who has the authority, the sec or -- the fcc or doj? avid: approval of both agencies is needed as well as state attorneys general. it is very common to have the justice department and fcc approve a deal. they both have different standards when considering approval. the doj is focused on competition. will emerge early to higher prices for consumers. the fcc has a much higher standard, the public interest standard. on thely, they come out same side of a deal. they work very closely together. here, it looks like doj is leaning against the deal. the fcc chairman today announced that he intends to recommend approval. emily: obviously, this has been a long time coming. there have been many twists and turns. both companies have suggested concessions they can make. it sounds like the doj doesn't think there has been enough. what is your perspective on whether this is good or bad? time: i spent a lot of with the doj and also with the chairman and commissioners. the doj is concerned about the anticompetitive nature of this merger. one thing they

now it has to convince the doj.ells fargo joins us next. .his is bloomberg ♪ guy: from london, i'm guy johnson. vonnie: i'm vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg markets. the justice department is said to be leaning against the proposed takeover of sprint even after the company's got the thumbs up the fcc chairman. bring in wells fargo analyst jennifer fritzsche now. you say this will likely go ahead anyway. what do the companies have to do in order to additionally satisfy the doj? are there assets that can be sold off? i think the biggest issue with the doj certainly is the consumer. even if they were to do more concessions than they have includesffered which fixed pricing and coverage in rural america they have done a lot here. it ultimately comes down to convincing the doj that for the wireless consumer this would be a good thing. i think price-fixing goes a long way to that. i think that's the case that they need to convince them of. vonnie: how long more will it take for the doj to get convinced and will that in turn

if the doj comes on board, will they play a role?re are certain people who should buy it and certain people who shouldn't. so i am interested to see the details, because at this stage, they are very light. emily: meantime, the fcc would still need to vote on the deal. even though the chair has said he would endorse it. we spoke to a commissioner earlier on bloomberg television, take a listen to what he had to say. >> part of our review at the fcc has been looking at the competition issues. when you look great now at combined sprint and t-mobile, they would have the same size and scale as verizon and at&t in terms of customers for the first time. when you have a third competitor on that scale, what our records showed is that there would be big benefits for consumers in terms of the new competition you are going to see. emily: sounds like he is in favor. and any indication about how the rest of the sec feels, despite the potential pushback from the doj? >> no, i think you would expect that the fcc is controlled by ajit pai. there are t

highest hurdle was the fcc now we have the doj and the attorney general's. what will the doj want? thehe basis decision at the doj is different than the fcc. the fcc is taking a more subjective public interest test. they decided this is in the public interest. ofre is a structuralist view will this hurt or help consumers and the usual test for that is will you raise prices? they tend to take a formula stick few of near term competition and particularly price competition. >> it is unusual for the fcc and doj to agree on something. and ais something strange little first timer rish. >> it is different than the process we have seen in the past. historically we have seen the doj come first. say going leadership in transaction. in this case it is different. the fcc of some changes in the deal structure, selling off prepaid boost brand as a way to a million rate over the weekend. -- the ojconcession needs time to review that so that will take a few days. they are a very different mandate. it is conceivable the doj could find this is not good for competition even though the fcc found it to

on to the doj.i shared in the last hour a source familiar with the doj process process tells me the following, the department of justice has a different statutory mandate and these conditions may not necessarily solve any antitrust concerns of the deal doesn't mean they won't, doesn't mean they won't. i am hard pressed to find a time when we have seen the fcc and the doj differ so significantly that they view a deal differently of this size and magnitude, but they do at least hold out the prospect that, hey, listen, the doj is operating with a different mandate, and, again, doesn't necessarily mean that the fcc's role has solved any antitrust concerns held by doj. we'll have to wait sprint stock did come off once we reported that, about 4%, 5% from the times >> wonder if there is any holistic take from the administration going after huawei, facing criticism now that this could slow down the building out of infrastructure of 5g in this country. go ahead on this merger, right, would be about some of t

