welcome back to kasie d.c. on a historic night in washington. the term of office is divided. the days before the mueller report, and the days after. attorney general bill barr has released a summary of special counsel robert mueller's findings and some of his own. the top line take aways. mueller's investigation found that neither president trump nor any of his aides conspired or coordinated with russia to influence the election. mueller's team drew no conclusions about whether the president legally obstructed justice.

it did not conclude that the president committed a crime. it also does not exonerate him. but on his way back to the white house from florida, the president claimed complete vindication. >> it was just announced there was no collusion with russia. the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. there was no collusion with russia. there was complete and total exoneration. >> already, house judiciary chairman, jerry madler said he will be calling on the attorney general to testify before his committee. in a statement released by house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer the two write attorney general barr's letter raises as many questions as it answers given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel's inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and not in a position to make objective determination about the report. with that, i welcome in my panel

for this hour. "new york times" political reporter jeremy peters and staff reiter for the atlantic, nash tasha and cofounder and managing editor, tiffany and mitch mcconnell and tony. on a hard assignment in sea island, georgia, national reporter, ken, and former fbi assistant director for counter against and nbc national security analyst, frank. frank, i'd like to start with you here, as we reset our table and what is your sense of how this all unfolded inside the justice department. a pretty remarkable decision from the attorney general and his deputy, to come out and say that they made this decision not to charge the president with obstruction of justice? >> i've got many questions about the process, kasie. by process, the decision by which bob mueller special counsel decided this was a hard issue, obstruction issue. he couldn't exonerate the president, couldn't find him guilty so he will kick it across

the street and have the a.g. make the call. that's unusual to me and something the american people will be talking about in terms of what we paid the special counsel to do. we certainly paid for a comprehensive detailed investigation and certainly got that with incredible findings. when it ultimately came to make the hard call on a criminal matter, mueller decided to kick it across to the a.g. we need to find out like the math teacher says i need to see the work for your answer.

we need to find out how it happened in this way. democrats have clearly shown they will go after the attorney general as their strategist moving forward saying he doesn't have the credibility to have made this decision. what's your assessment of the wisdom of that path. >> look, we have an attorney general who got this report friday evening and on sunday announced he had done all the research on the criminality of obstruction of justice and he's come out with the announcement. i think congress is right to dig into the process. we're going to see people called to the hill. ironically, mueller himself, in trying to put this across the street to doj, may find himself as exhibit a on the hill. democrats have to balance this with the public is hearing a drumbeat from the white house and the president and he was a victim and now a victor. they have to proceed very carefully on this issue. >> ken delaney. what about the collusion piece of this? i know you're down for a very private conference with a lot of folks you talk to in the

national security against world. i'm curious what you're picking up from those folks and how they're thinking about this. this report was pretty clear in saying there was no evidence of conspiracy or collusion is a word we often use here, but there have been a lot of very difficult to understand moves by the president when it comes to russia. >> to be honest, kasie, it falls down partisan lines. people obama appointees skeptical about donald trump are finding this hard to understand. we have seen so much public evidence that raises questions. if we say we have confidence in robert mueller, i think we have to state loud and clear this was a resounding vindication, it wasn't just, we don't have enough evidence to file a conspiracy charge, we don't have evidence of coordination with

the russians. that's a big deal because for two years we have been pointing at things in that direction. robert mueller took a look with the 2800 subpoenas and 500 search warrants, this wasn't the mueller report, the barr summary of the mueller report, we don't know how long it is. short of a criminal conspiracy, what about trump's conduct and russia contacts and the lying? what explains all that. was the trump campaign manipulated by a sophisticated covert operation? were they negative and were they warned? i hope the mueller report

answers it and that they get to the bottom of that, a valid question for congressional inquiry. for members of the public that placed stock in the idea this was a criminal case and robert mueller was going to prosecute it we have to acknowledge what robert mueller found on collusion was a complete vindication of the president. >> following the twist for twist and turn for turn to the depths of the trump associates and ties to russia. what's your take away to what is left that's still worthy of looking into and what as ken says, has the president been vindicated? >> i think what, over the last two years now, looking at this investigation have looked at it as something completely all encompassing, something that was really going to investigate every aspect of the president's ties to russia, every aspect of his campaigns, communication with this russian and that russian during the campaign and transition. we were looking at it through the lens of a counter intelligence investigation. the language of the mandate made it seem as though this was an open-ended probe mueller could look into to get to the bottom of pressing questions such as was the president compromised by russia or putin? were any of his campaign members compromised? now, we're finally coming to terms with the fact this was a

