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NYT: Some on Mueller's Team Say Report More Damaging Than Barr Revealed; House Dems Request Trump's Tax Returns From IRS; Alberto Gonzales, Former Attorney General, is Interviewed About Barr's Report. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The special counsel found no collusion.

[07:00:23] MARK MAZZETTI, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: There is frustration among the team that it didn't capture the extent of the findings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let Barr go through the review. Then, if they're not happy, let the fights begin.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): The department is wrong to try to withhold information. Congress is entitled to all of the evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The American people have a right to know whether he's benefitting from the policies that he's pushing.

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We will follow the law and we will protect the president as we would protect any taxpayer.

REP. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): He's been very, very careful. This is not about politics. This is about policy.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The White House has been bracing for this, so expect a legal fight. They are not going to take this lying down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And welcome to your NEW DAY.

Breaking overnight, the first signs that the Mueller team does not like how their findings are being depicted, and they may be starting to do something about it.

"The New York Times" was the first to report that some investigators for the special counsel are saying that Attorney General Bill Barr did not adequately portray the findings of their nearly two-year probe in his four-page memo. Mark Mazzetti, one of the "Times" reporters who broke the story, talked to us just moments ago. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAZZETTI: William Barr had the first shot at shaping the narrative here. And in doing so, he certainly downplayed the information that potentially was perilous for Donald Trump.

We don't know how -- how extensive this frustration/concern is inside the team. We don't suggest it's every member. But we think that there's a significant strain here inside the investigation about -- of concern and frustration about how this all played out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. We'll get much more on that in a moment.

Also new this morning, a top Democrat is asking the IRS to hand over six years of President Trump's personal and business tax returns. In a letter to the IRS first obtained by CNN, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal wants the returns from 2013 to 2018, and he has set an April 10 deadline. That request could set up a drawn-out legal battle.

So let's bring in our experts. We have Jeffrey Toobin, former federal prosecutor and CNN chief legal analyst. We have Laura Coates, former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst; and Chris Cillizza, CNN Politics reporter and editor at large.

OK. Let's start with the Mueller team that it sounds like some of the investigators on that team are frustrated by the characterization that Attorney General Bill Barr put out. So they have -- are so frustrated they've spoken to close associates, who then have shared that with "The New York Times."

And we now know, Jeffrey, that what they had intended, they created their own summaries of each portion of the 400-page report that they thought it could be released to the public. In other words, scrubbed of classified or damning information. But that's not what Bill Barr did. He distilled it further, their summaries, into his own four-page summary. And they think that that has mischaracterized their work.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: And put a -- and Barr put a very pro-Trump spin on -- on the Mueller findings.

This is yet another example of why the report itself has to be released. Because now we have Barr characterizing it. We have some people in the Mueller office characterizing it. But this document exists in the world. And people can read it for themselves. And I think what these leaks really are, are a goad to Barr and, ultimately, to Congress, if necessary, to just release it so everybody can draw their own conclusions.

BERMAN: There was a question about how far would the Mueller team let the president and his allies go in depicting and portraying what is in the report before they expressed frustration, and I think the answer is now this far.

TOOBIN: This far.

BERMAN: Today. Today.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT AND EDITOR AT LARGE: I'm just -- I'm totally with Jeff on the report. I just worry that the bigger the gap between four-page Barr summary and whatever larger Mueller report, if it's all or if it's most of it, comes out, the more time to shape the political narrative.

Look, you saw Donald Trump within about 24 hours of the Barr letter: no collusion, no obstruction, total exoneration. Now, that wasn't accurate then, even based on the Barr letter, because it says this does not totally exonerate Donald Trump, quoting Bob Mueller.

But so much of this -- this is what he is good at, whether you like him or you hate him, is he is good at framing narrative. He is going to say, "Oh, well, yes, now they're saying that. Now they're saying that it's not this."

[07:05:02] And I think in some ways it will get lost for a decent chunk of the populace, no matter when it comes out and what it comes out, in what form. Because he has already had this four-page letter that he can seize on and say, "See? I didn't do anything wrong."

And when the rest comes out, "Oh, well, they're nitpicking about details."

Now, maybe we'll get enough you can say, well, this isn't nitpicking. And maybe that will change people's perception, but I feel like a lot of people are already kind of over this. And that's a good story for Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: Well, yes, I suppose. Except that Laura, when real information comes out and there are real descriptions about what Robert Mueller found over the past two years, some of which, we have to assume, will not be a love letter. They will be incriminating or at least embarrassing. I think people can change their minds with new evidence.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Alisyn, and think about this. William Barr, it took him 19 pages to evaluate and assess and offer his thoughts on obstruction of justice before he even saw the evidence in front of the 22-month investigation. A 19-page letter was then distilled down to, what, a page, a little under a page, if you think about formatting, of what he now surmised of the actual Mueller probe.