but they are very different mandates at the fcc and doj, so it is conceivable the doj could find thisgood for competition, even though the fcc found it generally in the public interest. vonnie: are there odds you can place on this? craig: they probably went up a little yesterday, but not nearly as much as the stock might suggest. the fcc was never the biggest hurdle. everybody knew the fcc was ultimately going to bless this. the real question now is not just the doj, but what do the state's attorney generals do? this is becoming an incredibly politicized, partisan process, just like every thing else in our country right now. the fact the fcc decision will almost certainly be 3-2 along party lines, three republicans against two democrats, polarizes this, makes it even more partisan, and makes it more likely the blue state attorney generals will say, if the republicans won't protect consumers, we will. the press release almost writes itself. vonnie: obviously the blue state attorney general's would be trying to work in the public interest and have that in their favor. but if we go down

they left doj with no choice in this matter. they left doj with the choice of complying with democratic

when you say i think they will approve the deal, that's the doj? >> doj will give this a green light. their only remedy, is to sue to block. liz: when you hear this report they are leaning against it, is that sort of -- let's just protest a little bit, then we will back away? >> well, a lot of people are in the antitrust division. there will be career staffers and the principals. liz: which side hates this? >> the staffers. career staffers. some of them are not that much in favor of the deal. i think they will come along. >> you have buy-in from the policy guys, correct? larry kudlow? >> absolutely. he has said publicly, larry kudlow, that he's in favor of this. he gets the frontloading of capx to accelerate america's 5g buildout so we win the global race to 5g which has huge implications for the next generation, the next 20 years of our economic viability in this country. >> would ajit have approved the deal if he thought makem was dead set against it? >> i don't want to speak for him. i want to make sure he stays my friend. i would bet on ajit to

everybody today is running with he couldn't charge because of the doj policy. he didn't seem like that was his justification but i think that's a wash. i do think it was muddying the waters once again on this issue of did he obstruct justice. >> i still think this goes back to democratic talking points. their impeachment to their base is like the wall is to our base. the truth is, this is a made up false problem and crisis but our wall is a real crisis. but this is about them raising money. >> it's a booming economy. they have to dangled that little prospect of impeachment out really. i'm thinking as a democrat. you kind of have people thinking, and pelosi talked to her about being disappointed with the doj. let's watch. >> i am greatly disappointed in the justice department. that was the misrepresentation of the mueller report to begin with, they are hiding behind something that you could never find in the constitution. >> i'm going to sit here beating this drum. this actually empowers our campaign. it actually strengthens the campaign. people don't believe th

mueller didn't make clear whether in the absence of the doj memo whether he would invite.ocrats say that was the only thing stopping him from moving forward with an instruction of justice recommendation but that was all he said, the threshold issue is the doj ruling that a president can't be indicted and not even reaching the underlying issue with the president in the absence of the doj ruling would be indicted. that left everybody saying what were you here to do? you are an executive branch employee, you were not positioned or created to create and impeachment roadmap but to uncover criminal activity that was prosecutable. if he knew from the beginning he couldn't prosecute this than what was the job and why did we spent tens of millions of dollars pursuing it? shannon: several recent polls in the last few weeks say enough, the american people are ready to move on, they trust mueller did his job and are fine with the conclusion and ready to move on to legislating and doing other things. do democrats proceed down this, we're going to keep investigating and impeach at their

atta boy >>> the house judiciary committee and the doj, doj officials will meet tomorrow to try to reachd mueller report, barr missed the monday deadline to hand over the report, democrats are set to vote on holding barr in contempt of congress. ted lieu is here, sits on the house judiciary committee, let's get answers from him so see what their next moves are. congressman, good evening. >> good evening, don. >> is there any hope your committee and doj officials can reach a deal on getting the full unredacted mueller report tomorrow? >> thanks for your question. let me first say that the trump administration is hiding information from american people and stonewalling congress at every turn. if they're going to bring a flame thrower to a knife nigfig we have to fight fire with fire. one of them is contempt. i hope we don't have to use it this wednesday, but we will if we must. if attorney general bill barr doesn't provide the unredacted mueller report we're holding him in on tem in contempt on wednesday. >> that's absolutely correct. >> what do you do? is it symbolic, will it make a diffe