criminal investigation run by prosecutors and run by mueller with a prosecutor's mindset. when he says there was no evidence to prove really conspiracy charges between the campaign and russia that doesn't really -- between the campaign and russian government that doesn't really tell me anything about all of the myriad communications and contacts that the campaign had with russians during the campaign in the transition period and the president's continued deference towards putin during his time in office. >> mueller did say there were multiple overtures and to bill barr in his discussions, the russians did talk to the campaign but no evidence they wanted to collude. >> the grand conspiracy charge some people thought was a neat bowe to be wrapped around this entire thing.

talking with john mclaughlin, he said mueller's standard for evidence to proof beyond a reasonable doubt is so high is different from the cia and what they present. we have to look beyond that lens. it is significant he could not prove there was coordination between the campaign and russian government and keep in mind it was from a prosecutor's standpoint. >> i see your face being skeptical. what's your view? your former boss, mitch mcconnell put out a view different from other republicans. >> more measured. >> he is typically, true, in the complete vindication, he looks forward to reviewing the additional information. how do you see this playing out on the hill?

>> there's a couple things. we as americans should be happy that the special counsel said there was no collusion. that is a good thing for our democracy and our public. if it was the other thing, we would be sitting here talking about how a foreign power tried to influence and colluded with an actual nominee for a major political party to win an election. those are really scary things we are talking about. we as americans should be very glad about that. number two, there is a political downside to a lot of this. overreach. there was a piece in the "new york times" today how democratic 2020 hopefuls are not being asked about this question. why is that? this is not just republican voters sitting here wondering about what is going on here supporting the president. you have democrats themselves who are getting tired. i think the challenge is there is a desire and need to come to the truth and conclusion with this report. democrats are clearly going to

continue going down this path. there is a very real danger for democrats to overplay their hands here. this is not just republican voters, even with their own voters, all this is going to be is pulling different strings of legal cases most voters do not understand and frankly, i will say it, don't care much about because most voters have already made their opinions made and known about donald trump. you either like him or hate him with a few in between who will decide the 2020 election. it is those people, i will guess, we have to see some polling, they probably don't care much either. >> your first comment, it's a good thing the president obviously did not collude with a foreign power, that's a conclusion robert mueller drew. fine. we still don't have an answer whether or not he's compromised and why has he been so deferential to the russian president or any other autocratic leader. we still don't know. that's the counter-intelligence person to this.

>> that's not in the purview of what a special counsel does. >> no. you're totally right. >> this is a legal question. if there are people in intelligence circles have other view, that's their prerogative. i am curious why the obama administration in the last six months of its time in office did so little to push back on russia and influence. i will tell you -- they went -- i will just say that is something they have yet to answer and -- >> that is an a rabbit hole we can spend a lot of time on. certainly your former boss, i should say conducted himself. i do want to set the stage for how our members of congress reacting, what's coming next for democrats in this bigger picture. take a look at what they've said so far from "nightly news" tonight. >> republicans in congress tonight triumphant, no collusion and no obstruction. senator lindsey graham writing

on twitter, the cloud hanging over president trump has been removed by this report, kevin mccarthy saying in a statement, this case is closed. tonight, democratic leaders questioning the integrity of attorney general william barr after mueller didn't reach a conclusion whether the president obstructed justice. but barr and deputy rod rosenstein decided the president should not be prosecuted for obstruction. chuck schumer and nancy pelosi writing in a statement, quote, given mr. barr's public record of bias against the special counsel inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and not in a position to make objective determinations about the report. >> the mueller report must be made public for a full accounting of what happened. and the attorney general of the united states must be required to testify before congress. >> reporter: house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler

says he will require barr to come testify before congress. just because the mueller investigation i concluded doesn't mean the investigations are stopped on capitol hill wrapping up the russian interference in the election but the other committees are already investigating potential obstruction of justice, political corruption and abuses of power. democrats friday sending letters to nine government agencies demanding they preserve any documents related to the probe. >> we know there are lots of investigations going on. southern district of new york and eastern district of virginia, et cetera, and there may be indictments from them. the story is not over. >> what struck me you're not hearing much about impeachment. this is the answer every democrat about impeachment had, let's wait for the mueller report. let's wait for the mueller report.

