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Redacted Mueller Report Does Not Clear Trump of Obstruction; Dems: Attorney General Mischaracterize Mueller Report. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 19, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): The facts established by this report are damning.

[05:59:44] RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: The report really displays that it is over. They just don't know it yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The nature of Trump's actions, his obstruction, his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is making Nixon look good.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: There were guardrails inside the White House who wouldn't do stuff that the president wanted them to do.

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I acknowledge a slip of the tongue when I used the word "countless." But it's not untrue.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: It is an active attempt by the White House to create a false narrative for why James Comey was fired.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to impeach. The Senate Republicans are mostly without spine, and we'll not have a conviction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is a special edition of NEW DAY. It is Friday, April 19, 6 a.m. now in the east. John Berman is off this week. Chris Cuomo joins me.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: That was a fun dress rehearsal that we just had. Now we can get to the heart of the matter.

CUOMO: More is better.

CAMEROTA: OK, I like that. The long-awaited Mueller report has been out for less than 24 hours, and this morning's headlines reveal the gravity of its findings.

"The Wall Street Journal" writes, "Mueller Report Lays Out Trump's Attempts to Curtail Inquiry."

"The Washington Post": "Mueller's Report Paints a Damning Portrait of Trump's Presidency."

And "The New York Times" calls it, quote, "A Portrait of the White House and Its Culture of Dishonesty."

The Mueller report shows President Trump repeatedly lying to the public and trying to get aides to lie for him.

CUOMO: Now, the Mueller team was unable to conclude that no criminal conduct occurred when it comes to obstruction. But the report certainly doesn't exonerate him on the front.

In fact, it lays out several examples of potential obstruction and the fact that the attorney general missed those examples. Now, that's going to have critics saying the attorney general was playing politics, trying to protect the president instead of you and your rights.

The report also notes that the reason President Trump's attempts to influence the special counsel did not work at times is because his inner circle ignored him.

Mueller says Congress has the power to investigate the president for obstruction. Now, it's not clear if Democrats will do that. What is clear is that they want to hear from Mr. Mueller himself in person and soon.

Let's begin with CNN's Jessica Schneider live in Washington.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

This massive Mueller report really giving us, as you said, a lot more depth and nuance than the attorney general had spelled out. In these more than 400 pages, we're really seeing the details of a presidency in chaos, fueled by public lies and, really, denials of reporting that has now proved true.

And with Mueller's inquiry now wrapped in those damaging details coming to light, the president's fate is now in the hands of Congress. Though we're hearing Democratic leadership arguing against pursuing impeachment, despite those calls to take action over the damning details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Robert Mueller's 448-page report outlining President Trump's frantic efforts to thwart the special counsel's investigation, noting that these efforts were mostly unsuccessful, "largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders" or accede to his requests. Upon learning that the special counsel was appointed after he fired

FBI Director James Comey, Mueller writing that President Trump declared, "Oh, my God, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm F'd."

Mueller writes the president pressed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to give a news conference suggesting firing Comey was his idea. Rosenstein telling the president that a news conference was a bad idea, because if the press asked him, he would tell the truth.

According to the report, President Trump proceeded to take a series of actions to curtail the special counsel's probe, including directing White House counsel Don McGahn to instruct Acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to have Mueller removed. The special counsel writing that McGahn did not, deciding instead that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

President Trump saying this when "The New York Times" reported on that story last year.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fake news, folks. Fake news.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's your message today?

TRUMP: Typical "New York Times" fake stories.

SCHNEIDER: The special counsel also detailing a number of other instances where the president tried to sabotage the investigation, including asking former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to tell then Attorney General Sessions to curtail the investigation; directing the deletion of a line in a press release, acknowledging that the Trump Tower meeting with Russians had to do with information helpful to the campaign; urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself; and sending veiled or direct messages, either personally or through intermediaries, to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, encouraging them not to cooperate.

Mueller noting that he ultimately did not bring charges of obstruction of justice against Mr. Trump, due in part to a Justice Department guideline that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The special counsel writing "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."

Mueller suggesting that Congress, not the Justice Department, should decide whether to prosecute the president.

[06:05:06] Attorney General Barr defending the president's conduct.

WILLIAM BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.

