it's interesting in here to unrecuse. they had conversations between sessions, even after flynn was indicted, where he was putting pressure on him, asking him to unrecuse, telling him, look, you'll be a hero if you do it. and sessions says, i don't think you did anything wrong. i don't think there was any basis to believe the campaign conspired with russia, but he ultimately didn't recuse, as we know. they also have of the instances in which the president tried to shape the narrative with mcgahn on public reports and mcgahn felt like he was being used as a tool in that way, often pishing back. there's many of these, as we said, i should say, the attorney general said, were in public view, but it's interesting. mueller said that's not dispositive. just because it's in public view doesn't mean that it couldn't still be harmful in an obstruction context. so that fact wasn't dispositive for mueller. it wasn't weighted the same was as it appears to have been for the attorney general. >> interestingly, the attorney general at t

trump tells lewandowski to tell sessions to unrecuse himself. he says to tell him if he does so, he will be a hero. sessions doesn't know about this, why? because lewandowski is afraid to tell sessions trump wants him to unrecuse. lewandowski tells another white house official, you should tell sessions to unrecuse. that guy refuses to tell sessions so sessions is not aware of it, but the point of all of this, donald trump is someone who is totally and completely comfortable not only not telling the truth publicly, but pressuring and cajoling the people who work for him in the white house to do the same. and in some instances like don mcgahn, the resistance to following the president's orders may have saved his presidency. >> may be the one and only thing here. great to see you. thanks for laying it out. >> there's clearly, as chris lays out, a lot to look at here and more. let's do that. let's do that with cnn's team that has logged countless, i tried to count. i'm kidding, i did not. countless hours reporting on this investigation, sat outside

he'll arrange that jeff sessions will unrecuse himself from the russia investigation. i will rescind his refoulsal. and then jeff sessions won't fire mueller. that he knows would be a problem. instead, jeff sessions will just tell moou, hey, from here on out, i'm redirecting your investigation. from here on out, it is only about crimes in the future. you have to heave all the crimes in the past alone. you're so unfair. you can only investigate future crime from here on out. quote, the president said if sessions delivered that statement, he would be the most popular guy in the country. corey lewandowski told the president, he understood what the president wanted sessions to do. write this down, corey. i've got a great idea! the redacted report goes to to explain that he doesn't deliver this message to jeff sessions. he tries. he makes an appointment with jeff sessions. jeff sessions cancels and lewandowski doesn't know what to do. he puts the thing that he dictated from trump in a safe. one thing we know in this report is that lots of people around president trump not o

with the president telling a private citizen to go get the attorney general to give this speech unrecusing himself, limiting mueller's investigation to future crimes and then told corey lewandowski he should feel free to fire the attorney general if the attorney general wouldn't agree to do that, right? mueller lays that out, in terms of the facts, as potential criminal obstruction of justice and then he explains why that looks like criminal obstruction of justice. you need three elements under the law to bring obstruction charges and try to prove them in court. obstructive act, in this case, the president directing the curtailing of mueller's remit. so it would no longer apply to anything having to do with donald trump. you need a nexus to an ongoing investigation. the mueller investigation was the ongoing investigation and then evidence of corrupt intent on the part of the person carrying out the obstructive act. on that, mueller was very blunt in volume two of his report. substantial evidence of trump's corrupt intent to enact this act of obstruction related to an ongoing investigation

firing mueller, getting sessions to unrecuse. it's hard to imagine trump being more brutal but it seemed like mcgahn nudged him to the other side of complete abuse of his sitting attorney general. it will take a longer read and wider perspective to determine whether mcgahn in serving both mueller and trump, spared trump from criminal obstruction. >> it wasn't just on mcgahn. i'm reading through another section next to that. the president was casting about the administration but outside allies as well looking for someone who had delivered a message to the justice department. he listed at one point cory lewandowski to meet with the attorney general that he needed to give a speech saying there shouldn't be a special counsel. i know the president didn't do anything wrong. in jeff sessions wouldn't do it, he should deliver message he's fired. >> i think it was on the fourth of july holiday. >> he wanted to have the meting, set it up. it had to be cancelled. lewandowski tried to find someone closer and deerborn said i'm not going to do

