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Attorney General William Barr to Hold Press Conference on Release of Redacted Mueller Report. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired April 18, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It is great to have you. It's a very busy morning.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Pleasure is mine. Let's make a little history together.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's do that, because it is a landmark day in American political history. About 90 minutes from now, Attorney General William Barr will hold a press conference, this is before he releases the redacted version of the Mueller report.

CUOMO: So we have some new information. We just learned the top picks that the A.G. wants to talk about today as Democrats are accusing Barr of improperly trying to color Mueller's findings before the public or lawmakers could read the Mueller report. And by definition he's doing just that. He isn't releasing the report, but he wants to talk to us again about what he thinks matters.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is live outside the Justice Department. So we have three areas to expect. What are they?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. We just got that briefing from the Department of Justice spokesperson, Kerri Kupec. She's giving us a bit more information now about what we can expect from the attorney general, Bill Barr, when he briefs the press at that 9:30 press conference.

So yesterday, of course, we knew he had given an overview of this report, but now we are getting more specifics about what Bill Barr will address. So first we know he will talk about executive privilege, whether or not it was invoked, whether or not the White House has exerted executive privilege over any of the material in this 400-page special counsel's report that will be redacted. So that's the first thing, executive privilege.

The attorney general will also talk about interactions with the White House because we know that just last week he refused to answer those questions on Capitol Hill from lawmakers about what kind of interactions he's had with the White House in this whole month-long process of redactions, what he has talked about them with, if anything. And of course, we know last night from reporting with the "New York Times," they're reporting in the past several days Department of Justice officials have in fact been in touch with White House lawyers, briefing them on the special counsel's conclusions. Of course, that's giving a heads up to White House lawyers as well as the president's personal attorneys about what they can expect here and how exactly they can respond in their own rebuttal report.

So the A.G. will be breaking down what interactions he and other Justice Department officials have had with the White House over the past several days and the past several weeks. This will serve as an update to what the attorney general said in his letter at the end of March to Congress when he really indicated that there hadn't been any interaction between the Justice Department and the White House as it pertains to the Mueller report.

And finally, we know that the attorney general will be talking about the redaction process itself, because, remember, he got the report from the Special Counsel way back on March 22nd, almost a month now, and since then we know that he has been working with the team and consulting with Robert Mueller about what exactly needs to be redacted, because, remember, when this report comes out to Congress and to the public, we'll be seeing those color-coded redactions on those four categories, the categories being the grand jury material that they cannot by law release, also classified information, also any information pertaining to any ongoing investigations, plus any details on things that might be derogatory to third parties. So we know that those are the four categories that will be redacted. The attorney general will be giving a bit more information on that.

So, Chris and Alisyn, just to recap a little bit of an update here as to what the attorney general will be talking about at that 9:30 press conference, he'll be talking about whether or not the White House exerted any executive privilege over this document, over the report, and contributed to the redactions, what kind of interactions Department of Justice officials have had with the White House over the past several days and the past several weeks, and then also talking about the redaction process here.

A little bit of color for you, the spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, saying that William Barr that has a calm demeanor this morning, he is ready to face the cameras at this 9:30 press conference. Of course this coming amid this outcry from Democrats calling for this press conference to be canceled, and then, of course, really saying that the attorney general has been playing into this whole spin on behalf of the Trump administration. So we'll see what the attorney general says just about an hour-and-a-half from now, but expected to address those three main points. Chris and Alisyn?

CUOMO: I know what my question would be now.

CAMEROTA: What is it?

CUOMO: After learning to Elie Honig and then thinking about it, my question to the A.G. would be are you concerned that the way you've controlled this process plays into what is a potential obstruction of justice? That the way this has been handled, is this something that you're concerned will play into the narrative about whether this process was transparent or obstructed by the president and others?

CAMEROTA: Maybe one of those reporters at that press conference in an hour-and-a-half will ask that, will co-opt your question and pose that.

