04/19/19 04/19/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york this is , democracy now! >> after nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, hundreds of lawrence, and witness interviews, special counsel confirmed that the russian government sponsored efforts to illegal interfere in the 2016 presidential election, but did not find the trump campaign or other americans colluded in those efforts.

amy: a redacted version of the mueller report is out but the debate over its findings is intensifying. the 448 page report details russian meddlingng in the one he 16 election and president trump's attempts to obstruct jujustice am a but finds the trp campaign did not conspire with russia to beat hillary clinton. democrats are calling for t the release of the full, unredacted report. >> attorney general barr appears to have shown an unsettling willingness to undermine his own department in order to protect president trump. barr's words and actions suggest he has been disingenuous and misleading in saying the president is clear wrongdoing. amy: round two of debate between two pulitzer prize-winning journalist, glenn greenwald and david cay johnston. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!,

democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the justice department has released a redacted version of special counsel robert mueller's report detailing russian meddling in the 2016 election, the trump campaign's contacts with russia and president trump's attempts to impede the special counsel's investigation. the 448-page document states trump's campaign "expected to benefit electorally from information stolen and released through russian efforts" but concluded "the investigation d d not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities." the report reveals that when president trump was first told of the special counsel's investigation, he slumped back into his chair, proclaiming, "oh, my god. this is terrible. this is the end of my presidency. i'm f--ed." using the curse.

on tuesday, trump responded to the report. pres. trump: i'm having a good day, too. no collusion, no obstruction. amy: mueller's report outlined at least 10 instances where trump tried to impede the special counsel's investigation but came to no definitive conclusion on whether trump broke the law by obstructing justice. in the report mueller suggests , that this is a decision for congress. ththat contradicts the conclusin by trump's handpicked attorney general william barr who said trump did not obstruct justice. house judiciary committee chair jerrold nadler said he would ask robert mueller to appear before congress as soon as possible. >> i formally requested that testifycounsel mueller before the house judiciary committee as soon as possible so we can get some answers to these critical questions. because we clearly can't believe what attorney general barr tells

us. some commerce members of the report offers a roadmap to trump's impeachment will step freshman congress woman alexandria ocasio-cortez tweeted -- "mueller's report is clear in pointing to congress' responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the president. it is our job as outlined in article 1, sec 2, clause 5 of the u.s. constitution. as such, i'll be signing onto @rashidadatlaib's impepeachment resolution." after headlines, we will spend the rest of the hour discussing me mueller report and its implications withh david cay johnston and glenn greenwald. the trump administration is planning to spend $40 million to build a pair of tent cities to imprison migrant families, including children, in southern texas. acting homeland security secretary kevin mcaleenan said wednesday the camps would be tetemporary, callingng them parf a strategy to ease strain on border patrol agents in n el pao

and at other u.s. ports of try. criticics say ththe move is aimt indefinitely detaining wholele families in squalid conditions in a further bidid to deter migrants from seseeking asylum n the united states. in southern mexico, authorities have halted a caravan of hundreds of central american migrants from advancing north toward the u.s. border, where they hoped to seek asylum. the migrants were stopped in chiapas by agents of the national migration institute, as mexico's government comes under intense pressure by the trump administration to thwart attempts by asylum-seekers to head north. this is elizabeth, a honduran mother of a three-year-old boy who says she and her family were physically abused by mexican authorities. >> they came down on us as though we were criminals. from the beginning we said if we can, we came in peace. we have not made any fuss. we have not attacked anyone. how is it possible now it is the migration officials who came to

attack us? what is this about? if they saw my husband was carrying a child, why did they kick him a and knocked him down? what is wrong with them? the american civil liberties amy:the american civivilibererti union is wning that armedd vigigilant are worngng directly with the u.s. border patrol to unlawfully detain hundreds of migrants at gunpoint along the u.s.-mexico border. the aclu cites videos posted on social media showing members of a militia group pursuing migrants in new mexixico's deset west of f el paso, texas, and effectivively kidnapping t them against their r will. in one video, vivigilantes armed with assssault rifles are e seen approaching a grgroup of several dozen people seaeated on the ground as thvideo's narrator, a man named jim benviefifilms. j with guys, this is the itited constitutnall trioiots. , wewe did aually end getting everybody wound

