think you are out and they pull you back in. bob mueller left service and left the fbi and was pulled back in to do this job and may be pulled back in to tell what he means by what's in here and the way the trump justice department may have dealt with it. thanks to gene, sam, and matt. my thanks to you at home. we have a lot more tonight. i wouldn't go anywhere if i were you. "hardball" with chris matthews starts now. >> mueller's case for obstruction and we got it here. let's play "hardball." >> good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. we know president trump's very first reaction was as dramatic as revealing. a moment of political terror captured in mueller's report

showed a president realizing how much his life of cutting corners could be coming back to haubt him. he said oh, my god. this is terrible. this is the end of my presidency. i'm f'ed. that rings true in light of the evidence today. robert mueller believed he had a case of obstruction of justice against president trump. he declined to prosecute because of the view that a sitting president should not be indicted nor officially accused while in office. the reason we are only hearing this today is because of the four-week effort to keep mueller's findings from us. it was not until earlier today that barr even admitted that he disagreed with a special counsel on the obstruction matter. >> far although the deputy attorney general and i disagreed with some of the special counsel's legal theorys and felt that some of the episodes did not amount to obstruction as a

matter of law, we did not rely solely on that in making our decision. >> despite the attempts to blunt the impact, the mueller report speaks volumes about the president's misconduct, detailing efforts to control, curtail and otherwise kill the mueller investigation. one significant episode was in june of 2017 when the president twice directed don mcgahn to fire the special counsel saying mueller has to go. call me back when you do it. mcgahn decided to resign saying that the president asked him to do crazy stuff. the hospital finds that trump was trying to shield himself from further inquirinquiry. substantial evidence indicates that the attempts were linked to the special counsel's oversight of investigations that involved the president's conduct. mueller cites numerous examples of the meddling in the

investigation including his attempts to limited scope and his encouragement for witnesses not to cooperate and while there is much more in the report that stands at almost 450 pages in total, the evidence of obstruction is substantial and can serve as a road map for u.s. congress moving fshd. in declining to accuse the president of a crime, he pointed to the role of congress to impeach the president, saying a criminal accusation against a sitting president would preempt processes for addressing presidential misconduct. wow. i'm joined by cynthia and paul, former prosecutors and pete williams at the justice department. pete, lay out the litany. it was wonderful tonight. do it again. what's the charge made by mueller about obstruction of justice and his laying it out. >> he goes through 10 episodes that he said were investigated

as potential obstruction of justice events. many of them we know and we knew in advance they would be those that happened in public. the firing of comey and urging comey to go easy on the investigation of michael flynn. one of the things that was a bit surpriseding is that what seemed to bother the president the most about james comey and firing him is that comey steadfastly refused to say that the president wasn't under investigation despite being repeatedly asked to do so. they go through all those, the couple that you mentioned, mcgahn and the former campaign manager to have jeff sessions say that the mueller investigation had concluded the president departmeidn't do anyt wrong. at the end of the day, they didn't say the president obstructed justice. you put your finger on the key part of this disagreement between the attorney general and

mueller. the report strongly suggests, doesn't come right out and say it in so many words, but the strong implication is the mueller team believed there was evidence of obstruction of justice. barr in describing it in his letter last month said mueller concluded that the evidence was ambiguous and it pointed in both directions. parts of the report say that. the first page said fundamentally the mueller team concluded the president could not be charged because of the long standing policy that said that would be unconstitutional. that's the disagreement. the report suggest that is the mueller team believed that the reason they didn't go all the way and say obstruction of justice is because they couldn't. barr said that mueller told him last month that it was the fact that the evidence was inconclusionive and pointed in both directions that was the reason mueller didn't make a call on obstruction of justice.

