i want to also ask you about your thoughts on the priority among democrats to now give don don mcgahn to come testify. >> first of all, i think this entire mueller situation -- you are well aware, you can look at the investigations that have occurred through congressional committees, the inspector counsel.the special we have had investigation after investigation yielded thousands of pages of documents. at the end of the day, what is happening is americans are split. people are hearing what they want to hear. people support the president and say mueller said he's exonerated, we are good, as did all of the other reports. if people chose to vote for another candidate, they are than the other path -- there on the other path. they say crime was committed and we have to move forward. this is one of those litmus test issues where people are hearing what they want to hear based upon that bias. we have done thousands of pages worth of investigative reports. it is time to move on. we need to focus on the things americans actually sent us here to do. we need to work on the budget, on an infrastr

so, don mcgahn, who is a major character in the book, very interesting guy, don mcgahn was trump's campaign attorney, used to be on the fec. he was appointedded by george w. bush and put on there with mitchell mitchell's help because don mcgahn, i've anyone him a long time and call him a radical libertarian. an anti-burkeic -- antiburcratic person and when he got on the fec, he shut down the federal election commission and stopped them from doing some of the regulation to liberals here that sounds bad. to don mcgahn that was exactly what he wanted to do and exactly what mitch mcconnell wanted him to do. so he is trump's attorney in the campaign but he knows a lot about the nomination process, having been through itself himself, and he knows a lot about conservative juris prudence, and so he is talking to trump, but don also in a band, by the way, and a very good one, and he had a weekend gig. so hearings what happened between trump and don mcgahn. don mcgahn trumps campaign lawyer was driving along route 50 to ocean city, maryland, his car packed with band gear for a weekend give was guitar

it turns out he had already made clear to don mcgahn, not the , but don mcgahn, the white house counsel, that he was quitting. don mcgahn set in motion this cloak and dagger motion to get justice kennedy into the white house to tell president trump he was leaving. host: cloak and dagger how? guest: justice kennedy did not want to call don himself because they were worried about leaks. he had a high-ranking former clerk of his who is a high-ranking official at the justice department at that time -- she met him for lunch at a smithsonian restaurant, told him about his plans, and said make this clear to don mcgahn. that person called mcgahn. on the day of the retirement don mcgahn gets a car the white house and secretly picks up justice kennedy. only then did he tell people at the white house that the opening was imminent. host: austin, texas. thank you for waiting. caller: i wanted to ask if mitch is he stacking all of the courts with far-right judges? i heard that is all they are doing in the senate, and i can't verify that. host: thank you, judith. guest: he is definitely stocking the c

we heard the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail and now we've heard the president ordered corey lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so that he, you stop investigating the president. i believe the person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and i'd like to ask you, the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> well, as you might imagine, that made news, unwelcome news to mueller that walked back his remarks a short time later. >> i want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by mr. lu who said and i quote you didn't charge the president because of the olc opinion. that is not the correct way to say it. as we say in the report and as i said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. >> which is consist

don mcgahn up? that's the star witness. how do they get don mcgahn there? oing to court and jerry nadler talked about that at their closed-door meeting. and they have to get mcgahn because having mueller, who wrote the report, is not like having john dean, white house counsel, testifying before the watergate committee. >> isn't it moving the goal posts. it was all about the mueller report. they have the investigative powers. well, okay, it's confusing. it's 448 pages. when he testifies and he talks. now, it's don mcgahn? >> it goes that nancy pelosi isn't inclined to impeach this president. >> would it hurt democrats in 2020? >> i think it could. it was interesting to see what happened in 2018 and why democrats did so well, because they steered around those issues and talked about issues on people's minds that touched their own lives, and part of the commitment they made was they weren't going to play bumper cars on this issue. they were going to actually try and solve problems. i think pelosi's calculation is let's keep investigating. if smoking guns arise

to see next few days but this hearing to reestablish the president ordered don mcgahn to fire him, that the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper to the president ordered cory lewandowski to get jeff sessions to curtail the investigation. then went to great length to show how those acts that almost every element of the crime of obstruction of justice. that's what we establish today and we established he also tampered with two two witnesse. those are all felonies and we hope the american people see this for what it is. [inaudible] >> so for people who haven't read the mueller report are followed the issues this removes that surprising. for people who have not this closer might. they saw for the first time robert most industrial section of justice by donald trump. we have a felon right in the white house. [inaudible] >> will we actually read back is onwards to and he agreed to them and those words show the donald trump committed multiple acts of obstruction of justice which is a felony. it's not even misdemeanor. these or straight of felonies that robert morgenthau said he would go