go back to doj.they go back to doj, the people they are in touch with, that are not low-level, but they're not the highest level, say no. and secretary of commerce speaks to the head of the doj, and the head of the doj says, we will give you anything you need. they do a letter, the letter says the acs is not enough. what the letter doesn't say is, if you supplemented with administrative records, which 60 let you do and tells you you should do to maximize the extent possible, that the actual count is accurate, and we do know that there will be less people being reported which is the whole purpose of the survey. how many people there are, and nobody doubts that there will be less people reported, the maximum need of the census survey report, not citizenship. let's not confuse the two things. the enumeration is how many people reside here. not how many are citizens. that's what the census survey is supposed to figure out. doj needs citizenship. but when the bureau asks doj, not the secretary, to meet so

he is no longer a doj special kbp or special counsel. he is gone. today was his last day.yem, the assistant secretary of the department of homeland security under president obama and david gergen who advised four presidents, including two who were in a situation similar to this, nixon and clinton. let me start with you, john dean. is it mueller's call to decide whether or not he testifies? he is saying i justant won't do it, not going to do it, guys. >> it is not his choice. it's congress's choice. if he is asked he will probably do it voluntarily. but if he don't want to do it voluntarily. they can subpoena him and force the issues. subpoena it is an awkward way to do it. but his testimony is also hearsay. you could also get a lot of what he could say from other witnesses where he could shine a bigger light in sort of an overview. >> i mean, david, here is the question. you heard congressman connolly, right he said he is coming i don't care whether he wants to be here or not he is coming. nancy pelosi said she wants him to come. however gerry nadler had originally threate

he defends basically, this comes from two doj sources i talked to today. he defends the origins of the russia investigation by pointing out that every american should be concerned about -- we've spent the first 22 minutes of this show talking about the obstruction volume but there's something in here i know a lot of former law enforcement types have seized on, and that is mueller, as john and others have said, makes it clear that the origins of the investigation were to probe russia's attack, which mike hayden called a 9/11 style political attack on our democracy, he goes out of his way to defend the origins and integrity of the russia probe. >> indeed. the statement i'm now recalling is -- it has to do with the team work-product. he says he's resigning today and the decisions about what of our team work-product are being released are handled outside the team. he's talking about doj and barr. so now barr is the one calling the shots. what gets released as a result of investigative interviews, reports, surveillances all out of the work product of the team.

of the doj reviews to investigate the mueller investigators.e a look. >> first step is find out what happened. i have been trying to get answers to questions. i found that a lot of the answers have been inadequate. i have also found that some of the explanations i have gotten don't hang together. in a sense, i have more questions today than i did when i first start. we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale. so i'm not saying it happened. but i'm saying that we have to look at that. >> barr is echoing trump there questioning if the fbi has its thumb on the scale. it was trump's own appointee who oversaw him and vouched for the probe. what barr knows as a veteran prosecutor is they don't make the call about surveillance anyway. prosecutors don't decide whether or not to issue a warrant. judges do. independent judges ok'd all the surveillance you hear barr talking about now. if defendants want to challenge that they have a venue in court. it won't be in a private review overseen by

he worked off site from the doj and all the rest.the end, is your view that bob mueller could not necessarily match the communication skills and challenges of this particular environment with all of the tremendous legal skills and unquestioned integrity he had during the investigation? because the sum result of what you're saying is that barr at a practical level was effective in part of what you described as duplicity. >> i think mueller and his team were -- acted appropriately but a little naive. i wish the special counsel would have made the statement today on the day that he transmitted his report to the attorney general. now in his defense, you shouldn't expect the attorney general to act in bad faith in the way that bill barr did. i suspect they neefr expected him to act that way. i don't really blame them for what they did. but it would have been the better course of action to control this story from the get go to make sure that no one else can take ownership of it. >> the constraint on mueller though is he abides by the law.