attorney in the southern district of new york to unrecuse. unrecusal a trumpian thing to get someone who has recused himself from overseeing an investigation to get back involved, to stick their hands back into the soup if you will. he wanted his u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york to unrecuse from the cohen spin off cases. trump's instinct is what it's always been. i talked to a close trump ally after the first or second barr letter came out and i said where does it go from here? donald trump, he won't change. what will remain unchanged is trump's affinity for obstructing investigations. trump's attacks on the judiciary go all the way back to the campaign where he maligned judge curiel regarding his bogus university, whatever that was. donald trump is hardwired to malign law enforcement. and the fact that he got an enabler, a cheerleader and an apologist in the attorney general is as big of a story today as what we're about to learn from the 22 month long mueller investigation. >> part of the way he excused it was by saying th

he asked him to unrecuse himself, the list goes on and on. mueller clearly has the substance to make a recommendation for accusing the president of obstruction of justice but he doesn't. why exactly do you think he didn't? >> sure. boris in the very first few pages of volume two, which covered obstruction, mueller laid out very clearly that his whole team works for the justice department. they're all justice department employees. they have to follow the existing doj guidelines that a sitting president can't be indicted. so that was the determination of this whole situation. the president, no matter what the evidence, can't be indicted. that's the policy and they work for the doj. we went through this entire investigation, nonetheless, to establish all the facts, put the record together and they do sort of tease it out and allude that congress has the right to hold the president accountable. >> sure. it's surprising that he doesn't outright make the recommendation. >> right. >> he writes it as sort of ambiguously so it's up to the discretion o

he had people want to unrecuse jeff sessions. the fact he says he has the authority to do something doesn't make it so that that's without criminal exposure. it's a lot of argument, and it's a lot of statements of things in the same way he says total exoneration when there are documents that say nothing of the sort. >> what do you think of mueller's decision not to seek a formal interview with the president, simply to rely on this written question and answer? >> as we talked about a few minutes ago, i think it is not a terrible decision given that he must have felt given the constraints he had on his office, the time constraints and also legal constraints, that you don't want to drag this out for another year or two years. look, once you go down the path of seeking to compel a president of the united states to come testify in a grand jury, then you have to finish that process. and so even if everything else was done, and the last thing left was an interview of the president, and you had that pending litigation going on in court,

operating. >> the president wanted corey lewandowski to deliver this message to jeff sessions to unrecuse and try to limit the scope of the operation, and lewandowski, an outside adviser to the president didn't feel he was comfortable and didn't feel it was his place and didn't have an official job in the white house and didn't follow through and took it over to rick dearborn who was working in the white house and tried to get him to deliver the session to jeff sessions and rick dearborn didn't feel comfortable and tnts understand what was going on and decided not to deliver the message and you see the theme over and over again in the report, and the president dig stating what stating, dictating what he wants done to advisers inside the white house and outside the white house and they don't follow through on it. >> and asking deputy attorney general rod rosenstein to fire james comey was rosenstein's idea and the report says that night, the white house press conference called the department of justice and said the white house wanted to put out a statement saying it was rosenstein's idea t

recusals or calls for recusals and unrecusals and pashd ones and firings that are ob sfruktive behaviorwhether or not it constitutes a crime remains to be seen. >> three government officials said a dispute within the special counsel's office on the facts and the law was one factor behind mueller's is decision not to make a call on obstruction. a point you made. then the question of the summaries. in some ways we have a factual dispute in the reporting which is worthy, ready to go and ship out publicly or did they need to be redacted. i want to had the you what jerry nadler has written to the department of justice about those summaries and grand jury material. it is notable in the press statement does not deny the existence of the summaries and merely indicatedwas marked may c protected under section 6 e. if they were produced for public consumption by experienced prosecutors, it should not be an impediment in a short period of time. now they are zeroing in on the lawyerly push back saying something was stamped on every page. >> yeah. that's not particularly unusual. i'm focused on this