one is the president according to former white house counsel don mcgahn telling him to fire mueller. another is don mcgahn saying that president trump then told him to lie about it publicly. another is the president according to cory lewandowski, hiss former campaign manager, telling lewandowski to tell jeff sessions the then attorney general to restrain what the investigation is about. the fourth is lewandowski saying then the president said to sessions if you don't meet with me the president is going to fire you, and the fifth one is what the democrats consider to be witness tampering. inducements for manafort not to cooperate, inducements for cohen not to cooperate, and then threats to his family according to democrats after he did stop cooperating. do you think democrats could actually make that case with those five elements? >> it's a lot of stuff. it depends on how much mueller wants to stay, he wants to amplify. as we've been talking about, the best way might be to have a member of the democratic side recite the fact and just ask mueller to agree with him and maybe he'll embellish a little b

don mcgahn. are we talking about don mcgahn being the new john dean here? >> i think that's the hope. the lawsuits we saw too, the grand jury lawsuit and the filing early next week to compel don mcgahn are going to be so crucial. really for two reasons. they're going to force the democrats to take a position. where are you on impeachment? can we please make a plea to everybody. please bring back plain language. plain english. >> you're just done already. you want congress to act and also be clear? have you been in this country long? >> heaven forbid. right. we have seen so many times if you leave any wiggle room or gray area, donald trump and in some cases bill barr will jump in and spin. i think democrats need to learn a lesson here. you need to be clear. they'll have to go on record in court and say -- judges will ask. where are you? is this an inquiry? do you have a resolution? and the more formal it is, the stronger their hand will be in court. and regarding mcgahn, this is all or nothing with respect to these witnesses, not just mcgahn. wherever that goes is where the ruling is go

to enforce their subpoena of don mcgahn as a witness, his name appears in the mueller report more than 500 times and several committee members asked robert mueller was don mcgahn yesterday. >> your investigation found that president trump directed white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you, isn't that correct? >> true. >> the president told the white house staff secretary rob porter to try to pressure mcgahn to make a false denial, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> it's accurate to say the president knew he was asking mcgahn to deny facts that mcgahn quote had repeatedly said were accurate unquote, isn't that right? >> correct. >> congresswoman val demings had two opportunities with robert mueller, first in the judiciary and intelligence committee. here is what congresswoman demings asked in the judiciary committee. >> by trump campaign officials and administration officials impeded your investigation. >> i would generally agree with that. >> later in this hour, you will hear joyce vance identify that question as the most important question of the day and explain why and explain how that question links volume 1 and volume 2 and this was asked later

what happens going forward now, they think tomorrow you will hear don mcgahn's name come up a lot. they already subpoenaed donhe orders of the white house, has not testified or turned over documents they want. the question is how soon they get mcgann in inherent to the contradictions of the investigation that mcgann's testimony is critical to impeachment and without that, they might not be able to impeach him but if they launch it they could get it. >> we went through some testimony with jim comey. it's important, we haven't talked about these incredibly vivid scenes days after the mueller report first came out. we lived some with jim comey. there's an idea mcgahn is a complicated witness and doesn't wish the president ill and a republican closely aligned with mitch mcconnell. but saying the president wanted me to do crazy bleep. he was sort of the narrator for the president's misconduct around the russia probe. asked to fire mueller, put out this false denier not accurate. talk about what mcgahn saw. >> this is if there is an impeachment charge of obstruction of justice, he is critical it to. mcdonnell's chi

don mcgahn. but for the fact that don mcgahn threatened to quit and to go public. he would have gone ahead and fired him. people need to understand that. he tried to get mcgahn to lie about it. he tried to get the investigation to limit to only look at future presidential elections as opposed to the past. mueller found substantial evidence about that. if they can get in a groove where each individual congressperson focus es on one thing, they can get the information out but they need to stay in the four corners. he's not going to go outside the four corners that we all want answers to. >> one set of dquestions that democrats are related to having him answer are to william barr. there's a feeling among democrats that barr rigged the release of the report and there's some questions and back and forth about what mueller wanted versus how william barr proceeded. what's your sense as to whether we'll get any answers to those questions coming up tomorrow? >> i don't think that we're going to get answers to those key questions. i think doj has really been negotiating with