The notion that there would not be some disconnect between what was ultimately found and what was conveyed really is a farce. And particularly because anybody who is literate would have been able to read even those limited words from Mueller contained in that Barr summary showed the president's narrative is actually a false one. There was not a total exoneration, particularly with respect to obstruction of justice. Because you have to have, and to allude to your point, Alisyn, there

is information out there that actually posed some sort of conundrum for Mueller and his team. There was evidence that he had to weigh on both sides of the issue. It seems that the Barr summary only presents the side that actually weighs in favor of Trump.

But if they actually were not able to reach a conclusion, and that is what is so important and substantive that we have to see it.

BERMAN: You know, Jeffrey, I know you're an avid watcher of NEW DAY. And we had a fascinating discussion with Mark Mazzetti at the top of the show, one of the reporters who broke this.

And what I wanted to get to is, is it just information on obstruction that the Mueller team feel is being mis-portrayed here, or is it also some of the issues surrounding collusion.

And Mark said, according to his sources, probably some of both. But it's clear that on obstruction, they feel that something is being spun the wrong way here. And "The Washington Post" did a follow-up story on this where they matched much of this reporting; and I want to read this. "Members of the Mueller team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant, much more acute than Barr suggested."

TOOBIN: Well, remember, even by Barr's summary, their -- it was a close question about whether the president committed an illegal act. That means, by definition, there is bad information in there.

So the idea that, you know, this is 400 pages of hearts and flowers to Donald Trump is just inconceivable. There obviously is incriminating information in there. How much? How people view it? That, of course, remains to be seen.

And I don't really share Chris's worry about how people are going to receive the information. As far as I can tell, nothing changes anyone's opinion about Donald Trump.

CILLIZZA: That's true.

TOOBIN: You know, the polls on Donald Trump never change. You know, we make a big deal when his approval goes from 40 to 42. That's just noise. I mean, I just care about the facts.

BERMAN: That's what people should care about. Again, but I liken it to a recount, which you've covered extensively. You know, if you were ahead by one vote before the recount, what you get to say is if the recount changes things, you're like, "Oh, the election was stolen from us."

This is a little bit of that type of framing.

CILLIZZA: You always prefer to be ahead by just the one, because you can say, "Well, we've been leading now for months."

But Jeff's right. Look, take the political concern out of it, what he's going to do with it. Because what he's going to do with it, we already know what he's going to do with it.

It is a 22-month investigation into foreign interference in our election. We lose that sometimes amid all of this other stuff, which by the way, turned out 199 criminal counts.

So let's see it, because it's important, because a foreign power was seeking to influence our presidential election beyond the politics.

BERMAN: Guys, stick around. We have a lot more to talk about. But one other point on this that some conservatives have said is why do investigators care about a narrative. Why don't they just care about getting the facts out? That's something can be discussed also.

There's another big political story out this morning. A key House Democrat is requesting President Trump's tax returns. He's doing this, because he has the legal authority to do so.

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee wants to see six years of the president's personal tax returns and records from eight of his businesses.

Let's get to Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill to help us understand what's going on here -- Lauren.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

That's right. This was a major step yesterday when the House Ways and Means chairman sent that formal request to the IRS. And of course, Democrats have argued they have to do this, in part because the president is the first president in decades not to just disclose his tax returns.

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FOX (voice-over): House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal making the first move in what is expected to turn into a major political and legal showdown, formally requesting six years of President Trump's personal tax returns and records from eight of his business entities.

TRUMP: Is that all? Oh, usually it's ten. So I guess they're giving up.

FOX: The president suggesting he won't comply.

TRUMP: We're under audit, despite what people said. Until such time as I'm not under audit, I would not be inclined to do that.

FOX: Despite Mr. Trump's longstanding explanation, an audit does not prevent an individual from releasing their tax returns. Richard Nixon did just that in 1973.

"The Washington Post" reports that Mr. Trump has told advisers he plans to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, hoping to stall the issue until after the 2020 election. And that Treasury officials will not comply until they are compelled to do so. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, declining the

answer when asked about the issue last month.

MNUCHIN: I'm not aware there's ever been a request for an elected official's tax return. But we will follow the law, and we will protect the president as we would protect any individual taxpayer under their rights.

FOX: Under a provision in the federal tax code, Chairman Neal is allowed to request anyone's tax returns as long as they can show it's part of Congress's oversight role or an investigation.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): This leaves no wiggle room. It is squarely within the chairman's authority.