it was not the disagreement or the problem with the long standing policy against indicting a sitting president. >> that's murky as hell. thank you, pete for the great reporting. was there a case and is there a case for the congress to take up? have they been handed the goods? >> president trump did everything in his power to try to impete the russian investigation and the only reason he didn't stop it is because his staff said no. the president asked 11 different people to do unethical or illegal thing to halt mueller's investigation and they all said no. for the law, you don't have to succeed in stopping an investigation in order to be guilty of obstruction. all you have to do is try. the difficult case for a prosecutor with obstruction is how you prove criminal intent. ill motive that the subject knew

he was doing something wrong. he not only asked people to break the law, but afterwards saying lie about it. he told mcgahn i tried to fire mueller, but if you are asked by the press, deny it. that's consciousness of guilt that he knew he was doing something wrong. there is a strong case for obstruction against the president of the united states. >> we're can't say the word, but i'm f'ed. everybody knows what he's saying. he said if this thing good forward, i'm dead. my presidency is dead. there is your motive. >> remember what the investigation was about. it was about whether the trump campaign worked with the russians to try to give the election to trump. trump said there is an objective investigation my presidency is over? >> it supports james comey's version of events over the story offered by the president. substantial evidence corrobor e

corroborates the account of the dinner invitation and the loyalty of the president. it also affirm that is the president fired comey because of the russia investigation. substantial evidence indicate that is the catalyst for the president's decision to fire james comey was comey's unwillingness to state that the president was not under investigation. we established motive here. the president didn't want to be caught for what he has done and all of the things we don't know about. an investigation into me? donald trump? who needs that? he was afraid of the russian investigation. >> right. the report is written beautifully because it goes through the 10 charges and lays out what the facts are and what was his intent and the evidence. it is when you read it, any regular prosecutor, they would say this is a prosecution memo. if this guy's name was regular guy trump, he would be indicted

today. >> what do you make of the charge? >> what charge? >> the charge that the reason they didn't go as bad as they could have is because the people around him refused to do what he told them to do. >> that doesn't have anything to do with obstruction. it doesn't t have to be complete. to me that's not much of an argument. >> for the republic, it's better off that they didn't follow him. it would have been worse. >> nothing but bad news for the republic today. we have an attorney general who is deceiving us. a president who is completely out of control. we have a press secretary who lies with impunity. there is no good news for the republic in this except that it has come out and it's being thrown to congress. >> paul, what did you make of the fact that we found out in a report that sarah sanders

accepts flack for the president and said thousands of people don't like comey and admits under oath, i just made that up. >> she is making up an attack against federal workers, fbi agents who put their lines on the line to do their job. again, not only is the president upsetting forms at the differently justice and the white house, he is upending why people go g into government service and for serving the country. >> here's the president of the united states and "the washington post" a couple of days ago. how old is too old to be president. a response to his written question shows that the president claimed on 36 occasions that he did not recall, did not remember, had no recollection that the special counsel was seeking. how many times can you get away with saying i don't remember and be able to passing a competence test? 36 times he said i don't know. >> it's not believable that he

didn't know. he didn't remember anything. the documents showed he was in the trump tower when the meeting was organized for don junior and he couldn't -- and we know he went on the air and announced he had a big speech with new revelations about hillary clinton and he couldn't remember whether or not anybody told him about that meeting. it's not believable. the 36 times don't appear to be true. don't forget it's not only in his noncooperation was he refusing to testify in front of the grand jury, but he would answer written questions on the russian side and refused to answer written questions on the obstruction side. knowing all this, the attorney general of the united states went on the air today and told us all he cooperated. the whole thing is shocking. i can tell you, this was the attorney general who was the ag

when i went into the justice department. i wanted him to succeed. i wanted to know he was going to be the attorney general again and to be an institutionalist and protect the justice department i so love. he did not. >> trump claimed all the memory lapses after he boasted about his great memory. here he goes. >> i have a very good memory. people know me for my memory. >> one of the great memories of all time. >> crooked hillary clinton told the fbi she couldn't remember 39 separate times. you know her memory is a little bit off. >> if she can't remember, she can't be president. i can't remember! >> 37 times in this report he said i can't remember. he's knocking hillary for 39. he's in competition at least. >> that's why he had to lie.

