robert atheorney general doesn't back down and neither does congress. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." the attorney general under fire over his handling of the mueller report. >> it was my decision how and when to make it public, not bob mueller's. robert: democrats want the special council to testify. republicans say enough is enough. >> it's over. if there's ate dispu of a conversation then he'll come. but i'm not going to retry the case. robert: house democrats are furious. >> the attorney general of the united states is not telling the truth to the congress of the united stes. that's a crime. robert: the subpoenas fly in the battle between the white house an congress, next. announcer: this is "washington

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once again, from washington, moderator, robert costa. robe: this week, robert mueller answered a key question, did he the special council have concerns with the attorney general's summary of his report? the an, he -- the answer, he did. he cleared president trump of breaking the ball in a four-page memo. days later mueller wrote to barr, he said h summa has causeded public -- caused confusion. barr defended himself in senate testthis week noting that he later released a redacted version of the rort. >> we prepared the letter for that purpose to state the bottom line conclusions. we were not trying to summarize the 410-page report. robert: joining me tonight dan

balz chief correspondent for "the washington post." laura jarrett correspondent for cnn, carrie johnson, national justice correspondent for n. p.r. and ed o'keefeolitical correspondent for cbs news. laura, as someone o the d.o.j. beat day in, day out, when you look at this letter from robert mueller, what's its legal significance? laura: so i don't thinkac it's al possible to overstate how extraordinary of a moment this is to have t special council making a written report of his concerns. it's not just the language he uses which is scathing, i think in my view, especially from someone like robert mueller whoi everyone think so by the book. we haven't heard a peep ou of him for over the two-year investigation he's gone through. s one time to speak is to go to paper against his old friend bill barr, 30 years a. he knows really well.

instead he decided to make a written record. robert: why does it matter for him to go to paper as you said? lawyer ar: i think it shows how alarmed he was. remember, he had given the justice department redacted copies of his summaries. he thought if you put the summaries out t people will have a better sense of what contains in this report of what he thought bill barr's misleading letter. you'll get a better sense of what the context is here. obviously, that didn't happen. robert: dan, you've observed robert mueer for years. he's anal institutit. he's known for his integrity. how much power do his words carry? dan: this is an extraordinary thing that hpened. there are very few people who come with a reputation of aue

roberter. he is as everybody says. he is the ultimate professional publ servant who has had a sterling reputation in or rything he has done, and him to go through this two-year process, to prepare the report and then find himself upset about what the attorney genera ha done and as laura said to put it in writing is an amazing act on his part. it is -- it is an act of defiance by somebody who we never think of as somebody who uld defy the authorities for whom he's working. robert: an act of defiance. but inside of the departmt of justice, you have an attorney general who states that robert mueller was not questioning his conduct but was raising concerns about media confusion. what's the view inside of d.o.j. about how this a played out? carrie: to hear bielll barr it, this was largely the media's fault, not his own part. in part it was bob mueller's

team part. they're upset with mueller for not making a clear call one way or another about procuting president trump for obstruction of justice. they're upset that some of the legal reasoning in br's report was confusing. and he called this letter a little bit snitt and said one of his angry prosecutors wrote it. there was an element where he threw under the bus his old friend bob mueller. robert: senator lindsey grahami invitingo testify about any misrepresentation of a call he had with th attorney general. ed, when mueller comes before the senate judiciary committee, what should we expect and w did senator graham do this? ed: whether he comes to congress ertainly for debate.