put into context for us, what does don mcgahn mean to all of this? >> don mcgahn in the context of watergate means john dean, he is the witness of what happened and one of the most important obstruction charges. and he's somebody who could do a lot of damage to the president. when john dean was subpoenaed and the records were subpoenaed, there was immediate compliance in 1974, much of the time game is to keep mcgann from being there and raising his right hand. >> and before we let you go, there's also some talk about the fact that chairman nadler could launch impeachment proceedings, just within his committee. and that even came up earlier today, rather than going through the entire congress. what do you think the outcome of that would be? >> well, it's sort of a political strategy, it's the same idea, where nadler will be out front but the moderate democrats who aren't on the committee don't have to own the action. i don't think it's any different from a full house doing it, he has authority to do it. >> always appreciate your insight, thank you. >> thank

heard, we've heard today that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail and now we heard that he told jeff sessions to limit your investigation so you stop investigating the president i believe a reasonable person, looking at these facts, could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met and i would like to ask you the reason again you did not indict donald trump, the olc opinion that says you cannot indict a sitting president. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> why do you find that significant? >> he walked through each of the elements as to what causes an obstruction of justice to be raised against a human being and mueller said yes but for this report i would vin dieted the president. i know people think it's ambiguous. but i walked through each of the elements. olc opinion tied the hands of the special counsel's office. it's not a common occurrence to say you have all the tools in your belt but you cannot use the ones that actually involve the hammer b

what we heard, we heard that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail. now we heard the president ordered corey lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met. i would like to ask you, the reason again you did not indict donald trump is because of ooc opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> the fact that the orders by the president were not carried out, this is not a defense to obstruction of justice because the statute itself is broad. it says as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice, that would constitute a crime. >> i'm not getting into that at this juncture. >> thank you. based on the evidence we have heard today i believe a reasonable person could conclude at least three crimes of obstruction of justice by the president occurred. we'll h

we have heard today that the president ordered don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to then cover that up and create a false paper trail. now we heard the president ordered corey lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met. and i'd like to ask you the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating that you cannot dietindict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> the fact that the orders by the president were not carried out, that is not a defense to obstruction of justice because a statute itself is quite broad. it says that as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice, that would also toou a constitute a crime. >> i'm not going to get into that at this junctionture. >> thank you. and based on the evidence we have heard today, i believe a reasonable person could conclude that at least three crimes of

and the story you just told about the president telling don mcgahn to fire mueller and then telling don mcgahn to lie about firing -- >> and create a fake record of it. >> most people don't know that. if mueller were to tell that story, which of course in his report, to the american public in a setting where a lot of people are paying attention for the first time, that may have some impact. in -- i don't think the polls will change but as a matter for the historical record and a matter of what special counsel should do, that's important for the public to hear. there's no legal ambiguity about his ability to tell that story. >> i have to take a quick break. we're going to have more coming up from everybody, including their take on what, if anything, democrats might be able to extract from mueller when it comes to obstruction of justice. and later, focusing on the other part of the mueller report, russian interference in the 2016 election, why the president keeps insisting there's no collusion there. was the easiest decision ever. i switched to geico and saved hundreds. that's a win. but

on january 26, 2018, the president's personal counsel called don mcgahn's attorney and said that the president wanted don mcgahn to put out a statement denying that he had been asked to fire the special counsel. thedon mcgahn do what president asked? >> i refer you to the report. >> communing -- communicating through his personal attorney, mcghan said the president wanted the special counsel removed. isn't that right? >> i refer to the report. mcgannon -- said he was not going to live. the -- dropt did the issue? >> i refer to the report. >> the president told rob porter to try to pressure mcgahn to make a false denial. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> what did he actually direct porter to do? >> i would send you back to the report. page 113, it says the president then directed porter to tell him again to create a record -- tell magan to create a gahn to-- magan create a record -- he wanted him to write a letter for the file for our records. president is asking his white house counsel don mcgahn to create a record that mccann -- mcgahn believed to be untrue while you are in the midst of investigati

heard, we have heard today that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail. now we heard that the president ordered lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so that he -- you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of a crime of obstruction of justice have been met. i'd like to ask you, the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> i want to go back to one thing that was said this morning. by mr. liu. he said and i quote, you didn't charge the president because of the olc opinion. that is not the correct way to say it. as we say in the report, and as i said at the option, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. >> so a cleanup there, it seemed as though in the earlier hearing, that robert mueller had said something. the democrats were excited about.

