindor at the white house, lisa desjardins, nick schifrin here in the studio. thank u all very much. >> woodruff: we turn to congressional reaction to the report with the chairman of the house mocratic caucus, representative hakeem jeffries of new york. he's also a mber of the judiciary committee.

congressman jeffries, thank you very much for talk wogs. president trump says this proves, agai that he is exonerated. >> wels the president i completely clueless and, once again, he's lying to the american people. if anything, the mueller report is exactly the opposite. it is incredibly, deeply troubling, the information contained in the report. the president pursuedt to the untates constitution is charged with faithfully executing the laws of the united states of america. the information in the mueller report revet,als tha in at least ten instances, the preside likely engaged in obstruction of justice. that is aserious crime. what we need to do now is hear from bob mueller so thaert the an people can make a determination for themselves as to how we proceed to bring about some accountability. >> woodruff: i want to ask you about what the congress' role is next, but, at this point, do you accept the special counsel's

finding that there are no morent indictto come of either the president himself or anybody close to him >> yes, bob mueller, as we we intained from the beginning, is a highly respected law enforcement professional.li i e he conducted himself in an appropriate fashion as relates to how he handled this investigation. i take him at his word with respect to hisonclusion that the acts that occurred as between the trump campaign and russian operatives didn't rise to the level of being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a crimrainal cons that existed. but, also, take sheiously allegations that he laid out and the information that was presented with respect to the acts of obstruction of justice, and now we have to take that information, get the underlying documentation, and eventually hear from him before the house

judiciary committee. >> woodruff: so you're saying you don't accept his conclusion -- rather you don't accept what he said that he couldn't reach a conclusion about whether or not there was obstruction of justi committed? >> well, what appears to be the conclusion that he reached is that, based on variety o different factors, including long-standing department of justice practice that you cannot indict a sitting president, along with theobservation that, notwithstanding that fact, they were going to preserve the evidence of obstruction of justice for both congress and presumably a future department of justice to consider, once donald trump is no longer president of the united states of the united ates of america, to me, that's not the end, that's just the beginning of what needs to come nex wt. druff: so when you say you're going to call the special counsel bob mueller before congress, what do you think you

can get from him he hasn'tla alread out? he spent two years working on this report. what more do you think you can hear from him, learn from him? >> it's a great question, one we don't have the underlying documentation in this exhaustive report. we also have only been presented with a redacted version that was dertaken by the attorney general who clearly is not acting like the people's attorney, he's acting like trump's publicist. so at this particular point in time, we can't simply accept the redacted version of what was presented to congress and the american people today. we need anac unrd version, we need the underlying documentelion and, ultim we need bob mueller to explain the report to the american pele and the principal findings and coclusions. >> woodruff: when you say the whole report, a you know the redacted rtions incde grand jury testimony, it includes testimony that we are -- material that we are told is

confidential, part of intelligence or intelligence gathering. re saying you want to basically ignore those concerns, those restrictions? >> well, there are two things. with respect to congress, we have high levels ofecurity clearance, so any member of congress ought to be able to review the report? its entirety. with respect people, the house democrats have been clear that we accept the notion that redactions areap opriate in order to protect mources and methods connected to the intelligence nity so that we can continue to promote the safety and security of theam ican people. however, as you know, with respect to grand jury material, that's a vy different story. there is a presumption of privacy. however, the law permits that presumption to be overcome when there is a compelling public interest. 17 different intelligence agencies concluded that russiaed attaour democracy and interfered with our election to try andia artify place donald trump at 1600

pennsylvania avenue. to me,this whe scenario involves the compelling public d terest. that's why we nere information, not less. >> woodruff: and is that something that would potentially lead, in your opinion, to impeachment proceedings? >> wel impeachment is still off the table as it relat to how we're going to proceed. we want to methodically collect the information. nancy pelosi has been clear with respect to impeachment. she's id out a standard i accept and report, which is that the case must be compelling, thv ence should be overwhelming, and the sentiment around impeachment must be bipartisan. we've got an lot closer to the case perhaps being compelling, the evidence iseing developed, but we still haven't hit the third prong where public sentiment suggests that they have a president that is engaged in this type olif crimi is no longer acceptable. we'll see how the american people process the informaon over the next few weeks, but