SCHNEIDER: Within minutes, House Democrats were calling for Mueller's testimony and slamming Barr.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Barr's words and actions suggest he has been disingenuous and misleading in saying the president is clear of wrongdoing.

SCHNEIDER: The report also offering new detail about the extensive efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election to help elect Trump, including attempting to hack Hillary Clinton's emails five hours after Mr. Trump said this.

TRUMP: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

SCHNEIDER: Mueller ultimately determining that, while the campaign expected it would benefit electoral from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, he could not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.

President Trump remaining defiant.

TRUMP: I'm having a good day, too. It was called, no collusion, no obstruction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And notably, President Trump's lawyers stopped him from sitting down for an interview with the special counsel. Mueller, in his report, disclosed that his team did consider issuing a subpoena for the president's testimony, since they found his written responses inadequate. But ultimately, his team decided against pursuing that path, because it would lead to lengthy litigation.

Interestingly, Trump's team still has not issued any written rebuttal, despite getting that early access to the Mueller report about a week before the public -- Chris and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Jessica. Thank you very much for laying all of that out for us.

Let's talk about it. We want to bring in David Gregory, CNN political analyst; Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst; Carrie Cordero, former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general and CNN legal analyst; and Abby Phillip, CNN White House correspondent.

David Gregory, I want to start with you. Because you and I have spent two years together, every day virtually -- I mean, I don't think that there's really a day has gone by that there hasn't been some thread, some element of this investigation that we haven't explored and tried to dissect.

And so today, now that it is -- basically, the investigation part is over. We'll talk soon about what happens next. I'm just wondering what you've learned from reading these 400 pages and how you're feeling this morning. DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I appreciate it. We

were doing this when Cuomo was with us --

CAMEROTA: I know.

GREGORY: -- when he wasn't with us, when he came back for a few days.

CAMEROTA: I know.

GREGORY: I guess, you know, in the end, I really feel like we are where I thought we'd always be. I'm not shocked or surprised by the Mueller report or by the findings.

I think, as I've said for two years, that the Trump team was clearly open for business for help and dirt on their opposition, wherever they could find it, but it wasn't clear that there was any crime.

And the president clearly tried to kill this investigation. And who told us? He did. When he fired Jim Comey for "that Russia thing," as he told Lester Holt at NBC.

And so you know, we conclude a very fair-minded process by a serious person, who I think did the country a favor with the rigor of this investigation, who has come to a place that said there was not a crime, there was not a criminal conspiracy, that there was not obstruction of justice that could be a criminal case; and that here are a catalog of bad behavior, of paranoia, of bad judgment, of excesses and lies, including attempts to obstruct the investigation, that amount to potential political crimes that Congress could now pursue.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But just to be clear, he didn't say that it didn't -- that the evidence didn't amount to a criminal case. He said because it's a sitting president, he wasn't going to pursue.

GREGORY: Well, they said -- right, he said he couldn't exonerate him. But right. He -- I mean, he didn't bring the case and made it very clear that there were ten different areas that could be pursued as obstruction of justice in a political context, yes.

CUOMO: As an extension of abuse of power.

On the reporting front, Abby, I think that one thing that everybody should be able to agree on -- and sadly, even this falls short -- is that, wow, did Russia do us dirty in this election. The way that they detail in this report all the different ways that Russia, in wicked fashion, tried to interfere.

And yet, this morning, there are only two people who are still denying the reality. Russian intelligence just put out a response not long ago from the Kremlin, saying there's nothing in this report that shows proof that they did this, which is absurd.

[06:10:10] And the president of the United States. His counsel last night, Rudy Giuliani, still wouldn't say that the president must now acknowledge that interference happened. He says he has a difference of opinion. Even that big headline, if we can't agree on that.

Is the White House, you think, any closer to saying, "Yes, Russian interference was really bad. We have to fix it"?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the White House and the president are two completely different things. There's the Trump administration, which acknowledges this and is working actively to try to stop it. And there's the president of the United States, who thinks that any conversation about Russian interference in the 2016 election is -- is an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

But you're right. I mean, this report could not have been clearer that not only was there interference, but that Russia was clearly trying to help the Trump campaign and that, beyond that, that the Trump campaign was, at various points, very much interested in whatever help that they could get. I mean, it did not rise to being a crime, but it certainly, I think, would raise a lot of moral questions in the minds of a lot of people who are reading this about whether or not it seems right that they would have been willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get this kind of help, which frankly, amounts to taking the sort of proceeds of a theft by a foreign adversary.

