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Attorney General William Barr to Testify Before Congress; Leaked Letter from Mueller to Barr Indicates Special Counsel Unhappy with Attorney General's Public Representation of Russia Report Findings; Venezuelan President Maduro Says "Coup" Attempt Defeated; National Security Adviser John Bolton is Interviewed About the Tumultuous Situation in Venezuela. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 01, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And when will we hear from Mueller himself. His testimony really does seem guaranteed at this point, and vital, because there are serious questions about whether the attorney general lied in testimony he has already given on the report. How will Barr explain his selective quotes from the Mueller report that seemed to twist the Special Counsel's intent? Some Democrats are already calling for impeachment of William Barr.

So we have a potentially explosive day ahead, and our coverage begins with Lauren Fox live in Capitol Hill. She is in the hearing room, the room where it will all happen. Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: That's right, John. In just a couple of hours Bill Barr will come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and have to answer questions about how he handled the Mueller report, specifically that reporting from the "Washington Post" adds a new explosive element to all of this, where Democrats are going to be grilling him about why he did not disclose sooner that Mueller wrote to him and basically said he didn't support the way that Barr had written out the key findings.

In that letter Mueller wrote, quote, "The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late on the afternoon of March 24th did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions." And you can expect that Democrats are already preparing their questions to focus on that letter from Mueller, but we don't expect that Bill Barr will really address it in his opening statement. Instead Barr will say in an expected statement, quote, "I determined that it was in the public interest for the Department to announce the investigation's bottom line conclusions. I did not believe that it was in the public interest to release additional portions of the report in a piecemeal fashion leading to public debate over incomplete information. My main focus was the prompt release of a public version of the report so that Congress and the American people could read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions."

This all coming in the Senate Judiciary Committee as we are still waiting to see whether or not Bill Barr will appear before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow. John and Alisyn? ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much for that preview. Even technology is getting hotter, obviously, and melting down in some ways.

So let's bring in Kaitlan Collins, our CNN White House correspondent, Philip Mudd, former CIA counterterrorism official and CNN counterterrorism analyst, and Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. Phil, we must start with you. You worked for Robert Mueller. The idea that he felt compelled to write this letter to his boss, Bill Barr, you say is stunning. What do you see in this letter?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Pretty simple, I see the psychology of Robert Mueller in a way that I didn't anticipate. Look, when I used to travel with him domestically, the FBI offices and sometimes to FBI personnel overseas, sometimes he would get a question from an FBI officer, what would you tell a kid to get into your position, director? And Mueller would always say the same thing, the most important thing in his history, personal history, was being a U.S. Marine, duty, honor, country. Part of duty I saw in maybe 2,000 meetings with the guy is you stay in your lane. The Department of Justice does prosecutions, the Congress does the law, the media does the media, the White House does politics.

Mueller in this letter, in a letter he knows I'm sure is going to leak, it's not just a phone call, is about two lanes over on the highway. The only way to interpret that for a guy who never got out of his lane is he is so irritated, not only, remember, there is a keyword in that letter, not only by the surrounding information, the sort of environment that Barr created, but by that one word, "substance." That means that Barr got the facts wrong. This is remarkable for Mueller, Alisyn.

BERMAN: Phil, can I just ask you, do you think Mueller got played here? Do you think that he misinterpreted perhaps Barr's intentions over the last few months?

MUDD: No, I have never seen Mueller played and I don't think he got played. The most significant testimony coming up is not today. It's when Mueller gets in front of a committee, which I believe will be a public hearing, and he gets a couple questions. Let me give you one. Director Mueller, did the substance of your recommendations and comments in that report change because the person you were investigating was a resident of the Oval Office? And I can't wait to hear what Mueller said. This game isn't over. Mueller is playing a long game. Don't ever underestimate that guy.

CAMEROTA: And you think he will be willing to go and testify? You don't think that he would resist that request from Congress?

MUDD: No, because, remember, duty, honor, country. This is the most significant political investigation in America since the early '70s, going before the Oversight Committee. Forget about Trump and the investigation. This is the responsibility of a Department of Justice official to go talk.

BERMAN: Kaitlan, you say look at the timing of all of this. You think it is crucial.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It is, because look at when Mueller sent this letter to the Justice Department disputing the way that Bill Barr had portrayed this conclusion, this report that he had produced for two years now. That was four days after Bill Barr, the attorney general, sent his key findings to Congress, released them publicly. That was four days after.

[08:05:01] Now we are over a month after that and now this letter is just coming out hours before Bill Barr is going to testify before lawmakers on Capitol Hill. There was already going to be a lot of scrutiny on the Attorney General as he was testifying, and now it's an intense fresh new level of scrutiny. And this seems to be coming from weeks of what we've seen as this conflict emerging between the special counsel and the attorney general. People who we should note before this were close friends, their wives are close friends, they've been to Bible study together, even Bill Barr testified about the fact that they were close friends before this. So this is very unusual. And, of course, coming from Special Counsel who has been so tight lipped throughout this entire investigation, that makes it even more stunning that he sent this letter to the Justice Department.