that's why it's important for us to hear from bob mueller uirectly. >> woodruff: but 're saying that what happens after the congress hears from the special counsel is something that could lead to prosecuting the president or finding him -- or trying to remove himr fom office? >> well, no, thnte departf justice has been clear at this particular point in time, which is to say that a sitle president cannot be prosecuted pursuant to justice department practice. i accept that as the situationd that we fiurselves in. in terms of presidentialco tability, i don't think that we, as potential decision-makers on the house judiciary committee, sh culdome to any conclusions until we've gatheredll the information, and that's going to include a report free of some of the redaions that are probably overly broad, that will include the underlying documentation, that wi incde hearing from

bob mueller. >> woodruff: right. until we get to that int, it's premature to discuss the potential of puring impeachment proceedings against a president. congressmahakeem jeffries, chairman of the house democratic caucus, we thank you. thank you very much. >> woodruff: 22 months, 2,800om subpoenas, and500 witnesses later; mueller's extensive report goes over not just his investigation's findings, but also how he believed u.s. criminal law applied to the facts. three legal experts are here to wade into all of this: george terwilliger was deputy attorney genal, during william barr's previous stint atop justice in the george h.w. bush administration. bob bauer was white house counsel under president obama, and was outside counsel to senate democrats during the

senate's trial of former president clinton. and mary mccord served as acting head of the justice department's national security divi she is mentioned in the report having been part wf the team tht to the white house to voice initial warnings about michael flynn. she is now a litigator gegetown university. and we say hello and welcome back to "newshour" to l of you. thank you for being here on this important day. i'm going to start with you, george what do you make of the finding by the special counsel that there was no conspiracy, no collusion, no cooperaon between the trump campaign and the russian government, russian officials, when there were so many attempts by the russians to reach into that election? >> well, i really draw two conclusions as a citizen from that, judy. the first is that i'm glad the fact that the russians were trying o interfere in our elections through a wide var miy

ans is getting exposed because i think that will help us build what i hope will be bipartisan political support to combat that in the future. obviously, we don' want foreign governments messing with our elections. the second is that the politics of all of this and of the allegations of conci'lusion - sorry -- of collusion really have been a mill stone around the neck of this presidency. sonallyhe president p out of it for a second, but just, objectively, it has hindered the pridency and the execution of some of the policies and initiatives of the presidend i'm glad to see that lifted. you know, we'll have lots of robust political debate on substantive issues. i hope we can now ut this aside. >> woodruff: but you're accepting the findings of the edspecial counsel bn what

you see here? >> yes, although i'm troubled in a way that this is the y we got the answer to this because a criminal investigation is not necessarily thbest vehicle to make determinations about a widg of facts. remember, this started out as a counterintelligence investigation, which is what it should have been. ight.odruff: bob bauer, what about you? how do you read what the special counsel came up with, looking at attempts by the russians to influence the election and finding there was no crilmi conspiracy or cooperation between the trump campaign and russia? >> like any otherrosecutor, he had to make some difficult decisions. for example, the campaign welcomed the delegation from the kremlin offering di on hillary clinton, hosted them in their offices in new york and were eager to accept the help of sianign nationals, the rus government and their agents, and the special counsel looked at that and concluded there were simply constitutional and other statutory impediments to

bringing, say, a crina prosecution under the federal campaign finance laws. what that episode, how,ev revealed from what the rest of the section in the report shows is there were not only multiple efforts on the part of russia to influence the election, but the understood vickly that the trump campaign and the president were open to those oferfof support, and i think that is extraordinarily troubling, even taking into account what george has said, we don't want foreign nationals interfering in our elecons, we don't want american presidential campaigns, much less those who will become president, encouraging them to interfere in our elections. >> woodruff: pick up, mary mccord, the legal underpinning robert mueller ends p using to conclude there was no conspiracy, no illegal cooperation. >> well, it's a high bar to charge a crime, you have, particularly conspiracy, you have to show an agreementtacit or explicit, to commit a crime, and, so, one thing t toink about when you think about both

