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Mueller Told Close Associates That Bill Bar Did Not Adequately Capture His Findings; A Key House Democrat Is Requesting Trump's Tax Returns From The IRS; Some On The Mueller's Team Say That The Evidence They Gathered On Obstruction Is Alarming And Significant. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: More damaging for President Trump then Attorney General Bill Barr has led on. THE TIMES says some of Robert Mueller's investigators have told close associates that Bill Barr did not adequately capture the findings of the nearly two year long probe in his four page summary to Congress.

Investigators are reportedly concerned that American's views of the investigation have hardened already before they've seen the report.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Also new this morning, a moment the President has avoided for years. House Democrats put in a formal request to the IRS to hand over six years of the President's personal and business tax returns.

Now this is more than just your normal, please may we have them Congressional request. There's a law in place that requires the IRS to turn over tax returns if requested by certain committees.

In a letter to the IRS first obtained by CNN, House Ways and Means Committee chair Richard Neal demanded returns from 2013 through 2018. The President responded that he's not inclined to comply until he is no longer under audit, which in of itself is a claim that has never been confirmed.

We're going to begin though, with THE NEW YORK TIMES report on Robert Mueller and the Mueller team. Joining us now is Mark Mazzetti, Washington Investigative Correspondent for THE NEW YORK TIMES and a CNN national security analyst.

He is one of the reporters that broke this story about the Mueller team and there have not been many stories at all, really none about sentiment from the Mueller team so that's significant in itself. Mark, let me just read the first paragraph here so people know what your reporting is.

"Some of Robert Mueller's investigators have told associates that Attorney General William Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations". Simmering frustrations, what exactly are they?

MARK MAZZETTI, WASHINGTON INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well there's this kind of anger inside the Mueller investigation among the team of lawyers and investigators that William Barr had the first shot at shaping the narrative here and in doing so, he certainly down played the information that potentially was perilous for Donald Trump.

And you know this is one of the most consequential investigations in American government history and the Barr letter that was four pages, according to the concerns of the people we've heard from are - it significantly down plays the significance of some of the findings and we've not had any sense of attention before now between the special councils office and Senior Justice Department officials.

BERMAN: No, we haven't heard any complaints at all directly or indirectly from the Mueller team yet, which is what make this significant. Shaping the narrative though is an interesting way to phrase it and that is very specifically in your article.

Why do these folks on the Mueller team feel it's their job to shape the narrative as opposed to just presenting the facts?

MAZZETTI: Well you're absolutely right. It is presenting the facts and we don't want to imply it in the story that William Barr's letter in any way massaged or doctored any language or conclusions of the Mueller team.

But we report in the story also that there were summaries written by the Mueller team about their report and their conclusions and there was concern that there was not more material inside from those summaries - drawn from the summaries to be put in the Barr letter.

And as we know, the Barr letter only had I think two fragments of sentences lifted directly from the Mueller report. So those summaries were prepared in part where some of that information could come out nearly simultaneously with the Barr letter. So that's kind of where it's in terms of presenting the conclusions and the significance and damning nature of some of them.

BERMAN: Yes. This was brand new information in your report that the Mueller team had drafted their own summaries, yet Barr used only 101 words - we counted - 101 words from the actual Mueller report. Was there the expectation that Barr would use more direct quotes or more information from the summaries that the Mueller team prepared?

MAZZETTI: So that's where it's still unclear, exactly what the expectation was with the summaries. Now we don't report that.

These summaries were prepared to be put out immediately, in other words, in lieu of the Barr report that they would have been ready for prime time without any redactions. We have not heard that and the Justice Department indeed says, yes there were summaries, but some of them had classified material, Grand Jury material.

They couldn't have put them out right away, so I think the dispute is over exactly how much of those summaries could have been put in and some within the Special Counsels team believed they could have used at least some to flesh out more than Barr did, what the Special Counsel found in its investigation.

[06:05:00]

BERMAN: So Mark, one of the questions here, there is the collusion issue or conspiracy and coordination and also obstruction. When you write and when people from the Mueller team express concerns through intermediaries or others that the Barr report doesn't accurately portray or at least doesn't convey the concerns that they have over the president's behavior, are they just talking about obstruction, or do you also get the sense that they feel that there is more to learn about collusion that could be harmful to the president?