i keep thinking it will be the ama of the comey hearing when he came to explain himself, plus, the drama and the te tion of kavanaugh confirmation last year. and the general mystery over, that's what he sounds like because wey actua haven't heard from this guy at all. robert: you mentioned it'sp for debate -- ed: well,ecause this graham letter is youan talk about this one specific thing. are you going to try to limit is the scope of testimony? the house judiciary committee wants him to geto talk about everything. and there are reports that that's in the works. i think it's just a matter of when exactly he will be but i sounds like we're getting closer to this. this graham letter in part reads as if they know he's coming to the house side at least. th now want to be involved in how controlled his visit to the capitol and mak it clear that republicans have something else they would like to hear from him abou robert: it was a high stakes

showdown when the attorney general came to capitol hilllko o the u.s. senate. democrats accused barr of lying during two prior appearances to congress when he said he was not aware that mueller's team had frustration. carrie, did thera attorney ge answer those questions in a sufficient way in the eyes of the democra about whether he lied or not? carrie: absolutely not. speaker nancy pelosi accused the attorney general of lying, which she said was a crime. now, to hear bill barr tell it, he was answering a question tha was worded very specifically. he answered it very specifically. but democrats, especially in the senate, said that he was engaging in painful hair splitting andegistic parsing and not telling the truth, the whole truth. robert: how vulnerable is this attorney general? is it more of a political fight or inside the d.o.j. are they coerned he could face perjury

charges? laura: they're notorried. not to hair split, but the question from representive chris wasci about s members of the council's team. he didn't say did robert mueller call you on x day around express concerns? if he hre ans a question like that, i think he would be on different ground here.'s thot to say that the attorney general should be misleading the american public. i mean, this is not -- i think the standard necessarily that one would want, lack of candor is an issue even if pjury is not on the table. robert: that's such a good point because there was this legal dance throughout the attorney general's testimony, and there were a number of heatedge exch including this one between barr and kamala harris who began her career as a prosecutor. >> has the president or anyone

at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone, yes or no,e, pleir? >> the president or anybody else? >> seems you'd remembe something like that and be able to tell us. >> yeah, butg 'm try grapple with the word "suggest." there had been suggestions of matter out there that they've not asked me to open anig inveion. >> perhaps they suggested? >> i don't know. i wouldn't sayuggest -- >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know? ok. robert: dan, careful and savvy or too cagey? >> well, it depends on which side of the aisleou sit. from the democratic point of view way toos agey. it gck to the question of how he responded to the question when he was asked when he testified in the house about, we whether he knew anything about the concerns of the

mueller team. it was -- it was an effort at besto deflect the question if not to dodge the question. i think republicans saw that moment as a member of the senatg ing the attorney general. and they take a much different view of it. but there's nooubt it was a question that he was uncomfortable with as you could see in that clip. >> i think she sent at least two fundraising e-mails within 12 hours of that exchange trying to pump it up amongst her supporters and see how much money she could raise. >> she's answering the question like that because the president call the justice department to open investigations all the time. so i think part of what he's wrestling with, d well,s a tweet count? what we want to know is what has the president said behind doors as opening up investigations. the president has been saying the justice department should

look into spying for weeks and months now. it turns outti the j department is looking into that. but was it triggered by the president oril was it barr's own interest it? that's part of the issue. >> we might hear about this soon. robert: let's pause here on the spyi point. because the toge de-- attorney general defended his use of the word "spying." this episode during the presidential campaign in 2016, you had an f.b.i. person meet with george pop develop louse -- georou popodop it raises questions during the 2016si pntial campaign. this is in part with the inspector general who has a teport that's coming. what do we expo learn about this so-called spying or is it just normal surveillance from the inspector general in the coming months? >> yeah, remember inspector m

generahael horowitz was asked to look into the carter page question. and remember that obamas officiigned off on that process. but the inspector general appears to broaden his per view. it contains some inaccurates. deta there were questions whether he was fed disinformation by the russians himself. and he appears to be looking at strategies o tactics the f.b.i. deployed againsthe campaign advisor and other people in ic2016. repus welcome this effort. bill barr, the attorney general, says she's very concerned about it. he's launching his own review which may expand beyond what the inspector general is doing. he gav some real credence to these concerns and president trump was tweeting very