the interferenceith the election part of this report as well as the obstruction part is that, in reaching the conclusions about crimes, that's the standard that mueller was applying and, ofourse, he didn't reach a conclusion when it came to obstruction. lightere's a lot of day between there's nothing to see here, there's nothing wrong and there's enough evidence to support charging a crime. >> woodruff: but for all threeou ofreading through this report today, do you come away thinking, all rit, they did everything they could, and i'm satisfied, there was no llusion, there was no conspiracy? >> i think it would be hard to read this report and come away without feeling that therwas an incredible amount of interest and encoagement by peole associated with the campaign in russia continuing its election interference efforts. >> you know, jud i think mary makes a good point, that the bar to get over in a criminal

investigation is very higthh. 's one of the reasons we don't typically have prosecutors writing reports, because how evidence is viewed -- and we're going to hear it in washington the next few weeks -- how the evidence that's reported is viewed ito going be viewed in political terms, and it's going to be used for political purposes. i mean, one could argue that the greatest instancef collusion we saw was the clinton's campainvolvement with the dossier, which was supposedly dirt on trump. i think the bottom line conclusion that we as citizens ought to be drawing here is that we need vigilance within l mpaigns. bob's point is wken about that, but we need even greaterhe vigilance we have foreign governments trying to interfere with our elections.>> oodruff: the reason i'm pushing this a little more is some people say what about the trump tower meeting, that sure didn't look like something that uld normally happen in a campaign, but you're saying nothing illegal happened?

bob? >> that's never been my view. i've always thought this was a clear-cut campaign finance violation associated with the trump tower. >> woodruff: campaign finance violation. >> correct, in that a campaign is absolutely barred from cepting any support whatsoever or soliciting support, any whatsoev, from a foreign national, or substantially aiding a foreign national influencing a federal election. as it turns out, i thi t special counsel took a conservative view. we can debate whether or not he and avs team shoulde done so, but i think it's open to question, and i rtainly question their conclusion, but i don't question t good faith analysis behind it. >> what that boils down to, judy, in many rescts, in many aspects of this report, lawyers disagree. now, there's news. >> woodruff: let's turn to the obstruction piece of this and whether or not the president committed obstruction of justice. mary, you brought it up. it is a high bar and, ultimately, robert mueller determined he could not mak a

conclusion one way tore the her. >> i don't think that's what he determined at all. i think he said, based on o.l.c. guidance -- >> woodruff: office of legal counse inside department of justice. >> that's right, and he as special cosel of the employ of the department of justice is bound by the guidance that says you can't indicted a sitting president, and based on that and his recognition of the reasons behind that, the unfairness of indicsaying a signature preside not committeime when there's not going to be an opportunity to air out the other sides or a neutral jude karat, that he was not going to reach that conclusion. >> woodruff: you're not reading that as something election dayent, you're saying his hands were tied legay because of the department guidelines? >> i think that's right, yes. i think "hands were tied" is a fair conclusion based on what's in the report. i think there were a number of factors that went into it, and

one of the things that he mentions that i think is very important, judy, is tnhat, sice there was no crime of collusion, and that's what he was allegedly structing was that investigation, then you look at the evidence of what the president did in a different light, and i'm not the president's lawyer, i don't want the president's lawyer, but ith will tell yot, in my experience with public officials, with high-ranking public officials, the fact that the president wou rant at aides and say can't we do this, can't we do that, when he's incensedy the fact that he believes this is a phony vestigation, you have to look nd that in judging what his intent should be in exercising your discretion as to whether or not that's aos utable case. it's not only can we, it's should we. >> the question on ntent, i n't think there is any out the about his motives. on june 14 -- >> woodruff: the pre's motives. >> the president's motives.

on june 14-rbgs 2017, the president learned an obstructi phase of the investigation commenced. within days he was pressing his white house council to arrange with the d.o.j. to have bob mueller fired. it see as soon as he came in thesine of potential liability, he put pressure on the white house security council and attorney general, and i'm just scratching the surface of some of the disclosures in the report. >> but further analysis of that requires -- let me accept what bob says as a fair inference from the facts.o you still haveok at the question of what the real intent was there. was the president drin by i want this investigation stopped because he had a corrupt intent to stop an investigation, or was he po'mitically saying not going to have this mill stone around my neck and i nt to find a way to set it off >> woodruff: mary, how do you read that?