this was a very thorough investigation. 3,000 subpoenas and 500 search warrants and 500 witnesses interviewed with one tragic flaw. mother did not interview the president of the united states. if mueller sat him down for a one-on-one interview, he would have conclusive evidence of the president's criminal intent. what mueller said and the reason why he didn't do that is it would have prolonged the investigation. that's like mueller saying the trump defense lets in the investigation that is taking too long. this was way shorter than most other investigations of presidents, but it was the most consequential. the most important investigation of a president in american history. >> well said. coming up, william barr versus robert mueller. it's about the truth. the attorney general said he disagreed with theories on obstruction and how he revealed himself to be a partisan defender of the president and

not a defender of justice at all. what we are learn being the collusion investigation. donald trump's connections to wikileaks and what went on in the meeting in trump tower with the russians. much more ahead. stick with us. ch more ahead. stick with us. you're having one more bite no! one more bite! ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." attorney general william barr ensured he got the first chance to put his spin on the mueller report before it was released. in the press conference hours before it was released, he examined 10 episodes that could have amounted to obstruction of justice and added this. >> although the deputy attorney general and i disagreed with some of the special counsel's legal theories and felt that some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law, we did not rely solely on that in making our decision. >> we're call that flackery in washington. imagine that guy had stated he

disagreed with mueller's findings four weeks ago and explained the decision that day. we would be talking about how barr disagreed with the mueller report. he claimed mueller did not draw a conclusion and only quoted the special counsel as saying this report does not conclude he committed a crime and also does not exonerate him. he omitted the sentence that said if he had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. wow. as to drawing a conclusion, saying investigators agreed not to approach the judgment that the president committed crimes. laying out numerous links between the president's campaign and the russians, he parodied

the favorite rallying cry. >> the special counsel found no collusion by any americans in ira's illegal activities. there was no evidence of the trump campaign collusion with the russian government's hacking. did not find that the trump campaign or other americans colluded in those efforts. no underlying collusion with russia, there was in fact no collusion. >> ted deutsch frommed it florida. jeremy barb and michael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york times." i need you here now. it seems that barr did a great disservice for the country he had access to the report in full, every word and letter of it and did not present it accurately when he made that four pager on that sunday night four weeks ago. >> this is the root of the

frustration that the mueller team that we were reporting on. they felt that barr had sort of put his finger on the scale when he came out and said it cleared the president. they wanted a fuller accounting of what they found. they thought that the president's conduct was troubling and by barr coming out with his declinatiodeclination, casting the dye on how the public would see it and the public needed to see the entire report and was going to see the report. from barr's perspective he thought the president was due the ability to be clear and the public said he was not going to be charged because this hung over him in his white house for so long. that was the rub there. what we see today is a mueller team that obviously went to great lengths to look into obstruction. he got great cooperation from the people around the president who really told what the president was doing and saying behind closed doors, giving an

intimate view on a president intent to use his power and insulate and protect himself. it's a damning portrait, but it wasn't what i thought was illegal. >> you don't know. you think he thinks the president was innocent? you think william barr thinks he disagrees with the judgment made by the special couple and he disagrees or took a political position? where you stand is where you sit. he has a job working for the president, it looks like. >> i can't get inside of william barr's head, but i guess he believes what he said. he said what he said for now, i guess. >> fair enough. let me go to congressman deutsch. what do you make of this? you have a case because he is giving it to you. >> of course we do. he hasn't just given it to us,

he asked us to move ahead. chris, if it weren't for the actions of the attorney general almost a month ago and again this morning, the take away from today would be that we had a president who was terrified when this investigation started, went out of his way at least 10 times and tried to interfere with the investigation. when asked about it, he refused to talk to the mueller team, but when asked in writing, he couldn't remember over and over and over again. this is not the donald trump of twitter. this is the donald trump who looks like he's trying to avoid interi answering questions. mueller said congress has the authority to pursue obstruction charges and it's consistent with the constitutional system of checks and balances to ensure that no one is above the law. without the attorney general as you point out and describe it, flacking for the president for the past month.

the story today would be one of shock and outrage at what the president did over the course of this two-year period and the demand that congress now exerted influence so that it's clear that the rule of law has meaning in our country still. >> barr's letter, the attorney general's letter also suggested four weeks ago that trump lacked the intent to obstruct justice and said the evidence does not establish that the president was involved in any underlying crime related to russian interference. it goes on to say the evidence points to a range of other possible motive, personal motives and admitting the president's conduct. that describes why the case was complicated. proof of crime is not an element of the offense. the integrity of the justice system is regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong. there are a lot of things trump would not like to be found out.