i have a very difficult time saying with the bar nancy pelosi set, this has to be bipartisan ever gets met. >> it comes with nancy pelosi's comments about impeachment with a new perspective. democrats got word early on this was not going to be the slam-dunk smoking gun report a lot of them had hoped for. i hope to the point about democratic overreach they certainly need to be careful because they have republicans' example to follow. republicans overreached impeaching bill clinton. the public tires of these ongoing investigations into public officials. it's not something voters are talking about. the stories out there, voters are rolling their eyes or concerned about their healthcare, concerned about

their wages, even in the most democratic districts i visited during the midterm cycle, voters weren't talking about russia. >> frankly, democrats won in large part because they kept their message on healthcare and other things. tiffany, you mentioned the "new york times" story. i was sitting next to lisa, who wrote that, at the event with amy klobuchar. we were both struck by the questions from the crowd were not about mueller, a whole list of other topicings. not to say i didn't speak with a list of voters who came up to me to ask what will happen tomorrow? at the same time, it's clear there's a balancing act. how do you think democrats should thread this needle against a base agitated with this president and independent voters needed to win this presidency.

>> i would say thank god the democratic majority can listen at the same time, to say democratic impeachment takes away from these discussion is a false narrative. not true. you were saying the american people should feel relief. i don't feel relief. there are a lot of questions we still don't know. we haven't proven this president didn't collude. what we have is a summary from bill barr about the report. if the republicans are so confident it would show a witch hunt, they should make it public. when you get to policy discussions happening, if you only focus what the american people are caring about, you might have realities on dunkin' donuts and the business of american people. everybody that doesn't know the min nu-shay of government doesn't affect our adversaries. >> wow. i guess my turn. congress is able and should do multiple things at the same time. on the one hand, remember, democrats rested so much of their faith and hope on mueller. on protecting him. remember, we had multiple times democrats said we must protect

bob mueller. talked about his integrity and he is a bipartisan official and figure that has garnered a lot of respect. i don't think we should say that because the attorney general released these findings there was any malfeasance here. if there was collusion he would have said it. no way to deal with that. much of it will be made public as much as possible. this talking point, i'm sorry to say democrats have, is a little bit -- convenient for now, they will release as much as they can and go through sources and make sure they're following the law. it's in everyone's interest to make as much of this public as they possibly can. good for the justice system and the country and i think we should expect that. >> one more interesting note what can be made public on this report. when bill barr lays out things in the report that can't be made public like grand jury, he doesn't say classified information is one of them, that classified information needs to be scrubbed from this report, which makes me think perhaps all the information mueller revealed

and relied on during the investigation has already been revealed potentially. if we see a lot of redactions in this report i will have a lot of questions because cross information doesn't appear to be one of the things he's worried about. >> joining us on the phone, democratic for rhode island calling in. appreciate you calling in. >> good to be with you. >> let's just start with your takeaways here with what we have learned from robert mueller, a momentous day here. we know he said he found no evidence, robert mueller found no evidence of conspiracy, however, he did not come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice and instead the attorney general, he and rod rosenstein declined to prosecute any obstruction crime against the president of the united states. do you think that was the right decision, sir? >> it's really early to tell. when you've got, after all this effort, special counsel going out of its way to put in this report to the attorney general does not exonerate the president. and leaving it up to the attorney general to make that

decision. it raises a lot of questions, not the least of which is the astonishing rapidity with which the attorney general made that decision. i don't know how they could have gone through the record between friday and sunday. maybe they had prior contact on this matter. i don't know. there's a lot here to sort out and it seems a lot like a rush to judgment on the question of obstruction. >> senator -- >> on the scope of it -- >> go ahead. >> the thing i've been waiting for is some charge related to that strange shift in the ukraine plant in the

republican -- >> oops. sounds like we just lost the senator. we will work on getting him back. i think he was talking about the ukraine platform at the rnc, i'm sure, natasha, you have covered extensively. jeremy peters, what's your sense from a political perspective, i'd like to continue the conversation with sheldon whitehouse what exactly these senators on the judiciary committee think about this, more measured from the house. what do you think the democratic base will demand from their leaders in the wake of this? >> i think they will want to see, and should see as much of the report as legally able to be released, right? that this is fight the democrats can have and have high moral legal standing on. it's tricky for president trump and the justice department to say, no, no, no, we will only release this much. it's in his political interest

