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Redacted Mueller Report Says No Obstruction, But No Exoneration; Trump Declares a Good Day Despite Mueller Report Revelations; House Democrats Not Ready for Impeachment, to Pursue Full Mueller Report and Direct Testimony. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired April 19, 2019 - 04:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:31:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: No obstruction charges but no exoneration either. The Mueller report lists at least 10 times President Trump tried to obstruct the Russia investigation.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And saved from himself. Mueller's report tells how the president's obstruction efforts failed because his own aides refused to carry out his orders.

ROMANS: Friends with benefits. Mueller's report says the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russians but they knew the interference could help.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

SANCHEZ: Great to be here with you this week, Christine.

ROMANS: Good to be with you.

SANCHEZ: I'm Boris Sanchez in for Dave Briggs with 31 minutes past the hour. We welcome all of our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

It's finally here. After nearly two years the wait for Robert Mueller's report, the redacted version at least, is over. And now the fight over the consequences and the implications begins. In more than 400 pages, the special counsel lays out extensive contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign and of course the president's efforts to obstruct the investigation.

The report sets out the obstruction case in minute detail. When President Trump asked former FBI director James Comey to let then National Security advisor Michael Flynn off the hook, when he fired Comey later, when he tried to persuade former Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself and then to un-recuse himself over and over again, Mueller describes episodes where the president tried to harm and hinder this investigation.

ROMANS: In the end the special counsel does not charge the president with obstruction acknowledging that a sitting president cannot be indicted. But Mueller does not exonerate him either. "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards we are unable to reach that judgment."

And Mueller does not conclude Trump or his campaign cooperated or conspired with Russian efforts to help them and hurt Hillary Clinton, but Mueller says those in Trump's circle were definitely deceptive about their Russia contacts. The report says, "The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the office and to Congress about their interactions with Russian affiliated individuals and Russian related matters."

More now from political correspondent Sara Murray.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Boris and Christine. Bob Mueller's report is out and the redacted report concludes the Trump campaign did not criminally conspire with the Russians, but the president, he had other reasons to dread the Russia investigation.

According to the report the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes so that would give rise to personal and political concerns.

CNN has reported at least 16 Trump associates had Russian contacts during the Trump campaign or transition, and according to Mueller's report, the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts. But the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference.

[03:35:05] The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting just one of the moments the Trump campaign appeared eager to accept this Russian assistance. But Mueller's team declined to prosecute Donald Trump Jr. and campaign staffers saying a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that campaign officials or individuals connected to the campaign willfully violated the law.

The special counsel also investigated the rumor that Russia had compromising tapes of Trump from previous visits to Moscow. In October of 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from a Russian businessman that said, "Stopped flow of tapes from Russia, but not sure if there's anything else. Just so you know." The businessman told prosecutors he was told the tapes were fake.

Mueller's team also answered a key question, why they did not interview the president. While they believed they did have the authority to subpoena Trump and found Trump's written answers to be inadequate, Mueller's team believed it would delay the investigation, writing, "We had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments about the president's testimony."

[04:35:05] Although Attorney General William Barr has cleared Trump of criminal wrongdoing, Mueller points out that Congress can still investigate and now Democrats are calling on Mueller to testify. Back to you.

ROMANS: All right, Sara, thank you for that.

President Trump was hosting a White House event for the Wounded Warrior Project when the Mueller dropped. This was his reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hey, I'm having a good day, too. It was called --

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No collusion, no obstruction. There never was, by the way, and there never will be, and we do have to get to the bottom of these things, I will say. This should never happen to another president again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: For the record, the special counsel did not clear this president of obstruction. In fact, he determined Mr. Trump attempted to influence the Russia investigation only to be thwarted by staffers who refused to carry out his orders.

We get more from Kaitlan Collins at the White House.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine and Boris, the president is now down in Palm Beach for the holiday weekend. But yesterday when he was leaving the White House, he did not answer questions from reporters, even though aides had said both publicly and privately they expected him to take a victory lap now that the Mueller report was out.