don mcgahn. i got news for you. don mcgahn is going to fight the subpoena constantly. they have to make the decision are, they going to impeach him or are they not going to impeach him. if they're going to impeach him, get going. if they're not going to impeach him, let's take the business of the country. >> thank you, cynthia. >> sorry. >> no, don't be sorry. it's in my soul what you're saying. >> let's do something. and we all know what happened. we know. >> stop kicking the can. cynthia, paul and ben are all sticking with us. coming up, robert mueller lays out the russian connection and how trump and his people welcomed it, encouraged it, made use of it and then covered it up. plus, why isn't there more being done to fight ongoing russian interference, which mueller made clear is definitely not a hoax? i'm going to talk exclusively to former cia director leon panetta tonight. much more ahead on a big news day. stick with us. there was no hesitation, i went straight to ctca. after my mastectomy, it was maddening because i felt part of my identity was being taken away

don mcgahn. who is crucial. toldside to do something that is obstruction of justice. told to falsify documents. donal here. but the white house is never letting you guys talk to him, right. >> that's right, erin. that's why i laid out today how obstructive acts are a consciousness of guilt. i asked the director, i said when people lie, tamper with witnesses, obstruct investigations can you use that to show a guilty conscientious we use that to show obstruction in realtime as the president doesn't allow the witnesses to come forward. if you go back to the nixon impeach inquiry obstruction of congress was one of the articles of impeachment. i believe that will be part of the impeachment inquiry when we get there and see he is in realtime obstructing congress. >> have you heard from any colleagues who did not support impeachment prior to today who have moved in the direction of impeachment since mueller spoke today? >> yes, laurie trayen from massachusetts called for impeachment while the hearing was going on. and my prediction is that you see more people not fewer people. i don't think anyone is sayi

getting beyond, you know, article two authorities when it came to trying to get don mcgahn to recant testimony, trying to get donn to produce false, or pardons, these are basic facts that got outlined in that hearing. robert mueller is not hollywood central casting but the substantial information, what was needed to educate the public did come out today. >> but mark, democrats pushed and fought for this. i mean, there were tug of wars whether they were going to be seen, how it was going to work getting him to the hill. who was going to join him, this is what they pushed for. >> unfortunately the only impeachment today was of robert mueller who impeached himself as a witness. i think a lot of people are angry that the country wasted two years on an investigation that should have been done in six months. i think from a democratic point of view, he saved the democrats today, because he did such a bad job now, that he saved the democrats from a debacle of a potential impeachment that everybody knew was never going to go anywhere and probably now the democrats will get to the issues which is their strength and get of

don, let's start with don mcgahn. >> absolutely. >> do you think we will hear from him, your committee will ever hear from him. you may not see him in public, but your committee will ever hear from him under oath? >> well, i want to hear from him and not just in a closed hearing. i want to hear from him in a public way. i mean, a big chunk of the hearing today was about doncgahn. all of my questions were about him. i definitely want to hear from him, and i think we need to keep pushing until we get him in that seat. >> we are a couple of minutes away from nancy pelosi. karen bass, democratic congresswoman from california, always on the pulse of that. chuck rosenberg, what did you hear there? what would be your advice of how today doesn't become an epilogue if democrats want to keep this going? >> if they want to keep it going, and i'm glad they haven't asked for my legal vichlts it'd probably just get worse for them. if they want to keep it going, i think you have to open up impeachment proceedings. the white house continues to assert all sorts of privileges over material of documents and witnesses. in order to prevent, and you're going to have to little gait that. in order to find out and test whether or not those privileges are real and will be upheld, you have to go to court. if you go to court without an impeachment inquiry, it's just harder to win.