for the president to release as much as they possibly legally can. i think where trump benefits is once that fight shifts away from what are we releasing and not releasing an gets into a fishing expedition, so he can say it's a fishing expedition on the part of democrats to relitigate what appears to have been settled on this report. thumb thrives on having an enemy and saying he's been persecuted. he's always seen himself as being persecuted. a lot of republican voters out there, his loyal followers feel they've been persecuted. >> take it on personally. >> unlike any politician we've seen in modern times. he will win fights like that. there is an entire media apparatus out there that has conditioned his base to already have rejected the conclusions of this report before it even came out. >> senator white house, i think we're back with us. we totally forgive you. we have all had cell phone

malfunctions in the past. apologize if it was on our end. you were talking about the changing of the republican platform at the convention. the shoe i've been waiting to drop in this investigation has been the ukraine plank. it was a very big deal to hawkish republicans, to have that in there. very important to russia to get it out. manafort was the campaign guy at the time. he had all these ukrainian pro russian oligarch connections. after that, the big debts and weird set of loans. that idea and scenario in which manafort changed the platform in favor of russia doesn't turn up in any charges that have been brought so far really strains my credulity and i'm interested where that got carved out by the narrow definition of this report, specifically conspiracy

in election interference activities opposed to other things like perhaps changing the party platform. >> senator, do you think that there is a responsibility from the attorney general to put out additional findings in an expeditious manner? he had said initially we would get these conclusions this weekend. that was very quick. now, the timeline is very open. from a political perspective that could have serious repercussions. when would you like to see it made public? >> the sooner the better and the sooner they come to congress about where they limited the investigation, where the boundaries were and how much time they took to look at whether there was obstruction at the a.g. level. every minute that goes by leaves suspicions on the table i think they'd be well served to clear.

>> who do you think should testify before congress about this? would you like to see robert mueller in addition to the attorney general? >> i'd like to see robert mueller, rod rosenstein and attorney general barr at the table subject to questioning. >> do you think there's any way lindsey graham will let that happen? >> if he doesn't, he's just taken himself out of the loop because i'm confident the house is going to go forward, and i think it would be a same if the senate judiciary committee failed to undertake our senate responsibilities while the house was going to undertake theirs. >> senator, do you think that this puts the question about whether this president has committed impeachable offenses to rest? >> you know, this is a guy who hasn't even released his tax returns yet. we have no idea what business entanglements he might have with russian interests.

setting aside these two waves cited in the report, in which the russian government tried to interfere in the election and probably did successfully interfere in the election, there is a whole other array of things going from the emmollients lawsuit all the way back to potential business transactions with russian interests, saudi arabian interests. still a lot we don't know, and i think the american people are entitled to know if their president is in business relationships with foreign powers and foreign interests. so far, they haven't disclosed any of that, and the mueller report has kind of silenced our inquiries. i think with the mueller report finally having dropped, there's going to be a lot more interest figuring out what they did and

didn't look at and making sure the stuff they didn't look at gets a good look. >> very quickly, before i let you go, do you think it is politically wise for democrats to pursue impeachment or do you think that would risk the white house in 2020? >> impeachment is the verdict in the house. it's what starts us off in the senate but it's the verdict in the house. as a prosecutor, i don't think you go straight to the verdict. you start by building your case, developing new evidence. i think that's the stage we're in. we now need to know what exactly was decided in the mueller report and was not and what do we need to look at in congress in order to clear the air. >> senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. i'm sure we will see you on what is going to be a very busy week on capitol hill. thank you for your time. ken, i want to get your response to what you heard from the senator there. i'm told you have some thoughts about obstruction of justice and rod rosenstein's role in it. >> i wanted to talk to the criticism of the senator whitehouse and making the

question, how could william barr have decided in 48 hours president trump didn't have the intent to obstruct justice when mueller was looking at it for two years and couldn't decide. part of the answer is rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general also participated in that decision, barr makes clear. and rod rosenstein, in fairness, was living with this from the beginning, grappling with the questions and there was a report about there was a debate whether to subpoena the president, one way to find out the president's intent was to interview him and eventually decided not do it and would never get the president and he could have pleaded the fifth and didn't have to testify against himself and would have delayed the investigation. there is a question about why mueller punted on the obstruction question. he deferred the question to his superiors at the department of justice and in doing so