. >> because there is no such thing as unrecusing an attorney general.he united states has important ethics rules for a reason, which is if someone has a conflict of interest, then they can't serve. all of us when we go into the justice department, we have former clients or whatever, and we just can't work on those things. there is no ifs, ands or butts about it. there is no send guessing. that's how it works. here you have a president that faced because he was scared about the mueller investigation, tried to get rid of it by forcing sessions, his own attorney general, to unrecuse. i mean, it is astounding. it is conduct unbecoming of anyone in government, let alone the president. and, yes, this is why i think ultimately, you know, politics, you know, people can argue about the politics one way or another. but at some point, people have to stand for principal. and this is one fundamental principal is we don't have presidents that go around obstructing justice. that is the most un-american thing we can imagine. and there has to be a remedy against that. >

the report revealed that the president later saw sessions at an event and urged him to unrecuse. number 3. the president's termination of the fbi director, james comey. that came days after comey declined to answer questions about whether the president was personally under investigation. republican reports the president told the russians that firing comey had taken off pressure over russia. number 4. the appointment of a special counsel and efforts to remove him. the report notes that president trump called don mcgahn and ordered him to tell the acting attorney general that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. mcgahn refused. he said he decided that he would resign instead. an attempt by the president to interfere. number 5, efforts to curtail the special counsel's investigation. in june of 2017, the president told the former campaign manager corey lewandowski to deliver a message to jeff sessions to tell him to publicly announce that the russian investigation was very unfair to the president. lewandowski was uncomfortable with that order, he said an

pressure on sessions to unrecuse, which i always recuse, which isn't even a thing. the comey firing which mcgahn was one of many people around that. the handling of flynn, the warning that he might be a target for black -- blackmail, may be a target. if you just take don mcgahn's experience, things he witnessed, through his account alone it paints an unbelievable picture of an attempt to obstruct. >> all those will be laid out for the american people. two things i'm watching as a reporter, how do democrats in the house see it. does it reach the threshold for obstruction, impeachable offense to pressure speaker pelosi to move forward on that front. watch the reaction of republicans who so far have been in lock step with president trump. do they show any crack at all with this president and say we're starting to question this president's conduct. new information has come to light. governor hogan of maryland who talked about a possible primary bid will certainly be reading it closely. we'll watch his reaction to see if establishment mainstream republicans say this is t

but it was also him refusing to carry out some of those requests, fire mueller, get sessions to unrecuse or fire sessions, that may get the recommendation from a charge. donald trump doesn't see any of that if he does he's incapable of overriding that knowledge with down right terroar. it's like the kato kalin if this were the o.j. trial. and i think someone like don mcghan, the president asked me to do crazy bleep, getting in his car, driving to the white house -- the theatrics of that, if donald trump seems to understand anything, he seems to understand how politically damaging that might be. >> i think that might be right. to back up one step before we start, this is why the white house counsel represents the presidency not the president. to ensure the institution is preserved. because what this president does in many ways sets precedences for future white houses. the area of executive privilege, there's very little case law. typically there's an accommodation process between congress and the white house where congress says we need this testimony and the white house says we're not cra

. >> reporter: according to the report, sessions told investigators the president asked him to unrecuse himself, but he would not. >> it's a terrible witch-hunt. it's a witch-hunt. it's a rigged witch hunt. >> reporter: since the beginning, trump railed viciously against the special counsel. >> there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russian people. there was no collusion. there's been no collusion. there's been no obstruction. >> reporter: but the investigation did produce real results. in all, there were 37 indictments in the mueller probe, including several of the president's closest aides, some of whom pled guilty. >> the bottom line for most americans is whether or not the conduct described in this report by the president is criminal or impeachable. it's revealing. it reveals his character as president. how he sees the office, how he exercises the power. >> reporter: robert mueller was appointed to investigate russian interference in the 2016 election and while the report shows that team trump did not conspire with the russians, the investigation unveiled numerous