Joining us now to answer this and more, we have Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary and CNN political commentator, Renato Mariotti, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, Sara Murray is here, CNN political correspondent, and Shimon Prokupecz, CNN crime and justice reporter.

[08:05:02] Renato, I just want to start with you, with the new information that Jessica Schneider just gave us, really helpful to get a little bit of insight into why bill Barr is doing this or at beast what he plans to talk about at this press conference since that was unexpected yesterday, that he would hold the press conference. Give us the big picture. How do you see what's happening this morning?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think the news just tells us this is really a press conference about Bill Barr, not about Robert Mueller or about his report. It's about why was I talking to the White House and revealing things to them in advance, which appears to be improper. Did I withhold anything due to executive privilege. The answer he had previously told us is no. So either he's doing that to remind us that he didn't do something wrong, or he's going to change his answer. And third, did I do these redactions in an appropriate manner, which we would ordinarily expect, but given a lot of the skepticism that's rightfully been thrown on this process, I think this is really a defensive press conference by Bill Barr.

CUOMO: Joe, you are the perfect guest for this, because it's always been about what happens from here on out, the spin, the narrative, because Renato's world is over. There is no criminality, it's not going to wind up in a courtroom, it's going to be in the court of public opinion. And this process of how this has been handled, how does it set the table for the president?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I actually think they've handled this very poorly. Let me explain why. Claiming total exoneration from the outset means that every piece of evidence that doesn't -- that goes against exoneration becomes outsized, becomes much more important, and every piece that comes out you will read -- we're going to go through this report and people are going to be able to go to the White House and say, here is ten examples where you weren't exonerated. How do you answer that? Keeping quiet would have been a much better strategy from my point of view.

You're right, it is political now, it will go to the Hill. Ultimately bob Mueller will speak for himself and what they've done here by Barr taking center stage today and the president planning to take center stage, they're just building the drama for Mueller on Capitol Hill in his own voice, in his own words, saying what he thinks. And that doesn't help the president.

CAMEROTA: Shimon, some of Jessica's new reporting is that Rod Rosenstein will be there, will be present, but he will not speak at the press conference, which you find peculiar.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: I do, because he's there, why isn't he speaking? This is the man who made so many critical decisions in this entire investigation the last two years, he was running it essential, right. He was Mueller's boss, Mueller was reporting to him. We're not going to hear from him.

I think what we're getting from the Department of Justice right now is that we're not going to talk about the report, we're going to just talk about the process. And they're saying it's going to last about 20 minutes. So it sounds like William Barr is trying to protect himself. Like I think what everyone is sort of saying, he wants to explain why he chose to do this the way he's doing it, and it really is now it seems all about him and about the process, the redaction process, the communications with the White House, and then we will see.

It doesn't appear right now that they are going to take any questions in terms of the investigative steps, the decisions that they made here, which I think is really interesting. So you're going to get up there, you're going to have a bunch of reporters, really good reporters who have been at the Department of Justice for quite some time, including our Evan Perez and Laura Jarrett, they're going to up there asking tough questions about some of the investigation --

CAMEROTA: You don't think he's going to answer it.

PROKUPECZ: It doesn't seem that way based on the guidance we're getting. It just seems like it's all about process.

CUOMO: They're also a little handcuffed, they don't have the report. That's what you want to really dive into with him, and that's going to wait.

Now, in terms of how the White House has been handling it, we had that story come out that some of the aides are worried, what am I going to be exposed about, what am I not? I think you have to believe that if Barr has been talking and the DOJ officials have been talking, they know what's headed their way. The president is tweeting early this morning, and he's hitting his main themes, biggest witch-hunt, hoax, or whatever, in history, and that this is presidential harassment. So he's on message. The rest of them pretty quiet.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are pretty quiet. And I think one of the things that will be interesting to hear Bill Barr address in the limited things he has decided to address is the question of executive privilege, because Donald Trump essentially said I'm not going to get involved in this, I'm going to leave it up to Bill Barr to decide, but they've obviously been having conversations. We will see if that decision-making has changed at all.

