♪ 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 government in election

activities. -- what barr himself writes, the report left unresolved what mueller viewed as difficult issues of law in fact concerning whether the president's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. dud not conclude the president committed a crime. barr also notes the report does not exonerate him. that is pretty important. barr's letter today tries to go further and declare donald trump who, appointed barr did not obstruct justice. quote we've concluded the evidence is not sufficient to establish the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. that's very important what you see here there and we have a

special tonight that is going to tell you everything you need to know about what is real. what barr is saying mueller found and comma we know from a probe now concluded and what may be less than real because you will notice in any past probe of any precedent, say clinton or knicks b, these find of findings were ah always referred to congress for it to judge or pass. we have in this summary from barr tonight the clear outlines of a new find from donald trump's hand picked attorney general. every single quote is only part of a sentence. and tonight top democrats say they want the full mueller report. they have been saying even before this summary and want to make barr explain himself under oath. >> his conclusions raise more questions than they answer. given these questions, it is imperative that the attorney general release the full report and the underlying evidence. we will ask the attorney general to testify before the house judiciary committee. >> that is a battle i'm being drawn. if you follow politics on the news you may have noticed donald trump was unusually quiet all weekend.

the "new york times" reported that perhaps he was nervous according to some sources. barr obviously knew what he got on friday and going through it all weekend. donald trump breaking his silence tonight. >> there was no collusion with russia. there was no obstruction. and none whatsoever. and it was a complete and total exoneration. >> that is a false statement at the end. it is very important to note that donald trump, who is known for misstatements and falsehoods and lies got part of it right. there was not a finding of collusion. there are not indictments on collusion. then he got two things very wrong which i'm about to get

into with my panel. the assertion that he was exonerated on obstruction. bob mueller held the opposite from the little quote we have. and second something familiar in the era of co-sauld witch hunt talk. donald trump using tonight what could have been a cleaner night for part to lean into the part that was good for him to accuse the others of investigation engaged in illegal acts. he has no evidence of that. we have a special show lined up. we're not going to do rolling coverage of one fact for the whole two hours. what we've sbilt a set of experts to go through each piece of this and we're going to hear from witnesses in the mueller probe itself. richard blumenthal on the judiciary kumai.

mylawiley. later robert ray the independent counsel who let the white water investigation --. and an all-star team of former federal prosecutors. will all be part of the special we've been planning. we hope you find it worth your while and that you spend the next two hours with us to kick it right off as promised. i'm joined by msnbc legal analyst maya wiley. -- standard in the dossier and reporting on this story from during the 2016 election when many were dismissing the idea russia was doing anything illegal. and caroline --. it is those experiences you draw on why you are here. i always mention full disclosure. you also were my boss when i worked in the senate. thanks to each of you for kicking off our coverage tonight. >> good to be here. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> maya, when you lookout the four page letter, what do you see as important in the first clues in the mueller report. >> what's important is that the institution of justice did exactly what donald trump said it would not do. which is it went through the evidence and robert mueller came to conclusions and he did it with an extraordinary amount of work in an extraordinarily short period of time.

that said it also tells us there are unanswered questions. so by saying that he did not establish collusion does not tell us what in fact he did find beyond what we already know. i think it is important for the mesh public to have the answers to those questions. to understand what we do know, to put it in context to. a have better sense how our government's been operating under the current president but secondly the issue of obstruction. there are a lot of questions under the issue of obstruction the way the letter is written. >> is that in your view, is that the attorney general's call or congress's call. >> at this point it is congress's. squarely in congress's hands whether or not they have impeachable offense is congress's decision. >> in the letter, this is quite striking. barr makes the assertion that because mueller described the facts of his obstruction investigation without a legal conclusion.

he then says it is up to me. says it leaves it up to the attorney general to determine whether the conduct described constitutes a crime. is that even true in your view? >> i think it opens up a whole can of worms. first the fact that the attorney general, who himself was supposed to be removed from this process. the whole point of having a special counsel is that the special counsel is somewhat independent of the political process. you have an attorney general who pretty much campaigned for his job by writing a memo to the president about why it is the various activities he undertook under his official function, that is, firing comey or otherwise firing sessions, that that could not constitute obstruction. and then it is the person wh makes the final conclusion? >> so what do you read of the implication? that he thinks mueller left it up to him. we don't know if mueller did.

