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Democrats Say Barr Mischaracterized Report; Notre Dame's Easter Services Moved; Mueller Drops Obstruction dilemma on Congress; Hours Spent on the Mueller Report. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 19, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Give a fair airing of the information that might cause people to have some concerns, especially on the obstruction front. And I don't see how that really rectifies the Comey problem that the Department of Justice has, that if Barr wants to sort of bring the department back into line where it ought to be on these issues, it seems that this press conference really flew in the face of that. And it helped the president in a lot of ways yesterday. And -- but that's the reason why the president has been so calm about this. He has known for a long time that this is how this would go, and I think that he is justified in giving Bill Barr this job, even when he didn't really know much about Barr to begin with before he hired him to be his attorney general.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right. Really helpful insights, guys.

Carrie, Abby, Elie, David, thank you very much.

So now, of course, it's Good Friday and Good Friday services will go on after that devastating fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral. So we have a live report on what's happening in Paris, next.

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[06:35:10] CAMEROTA: Investigators say they may have found what sparked that massive fire at Paris' historic Notre Dame Cathedral. On this Easter weekend, services have been moved to other churches in the area.

CNN's Melissa Bell is live outside of Notre Dame with more.

What's the latest, Melissa?

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, as you say, this is going to be a very different Good Friday here in Paris, partly because the annual ceremony that's held every Good Friday normally inside Notre Dame Cathedral, which involves the crown of thorns being exposed and kissed by faithfuls will not be taking inside the cathedra, which remains closed. Instead, the way of the cross will be celebrated here, on the Ile De La Cite, the island in the center (ph) on which the cathedral sits. The faithful will come.

There had been some question about whether the crown of thorns worn by Jesus' crucifixion might be brought out for the ceremony. We're hearing now that that will not happen because of security reasons. And yet we're expecting pretty big crowds to attend this very different service that will be celebrated here today before the Good Friday service can be held on the left bank at another church. Again, likely to be very well-attended.

Meanwhile, of course, the work goes on inside Notre Dame itself, which will remain closed for some time. Fire workers but also, of course, investigators. And they now believe that what might be at the heart of this, what might have caused that initial spark that led to that devastating fire might well have been caused by an electrical fault or short circuit, possibly in one of the electrical installations that were brought in as part of the renovations of the cathedral. They included things like elevators that are not normally there. Could that spark have come from that? That is, for the time being, what investigators believe may well have happened.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Melissa, thank you very much. Appreciate your reporting. The best to you for all the holidays this weekend.

Now, here is the political process question. We have the Mueller report. You should read it. I know we don't like to tell everybody what to do here, but if you don't read it, you're going to have hours of frustration. Once you read it, then you're going to have to decide this, well now what do I want? That's what Congress has to figure out.

We have attorneys who took part in the impeachment process of President Clinton. They're going to give us the perspective on where this should and can go, next.

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[06:40:47] CUOMO: The vexing question is, so now what? You've got two House committees requesting that Bob Mueller testify after his report focused on at least ten episodes of potential obstruction, when it was nowhere near as clear a situation as the attorney general made it seem.

Now, Democrats have indicated that they are not looking to impeach President Trump. Others have said they are. Others yet now have said we're going to look at it and we'll see what happens. The question is, what will they do? Does the behavior as laid out in the probe justify impeachment? Did the political realities justify it? Two great pieces of perspective.

We've got Rick Filkins, served as counsel to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee during Clinton's impeachment, and Lis Wiehl, who served as deputy chief investigative counsel for Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during Clinton's impeachment.

Good, two sides, same situation.

So, let's start with this. Lis, when you look at it, it is a political calculus. It is about

votes, as President Ford famously said. A high crime or misdemeanor is what Congress say it is. What's the calculus here?

LIS WIEHL, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL FOR DEMOCRATS DURING CLINTON IMPEACHMENT: Well, the Democrats can certainly go ahead with impeachment. Mueller put that out there. He said the president is not above the law and really laid out a roadmap.

When Starr was in front of the whole Judiciary Committee, he not only laid out a roadmap, he laid out a directive. He really handed up an indictment. And it was very clear that the Republicans saw that as red meat. They were going to go for an impeachment.

Here it's less clear because the underlying crime, the collusion, is not there. And the Democrats have to deal with that. And whether or not the American people have the stomach to go ahead with impeachment, that's a political calculation.