And it is true that there are people who are inside the White House, people who have left the White House, who are very worried because they know they provided information that doesn't make President Trump look great. It may not be evidence that reached criminality, but it doesn't make their boss look good, and they are still in the inner circle or one step removed from the inner circle. And I think that's why you're still seeing the president furiously tweeting. If he had nothing to worry about, he knew this was going to be a great day for him, a great report, there were not going to be any problems, I don't think we would see the same kind of furious spin-up on Twitter. But you guys know when he is agitated, when he's waiting for something, when he's worried something could be bad, you see him tweeting like this. and that's what I think we're seeing this morning.

[08:10:06] CAMEROTA: We don't have the Mueller report, but I do have the Starr report here. So I've been practicing reading it, 473 pages. Joe, does this make you break out in hives?

LOCKHART: No, no, no, I love it. It's a real page-turner.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: So today will be different than this, Renato. It will be different than this. Every single salacious detail is in here, 473 pages, footnotes, et cetera, et cetera. What do you expect when you finally get your hands on the Mueller report today?

MARIOTTI: Well, I do expect some redactions. Here literally the entire report was dropped on Congress. Exactly. Literally went on the internet, we were all sitting there and reading it ourselves, right? That's not going to happen.

I think also what we're going to see is summaries and a lot more analysis and detail that is more careful and cautious. I think the Starr report, for better or for worse, was trying to make a prosecutorial argument to Congress to suggest that there should be impeachment --

CUOMO: That was his mandate, though. We have to -- a little bit of history, Joe lived through it, Democrats and Republicans hated that Independent Counsel statute so much because of what had happened through the Starr report and the Republicans feared it was going to be revisited on them that when it expired they created the Special Counsel guidelines which don't create the mandate or the extensive powers that the I.C. had, Joe. You didn't like that he could find his way to Monica Lewinsky when he started off with a land deal, and that he had a mandate to give even potentially impeachable things right to Congress, but now the frustration is you will get less.

LOCKHART: Certainly, and the public should focus a little bit, I don't know that they have, on the differences. Ken Starr was accountable to no one really. He was accountable to a three-judge panel. Judge Sentelle, who was a very conservative guy, gave him free rein, he went from a land deal to travel-gate to Vince Foster and finally found Monica Lewinsky and the case that he wanted to make. There was such a reaction to that, as you said, you now have a Special Counsel who is dependent on the Attorney General.

So when they did the Independent Counsel statute no one ever envisioned someone out of control like Ken Starr. I think when they did the Special Counsel provision, when they wrote that, no one envisioned Donald Trump and Bill Barr, people trying to abuse the system to protect abuse of power. So it's very, very different.

And I think the key question that Mueller may answer in the report or he may have to ultimately answer is why didn't he subpoena the president. They certainly subpoenaed President Clinton. They came and took blood in the White House. So it's as intrusive as you can get.

And I think it's a combination of he knew it would take two more years, he knew that there were people inside Justice that he was accountable to, didn't want -- and I think he knew the president ultimately would take the Fifth, and that would create a constitutional crisis, that's something he wanted to avoid. None of this redounds credit on the president of the United States.

CUOMO: Look, it's all going to be about what story you want to tell. Luckily you will be able to read the book for yourself, but it's going to be about spin. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, they didn't want this press conference to happen this morning. Now they're saying that Mr. Mueller himself has to come, do it in public, both Houses of Congress, imagine what that would be. We'll discuss the implications when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN REPORTER: Alright, big day OK, and the whole thing is about the waiting. And there's a legitimate question about why we still have to wait this way, why do we have to have a press conference with the AG to tell us his thoughts and feelings about why he did what he did. Just put out the report. Renato Mariotti, Joe Lockhart, Sara Murray, Shimon Prokupecz. I mean, you know, people will say oh don't worry, it's coming. Listen man, the process matters here in terms of how were able to figure out what this about and get into it, light redactions, now that was put out last night to kind counter all the heat that was on this process. Don't worry, they're only going to be light redactions. What does that mean to you?