his life is cutting corners, business deals and tax decisions. now he is going to be investigated. we know what he's hiding stuff. there are a lot of things he might be hiding. barr comes out and said no underlying crime for no obstruction potential here. the guy is flacking for him. >> he said at the beginning of volume two is that the office of legal counsel at the justice department prohibits charging a president. mueller said i can't even in good faith charge him with a crime, but here's the evidence. over to you, congress. >> the attorney general tried to argue that the president had non-corrupt motives in the 10 episodes you presented. here goes. >> the special counsel's report acknowledges there is substantial evidence to show that the president was

frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency. >> congressman, here's the question. the cover here, the flackery that i think you agree with, the flackery by the attorney general who got appointed by trump because he promised his belief by the president and unitary theory of power, the president was only operating in reaction to the bad faith effort of democrats and journalists to come at him. whatever he did was justified. >> yeah, well, again this is the attorney general completely mischaracterizing. he said it's because the president was frustrated. that's besides the point anyway. the mueller report makes clear if you look at the reaction by the president of the united states when he learned that this investigation had commenced, his response was, this is the end of my presidency. this is terrible.

and then proceeded to do everything he can to interfere with the carrying out of this investigation. let's be clear about this, chris. there is never a question of whether or not the mueller team was going to suggest charges or find the president guilty. they said as you point out that their only choice here was whether to exonerate, that is find the president not guilty, or being unable to find him not guilty. they chose the latter. they could not exonerate and there is chapter and verse in these 400 pages to explain why. a whole range of characters that need to come before the judiciary committee so we can understand, for example, why don mcgahn reacted by invoking the saturday night massacre when he was asked to take action. there was so much more there that has to come out and he

asked us. mueller asked congress to do its job. we have a responsibility to do that. >> i have seen a tease of your story about how mueller apparently thinks there might be a trial of the president based on these facts after he leaves office on obstruction. >> mueller essentially saying he can't because of the olc opinion and the justice department policy. he can't indict the president and take it into consideration, but when he was out of office, is there a case to be made against him? i think the biggest take away from the report today is just this picture of trump trying to obstruct justice, but failing. he was not very good at what he did. every time he tried to do something to get in the way, he was thwarted, often times by the people around him. it's a sort of interesting thing where he is trying to lean on

people and push them and he wasn't very good at it. he was not very skilled. if he had been more stealth and thoughtful about it, he could have done real damage to the investigation. he didn't seem to want to take the time and effort to do that. he took out his megaphone and was tweeting things and saying things publicly and dangling things. that is really interesting. the president may not be that good at obstructing justice. >> it sounds like donald trump. thank you very much. the top reporter in the country right now. ted deutsch, thank you for coming on. jeremy barb for coming on. what the report reveals with russians and trump's recollection of anything. 37 times. i can't remember. i don't have a recollection. blah blah blah. that's what mobsters say. isn't it? we'll be right back after this. y isn't it we'll be right back after this little things can be a big deal.

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welcome back to "hardball." the special counsel report laying out the breathtaking steps taken in the 2016 election. the special counsel describes it as sweeping and systematic or systemic. a point that the president denies. volume one said at great length of russian interference.

carried out a social media campaign and favored donald j. trump. they conducted computer intrusion against entities working on the clinton campaign. we know that. the special counsel identified numerous links between the russian government and the trump campaign. it acknowledges there is experience and not the concept of collusion they could not find tas et and expressed coordination. an expert at this thing, he hung on the word collusion like a life raft, barr did, to protect the president. the question we want to know is was the campaign playing ball with the russians? >> nowhere in the report did he say there was no collusion. he doesn't say that. he is going out on criminal conspiracy charges with a long series of puzzling interactions with trump and the people around him and russia. what we see in this report is a