he sought to have jeff sessions unrecuse himself. >> i'm not going to get into attacks on anybody. what i'll say is this -- >> i'm asking you what your assessment as the president's lawyer of the content as described here by witnesses like don mcgahn. >> my assessment as is the assessment of the united states department of justice and bob mueller's, there was no obstruction. >> is that a high enough bar for the president of the united states? he didn't commit any criminal obstruction, let's go back to work? >> that's the legal standards that applies to situations like this under not only the guidelines that are set forth within the case and the district of columbia. >> fancy lawyer speak. i'm asking you about the conduct that is describing. were you prepared to have to defend your client from trying to fire robert mueller which was under scrutiny for in months trying to get jeff sessions unrecused. >> robert mueller completed his investigation and was not fired. >> ari melber. >> jay, good afternoon to you. >> hey ari. >> given you represent the president, i would say as a legal ma

unrecusal isn't a thing. to both of you, to this idea about storytelling, this seems to be something they are starting to convey to the president. you see it in his outward facing flailing of what that might look like. >> there's a world of difference between having corrupt intent and actually committing a crime. you know, do we want a president that has committed crimes? no. do we want a president that violated every ethical and moral norm, we don't want that either. it might be the report says, look, we can't indict him for this, there was no collusion for this. in 1,000 different ways, he did things that made him unfit to be president even though you cannot indict him. >> let me show you some of what chris christie said was happening at sdny. >> southern district has two tour guides, a tour guide through the inaugural and campaign and rick gates and a campaign through his business and personal life and michael jackson co-- michael cohen. you don't want your lawyer, deputy executive of inaugural as tour gui

jeff sessions did not unrecuse. rod rosenstein did not buckle to that pressure. don mcgahn did not go forward with what was described as an order to fire mueller. those people stood up. what are we talking about now where this all becomes a meta story? attorney general barr does seem to be going along with those very elements of evidence of obstruction that mueller is detailing as a problem. that's why it can be confusing but bottom line, it's a story of a president breaking the rules, not in the public interest, but to defend himself personally and how far he can bend the justice department along that way in a process that's now being overseen by a very controversial and new attorney general, bill barr. >> there's this bill of particulars, bottom of page 158. as good as any. "president attempted to remove the special counsel. sought to have the attorney general limit the investigation. he sought to prevent public disclosure of information. he used public forums to attack potential witnesses and praise witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government." tha

other things that suggested he wanted bob mueller gone, suggested that he wanted jeff sessions to unrecusejeff sessions to change the focus of the investigation, even telling someone who is outside of the white house, cory lewandowski to write a memo that he dictated, if you read the report, to jeff sessions saying change the focus of the investigation and get it off me. the evidence is overabundant that donald trump wanted bob mueller gone and that he told mcgahn to take care of it. >> lastly, this question whether president trump will be in legal jeopardy after his presidency is over, whether that's in 2021 or 2025, rudy giuliani suggested he's not worried at all, they got their shot and they missed. what do you think, is there exposure for president trump legal exposure, and mueller alluded to the fact that presidents are not immune from prosecution after the presidency is over. >> look, i mean, the mueller review it seems to me if you look at the document is they absolutely believe there is a potential of viable prosecution once donald trump leaves office. he said in great particularit

he said he would be a hero if he unrecused himself. don't even know if that's something you could do, but he begged him in multiple areas not to recuse himself. he stuck to his ground and said i'm not going to do it, and there's ample reason why i should recuse myself. >> jeff sessions does come across nicely. his successor, bill barr, does not necessarily, based on what he said today and over the past few weeks, does not necessarily come out unscathed. >> indeed. one of the things i was surprised by that congressman himes said is we want to call witnesses but we don't want to call anybody mentioned here. this is all done. why wouldn't you call don mcgahn and have him tell that story to the public? just because it's 400 pages that a handful of people might read, why don't you see, let people see in person what it was like to have the president of the united states tell you to fire robert mueller. why don't you call jeff sessions again and have him tell the story of how the president berated him constantly to unrecuse himself. the idea