RENATO MARIOTTI, ATTORNEY: Well, with light redactions, as to (ph) the obstruction of justice section, I will be very surprised if there is still -- there's light redactions in the collusion -- what people call collusion section. There there's much more justification. I frankly don't think there's much justification for any redactions in the obstruction section. Grand jury wasn't used, not really classified information, no ongoing case, so frankly I'm surprised there's any redactions there, that struck me as spin because Barr's been taking some heat. I wonder whether the press conference has changed, you know, we heard some topics this morning, I wonder whether that's changed, originally it was going to be framing the report, now it's going to be framing what Barr did, because they're getting some push back, rightfully so. Frankly, what I see here and I think what people should be skeptical about is, and be looking for -- one of the things I'll look for is the sentences that Barr quoted half of in that letter, what's the full sentence? And why didn't he include the full sentence in his letter? What would have -- what is the full picture, and that's what I think people should be looking for.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, JOURNALIST: The executive privilege could come up in the obstruction part of the investigations. I think that's where, maybe that's where we'll see some redactions, and that's where maybe Barr's going to come out and explain -- I think the fact that he's going to talk about executive privilege at this press conference -- it's kind of strange. So, maybe that's going to be the excuse of why he was communicating with the White House, because of this issue of executive privilege, we'll see. The collusion investigation, I think what's going to be most interesting is to learn just how much activity was going on with the campaign and the Russians.

CUOMO: If you do, to Renato's point, he didn't say anything about how many redactions it is.

PROKUPECZ: Right, because there's so many ongoing investigations, but I do think we're going to get a good window into some of the interaction and just exactly -- more specifically what the Russians we're trying to do here. But that is going to look bad for the campaign because they were accepting these conversations, they were OK in talking to some of these folks about it, they never alerted the FBI that this was going on, so you have to start to wonder just the optics of that again, and politically how bad that is going to look --

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN REPORTER: Couple things are happening as we speak. Bill Barr has just left his home. He is headed -- there is the action shot, Sara, of him leaving his house. I don't know if it gets more exciting than that action shot.

[08:20:00]

Michael Cohen has also just tweeted soon I will be able to tell the American people the whole story and tell it myself. I smell Oprah here. But who knows what any of that means, but I guess the point is is that things are percolating, it will not be over today, there are more people who want to tell their stories and talk.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL COORESPONDENT: Yes, I mean heaven forbid that a big news day goes by where Michael Cohen does not insert himself into the headlines -- oh my God. But yes, I think that does tell you, look, there are investigators that will continue, there are investigations, you know, related to the Mueller Report, but there are also spin off investigations, things that are going on in SDNY (ph), and those are going to continue to loom over the Presidents head. You know, what Michael Cohen has to say, who knows how relevant that is to ongoing investigations, or how credible that is to ongoing investigations.

The big show today is still going to be the Mueller Report. And I think it's easy to get sort of sidelined by what is going on with Bill Barr and this press conference and what a bizarre thing it is to decide to do something like that before we get the report, but remember, at the end of the day Bill Barr is a political appointee, he's out there being the Attorney General who was chosen by the President of the United States, we are still going to get this report and it's up to us to go through it and see, you know, what might not have been criminal but what is relevant, and what the American people should know as they're about to go into another election.

You want to know if over and over again the Trump campaign decided to take these offers of help from the Russians, and you want to know if over and over again the President tried to fire Robert Mueller, even if he ultimately wasn't successful, and I think we're going to get some of those details today.

CUOMO: So, Joe Lockhart, you were making a good point in the break that we think we know everything, we've reported all these things out, and even if there are just some few scant new details, it's all new again because now it's official and real.

