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Barr: Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2019 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no collusion. It was a complete and total exoneration.

[05:58:34] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the president has said is demonstrably not true. There was no exoneration. Period. Full stop.

JAY SEKULOW, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP (via phone): You don't have obstruction when there's no underlying crime.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Mueller was supposed to make the judgements. He seems to have punted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Barr auditioned for the job by writing a memo that basically argued the president could not be charged with obstruction. It looks like he's delivered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is a special edition of NEW DAY. It is Monday, March 25, 6 a.m. here in New York. Why is it special? Well, it's also a new day at the White House.

We're told by insiders that President Trump is waking up feeling completely and totally exonerated after the Mueller investigation found no evidence that the president or his campaign associates conspired with Russia to win the 2016 elections.

Now his feelings, while understandable, don't line up 100 percent with what we know from the Mueller findings. On the question of obstruction, the Mueller report specifically and explicitly did not exonerate the president. Robert Mueller chose not to tell us whether he thought the president committed criminal obstruction, though he laid out evidence on both sides. The attorney general, William Barr, he seized this vacuum to tell us he does not think the president obstructed justice. We're going to discuss whether that was his call to make at all and what Congress might decide to do on that issue.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The White House and President Trump's allies are declaring victory over the Mueller probe. Still, the political fight is only just beginning. Democrats vow to subpoena the full Mueller report. They demand to see the evidence that the Mueller team gathered. And House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler wants the attorney general to testify before his committee.

But Democrats also have some explaining to do, particularly those who claimed that they saw clear evidence of collusion.

So let's begin with CNN's Sara Murray. She is live in Washington for us. Good morning, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, the attorney general's overview of the special counsel's report is no doubt a major victory for President Trump, but there are still these lingering questions about obstruction of justice. And those questions are setting the stage for a political and legal fight ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): Attorney General William Barr releasing a four- page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's account, concluding that investigators found no evidence that President Trump or his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.

President Trump and his allies seizing on the findings.

TRUMP: It was a complete and total exoneration. It's a shame that our country had to go through this.

This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully, somebody's going to be looking at the other side.

MURRAY: But on obstruction of justice, the attorney general quoting Mueller's report, saying, it does not conclude that the president committed a crime; it also does not exonerate him.

Mueller ultimately leaving the question of obstruction unanswered, Barr deciding Trump did not commit a crime after determining the Justice Department did not have sufficient evidence that Trump's actions were done with corrupt intent.

SEKULOW (via phone): The attorney general and the deputy attorney general made the conclusion that you don't have obstruction when there's no underlying crime.

MURRAY: Democrats are now demanding the release of Mueller's full report, and they are raising questions about Barr's impartiality.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: We cannot simply rely on what may be a hasty, partisan interpretation of the facts.

MURRAY: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer writing that Barr "is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report."

Democrats also questioning how Barr could determine that the president had no corrupt intent to obstruct when he was never interviewed by Mueller. A source tells CNN that the special counsel and Justice Department deliberated subpoenaing Trump to testify but ultimately decided not to move forward with the request.

Republicans rallying behind the president. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declaring, "This case is closed." Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham writing, "The cloud hanging over President Trump has been removed."

Despite criticizing Mueller's probe as a witch hunt for months, a senior administration official tells CNN that the president and his team were thrilled by Barr's summary.

TRUMP: I just want to tell you that America is the greatest place on earth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, the attorney general says he wants to make as much of this report public as possible, but first, it needs to be scrubbed of grand jury material, which Barr says cannot be made public under the law. A source tells CNN that process has already started, but there's still no time line for when we get more of this report.

Back to you guys.

BERMAN: All right. Sara Murray, thank you so much for your reporting on this.

Joining us now is CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman. She is the White House correspondent for "The New York Times."

And Maggie, over the last 20 months, you've been so central to the reporting on so much of this. We're lucky to have you here this morning.

Before we analyze, I think, with the Talmudic parsing of this four- page letter from William Barr, let's start where we are this morning.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

BERMAN: Because you can tell -- I can tell from communications I've had from people around Donald Trump and the White House -- they're thrilled with this. The president is waking up this morning feeling what?

HABERMAN: You know, elated or as elated as he gets, right? He is not -- he's not prone to overt shows like that, but he was very excited, according to everyone I spoke to, once he was told yesterday -- and I think that they got a bit of a heads up before the letter was sent to Congress that this was going to basically be good news for the president. And look, we can -- we're going to go over the phrase, you know, "exoneration" as it applies in the letter that Barr wrote. But this is -- this is pretty unalloyed good news for somebody who has had the first two years of his presidency under the cloud of this investigation.