up. it was a combinati off us and some good horses ovever there. babasically, a team effort here. amy: in a letter to new mexico's governor and attorney general calling for an investigation, the aclu called the united constitutional patriots an "armed fascist militia organization," adding -- "the trump administration's vile racism has emboldened white nationalists and fascists to flagrantly violate the law." in nicaragua, police arrested dozens of protesters wednesday as they took to the streets demanding that president daniel ortega step down. it's been one year since anti-government protests erupted in nicaragua. human rights groroups say y at t 324 people have been killed in clashes involving anti-government protesters, police and pro-government militias. this weeeek nicaragua's governmt said it had released more than 600 prisoners as a gesture to

opposition groups, but activists said only a small fraction of those released were political prisoners. mali's prime minister resigned thursday along with his entire cabinet as public protests mounted over the government's inability to stem ethnic violence. last month, armed men killed 160 people from a fulani community, asas rights groups warned of mounting militia killings of civilians in central and northern mali. the killings sparked mass demonstrations by thousands of protesters in bamako earlier this month, demanding the government step down, as well as the departure of foreign forces from mali. in sudan, hundreds of thouousans of protesters continued to hold rallies in cities across the country on thursday and friday, calling for an end to military rule. the protests come as sudan marks the one-week anniversary of long-time president omar al-bashir's removal by top

sudanese generals amid a popular uprising against his 30-year rule. since al-bashir's ouster, thousands of youth-led protesters have been holding a sit-in occupation of areas just outside the ministry of defense in the capital khartoum. a military council has said it will oversee a transitional period of up to two years. the protesters are demanding the military quickly hand over power to a civilian-led government. the african union is demanding the same thing or saying sudan will have to leave the union. the president omar al-bashir is in prison now where he sentenced so many to death. in bangladesh, campaigners are demanding justice for nusrat jahan rafi, a 19-year-old woman who was burned to death at her school after she filed a sexual assault complaint against her headmaster. in late march, nusrat went to her local police station in her hometown south of the capital dhaka to file a complaint. her statement was filmed by a

police officer on a cell phone in a video that was later leaked to local media. in the video, taken on the day of the alleged assault, a visibly shaken nusrat claimed the headmaster touched her in an inappropriate manner before she managed to escape his office. five days after filing the complaint, nusrat returned to her school where she was surrounded by four or five people demanding she recant her testimony against the headmaster. when she refused, she was doused with kerosene and set on fire. she survived the assault long enough to o give a s statement o police before dying of her injuries. the case has brought renewed attention to the plight of sexual assault survivors in bangladedesh and t the impununiy often granted to perpetrators of sexual violence. a court in saudi arabia indefinitely postponed a hearing wednesday for a group of 11 prominent women's rights activists imprisoned on what human rights groups say are trumped-up charges. the women were arrested nearly one year ago as they campaigned against the kingdom's male

guardianship system and a ban on women drivers. their arrests came just weeks before the kingdom lifted the ban. among those arrested was 29-year-old loujain al-hathloul. her brother walid told the bbc wednesday that his sister has been sevely abuseded in saudi custody. >> all sort of torture. waterboarding, sexual harassment. by the top done advisor. he was overseeing the torture at a secret facility. when the torture was happening, it was happening at the secret facility outside the prison. it was done in a basement. that is where he was laughing, threatening her with rape and murder. amy: the latest reports of saudi torture came after president

trump vetoed a war powers resolution calling on the u.s. to end military support for the saudi-led war on yemen, which has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis. in northern ireland, a 29-year-old journalist was shot and killed thursday as violent protests erupted in an irish nationalist section of the city of derry. lyra mckee was a rising star of investigative journalism who published articles in the atlantic, mosaic science, and buzzfeed news. investigators say ththey're treating her death as a terrorist incident and have launched a murder inquiry. the riots broke out after a police raid that authorities said broke up a plot to stage attacks this weekend. in florida, the broward county sheriff's department says it will probe the actions of officers caught on camera brutally assaulting teenagers after responding to a call about an after-school fight in a mcdonald's parking lot near

their high school in coral springs. viral video of the incident shows sheriff's deputies pepper-sprpraying teenagers and slamming one boy's head into the pavement before repeatedly punching him in the head. the boy was left bleeding heavily and was later rushed away in an ambulance. new york's city council has approved historic climate change legislation aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions from big buildings. under the bill approved thursday, most buildings lgeger than 25,00000 square feet t will neneed to cut cacarbon dioxidede emissions byby 40% by 203030, a 80% by mid-decade. meanwhile, hundreds of protesters rallied at new york city hall thursday evening and marched across the brooklyn bridge to demand a halt to the proposed williams pipeline project, which would carry fracked gas from pennsylvania's shale fields under new york harbor. scores of elected officials have joined hundreds of environmental groups and tens of thousands of pepetitioners in opposing the