CAMEROTA: It does feel as though that friendship could be frayed this morning. The Department of Justice gave "The Washington Post" a statement about all of this. And Elie, it is fascinating to hear this because they are still spinning it not accurately now that we know about the letter and the phone call between Barr and Mueller. Here is what the spokesperson for the DOJ says in this letter, "In a cordial and professional conversation, the Special Counsel emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General's March 24th letter was inaccurate or misleading." That's hard to believe, Elie. That is hard to believe. The whole point of the letter from Mueller to Barr is that it was misleading, the findings, in the four-page cheat sheet that Bill Barr put out.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Alisyn, it's hard to believe, and it's also hard to square with the actual letter that Robert Mueller wrote when he said that the content, nature, and the substance of the findings and conclusions were inaccurate. Today is going to be really interesting because this is going to be Bill Barr's first fair fight, because up until now everything that Bill Barr has said publicly has come in the context of he has seen the report but basically nobody else has. And now we've all seen the report, and I think a lot of us had a lot of questions raised about how accurate, how fair Bill Barr has been in summarizing it.

And then we just learned last night that the guy who wrote the report that's been kept away from us feels the same way. So today Bill Barr is going to have nowhere to hide, and he's going to get called to task for some of his distortions and misleading characterizations.

BERMAN: You have three questions, Elie, that you think that you would put to Barr if you were allowed to ask questions. I will note you are not because you are not a senator. And it doesn't even appear that the staff tomorrow in the House will get to ask questions. But were you a senator, what would you ask? HONIG: The senators are free to borrow these, first of all. So first

of all, I'd focus on obstruction of justice. I would ask William Barr, you concluded just in sort of summary fashion no obstruction, period. How do you square that with the 11 separate instances of what Robert Mueller deemed, quote, "potentially obstructive acts," the firing of Comey, the attempt to fire Mueller, the attempt to get McGahn to lie about it, and so on? And I think this is going to be a tough one for Bill Barr. I was a prosecutor for 14 years. I have indicted, tried and convicted people on a fraction of the evidence that Robert Mueller lays out. So I want to hear how Bill Barr defends that.

Number two, I would move on to Bill Barr's infamous interception. Where did you get the idea that it was up to you -- how did you conclude that Robert Mueller decided to punt to you, leaves it to the Attorney General to decide obstruction? Where is that in the report? It's nowhere in the report. Where is that in the Special Counsel guidelines? It's not in there. And how is that consistent with the whole idea of a Special Counsel? The whole point is to take the decision making out of the normal chain of command, the attorney general who reports the president.

And also of course, in the report, Mueller over and over refers to Congress and its impeachment powers specifically with respect to obstruction.

And then third let's not forget about Russia conspiracy. Sure, Mueller concluded that there was no federal crime chargeable based on the facts, but that doesn't mean everything is all roses and sunshine. There is still really serious national security issues there, and so I would ask Bill Barr, first of all, do you agree with Mueller's conclusion that Russia committed a series of crimes here, and that the Trump campaign in 2016 expected to benefit from those crimes? And based on that, do you have the backbone to say that the Trump campaign acted improperly and acted in a way that endangered national security?

CUOMO: Phil, I think that the overarching -- one overarching question here is that our Attorney General, the top law enforcement officer of the land, has misrepresented evidence of a crime. And that's what Robert Mueller is saying. Robert Mueller laid out those 11 portions in his report where he thinks that something improper was done, there was evidence of improper behavior from people around -- from the president and people around him of obstruction. And Bill Barr buried that.

MUDD: I can't figure this out. Not only did he bury it. He buried it in a way that anybody in Washington who has been around for a while knew wouldn't work. Number one, he comes out with language in his letter that doesn't match Mueller's report. Mueller let the president especially on the Russia piece off the hook. If you know Mueller's report is going to come out, why use different language in your letter?

[08:10:02] The second thing, "The New York Times" reports on the letter that Mueller wrote to Barr, it reports on that right before Barr is going before testimony. Why misrepresent what you know the Special Counsel's Office is saying, that is, that they're uncomfortable with your summary? You know that's going to leak. Why wouldn't you just leak it first? There is some Washington pieces of this, Alisyn, that make Barr look different than what we thought on day one, which is a seasoned professional.

BERMAN: Kaitlan, I can see you shaking your head.

COLLINS: One thing, what we've seen in the last several weeks is questions about how Bill Barr represented this report and whether or not they were accurate before the report had been released in its full and whether or not he shaped the public perception beforehand, the White House and the president's allies were pushing back on this by saying, really, you don't think that if Bill Barr was misrepresenting the report that Bob Mueller wouldn't have said anything or that he wouldn't have come out?

First, we got the reports that members of Mueller's team were unhappy with the way he portrayed it, and now we learned that Mueller himself sent Bill Barr this letter complaining essentially about what had been portrayed and how the key findings had been explained to the media and to the general public. So that kind of shoots that down. But White House officials feel exasperated by this latest effort because they feel like this report is simply never going to go away.