flood of lies and misconduct. >> by trump. >> by trump and the people around him. the trump moscow project. trump lied about it. he was dealing with moscow throughout the campaign and a wonderful scene in the report where michael cohen goes up to him and said hey, boss, you are saying there is no contact with russia. it's not finalized yet. so i can lie about it. here's the president lying about a gigantic conflict of interest. the trump tower meeting is an effort at collusion and working together. there is a lot on that. again, mueller points out that trump keeps repeating throughout the campaign that russia is not attacking. >> michael flynn, papadopoulos, and michael cohen admitting to felonies for lying. why? >> they are all hiding the fact that they were either trying to echo the russian disinformation, deny it was happening or maybe

doing something worse. we know they lied about the trump tower meeting because they didn't want people to know they were trying to collude with russians. the other thing is roger stone. his name is redacted, but he's all over this volume. why? trump was in contact with roger stone. you can read through the redactions pretty easily while he was in contact with wikileaks. that's what trump is worried about. >> roger stone got the heads up and he was getting it from wikileaks. trump was talking about it and that's why he got the information. in his written response, trump said i just got that from the air. he got it from roger stone. >> i look at trump as a mob boss. roger stone who is telling him i'm in touch with wikileaks. that's like being in touch with the russian attack on the united states. so that's what trump has been worried about. no collusion. that means i don't know roger

stone. roger stone lied. he is covering up something or allegedly lied. he is charged with lying and trump doesn't want to acknowledge. >> that's why we have those charges. thank you very much. joaquin castro is a democrat from texas and a member of the house intelligence committee. you sat through it like we all have. what's going to happen in congress especially on obstruction? >> well, a few things. we have to get special counsel bob mulener there to testify. a question he will be asked and i expect he will be asked is based upon your findings, if you were a member of congress, would you move forward with impeachment proceedings. he should be able to answer that. it's a question that every member of congress will answer for themselves. the judiciary committee first. it's clear today that the attorney general barr has been doing a real public relations campaign for the president for a

few weeks now and really trying to soften the blow, so to speak. now that we have the final report, we know that it's much worse than what the attorney general has been making it out to be. >> certainly well said. rick gates, congressman told the special counsel by the late summer of 2016, the trump campaign was planning a communications campaign and messaging on clinton e-mails by wikileaks. on july 27th of 2016, five days after the initial e-mail dump, trump called on russia to do more. let's watch. >> russia, if you are listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> according to this special counsel, robert mueller said the russians heeded his call. within hours to the russians, russian intelligence targeted for the first time clinton's personal office. congressman, it seems to me, i

don't know about the laws and conspiracy, but it looks like they i playing ball with each other to get hillary. >> that's right and this point can't be overstated. you have a presidential candidate running for president of the united states, basically asking a foreign country to hack into an opponent's e-mail server and find e-mails. the bad thing for our democracy and our country is if that is not punished or recognized as wrong, whoever is running in 2020 or 2024 can go out and say iran or china or whoever, i wish you would find the e-mails on this person's server. wouldn't that be great? they can come back and say i was just joking. i didn't really mean that. they would be off the hook. just because donald trump said something publicly and later claimed it was a joke should not let him off the hook for that. as the report makes clear,

within hours, five hours after he said that, for the first time, the russians went after hillary clinton's e-mails. >> how smart the russians are. they know about the coal miners and the green revolution. they know about that and they know about anger in the black community about black lives. that's legitimate. they have legitimate grievances in our culture and they played on them. it's frightening. >> very sophisticated. >> yeah. >> very sophisticated. to give you an example, in houston, texas, they set up a pro and anti-confederate rally at street corners across the street from each other. that's how sophisticated they were. >> they are working our nervous system. joaquin castro of texas. the hand picked attorney general and the subjugations. the will of this president. don't you think he is useful?