plan. new york governor andrew cuomo has until to halt the project. may 16 and cia director gina haspel made a rare public appearance thursday, delivering a speech to students at auburn university that many described as a recruiting pitch for the spy agency. a few minutes into her speech, hahaspel was intererrupted by ya protesester just aftfter she descscribed the thrill she felet when she w was first sworn in aa cia officer. do you remember the black sites that the cia tortured people in? the evidence you destroyed? me. tell us who you tortured. you know their names. amy: protesterers speaking and auburn university, interrupting gina haspel in alabama. haspel is a 33-year cia veteran who was responsible for running a secret cia black site in

thailand in 2002 where at leasat one prisoner wasas waterboarded and tortrtured in other ways during her tenure. she also oversaw the d destructn of videotapes showing tortrturet the black site. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. on thursday, the justice department released a redacted version of special counsel robert mueller's 448-page report detailing russian meddling in the 2016 election, the trump campaign's contacts with russia, and president trump's attempts to i impede the special l coun's investigation. the report states "the campaign expected to benefit electorally from informational stolen and released through russian efforts" but mueller concluded "the investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election

interference activities." mueller also outlined at least 10 instances where trump attempted to impede the special counsel's investigation but mueller came to no definitive conclusion on whether trump broke the law by obstructing justice. in the report mueller suggests , that this is a decision for congress to make. the report states -- "with respect to whether the president can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under article ii of the constitution, we concluded congress has authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice." but many questions remain about the mueller report. about 10% of the report was redacted. mueller has yet to speak publicly about his findings. on attorney general william barr thursday, held a press

conference before the redacted report was released. barr defended the president oppressed is actions -- president's actions claiming that trump had a "sincere belief" that mueller's probe was undermining his presidency. >> in assessing the president's actions in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. president trump faced an unprecedented situation is entered into office and sought to perform his responsibilities hepresident, president -- was being scrutinized before and taking office in the conduct of some of his associates. at the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president's .ersonal culpability yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. and as the special counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere believe that the

investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks. nonetheless, the white house fully cooperated with the special counsel's investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and white house documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims. amy: democratic lawmakers are accusing attorney general barr of mischaracterizing some of mueller's findings. house judiciary chair jerrold nadler has announced plans to issue a subpoena for the full, unredacted mueller report and to request that mueller testify before the committee. nadler spoke in new york on thursday. >> even in its incomplete form, the mueller report outlines disturbing evidence that president trump engaged in obstruction of justice and other misconduct. contrary to the attorney general statement this morning, that the white house "fully cooperated"

with the investigations, the report makes clear the president refused to be -- interview by the special counsel refuse to provide written answers to follow questions. associates his destroyed evidence relevant to the russia investigation. page 10, the report concluded there was substantial evidence that president trump attempted to prevent an investigation into his campaign and his own conduct. page 76, page 78, page 90, page 157 volume two been. amy: while democrats urged further congressional probes into the findings of the report, some went further, turning to talk of impeachment in the hours after the report was released. for more, we're joined by two guests. glenn greenwald, pulitzer prize-winning journalist, founding editor of the intercept and a leleading critic o of the media coverage of alleged russian collusion. he joins us from rio de janeiro in brazil. and david cay johnston,also a pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter,

previously with "the new york times," now founder and editor of dcreport.org. he has covered trump for years. his most recent book on him is "it's even worse than you think: what the trump administration is doing to america." welcome back to democracy now! today let's begin with glenn greenwald in brazil. as you read through the 448 page report, your overall response and what you thought was most significant about what robert mueller and his team found? i don't think there can be any question the most significant finding has to be that the allegations kicked off the entire saga almost three years ago, which was the two-pronged conspiracy workedthat donald trump with, coordinated, collaborated, and conspired with the russian government to interfere in the 2016 election and that donald trump is captive to vladimir

putin as a result of a variety of blackmail, leverage, and other forms of links that allow the kremlin to dictate to the white house what it is they're supposed to do. and i think it is very important to point out from the outset that this was no ordinary investigation. the democrats, the cia, their allies in the media who believed in his conspiracy theory got exactly the prosecutor they wanted, who everybody agreed was the man of the highest integrity and coconfidence.. he assembled a vast team of very fbiessive prosecutors, agents, forensic accounts, intelligence analysts. he had unlimited resources. u.s.ntire apparatus of the surveillance state at his disposal and to dig as deeply as he could dig to find out the answers whether those cononspiry