subverted why he was appointed independent of donald trump because he wasn't hired by donald trump. william barr was hired by donald trump, and they ended up making the decision to legally clear donald trump of obstruction. that will be a question going forward. it wasn't just barr, it was rosenstein and he was there for two years. >> thank you. to ken, we will give you the last word before we go to break. you made that very good point about mueller's decision making. this other decision not to subpoena the president. what's your take on how they made that decision. was that the right decision as a prosecutor? how do you look at that? >> from how i know mueller works when he was director of the fbi, he papers the file very well. i would specific somewhere in a footnote or appendix to his report we will see his thought

processes why he didn't do this. it will be recorded and discussions with rosenstein will be memorialized and will come out on discussions on the hill. if you're told this repeatedly and why the public needs to see this report, if mueller was told emphatically by the president's attorney, we will plead the fifth amendment on self-incrimination if you insist on a grand jury subpoena or in person interview, the public needs to know that why mueller can't say i can't tell you about it or can't incriminate myself. this started as a counter intelligence investigation and neither to end as a counter intelligence investigation. by that i mean the public needs to see all the work done resolving the question whether russia compromised this president and why this president is behaving this way. that's not a criminal standard, not a criminal prosecution decision, a nuanced counter-intelligence case. that needs to see the light of day as well.

>> frank and ken, thank you for your sharp insights on this topic. i'm sure you will both have very long weeks ahead of you. a lot more on this breaking edition. what do democrats do now? i'm joined by dnc chair, tom perez. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started.

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donald trump may not even be president. in fact, he may not even be a free person. >> that was senator elizabeth warren last month talking about the legal peril the president faced at the time. joining us, tom perez, dnc chairman. thank you for keeping your appointment with us on a very busy news night. let's talk about elizabeth warren suggested that the president may be in prison come 2020. do you think that's a sentiment that should be put to bed after this report? >> i'd like to read the report first. i spent over a dozen years of my life at the justice department, worked under bush 1 and republican and democratic administrations and investigated and prosecuted a number of cases in involving allegations of

corruption and other wrongdoing of public officials. when we close a case, sometimes we close cases and close a case at times because we couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt the allegations we put forth. there are so many unanswered questions, one thing clearly answered from this report is russians attempted to interfere with our election. >> i'm not sure that that question -- we've known that for some time. that's a fair point. that raises the question. why does this president continue to deny it? those are part of the unanswered questions. we know in addition to the fact that the russians did meddle in our investigation, we know his campaign managers, deputy campaign manager, his lawyer, papadopoulos, stone, all these people were having contact. the question for me remains was he compromised? why does he say he believes putin over the against community and leaving nato that puts our national security at jeopardy.

why won't he release his tax returns and why were they so hell bent getting the trump tower in moscow. i think the house needs to move forward to answer these questions. >> is he compromised? the line in the report you're referring to, william barr writes quote the special counsel did not find the trump campaign or anybody associated with it conspired or coordinated with the russian government despite multiple offers from the officials to influence the trump campaign. you just argued if you're a prosecutor you make this decision because you can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

my question for you, is there somewhere in between short of criminal collusion provable in this kind of prosecutorial manner and the president's conduct that would constitute an impeachable offense? >> we have to see where it takes us. there are so many unanswered questions and why we need the entire report. >> i take your point. every democrat i had on this show we made a point asking where do you stand whether the president committed an impeachable offense. nine times out of 10 they would say, wait for the mueller report. my question to you, were there any questions answered here? >> we haven't gotten the mueller report? >> we have a lot more information than we did before. >> as someone who spent over a dozen years at the justice department, i know what goes into those reports. i was part of the team in

republican and democratic administrations preparing those reports. frequently, when we declined a case, we declined it not because we didn't have major concerns, we declined it because we made a conclusion we conned find beyond a reasonable doubt that the allegations were provable. that's very different. that's why there could be so many unanswered questions. the overarching one, is he compromised by a foreign adversary in russia. i still don't understand the press conference in helsinki where he looked so weak. i don't understand why he would believe putin over our against officers. i do understand russia interfered in our investigation. these are the unanswered questions and why it's so important to get the entire report and again to understand what the special counsel said on obstruction, which is this report doesn't exonerate the president. we have to understand why. i'm pretty confident this report