when did the doj and the fbi, if you know, when did the doj and the fbi know that the democratic party paid for christopher steele's dossier, which thefisa? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> are you investigating to determine that? >> yes. >> lastly, did the department of justice, fbi and other federal agencies engage in investigative activities before an official investigation was launched in july of 2016? >> i don't know the answer to that but that's one of the -- >> you're also investigating that? >> yes. >> thank you very much, attorney general. >> senator cruz? >> thank you mr. chairman. general barr, thank you for your testimony. and let me start by just saying thank you you've had an extraordinarily successful legal career. you didn't have to take this job. you stepped forward and answered the call yet again, knowing full well that you would be subject to the kind of slanderous treatment, the kavanaugh treatment that we have seen of senators impugning your integrity. and i, for one, am grateful that you answered that call and are leading the department of justice both with

the doj have taken steps to accommodate the request.e will see what comes up today's meeting, senator john kennedy is blasting both sides. >> i think it is juvenile, you can only be young once but you can always be immature. both sides in this are doubling down on stupid. both sides need to sit down and negotiate what the administration can provide and what the house actually needs. >> the house judiciary committee at the center of another massive fight, getting robert mueller to testify himself, donald trump reversed course of the weekend saying mueller should not testify but republicans say they want a chance to question it in public and in private. that wasn't enough. this was the deadline for don mcgann to provide documents the committee-related to jeff sessions's firing, michael flynn, the now famous trump tower meeting. mcgann has been subpoenaed to testify later this month. coming back and now to the judiciary committee. if they end of voting to hold bar in contempt that would go to the full house for a vote. daymac clear this up

they left doj with no choice in this matter. they left doj with the choice of complying with democratic leaders unreasonable demands or complying with the law. the attorney general elected to follow the law. i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. for what purpose is the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> to speak out of order for five minutes. strike the last word. >> the last word is duly struck. the gentleman is recognized. >> mr. chairman, i want to remind every one why we are here. we are here because a report chronicled an attack on america. we were attacked -- >> good day. i'm andrea mitchell where president trump is asserting executive privilege refusing to turn over the unredacted report to congress as the house judiciary committee is preparing to vote along party lines for the full house to hold the attorney general in contempt. they are still debating that. this has been going on for two hours with each side in their corners. this as a new bombshell report reveals mr. trump lost more than a billion dolla

it is also important to point out as of tuesday when this agreement was reached the doj said not onen and said they would be willing to see the unredacted mueller report, this is kabuki theater, and continue to perpetuate this narrative. the doj is releasing what documents they can under law but this is not going to change the bottom line the trump has been fully vindicated and there's no collusion, no obstruction of justice, that's not going to change regardless of the democrats narrative. rob: do you know what these underlying documents are? millions of pages of documents from this 2-year investigation? >> typically i haven't reviewed the documents myself but in an investigation you have a lot of documents that are production of attorney work product. when i was a defense attorney you had pages of witness testimony and a lot of different things that you uncovered that ultimately go to the conclusion mueller reached that there is no evidence whatsoever here. the documents aren't going to be helpful for the democrats narrative. they are trying to shape the narrative that there is som

that is number one, a structural remedy that someone from the doj would like. his preference for structural remedies over behavioral remedies. there are also pricing commitments. three years of the best deal and it won't cost you more for 5g as it rolls out. that will allay concerns not only of the department of justice but also the states. public service commission has already approved this. they are looking at this as well. ajit has done a masterful job i think of finding a number of conditions agreeable to the parties as well as the states and department of justice. i think we have the perfect -- argue that even without these conditions, that the merger would be good for competition? >> absolutely. 5g will have up to 100 times more capacity and speed. we are at the dawn of that era. we need to frontload our capex in the global race to 5g. this merger cleans up a week balance sheet by combining assets like cell towers and things of that nature, then $40wing it to borrow about billion, give or take, to spend more quickly. we will get to a 5g future faster. joe

when did the doj and the fbi, if you know, when did the doj and the fbi know that the democratic party paid for christopher steele's dossier, which then served as the foundation for the carter page fisa to that. >> are you investigating to determine that? >> yes. >> and then lastly, did the department of justice and the fbi and other federal agencies engage in investigative activities before an official investigation was launched in july of 2016? >> i don't know the answer to that. but that is one of the -- >> you're also investigating that? >> yes. >> thank you very much, attorney general. >> senator cruz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general barr, thank you for your testimony. and let me start by just saying thank you. you've had an extraordinarily successful legal career and you didn't have to take this job and you step forwarded and answered the call yet again knowing full well you would be subject to the kind of slanderous treatment the kavanaugh treatment that we have seen of senators impugning your integrity. and i, for one, am grateful that you answered that call and are leading