>> reporter: according to the report, sessions told investigators the president had asked him to unrecuse himself, but he would not. in fact, mueller writes, "the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests." and while mueller stopped short of taking a position on obstruction, his words suggest congress now has a role to play. he writes, quote, "we concluded that congress has authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice." still, attorney general bill barr cleared the president and today, i asked him, is that what mueller wanted? the special counsel indicated that he wanted you to make the decision or that it should be left for congress? >> special counsel mueller did not indicate that his purpose was to leave the decision to congress. i hope that was not his view. i didn't talk to him directly about the fact that we were making the decision. >> repo

the president's attempt to get attorney generaleff sessions to unrecuse himself. >> he took the job, and then he said "i'm going to recuse myself." i said, "what kind of a man is this?" >> reporter: and telling white house counsel don mcghan to fire mueller. he threatened to resign. the day mueller was appointed, try 17th, 2017, president p, quote, slumped back and said, "oh, my god. this is terrible, this is end of my presidenc i'm f'd." adding, "this is the wst thing that ever happened to me." though the term attorney general -- the attorney general claims -- >> the white house fully cooperated with the special counsel's investigation. >> reporter: in fact, report details how individuals lied or deleted communications and the president refused to sit for an interview with the special counsel. president trump responded to written questions about some version of, "i do not recall" or es do not remember" 37 tim. now some democrats are pressing fopeachment proceedings. >> we have a constitution of the united states, and it says when a president engages in this kind activity, then it's

the attorney general who wouldn't unrecuse himself.he former campaign manager who ignored command to tell the attorney general to limit the investigation. and the staff secretary who wouldn't gauge the loyalty of doj officials. sources now say the president is seeking assurances from the current staff that they're following his orders. that as the president and his business are suing the house oversight chairman. in an attempt to block house democrats from getting his financial records. the lawsuit argues he has no legitimate legislative reason to subpoena a an accounting company tied to trump. we will not allow congressional presidential harassment to go unanswered. democrats say they aren't buying it. >> he's a lot of bluster. and those suits go anywhere, no. he withdraws or settles. there's nothing to them. >> they're wrestling with a dicey problem. whether the president's behavior justifies impeachment. while some including nancy pelosi have tried to throw cold water on the idea. others aren't ready to walk away yet. >> even if we

later, when he tried to persuade former attorney general jeff sessions to not recuse himself and unrecuseimself. mueller describes episodes where the president tried to harm and hinder this investigation. >> in the end, the special counsel does not charge the president with obstruction, acknowledging that a sitting president cannot be indicted. mueller does not exonerate him either. if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. and mueller does not conclude trump or his campaign koocooperd or conspired with russian efforts to help them and hurt hillary clinton but mueller says those in trump's circle were definitely deceptive about their russia contacts. several individuals affiliated with the trump campaign lied to congress about their interactions with russian affiliated individuals and russian related matters. more now from political correspondent sara murray. >> reporter: good morning, boris

he wanted to go to jeff sessions and tell him to unrecuse and limit it to future attacks that would have let everyone off the hook for the 2016 attacks. all of this is a blinking green light and an invitation. democrats, whatever they do ought to start teeing up legislation to make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable. >> i talked to young people who buy into the idea of safe places. trump is like that. he wants a safe race in the white house where i don't hear any words about how the russians helped. it's hurtful to him. do you realize what mick mull vainy is doing? protecting the president from realities because he doesn't want to hurt his feelings. this is the babying of a president. >> this idea that the president surrounded himself with people he feels like he can trust and are loyal to him and he wants to loyalty to shield him from the things he doesn't want to talk about. i think of course one of the most striking things about the mueller report is the idea that he is not guilty of obstruction of justice because he didn't want to carry out the orders. the president has ai

