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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Redacted Mueller Report Lays Out Trump-Russia Contacts And Effort To Obstruct Justice; House Dem Leader: Impeachment Not Worthwhile; Nadler Calls Out Attorney General Barr; Dems Demand To Hear Directly From Mueller; Cause Of Fire; Sarah Sanders' Credibility Problem; No Collusion, No Obstruction? Aired: 3-3:30a ET

Aired April 19, 2019 - 03:00   ET

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

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: Save 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.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to your early EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

SANCHEZ: And I'm Boris Sanchez in for Dave Briggs. It is Friday, April 19, 3:00 am on the East Coast. We welcome all of our viewers here in the United States and around the world. And it's finally here, after nearly two years of 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 the President's efforts to obstruct the investigation. The report sets out the obstruction case in minute detail when President Trump as former FBI Director James Comey to let then National Security Adviser Michael Flynn go. When he later fired Comey, when he tried to persuade former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself over and over again, Mueller describes episodes where the President tried to 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 a obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, 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 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 or 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.

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 believe 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."

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 report dropped. This was his reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm having a good day

too who's called 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)

[03:05:03] ROMANS: For the record, the Special Counsel did not clear the President of obstruction. In fact, he determined Mr. Trump attempted to influence the Russian investigation only to be thwarted by staffers, his own staffers, his own inner circle 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 reveal 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 the President who doesn't like the idea that he's being managed ever 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 report is not true, Boris and Christine.

SANCHEZ: All right, Kaitlan, thank you for that. We wanted to dig in on the Special Counsel's fascinating finding that President Trump trying to influence the Russia probe unsuccessfully mainly because subordinates would not carry out his orders. Mueller goes into detail about the President's determination to fire him, describing a night in June of 2017 when President Trump made a phone call to White House Counsel Don McGahn.

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, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday night massacre.

Obviously, that Saturday night massacre a reference to the Watergate era where Richard Nixon wound up firing a ton of people in sequential order until finally getting someone to do what he wanted. McGahn, obviously, left the White House last fall.

ROMANS: Let's discuss now with CNN Reporter Marshall Cohen. He is the brain trust of all things Russia investigation and has been for us for the past couple of years. On page 370 of this report, in the Mueller report, this is what it says, "The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined carry out orders or accede to his requests."

It's remarkable that it lays out this case 10 or 11 different times when the President tried to stymie this investigation or end this investigation, but his own inner circle protected him.

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Yes. Hey, good morning, guys.

ROMANS: Good morning.

SANCHEZ: Good morning.

COHEN: It seems like they knew better. These were people that the President trusted. He, of course, put them in these powerful positions but Donald Trump, not a politician, not any experience in government kind of used to having his way at his own company that he privately owns, the people around him, Don McGahn, even Corey Lewandowski an informal advisor outside the White House never actually followed through on some of his most damaging instincts.

Some of them kind of kicked it around and hope that it would go away. Others like McGahn threatened to resign instead of doing these orders which could have been ironclad proof of obstruction. At the end of the day, the President truly was saved by those around him. We could have been reading a very different report yesterday if some of those aides had carried out those orders.

SANCHEZ: Yes. They definitely knew that some of what the President was asking was at the very least inappropriate. Let's pull up the graphic showing the President's repeated attempts to obstruct the investigation even to obstruct the obstruction investigation itself asking James Comey to let Michael Flynn off the hook, firing James Comey, trying to stop Jeff Sessions from recusing himself, asking him to unrecuse himself. The list goes on and on.

Mueller clearly has the substance to make a recommendation for accusing the President of obstruction of justice, but he doesn't. Why exactly do you think he didn't, Marshall?

[03:09:55] COHEN: Boris, in the very first few pages of volume two which covered obstruction, Mueller laid out very clearly that his whole team works for the Justice Department. They're all Justice Department employees. They have to follow the existing DOJ guidelines that the sitting President can't be indicted.

So that was the determination of this whole situation of President no matter what the evidence, can't be indicted. That's the policy and they work for the DOJ. They went through this entire investigation, nonetheless, to establish all the facts, put the record together, and they do sort of tease it out and allude that Congress has the right to hold the President accountable.