what do you think? >> well, you know, it seems completely inappropriate to me that that would be how this process would proceed. i have to say, i think it is profoundly disappointing that mueller might have just thrown his hands up in the air. it does tell me that there was obviously such a close question. there was so much in there. indicating obstruction. and if he's looking at a standard oaf beyond a reasonable doubt, that is something that whatever the attorney general believes -- congress needs to get to the bottom that. >> one point in the letter barr if nothing else a skilled lawyer who can make points out of the material he has. reduces himself down to two wards. mueller says there were

difficult issues concern the president's actions and intent. for a letter that is designed to say, as it ultimately argues, barr's view that donald trump did not obstruct. >> my conclusions looking at the whole paragraph, you know, that there was a lot of stuff there indicating obstruction. and we need know what the standard was? was it beyond a reasonable doubt? >> i completely agree with caroline here. what we already know, what is already in the public view is a president who says literally in public that he fired james comey because of the investigation. he then spends -- remember that the intelligence service had been saying that russians had been in fact trying to impact the election. he as a sitting president was disagreeing with the u.s. intelligence service publicly.

at the same time that he was meeting with russians and sharing classified information. i mean all of that in and of itself suggests something that if nothing else congress needs to know. needs to understand. and needs to have all the facts that robert mueller had. >> so both of you, as attorneys with quite a bit of government experience are on the open obstruction questions. and however much bill barr wants to put out a certain idea or certain argument in this letter even he felt the need to acknowledge mueller did not exonerate donald trump on obstruction. both of you have that strong ground. you, my journalistic friend. based on your reporting and some of the positions you have taken would appear to be on the weaker ground in the letter. because the direct quotation from mueller. if it is accurate. states that he did not find a collusion conspiracy and we also

know he finished his probe without indicting anyone on it. what do you say of that part of the finding? >> the broader point is that i think this conversation, discussion we've been having all day shows this is not a good process for getting to the truth. a special counsel is appointed to look for crimes, not to tell us what happened. that is true of the obstruction case we just talked about. and right now we see nothing except as you noted partial sentences about a conclusion without saying what evidence was there and was he looking to meet a certain legal standard of conspiracy, or that he didn't reach. and, you know, usually -- independence counsels they were obligated to produce a report telling us everything they found out about what they were asked to look at. and that didn't go through a vetting with a presidential appointed attorney general came straight to the public. >> sounsds like, and i think our

viewers are read up enough to get the point. sounds like you are beefing with the neil krachaw. who wrote the rules that gave this partial result. nothing in the rules would say barr to write the four pages --. >> my beef is with congress. let the independent counsel law expire because neither democrats nor republicans wanted it to continue. because they didn't like investigations overall. now also we focused because of the focus on mueller we focused on what mueller was tasked to look at, which is whether there was collusion interactions and

thereabouts. and we didn't focus on what i think is still the core element of the scandal. and i think it is the greatest scandal that we've ever had in american political history and that is that trump and his lieutenants aided and abetted the attack that russia mounted against the election. that is not conspiring with them to actually engage in the attack. it is by dismissing it, denying it, saying it wasn't happening, making it a political issue. they made it difficult for the national conversation to focus on how to respond. and they -- >> -- on that. >> and they amplified. >> let me press you on. >> let me -- >> i understand what you are saying. >> they amplified moscow's disinformation. >> i understand and i think we all understand. and you are very concerned about that. >> yes. >> i guess the question people listening to david corn tonight. we're going to get into this. without fear or favor tonight. >> yes, yes. >> is, are you moving the goal post. >> oh no no no. >> -- from -- wait. because i'm -- >> -- you knew what i was going to say. go ahead. >> but you are going to wait. >> i'm going to wait. >> are you moving the goal post from collusion or conspiracy to what i just heard, which is aiding and abetting or what happened in public. did you expect this report to put out more indictments on collusion. >> if you had a copy of russian roulette with you now.