theories were or were not true. you cannot get a more sweeping or comprehensive investigation and that. anand he wenent through systematically each of the prongs of the conspiracy theories and found either that the evidence did not establish that they were true or, in some cases, found the opposite, that in fact, there was no evidence to support the theory at all and that the theory was simply false. one example of that, i think david mentioned this the last time we talked about it, as evidenced or something sinister going on betweween the russians and trump was the change to the gop platform in mid-2016 to make it more favorable to the russians by diluting the language about u.s. support for ukraine. at the time i had always said that that was totally consistent with barack obama and donald trump's foreign policy not

provoke vladimir putin by arming the ukrainians. mueller said this is done by some low-level aide acting alone, no evidence he cocoordinated it with even donad trump let alone with the russians or vladimir putin. was just an attempt to conform the gop platform to what trump stated foreign-policy was. over and over and over from the trump tower meeting to all of the post russian connections after both the convention and the election, mueller used the same language over and over again, which is there is no evidence or the evidence does not establish that these conspiracy theories actually happened. now, you can continue to believe in them. it sort of feels like arguing with people who have adopted religious belilieves that t th'e going to believe in their view of how the world works no matter how much evidence you present .hem that it could not happen but democrats and proponents of

this theory got what they wanted, which is the mueller investigation and now most of the mueller report, and his findings are that he looked for 22 months as hard as he could and did not establish that these theories were true. we already knew that because not one american was indicted or charged for conspiracy. but he went beyond that and said the evidence does not establish it. on the obstruction issue, i think there is a lot of evidence that donald trump is what we knew he was, which is an immoral liar them as so many willing to corruptly abuseses power to protect himself. but at the end of the day, the democrat leaders in the house have already said they're not going to impeach him over this. the reason is because the question always was, was trump tried to stop the investigation because he genuinely believed that they -- it was based on a false conspiracy or was he trying to stop the investigation because he knew he had done what people are accusing him of jen

with the russianans and wantntio cover r it up? the mueller report concluded it was the first instance, he was try to stop the investigation because he thought it was a sham all along, therefore, even though he lied and acted improperly, it does not rise to the corrupt intent needed to charge him with obstruction -- which is stopping an investigation to prevent your own wrongdoing from being uncovered. i think even democrats know this is the end of the l line with hs entire three-year scandal that has drowned our politics in discourse. amy: david cay johnston, your take away from this report that was released about t 20 hours ao as of this broadcast? glennl, amy, i agree with that donald trump is utterly unfit to hold office. but i think he is misreading what is in the report. mueller was charged with investigating to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt, a criminal standard. ist he shows in the report numerous contacts by the russians trying to develop a relationship with the trump

campaign. the willingness of the trump campaign and the eagerness of the trump campaign to benefit from anything the rurussians cod do for them, including numerous contacts, some of them with known russian spies. and mueller writes something that is for a significant new the top of his report. a statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean that there was no evidence of those facts. there is lots of evidence here of impropriety. does it rise to the standard of a criminal conspiracy charge under federal law? no. mueller says this is properly the duty of congress. and the standard in our constitution is that the oath tont takes an faithfully execute the laws. we have to expect our president to be totally y and completetely loyal toto the interests of the united states. that is why the word "emolument"

appears three times in the constitution. the standard is an abuse of power, or in the words of our constitution, high crimes and misdemeanors. i don't think donald trump is going to be impeached because there are not the votes to convict him. but that donald trump was eager and his son don jr. and others in his campaign were eager to get help from the russians, the report explicitly states. the russians were eager to make sure hillary clinton did not win, that they help boboth trump in bernie sanders is clearly stated in the reportrt. so to suggest there is nothing here and we should forget t allf and i fundamentally disagree about that. i think this report makes very clear that donald trump behaved in ways that are not loyal to the united states. he urged his staff, contrary to what attorney general barr said about complete cooperation, to lie, deny, to cover-up, to destroy records. he would not sit for an interview. he would not respond to further

questions. and d the answers in writing he provided are artful arguments that debate -- even eight. that we cannot close the loop on a conspiracy between the very best russians i intelligence and spyiying with the head of a third-generation white-collar crime family that spent his entire life lying and denying has been found by judges after testifying in trials to give testimony that was incredible, that he e d convenieient lapsesn memory -- letter member, donald trump claims to have the best memory of any living human being . all of that points to simply the fact mueller found lots of evidence but nowhere near enough to meet the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. that is why he specifically refers to congress and that this falls under the duties of congress to look into. amy: glenn greenwald, your response to david? >> first of all, just as