>> i think this is another example where mueller made clear he was not exonerating the president. he lays out in great detail, which i haven't had the opportunity o read yet, all the facts with respect to the eleven different scenarios that could be, any one of them, a basis for an obstruction charge. i think what's important is the law, when it comes o obstruction, is narrowly interpreted according to the dupreme court and, again, there's a lot ofaylight between nothing wrong here and enough to charge a crime or even ke an allegation of a crime, and i think that it's important that people nee at least the executive summary, the whole american people, and they can make judgments. i think a layperson reading this would say there's obsuction here. >> woodruff: there's a lot to read. >> i would also add letnot confuse the kinds of beliefs the president may have had. he may have had a belief the allegations of collusionere unfair and angry about that phase of the investigation, but he was motivat in the obstruction phase of the

investigation by the personal threat to him, and he had a belief it was a threat, he expressed that to his ass and tried to curb th investigation. >> if that were the accepted view off these fact and, again, i grant bob maybe that's a fair inference from the factand that's a viw that somebody could have, then there utuld have been a prosn or recommendation for prosecution. the bottom line is mueller did not recommend a prosecution. >> woodruff: mary, you're shaking your head no. >> i think he makes it clear i his executive summary to part two the reasons why he's not making a recommendation and baseon the l.l.c. memo. u woodruff: bob , do i understand you to say that you th,k, based on what happen that the special counsel could have gone ahead and found the president guiltof obstruction? >> on the facts revealed in this report, that would have been a

completely defensible exercise of prosecutorialdiscretion. there are a host of fact here about the president's repeated attempts in a number of ways t stop what believed to be a threat to him with respect to the investigation into the collusion matter. >> woodruff: you're saying he could have defied the office of legal counsel guo,elines? >>'m suggesting he could have brought to prosecution, because he concllded he cou don't that under the l.o.c., bu, he could h think. he hints in this direction by saying he's not exo could have clearer that there was clear evidence of obstructive behs ior. >> this y we should not have prosecutors writing reports. this is what happened witoh hillary clin her handling of classied information. t decision was made not to

prosecutor here whole litany of sin was laid out. same thing here. it provokes thisind ofdebate and is not healthy. >> i think george is seriously confusing the issue. in the hillary clinton case, he reached the judgment that no reasonable prosecutor would have found a violation on the facts of his investigation, and then he went ahead and characterized her conduct, if you will, in moral or normative terms. i agree with george, he should not have done that. we're talking about whether a prosecutor on these facts could have concluded that the law wasd violand no one's going to argue on these facts that no reasonable prosecutor could have reached that conclusion. it's the same bottle line decircumstances different degrees, i'll grant you that, but the same bottom line dichotomy between making a decision. what prosecutors are supposed to do, if there's a basis to charge somebody, move ahead and charge them. if not, you say nothing. when wthget is kind of

information flowing into tpuhe ic space, exactly these kinds of debates ensue, which is tremendously unfair to the people who are subject to these -- >> that's clear, geoge, unlike the comey case, he was under legal obligation to produce this report. >> i understand. 've read hundreds of prosecution reports. i was criminal chief for many years and head ofm .d. for a while and this proceeds very much like a normal prosecuon memo. it starts with one of the laws we're looking at, it puts out the facts, applies the law tohe the facts, it n usually makes a recommendation and talk about defenses. e only thing this lacks is that recommendation. >> woodruff:ary mccord, george terwilliger, bob bauer, thank you. we will continue to talk about this. thank you. >> thank you. woodruff: let's move to reaction outside the u.s. now.