I think the question now is what he does with that joy. Because we seem to be seeing him leaning toward vengeance with the joy. He said something about we hope that there will be a look at the other side. We have seen from his allies, you know, within the White House and outside of it, enormous anger at the media over the coverage.

And so I'm not sure where this goes right now. But for, you know, the last 12 hours, he's been in a very good place.

BERMAN: You actually have spoken to people who were concerned there could be overreach on the president's part here. They'd like to see him temper some of that vengeance feeling.

[06:05:03] HABERMAN: There are some folks who think that the president could solidify a lot for himself in his re-election battle by being more magnanimous, thanking Mueller for -- which he has not done, saying that this was carried out professionally, that, you know, that they clearly followed the facts and didn't do more than that. That is not typically where we have seen him go.

That is not consistent with the Donald Trump we've seen. And so far, it's not consistent with what we have seen of him in the last day. There can always be a course correction, but so far, I don't expect him to lean out.

CAMEROTA: Because joy looked a lot like anger yesterday when he spoke to reporters. I mean, he just did not seem -- you know, if you're just reading his sort of tone, he seemed like he was looking for vengeance, and he said he sure hopes somebody will look into the other side. What might that look like?

HABERMAN: I think there's a range of questions here. I think you're going to see attacks on the media and criticism of the media increase. We've already seen some of it. I think there are always, after moments like this, important reasons for the media to look back and look at how we handled things.

But I think it is also important to recognize that this was a real investigation. And for the people who thought that it was right for the media to cover the Hillary Clinton investigation in the 2016 campaign, I'm not sure why this would have been different, No. 1.

No. 2, I think you have heard a lot of his allies say, "And we ought to go back and look at how this dossier, you know, that was compiled by Christopher Steele of the president's alleged acts, which the president has denied was real, how did that come into being? Who paid for it?" And then the question is, does that actually go anywhere? Does the Justice Department or anyone actually do that?

CAMEROTA: We have looked at that, by the way. HABERMAN: We've looked at aspects of it, sure. I mean, right.

CAMEROTA: Don't we know a lot about that FISA warrant?

HABERMAN: We also know -- we know a lot about much of this investigation. We also know a lot about the Hillary Clinton e-mail issue, which is something else that we have heard come up again.

So again, I'm not sure where this goes. I feel like everybody is still processing. But I do think that there's a likely path toward looking for who to blame.

BERMAN: There are very real questions about how much we will see and the American people will see, and Congress will see. Now, William Barr gets to weigh in on this first, with grand jury material.

Where is the White House now? Because to claim total exoneration does, it beg some questions. If you feel so good about this, show us why.

HABERMAN: Well, showing -- showing more and not less has not generally been how this White House has handled things. They've been good on certain document disclosures. I don't expect this to be one of them. And that does set up an inherent tension of, if you say you're exonerated, why not just let people see it?

There are serious concerns about grand jury testimony and so forth. And we know that it's being scrubbed for that, and it will be for a while. But I think that you are going to see increased pressure to say, if there's nothing here, let us see it.

It's worth remembering that this letter that Bill Barr put out, as we understand it, Robert Mueller did not have a role in signing off on that letter. And that letter has one conclusion, or lack thereof, about obstruction of justice from Mueller's team, and then a conclusion by Barr. And as Barr says, him and Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general.

So there's going to be a lot of friction over that in the coming days.

CAMEROTA: And your reporting is that he's upbeat. The president is upbeat but preoccupied by what Mr. Barr would decide to disclose. Why is that still a concern?

HABERMAN: Well, he doesn't have a personal relationship with Bill Barr. And remember that he feels so personally stung by Jeff Sessions' recusal from the Russia probe. It was an original sin for this president, in his mind. He is still waiting to see how Barr handles things.

A lot of his advisers had cautioned him successfully not to tweet over the weekend ahead of the news, wait and see what's in it. You know, were mindful that he is concerned about people with whom he doesn't have a pre-existing relationship. That might dissipate now, but that's where his mind was. BERMAN: Maggie, stick around and join us for this part of the conversation. We want to bring in Elie Honig here, CNN legal analyst, to bring in some of the legal issues here.

And I think the biggest open legal question this morning, Elie, is this notion of obstruction, where Robert Mueller chose to present evidence on both sides, evidence that the president obstructed justice but maybe also the counterarguments.

