joining us now, nyu law professor ryan goodman.al counsel to the defense department during the obama administration. he's now co-editor in chief at "just security." thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> i'm working off your work here. i didn't know this story about this olc memo until you wrote about it but it was fascinating to get back into that history. let me first ask you if i screwed any of that up in telling that story. >> no. i think you laid the political context out extremely well, too. >> so one of the things that we learned from you resurfacing this story from recent history is that william barr has been doing this for a long time and that he is -- we knew he was an experienced washington official. this tells us something specifically about his experience but it also raises the question as to whether or not he might ultimately feel constrained in putting out a summarized or redacted version of a document if he knows that the ultimate document, the original document, is ultimately going to come out. how did you come

ryan goodman a special counsel wrote on a legal website about the contentious legal summary that barr department. barr's 1989 memo concluded the fbi was allowed to take people into custody in foreign countries without the consent of those governments in those countries. now the questionable ruling opened the way for the eventual arrest of manu eleanory egga but they discovered that the barr summary had redacted several important conclusions most notably to authorize the president to ignore international law. kerry cordero is here, a former counsel to national security and a cnn legal analyst. what do you make of that? what what-what does that tell us -- >> this piece by ryan goodman, the think the reason for putting it out is because it draws a parallel not on the substance of the legal memo in 1989 was about because that legal issue has nothing to do with the special counsel. >> it is what he -- >> but the fact that he had written a summary and he testified before congress on it and ryan goodman argues that what he actually testified about and what he put in his summary left out some

ryan goodman is co-editor in chief of the foreign just security.org.us, ron klain a senior aide to vice president joe biden and president obama. he was a former chief counsel to the senate judiciary committee and chief of staff to attorney general janet reno. he knows the workings of the attorney general's office. ryan, i want to start with you. you have been reporting extensively on william barr's previous history in the justice department, republican administration. that involved a very similar situation in which he was issuing a summary version of what later turned out to be something very different from the summary. what does that tell us then about what we might expect in the difference between what has been the william barr summary of the mueller report and the next chapter, the redacted william barr version of the mueller report. >> that's right. so there's a remarkable episode that is very similar to today. 199, william barr had actually issued or written an opinion for the justice department highly controversy. it looked like it paved the way

. >> and hat tip to ryan goodman for reminding me of the story i wrote 30 years ago because i hadn'tometime. >> now that you had a chance to refresh your recollection what's the lessons weshld think about today. he's a strong executive power guy that has inherent authority to take whatever steps he deems necessary to defend the country and if that clashes with law so be it. that was the case he layed out for the george h.w. bush administration in 1989 when the then president wanted to invade panama and snatch him and bring him back to miami to face drug trafficking charges. and barr gave the bush white house the opinion he was looking for and he was as ryan goodman reminded us based on the story i did when i finally got my hands on the memo a few years later, barr was not totally transparent about the legal basis that he layed out in that memo. >> the push back is that you work the system that you're in and he argued the same way he does today about the doj was to keep stuff secret and to only release what you need to and to protect different categories of information. that's what he

ryan goodman is a former special counsel with the editor of the blog.wylie, a former federal prosecutor and senior vits president for social justice at the news school. ken delainian is an intelligence reporter for our own nbc news. ryan, give me a sense of the threat posed by this playing ball by the trump people with the russians in the 2016 campaign. >> so i think the big threat here is that indeed this was a damning indictment of a certain sort with a lower case i. many members of the trump campaign were either knowingly working with the russians to try to upset the election or they were doing it unwittingly and manipulated by the russians in which u.s. national security interests and the democratic process took a back seat. that's written throughout the pages of volume one of the mueller report. that's the most worrisome issue for our own national security. >> what are do you make of mueller pulling back and playing ball means you do this, i do that. it seems to be a tacet relationship. why did they pull back from even a tacet arrangement and the t

. >> and hat tip to ryan goodman for reminding me of the story i wrote 30 years ago because i hadn'te time. >> now that you had a chance to refresh your recollection -- >> yes. >> what are the lessons we should think about today? >> first, it's a reminder of bill barr's legal world view which is he is an extremely strong executive power guy who believes that the president has under article 2 of the constitution inherent authority to take whatever steps he deems necessary to defend the country, and if that clashes with international law, so be it. and that was the case that barr laid out for the george h.w. bush administration in 1989 when the president, then president wanted to invade panama and snatch manuel noriega and bring him back to miami to face drug trafficking charges. and barr gave the bush white house exactly the opinion it was looking for, and he was, as ryan goodman has reminded us, based on the story i did when i finally got my hands on the memo a few years later, barr was not totally transparent about the legal basis that he laid out in that memo. >> all right, laura,