i would turn to the last page. which i wrote with michael izakoff, not just the last page. which we said at that point in time about a year ago we knew the big issue that trump and public in lot of ways had not come to terms with was the aiding and abetting. in the book we never use the word collusion. we say may be proven. may not be proven. but the aiding and abetting was proven and that is an act of betrayal. so i do -- >> but i -- >> but i would just say. you know, like we need a full report on the obstruction side. we need a full report on the interactions. >> can i just -- i just want to -- i totally agree with david and one of the things i'm thinking about is the whole issue of quid pro quo. with donald trump jr. being offered this information from the russians through his friend rob goldstone, which he said "i like it." manafort giving over the polling data and all these issues about how this played in the elections.

the danger that we have beyond not getting to the bottom of what happened in the last election is how this sets the stage for the next election. what is our government going to do to prevent foreign adversaries from interfering in the next election? or will they even bother? >> and caroline, i wanted you view of just the simply breadth of this. so much has come down whether people think they got the outcome they wanted. the process. we're learning for the first time tonight, bob mueller used 2800 subpoenas. 19 prosecutors. 500 witness interviews. 40 fbi agents. 500 executed search warrants and 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence. >> my most profound takeaway from that, is that there is a lot of evidence that needs to be examined by congress. there is so much there. if they needed to dig that deep and so through so many different procedures and using so in

different attorneys. there is a lot of evidence. it might not in my mind reached the level of the prosecutorial defense or may be deferring to the department of justice policy. but that is something that could very well provide incredibly important data for congress to examine. >> caroline fredricksen, thank you for coming in for part of our special coverage. david and maya stay. we have a lot as i promised. bill barr's power play, what is he doing on obstruction over the weekend? and richard blumenthal, about barr and whether anyone involved in this probe, mueller or beyond will testify. and then independent counsel from the clinton era, robert ray is here to give us an inside scoop. and in our next hour i have written my own special report. i want to talk to you about what mueller found. what he didn't find and where we go from here as a nation. i'm ari melber and you are watching an msnbc special. the mueller report.

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good evening. ari melber. welcome back to our special coverage of the mueller report. general barr in his letter today says that mueller did not exonerate trump of obstruction of justice writing that he left unresolved what mueller viewed as difficult issues of law and fact concerning whether the president's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. el and that while the report duds not conclude the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. barr doesn't stop there. he goes on to stay that mueller's decision in his view least it up to him, barr about the obstruction. i'm going to my guests what. do you see matt as the issue? was this done the right way so far? >> i don't think it was. and i think the language he uses kind of gives it away. when he says the special prosecutor bob mueller and his team. em -- made a lot of hard

decisions. i assume they made the decision not to make a final determination on that because doj's only rules left that decision to congress. they didn't think indictment was an option so they didn't make a decision because they didn't have to. >> you are making ab interpretation that is that barr is essentially mischaracterizing the purpose of mueller leaving that open. >> he doesn't quite characterize in any way. there is an absence of characterization. he says it just leaves it to me. decisions aren't really left to the attorney general in this way in the department of justice. eric holder said he couldn't remember one time it came to him without a recommendation. >> you are saying the former attorney general eric holder. on the record not. >> sure. right. >> he told you what tonight? >> that when prosecution decisions come to the attorney general. they aren't just left to him for decision. the prosecution teams make a recommendation.