will explain why they did not exonerate the president on the obstruction. >> at what point do you think you can give a definitive answer whether impeachment is off the table. what do you need to see? >> evidence. right now, the committees are doing exactly what they should do, gathering evidence. we need the report and to hear from the attorney general. i'm hopeful the will go to capitol hill and testify soon. we need to understand why is the president reluctant to release his tax returns? a routine exercise by presidential candidates. in the case of this president and his involvement in the effort to build the trump tower in moscow, it raises some real concerns. >> the house speaker, nancy pelosi, has said impeachment would divide the country and quote he, donald trump, is just not worth it. do you agree with that assessment? >> impeachment is a high bar and goes over to the senate.

impeachment is one step in the process. as senator whitehouse said, you need to make a judgment. we won in 2018 because we focused on the issues on people's minds. while donald trump was talking about caravans, we were talking about healthcare. we were making sure if you have a pre-existing condition you can keep your healthcare. if you're diabetic, we will work to bring down the cost of insulin. if you're struggling to pay for college -- >> it worked. >> democrats know how to walk and chew gum. speaker pelosi is better than anyone at that. she is fighting to make sure we are saving the affordable healthcare act. i don't think there's any leader in washington done more to enhance access to healthcare and save the affordable care act than nancy pelosi. we understand the importance of continuing to do that and focusing on bread and butter

issues, making sure if you work a full time job you can feed your family. >> i hear it every time i talk to 2020 candidates. part of the problem in the last election with john podesta's e-mails being hacked there is evidence russian trolls were working on behalf of bernie sanders. his campaign has denied that and bristled at those acquisitions. nbc news about helping gabbard's campaign and what are we doing to make sure they're safe and secure and not able to be tampered with. >> that's a huge priority for us. one of the first things we did was build a cybersecurity team top flight. our chief cyber officer was the chief cyber officer at yahoo!. he uncovered a russian hack shortly after he got there. we are working day in and day out with all of the campaigns. let's face it.

what they did worked in 2016. there's no accountability for this president. >> are the campaigns cooperating with you? >> absolutely. we had a meeting as recently as last week. bob lord is our chief security officer and he met with all the campaigns. here's my philosophy about our role as relates to cybersecurity. we are a public utility. we are providing help to every campaign so they understand how they can make sure their data is cyber secure. >> do you have a uniform standard they're all following? >> yes. bob met with all the campaigns to go through a checklist. some of the things are quite simple. two factor authentication. let's start there. we have a team of people that frankly, spend their entire day trolling the internet and looking and finding nefarious trolls, talking to facebook, talking to twitter, saying we

believe you need to remove these because they are involved in nefarious activity. they did it before, will do it again. we can't do this alone and why we're working not only with the campaigns, working with a broader cyber ecosystem because again, we saw what happened in 2016 and working our level best to make sure it doesn't happen again. >> dnc chairman, tom perez. more in a minute. here's a hack: make sure there's bandwidth for everyone. the more you know.

in the wake of william barr's summary of the mueller report and the president's claim of total exoneration, it's important to keep in mind all that the investigation did uncover. 34 people were charged. seven people had guilty pleas. one conviction by trial. four people jailed or incarcerated and five were sentenced.

six former trump advisors were ensnared in the investigation including the president's former campaign chairman, paul manafort and his former national security advisor, michael flynn. while the mueller investigation is now complete, federal and state prosecutors are pushing forward with probes that grew out of his work, particularly in the southern district of new york. the "new york times" reports unlike mr. mueller whose probe was largely linked between the campaign and the russia, for instance, in the 2016 election, manhattan takes an expansive view to have a broader orbit around the president including his family business. natasha, you have dug into a lot of this as well and the southern district of new york put michael cohen in prison, for example. what in your view is the next turn of the screw in these other areas? >> the biggest question a lot of people have now is the inaugural committee is like a major investigation under way apparently. a lot of subpoenas have been issued to figure out whether or not foreign money flowed into