reminder, the democrats control the house of representatives, which is the body charged with impeaching president trump. it is the senate that determines whether r he ought to be convicted. so in both of the cases of richard nixon and bill clinton, when an impeachment charges were brought, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether convictions could be obtained. but the house did its duty anyway under the constitution, which is if you really believe donald trump committed serious crimes, it is the constitutional duty of the democrats and the house to impeach donald trump in the present the argument in the evidence to convince the public that he ought to be removed from office. they have made clear they're not when you do that. i think that is very revealing. i also want to say david mischaracterized both what i said them what the mueller report said. i made very clear that in some instances, mueller did what he was charged to do, which is to say whether there was enough

evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to indict trump and his family members and aides on the issue of conspiracy and collusion. he found there wasn't. that is incredibly significant. you can brush that aside if you want, but we all know everybody spent the last ththree years tht trump junior and jared kushner are inevitably about to be arrested and none of that happened. i did not leave that out. i specifically said there was parts of the report where mueller simply said there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. but in other areas of the report on collusion, mueller went much further than that to say not just that there's not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but there is no evidence at all that this happened. is thatuage he usesed mueller himself said in some instances the report points out the absence of evidence about a

particular facto or event. for example, he says the internet research agency used facebook post and tweets to try and disrupt the election. and he says the investigation did not identify evidence that any u.s. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with .he iras interference operation as i said, he made the same exact claim about the change to the gop platform regarding ukraine, that there was no evidence -- not that it did not rise to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt -- there was no evidence this was anything other than a low-level aide acting on his own to change the platform without even the knowledge of trump, let alone putin, to conform it to trump's stated foreign-policy. the same is true with all of the attempts after the convention the trump was nominated by

ambassador to try to talk to the foreign-policy officials within the trump campaign. mueller says the office did not identify any evidence in those interactions of coronation between the campaign and the russian government. i could read 10 more examples like that. mueller was not only charged with his cramped, narrow legalistic prosecutorial duty to say whether evidence rose to a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt -- which again, even if he had only done that and concluded was an agent of the russian government while working for trump, coordinated or conspired with the trump -- with the russian government over the campaign, that would be incredibly fatal to everything the media has been doing and saying over the last three years. d went well beyond that, as i just read, and multiple instances and said so much of what we were told just did not happen. the bus feet story about michael cohen telling mueller that trump

told him to lie, busty now admits that never happened. -- bus feet now admits that never happened. theually, the entirety of steele dossier that there were the overwhelming your long contacts between the trump theaign and russia dissemination of this information, the facact that thy were using roger stone three weeks before the wikileaks release to try to find out what was in those documents that wikileaks has, as one of the proponents of this conspiracyy theory admitted, by itself proves the trump campaign wasn't doing with the steele dossier said since have they been about with the russians all year, they would not have needed roger stone two weeks before the wikileaks release to find out what was in the mills. they would have been a party to it. but they weren't. the whole thing was fafalse. it was a scam, a hoax.

again, as i said, you can throw up your hands is a, maybe mueller just enough on the evidence will stop how do you argue with somebody like thatat? ofof course, maybe robobert muer after 22 months did not find all of the smoking guns out there, but we can only deal with the reality we have, which is the reality that was produced after an incredibly comprehensive investigation, a sweeping, invasive car for 10 was exactly what the democrats said they wanted. and that evidence simply did not produce the evidence to substantiate the conspiracy theories we have been hearing for three years. and that reality will never, ever change. amy: david cay johnston, we will let you respond after this music brbreak. david cay johnston and glenn greenwald debate the mueller report. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: tina turner "come together." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we continue our debate for the hour, the rematch of two pulitzer prize-winning journalists dedicate johnson and glenn greenwald. david cay johnston, it is your turn up next but i want to also throw in another part of the mueller report, where he wrote "we recognize that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting president would place ordinance on the president's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. the report went on to say, mueller's team "determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the preresident committeded crimes." if you could respond to the numerous points glenn greenwald just raise and then also that approach which he says is going

along with departmental justice rules. with thatet's deal part first. i think it is pretty clear from the report that mueller has problems with the office of legal counsel position that you can't indict a sitting president . lots of people do. i do. once tribe of harvard and other scholars do. robert mueller is a straight arrow guy so he followed the policy. that is partly why is report says these are matters for congress to take up. this is not a black and white situation. overstated theas facts by suggesting it is completely wrong, it is been a scam, he calls it. in fact, there is an enormous amount of evidence in this report, damming evidence, that donald trump's campaign was eager to get help from the