russians had to do with information helpful to the campaign, urging attorney general jeff sessions to unrecuse himself and sending veiled or direct messages, either personally or through intermediaries to paul manafort, michael cohen and former national security adviser michael flynn encouraging them not to cooperate. mueller noting that he ultimately did not bring charges of obstruction of justice against mr. trump, due in part to a justice department guideline that a sitting president knt be indicted. the special counsel writing that if we had confidence after a thorough -- of facts. we would so state. mueller suggesting that congress, not the justice department should decide whether to prosecute the president. attorney general barr defending the president's conduct. >> there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency. >> within minutes, house democrats were calling for mueller's testimony and slamming barr. >> barr's words and actions suggest he's been disingenuous and misleading i

he includes trump asking miguel to tell jeff sessions that he should unrecuse himself from over seainghe russia investigation. snoo >> trump ordered, the president later pressuring don mcgahn to deny that he ever relieved that order from the president mcgahn is memorable by, he needed to qk because the president was asking h i am to do crazy -- rhymes with submit. >> so if don mcbeggan is going testify, you would want to see that. there will be a fight over that. s the white house's counsel is not the president's lawyer. >> the who i say counsel is the lawyer for the office of the president and the start of the attorney and client. not this white house counsel will not be available to theesh mcgan testimony. >> whether they'll continue with tragsal oversight responsibles. >> one of the reasons lawmakers people real sufficiented and demanding financial information, even after he sorts to freak out . they'll be plumping these steps for the first time. it appears that robert mueller, just concluded without mueller having looked at trump's finances at all. and given what a key issue money

sessions refused to unrecuse himself and mcmaster clashed with trump repeatedly over style and he saidabsolutely russia was to blame in the interference of the 2016 election and trump didn't like that. and last but certainly not least, gary cohn who opposed the tariffs that donald trump wanted to put on goods and was fired/resigned in protest shortly thereafter. all of the people, they all told donald trump no and now this little word next to their name, former. and kirsten nielsen is one of the group and he likes to be told yes, great job, boss. and he didn't like to be contradicted publicly or privately. >> and they are all men, plus one now woman. chris cillizza, thank you. >>> and a sad sign of the time, ube has to shut down comments because of comments hateful -- the comments hateful and anti-semitic. we'll talk about the latest attempt to stop hate speech next. >>> and also just in, officials in louisiana say the fires at three historic black churches were indeed intentional. we'll talk to an investigator. stand by. biopharmaceutical researchers. pursuing life-changing cures in a

fire mueller and then telling him to lie about it and then also wanting to get jeff sessions to unrecuse himself. there are other instances as well prior to that that they also want to investigate why he fired comey, him trying to get comey to go easier on michael flynn. these are all instances that they feel need to be further investigated and therefore they need to speak to mueller, they will need to speak to barr and subpoena the entire report so that they can get a full picture of what exactly too being place. >> politic >> -- took place. >> i want your thoughts on the summary of the report where william barr pointed out no collusion, but now that the report is out and it is opening the door to many other questions that go beyond barr's summary. how does he come out looking from all of this? >> probably depends on who you are asking. but from my standpoint, he doesn't look particularly very good because the summary didn't match the report. it was a very far cry from the report. the way he had been speaking about trump, he sounds like he is trump's own personal attorney. he doesn't so

certainly saying to your white house counsel, fire the special unsel, telling your attorney general to unrecuse himself so that he could take the probe back from the act attorney general, those certainly could arguably be the cause -- or cause ofio obstru and that's precisely, again, going back to our earlier disagreement, why it seems like mueller was trying to set this up for a finding o fact at the the congressional level, that it's up to the house of representatives to -- >> woouff: if i may, i would -- >> prosecutors don't deal in what is arguable. that's not what they're paid to do >> woodruff: if i may, in just the little bit of time we havewa left, to ask you both to comment on the portrait of the white house that emerges from this, what peoe who worfor the president were telling the public at intervals throughout l of thi it tur turned out later not to be true, frankly, the relationships inside the white house, what emerge force you, mr. ray? >> i think the attney general captured it. what emerged from it was th president was firm in his belief from tot set that there was no llusion wi