MAZZETTI: It may be some of both and we're still trying to get clarity on that. You know, recall on the collusion issue, the Barr letter essentially said, you know, pretty succinctly there was no conspiracy or they found no conspiracy.

And certainly there's an expectation that the Barr - that the Mueller investigation, the report has more damning information short of any kind of criminal conspiracy. But on the obstruction issue, as we know, the letter sort of said that Mueller, you know, refused to come to a conclusion, lays out, you know, evidence in column A, evidence in column B and it was there for Barr to make a judgment or Barr says it was there for up to him to make a judgment.

So I think in expectation, our expectation is that maybe more of the battle here is on the obstruction issue.

BERMAN: I will say that the Washington Post, which notably followed your story, they matched much of your reporting, they noted that on obstruction, some of the people connected to the Mueller team feel that there is information that is alarming and significant that Barr withheld.

MAZZETTI: Right, and we would certainly expect that and the Barr letter hints at it. You know, it says that, you know, they found information that - that was - masked evidence that may not have reached the Barr - that Mueller had about criminally charging obstruction of justice.

But certainly when put in a large report and made public would certainly be damning - potentially damning for the president. So that's what we're expecting in this, even though we know the top line conclusions there will be far more in that report that we didn't know.

BERMAN: So the Mueller team consisted of 19 lawyers and some 40 FBI agents. A couple questions here, how many do we have a sense of this is the universal conclusion among this team and the secondary question to that is why now? Why do they feel those who are coming forward either directly or through intermediary said it's important to get this message out now.

MAZZETTI: Well I think people's motives are - people have different motives, we don't know how - how extensive this frustration and concern is inside the team. We don't suggest that it's every member.

But we think that there is a significant strain here inside the investigation about - of concern and frustration about how this all played out.

BERMAN: Yes but one of my questions has always been will the Mueller team serve as a guard rail once they turned in the report, will they be more proactive in the coming months and maybe even years in deciding how this story is told? Is this an indication that the answer to that question is yes?

MAZZETTI: We can certainly expect after the report comes out in whatever form, although it will be redacted, I would expect that we will hear down the road some members of the team if not from Robert Mueller himself about the process, how they came to their conclusions, what they found.

There will be restrictions based on grand jury material. But I think that the report still will just be the beginning in terms of us learning about what went on inside the team and the course of its investigation.

BERMAN: And of course your story has another interesting nugget, which is frustrations within the Justice Department that the Mueller team did not reach a conclusion on obstruction.

I thought that was interesting in and of itself and more specifically in inclusion with this article.

MAZZETTI: Right, and there's sort of two things going on inside of the Justice Department at the highest level. One is as you said, there is a degree of frustration that this decision was left they believe for Barr, that Mueller's team did not make a prosecutorial judgment on obstruction of justice, and Barr and his deputy weighed in and they felt that this kind of fell on their lap.

The other sense of frustration is that, you know, Barr was really hamstrung in terms of what he could say in that letter than there is - there are restrictions of what you can put out that is damaging to people that you don't charge.

And also there is this wariness of repeating what Jim Comey did, the former FBI director, when he decided not to charge Hillary Clinton and yet spoke about her actions as being reckless.

And that was a precedent that many criticized, the FBI and the Justice Department, Barr himself criticized it. And so there was some concern of going down that path again.

[06:10:00]

BERMAN: Mark Mazzetti, thank you so much for joining us, as I think you could tell, I found this article to be fascinating and I'm a big fan of your work in general, so thank so much for being with us.

MAZZETTI: Thank you, John. CAMEROTA: All right, now to this story, a key house Democrat is

requesting President Trumps tax returns from the IRS. The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants to see six years of President Trump's personal tax returns and returns from eight of his businesses.

The demand is expected to spark a legal battle with the administration that could stretch months, or even years. It could go all the way to the Supreme Court. So let's bring in a key member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee. Congressman, thank you very much for being with us. So many people thought that you all would do this on January 3rd when the new congress came in and Democrats took over the house, do you know why your Chairman waited three months to make this request?

DAN KILDEE, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, the Chairman took a very deliberate approach and wanted to make sure that we get it right, not just get it fast, and so he was in consultation with House counsel and developed this request, we expect that the President and his team may push back, and so obviously we wanted to make sure that everything was done completely within our authority.