russian n government. we know they were eager to do so for a variety of reasons. among them, don jr.'s love it you know and the subsequent efforts to lie, deny, and cover-up about that. donald trump's refusal to sit for an interview, his directing people to behave inappropriately throrough either notot cooperat, destroying records, etc. imagine if a previous president, let's say barack obama, had had a meeting with the head of the government in iran and had only gone with the translator from andnd hadn government the american translator destroy their notes. i think we would all say, what is going on here? that thet is clear russians, through constantine, or provided with a sensitive confidentialjust polling data that was used to

targeted ads on facebook. let me explain on facebook, they can slice and dice stuff so if you said would only want to add -- be seen by white males in the state of wisconsin between the age of 55 and 65 who leads the not alet vehicle that is sedan, you can buy that. and so they were able to highly .arget these ads that does not rise to the levell of the criminal conspiracy and mueller's view and i totally accept that. i don't question what is in mueller's report. but the fact that could not closose the loop on contacts and what was going on here as the report says, the statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there is no evidence of those facts. that is why mueller referred this to congress. donald trump repeatedly lied

that the mueller report shows the things dononald trump called state news he knew to be true news and is in the mueller report goes to the issue -- we agree about this, which is that donald trump is morally corrupt, totally unfit person to be president. ashink the report is damning to the willingness of the truck people to receive information, the eagerness of the russians, and noticed the report talks about the russian government, not so much the oligarchs. vladimir putin we know from this report meets regularly with about 50 of the oligarchs and works through them. they're not the russian government but they are certainly the agents of the russian government. and that all of this material went on during the campaign and trump lied, denied, covered up is evidence that he had a guilty mind. he and mens rea. so i think we need to recognize that while -- without question, not the material to sustain even

if you could indict a sitting president, a any kind ofof indictment for conspiracy -- which is the word i generally use, by the way -- the fact is, there is a ton of damning evidence of inappropriate conduct for a president. you take an oath of office to faithfully execute the laws. your loyalty should be entirely to the united states. the russians are dengler and multimillion dollar opportunities in front of donald trump. he lies about them. they approach that they did not bute deals is important they approached them and they were willingly embraced in a meeting by don jr., paul manafort, and jared kushner. this report shows extensive contacts that are very troubling. some of them are not. some are insignificant. glenn and someth were blown up to be too big of a deal.

but to say, as i think glennnn s fundamentally arguing, that nothing is here come it is just a scam, i think is way beyond the facts and way beyond mueller's point that this should go to congress and that as h he said, the statement that the investigation did not establish fact, particular facts, does not mean there was no evidence of those facts. amy: glenn greenwald? >> so i think, first of all, you know this everybody who was behind this conspiracy is starting very bluntly to try and conflate obstruction with collusion, essentially forget about the whole conspiracy and collusion part of the story and focus on obstruction. because the reality is, the mueller report, not just the mueller report for the mueller investigation, destroyed all of the predictions and hopes about what it would result in an what it would find. and that is why there is now the is this almost monomaniacal focus on the obstruction part of

this story at the expense of the collusion part. let me set couple of things. this six nation on his legalistic -- this fixation on the report and cleaning a finding we did not establish something does not mean it did not happen or doesn't mean there is the evidence for it. irrational.ibly let me give you an example. i can conduct an investigation and come back and they, my investigation did not establish that there are martians who are controlling all of our thoughts and all of our actions using mind control methods. that would be true. i would conduct an investigation, the evidence would not establish that, but he would be true. i would add just because i did not find evidence to establish that does not meet a did not happen. that is because you cannot prove a negative. that is what mueller saying. just because our investigation did not demonstrate these things took place doesn't mean they did not happen, doesn't mean you can't look at some events in

certain ways and say there is some evidence for it. but as i said, in many cases come he said there was no evidence and in many cases he said our investigation did not establish. to try and minimize that after three years of everything that has been dominating the news, i think is very disingenuous. on the question of whether or not there are disturbing aspects of trump's behavior i agree that the obstruction part of the somet, again, revealed things that donald trump did that are, for me, unsurprising but nonetheless, showing his utter lack of ethics, which is something i have known for 30 years living in new york. but on the part of the report that deals with everything that kicked this off, the only thing that is in the rp that david kay is harping on is trump and his campaign was willing to accept help from the russians. when the russians called and said, hey, we have some dirt