doj policy does not allow him to discuss territory information against an uncharged person.democrats want is for him to painstakingly go through all the information he had that led to obstruction or that they think leads to obstruction. the department doesn't speak in press conferences and reports, they use indictment so either indict or shut up. democrats in dc media never met a subpoena the first 6 years in congress they can embrace. the obama administration routinely ignored requests for information so that can't be in impeachable offense so you need to be very careful when you use or how you authorize the use of what is tantamount to the political death penalty. they are not going to succeed, the jury is not going to go along. it is about fundraising and placating your base. >> robert mueller could testify before the house as early as next wednesday. >> donald trump pardons and army lieutenant convicted of murdering a suspected terrorists in iraq. he says he shot and killed in al qaeda prisoner in self-defense in 2008. prosecutors argue he opened fire in retaliation beca

the doj might also ask them to offload spectrum.good go -- that would go some way to preserving a fourth carrier. vonnie: is there any other company that might be a will to put their hand up and come into this space? nabila: there are the cable operators out there. i'm sure they would love more spectrum. you have comcast charter, those guys would be somebody, an obvious candidate to take some spectrum if that were to be offloaded. there are also private equity as well. a lot of infrastructure players getting into the market. spectrum is the hot thing with the 5g network. that is what everybody wants. vonnie: when might we see a resolution? nabila: that is the $26 billion question on everybody's lips. the deal is not due to close until the end of july but the companies are right down to the wire, they are hoping to get this. the at -- the sec agreed to the isger and it is the doj that the hold out and they are doing everything they can to try to get this over the line. there are hoping for resolution sometime this month. vonnie: than

doj needs citizenship. but when the bureau asked doj -- not the secretary -- to meet so they can discuss why the administrative records are not good enough, they say we don't need you. so tell me in that sequence how does the secretary know the answer to that question? >> sure. sure, so a couple of responses to that, your honor. i'm going to start with the 6c issue because i know that was of interest to justice breyer as well. and under 6c under my if friends on the other side's position, you actually couldn't even ask the citizenship question on the american community survey. and you also couldn't ask about sex and age on the census itself since all of that information is also available in administrative records. but the reason why administrative records are insufficient under 6c for any of these purposes is for the simple reason that you don't have them for 35 million people. in terms of the department of justice's request and the census bureau eastern proposal, it simply wasn't responsive to the departme

but doj joins the states in any case. that's where this thing gets really nasty.s this. we do know that the doj antitrust has spoken with ags in at least two major states that could bring a case, new york and california. here's the rub. we don't know what they said. i have no information on exactly what's going on. i do know that there's been outreach between the antitrust division of the u.s. department of justice and the state ags in those two states, and here's what's interesting about this. again, the markets are interpreting this story, because you can see the stock took another leg down when i tweeted this out, they are interpreting this as, you know, they are joining a case, that the doj antitrust is going to join a case. look, it's still going down. is going to join a case with new york and california. just so you know, i don't have that information. this could simply be makam delrahim from the u.s. department of justice going to those state ags saying look at the terms that t-mobile and sprint have agreed to, look at what ajit pai agreed to approve, the v

that is just very bad for doj. guest: we are moving into increasingly perilous constitutional grounds. the president said this week he withnot want to comply any subpoena from congress relating to these matters. there are a lot of reasons why subpoenas may be blocked individually. a presidential presidential discussion and determination that no subpoenas will be responded to from the congress on this creates a clear constitutional crisis and the supreme court going back to the earliest days that congress has the right to investigate executives, there is oversight, investigative authority, they can issue subpoenas and have them responded to responsibly. 1974, of the in articles impeachment that were voted in the house of representatives against richard nixon was his refusal to turn over documents requested by congress. a number of subpoenas. if william barr supports the president in refusing to turn over any information to the congress relating to these matters, he may find himself on the line for impeachment becaus