unleash the grand jury material, the 6e material, and also the second one is to get don mcgahn to come before us. once we get donn and that subpoena released before us by way of a judiciary -- a judicial decision, that will be -- that will break the logjam of the other witnesses we need to come before us. know what the answer is here. the american people deserve the truth. the grave truth that robert mueller talked about yesterday. i was so amazed and saddened by what he said. he worried -- and this was not before my committee, but the committee in the afternoon. he worried that this would be the new normal. imagine a presidential campaign would welcome and wallow in a foreign foe's interference with our election. don, imagine if i had done that in a -- in a -- in a simple congressional campaign. what if i had just allowed and wondered and welcomed interference by -- by russia in my campaign? >> well, you heard what the president told george stephanopoulos just a few weeks ago. i'd never call the fbi. who would do that? that you'd want to hear it. that's normalizing it. >> he said i'd take help again. >> thank y

heard, we've heard today that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to then cover that up and create a false paper trail. and now we've heard the president ordered cory lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so that he -- you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and i'd like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> the fact that there are orders by the president not carried out, that is not a defense to obstruction of justice because the statute itself was quite broad. it says that as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice, that would also constitute a crime. >> i'm not going to get into that at this juncture. >> okay. thank you. and based on the evidence we have heard today, i believe a reasonable person could conclude that at least t

don mcdcgah as you know, eugene, the democrats have been circling don mcgahn for quite a while. he's played a pivotal role in the mueller investigation but also in the 400 pages. and they've wanted to hear from him for quite some time. and the question is if they would hear from him and when. so what could democrats look to hear from donese investigations? >> well, democrats want to hear whether or not they believe, or that don mcgahn believes the president attempted to obstruct justice, specifically when it comes to whether or not he was directed to fire mueller. whether or not he was directed to interfere in any capacity and then the investigation to stop it. or to make it conclude with a more favorable response to the president and his involvement with russia's interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. and so, whether or not mcgann will reveal more information will be more clear, according to the democrats. it's not clear as of now. but certainly, that's what they're going to look for and want to hear from him if he comes forward. >> big day ahead, eugene. i know you're going to be watching. can't wait to hear your thoughts after that. eugene scott, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >>> for the first time in months the defense department has a permanent leader. yesterday, the senate overwhelmingly voted to

information is they're going to court monday or tuesday to get don mcgahn the white house counsel to come before congress and testify. >> so again, don mcgahn's testimony could certainly be incredibly significant. actually could have sort of that game changing quality of having him be forced to talk about the obstruction episodes that he himself participated in. the president of the united states directing him to have robert mueller fired including director mcgahn to create a false record. robert mueller in his testimony confirmed that he believes mcgahn's story is credible. and so that again is really significant. but once again, don mcgahn is not the only relevant witness here and he's not the yaess to pull in. little bit of a question why they're focusing on mcgahn first and not people like lewandowski or don jr. that don't have the right to assert privileges. >> because they never worked in the white house. >> why didn't this happen sooner, by the way? >> the notion they don't have enough information for impeachment but they need stronger everyday, what is lacking here is political courage. not information. >> phil? >> i think th

don mcgahn. more than any other witness in the report. among doncgahn's actions cited in that report, defending jeff usal, coordinating the firing of james comey and twice refusing to order rod rosenstein to fire mueller. donald trump, jr. will also come up. will want to know what he wasn't interviewed about his infamous trump tower meeting. cited asfort was having numerous contacts with business associates who had ties to russian intelligence. you will also hear about michael flynn. 2017 toed guilty in lying to federal investigators. two former trump campaign foreign policy advisers who had contacts with russians during the campaign -- carter page and george papadopoulos. republicans expected to press mueller on the origins of the probe and the tactics the fbi used. among the names likely to come steele and peter , who sent lisa page anti-trump text messages to each other. a lot of names to keep track of today as the drama unfolds. host: the president with his fifth tweet of the morning -- it is almost 8:00 a.m. here on the east coast. we are talk

the president allegedly telling his former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire the special counsel. they want to ask him about telling don mcgahn to publicly deny reports that trump told him to fire robert mueller. also to talk about how corey lewandowski, the former campaign manager of the trump campaign told the attorney general, jeff sessions, allegedly to limit the investigation because on future campaigns and exclude the president from being part of that investigation. but in addition, two other areas, telling lewandowski to tell sessions if he doesn't meet with lewandowski, that trump would actually fire jeff sessions, and the alleged witness tampering that apparently occurred, according to the mueller report, dealing with paul manafort, as well as michael cohen and others. they talk about dangling pardons and the like. those are areas that democrats in the house judiciary committee want to ask. and then when we get to the intelligence committee part of the hearing, which will be after the judiciary committee probe, they're going to ask him about contacts with russians and wikileaks as part of the broader investiga