about your adversary hillary clinton that shows her to be really corrupt and crimiminal ad we would likike to give it to y, the trump campaign said, yes, we would love to get that. well, that is unethical. it is clearly not illegal according to robert mueller because it does not even rise to the level under the statute where you can make it a crime under campaign law, let alone conspiracy. you can say it is unethical if you want, but then you have to deal with this fact. the dnc had contractors working for it collaborating, coordinating, and working with the ukrainian government to dig up dirt on paul manafort and donald trump's finances. they succeeded in doing it. they got dirt about paul manafort from the ukrainian government because the ukrainians wanted to help hillary clinton win the election because they thought that she would be better for them than donald trump would be. the steele dossier was built by someone being paid by the democratic national committee

and the hillary clinton campaign, christopher steele, going through moscow working with his contacts within the russian government to try to get dirt about donald trump. so if you really believe it is some nefarious for a political campaign to trying get dirt about your opponent if you work with a foreign government to do it, why isn't the outrage just as high when it comes to the dnc's efforts to work with the training government to dig up dirt about manafort or truck or the use of christopher steele to get dirt from his contacts with an russian intelligence about donald trump, much of which turned out to be false. i think that is the most you can say and then the question becomes, why doesn't that apply equally to the democrats? i would finally act, if our david cay johnston and people who thought like him, my focus now would be on demand to know why people like steny hoyer and adam schiff up until now nancy pelosi, have pretty much said impeachment is off the table. like if you really believe this

is a grave threat to the public that these are serious crimes and misdemeanors that donald trump has engaged in abusing his power, how can you not be protesting in the streets against the leaders of the house of representatives for failing in our constitutional duty to initiate impeachment proceedings against donald trump? how can it be justified if it were really as agree just as it is been suggested -- egregious as being suggested for them not to do that? amy: david cay johnston, do you think the house and move to impeach president trump? >> i don't think they're going to because there are not votes in the senate to convict. it would be pointless. you need 67 votes. republican senators are simply not going to vote, even though in private many have made it clear in conversations with people that there are deeply disturbed and think donald is unfit to serve.

glenn said somethihing that is fafalse. i don't to letet us live. the steele dossier that was first paid for through fusion gps run by a former excellent reporter for the wall street journal, was initially financed by republicans. only after donald trump. the name -- nomination did a law firm f for hulu clinton, and stt paying for additional work. so to suggest this was a dnc project is false. as to foreign governments, i think it is totally inappropriate -- >> just to be clear, i agree with that. all i said was the democrats paid for that report. i did not say they initiated a project. you're right, but the democrats did paper for super steel's work. > they pay for part of it later, correct. i think this will episode has brought to light serious shortcomings. i'm 70 two is exposed spies and

foreign agents going back many decades. there are real shortcomings in our laws. we should not be having a lot of these international contacts. reason why ip, the think the obstruction issue is in fact highly relevant here is why would july and deny if you haven't done anything wrong? evidence ofnying is a guilty mind. and donald trump lied and denied , directed other people to live. he is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator, individual one and a criminal charges that were --pled to buy michael cohen. implied it would be difficult to suss out in terms o of our campaign-finance lawaws. but that the trump campaign provided sensitive information that helped the russians in their efforts to make sure that

hillary clinton did not get in the white house. remember, the russians tried to help the bernie sanders campaign for the same reason. they did not want hillary clinton because she had made it clear she was gone to do everything she could short of war to make vladimir putin givee up crimea and other actions. to suggest there is nothing going on here i think is wrong. there's lots of evidence of it and you u do not lie, then i c e struck, and cover-up unless you know you've done e something wrong. it may not be wrong to a criminal standard, and mueller has said we can't prove anything to the criminal standard beyond a reasonable doubt. but they show an enormous amount of conduct that is improper. if you get a call from a hostile foreign power as don jr. did when he got his email, and you don't pick up the phone and call fbi counteririntelligence, i thk -- i would hope glenn when a group me -- that is not an act of a loyal person or even one with a fundamental sense of

decency and morality. amy: we're going to have to go to break. glenn is chomping at the bit. we're speaking with david cay johnston a and glenn greenwald n the release of the mueller report. well, a part t of it. it was redacted. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "putting up resistance" by beres hammond. this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman. we're conducting a debate between glenn greenwald and david cay johnston upon the release of the special counsel robert mueller's 448-page report that concluded that the trump campaign did not collude, did not conspire with the russians to win the election but did say on the issue of obstruction of justice, congress should decide. glenn greenwald, if you want to pick up where johnston left off, why didn't donald trump, jr. go directly to the fbi when he was reached out to buy russian agents to ask if they wanted damaging information about hillary clinton and also why donald trump obstructed and lied about so much. >> on the issue of donald trump,