William Barr, the attorney general, chose to enter the discussion and tell us what he thought about it. He said that Mueller leaves it to the attorney general to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime. My question is, "Says who?" No one says that Mueller left it to the attorney general other than William Barr. It seems very possible that Mueller was leaving it to Congress, laying it out, the evidence here, trying to get the evidence out there in public so Congress could decide what to do with it or what not to do with it.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That was an aggressive move by William Barr, and not called for by the law or the regulations. He sort of inserted himself in between Robert Mueller and Robert Mueller's findings and whoever his intended audience was, I think presumably Congress.

I mean, just imagine how the world would look today if William Barr had not taken that step, which he was not required to take. If he simply reported Robert Mueller neither -- you know, found -- did not exonerate the president on obstruction, period. Without saying, "And I, then, jumped in and said, 'No good.'"

CAMEROTA: but isn't he the person who would decide whether to prosecute? Didn't he have to jump in?

[06:10:00] HONIG: They're not going to -- they couldn't prosecute the president anyway, per existing DOJ policy.

CAMEROTA: Well, that's Bill Barr -- that's Bill Barr's position, but other people have --

BERMAN: Department of Justice guidelines.

HONIG: Yes, the --

CAMEROTA: But I mean, so isn't he saying -- didn't he have to explain why he's not going to do anything further?

HONIG: Well, under existing DOJ guidelines, they couldn't have prosecuted him. So the only case it really could have landed for any action would have been Congress.

Barr inserted himself and said, "I don't think it should go there."

One of the things that's important to note throughout this memo, it seems that this standard that Robert Mueller was applying was the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the highest standard known to our criminal justice system. People try to put a number, a percentage on it. You can't put a percentage on it, but it is the highest standard.

And there are plenty of cases, as a real-life prosecutor, where you have evidence, good evidence, where you think something happened, likely happened, very likely happened, but you're not at beyond a reasonable doubt. So it's important to keep that in mind throughout this.

BERMAN: It was a word, Maggie, that jumped off the page here in this four-page letter, and it was the word "most." You know, William Barr says on the issue of obstruction, the report's second part addresses a number of actions by the president, most of which have been the subject of public reporting on the issue of obstruction. Most implies not all.

HABERMAN: Right. And we're not going to know when and if more of this report is shared publicly.

I do think it is worth noting that there is an enormous volume of instances of the president interacting with this investigation in ways that were public. Like, and his lawyers have said repeatedly, you know, look, this is his right, either as a private citizen to speak about his opinion, or he is entitled to political appointees who are actually loyal to the president's agenda, which in this case, you know, he sees as involving this investigation. That has been their argument the whole time as to why it wasn't obstruction.

I come back to the fact that Mueller did not answer the question which he described as containing difficult, quote/unquote, issues of fact and law on both sides. He didn't make a determination about whether it was obstruction of justice or not, because that goes to corrupt intent, which goes to mindset.

He never interviewed the president. And I think that's a piece that is really fascinating, that I personally would like to know more about.

The president's lawyers had considered it to be an enormous victory for them, and I understand why, looking at this, that they kept the president from being interviewed. They answered written questions that were presented by the special counsel's office; but they never had the president, who we know has a casual relationship with the truth, sit under penalty of perjury and talk about this. Without that, it is -- it is theoretically harder to get to his mindset. Barr applied a different standard, I think.

CAMEROTA: That was a huge victory. Right, Elie? There's no other way to look at it than that. I mean, that they -- he said he wanted to be interviewed. They blocked him from doing that, and Mueller didn't press it.

HONIG: Yes, it was an interesting tactical gamble at the time, and it really paid off for Trump's team. I mean, when they said we're not bringing him in for an interview, the counter move there for a prosecutor is now you issue a subpoena, and you compel that. And Mueller, for whatever reason -- and maybe we'll learn this through congressional hearings or in the report, but DOJ/Mueller backed down. And they let him get away with only answering the written take-home exam, only on collusion, conspiracy. So definitely a big win.

And I think Maggie's right. I think it hurt the ability of Mueller to make a specific recommendation on obstruction. But I will say, you don't necessarily have to hear directly from a subject "This was my intent." What prosecutors do all the time is look at someone's words and actions and draw the sort of reasonable inferences about what they were trying to do. That's how you determine intent.

So I think there's plenty of evidence here that if I was looking at it from what I know as a prosecutor, I think you can glean intent. But it would have been a cleaner case, certainly, to have a chance to examine the president directly.

HABERMAN: I just have one last very quick question. If Mueller or his team believe that Bill Barr has mischaracterized their findings somehow, since we haven't seen the underlying document, would they ever speak out?

HONIG: I doubt it. But I think the way we will learn that is by seeing the full Mueller report.

BERMAN: Maggie, on that point, it's an interesting question.