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. welcome back to "hardball." president trump and his team have been trumpeting the results of the mueller report claiming their version of total exoneration even though the report states it doesn't. the words are we cannot exonerate the president on obstruction of justice. he was helped by the press conference where barr not only stressed there was no collusion, but referred to the russian interference in the 2016 election as an effort or attempt. the russians intervened in a sweeping fashion in the 2016 election. he denied that, too. here's barr. >> the russian attempts to interfere in our 2016 presidential election -- russia's efforts to interfere. the efforts to interfere in the election.

two main efforts by the russian government to influence the 2016 election. efforts by the internet research agency. efforts by the russian efforts to publish stolen e-mails and documents. these dissemination efforts. the russian government responseored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election. >> the report clearly states that the russian government interfered, didn't try to, but interfered with the presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. it couldn't be more clear. i am joined by the correspondent for the news hour and columnist with "the washington post." editor in chief. i don't know who is smiling the most. what a flack. what spin. >> read the russia part of the report. russia didn't interfere, they were triumphs. they reached mi eed millions an

millions of people. >> barr just wanted to reach one guy. trump. >> this is a 400 page referral to congress. that's what it is. now the ball is in the congress's court. they have a job to do here. >> let me do a follow-up. it's almost may. they will hear from barr and hepfully from mueller in may. that means june is the month to decide. do you think they will move ahead with impeachment? >> i don't know if they will or not. they already said no. >> he and pelosi. >> pelosi is going to be pushed in various directions. she hasn't wanted to talk about it until now. are the this report. this is devastating. congress has a responsibility here. they are either going to do their job or not. it's clear what their job is. >> one of the key things that came out of attorney general barr's press conference or

remarks, the reporters did not have the report to ask real questions. what you have is him with no mention of robert mueller leaving this up to congress and we got the report and it was the opposi opposite. several places in the report said congress has the authority to look over the president's behavior and protect the integrity of the united states. you goet to this point where th president wanted tob instruct justice, but the people around him couldn't do it. lieu in do you ski never gets it done and don mcgahn told to lie and telling him to fire the special counsel and he packs up and said i'm going to resign. reince priebus, the chief of staff to the president said that's crazy. just forget about it. you have the idea that people are around the president shielding him. it wasn't the a team or the b team, but they helped him not get indicted for obstruction of

justi justice. >> was it resistant or incompetence? >> sounded like resistance. >> good for them. let's give them credit for that. >> multiple instances where they lied or misled the press. sarah sajders told the press the white house had heard from countless agent who is lost and acknowledged to investigators that were comments were not founded on anything. i don't know where to begin. the flackery begin with her and ends with barr. what do you think? will congress step up to the plate here? >> there is two things. there is two separate issues. number one is the political calculation that the democrats have to make. the public does not want impeachment and i don't think the democratic leadership wants impeachment. this is an open invitation.

it is close to an explicit invitation to congress to exercise this constitutional responsibilities. there is something fundamental here. as robert mueller lays out, if you cannot indict the president of the united states, unless congress takes the responsibility of oversight seriously, the president is literally above the law. there is something fundamental. the democrats don't want to do it politically, but this is their job. robert mueller lays this out and this is the way the system is supposed to work. if this was about anyone else. you, chris, or me or eugene robinson, we would be indicted for obstruction of justice. this is an overwhelming kals. robert mueller did don't expect the justice system to deal with it, but it's up to the public and congress to do something, whether or not it's impeachment or oversight or censure, they

have to follow-up on this and they have to take their constitutional obligation seriously. >> one other thing. the political calculation. if congress doesn't move forward, donald trump is going to move forward. he's going to be pushing the counter narrative that that was something wrong about how the investigation started. that was completely debunked. facts don't matter and he's going to push and push for new special counsel to investigate the investigation. he's not going to stand still. >> a bigger question. i didn't hate nixon. most people did. there was something in this guy that was just sad. if he got away with watergate, who knows what would have come next. he got away with a lot of stuff. if trump walks because they can't indict or accuse because that's unfair according to mueller and they can't act in congress because of political

calculations, he walks and he's dangerous because he knows nothing can stop him. >> we have been saying the president was feeling like he was teflon and nothing could stop him. we will learn whether or not the 2020 election stops him. nancy pelosi as a tough decision to make. voters are talking about health care and the democrats are trying to put forth a platform and a lot of people saying can the president get away with all of this stuff? she is going to have to figure out how hard to fight. now that the american people know what russia did and the president did, will he be reelected for another term? >> he is headed to mar a lago. the applause of the peanut gallery and the paid members cheering him at dinner. he will be walking around table to table taking bows because he walks. >> there is a rule in politics that simple beats complex.