he didn't make clear whether in the absence of the doj memo whether he actually would indict.re are a lot of democrats who said that's the only thing stopping him moving forward from an obstruction of justice recommendation -- he said there's a threshold issue here, the threshold issue is the doj ruling the president can't be indicted and therefore i'm not going to reach to the actual underlying issue whether the president in the absence of the ruling would be indicted. that has left everybody looking around going what are you here to do? you are an executive branch employee, congress has its own powers. you are not positioned or created, your job was not created to create an impeachment road map, it was presumably to uncover criminal activity that was prosecutable. if he knew from the beginning he couldn't prosecute this, what is your job and why did we spend tens of millions of dollars pursuing at? >> shannon: several recent polls of the last few weeks saying enough already, the american people are ready to move on, they trust that mueller did his job. they are fine with the

why is he still there under doj and how can you get him before your committee if the doj blocks it? >> so, the trump administration has made some arguments that senior advisers to the president should not have to testify before congress. there is no legal defense for the department of justice to hold robert mueller from testifying. not only is he not a senior adviser of donald trump, he was the guy investigating donald trump, and so case precedent and what we've seen in our history is that in watergate, the special prosecutor leon jaworski, testified before congress. during the clinton administration, ken starr testified before congress. there is really no legal reason to keep robert mueller from testifying before congress. >> ultimately then is that something you would also have to pursue in the courts? >> potentially if it resorts to us having to issue a subpoena. it's not clear to me -- you have a good question why robert mueller is still an employee of the department of justice. at some point i believe he's not going to be an employee. >> right. >> because he finished his report

obviously the doj antitrust staff is worried, you're going from four wireless carriers to three. t-mobile say we can still provide decent pricing and guess what, we need to be strong to get 5g so the chinese don't get it. we need one major strong company. and you may get three anyway, right? because sprint may go out of business. right now, we know they are meeting, we understand, almost daily with the staff, company officials are meeting almost daily with doj staff. i will say this. i'm not saying the deal is going to get approved. i can't say that. i think if you are inside the company, they are thinking this, okay. it's a great sign that they're not saying no right now. that the conversations are still going. that they're constructive conversations. that they're working through issues, okay. that they probably will have to deal with some sort of -- they're going to have to make some concessions. they're going to have to divest from things, maybe sign an agreement not to raise prices which they have already said for awhile on wireless customers. they will have to agree to certa

the devil is in the details and the doj does not like to have to enforce promises.et's talk about enforcing promises. we saw this in the at&t case. he went after something a lot of antitrust authorities thought was not a good case. reportedly, he does not like the behavioral promises. jennifer: and that was one of his biggest issues with at&t. there was a determination there was a potential for harm, and in the past that kind of deal where the integration was vertical, behavioral conditions had been used to remedy that harm. because he does not believe that make sense, that the doj is not regulator and they cannot be policing conduct post-merger, he wound up suing them. one of the points made by the department of justice is one of the things that distinguish that deal on the nbc comcast deal was the fact that the sec was involved in they could rely on the fcc to police the conduct going forward. you have that situation with sprint and t-mobile. they can rely on these behavioral promises and leave those for the fcc and rely on the fcc. david: is that a good thing or

who basically tell the rest of the doj what the law is.you're not sure what the law is, get an opinion from the office of legal counsel. so in october of 2000, the office of legal counsel issued an opinion saying the president ought not, ought not, not may not, ought not be charged with a crime while he's a sitting president because of disruption to the constitutional order. he's going to be more concerned with defending himself than defending the nation. yet the doj violated that opinion just 45 days later when it charged bill clinton with obstruction of justice and lying under oath and a month after that, president clinton pleaded guilty to one count of perjury. neil: judge, did i miss something when mueller was going about this process, heads up that look, when all is said and done, i can't really indict or go after or even infer guilt on the part of the president of the united states, so you should be prepared for that? >> i think he did infer guilt on the part of the president of the united states. i think he made it clear this mornin

what he reminded everyone, he is part of the doj that says you can't.ption wasn't charge or don't charge. it was clear or are don't clear the president. and he made a decision to not clear the president based on the evidence he gathered. he made clear that the procedur procedures in the doj won't be enough to establish accountability, but procedures do exist for a sitting president to be held accountable. and if the justice department can't charge a sitting president with an actual crime, then it goes over to congress to decide whether on charge the president with a high crime. this is as close to impeachment referral as you could get under the circumstances. >> is this a message to jerry nadler like this is your job? >> i think it is a message to america. and it covered several things. first the fact that our democracy was the subject of a concerted attack by hostile foreign power. second a reminder that this was a very serious matter that led to guilty pleas and criminal charges. and third, that the next move is up to congress. and if we're ever going