the attorney general can accept it. he can reject it. modify it in some way. but isn't it the case they just leave things for him to decide. i don't think it was left for the attorney general to decide. this question of whether he committed a crime. and they seem to have determined there is evidence on both sides, was a question for congress to resolve. bill barr could have left that question for congress to resolve. he didn't. he reached in and made his own conclusion and rushed it out the door i think in a way to help -- the president. >> so william barr did the job that donald trump hired him to do. trump famously fired the former attorney general because sessions wouldn't protect him in the russian investigation. so trump then asked to find a new a.g. of the 1.3 million lawyers in the country. trump hires barr who's written

this unsolicited memo saying that the president can't be guilty of obstruction for something like firing the attorney general. and then the investigations done. the special counsel punts on the question of obstruction. he leaves it to barr who unsurprisingly decides that the president isn't guilty of obstruction based on the evidence so trump famously says he made a mistake when he hired fizz first attorney general. he did not make the same mistake when he hired william barr. >> what do you think is the significance and the reasoning for barr writing that there was "action's by the president that have not been publicly reported in this mueller report about obstruction"? that suggests he is admitting for whatever has reasoning is tonight that there is new stuff in there we still haven't seen.

>> yeah and i think that is a note for history. whether it is now or in 20 years the mueller report will be public and it sounds like it is going to contain substantial evidence that there was obstruction. maybe not something that rises to the level of a criminal case. but something is there. the famous refrain for the last two years has been that mueller knows more than we know. that remains true about obstruction. >> matt take a listen to some of the public evidence that was especially damning when donald trump explained that the memorandum that he allegedly demanded from the justice department explaining the false reason to fire clinton was false. he sort of told on himself. to fire comey for clinton. take a look. >> regardless of recommendation i was going fire comey. knowing there was no good time to do it. and in fact when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story -- >> how do you read barr saying well that is the floor not the ceiling?

>> and it is interesting how he deals with that and some of the other potentially obstructive acts that are known. he down plays them by noting that many are known to the public, as if that makes them less incriminating. i don't think that it does. the entire way that memo is written is in a way to basically i think make excuses for the president. i think you drew the right headline out of the way he framed the question of evidence that we don't know about. which is he does indicate there are pieces of evidence about obstruction not yet known to the public. even then he describes it in the opposite way. he describes it as many of the acts are already known. >> is he covering for trump or himself? >> i think paul has the right thing. which is donald trump looked around all of the attorneys in the united states and found the one who had written this secret

memo to the justice department arguing that trump's actions weren't a driem. that they weren't obstruction of justice. and bill barr on friday, he promised by the end of the week ore he would try by the end of the weekend to release mueller's principle conclusions. that is not what we got today. we got mueller's principle conclusions plus bill barr's spin on ball. >> you make a very important point and everyone has been talking about what the rules require. the rules require an explanation of charges and declinations. we've been so consumed with the first hours what's in here regarding conspiracy and obstruction, i would note this may not even follow the rules and -- yet although he can do it later. he doesn't explain any declinationes of anyone here. he references the president. he says the president's stats as president is not what led barr to conclude he doesn't think his boss committed obstruction and he doesn't explain any declinations for anybody else. >> look. >> can we just forget about that. >> no. obviously that's got to come out when he see the final report. i think the way barr set this up. if he just released mueller's conclusions or instead of doing this document he waited till he had a redacted mueller report that get rid of references to on

going investigation, we wouldn't have had this two step process that he was allowed to make his conclusion. he inserted himself to give the president what the president wanted. >> such an important point. it is this way because barr decided it would be this week. the rush the weekend and the idea that rather than a mueller summary. which still would have had great news for the white house. no indictments on collusion and a sentence on how they didn't find collusion and would have left this big open door. there is a lot of evidence of obstruction and he's not exonerated. and how difficult that would have felt tonight. >> it would have felt that barr was acting in good fite. now i do think he's a person of integrity. i think hi views are outside of the mainstream. they are not shared by most

prosecutors and legal scholars but i think he thinks he's doing the right thing. as you say ari, we won't expect this note today to say that the president has been exonerated on the issue of collusion or conspiracy to defraud the united states on the issue of obstruction mueller was not able to exonerate the president. he found evidence on both sides. he's asked the justice department to make that conclusion. that we will do. >> i'm told over time. sometimes the most interesting part of this job is, i am dieing to know having laid that all out, matt. was the timing of this in your view fundamentally a strategic pr choice to benefit the white house? or is there some other reason to do it this way. >> i think it absolutely was. i can't think of any other way. and honestly i can't see any legal explanation because i

can't see how bill barr takes a comprehensive report. we don't know how long it was, covering a two years investigation. and in 48 hours makes this complex legal decision. about whether it rose to the level of obstruction or not. >> and you are coming back. paul butler comes back. matt miller. talk to you soon. back next hour when we co-other different stuff. coming up on this izic night. former counsel to three different investigations joins me. and reaction from democrats tonight and senator blumenthal will be here live.