SANCHEZ: Sure. It's surprising that he doesn't make the recommendation and he writes it sort of ambiguously so that it's up to the discretion of William Barr.

ROMANS: So Marshall does it seem as though that he's given this roadmap to Congress here for how to proceed that this is in Congress wheelhouse now?

COHEN: Well, I mean, that's what Congressman Jerry Nadler said last night. Of course, if there is a roadmap so to speak, it would be congressman Nadler who takes that up. He's the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a Democrat. Whether or not this is an actual roadmap and he's telling Congress, "Here you go. Please impeach."

I think that might be a bit of an over read at the end of the day and they make it clear in the report, they're setting out the facts that they believe to be true. Congress has the power to hold them accountable and they sort of just lay it on the table and frankly we'll see what happens.

SANCHEZ: Yes. There's there was reporting out there last week about frustration among those who worked on this investigation that William Barr's for page summary didn't really accurately portray what was in the report. There's a lot of daylight here and we'll show you an example. This is from Bill Barr's four-page report.

He writes, quote, the Special Counsel states that while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. That's not the full picture. Look at this from the actual report itself, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President so clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred accordingly while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

So there are a lot of questions about William Barr's intent here. Were you surprised at the seeming daylight between the four-page summary and the full report?

COHEN: I was, personally. And it is true, our whole team here in Washington has gone through this from start to finish. And once you do that, you can't help but walk away with the conclusion that it's a starkly different report than the Attorney General kind of led everyone to believe. It does look like some of those quotes were cherry picked. He talked about the difficult issues about obstruction.

It wasn't so much whether it was guilty or not guilty. It was more of a struggle over a lot of evidence of guilt, but you can indict so what do you do?

ROMANS: All right, Marshall Cohen, so many other things to dig into this. Everyone basically read a textbook yesterday and now we're having the quiz today of what it means and what happens going forward.

SANCHEZ: Did I pass?

ROMANS: You pass. You got an A. You got an A. All right, Marshall Cohen, come back. Thank you so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: The Mueller report is giving us a new window inside the Trump White House. Wait until you hear what Trump said when he found out about Robert Mueller's appointment. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:17:53] ROMANS: Welcome back to our special coverage. 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***ed."

SANCHEZ: Leading Democrats in the House not showing any new appetite for impeachment now that they've seen the redacted model 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's an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment."

Top House Committee Chairman are in lockstep with that message conscious about 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 others would have to be quite overwhelming and demonstrable in such that it would generate bipartisan support for the idea that it renders 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. We still want the Mueller report in its entirety and we want other evidence too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Democrats are dismissing the assessments of Attorney General 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 formally requested that Special Counsel Mueller testified 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.

[03:19:59] 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 court 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 in the House Intelligence Committee looking into financial interest, potential areas of compromise. The Democrats say that that's been affecting the President. 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 probe 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.

This House Judiciary Committee also was looking at 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 is fueling 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 so much.

SANCHEZ: A big question we've had all week not related to the Mueller report is what caused that massive fire that nearly destroyed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Authorities may have the answer next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:26:16] ROMANS: The release of 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 according to the report she admitted to prosecutors she lied when she said this to the press corps about the firing of the 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 MALE: 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: We've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: 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. Sanders also told prosecutors the President contacted her after the briefing and praise her for doing a, quote, good job.

Authorities in France are still trying to figure out what started the fire that ripped through Paris' iconic Notre Dame Cathedral this week. Investigator say an electrical short circuit maybe the cause. Meantime, workers are trying to salvage some of the paintings and artifacts still inside the heavily damaged Cathedral. French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to rebuild Notre Dame within five years, despite experts saying it could take up to 15. Nearly a billion dollars has been pledged so far to help with the reconstruction.

ROMANS: All right, the President declaring no collusion, no obstruction after the release of the redacted Mueller report, but now we know that is not the case. How Mr. Trump tried to influence the Russia investigation and get the man in charge of it fired?

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