We do establish the legal basis and the factual basis for this request, we've done that both in terms of public hearings that we've held, and in the work that the chairman himself is going and conducting over the last few months, and the result is this very specific request to the IRS Commissioner. It's given -- it's provided under law, section 6103 of the tax code says that the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee can seek tax returns from tax payers when there's a public interest and a public policy purpose and there very much is one in this case.

CAMEROTA: It's not just the President that's pushing back, it's even Republican members of your own committee, for instance, Congressman Kevin Brady put out this statement, "Weaponizing our nations tax code by targeting political foes sets a dangerous precedent and weakens American's privacy rights, as you know, by law, all Americans have a fundamental right to the privacy of the personal information found in their tax returns." Is he right?

KILDEE: Well, first of all, you know it's amazing to the extent to which Republicans in congress are willing to sacrifice their own obligations, the oath that they swore to provide oversight on the executive branch of government in order to defend a president who's standards are taking us really to a very dark place. Having said that, no -- I mean, the President of the United States is a unique position.

Clearly, he has the right to privacy, but let's be clear, Donald Trump broke near a half a century of tradition when he did not provide access to his tax returns. Every president since Nixon has done so, and so the necessity to use this provision is not because we are on a -- any sort of, as he would call it, a witch hunt, it's because it's the President himself who has broken precedent and not provided the American public with access to these returns. We have a very specific questions we're trying to get at, a policy question, and that is whether the IRS is auditing and enforcing the tax laws of the United States on the President of the United States. We don't know, for example, whether or not the President's returns are actually under audit. In order for us --

CAMEROTA: Will you be able to determine that?

KILDEE: Well, in order for us to determine whether there should be changes in law to strengthen that, we have to have a look at the returns and the associated documents. The only way we can get that, the only way we can determine that is to have the chairman have access to those individual returns and the eight business entities that we think constitute a full view of the President's business empire.

CAMEROTA: Yes, you know the President has said he's not inclined to do this, though he had promised during the campaign that he was going to release his taxes, he now says yesterday when he found out about the request that he's not inclined to release them. Does it matter how the President feels? Can the IRS make this decision, separate and apart from how the President feels?

KILDEE: Well, with all due respect to the President, the request did not go to him, it went to the IRS Commissioner, who himself swore an oath to uphold the laws of the United States, and specifically to uphold the tax code. I would direct the Commissioner to section 6103 of the IRS -- of the tax code itself and he will see in very plain language that he is duty bound to provide these returns to the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

CAMEROTA: Once you have them in the committee can they be made public to voters and Americans?

KILDEE: Well, I don't think we should get ahead of ourselves, we don't know what is in the returns.

[06:15:00]

Would have no intent of releasing them, but obviously the information that we will glean (ph) will make - will make it clear whether additional steps are necessary. But the point I think at this point right now for us is to ensure that as we examine this question as to whether or not the president is - is being subjected to the tax laws of the United States properly, whether for example he is being audited, which has been the practice of the IRS.

We have to get a look at those returns and the chairman and his team will make that determination, and I don't want to predict exactly what the outcome will be. But let's be clear, this is really on the president.

He said quite clearly that he would provide the American people with his tax returns. This is not simply a case of him contradicting one tweet with another tweet, this is a promise that he made as he was running for president, assuring the American people that he will be transparent as almost a half a century of presidents and candidates have been.

And now, you know, he is completely oblique when it comes to his personal interests. We ought to be able to know as a society, as a people whether the president's private interests influence his public decision making, and we cannot know that when he is so unwilling to be transparent with the American people.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Dan Kildee, thank you very much for explaining all of this to us on "New Day".

KILDEE: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: All right, you were right, there is a lot going on this morning.

CAMEROTA: There really is.

BERMAN: And we have an awful lot to talk about. No, no, no, it was good that I did come in and got here on time for the show today. We have much more on what the Congressman was saying about this demand for tax returns and much, much more on these fascinating reports.

First in the New York Times and the Washington Post that people from the Mueller team feel that William Barr has not adequately portrayed their findings specifically on obstruction. What does it mean that they're coming forward now with these concerns? What should this tell us going forward? We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:00]

CAMEROTA: The New York Times reports that some members of Robert Mueller's team believe that the Mueller Report is more damaging to President Trump than the Attorney General has revealed. Also new this morning, the Washington Post reports that some on Mueller's team say that the evidence they gathered on obstruction is "alarming" and "significant." Let's bring is, John Avlon, CNN Senior Political Analyst.