FOX: Neal alluding to this requirement in his two-page letter to the IRS, writing, quote, "The committee is considering legislative proposals and conducting oversight related to our federal tax laws."

The top Republican on the committee, Kevin Brady, criticizing the request in a letter to Mnuchin, warning that, quote, "weaponizing our tax code sets a dangerous precedent and weakens Americans' privacy rights."

Democrats insisting Neal's request is justified.

SUOZZI: He's been very, very careful throughout the process. And he's made it very clear this is not about politics. This is about policy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOX: Now the IRS, of course, has a weak to comply with this request. So we'll be watching closely with how they respond.

But you know, Richard Neal looked at this very closely. He told me the day after the election that he planned to make the move. But he's taken several months to talk closely with House counsel and lawyers on the committee, trying to build this case -- John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Lauren, thank you very much for explaining all of that.

Back with us now we have Jeffrey Toobin, Laura Coates and Chris Cillizza.

OK. So it is completely legal and, in fact, the purview of the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to request anyone's tax returns. They have done that. That should be legal.

However, it is Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who ultimately will decide. Does that -- do you see a brewing legal storm for this now?

TOOBIN: For certain. For absolute certain. And I think this is just a symbol of how many of these sorts of subpoena fights we're going to see over the next year and a half. And I think what may be the most important factor in all of this is

time. Because these legal fights are going to take time. And whether the Democrats get anything, whether it's from the White House or here from the Internal Revenue Service, is really going to be determined by how quickly the courts address these questions, and the White House is going to be in no hurry.

So I think we are going to see a lot of legal fights starting in the district court in Washington, D.C. Circuit, maybe some of them going to the Supreme Court. And while these fights are going the Democrats are going to get nothing.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. You said the treasury secretary will decide. The decision isn't on the law. It's whether to comply with the law. This isn't -- this is code. This is a law that was passed, IRS code 6103: "Upon written request from the Committee on Ways and Means or Finance, the secretary shall furnish" -- shall furnish. He is required by law to furnish. And the treasury secretary, by all accounts, will not comply; and that will lead to the fight, Laura.

COATES: Well, you're also required to comply with the subpoena. But we certainly see fights that are brewing to say that there is some reason this is not supposed to be complied with.

I think the law is quite clear here. But the notion will be that there is an attempt by the Democrats to try to weaponize the code in a way to get a political objective. And that will be the substance of the argument that is being made.

Ironically here, you know, the notion that the Ways and Means committee is using this to say that they want to know whether or not the policies that are already in place to audit a president, to review the tax returns, is actually a good one. Should there be changes.

[07:15:03] And I remind everyone that, back when Nixon was in office, this is an issue that prompted him to say, "I am not a crook." It was on a tax issue. So to have the American people realize whether the president of the United States was, in fact, a crook based on tax fraud, in part.

So you have this developing history, and you have this president now saying that, even if you weigh the cost/benefit analysis of the American people's right to know whether their president or the process is in place to oversee the president are solid against his own personal decisions and prerogatives not to want you to know whether he's rich, that's not going to play out very favorably for the president when you have this overwhelming public need.

However, that public need and that public narrative certainly has a partisan slant to it. And that will be revealed in the court documents. It will be argued until they're blue in the face.

CILLIZZA: Yes. They're not giving this up. He made a decision very early. Remember, before he was a candidate, he said, "Yes, if I run, I'm more than happy to release my tax returns." Someone got to him and said, "Yes. There's stuff in here that

probably wouldn't come out." He made a decision at that point, early in the 2016 campaign that, whatever negative press he was going to take. "Oh, he's not transparent enough." That people didn't care as much about that as they would care what was in these things. And so he's going to fight this and fight this.

CAMEROTA: It's not up to the president.

CILLIZZA: I totally agree. But he -- they will not comply. This will go, as Jeff said -- I think this is one that does wind up, at some point, in front of the Supreme Court. Because this is going to be a fight over -- over something from 1924 that was put in place to try to equalize power between the legislative and the executive.

BERMAN: The president claims he is being audited. I will only note we don't, A, know whether that's true.

CAMEROTA: We've never had any evidence.

BERMAN: And B, even if it is, it is not a legal reason.

CILLIZZA: Nixon released his taxes in 1973 when he was being audited, to Laura's point, to try to prove he was not a crook.

Jeffrey Toobin, Laura Coates, Chris Cillizza, thank you very, very much.

Attorney General William Barr is now under scrutiny after these reports that there was concern inside the Mueller team that Barr is not accurately portraying what they found in their two-year investigation. We're going to speak to a former attorney general about all of this next.

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[07:21:12] BERMAN: "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" report that some members of the special counsel's team believe that the Mueller report is more damaging to President Trump than Attorney General William Barr reveals in his four-page summary. "The Post" also says that the evidence Mueller's team gathered on obstruction was, quote, "alarming and significant."