congress must step in to get the truth and provide full taerps to the american people. the president had not been exonerated by the special counsel. we cannot simply rely on a hasty partisan interpretation of the facts. >> senator blumenthal on the judiciary committee is on the senate side of what e just heard from the democrats chairman of the house. he is one of the people leading this fight. thanks for being a part of our special tonight, senator. could you hear me? i want to make sure. senator can you hear me. >> i can hear you and i appreciate. >> thank you. go ahead. >> i appreciate your excellent reporting. and i might just add by the way

that we know so much as a result of the mueller investigation. but also because of the extraordinary reporting that the american press has done about the trump administration and the trump campaign and collusion and obstruction which are still on going questions. more questions than answers. >> a fair point and i could think a lot of the reporting we followed the "new york times," washington post, new yorker. some of our colleagues here as you mentioned and i had an audio thing. digging into it. i wonder if we can get from you your bottom line on the two big issues tonight the way that barr said the mueller report found no chargeable collusion and the way that he has added to what mueller apparently said, which is that obstruction remains an open question. your view of both, sir? >> this letter is elegantly but brazenly devious what bob barr

has done is essentially to frame the message before the facts are available, before the substance is accessible. he has in effect created headlines. that will create a trap for all of us because we have to avoid falling into the headline messages. the crime of obstruction is designed to prevent destruction of evidence. whether it is witness tampering or document destruction. so the finding here that there was insufficient evidence to establish collusion may be the result of that obstruction. and one question i have which really hasn't been explored is why the special counsel did not force an interview with donald trump. you mentioned earlier that there have been thousands of

subpoenas. why not a subpoena for donald trump? i have great respect for bob mueller. but i said from the very start that trump has to be interviewed under oath just as other presidents have been before. >> and from what we understand that was not an issue that forced at least a rules triggering conflict between mueller and any of his bosses. because on friday that when have been when we learned about that. sounds like you are questioning that as an investigative choice and makes sense. why not talk to the person at some of this. certainly the center of the obstruction investigation. i asked -- i'm curious if the senate in you in your role will try to get to the bottom of it. top of page three barr says that mueller details in this report, actions by the president trump, some of which have not been the subject of public reporting. most have.

some have not. what does that mean to you do? and does that mean we'll ever find out what those r? >> what it means to me is all the more reason why the mueller report, not the barr letter has to be made available to the american people. the implication of that statement is that there is more in the mueller report about obstruction. and remember, contrary to what the president said, and you have pointed this out repeatedly, the barr letter says no exoneration. that is one of the few quotes from the mueller report. if there has been anything like exoneration, there would have been a lot more from the mueller report. so the absence of of that kind of evidence is very, very important and it really requires congress to do proper oversight, ask though those questions, have witnesses come before both the senate judiciary committee and the house judiciary committee. >> senator stay with me. maya wiley, an attorney i think you are familiar with joins us now. maya, i wonder if you could speak to the senator and i about your view of the points he raise, the transparency and i guess the question which is emerging which is even the

people who credit the white house for fairly good nouz on the collusion side. what do you make of the way barr has done this. >> there is no way the american people can have any sense that they understand how this government has functioned, how the president has functioned and what evidence we have. because congress's job is different from robert mueller's job. congress's job is the decide even about abuse of authority that might raise issues of impeachment. but the public has to know. the i think the other point is critically important that we simply have to know how the justice department operated here. so if mr. barr literally wrote something to extract a positive headline in a sense hiding possibly some evidence that the public might draw a different conclusion about. that is actually interfering with our democratic process. because people have to