our special correspondent ryan chilcote lived in russia for 20 years. he is in moscow tonight to tell ay what the kremlin had to about the mueller report, and flesh out some of the details of what the russians did in 2016. ryan, as we mentioned, you lived there for a long time. you've had contact with russianf cials over the years. what is standing out to you tonight? >> what stands out to me, judy, is the extraordinary lengths and unconventional approaches that the kremlin took to ablish off the radar directns communicatith the trump administration in the lead up -- during the campaign in the leadup to thegu intion and after. for example, mueller lays th how the wef sovereign fund aached out to one of jared kushner's friendorld banker, to work on effectively a assian-american peace pla way of reconciling differences between the two countries,

acti as an intermediary for the russian president. another example, we know paul manafort, who was, as you know, obviously, the campaign manager for the trump administration for much of 2016, he reached out to someone he worked with, a russian billionaire who i interviewed earlier this week, that he had done consulting with before, a number of years before, and he offered him information about the campaign polling data, at least according to mueller, in the leadup a after the actual elections tob settle a to settle a legal dispute that he had with him. when i interviewed him, he said any of the discussions he had with paul manafort was in 2010, 2011. but mueller said it was in 2017 and they were discussing foreign policy. a third banker also said he reached out to the u.s. administration on behalf of the

russian president to establish a back channel. he sai tdat he was subpoenaed by mueller and himself said that, all he said because president putin asked him, because the president putin administration, the kremlin, was desperate to get some kind of dialogue going. >> woodruff: it looks like we may have lost the connection of moscow and to ryan chilcote. we'll try to get that back up, but looks like we do not have it right now. take a short break. we'll be right back. >> woodruff: in the non-mueller report news of this day, north rea said it wants u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo removed from nuclear negotiations. in a statement, a senior foreign minist official said "whenever pompeo pokes his nose in, the talks go wrong."

hours earlier, pyongyang said it mad test-fired a new tactical weapon, its firsr weapons test in nearly half a year. french police are now saying an electrical short circuit is the most likely cause of the fire at notre dame cathedral. the structe had been undergoing renovations when the inferno erupted on my. today, hundreds of parisian firefighters and police officers were honored at the presidential palace. they have been praised for saving the cathedral from total destruction. police in new york are holding a man who allegedly walked into saint patrick's cathedral last nigh with gasoline, lighter fluid and lighters. he was arrested and charged with attempted arson and reckless endangerment. police say he claimed it was all entirely innocent. >> story was that heutting through the cathedral to get to madin avenue, that his car h run out ofas. we took a look at the vehicle.

it was not o of gas. and at that point he was taken into custody. >> woodruff: the suspect is from new jersey. investigators say he had also been arrested at a new jersey cathedral, a few days ago, and had booked a flight to rome for day. new findings today underscore fears about the decline wild bees. researchers at the university of new hampshire report the populations of 14 species of b bees have fallup to 90% over 125 years. the study adds to growing evidence that bee numbers are dropping worldwide, due to insecticides, parasites, climate change and other factors. and, on wall street, stocks gained a little ground, going into the holiday weekend. the dow jones industrial average was up 110 points to close at 26,559. the nasdaq rose two points, and the s&p 500 added four. markets will be closed tomorrowf

for goday and passover. >> woodruff: on the newshour onli, keep following all of our coverage of the mueller report, fr major takeaways to new information about russia's campaign. that's on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. laand you can also find thst highlights from all of our reporters on instagram and twitter, "@newshour." that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. jo us online and again her tomorrow evening when mark shields and david brooks break down the politic fall out from the mueller report. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. ajor funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connectsus >> ordering takeout. >> finding the west route. >> tking for hours. >> planning for showers. >> you can do the things you like to do with a wireless plan designed for you with talk, text and data. consumer cellular. learmore at consumercellular.tv >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and me.

>> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change rldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to yourbs ation from viewers like you. thank you. >> does it give you some kind of comfort that you critics are coming from both sides? >> no, because i could still be wrong. >> this is not how borr crossings, how people come intos the u.s.eeking asylum, what it

usually looks like, but sheks thhis may be her best chance to get past these guards right now. >> mr. trump won this district overwhelmingly by about 20 minuteo the question whether the enthusiasm for president trump will convert into enthusiasm for a different republic. >> the president interfeed in the 2016 election and possibly as ate mid as an attack on democracy -- captioning sponsored b newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org hello, everyone and welcome

to amanpour and company. >> measles rears it's ugly head again. why the disease believed to be er eradicated is making a come back in countries that can vaccinate against it. then. >> let's get in the middle. >> comedy dream team join us on their show kat catastrophe the heartache that lies below the belly laugh. >> a lotf time those of you that have decisions we don'tag e with have moral. >> the low down on her