And this is a president who doesn't even want to talk about that at all. We saw him tweet yesterday that it was -- it did not affect the voter rolls. But that's not really the issue here. The question is, did Russia try to influence public sentiment through their interference campaign? And the answer is, unequivocally, yes. And we've still not heard from the president or anyone really close to him about that.

Because if you start talking about that, then you have to start talking about the morality of all the actions that were taken that were not maybe criminal but were certainly -- there were certainly, potentially, just sort of disloyal to the fact that this was -- this was Russia; this was an adversary. This was not an allied government of the United States.

We're talking about WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is now embroiled in a legal battle with the U.S. government over stealing -- stealing information. I mean, this is -- this was obvious then. I think it's obvious now, and no one in the Trump orbit is talking about it.

CAMEROTA: Elie, one of the illuminating things in these 400 pages are the stories, time and again, of all the people around the president who tried to save him from himself or try to save their own skin. I mean, who knows? You know, some of their motivations, from Don McGahn, K.T. McFarland, Rob Porter, Corey Lewandowski.

I don't know if it was altruism and their own moral compass or just self-preservation that they knew that what the president was asking them to do in terms of getting rid of Robert Mueller, if they just knew that it would get them into trouble. But you just hear it time and again.

I mean, Don McGahn -- Reince Priebus testifies to Bob Mueller, so the first chief of staff testifies that Don McGahn told him, "The president is trying to get me to do some crazy blank." Crazy stuff.

I mean, "Priebus recalled that McGahn said that the president had asked him to 'do some crazy blank,' but he thought McGahn did not tell him the specifics of the president's request, because McGahn was trying to protect Priebus from what he did not need to know."

That is a theme time and again. Could these folks -- could this have gone very differently, had they not been those guardrails?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, Alisyn. I think one of the silver linings of this whole story is that our institutions held. And a lot of the people around the president were able to see themselves in a larger context than just serving the president's minute-by-minute whims. They were able to see the bigger picture. Our systems of checks and balances. And I think the people who resisted the president are to be applauded for doing that.

And it's an interesting way that that interplays with the whole obstruction of justice inquiry that Robert Mueller lays out in the report. And one of the things Mueller says is it helped the president through no doing of his own, but he was incidentally helped by the fact that a lot of these people refused to carry out his illegal or obstructive orders.

Now I understand that. I think it's a more serious case, much more serious case if these orders get Carried out. But it's still a crime, technically, to attempt to obstruct justice. The law says endeavor. And so if the president is saying, "Go obstruct here. Go stop this person. Go have this person give a false story," technically, that's very much still an obstruction crime and something that Congress should be taking a look at and considering whether there are appropriate next steps.

CUOMO: I mean, Carrie, this is a story of standards. If it's -- your standard is if it's not a felony, then it's fine, then you're going to be OK with this.

The good news is, our president is not a Russian agent. His campaign did not aid in Russia's interference of our election. That's good news. We'd be dealing with a real constitutional crisis otherwise. But this report is replete with wrongdoing, actions they knew were wrong, they did anyway, and then they lied about them.

[06:15:19] CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think that's right, Chris. I mean, the -- what's interesting about the report is I think it goes a step further than what we knew publicly.

We knew that the campaign was on the receiving end of outreach from the Russian intelligence activities, that Russians were -- the Russian government and their surrogates were constantly trying to reach out to the campaign and get into the campaign and have influence over the campaign.

What I think becomes more clear in the report is how receptive the campaign, multiple individuals on the campaign were and that, when they were willing to receive information, derogatory information about their political opponents, or information that would be helpful to them, they knew the Russian government was behind it.

And that's something that our criminal laws don't cover. I mean, and that's the broader policy question and the question for the American public is, going into 2020, how much are we willing to tolerate the fact that this could actually happen again, that a campaign can openly, willingly accept assistance from a foreign government, their hostile intelligence activities. And just because it doesn't rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy, is it OK? That can't possibly be the answer.