favorably about the "new york simes" which you do not see every day after ttory came out. robert: that is about tweets, you have the president using the word "coup" a government overthrow with regard to this pending report on surveillance. >> well, i think we have to keep in mind we've got two situations. we've got this constitutional clash between thed aon menstruand the congress over what information is going to be made available. and what i going to happen beyond the investigation that b mueller undertook. the second is the political battle. and the prt has been frankly quite effective in the political battle first in raising questions about the validity of the entire mueller operation, and now, phing more and more in the direction of we need to get to the bottom ofow this whole thing happened because in his mind, it was illegal, you know, every word he's used. but tha hs part of whats doing to feed that side of the political debate that'soi

unde. robert: that was the russia side of what happened during barr's testimony. but what waso so notable is what happened on the obstruction side on the mueller report. many democrats sd that barr was essentially acting as president trump's lawyerci esly when it came to obstruction. >> there's a distinction between saying this, go fire mueller, and saying have him removed based on conflict. they have different results. robert: ed, when you think about the case he's making for executive power on obstruction, it comes back to t 1tpage memo he wrote before he even became attorney general. ed: it does. and it continues to feed democratic suspicions that theo ree got this job in the first place is because someone showed the president that memo and the president realize, oh, this guy would be much better for me than jeff sessions. the fact that we now have almost dueling impeachment debates, do we impeach the attorney general or the president or both creates

a bit of a pickle for democrats because you look at polling, he washington post," abc poll once again firmed up the belief of the majority of americs say that impeachment isn't worth it. and the numbers among democrats say it absolutely is. the house speaker nancy pelos said it's not necessarily off the table. but she doesn't see it as a top and immediate priority. we how these things go. if theyt to redirect all their ire to the attorney general andhe blow awe president, well -- blow off the president, well, som will be ok with that. some will say you're taking your eye off the prize which is defeating the president. robert: part of that matters about executive power is executiveerivilege. hite house is looking this week to preventoncgann from coming before congress to talk about these episodes that were h detailed i mueller report. do we expect executive privilege to be asserted and for theat rney general to back it up?

>> i think so. i think we've seen this lette nowhat has been unearthed opriously this week from the t lawyer in the white house, a day after the report is released excoriating mueller from being too polital looks like part truth commission, part law cool exam. e point also making that just because we allowed mcgann the former white house council to come ttify for 30 hours, doesn't mean that then he gets to testify in congress. tihink that's a really hard gument to make solely because we now have the report. it woulde one thing if he had provided the testimony only behind clorsd d you could argue that was still within the executive branch. the fact that president trump allowed all of that all to come outhe inpen through the mueller report, i think that's been waged. that will be hard to make an argument over any of that material in c >> yeah, but they're going to

fight it out anyway. that seems theo be strategy that this administration is pursuing out of the white house and continuing throughe the just department. robert: you're saying it ends up in federal court. >> itay well. i've covered that involving the obama administration and the bush administrationle all --mi adnistration. and owl of those took years aes years tove. >> the president said said it's done. he said, i alled mcgann to testify. i let everybody testify. they'vn. spo we don't need anymore. we're done. >> isn't this also designed to keep don mcgann and robert mueller and a the others off camera because the moment they step before cameras i congress it becomes a big tv moment that will be used against the president? >>e michael coe went. --ichael cohen. robert: democrats have to face that this weekend.

the one we're watching is nancy pelosi because she's walking a political tight rope from her party's base to impeach and with her own political instincts. when you think about speaker losi, how does she navigate this? >> well, as deftly as she can in a changing environment. i mean, until mueller report came out, she seemed to have the high ground with her -- you know, with her conference which was to say let's not go there's unless the bipartisan support. and then the mueller report came out and it ramped out the pressure in various places for at least looking toward the possibility o impeachment. she is maneuvering, you know, day by day, week byeek on this, trying her best to stay within t rem public opinion. but it's not an easy situation now. and the more i thea clash over documents an everythinghe else,ore it is going to create ire among democrats in