the inaugural illegally and could have potentially compromised the president and people around him in that way. that is one thing worth watching. another one is the trump investigation in the southern district of new york to see whether or not the president has had these illegal processes throughout his entire real estate career and whether or not that could also be compromised. if you're looking at all of this from a counter-intelligence standpoint prosecutors probably won't be but other people will -- >> it did start that way. >> it did start that way. donald trump jr. the most potential exposure. is he home free now or not? >> i don't think anybody should consider themselves home free on

the trump campaign in his orbit, in his business, especially for the reasons you were just discussing. southern district investigation. the attorney general of the state of new york looking into various aspects of the businesses we know. so i think this is going to drag on in other streams. not necessarily related to collusion but related to what he did. and his tax returns. interesting question. i don't know the answer. we haven't seen them. but we think that mueller has. over the course of the investigation wouldn't he have looked at them. >> he would have had to power to get them. i think there was an open question whether he would have.

>> and did he not see anything in there if he saw them. did he not find anything in there that he thought was worth -- that pointed to illegal activity or just beyond his scope. and i don't know the answer to that question. there is still a lot about his taxes we just don't know. >> and one thick we're still waiting on is the report from the senate intelligence committee which, you know, there have been reported that it will show the similar conclusion to what mueller said, which is that there is no evidence of collusion. we do expect the democrats to have some sort of different take on it. but do you think that that is going ultimately bolster what we've learned from mueller? or do you think we'll get new revelations? >> the short answer is i suspect it will track closely with mueller. now again we have not. we will have to wait and see what eventually becomes public and i think democrats and republicans won't as much made republican. i will give chairman barr tremendous credit. he decided pretty quickly after there was a conflict and never went back down to the white house for anything ever again. he's tried very hard to do a very bipartisan report with mark warner. i expect it will be as bipartisan as it can be.

with probably two different views. you will have a majority and minority view. but i think overall since this was really looking at russia, that is what we will see. i would also just note that this is going into -- and what they looked at was going into all of the 2016 election. >> right. >> so this was not just looking at -- >> it was not just the president. right, of course. >> just looking all of this. and i think also from an intelligence perspective and understanding there should be a lot of information gleaned from

this that will help america moving forward in terms of dealing with threats to security and election security moving forward. it will be viewed in a political prism but there are national security things and other things to learn moving forward to protect from meddling. >> -- centers on the issues of national security. the intelligence committee has been historically bipartisan. one thing i'm watching is the senators who are running for president in the senate. which is not netly a bipartisan endeavor at all and the news surrounding the mueller report has unsurprisingly made its way already to the 2020 campaign trail. here is kamala harris earlier in atlanta. >> let's speak truth. that the american public deserves transparency and accountability and the mueller report must be made public for a full counting of what happened. and the attorney general of the united states must be required to come and testify before congress. instead of just submitting a four-page memo of what happened.

>> so tiffany cross, this was -- this is obviously big news night. this was a short piece of kamala harris's speech. where do you think this issue when we're here at this table in two years heading into the election, where does this rank on what democrats care about the most? >> i think it ranks very high to people who claim to be patriots and care about the country. particularly as we're going into an election season. and we have overwhelming evidence that russians certainly did attack our democracy. you know, i think for candidates they are obviously running against each other. none have come out and said anything different. everyone is saying the report should be public. >> yet. i take your point. >> exactly. but the thing is i don't think it is going sway any voters either way. the people who are solidly planted in trump's camp, that, you know, in my opinion is a

layer of woeful ignorance you can't penetrate. i think on the democratic side for people who, you know, a wide speculate spectrum of people frustrated with the process and angry about what they see on the right and there are people who want some of the party further left on impeachment talks. i'm not sure it is going to gain any one candidate more or less voters. >> that is our last word for tonight from tiffany across. antonioia, natasha, jeremy thank you for a spirited discussion tonight. that is it for us here on "kasie dc." we did do interviewes on the road this weekday with amy klobuchar and john hickenlooper. thank you personally for your time. we're going post some of those conversations on the web and to our pod cast. ari melber is live next with special coverage from here in washington after a short break. ♪

♪ good evening to you. i'm ari melber. live from washington with special coverage of the mueller report. attorney general william barr has a new letter that's begun to characterize special counsel robert mueller's report. first the letter makes it clear on the issue of election conspiracy bob mueller did not find chargeable conclusion. barr quotes mueller is stating members did not establish the campaign did not establish or coordinate with with the russian