jr., the main point i made in my prior answer, which was a question to david, was completely ignored by him about with the democrats did with the ukrainian government. i'm interesting and reposing that questioned him in a second. >> not true, the go ahead >> ok, which was -- maybe i missed it. that hillary clinton made it clear that she was willing to confront the russians in every conceivable way short to make sure they gave up crimea. 2012, the rusussians were verey clearly hoping that barack obama would win and mitt romney would lose because romney was going around in the russians were the number one geopolitical threat and we have to be much more belligerent and confronting them, whereas obama was saying that is cold war thinking and we should try to get along with them a lot better. and russian elections in the past like when boris yeltsin was

running, the us want to bore seals and win because they knew he would privatize use industry in a way that would help u.s. companies so they metal their election -- so they meddled in their election. i think david is right. hillary clinton's agenda, she was for a critical of obama for not confronting putin in ukraine, not confronting putin in syria, for not doing more to sanction russian oligarchs. obama's position wasas closer to trump's, which was, we should try to get along with russia. we do not want to provoke putin unnecessarily. he is not that powerful over things like ukraine and syria, which are -- of course i think it is rational the russians preferred the candidate saying, let's get along with russia, to the candidate is saying, let's confront russia more belligerently than obama did. that is what the u.s. does, too. they interfere in other countries elections to help elect the candidate that would most elect them. david, i'm interested in hearing

your answer to the question of whether or not you're angry or is angry about trump jr. take that meeting with the russians as to working with the craniums to dig up dirt about paulul manafort and donald trump as well as the use of christopher steele to dig up dirt by using the sources within the russian government, to whom you say trump worked come to dig up dirt about donald trump? >> well, one of the differences is i'm not driven here at all by emotion. i don't hate anybody. i'm not angry. ideal and fax i can prove and verify. when the facts change, my views change. perfect sete a of facts. involvement by either party with foreign governments, we need better laws and rules about this. i don't think the foreign agent registration act is sufficient. i think it is improper to be doing things that were done, on

both sides -- that is one where i will agree with you. the ukrainian information gathering is troubling. opposition research goes on all the time, but there should be some rules and controls on that. so in all of this, let's be -- >> does that mean they are not patriots? >> i think t that donald trump, jr.. -- unpatriotic. >> what about the democrats working with ukraine? what about the democrats working with ukrainian government? >> i don't know enough about the details of that. i think that is a very good question, glenn. i don't know enough to give you sort of a definitive response that i'm very troubled by on its face, ok? trumpt's remember, donald was negotiating for a trump tower deal with maybe tens of millions of dollars in his pocket when he was running for president. he was lying and denying about various things. he publicly called for the

-- maybe thatck is too strong of a word -- to find the "missing emails" which were not missing at all, and within hours russian intelligence agents were working on doing that. what we've seen is right in front of our eyes, inappropriate behavior. behavior that shows donald trump , as i've said before, the kindest thing you can say about donald trump is he has divided loyalties. donald trump's ultimate loyalty is only to donald trump. it is not to his oath of office or the country. we've been documenting all of the things he is doing that hurt the forgotten man that he promised to be the champion of and who he is actively, aggressively working a against n his administration. cover-up l lie, deny, unless you knonow you did something wrong. amy: glenn, do you think president trump should be impeached over obstruction of

justice? you have dom again quitting rather than firing, and president trump fired james comey. do you think, despite you have always said that this is not about collusion? >> no, i don't. the reason is because i think the question was whether he was acting as a president in his right to stop an investigation that he knew was based on false allegations or whether he was tried to cover up his own wrongdoing. once mueller concluded there is no evidence to establish the wrongdoing, i don't think yet a corrupt motive. i think his motive was this investigation is garbage and i'm very open about the fact i want to stop it. i don't think that is obstruction of justice. i think just donald trump wanted to stop an investigation he believes never should have been launched in the first place. amy: your thoughts on donald trump today? >> i think donald trump

is a huge danger and minister the public. i really hope we can now turn our attention to those things. now that we're done with us as the national or that has dominated us -- amy: we have to

> this s is al jazeera. ♪ this is "the news hour" live from london. up, the u.s. president intervention into the libya crisis. u.s. democrats subpoenaed a full uncensored russia investigation, the focus turns to whether president obstructed justice. they say they will soon unvnveil an intererim