One reason that could be is that this report shows that the president tried to derail the special counsel's investigation but he wasn't as able to be as successful as he wanted to be because the people around him working inside the West Wing refused to carry out the orders that he gave them.

One of those of course is the White House counsel Don McGahn who in this report details a pretty fascinating relationship that he had with the president including the president growing angry after it was first reported that Trump tried to get McGahn to fire Mueller. In the report, it says that Trump wanted McGahn to deny that that had ever happened and McGahn refused because he said it actually did happen and it was true.

That is just one small piece in a series of stories that's revealed that people in the president's inner circle were essentially trying to protect him from himself. Now that's not likely to sit well with a president who doesn't like the idea that he's being managed over. And you could see that in his tweets from yesterday when he said and insisted that he did have the right to fire Robert Mueller even though he says he chose not to which of course we see from the Mueller report is not true -- Boris and Christine.

SANCHEZ: Kaitlan Collins, thank you.

Digging in now on the special counsel's finding that President Trump tried to influence the Russia probe unsuccessfully mainly because subordinates wouldn't carry out his orders, Mueller goes into detail about the president's determination to fire him, describing a night in June of 2017 where Mr. Trump made a phone call to White House counsel Don McGahn -- former White House counsel.

Mueller writes, quote, "The president called McGahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general and say that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, deciding that he would rather resign than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday night massacre." McGahn, of course, eventually left the White House last fall.

ROMANS: All right. Let's discuss now with CNN reporter, Marshall Cohen.

You have spent the better part of two years as this is your beat.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: Yesterday you were in there really zeroing in in the reading room on the collusion part of this. But the headline I think is the obstruction here. These 11 difference cases where the president was trying to obstruct, and on page 370 of the Mueller report basically the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.

So he didn't get the obstruction because nobody would do it for him essentially. Is that what this is telling us?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's one part of it, Christine. He was saved by the people around him that for whatever reason, maybe they didn't want to get themselves in trouble, maybe they felt it was morally wrong, maybe they realized that part of it was illegal. They didn't follow these orders, but at the end of the day, that helped Trump a lot.

But really that was only one bucket of the topics that the special counsel looked at for obstruction. There was also the things that Trump was saying publicly about how great it was that Roger Stone was standing strong and how much of a terrible rat Michael Cohen was. Mueller says that's intimidation, and even if it was happening in public, if the impact is to intimidate a witness, it's still part of this obstruction mosaic.

SANCHEZ: Marshall, there's something in the report that I think people really need to scrutinize. It's in Volume One on page 10. I'll read it to you now, Robert Mueller writes, quote, "The office learned that some of the individuals that we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated including some associated with the Trump campaign deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.

[04:40:02] "In such cases, the office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts."

The special counsel goes on and basically said they could rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light or cast in a new light the events that were described in the report.

So we won't dig into the aspect of this kind of hypocritical where the president is accusing Hillary Clinton of destroying hard drives and all that sort of stuff. I simply want to point out that Robert Mueller is indicating that there are shortcomings in this investigation. He's acknowledging that to some degree it's incomplete.

COHEN: You're 100 percent right. They turned over every stone that they could, but there were some that they just couldn't pry loose and part of that was because of the actions of some of these witnesses and targets to delete things or they just used some apps, texting apps that automatically delete things, which frankly might be, you know, not the worst idea for privacy, but you better believe that if any of those people, actually Mueller thought that they did that in an illegal fashion to obstruct, he probably would have brought charges because those folks don't have the presidential immunity. But Mueller was clear on some of these things, he did hit a wall, and he did as much as he could do.

ROMANS: Let's talk a little bit about the collusive behavior. I know you really zeroed in on this when you were reading this report. You read the entire report, obviously. The textbook -- but tell us about that collusive behavior. There's so many cases of it. I mean, this is essentially why there was an investigation in the first place. This behavior with Russia was so suspicious from the beginning. So much smoke, but no fire, I guess, Mueller says.