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY: Yes, no and you have a special counsel who is -- has experience as a prosecutor putting this together. We don't know what his conclusions are. We know what Bill Barr has said -- says they are. So, we shouldn't say, because it's not new, it's not important. Everything in this report will be important and that's why he spent two years on it. The second point I'd make it is -- here to me is the big difference politically between the Starr report and -- the Starr report came out -- and trust me was a painful day at the White House to have to read through that and to read through some of the behavior of someone who I worked for and someone who I loved and admired.

But the American public went through the same process. They knew when that report came out that every question they had was answered. Every question. We're going to get to the end of today and people are going to have as many questions tonight as they had last night, because of the way -- because of the way Bill Barr has done this, because of the redactions, because of the way the President, in my view, has tried to obstruct justice, and as I was saying during the break, the public read the Starr report and the President at the day it came it out was at 63 percent job approval, President Clinton, the day he was impeached months later, he was at 73 percent. They read it, they said it -- they said OK that was really bad but let's move on. This is where I think they -- the trump people have made the mistake. They will not get a clean break today. They absolutely not, they have claimed total exoneration, which is like saying mission accomplished with (ph) George W. Bush, and he wont be exonerated and they're going -- we're going to keep going --

BOLDUAN: You don't think he'll see a spike in the polls?

LOCKHART: I don't. I don't -- I -- look at -- look at from off of Bill Barr's letter, something like 30 percent of the people believed he was exonerated. I don't think so.

PROKUPECZ: I also think what's going to happen is we're going get a wind into what Barr described in the letter that he put out these -- the difficult issues of law and facts concerning the obstruction investigation and many lawyers are going to view this differently, right. If you have different lawyers in a room, even people on these special counsel teams -- and probably people at the DOJ probably view these difficult issues of facts and law differently. So that's going to be interesting to see how that starts to develop.

BOLDUAN: Friends stay close, a lot is happening in the next hour. Meanwhile, there's this news, North Korea testing the Trump Administration again. Their new demand and a breaking headline from Russia about Kim Jung Un next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:00]

CUOMO: President Trump and his supporters have tried their best to make a two for out of the Barr summary of the Mueller report. They insist there was no collusion and no obstruction, but that is specifically not what this report says. And turns out there's some very good reasons for that. Who has them? John Avlon in the Reality Check, do tell.

JOHN AVLON, CNN JOURNALIST: Hey guys, Chris, good to have you back, and look, we are hours away from the release of the redacted Mueller report. It's easy to get lost in this spin cycle, we're getting the increasing sense that Attorney General Bill Barr is acting in the Presidents defense. Consider this fact pattern, Barr and his staff has summarized the report, redacted it, reportedly briefed the White House on it and will soon offer a press conference to frame expectations all before Congress or you the American people have seen it. Now this has allowed team Trump to hammer home their talking point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no collusion, there was no obstruction, there was no anything.

UNKNOWN: And it completely exonerates the President, there's no collusion, there's no obstruction of justice.

UNKNOWN: No collusion, no obstruction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: But we know, from the 101 words released out of the roughly 400 page report, so far that it explicitly says "while the report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." And if Mueller found that collusion did not occur, obstruction is a very different issue.

Now, Barr tells us Mueller couldn't make a determination as to whether the President obstructed justice, the report apparently offers "evidence on both sides of the question", and that's what a lot of people are going to be looking for because evidence of possible obstruction has been in plain sight the whole time. So let's look at five key examples that could look a lot like obstruction to the average American. Number one, after the firing of FBI director James Comey, which was first officially blamed on his handling of the Hilary Clinton email investigation, Trump suddenly offered up a very different explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this rusher (ph) thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election. (END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Number two, the day after Comey's firing, Trump immediately welcomed Russian foreign minister Lavrov.

[08:30:00]

END