don mcgahn and hope hicks. >> let's be honest. okay? do you really think -- nancy pelosi has said they're going to go to court to get don mcgahn to testify. we know robert mueller was somewhat of an unwilling witness and we saw him yesterday. do you actually believe that don mcgahn and hope hicks are going to deliver this bombshell, this 800-pound gorilla? come on. >> i believe that they are going to say what they told bob mueller and what bob mueller reported out. >> why do you believe that? >> because, okay. i'll use the impeachment word in another context. not a political one but a legal one. when a witness takes the stand whether in a court of law or before congress and they say something that is inconsistent with their prior statement to the fbi, we can then use that prior statement to impeach the witness and to prove that, one, he's lying as he testifies before congress and, two, the truth of the matter is what he told bob mueller and the fbi investigators when he was interviewing with them under the penalties of perjury. >> except we had a very similar conversation when we thought we were going to hear from don mcgahn, his chief o

don mcgahn testimony, that i think will be important to them. >> if they get it. >> shepard: it's important to them to try to get it. the don mcgahn testimony is something that the democrats really want. >> yeah, if you read volume 2 of the mueller report, some of the most damaging allegations against the president are that repeatedly the president pressed don mcgahn and his white house counsel to basically get the justice department to fire robert mueller and end the special counsel's investigation. when that was reported by "the new york times" that reportedly according to the mueller report the president told mcgahn, you have to deny that. mcgahn refused to do that. sure, that would be -- i say sure, it would be damaging testimony, but on the other hand a lot of people thought that robert mueller was damaging testimony and that didn't work out the way that people thought. >> shepard: it wasn't the movie is better than the book. >> no. >> shepard: thanks, chris. we'll look for you sunday on "fox news sunday." he will take with mick mulvaney and others. that's this sunday on your local fox station. fox news has a new batch

heard, we have heard today that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president order don mcgahn to cover it up and create a false paper trail and now we've heard the president order corey lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit your investigation so that you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met and i would like to ask you the reason again you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> the fact that orders by the president were not carried out is not a defense to obstruction of justice because the statute is quite broad. as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice it would constitute a crime. >> i'm not going to get into that at this juncture. >> thank you. based on the evidence that we've heard today, i believe reasonable person could conclude that at least three crimes of obstruction of justice by the president occurred. we'

. >> joyce, if it is going to be many months, if and when we see don mcgahn testify, hope hicks is not looking to testify, nor is don mcgahn's deputy. that being the case, if the clock is on the president's side, not democrats' side, what are they to do? >> well, democrats have to make a decision about how serious they are about pursuing these matters in court and whether they can craft a narrative that explains to the american public how unusual it is to have people ducking subpoenas. if they don't have the witnesses available, and i think matt is right, that the clock continues to run and it doesn't run in democrats' favor, then they will have to explain to people why this behavior by the president is so unseemly, so indicative of an effort to cover up wrongdoing, and they have not been successful in doing that to date. it is a significant challenge that they face because the president is so good at running the clock and behaving in ways that previously would have been unacceptable and damaging to a president. >> but, joyce, there is a difference between unseemly and a cover-up. unseemly, the president and theoret

don mcgahn testified to that. the only reason he didn't fire the special counsel is don mcgahn refused to do it.e said he was asked by the president to do crazy [ bleep ]. those were his words. and the president by and through his people tampered with witnesses and lied about it. he welcomed interference into our election and tried to get the people who knew about it to shut up. and our republican representatives in congress know he did that. they just don't care. all they care about is how they'll be received on fox news. they were more interested in attacking robert mueller, who's a war hero, a marine who fought in vietnam. no daddy doctor bone spurs excuse and a life-long republican. they were more interested in attacking the guy who investigated the foreign enemy meddling than the guy who meddled with the foreign enemy. so here are some of the people who care mothre about their sid winning than they care about this country. this guy. >> what he's doing is not obstructing justice. he is pursuing justice and the fact that you ran it out two years means you perpetuated injustice. >> jimmy: this