COHEN: Right. And, you know, let's go back to the very, very beginning and remember what the campaign said after the election. They said there were no foreign contacts with Russians. It never happened. About two years later, we now have 200 pages detailing those contacts. Bottom line, there wasn't a criminal conspiracy to collude but there was a cover-up of those contacts.

How many times did President Trump, Sarah Sanders, Hope Hicks and others say there were no contacts, it wasn't important, it wasn't about anything, we didn't talk about sanctions? There's chapter and verse here about those contacts.

ROMANS: Yes.

COHEN: At the end of the day, criminality is one thing, honesty is another thing. And there's a big difference there.

ROMANS: I know the White House is taking a victory lap that this whole report exonerates them. This report shows lying.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

ROMANS: As the first response and --

SANCHEZ: Deleting communications, trying to sway witnesses.

ROMANS: It shows a White House culture that is --

SANCHEZ: Yes.

ROMANS: To say the least, unpresidential.

SANCHEZ: Not great.

ROMANS: Nice to see you, Marshall. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much, Marshall.

COHEN: Thanks, guys.

SANCHEZ: The report., the Mueller report obviously, giving us a new window inside the Trump White House. Just wait until you hear what Trump said when he found out about Robert Mueller's appointment right after a quick break.

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[04:47:20] ROMANS: All right. Welcome back. Good morning, everyone.

President Trump has long claimed that he had nothing to fear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation but the Mueller report reveals the president was terrified when he learned of Mueller's appointment back in 2017.

The report says, "When then Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed the president slumped back in his chair and said, 'oh, my god, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm f'd.'"

SANCHEZ: Leading Democrats in the House not showing any new appetite for impeachment now that they've seen the redacted Mueller report. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer telling CNN's Dana Bash, quote, "Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment."

Top House committee chairman are in lockstep with that message, conscious of how hard it would be to persuade two-thirds of the Republican-controlled Senate to vote to remove President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): The evidence would have to be quite overwhelming and demonstrable and such that it would generate bipartisan support for the idea that it renders that the president unfit for office. Now many of us do think the president is unfit for office but unless that's a bipartisan conclusion, an impeachment would be doomed to failure. I continue to think that a failed impeachment is not in the national interest.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): It's too early to reach those conclusions. It's one reason we wanted the Mueller report, and we still want the Mueller report in its entirety and we want other evidence, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Democrats are also dismissing the assessments of Attorney General William Barr, and demanding to hear directly from the man who authored the report, Bob Mueller. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler already setting the wheels in motion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADLER: I have formally requested that Special Counsel Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as possible so we can get some answers to these critical questions because we clearly can't believe what Attorney General Barr tells us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Democrats are not stopping there. As CNN's Manu Raju tells us, they're gearing up for a fight.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Boris. Now House Democrats are planning to pursue their investigations on multiple fronts in the aftermath of the release of the Mueller report. On one front there's going to be a full corps press to demand the full Mueller report, the unredacted Mueller report, including the grand jury information that Democrats have been asking for but the Justice Department so far not willing to turn over. Expect subpoenas that could come out as soon as Friday.

At the same time Democrats moving on other fronts, including an investigation into House Intelligence Committee looking into financial interests, potentially areas of compromise as the Democrats say that's been affecting the president.

[04:50:02] They've already subpoenaed nine different banks to get information about the president's business dealings. It's not clear whether the Mueller investigation fully probed this area as an area that Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants to continue to pursue initially off the bat.

Bill Barr, the attorney general, will be before the House Judiciary Committee at the beginning of May. Also before the Senate Judiciary at that time. Also, Bob Mueller, the special counsel, the Democrats want to bring him in for public testimony as well. The House Judiciary Committee also wants to look into the notion of potential obstruction of justice. They're going to use what the Mueller report found as a roadmap. But they say their investigation is much broader into abuses of power so they see this as fuelling their investigations even as the Republicans say it is time to move on. So, Boris and Christine, despite the end of the Mueller investigation,

the release of the redacted report, end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one.

ROMANS: All right, Manu Raju, thank you.