We also have Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, and Laura Coates, also a former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst. Great to have all of you as we work our way though the breaking news this morning. Elie, I hate to say I told you so, but I seem to recall the day after the Barr summary came out, I think maybe you we're on the program and I said, what if he mischaracterized Robert Muller's --

BERMAN: I want to find a video tape here, I'm not sure I remember this --

CAMEROTA: Oh, I said it. Jen -- I said it a million times that morning.

UNKNOWN: Rings a bell, Alisyn.

UNKNOWN: I'm with you. CAMEROTA: It rings a bell. I said it a million times --

BERMAN: I'm sure you did.

CAMEROTA: Because it seemed to me that four pages -- we didn't know that it was going to be 400 pages, but I also seem to recall saying whether it's 5 -- 50 pages or 500, what if they mischaracterized some of it, would Robert Muller's investigators ever speak out? I had to wait about 10 days for this to happen, but they are telling close associates that they feel it was mischaracterized, now what?

BERMAN: Alisyn Camerota is always right.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, and we're done with this segment.

ELIE HONIG, LEGAL ANALYST, CNN: And wrap. An so -- but here's the thing, prosecutors, little inside information, prosecutors are human beings, right, and I try to put myself in the position of someone who has worked for Robert Mueller for the past 22 months, if I felt like my work was being misrepresented, misstated, suppressed, I would feel every inclination to speak out. I know Mueller has run a very tight ship, I know he has not spoken, I know his PIO, his Public Information Officer has said nothing.

But these are human beings, several dozen prosecutors and FBI agents and I think we're going to start to see sort of a backlash against that initial narrative that Barr created with his letter. And look, the tones are changing real quick, it was three weeks ago that we had that 420 to zero vote in the House saying release it all, and then yesterday we have every republican on the committee voting no on the subpoena. So, we're seeing a changing tone, the Presidents talking points have gone from let everyone have it, no big deal, to it's a disgrace that people want to see it. So I do think things are changing quite a bit.

BERMAN: Laura?

LAURA COATES, LEGAL ANALYST, CNN: You know, I'm kind of reminded of this quote I once read about Lincoln that said "I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one." Well, Barr's actual four page summary of things was so short that of course it was going to be under inclusive and frankly underwhelming. You have a 22 month investigation whittled down to, what? About a hundred and one words that are taken, perhaps, out of context, perhaps in context, we don't actually know, that summarizes all of this, and it leaves this question open that makes it seem like the Mueller probe was fumbling around, not trying -- not understanding what they should have done with respect to the obstruction charge in particular.

And remember, I harp on this because the obstruction charge is no light matter. It was the basis for two presidents having to answer to the calls for potential impeachment, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon. Remember, it is the head of the Executive Branch they're talking about, the President, who's job it is to enforce the law. So, the above the law sentiment around obstruction will be very relevant here, so I think that Barr did himself no great service when he said, I think I'll hastily try to give something, even though it wasn't comprehensive, and Elie is absolutely right, you're the prosecutors on this case, if you're part of the probe, to have your work whittled down to 101 statements and say is everyone satisfied, that was a joke to begin with.

JOHN AVALON, POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN: Look, obviously Barr put forward the most positive version possible for the President, consistent with the top line findings. I think there's no reason to think that Barr changed the top line findings, but he clearly drove a truck though certain openings Mueller had given him with regard to not reaching conclusions, for example, about obstruction. It's surprising it took 10 days for people to start coming out if they felt their work was this mischaracterized.

[06:25:00]

In the politics of it, I think what Trump has gained comfort from and Barr has done the president a solid on is framing a narrative that will harden partisan positions, potentially at the expense of the actual information when it's released.

CAMEROTA: But when it comes out - let's say - but let's just say it comes out tomorrow, people can change their opinions. I mean if it comes out and there's a blockbuster in there, I think that people's opinions can shift.

AVLON: I would temper expectations for blockbuster and I'd also temper expectations at this point unfortunately for many people to change their minds, because partisan positions are so hardened, the tribalism is so deep and Barr's sort of framing it early was designed to deepen those divisions.

BERMAN: I (inaudible) in a close election for instance, if it's only a five vote margin, you always want to be the person up by five votes before the recount, because if you're not you're the one who stole election.