understand who their leaders are and how they are operating, or else we can't hold our government accountable to our rules and to our norms and that is why congress has its own constitutional authority here and it must be exercised in a way that's open to the public so the public can make its own determination. >> and building on that point a final question to you, senator. given the two letters we now have from barr and your view as the judiciary committee member and former federal prosecutor who knows their way around the issues. does today's letter satisfy the requirement under the rules that barr notified congress about bob mueller's decisions about who he charges and didn't charge? because lost in all the big

headlines is the fact that on friday he cited that provision of the doj rules as the predicate for what would come on sunday night but here i don't really see much discuss who have he declined to charge at all. your view? >> no way has he satisfied that obligation to explain fully the facts -- we're talking about facts and evidence -- behind this declination. and as has been said. my experience as the prosecutor is recommendations are made. here there was none. i want to know why. i want to know why there was no interview of the president. and before congress has testimony from anyone we need those documents. we need the factual underpinning for this rush to judgment which in no way satisfies bob barr's obligations. he has clearly acted in the president interest, tipping that tossed ball towards trump rather than in the public interest. and it is a very cleverly and

adroitly done letter. but it fails to satisfy his obligation. and as you know any lawyer wants documents before you do grand jury testimony, before you do a deposition. those documents are absolutely necessary. the public has a right to them. and so does congress. >> i think you put it well. and senator we don't know what we don't know. i try to be very careful about the facts. i've tried to note the lack of collusion indictments as a big part of story. look at the four page being held up by the white house and now barr as the evidence that trump is now in the clear. the fact at no point is an entire sentence ever quoted from the mueller report let alone a paragraph makes you wonder if the goal was to use the mueller

report to make trump look pretty good. was there no full paragraph that could be quoted to do that? again i don't know what's in there. you have said you want to get to the bottom of it. but those are the questions. senator i hope we can visit again this week as the story unfolds. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. and thank you maya wiley as always. still ahead a former counsel to three congressional probes. and later the independent counsel who dealt with the clinton probe. and my special report on trump. mueller, collusion, obstruction what we know. what we've learned and what e have to do as a nation. cvs pharmacy.

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prosecutor john flanery. special counsel to three different investigations. he's been a key part of msnbc's coverage. and specifically on "the beat." we relied on you and really broke down how lot of these things work. before we get into what's wrong with the letter and i've had some experts tonight get into that. what do you take from what can be gleaned from? starting from the numbers the justice department say there were 2,000 some subpoenas. that is a lot of subpoenas. what do you take from first the facts before we get beyond that. >> i wonder why we don't even know the number of pages in the report. we didn't get an executive summary from the report. we have what really looks like a press release that didn't get ready in time for the sunday talk shows. so that could have a romp through a very his mist leading document.

>> let's pause on the great point. i've been watching the coverage, reading trying to make sense of it. you have said something i vent heard anyone say yet. which is if barr would have told us today that mueller wrote a report that was 50 pages or 200 or 500, that alone would be a great piece of context. what a great point you made. why does that matter? >> we have the evelyn wood demonstration by mr. barr about reading that number of pages. and i bet you that knowing the way mueller works, there was probably an executive summary, and there was probably a set of conclusions. >> are you suggesting -- >> why not just gives those pages. >> sbar a pretty good lawyer. but so are you. are you suggesting the longer the report and the underlying evidence the worse barr might look for trying to pull this off by sunday night? >> absolutely.

and consider the fact that we have -- you have pointed this out. you have these partial quotes. well, what if the quote on page 3, while this report does not conclude that the president did not commit a crime it also doesn't exonerate him. he he said the report. he didn't say the --. the whole report doesn't conclude he committed a crime. >> we're going to get into it and stay with it. because look. do you know what jumped out to me? the best sentence in the whole letter for trump. >> right. >> also starts in the middle of a sentence. so it is the one that you are going hear the most of. all week you are going hear this.