and he also said that he tried to get the attorney general sessions to unrecuse himself from the investigationid. this is what is in the special counsel report. and so congress needs to follow up and hear from don mcgahn directly. >> what can democrats do? does this just go straight to the court? can the president just continue to ignore the legislative branch? >> well, so i think what is happening is the white house has decided to adapt a strategy of just stonewalling across the board. so they are not going to comply with requests for former officials to appear or testify, they're not going to comply with requests for subpoenas or voluntary request for white house officials to come testify. they are just adopting an across the board challenge. and so what that does is puts the burden on congress to figure out sort of priorities, what do they want to fight about. because they could litigate, they could use other mechanisms for example putting pauses on legislation and not moving things through the legislative branch and they have different options available to them. but it is a long path for t

manafort not to cooperate with the investigation, it's true for trump trying to get jeff sessions to unrecuself from the russia investigation in order to intervene in mueller's inquiry, and it's true for trump pushing don mcgahn to create some sort of record denying that trump tried to get him to fire robert mueller. in all those instances, they cane the elements you would need in order to present this information, this fact pattern, and this evidence to a grand jury in order to produce an indictment. were the alleged perpetrator not serving as president of the united states. now, the problem for the white house, given that, is, number one, they can't stop any federal prosecutor from actually bringing these charges once trump is out of office, provided his term doesn't outlast the statute of limitatins on these crimes, but they can't stop congress from pulling all these threads and following all of this evidence and investigating these matters themselves. and specifically, when it comes to all the stuff that don mcgahn testified to to robert mueller, again, he has cited more than 150 times ju

there's been ways that donald trump sought to get his politically appointed attorney in new york to unrecuseohen cases. we know in barr what we appear to have, someone very willing to put his finger on the scale literally and render a judgment for the president that benefits the president. what do you think democrats need to do to preserve and protect the work being done out of the southern district of new york? >> first of all i think the southern district of new york has actually operated in a manner that protects itself. i think when those cases were handed off to them, they were done in a way that separated them from what was going on in washington. when i look at hicks and schiller, outside of the president's family, in a very small campaign operation, those were the two people who were the closest, who heard every single thing, who were in on every conversation. and so i think, you know, we at first months ago talked about the campaign fitnenance scheme it's just this campaign financing. it turns out it goes a lot deeper than that, and schiller and hicks i think are going to be the lyn

asking people to lie and directing firings and asking for the unrecusal of other officials. so it's adaming report. >> let me ask you something, i think the rest of us have a clear understanding of how don mcghan functioned inside the white house, but none of us understand how don mcghan functioned as essentially an informant for robert mueller. >> mcghan was cited many times in the report and spent as we know 30 hours with investiga investigators. i was thinking about this. the president historically used his lawyers to commit crimes, roy cohn, michael cohen, the president sees lawyers as a conduit to criminal conduct. maybe not surprising that he would turn to don mcghan, his lawyer, in order to carry out these obstructive requests. except mcghan isn't roy cohn or michael cohen. he seems to be a standup guy. he was around this president when a lot of it was unfolding. not surprising the president would try to use him to carry out these acts of obstruction and i guess the nice part of the story is mcghan didn't do it. kept faithful notes and told investigators the truth whe

it also showed his attorney general ignoring his questions about him unrecusing himself from overseeingstigation, as well as a former campaign aide who refused to carry out the president's directive to send a message to the attorney general to curtail the russia investigation. but clearly, kate, we reported over the weekend the president was pretty furious at those reports that detailed not only a dishonest president but also a president who was regularly managed, restrained, or flat out ignored by his staff. that was something he wanted to address with reporters. >> he sure did. great to have you there. really appreciate it. >> let's talk more about this. joining me is democratic congresswoman eleanor holmes norton. thank you for coming in. >> of course. >> the president says he's not worried even a little bit about impeachment. the chairman of your committee, elijah cummings, suggests even if the effort would not be successful, it could still be worthwhile because it would put you guys on the right side of history. do you agree? >> well, the way we get on the right side of history is