. >> don mcgahn called rod rosenstein to fire him, is that correct? >> there was a continuous vo involvement of don mcgahn responding to the president. >> he did not want to put himself in the middle of that. he did not want to have a role in asking the attorney general to fire the special counsel, correct? >> i will refer to the report and the way it is characterized in the report. >> volume pa, page 285. he did not want to have a role in firing the attorney general. so at this point, i will yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. mueller, first, let me ask you a unanimous consent mr. chairman to submit this article of robert mueller unmasked for the record. >>. >> now, mr. mueller who wrote the nine-minute comment you read at your may 29th press conference? >> i am not going to get into that. >> okay. so that's what i thought. you didn't write it. >> about comey where when comey called, you drop everything you were doing and you had dinner with your wife and daughter and comey called and you dropped everything and go. at least bob mueller will be standing on the tracks with me. you and james c

to senior add vierzs who disobeyed the president's orders like don mcgahn, cory lewandowski. >> we have not specified the persons. >> don mcgahn did not tell the basicing attorney general that the special counsel must be removed but was prepared to resign over the president's orders. you also explain an attempt to obstruct justice does not have to succeed to be a crime, right in. >> true. >> simply attempting to obstruct justice can be a crime, correct? >> yes. >> so, even though the president's aides refused to carry out his orders to interfere with your investigation, that is not a defense to obstruction of justice by this president, is it? >> i'm not going to speculate. >> to reiterate, trying to obstruct justice ks can be a cr, correct? >> yes. >> you say the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful and that's because not all of his efforts were unsuccessful, right? >> you're reading into what we have written in the report. >> i was going to ask you if you could just tell me which ones you had in mind successful when you wrote that sentence. >> i'm going to pass on that. >> directo

to enforce a subpoena for former white house counsel don mcgahn is going to, quote, open up the floodgates for more subpoenas. >> i think because don mcgahn, because he was white house counsel, the white house has the strongest arguments in terms of being able to exert executive privilege over mcgahn's testimony. so he's both the -- potentially one of the most important witnesses for the committee to get because he's so central to one of the strongest fact patterns on obstruction. at the same time, he's also the hardest witness to get because he was the white house counsel. if the courts can go -- if the courts rule in favor of the house on mcgahn, i think all of the other witnesses are going to be easier to get. >> fact check true, you say, for jerry nadler, this opens up the floodgates. karoun, what did you make of the speaker trying to downplay? you said he or she is painting this picture of unity with alexandria ocasio-cortez. she was basically saying there was no hatchet to bury, even though manu made it very clear that the things that alexandria ocasio-cortez raised about the speaker were pretty serious. >> we saw the hatchet

don mcgahn now after this hearing and the other tactics that the president has used, don mcgahn is not going to come willingly. they can pressure him in the court and then it is going to go up on appeal and take a long time. you think mueller was a reluctant witness, wait until don mcgahn gets on the stand. the case isn't getting any better. my position is they just need to make up their mind and decide to go forward and stop kicking the can down the road. >> so, senator, could that be nancy pelosi's strategy? to that exact point if robert mueller wasn't an enthusiastic witness wait until you get don mcgahn and hope hicks. is the right move for democrats to defeat the president in the next election? >> well, i think that is certainly what nancy pelosi believes. i think she believes the strongest hand for this presidency is to defeat it next november. and she sees that the way the impeachment would work is ultimately he would not be impeached. so what have we gained? other than distracting people from high prescription drug prices, the failure of this president on trade, the failure of

about the president for example directing his legal counsel don mcgahn to fire the special counsel, to fire mr. mueller, that he then directed don mcgahn to lie and said he never told him to do that and directed him to create a false document memorializing that lie for the future. he also, we'll hear testimony from mr. mueller about corey lewandowski being summoned by the president to the white house being told to go tell the attorney general of the united states jeff sessions to tell the special counsel to limit his investigation to future presidential elections, not the election of 2016. those are just two examples of clear obstruction of justice by the president of the united states and i think what you'll hear from mr. mueller is a recounting of the evidence in the report that supports the claims of serious misconduct by this president and i think it will incredibly important for the american people to hear it from the special counsel that prepared the report and lead the investigation. >> you're with democrats trying to coordinate and focus on instances and walking mueller through it because you believe those instances are