HABERMAN: It is. I mean, listen, I think that -- I think that Mueller by all accounts conducted himself as a professional throughout this. A very careful, you know, straight down the line prosecutor. And I don't expect that he would deviate from that. But I do think -- I think in Washington most things leak, and I think that this report may end up being one of them. But we just have to wait and see.

BERMAN: All right. Maggie, Elie, thank you very, very much.

CAMEROTA: All right. Coming up in our next hour, one of the president's personal law, Jay Sekulow, is going to join us to answer some of these questions. And in our 8 a.m. hour, we will speak to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders about all of this.

BERMAN: All right, the political fight over the Mueller report, really is just beginning. Will Americans get to see this report? How much will they get to see? There are so many questions that need to be answered. Will they? That's next.

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[06:18:24] BERMAN: Attorney General William Barr's summary of the special counsel's report quotes Robert Mueller on the most consequential headline. It says, quote, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

But as we noted on the issue of obstruction of justice, Mueller stopped short of drawing any conclusions and Barr quotes, "While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Maggie Haberman is back with us, and we're going to bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon and CNN political analyst David Gregory.

And John, I think this puts Democrats, all of this puts Democrats in a very interesting place this morning. Why? Well, because of things they have said to us out loud over the next 20 months now. Take this interview that now House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler did with one Alisyn Camerota. The date was November 30, 2018. Just listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: It's become very clear that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in trying to subvert the election. The question has been --

CAMEROTA: Wait, wait.

NADLER: The question has been --

CAMEROTA: How can you say that so definitively that they've colluded?

NADLER: Well, the fact that -- that fact that Manafort and Trump Jr. met with Russian agents, who told them that they wanted to give them dirt on Hillary as part of the Russian government's attempt to help them, and that they said fine. It's clear that the campaign colluded. There's lot of evidence of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Jerry Nadler says it's clear the campaign colluded. Robert Mueller says, and I quote, "The investigation did not establish that the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government."

[06:20:06] JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's exactly right. Did not establish, and there you've got Jerry Nadler going out and making an assertion that is not backed up by the special counsel report, as far as we know. I think it's more reason why we need to see the full report, because these are these instances that have been reported.

And the -- you know, even this top-line letter states very clearly Russia tried to influence the election. They reached out multiple times to people in Trump's orbit. But it did not establish any actual collusion or coordination with the campaign.

So Democrats are going to be on defense about that. The only way to clean up open questions that exist, and there are many of them, is to release the full report. And that's going to be the focus of the political fights in the next couple weeks.

HABERMAN: It's worth noting here, too, that in that letter, I think Barr says that there were attempts by Russians to contact Trump folks that did not -- that did not go through, that were not -- not accepted. And so I'm personally very curious about that. Because what we have seen a lot of information about is contacts that did happen. But there appear to have been multiple that didn't, and I'm curious about the entire picture surrounding this.

CAMEROTA: And I mean, David Gregory, look, obviously, we all have questions. Because why did Paul Manafort hand over polling data to a Russian associate? Why -- we still have questions about the Trump Tower meeting.

So obviously, it would be helpful to see the entire report. And since the White House has been vindicated, what would stop Bill Barr from putting out the report.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, for one thing, just as -- we had this debate during the Hillary Clinton e-mail situation -- when Jim Comey went out of his way to criticize her and talk about all the reasons they chose not to prosecute, you don't normally do that.

This is different, however, because there is such overriding political -- rather, public interest in how the Russians tried to interfere in the election. We know a lot publicly. We know a lot through indictments that are related to the Mueller investigation.

But as Maggie says, we know about those interactions that apparently didn't amount to collusion. But what other attempts were made? What is to be learned by the body politic from what the Russians tried to do in 2016? I think that's in the public interest.

BERMAN: Yes.

GREGORY: The other piece of this is obstruction of justice. Now, look, as aas a political matter, most people are going to see this and say, "OK, nothing here. The president was cleared by all of this. So why are you pursuing obstruction for no underlying offense?" You'll hear that from Sekulow and others this morning.

But -- but Mueller very specifically said there's evidence on both sides. It is important that he didn't make a determination. That doesn't stop Congress from saying, "No, we have the obligation to determine whether there was an abuse of power by the president when he was in office."

But we also know a lot publicly about what the president has said. I mean, everything he thinks he says. Or he tweets. So, he -- we know his mindset, and we know some of those conversations that were going on with regard to why he fired Comey.

HABERMAN: I think the difficulty here is that you had Democrats holding up Mueller's investigation as needing to be protected for two years, whenever there was -- the president did have an interest in firing Mueller. The fact that he didn't do it is not the point. He did have an interest in doing it.