CUOMO: Let's throw up the poll before we continue the conversation. Where are people on impeachment? Thirty-six say yes, 59 say no.

All right, now, how portentous is that. Well, we'll see. See what the numbers are after this comes out, after it marinate a little bit. But, consensus, nowhere near right now.

Rick, a very different time with Starr. That was a statute that made part of his mandate having to find potential impeachment material and give it to Congress. None of that happens here. What's the calculus for you?

RICK FILKINS, FORMER COUNSEL TO GOP DURING CLINTON IMPEACHMENT: It's a very different time. And let me say that the impeachment of Bill Clinton was a very tumultuous event. It was hyper partisan. In my opinion, looking back on it, it was a mistake to impeach Bill Clinton. And here's why. It was a mistake because there was no chance that this Senate would convict Bill Clinton. The votes weren't there.

And the calculation should always be whether or not the votes are there. And if you have a high crime and misdemeanor that is so serious that the public clamors for impeachment and removal from office, then by all means go ahead with impeachment.

In this case, we have a very different situation in that Bob Mueller's report is not a referral in the manner that Ken Starr's report was a referral. Ken Starr, in his report, concluded that Bill Clinton had committed perjury and had likely obstructed justice.

CUOMO: Right.

FILKINS: And it's the word perjury. And so those had to be then taken up by the House Judiciary Committee --

CUOMO: Right.

FILKINS: To determine -- it was a very serious matter. And here, we don't have that at all. Basically, we have a report which honestly could have been kept secret because it doesn't contain basically a referral. It doesn't contain the opinion of Bob Mueller that Donald Trump broke the law, that he committed felonies.

CUOMO: Well, look, there are different rules -- there are different rules now. You guys -- not you guys, the left and right came together, rare, and got rid of that independent counsel statute as soon as it expired and put this together to make it more limited.

FILKINS: That's right.

CUOMO: Lis, I didn't mean, Liz, I apologize for that. So, Lis, fine, but the perjury was about sex. Now you have Russian interference in our democracy, which is 100 percent true except to the president.

WIEHL: Right.

[06:45:05] CUOMO: And his team was very much interested in benefiting from it, something the AG left out. And the president was very much intent on stopping these proceedings.

WIEHL: Right.

CUOMO: All wrong. Maybe not felonies --

WIEHL: Well --

CUOMO: But they could be high crime or misdemeanors.

WIEHL: Right. And the only reason the obstruction didn't go through was because the people that work for the president wouldn't go through with it. So the only reason that he wasn't able to go -- commit a high crime and misdemeanor was because of the people that worked for him didn't allow him to do it. So I don't agree that this report should have been -- become secret because that's exactly the opposite of what a democracy is all about.

CUOMO: Right.

WIEHL: And so that's absolutely wrong.

CUOMO: Right.

WIEHL: And, you know, and I don't agree that the Congress shouldn't at least look at this for a possibility of impeachment, not because of what we're doing here right now today, but because of what the Constitution says and what the Constitution is about.

Yes, this is a political procedure, but we're not looking about what's happening right now and today. We're looking about what the Constitution says for our generation now and beyond.

CUOMO: There is -- there is a note of caution here, though, Rick. You know, you guys went after Clinton. It was based on a salacious situation. It was certainly nothing like Russian interference in our democracy. And you wound up giving him a ten point boost in the polls. He was up 10 points --

FILKINS: Right.

CUOMO: By about six months after your process.

FILKINS: Right.

CUOMO: This is a political situation, not a legal one. People have to keep that in mind.

FILKINS: That's right. And, you know, the House can do anything it wants. It can impeach a ham sandwich if it wants to because there is no judicial review that can take place. The only accountability for members of the House who are voting to impeach a sitting president is at the polls. And that's the way the founders set it up.

My point about not releasing the report is that the Department of Justice's own policy is that reports such as this are not released when no wrongdoing is found, when no criminal wrongdoing is found. The department doesn't want to drag people through the public process, which can be humiliating, of saying that they did something -- may have done something wrong, which wasn't illegal. And so --

CUOMO: But it's discretionary, right?

FILKINS: So -- yes. I -- I have -- I have --

CUOMO: The only time -- the only other time we've seen this done, it was Janet Reno and Branch Davidian, and she had the report go out immediately to the people with minimal reactions.

FILKINS: Yes.

CUOMO: So it's discretionary.

FILKINS: I have --

CUOMO: And we saw this AG exercise discretion as well.