let me read and then ail explain what i mean. stays on page two the investigation did not establish member of the trump campaigned conspired or coordinated with the russian government or activities. having said they wonder what you think as a lawyer about the fact that this has the classic. >> -- the bracket. >> the bracket tee. really on the fly here. the bracket tee looks like this. if you get the real close. you know what -- >> which is what we do when you are picking up something that was not -- >> -- here we go again. the bracket t tells you what, john? >> that it wasn't the beginning of a sentence. something preceded it. and they put the bracket there as the beginning with a capital t. >> in law school. i like nerding out with you. but in law school, how might a lawyer change the meaning of this? is it report would say for example while there was overwhelmingly bad judgment and national security matters compromise, come marks and then lower case t the investigate didn't establish --. do you think he would do that or. >> a lot of the comments afterwards there is no evidence.

they never say that even in this p.r. construct. they say "the investigation did not establish --." okay it did not establish this crime? well what was your standard? was it beyond a reasonable doubt which is not the standard for a grand jury or any investigation i ever ran when you begin it because the case continues and you get more evidence and people cooperate and people drop off. so that is not the standard. also did not establish according to what crime? when they issued these thousands of subpoenas, every one probably at least said section 371 chaz conspiracy charge. they don't tell us what the charge is. and here is the other thing. you make a judgment when somebody takes the stand you never heard before. are they a truth teller or not and you operate on that premise

when you question them. in this case we know in the second part when they are talk about whether or not there is obstruction that that is a very funny paragraph there. and it is like barr couldn't restrain himself from spiking this thing when he shouldn't have touched it at all as to whether or not there was any obstruction. >> why did he do that? >> he did that because that was his contract, with trump. to kill the investigation. >> test certainly more skilled as a lawyer than whitaker. >> i have said on here as well, a white collar crime, you don't catch the geniuses. barr is a much better operator.

he did have experience helping another president avoid prosecutions by arranging for pardons. >> can we show the viewers how you roll with your notes? >> sure. >> we gotten this recently. we did not have enough prep time. this is flannery's note. can you come in for us? >> nobody can read my handwriting. >> here we go. >> you don't have steady? can we get steady cam? thank you for bearing with me. this is what mr. flannery have been doing all day. this is a complex piece of lawyering. i understand your point because you are saying -- >> it is a suspicious argument. if creative lawyering and careful quoting is being done to subvert the truth, you don't want to credit that. >> i am just pointing out that

it is done in a very elegant way as senator blumenthal. it is not the last of it that we are going to hear. what i would like you to do is stick around. i am not here to do show and tell with your notes. robert ray is here. one of the things you think matters in nights like this is to actually engage in it. john flannery stays with me. what comes up next? well, i have a witness actually interviewed by mueller's team speaking out. lately, my take on this big night and i will share with you my special report on everything we have learned on the mueller probe up to tonight. here... or here. kick your antacid habit with prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn.

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his conclusions raise more questions than answers. mueller uncovered evidence in his own words does not exonerate the president. congress must step into get the

truth. >> that's one of the big statements that's coming out from the democrats late tonight as people make sense of what bill barr has done with this four-page letter that we have been discussing and what he has released and what he has not said and what it all means. as i mention to you we have been rolling some of this have been unpredictable of the breaking news with a lot of guests. today i have been writing my own special report on what i think the mueller probe means. what do we have in the result of this historic investigation of what he found on the facts and what the evidence would suggest he did not find. this is important because it goes beyond just today. what did the 22 months show? how did bob mueller did his work? i want to speak to everyone on what we as a country might want to do when it comes to respecting the rule of law when we get a conclusion like this. that's what i have been working on. i will share it with you at the top of our next hour if you stay

at the top of our next coverage. as always, thank you for watching, this is msnbc.

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the best place to listen. to start your free 30-day trial, text listen5 to 500500 today. ♪ welcome back, i am ari melber reporting on the mueller report. bob mueller did not find chargeable collusion. democrats calling for r a full releast of the report. let's get right to it our paul butler, eleanor cliff is here. a senior doj official and jean rossi. we have been doing a lot of laws here. eleanor, i turn to you on what washington thinks. what do they think of this collusion and barr who's taking a big swing with aus