ryan goodman and the chief of security where he publish the in-depth report about bill barr i was referring to. this is fascinating. the bottom line bill barr back in 989 write a summary. >> that's right. >> and he leaves out multiple key conclusions of the underlying report. >> that's right. and it's pretty amazing because the summary was 13 pages. you would think in 13 pages he could pretty much cover it because the underlying report was 29 pages. and he didn't. there are clear omissions of other what i would call principal conclusions. i think anybody would call principal conclusions of the underlying full report that the public only saw like you said four years later. >> this was about fbi detentions at the time. the point you make here, if you are doing a 13-page summary of a 29-page report. >> you better get the principal conclusions. now you are looking at -- but he didn't, obviously choosing not to do so. >> that's right. >> now a 4-page summary of something of 300 pages in which he mentioned 40 words of the actual report. >> he used the same catch phrase he used the 4-page letter h

as nyu law professor ryan goodman noted on justsecurity.org, barr argued opinions from his office haddential. the chair quickly pointed out. doj published other opinions up until 1985. the outrage of the memo continued. secretary of state james baker tried to play it down. >> this procedure will not be used absent a full inner agency discussion of all aspects of it. >> reporter: finally, in 1993, long after congress first subpoenaed the full report, it was made public. barr was long gone from his position at the doj. the clinton administration published barr's full 29-page opinion, allowing the public to see it for the first time. it turns out barr omitted key principle conclusions in his summary to congress. in it, barr failed to disclose his full 1999 opinion concluded the president has the power to authorize actions that violate the u.n. charter. also, that the attorney general as well as the president have executive power to authorize overseas abductions. >> it ought to be a very rare thing. we can't be an international rambo wandering around doing whatever we want, regardless of

ryan goodman has shown that barr issues a summary about a legal opinion and told congress what he thought was going to be the important things. that turned out to be deceptive. he left out the critical parts. the thing we have to look at is not only how barr will spin this, but we have to look at the fact that i believe there are going to be redactions of very inflammatory material that is going to be damaging to the president of the united states. that's a big problem we have to confront. >> two things on the redactions. one is that the justice department in a filing the u.s. attorney said there will be redactions about roger stone. that makes sense because that's a case that will go in the fall. that checks out. >> there is a gag order there. >> there is a gag order. the justice department plans to make available by review a copy of the report without certain redactions including removing the information related to charges set forth in the roger stone indictment. congress will get un redacted version according to a filing today. >> lightly redacted. >> not un redacted. they have a claim

ryan goodman, susan henacy and phil mudd. welcome.s discuss what we believe there is to find. now, we know the i.g. is looking over the doj about how the investigations were cutting ond. we know it is unusual for a.g. barr to start a contemporaneous probe. but these are uncommon times and mr. barr, we get what his agenda is. okay. so when we look at what we think there is there, mr. goodman, do you expect that there are issues of this investigation, this probe, this counterintelligence effort, starting as rotten? >> not really. in some sense the mueller report already kind of indicates to us what the origins of the investigation were and it was national security advisor george papadopoulos having been approached by the russians and then revealing that information to a foreign government. that's what then led to the information being fed into the fbi and they launched the investigation. so i don't think anything in terms of the origins of this are going to spark anything. the idea that carter page was some precursor of this is a deep p

. >> ryan, ryan goodman's excellent analysis of a prior summary he did about fbi detentions. april, neither mueller nor anyone from his team is going to be press conference but they did work on redactions. and that's important. they were a part of that decision-making as far as we know at this point. but what does it say that mueller did not sign the summary? mueller will not be at the press conference? he is not in any way putting his imprimatur on this. >> he doesn't want to be political with this. he doesn't want it make it political when it is political. and it could go down that political route going to the hill. he wants to keep his credibility. he doesn't want to look like he is in with this administration as bob barr -- excuse me bill barr has taint on him from what is going on right now. and the questions that loom about how closest to the president and what is this and what is that? mueller is trying to stay away and keep the sangtty of this investigation intact. it's going to be hard. but there are going to be questions of him after this is over i'm sure. because w

and, you know, one of the things that came up, and i think it was ryan goodman who supported on thiss that barr actually has done this in the past. which is when it came time to change an opinion that had been long standing in the office of legal counsel at the department of justice, saying you can't go and kidnap someone from a foreign country, he actually hid that report from congress. he refused to make it public. congress had to subpoena it. went through a long court process to get the opinion that normally would have been turned over to congress as a matter of course. so i think there is reason and there is history to be concerned. >> this is where i'm interested also in your experience advising and being a counsel to a politician. which is different. you have to worry about the worst faith interpretations, right? i'm sure you advised mayor de blasio, who i said on this broadcast many people like him as a progressive, and many people in new york have beef with him. that a fair assessment? >> yes. >> there is some beef. >> there is some beef. >> you won't get that from the white