FILKINS: Chris, I have no problem with making the report public. It's just that it could have been -- it could have been sealed. I'm not saying it should have been, but it could have been sealed because there was no allegation of criminal wrongdoing. And so, generally speaking, we don't drag people through that process.

CUOMO: Well, that's not true. There was an allegation. There were many allegations in this report of criminal wrongdoing. There was no conclusion that there could be a charge.

But, look, let's all agree on this, and we'll leave it here.

Lis, thank you very much.

Rick, thank you very much.

It's now a political question and we'll see what you want it to be, because that's what's going to guide your lawmakers, or at least that's what it should be, all right.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, one journalist who has spent much of the past two years trying to connect the dots on the Mueller investigation will tell us his big takeaways from the report, next.

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[06:51:25] CAMEROTA: So what have these past two years of the Mueller investigation been like for the reporters who have spent thousands of hours digging into the details, the lies and the subterfuge?

Joining us now to discuss is Garrett Graff. He is a CNN contributor and he wrote a new biography about the special counsel called "Mueller's war."

Garrett, you are the perfect person to talk to because I don't know how many -- if you can tabulate the amount of hours you have devoted in your life to trying to connect the dots for everybody and figure out the Russia investigation, the Mueller investigation, what crimes were committed.

And so, before we get to your big takeaways, I mean, how are you feeling this morning?

GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think actually Mueller's report is a tremendous vindication of the journalism done by all number of outlets over the last two years. I mean, the extent to which we are not surprised by large parts of what has come out in the last 24 hours is really because investigative journalists told us many of the pieces of this story. We didn't know how they assembled -- sort of how that puzzle came together, but we had a really good understanding, as it turns out, of what the pieces were on the table that the special counsel was looking at.

CAMEROTA: I am so struck by that as well, Garrett, because what we kept saying, what we heard some of our legal analysts say was, we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

No, it turns out, we actually saw much of that iceberg because of the investigative reporting.

GRAFF: Absolutely. And particularly on the Russian interference side where we -- you know, most of the instances that we saw reported in Mueller's report are things that we had heard about, contacts we had heard about, meetings we had heard about. And, obviously, there's a lot of detail that the special counsel was able to add and a lot of the obstruction side, that volume two of the report, is, in fact, new to us, particularly in the level of granular detail that it's been reported.

But I think by and large, U.S. investigative journalism comes out really good this morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about your three big takeaways now that you've pored through the Mueller report.

Number one, the report is not nearly as cut and dry as Attorney General Bill Barr led us to believe. What do you mean?

GRAFF: Yes. I mean when you look at Barr and the way that he has tried to represent this over the last month or so, you know, he said this was pretty straightforward, no collusion, no obstruction. And that's really not what Mueller says. He sort of seems to say, maybe collusion and definitely obstruction, but I wasn't in a position to prosecute that.

CAMEROTA: Number two, the obstruction pattern seems quite clear. What is that pattern that you see?

GRAFF: Yes. I mean here you have a president who provided the motive in the first minutes of the special counsel's probe with that scene where Jeff Sessions tells him about the special counsel and he says, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, I'm f'd, and then proceeds for basically two years to do everything that he can, directing people to obstruct, trying to shut the probe down, trying to take the probe over, trying to block it, trying to encourage others not to cooperate truthfully. I mean this is a pattern of obstruction that in anyone short of the president would be something that federal prosecutors would be bringing criminal charges over.

[06:55:000] CAMEROTA: It was really interesting to hear the president -- we don't often hear the president in that moment of candor -- expressing how concerned he was when he recognized the gravity of the situation he was in.

Number three, you say there's a lot more to come. What does that mean?

GRAFF: Yes. And I think this is one of the things that we can't lose sight of is, the Mueller report is not the end. It's the end of Bob Mueller's role in the investigation. We saw it yesterday that he has spun off 14 different other prosecutions to other U.S. attorney's offices across the country and to the Justice Department. We only know about two of those. And there are 12 others that are redacted and still secret to us in this report. Not necessarily obviously targeting the president, but this is something that could unfold still for months to come.

CAMEROTA: Garrett Graff, thank you very much for all of the analysis now and for the past two years. Great to see you.

Chris.

CUOMO: All right, another layer of this. The Mueller report uncovered extensive efforts by the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election to help President Trump get elected, period. So, let's talk to a member of the Senate Intel Committee ahead about what do we do about it?

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