when did the doj and fbi, if you know, when did the doj and fbi know that the democratic party paid for christopher steele's dossier, which then served as the foundation for the carter page fisa application? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> are you investigating to determine that? >> yes. >> and then lastly, did the department of justice, the fbi and other federal agencies engage in investigative activities before an official investigation was launched in july 2016? >> i don't know the answer to that but that's one of the -- >> you're all investigating that? >> yes. >> all right. thank you very much, attorney general. >> senator cruz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general barr, thank you for your testimony. let me start by just saying thank you. you've had an extraordinary successful legal career. you didn't have to take this job. and you stepped forward and answered the call yet again knowing full well that you would be subject to the kind of slanderous treatment, the kavanaugh treatment, that we have seen, of senators impugning your integrity. and i for one am grateful that you an

you have probably been the fiercest critic of the doj in the last two years. do you worry for the country that the country is losing faith in institutions like that? >> mark: well, i do. i think we have to restore that. i think part of this in restoring this is a critical com ponent of what we have to do. make sure we get to the bottom of it, and that we hold people accountable. and i'm certainly -- >> robert: well the fbi does have an inspector general investigation. >> mark: and inspector general horowitz has been, and is continuing to do his review of what went on, whether it was proper or not. >> robert: will you suggest whatever the ieg concluded. >> mark: i accepted the last ig 's reports, and michael horowitz calls balls and strikes and the ig comes under our committee and so as we look at that, the key component of that is not only what he finds, but i think ag barr is going a little bit further than that to make sure that areas outside of what the ig is looking at, they're looked at as well. because the ig is only look at the doj-fbi. >> robert: was t

but that doesn't mean obviously the president repeatedly said there should be goals for the doj that are widely understood to be illegal. any effort to investigate the investigators as he is called for, for ven himful purposes will not be proper, which adds to all the suspicion. today, trump falsely claims he did not ask for this. >> no, i didn't ask them to do that. it was the hoax ever person trade on the people of this country. you know what, i am so proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it. i think it's great. i did not know about it. >> a more honest answer could be less suspicious. but the president's statements can be put aside. we'd still have the fact that barr's if you view of mueller were odd, there were two in effect. one about under surveillance, the other by the internal watchdog reviewing this case like it reviewed the clinton case. i want to get into it with our washington bureau chief, davidcoen. we should note both as a matter of expertise and as a matter of full disclosure you have also been cited as one of the sources in some of the under surveilla

no one from the white house, it was a doj decision. that evening and next morning white house officials and spokespeople continue to maintain that the president decision to terminate comey was driven by the recommendations the president received from rosenstein and sessions. on the morning of may 10, president trump met with the russian foreign minister and russian ambassador kislyak in the oval office. during the may 10 meeting, the president brought up his decision the prior day to terminate comey telling them i just fired the head of the fbi. he was crazy, a real nut job and i faced great pressure because of russia and that is taken off, i am not under investigation. the president never denied making the statements in the white house did not dispute the accounts. instead issuing a statement that said by grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into russia's actions, james comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with russia. obviously the termination of comey would not have ended it. the real

several documents surrounding doj official bruce ohr and state department official kathleen cav lack. keep in mind cavlack and ohr met with christopher steele. to the fbi, to the doj prior to that first fisa warrant application against carter page to spy on the trump campaign. and still after the election, documents now show that ohr and cav lack were still obsessed with using the dossier. they knew it was phony to take the president down. on november 21st, 2016. cavlack emailing ohr a link to a mother jones left wing magazine article based on the phony hillary bought and paid for russian dossier. ohr emailed back quote i really hope we can get something going here. we will take another look at this. subsequent conspiratorial email to ohr, cavlack gave a reference to meeting notes with christopher steele, 10 days before the first fisa application is put in. he is political. not vetted. nobody verified. from the doj to the state department to the fbi in all areas of obama's government were totally obsessed with christopher steele and his clinton paid for russian propaganda. so obsessed