he and bill barr are saying no collusion, no collusion. you have the robert mueller 450 page report. what percentage of americans are going read that report and go through all of that. he is counting on the slogan and in his peanut gallery to push the narrative. eugene is right about this. one reason they need to push forward is otherwise the initiative does shift to donald trump. he is not going let this go. faxes and truth matters and accountability needs to matter as well. >> to florida today, the president claimed i had the right to end the whole witch hunt if i wanted. i could have fired everyone, including mueller if i wanted. i chose not to. i had the right to use executive privilege and i didn't. mueller's team took a different view, wrying we were not persuaded by the argument that the president's blanket constitutional immunity that engages in acts that obstructed

justice. the constitution is swaying right now. >> it is. is the president above the law? he can't be. that's not the way the system is designed. the president is not supposed to be above the law. nobody is supposed to be. the mueller report said that he hasn't be charged in the criminal courts. it's up to congress. they have to hold him accountable. if that's what they have done, they counted on somebody appointed in the executive wran branch to give them their case. >> it's hard to know. i think that now the democrats have this report and they are going to drag robert mueller down to congress and we are going hear from him. they understand now that the ball is in their court. they had to wait for the mueller report after the hundreds of interviews and what he was going find. now the question is whether or not they let bill barr and

donald trump have and keep that narrative with them looking at 2020 as where they can have their results or whether or not they will fight the president. >> on the chain of custody, it went through the white house. last week the attorney general told congress multiple times he wouldn't discuss the report until it was released. let's watch. >> i'm not going to say anything more about it until the report is out and everywhere has a chance to look at it. once the report is out, i'm happy to discuss the process. i'm not going to discuss it further until after the report is out. i'm not going to discuss my decision. i will lay it out after the report is out. i'm not going to discuss this further until after the report is out. >> charlie, that is not only disgustingly misleading, he is having organized meetings with the white house and they have been sharing information. they got a heads up and a get together on how this was going to be put out. >> yeah, this administration has

been a bonfire of reputations, but it's shocking that somebody of william barr's stature is turning himself into a flack and having that bizarre press conference where he basically tries to justify what the president did because he was sincerely angry and his spin didn't survive the most cursory look at the vchginvestigation. if there was any doubt in your mind that he was not an honest broker here, that certainly -- that notion did not survive this morning. >> bill clinton got in trouble with meeting with the former attorney general at the airport. he is impulsive and i don't think he planned it at all. this was planned. >> what was mind-boggling, i was texting giuliani with the remarks and at one point today, the president knew what was in the report and his personal

lawyers knew. white house aides knew and congress was in the dark. that tells you about how he rolled this out. >> he finally gave it to jerry nadler about noon. thank you, gene robinson. up next, as the focus shifts to congress, the american people are waiting for a judgment from them. i think. don't you? we'll be right back? don't you? we'll be right back? . cooper! did you eat all of your treats? ♪ help! i need somebody ♪ help! not just anybody

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law and order is one of the most popular shows in the history of television. its popularity is in his clarity and crackle. how the police catch the bad guy and the second is the courtroom drama. you get the investigation of a crime and then you get a verdict. right now the american people are in what we used to call the commercial in law and order. between the investigation of donald trump by the special couple and the judgment of donald trump by the only court that can render in. the united states congress. i believe it would be a mistake by the democrats who control the u.s. house of representatives who fought so hard to win it and with it the subpoena power to fail to render this judgment. if they decide to kill this necessary and expected second part of our justice system, the weighing of the truth, they will have abdicated the constitution that is their exclusive domain

and their unique responsibility. i doubt history will see it as anything better. that's "hardball" for now. all in with chris hayes starts now. >> tonight on all in -- prar. >> the special counsel made clear he did not exonerate the president and the responsibility call fos congress. >> the redact the mueller report is finally released to the public. >> the report outlines multiple attempts to mislead the country. >> russia, if you are listening -- >> he asked subordinates to lie. >> he made efforts to get his own staff to lie about the investigation. >> thanks to his new attorney general. >> no collusion. >> a president who may be getting a with it. >> this should never