we have heard today that the president ordered former white house counsel don mcgahn to fire you. the president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail. we heard the president ordered cory lewandowski so you stop investigating the president. i believe a reasonable person looking ining at these facts c conclude all three elements of obstruction of justice have been met. i'd like to ask you the reason you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president, correct? >> that is correct. >> the fact that the orders by the president is not carried out, that's not an defense to obstruction of justice because the statute is quite broad. long as you endevouendevour, thd constitute a crime. >> i'm not going get into that. >> based on the evidence we have heard today, i believe a reason person could conclude that three crimes of obstruction of justice by the president occurred. we're going to hear about two additional crimes. that would be the witness tampers of michael cohen and paul manafort. >> the only thing i want to add is i'm going thr

don mcgahn at home from camp david on a saturday to talk about you. isn't that correct? >> correct. >> what was the significant -- what was significant about that first weekend phone call that don mcgahn took from president trump? >> i'm going to ask you to rely on what we wrote about that. >> you wrote in your report on page 85, volume 2, on saturday, june 17th, the president called mcgahn at home to have the special counsel removed. now did the president president call don mcgahn more than once that day? >> i think it was two calls. on page 85 of your report, you wrote, quote, on the first call, mcgahn recalled that the president said something like, quote, you got to do this. you got to call rud. >> and your investigation and report found that don mcgahn was perturbed, to use your words, by the president's request to call rod rosenstein to fire him. isn't that correct? >> there was a continuous colloquy. it was a a continuous involvement of don mcgahn responding to the president. >> he did not want to put himself in the middle of that. he did not want to have a role in asking the attorney general to fire him. >> i would refer you to the report and the way it's characterized

he stumbled around some questions about don mcgahn in that first chunk. don mcgahn is cited more than any other witness in the obstruction probe. again, this is up to a staff, a staff person to prepare them for some of the most basic benchmarks of having testified successfully by mueller's standards. not by ours. not by fox news's. not by donald trump's. but i'm not sure that that team can go back to the offices after this morning's session and even feel they sort of nailed it to the boring mueller standard. and that's what gives me concern in this break between the two sessions. i would hope that the staff looks at the most successful moments, which came in that first exchange with nadler. where nadler got robert mueller on the record making clear that this conduct was, in fact, obstruction -- >> methodically. >> just calmly. i think that expecting him to defend everybody every time they're attacked is unrealistic. it was almost like mueller said, wait a minute, it was an american president kind of moment. you want to attack the integrity of people doing the

don mcgahn at home from camp david on a saturday to talk about you. isn't that correct? >> correct. >> what was the significant -- what was significant about that first weekend phone call that don mcgahn took from president trump? >> i'm going to ask you to rely on what we wrote about those instances. >> you wrote in your report that on page 85 volume ii, on saturday, june 17, 2017, the president called mcgahn at home to have the special counsel removed. did the president call don mcgahn more than once that day? i think it was two calls. >> on page 85 of your report you wrote, quote, on the first call mcgahn recalled that the president said something like, quote, you've got to do this. you've got to call rudd, correct? >> correct. >> your investigation and report found that don mcgahn was perturbed, to use your words, by the president's request to call rod rosenstein to fire him, correct? >> well, there was a continuous colloquy -- it was a continuous involvement of don mcgahn responding to the president's -- >> he did not want to put himself in the middle of that. he did not want to have a role in asking the attorney general to fire the special counsel, correct? >> i would, ag

don mcgahn to fire robert mueller. that would be a good one. what mueller knows about that. telling don mcgahn to publicly deny that trump told him to fire mueller. telling corey lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to limit investigation, to meet with lewandowski or trump will fire him. how do you think this is going to go? >> i think it's going to maybe not work as well as the democrats might hope. that stuff while extremely important runs count tore what i think the broader purpose of the hearings are supposed to be. what the democratic leadership has said over and over again is that they want to have a 1974 moment. where in watergate what started out as charges really galvanized the nation and made clear what was going on and why there was a problem. it provided really critical context. to do it now, and to say, well, the president told him to fire this guy and so forth without the context, it won't mean anything. why was he trying to fire moouler? what was it about? yes, it could be a violation of the law and it's important to draw that out, but the goal of sort of letting the public