Joining us now is former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He served under President George W. Bush. Mr. Gonzales is now the dean of the law school at Belmont University and the author of "True Faith and Allegiance: A Story of Service and Sacrifice in War and Peace."

Thank you, as always, for being with us. When you hear there are simmering frustrations among the team of investigators, including FBI agents and lawyers, about how their report is being depicted; and they're somehow getting those simmering frustrations out in the public, how do you see it?

ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm not surprised. We've got a very complicated investigation covering a large amount of very complicated information. And people are going to have different views.

Prosecutors and investigators have different views about the ultimate conclusions. At the end of the day, someone has got to make the ultimate call. And that ultimate call has been made by Bob Mueller and by Bill Barr.

So the fact that there is, you know, some concerns, complaints about the ultimate conclusion doesn't really matter. And the truth of the matter is, you know, we know from simply reading the four-page summary from Bill Barr, that there has to be damaging information in there that hasn't been disclosed yet.

I would say let Bill Barr release the report that he's going to release. Let Bill Barr testify before we start, you know, throwing accusations that he's trying to protect the president. You know, I think we need to give Bill Barr sort of the benefit of the doubt and see how this thing plays out.

BERMAN: Well, first of all, I think everyone agrees that the easiest way to fix this question is to see the report, as completely and as soon as possible.

And as to the specific concerns, it's that somehow Barr isn't adequately portraying what investigators found. And when you say someone had to reach a conclusion, it's not clear to me that the people who are now getting this information out there felt that it was Barr's place to make that conclusion specifically on the issue of obstruction.

GONZALES: Well, someone has to make that conclusion. And if, in fact, Bob Mueller was unwilling or unable to reach that conclusion, you know, Bill Barr is the attorney general and supervises the work of the special counsel in this particular case. So I think it would have been perfectly appropriate for the attorney general, given the circumstances, to reach this conclusion.

BERMAN: Doesn't the Congress actually explain who gets to make conclusions about the president and the law? Isn't it --

GONZALES: Not with respect to criminal prosecutions. That's not the role of Congress.

Now, if we're talking about gathering up information to reach conclusions about impeachment, well, that's a different matter.

But again, you know, yes, I think Bill Barr deserves an opportunity to give a fuller explanation of what's in the report, his conclusions and the ultimate findings. And so let him release the report. It's going to be redacted, no question about that.

And we'll get into a discussion with the Congress involving the American people about whether or not some of these redactions are inappropriate. And then we'll see what happens.

BERMAN: One of the things in "The Times" report is that the Mueller team itself actually produced summaries of different parts of the report.

Let me read this. The special counsel's investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report and some team members believe that Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions.

We counted. He used 101 words from the Mueller report, William Barr did, just 101 words. And again, that may get to some of the frustration here.

Looking at it now, do you feel as if William Barr seized a moment, entered a vacuum here, and played a little bit of politics.

[07:25:10] GONZALES: You know, we'll see what Bill Barr, how he answers that question to the Congress and to the American people.

There may be reasons that I'm unaware of, that we're unaware of, as to why he did so. He may not have been comfortable releasing those summaries without more time to study carefully the 400-page report and felt more comfortable releasing this four-page conclusionary summary.

So again, I'd like to give the attorney general the benefit of the doubt and ask him questions as to, OK, why this four-page summary? What concerns did you have about these other summaries prepared by the team? So again, there's a lot of information that I think we need to get from the attorney general.

BERMAN: How much redacting is appropriate here?

GONZALES: Well, that's a -- that's a very good question. I think one that the Department of Justice is wrestling with. Obviously, if you're talking about grand jury 6(e) information, that should be appropriately redacted. There's going to be classified information that should appropriately be redacted.

I think that, with respect to information that may affect ongoing investigations, typically, traditionally, that information is redacted and held back.

There is a longstanding practice at the Department of Justice, as we all know, with respect to releasing derogatory information about someone who's on the periphery of an investigation or where there's a declination to prosecute. Typically, that information is redacted. It's more discretional question about that, with respect to that category.

So it is appropriate, in my judgement, based on the law, based upon practice and tradition to hold back certain kinds of information. How much of that information can be shared with the Congress behind closed doors? That will be something worked out between the attorney general and the members of Congress.

BERMAN: Mr. Attorney General, always a pleasure to have you on NEW DAY. Thank you very much for being with us. Come back soon.

GONZALES: Thanks for having me, John. BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: John, we have other breaking news this morning. Ethiopian investigators say the pilots did everything that Boeing suggested, but they still could not prevent that jet from crashing. So what will Boeing do now? We discuss that next.

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