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DOJ Releases Redacted Mueller Report; Trump Saved by Aides from Obstructing Justice?; House Democrats Not Ready for Impeachment Despite Mueller Report. Aired 3:30-4a ET

Aired April 19, 2019 - 03:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:32:04] BORIS SANCHEZ, 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.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Saved from himself. Mueller's report tells how the president's obstruction efforts failed because his own aides refused to carry out his orders.

SANCHEZ: Plus, friends with benefits. Mueller's report says the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russians but they knew the interference would help.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 32 minutes past the hour. This morning we welcome all of our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

After nearly two years the wait for Robert Mueller's report, the redacted version at least is over. Now the fight over the consequences 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 asked former FBI director James Comey to let then National Security advisor Michael Flynn go, when he later fired Comey, when he tried to persuade former Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself over and over again, Mueller describes episodes where the president tried to hinder his investigation.

SANCHEZ: But 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. Listen to this. Quote, "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. 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 does say those in Trump's circle were definitely deceptive about their contacts with Russians.

The report says, quote, "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."

We get 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."

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.

SANCHEZ: Thanks, Sara.

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)

SANCHEZ: For the record, it is in black and white in the report. The special counsel did not clear the president of obstruction. In fact, he determined that President Trump tried to influence the Russia investigation only to be thwarted by staffers who refused to carry out his orders.

We get more now 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.

ROMANS: All right, Kaitlan at the White House, thank you.

More now on the special counsel's finding that President Trump attempted 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 Mr. Trump made a phone call to the White House counsel.

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

McGahn eventually left the White House last fall.

SANCHEZ: One of the most fascinating aspects of this report.

There's plenty to discuss. We have CNN reporter Marshall Cohen with us right now.

ROMANS: Good morning.

SANCHEZ: Good morning, Marshall. Great to see you again. I have a question about credibility within the White House because right now the president and his allies are pointing to the Mueller report and suggesting that this is the authority on what happened. Sort of saying that this is the gold standard. There was no collusion, no obstruction, even though we can debate the details of what Mueller actually wrote about obstruction.

Listen to what President Trump said to reporters when he was asked about news reports back in January of 2018 that he was trying to get Robert Mueller fired. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, did you seek to fire Mueller?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Would you fire Robert Mueller? Would you fire Robert Mueller?

TRUMP: Fake news, folks. Fake news.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What's your message today?

TRUMP: Typical "New York Times" fake stories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: So time and time again the president and his allies, the press shop at the White House, have told us that stories that wind up being true, like that "New York Times" reporting about him trying to fire Robert Mueller, they essentially say that these stories are fake.

[03:40:05] So how could the White House point to this report and say, see, this is the truth, this is what really happened, when it paints them out to be liars?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN COMMENTATOR: It is a difficult contortion, Boris, but one theme that was clear from the report going through page after page was, yes, a lot of the accounts that you've read over the past two years in the "New York Times," "Washington Post," you've seen it on CNN and elsewhere, Trump has denied it, Mueller now says it's true.

The most jarring of them being that secret effort to fire Robert Mueller multiple times only being stopped, thwarted by White House aides like Don McGahn. That was a big theme from the report. You can't necessarily take his word, the president's word. Once he says something is fake, really you should think twice about that.

ROMANS: I think that the American people at this point should know that when the president says fake, it means he doesn't like it or he doesn't want it to be revealed. That's what he means. He doesn't mean untrue. Fake, he has branded the word to mean something else. When he says fake news, it means something that's unfavorable to him or that he did not want to be revealed, essentially.

Also in this report I think is so fascinating that the White House is taking a victory lap and saying that look, this shows that we were right. We were right all along. What we told you, there was no collusion, no obstruction. Again we can debate the obstruction part of that. The core of this is that Russia saw in Donald Trump and the people around him a vehicle to try to undermine democracy.

I mean, that is the core of this, and explaining exactly how they tried to do that and to this day, Marshall, correct me if I'm wrong, the president has never admitted that Russia was trying to influence his -- the electorate against Hillary Clinton and toward him. He even said -- the Helsinki moment.

SANCHEZ: Right.

ROMANS: I mean, this -- let's listen to the Helsinki moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me, and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Do you think the president will finally understand what is happening? Probably still with Russia meddling in the United States?