Let's get a quick check on CNN Business this morning. Japan, South Korea, China, all trading higher, stock markets there as other Asian markets are closed for Good Friday.

Also closed in the U.S. U.S. and European markets are closed for Good Friday. It will be a long holiday weekend here for the Easter holiday. European markets will also be closed on Monday for Easter. Wall Street for the week ended the shortened week higher. The Dow climbed 110 points, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq also closed up slightly.

Pinterest made its Wall Street debut, closing up 28 percent in its first day of trading. On tap for next week, first quarter GDP will come out Friday 8:30 a.m. Bank of America analysts expect 2.4 percent growth for the quarter.

This big gain in retail sales, the biggest in gain in more than a year. New data from the Commerce Department shows sales rose 1.6 percent in March, the biggest increase since September 2017, and it followed what was a concerning .2 percent decline in February. This boost came as consumers bought more cars, more clothes, furniture, electronics.

Guys, this is the latest sign the economy is strong here. It raises the possibility that first quarter GDP growth could reach the president's promised 3 percent. The Atlanta Fed raised its forecast for growth to 2.8 percent for the quarter. A very important number for the president.

I will say something that the Mueller report being out of the way. It takes one uncertainty away from Wall Street, one uncertainty that's gone paving the way may be for record highs become separated.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And the next big thing in the way, the trade with China.

ROMANS: That's right.

SANCHEZ: If there's a deal, that'd be huge for the stock market.

Well, the Mueller report raises new questions of credibility about the White House press secretary. We'll explain, next.

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[04:57:04] SANCHEZ: The Mueller report leaves Sarah Sanders with a serious credibility problem. The president's press secretary was interviewed by the special counsel's office in 2017, and Mueller's report says that she admitted to prosecutors that she lied when she said this about former FBI director James Comey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So what's your response to these rank and file FBI agents who disagree with your contention that they lost faith in Director Comey?

SANDERS: Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Sanders told Mueller's team that comment was made in the heat of the moment and was, quote, "not founded on anything." In other words, she made it up.

ROMANS: All right. America's newspapers, it is the Trump show. "Trump Clean," says "The New York Post," "Dem Hoax Destroyed."

SANCHEZ: And the "Daily News" with the other side of it, saying, "Low Barr," going after the attorney general.

Let's take a look at what some late-night comedians had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Shortly after 9:00 this morning, Barr held a press conference flanked by a Gillette razor before-and-after picture. Now --

(LAUGHTER)

COLBERT: Now if you got nothing to hide, why do you have to set up the report first? Officer, before I open the trunk of this car, I'd like to first give a short speech about what you're about to smell.

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": The report also states that President Trump did not like that former White House counsel Don McGahn took notes during meetings and said he had never had a lawyer who took notes but only because his old lawyer always wore a wire.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE": The president even had some fun with this on Twitter. He posted, "No collusion, no obstruction, for the haters and the radical left Democrats, game over."

Think he even knows that's from "Game of Thrones"? He probably thinks -- put that picture back up again. He probably thinks this was taken in the steam room at Mar-a-Lago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Because the president apparently wears a jacket to the steam room at Mar-a-Lago.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: All right. It is Good Friday, the holiday weekend.

SANCHEZ: Some good laughs.

ROMANS: I hope everybody enjoy yourself. Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

SANCHEZ: And I'm Boris Sanchez. A special edition of "NEW DAY" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a narrative about a vast sprawling insidious cover-up by the president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they had anything on him, he'd be indicted today. They don't have the evidence.

NADLER: I have formally requested that Special Counsel Mueller testify so we can get some answers.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: There's a sentence here that is all but an explicit invitation to Congress to impeach the president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

SCHIFF: Many of us do think the president is unfit but unless that's bipartisan, an impeachment would be doomed to failure.

TRUMP: I'm having a good day. This should never happen to another president again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is a special edition of NEW DAY. It is Friday, April 19th. It is 5:00 in the East. We're getting earlier.

John Berman is off. Chris Cuomo joins me.

[05:00:00]