GREGORY: And I think that's -- I think it's such an important point on a couple of levels. One, you just wish the president of the United States could get beyond himself and think about the presidency. And say one of the things we've learned -- you know, thank you for a fair process that exonerated me on the law in one area and not complete exoneration in another.

But that Russia has to be held to account, and we have to protect your electoral system. And he's not doing that.

The other piece of this that I do think needs to be said is it's not that it's -- well, there's no felony, so it's all OK. But remember, during the Hillary Clinton investigation about the emails, there was a lot of piling on after it was concluded that there was not a crime. And Democrats thought that was unfair. They ought to remember that standard now when they think about what the conclusions here, knowing they still have an avenue for a political process if they want to pursue impeachment on the question of whether he obstructed justice.

CAMEROTA: All right. Friends, stick around, please. We have many more questions for you, including looking at what we've learned about Attorney General Bill Barr.

CUOMO: There are questions about him. Let's take him up, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:25] CUOMO: All right. So the attorney general, William Barr, his credibility has real questions and for real reasons.

In his press conference before the report was released, he once again mischaracterized its findings in President Trump's favor. He even broke out Trump's favorite phrase, "no collusion," which is not a term of law. It is not a crime, and guess who took their time to explain that? Mr. Mueller. Why parrot the president when your job is to protect us?

Let's discuss. Back with David Gregory, Elie Honig, Abby Phillip and Carrie Cordero.

Carrie, you have fresh eyes on this. The A.G., where is your head on how he Carried out this process in light of what you have now had a chance to digest?

CORDERO: Yes. Well, it's different than it was a couple days ago. Because I was really waiting to see what was in the report and trying to understand how it squared with the attorney general's March 24 letter. And after reading through the report and going back to that letter again and again yesterday, I am -- I think the attorney general completely misled on the obstruction part.

So the attorney general gave us an impression through his letter that the special counsel didn't make a recommendation on obstruction, because they couldn't come to a meeting of the minds on the facts.

In other words, that they -- it came across as if they really were wrestling with whether the facts that they had discovered through their investigation met the elements of obstruction. And that's not at all what the report says.

What the report says is that the special counsel team determined, possibly at the outset -- it was a little bit unclear, but possibly early on -- that they were never going to make a prosecutorial recommendation, because they thought they were legally prohibited from doing so, based on existing Department of Justice legal opinion that a sitting president couldn't be indicted and based on a theory of fairness, that you can't bring charges against a person if they don't have the ability to defend themselves in court.

And the attorney general completely whitewashed that, didn't include it in his letter, didn't include it in his press conference; and makes the report, now that we see the report, Congress should be looking at it in a completely different light. And they should be looking at it as a factual scenario that the special counsel's office discovered and delivered to them.

CAMEROTA: So --

CUOMO: There was something that I noticed yesterday. I was thinking about you in this, because you mentioned rod Rosenstein yesterday, how he stood behind him but he didn't talk.

Isn't it weird that the man who called for a special counsel because he was so freaked out by what happened with Comey, because it looked like, you know, the president was obstructing the situation, and it needed it, that he went along with Mr. Barr in reckoning obstruction this way? You know what I mean?

You called for the special counsel, because you were so worried about this conflict. Then you go with Mr. Barr, who says that on obstruction there was really nothing there? Weird.

CAMEROTA: When somebody's mute, it's hard to know what they're thinking. You know?

CUOMO: Well, you can do pretend thought bubbles, though.

GREGORY: But hold on.

CUOMO: What was going on there?

GREGORY: I think -- I think that I agree with what Carrie said. But I think I would add that there's -- there is some areas to defend Barr. First of all, Rosenstein, as far as we know, agreed with Barr on the conclusion that they would not bring an obstruction --

CUOMO: Yes, but that's the point, David. Why was he so quick to arrive at that judgment when he's the one who called for the special counsel?

GREGORY: Well, I don't see why that's --

CUOMO: Because he was concerned about obstruction.

[06:25:03] GREGORY: Because maybe that's what he concluded. I mean, you can believe both things. You can believe that you need a special counsel, but you can agree that you wouldn't make an obstruction case in this circumstance.

CAMEROTA: But David --

GREGORY: And -- no hold. But -- and let's -- I mean, Barr deserves criticism, but in his four-page letter, he did include the crucial line that says "neither do I exonerate him." We have been saying in the weeks since that letter came out that an impeachment proceeding was an available option on obstruction, which is true.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but he --

GREGORY: And that as something that he laid out.