COHEN: I don't, and here's why. And it's in the report, too. The president is concerned about the American people viewing him as an illegitimately elected president. He cares a lot about his electoral victory. That much is clear just by watching him at the White House every day. But he doesn't want anyone to wonder why he won. He has said in his own tweets, he won because he ran a great campaign, because Hillary Clinton was corrupt, because he went to the Midwest. Our own intelligence agencies tell us a slightly different story.

They say the Russians were also involved. It doesn't say anything about changing votes here or there, but the Mueller report tells us -- the first 70 or so pages is all about Russia. They did have a preference for Donald Trump and as you mentioned at the top, the president has never unequivocally said, yes, Putin was trying to help me win.

SANCHEZ: Yes, even though in Helsinki Vladimir Putin said flat out, we wanted Donald Trump to win because he'd be better for Russia than Hillary Clinton.

COHEN: Right.

SANCHEZ: One quick question for you, Marshall. We haven't heard extensively from the president on this, rather just a couple of quick statements he made at a Wounded Warrior Project event at the White House. Why is it that he hasn't spoken out more instead of just tweeting? We haven't actually heard his voice?

COHEN: Well, I mean, that might be because the president feels like he is a good messenger over Twitter and certainly it triggers a lot of conversation. His lawyers said many times they were going to put out a rebuttal report. I think latest we've heard is that that's still in the works, probably coming in the next few days or so. So they might decide to mount a stronger offense in the coming days.

But really it's four words. Right? No collusion, no obstruction. The president and his team have been repeating that. And they'll probably just keep it simple and keep repeating those four words even though it's only a half truth. Robert Mueller had everything he needed to bring charges on obstruction according to multiple analyses, but you can't do it because you can't indict a sitting president.

SANCHEZ: All right. Marshall Cohen, we'll get back to you again and again this morning. Thank you so much for the expertise.

ROMANS: We should just point out this guy is the brain trust of CNN on the Russian probe.

SANCHEZ: Oh yes.

ROMANS: I mean, when anybody has got a question, ask Marshall.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

ROMANS: You have been following this exclusively for so long. So thank you for your expertise today.

COHEN: Thanks, guys.

ROMANS: All right. The Mueller report is giving us a new window inside the Trump White House.

[03:45:01] Wait until you hear what Trump said when he found out about Robert Mueller's appointment next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Listen to what the report says, quote, "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.'"

ROMANS: 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, "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."

[03:50:07] Top House committee chairman in lockstep with that message, conscious 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)

SANCHEZ: Democrats are also dismissing 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)

SANCHEZ: 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. 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.

SANCHEZ: Certainly the beginning of a new chapter.

ROMANS: Wow.

SANCHEZ: Manu Raju, thank you.

ROMANS: All right. What caused the fire that nearly destroyed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris? Authorities may have the answer. That's next.

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[03:57:41] ROMANS: Authorities in France are still trying to determine just what started that fire that ripped through Paris's iconic Notre Dame Cathedral this week. Investigators say an electrical short circuit may be the cause. Meantime, workers are trying to salvage some of the paintings and the artifacts still inside the heavily damaged cathedral. French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to rebuild Notre Dame within five years. Nearly $1 billion has been pledged so far to help with the reconstruction.

SANCHEZ: The "National Enquirer" is about to change hands. American Media Inc., AMI, is selling the supermarket tabloid to James Cohen. He's a member of the family that owns the Hudson News Airport store chain. The "Washington Post" and "Wall Street Journal" are reporting that Cohen has agreed to pay $100 million for the "Enquirer." The "Post" reported earlier that AMI was trying to sell the paper after the hedge fund manager who controls the company became disgusted with the "Enquirer's" practices.

Don't forget, the tabloid was part of an effort to help then candidate Donald Trump by hushing up stories about his alleged extramarital affairs. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also has accused AMI of trying to blackmail him by threatening to release compromising photos which the "Enquirer" has denied.

ROMANS: All right. Fifty-eight minutes past the hour. EARLY START continues right now.

SANCHEZ: No obstruction charges but no exoneration either. The Mueller report lists at least 10 times President Trump tried to obstruct the Russia investigation.

ROMANS: Saved from himself, Mueller's report tells how the president's obstruction efforts failed because his own aides refused to carry out his order.

SANCHEZ: Plus friends with benefits. Mueller's report says the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russian but they knew the interference would help.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: Nice to have you here this morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Friday, Good Friday, April 19th, it's 4:00 a.m. in the East. We welcome all of our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

OK. 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 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 asked former FBI director James Comey to let then National Security advisor Michael Flynn go, when he later fired Comey.

(END)