AVLON: That's right.

BERMAN: And that's what this feels like to me, that they are saying they are concerned about it. And to me this is a significant moment only because there was always the question of if the president and his team were in fact mischaracterizing this, why weren't the Mueller people saying something and now they are?

And so it's a guard rail perhaps, it gives a sense that there are limits to what they will accept.

CAMEROTA: Also I thought it was very interesting, Elie, that they - we now know that Mueller's team provided their own summary. It was longer than four pages, in fact they summarized every sort of chapter of this.

And that's what - they summarized it to the degree that's what they thought would be released to the public. So in other words, they attempted to scrub it of classified information, and that's what they thought that the attorney general would release.

But he then distilled it down, their summary down further to his four page summary.

HONIG: Yes, it raises even more questions about why William Barr did what he did with his four - four page memo. It appears it wasn't even necessary, it appears they - they gave him CliffsNotes and then he said I'm going to do CliffsNotes of your CliffsNotes.

But why? Why not just produce those summaries which come from much closer to the source? And look, I think there's - there definitely is that initial sort of impression, the first impression phenomenon that Barr created, but I do think pushing against that is that people really reject the idea of someone hiding something.

Right, if you're the one arguing against transparency, you're losing and you know that as a trial lawyer. If the jury ever thinks you're trying to hide something from them, they will rebel on you.

And so it'll be interesting to see how an - the political analysts can give -

(CROSS TALK)

-- (inaudible) how it's placed (ph).

AVLON: Eighty-six percent of the American people want the Mueller report to be released, that doesn't mean with classified information not redacted, not compromising other ongoing investigations which needs to be said.

But look, the other thing is look at how the Trump folks have actually said look, complete exoneration, even the four page summary says that is not true. This does not constitute exoneration. And also saying there's no obstruction.

So they are messaging to their base a complete free pass that they're trying to then taint any ongoing investigations.

BERMAN: You wanted to ask Laura (ph) a question about tax law? A very detailed --

CAMEROTA: No I wanted to read aloud the tax code, because I think that, you know, ratings, OK, I mean does anything spell ratings more than that? But about the - about -

COATES: Bring it on, I can't get enough of tax code.

CAMEROTA: OK, here you go. It's quite scintillating. The House ways and means chairman has asked the IRS to release six years of President Trump's personal taxes. Here is where I think they get into trouble.

The secretary of the IRS shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such a request except that any return or return information which can be associated with or otherwise identified directly or indirectly a particular tax payer. Well doesn't that kind of nullify the request since we all know that

it's Donald Trump's taxes?

COATES: I mean it's not too hard to lift the veil of who we're talking about. This kind of has that individual number one quality that Michael Cohen once spoke about with the SDNY.

You know, they are quite clear in the law though that this is one of the committees in Congress that has every right to request the actual taxes from an individual, particularly the president of the United States.

And there is a precedent set ironically by Nixon who was facing questions about charitable deductions and ultimately ended up volunteering it that may actually influence the Democrats' ability to make this either public or at least amongst themselves.

But the issue here really is whether this is a - is being weaponized for political reasons. I think frankly the three month delay in asking for the request may actually (inaudible) benefit the Democrats, saying listen we wanted to make sure there was some lawful, non- political purpose of doing so, and part of our function and mandate as part of this committee is to ensure that the IRS policy related to the auditing or the evaluation of presidential tax returns is our hook.

That's a - that's a good hook to have. However, making it public may in fact be an exercise in futility.

AVLON: They're bending over backwards to try to make sure they don't get blindsided in court by showing a legitimate non-political purpose of this. That's clear with all their statements, the six year window, and Trump Co is going to hope they'll get lucky with the judge.

BERMAN: Shall furnish.

AVLON: Shall furnish.

BERMAN: Really important words here, shall furnish.

AVLON: Good verbs.

CAMEROTA: Except -

BERMAN: We're going to send it to our accountants after this, because while you are clairvoyant and also an accomplished accountant (ph) -

CAMEROTA: I can't wait to pull the transcript, everyone stay tuned.

BERMAN: (Inaudible). All right, thank you all.

CAMEROTA: OK, meanwhile we do have some breaking news right now because Ethiopian investigators have announced their initial findings.

[06:30:00]

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