the house and president on the outside presidential candidates among them. robert: ed, what about holding the attorney general in contempt? that's a sp before impeachment, but if he doesn't upply with the subpoena i contempt the next move? >> it is, and in some ways it's an easier moveecause it doesn't go after the president necessfily. contemptongress by the attorney general is nothing new. eric holder had that with fast and furious. we've been down that path. and eric holder lived to fight another day. i think youeferenced this, dan, the pressure, the increasing pressure fromes ential candidates that will begin to occupy soap boxes over the summer will be a bit much for pelosi. you're clearly trying to do something else. that's the potential to really divide them as this continues. i think,ounow, absent numbers that show declining support for this among democrats, which after this week, i don't think will be there. 's going to be even trickier for the speaker going forward.

robert: what about republicans? >> don't seem to have any attempt to make any moves from this mueller robert. as damning as some of the facts were on the obstruction issue, the fact that mueller didn't actually reach a decision onat i think was sort of a gift to them, and the fact that if that rtainly didn't s there was an act of conspiracy between the trump campaign and the russian government, again, all they could potenti for out of the mueller report. and so what, i think, you hnoav is democrats clamoring on things like the attorney general t showing up, these document production fights. so you see all of those extraneous things. meanwhile lind sail gram is saying he doesn't even want to hear from mueller. robert: that's the meet reaction from republicans. they think the attorney general is in the right. they like that they're fighting with congress. does it set a precedent for the future for the next time the's a democratic president about the

power of congress vs. the power or -- of the executive? >> ifil they let barr get away with dictating terms of their hearing in their hearing room, they have given up the store. thaintain that they're a o co-equal branc government and they cannot give ground to this executive branch and this attorney general who's view of executive power is so sweeping. it could be that some of the arguments that this administration makes come back in the future and bite republicans in the posterior. i've seen it happen in the national security space since 9/11. one needs to be careful as to who holds the gavel and who holds the white house. robert: posterior, very. c [laughter] when you're in the crowd, democratic voters, som republicans, are they talking about all of this? >> no. they are not. i mean, they are certainly aware

of ime f them are following it. but what they are focused on is trying to get a sense of who these 21 candidates are who are seeking the democratic nominationy they're v interested in evaluating them apart from the issue of what they think about president trump. they are determined to try to find a candidate who can win that presideial race in 2020. so the ins and outs of what's- going on mean, i was there the day that the attorney general was testifying. i didn't hear anybody talk abo it. nobody raised it. and the former vice president didn't bring it up. robert: ed, you've been ongn th camprail as well covering things for cbs. when you talk toemocrats, and they know the april jobs report may ed expectations, you have heard the same thing from voters that dan's been hearing from voters, yet, the presidential field for democrats continues to call for impeachment at some level of

apresident trump and theorney general. >> yeah, and i think on the economy, you've got the argument that well, things are looking good on paper, not everyone is enjoying it at the same level, same intensity. and so that populist argument euld prove to b quite true -- or quite popular for democrats. i was with ben when he had his first event in pittsburgh. we talked to people on the crowd. and that was theay that the president tweeted that members of labor unions were more likely to support him and not joe biden because a majorht firefs union supported him. and members of the union said, no, we don't like him. we're sick of him. we want to move back to normalcy and decency. s thatething i've heard at a few events this year in iowa and in other states. this sense of everything goingw on iington drives me nuts. i'm tired of it. like physically, mentally tired of it. if there's a way for democrats to focus on that i might

resonate quite widely. robert: quick read on biden? >> he's a work in progress. he had some good moments and some not too good moments. robert: you have to read all of dan's column. thanks everybody for joining us. we will talk about the latest shooting at a synagogue. you can watch it at 8:30.m. every friday night and all week long on youtube. i'm robert costa. have a great weekend. [captioning performed by the national c which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] c announcer:porate funding is provided by --

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