And so Democrats have talked about the need to preserve this and let this happen on its own, independently. And then, when the results do not necessarily back up what Democrats have been saying for two years, it is very hard to then say, "Well, we need to see what else there is." Certainly, on the issue of conspiracy and colluding with Russians. On the issue of obstruction, it's a little more complicated.

AVLON: Yes, and I think there are going to be questions about money -- the money trail between the Trump Organization and possible Russians. We don't know whether Mueller looked into it.

But on the question of collusion and conspiracy, this seems to be a closed door. And Democrats who cited Mueller as the gold standard while he was being attacked by Republicans need to respect the results. But we also need to see the full report. Those two things I don't think are intention.

Then, of course, there's the larger question of obstruction and the really unusual decision made by Barr. And I think one of the things we'll see in the fullness of time is how the results we're seeing are the result of the special counsel being in place and the sunsetting of the independent counsel statute. Because that's a totally different world --

GREGORY: Another thing.

AVLON: -- to have allowed this outcome to occur, with regard to obstruction.

BERMAN: Go ahead, David.

GREGORY: We need to talk about Republicans. We've got to talk about Republicans here, as well.

BERMAN: Sure.

GREGORY: Because we don't know where this is going to go. The president could choose one route, which is to be magnanimous, to thank the process that was fair to him. But that's not the route he's going to go.

He thinks this was a witch-hunt, and Republicans are going to back him up and say why was there a special counsel in the first place? There's going to be strange bedfellows here, because Republicans are going to join Democrats in saying, "You bet. Let's get it all out there. Let's release every bit of the investigative trail" to -- to perhaps, in their mind, confirm that there was something that was political in the intent of the investigation against the president. That's what I think he's going to call for.

BERMAN: Is it safe to assume that this four-page letter that I've read, you know, 25 times now --

CAMEROTA: Annotated, I see.

[06:25:00] BERMAN: -- and is creased and annotated, is it safe to assume, Maggie, that this is the best possible version, politically, for the president? That Barr went through this and -- you know, I don't think made anything up but gave an interpretation here that might be the most flattering version for the president?

HABERMAN: Based on what we know, it is safe to assume that this is the best possible outcome for the president.

I do want to asterisk this conversation about obstruction of justice with the fact that, it would be incredibly precedent-setting for them to decide that this was obstruction of justice, based on what they --

BERMAN: Yes.

HABERMAN: Just, as far as I understand it, based on what they knew, I think it is not a surprise that they did not decide to go with that. And I do think it is worth noting, again, if this letter is correct that Rosenstein was part of that decision.

Rosenstein had been held up also by Democrats as he had to stay there to preserve the Mueller investigation. These are -- you know, Rosenstein might be able to speak more freely than Mueller will, and we'll look forward to hearing from him at some point, hopefully.

But at the end of the day, yes, this is -- I don't know that I would call it flattering.

BERMAN: Yes.

HABERMAN: This is certainly the most positive outcome for the president. It might be based on the available facts. I don't know, because I haven't seen the report.

BERMAN: That's right. But the reason I bring that up is because this four-page letter notes that there were two huge categories, buckets of attempts by the Russians to infiltrate the election. You know, that's interesting.

HABERMAN: And it says -- and it goes completely against what the president's narrative has been. It could have been WikiLeaks. You know, the Russian with WikiLeaks. Could have not been. It's a website. I mean, Mueller is very clear on what that was.

BERMAN: And that's the best version. Again, what I'm saying could be the best version for the president. And to have Robert Mueller specifically say it does not exonerate him.

If William Barr is willing to tell the American people that Robert Mueller presented evidence of obstruction of justice, it must be so much evidence or such a big part of what Robert Mueller did that it was unavoidable, I think, for William Barr to tell.

AVLON: I think that's a fair assumption. Again, more reason to release the full report.

Second of all, the conclusion -- you know, even punting to the Justice Department justice speaks to the special counsel statute. It speaks to -- it almost undercuts the purpose of having an outside investigation. And the -- where Barr ended up seems to be entirely in line with that 19-page memo he wrote even before he was in the attorney general's office.

CAMEROTA: All right, John, David, Maggie, thank you.

GREGORY: And just quickly, guys.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

CAMEROTA: I just want to make the other point, which is that will Trump now take this opportunity to do something about what the Russians tried to do in 2016? Now that he is in the clear. Because that is left hanging out there as a major threat, now that we know more about what the Russians tried to do.

CAMEROTA: Hope springs eternal. David, thank you very much. Maggie, John.

Parkland, meanwhile, Parkland, Florida, is grieving again after a second survivor of the school massacre there has died of an apparent suicide. What we know about this, next.

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