asking former attorney general jeff sessions to unrecuse himself from the russia investigation and asking the deputy attorney general to mislead the public about why the president fired former fbi director james comey. but the special counsel concluded trump's efforts to influence the investigation, quotes, were mostly unsuccessful, largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests. the mueller report also finding, the president falsely claiming reports about his administration were fake news. his staff misleading the public multiple times about comey's firing, and the president himself dictating a misleading statement to the public about that 2016 trump tower meeting. now, as we brace for what could be a long legal battle over the full report and congress's role, these key lines could determine what happens next. "if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unab

sessions about this at all and i think days later he pulled sessions aside and tried to get him to unrecuse himself. the memo coming from the white house legal counsel was like, don't talk to sessions, possible obstruction issues and he went ahead and did it anyway. this is very, very, very serious. i believe the first step is to have jerry nadler continue to open up this investigation to better understand this. we are just getting this document. let the judiciary committee look at this. there's a process in place here. i trust jerry nadler. he's one of the smartest guys in the united states congress. i think that's the natural next step and let's see where that leaves. >> you don't support impeachment as of right now but you want the process to begin, the investigation process to begin. >> that's correct. let the process play itself out. let's educate the american people, too, jake. this is a very nuanced document. let the american people really see what's going on here. it paints a terrible picture of the president's interactions. the blatant lying that happens in directing people to lie

sought to have jeff sessions unrecuse himself. sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the june 9th, 2016, meeting between russian and campaign officials. used public forms to attack potential witnesses. how could it be just looking at some of the underlying evidence, how could it be considering the afore mentioned, how could the special counsel not see any of that as obstruction? >> i don't know that he didn't see any of that as obstruction. you have to remember, he was not making a charging decision in this document. he was very clear about that. what he said is, look, if i found that the evidence here fully cleared the president i would say so. but he didn't say so. he then went on to say i'm not going to say whether or not i think this president committed a crime. he thought that was outside his purview. because of the guidance from the counsel, it wouldn't be appropriate. i think the other body is congress. >> it will be interesting to see if a body, not known for its ability to act actually acts on this. >>

he sought to have attorney general sessions unrecuse himself and limit the investigation. he sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the june 9, 2016 trump tower meeting between russians and campaign officials, and he used public forums to attack potential witnesses who might offer adverse information and to praise witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government." in his report, mueller explains his team's decision not to charge trump while carefully noting it did not equal exoneration. "the evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgement. if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. the evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. while this report does not conclude that the president committed a c

instances, potentially, of conversations the president had, of either trying to get jeff sessions to unrecuserom the russia investigation, trying to push white house officials in one way or the other. that's what they're concerned about. john, it is important to remember, the areas of vulnerability they're concerned about are the known unknowns. they know they have a client who is not always going to tell them exactly what he's up to. they have to prepare for all kinds of things. >> i love a good rum reference. >> good morning, maggie haberman. i think it is also going to be intriguing to see what happens after the redactions are made public. in terms of what congress can negotiate access to, remember in the testimony, the second day, i think it was, the senate testimony last week, barr said he is open to working with members of congress who want to see more that is redacted in the public version. >> right. >> how is that all going to play out? >> i think we'll have to wait and see.sceptical, and only because i think barr's position has been to start with less is more and work his way backwar

criticized a lot as attorney general, you know, held the line against donald trump and refused to unrecusee russia investigation and turned the thing over to rod rosenstein to manage. so he wasn't willing to corrupt himself in this way for president trump. we have to see ultimately what the truth holds out for bill barr. right now it looks like this is someone willing to make these changes, produce this memo first of all a few weeks ago to provide trump the victory lap and then we're going to see how much redaction was done and how indicative the redaction is. there's a lot of focus on the amount of redaction we'll see on thursday. really just a few words can make all the difference. so till we see the full mueller report we don't know what will robert mueller found about what happened in the 2016 campaign and then and what donald trump did to obstruct justice in the investigation of that campaign. >> we all know what we're going to be doing all day thursday and what we're going to be talking about at this hour on thursday night. ron klain, ryan goodman, thank you for both for joining us t