CAMEROTA: But he didn't accurately, David, or truthfully characterize much of Mueller's findings. He spun it in a different way. I mean, for instance, he said, and it was not -- and Mueller did not decide this because of the DOJ rules. Not true.

GREGORY: Right.

CAMEROTA: In the Mueller report it says that that was what -- that was what hamstrung Robert Mueller. I mean, this is just one example.

GREGORY: I agree. And I don't think he should have put it -- I don't think he should have put it that way. All I'm saying the letter itself, as cryptic as it was, included what is the essential point, that he never exonerated him on obstruction of justice.

And I just think we should point out a couple of other things. Again, I'm not disagreeing with the criticism or the credibility questions. But when Sessions was named, when Sessions was fired, what was the first concern? "Oh, that's it. The investigation is going to get cut off. Rosenstein is going to get fired; there will be no more Mueller investigation." Didn't happen. Mueller finished.

Then it was going to be, oh, he's not going to release the report. He's going to whitewash it. No report. We have the report and Congress will get it without any redactions. So we've seen a full airing.

So I think some of those concerns ended up not being founded.

CAMEROTA: I think that's the good news. I think you make a good point.

However, I think that what also came to light yesterday, Elie, was that many people have pointed out that, in that press conference, the attorney general of the United States appeared to be acting as a defense attorney for the president. He did not appear to be representing the interests of the United States.

He inserted things like his -- how he felt that the president was justifiably angry. He gave us a psychoanalysis of the president that he did not need to give us. So people heard that as leading the witness.

HONIG: Yes, Alisyn, I think William Barr's credibility and independence are in the gutter now from the entirety of his conduct throughout this case.

Look, the most important thing he did was he intercepted the obstruction inquiry. And when he was asked during his testimony in Congress last week, "Did Robert Mueller ask you to jump in and make the decision on obstruction," if you watch the clip, he hems and haws and he said, "Well, Mueller didn't say anything to me." Now we get the report. OK, but Mueller put it in writing.

CUOMO: And Elie, he also said, you know, Mueller didn't really make any point about Congress. He went to great pains to make -- I mean, really, David, I respect the fairness. I do. And it's very important for us to do it. Mr. Barr is not the problem in looking at the Mueller probe.

But he did his damnedest to make sure this looked the right way for the president. And again, this is all about politics right now, as you keep pointing out.

And I agree with your point earlier that a lot of the judgments are political, even when they're supposed to be strictly prosecutorial.

But Eddie -- Elie, when you look at the difference between what Barr put out and what you read from Mr. Mueller, how different are the two?

HONIG: It's night and day. It's hard to reconcile them. Look, I circled that with a highlighter when I saw it. Oh, my gosh, he says -- Robert Mueller says, "Congress, you should be taking a look at this."

There's the selective quoting, the way that William Barr gave us, in his four-page letter, the back half of a sentence that says the evidence did not sufficiently show a conspiracy between Russia, but he cut off the front half of that sentence, which begins with although. Although the Russians committed crimes and although the Trump campaign expected to benefit from that. You can't do that. If you try that with a federal judge, you get your head ripped off. That is completely misleading.

And then there's all the other little tells that Alisyn mentioned. The -- the psychoanalyzing the president and saying things like "the White House gave full cooperation." Yet, you read Mueller's report, and it says that the president's responses were completely insufficient.

So at every turn that I've seen, William Barr is slanting things towards the president. I do not think he has the independence and credibility that you need from the attorney general of the United States.

CAMEROTA: And Abby, the president must be delighted with his new attorney general.

PHILLIP: Yes. He is. And I think that he has every right to be. I mean, yesterday morning before the Barr press conference, we were talking about the converse of the Comey press conference, that -- that it would be that, instead of sort of saying all this derogatory stuff about someone you're not going to charge, you basically exonerate the person without representing all the information that's actually in the report about what happened.

And I think that's what Barr did. He went out there. He gave a press conference that -- where the -- it seemed that the intention was to present only the information that seemed favorable to the president and not give a fair airing of the information that might cause people to have some concerns, especially on the obstruction front.

END