BERMAN: I suppose they can thank William Barr for that if he continues to spin what is actually in it.

Kaitlan Collins, Phil Mudd, Elie Honig, thank you very much. Remember, this hearing is in less than two hours right now, William Barr. It will be fascinating to see the questions asked, including by some presidential candidates today.

CAMEROTA: And the answers that he gives, and whether or not they can trust them after the last time when he gave answers that they think now were deceptive.

BERMAN: It is a crucial morning in Venezuela. The U.S.-backed opposition leader there says the military is deserting President Nicolas Maduro, but Maduro says he is still in charge. So how will the U.S. respond? We're going to speak to President Trump's national security adviser John Bolton next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:46] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro defiant in the face of growing protests, claiming what he calls a coup attempt against him has failed. Maduro is also pushing back against the United States over claims by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Maduro was preparing to flee the country for Cuba yesterday, but was talked out of it by Russia.

Joining us now to give us the very latest information, the president's national security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton.

Ambassador, thank you for being with us this morning.

At 8:16 a.m., what's the situation?

JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Thank you for having me.

BERMAN: It's been so tumultuous over the last 24 hours, what is your understanding of the current situation in Venezuela?

BOLTON: Well, I think what we're expecting to happen today are the long planned nationwide demonstrations by the opposition against the Maduro regime. We don't know what affect yesterday's violence by the government will have, but certainly these demonstrations have been planned for some time. We think the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan population oppose Maduro, oppose the Cubans, oppose the Russians. Hopefully, we'll see some of that today.

In terms of the government itself, I think they are in real trouble. I think we have exposed yesterday that very senior members of the Maduro regime were prepared to deal with the opposition and get him out of power. How they're going to live with each other now is very interesting.

Maduro, Padrino, like scorpions in a bottle, I don't think they can trust each other. That's not a sustainable situation.

BERMAN: So that last point and this is so interesting, it does seem perhaps things didn't go as you expected them to because you just brought up the Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, and you have said that in conversations with U.S. officials, he indicated that he would flip, that he would side with Juan Guaido. That didn't happen yesterday, he came out and publicly voiced support for the Venezuelan leader.

So what went wrong there?

BOLTON: Well, let me say these are conversations with the opposition leaders and I'm sure that some day the documents that Padrino, Moreno, Hernandez Dala were prepared to sign with the opposition. I bet they will come out in public some day, too.

Look, there is a lot of mistrust inside Venezuela between the opposition and Maduro regime officials after 20 years of a dictatorship. That's not surprising.

Let's be candid as well, many people in the regime have enormous financial resources they have accumulated over the years.

BERMAN: Right.

BOLTON: They are reluctant to see that go.

But when you have a government begin to fragment, in most circumstances, you'd say it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. Here is where the key difference comes in, the presence of 20,000 to 25,000 Cuban security forces.

Just to give you one example, Maduro yesterday didn't come out in public until the end of the day, he was, we believe, at Fort Tiuna near Caracas which is, among other things, it's a military prison. It's also the headquarters of the Cuban command in Venezuela. He was with Cubans because he doubted the loyalty of many of his own forces.

BERMAN: In your administration, the Trump administration, has also made the claim that Russia is very much involved in propping up the Maduro regime. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told my colleague Wolf Blitzer yesterday that there was a plane waiting to take Maduro to Cuba, but the Russians talked him out of it.

What exactly is the Russian role here?

BOLTON: Look, the Russians like nothing better than putting a thumb in our eye, they're using the Cubans as surrogates. They'd love to get effective control of a country in this hemisphere. It's not ideological. It's just good old fashioned power politics.

That's why we have the Monroe Doctrine which we're dusting off in this administration. That's why the president indicated last night that the Cubans better think long and hard about what their role is.

We're going to continue --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: What has the president said to Vladimir Putin on this subject?

BOLTON: We've made it clear to the Russians in a lot of conversations and a lot of different levels, some of which are going to continue today, why we think this behavior is unacceptable to us. Those conversations are going to go on.

But we're not going to limit ourselves to conversations, we are taking steps, we're putting more pressure on the Maduro regime. The effect of the economic sanctions already imposed are drying up revenues to Maduro. He won't be able to pay the service members. He won't be able to put gas in their jeeps.

[08:20:00] This is having a profound effect and it's a cumulative effect over time.

BERMAN: Has the president specifically spoken to Vladimir Putin about Venezuela?

BOLTON: I don't want to get into the specifics of the president's conversations --

BERMAN: But isn't it important -- I do want to ask, though. Isn't it important though? This is such a big issue for you, it's such a big issue for the administration, it's such a big issue for America and South America. If this is a priority, doesn't it matter whether or not the president has addressed it directly?

BOLTON: I think the president is addressing it directly all the time. You read his tweets, I'm quite sure he talked in a tweet last night about a possible embargo to Cuba, we have made it very clear to the Russians, there is no misunderstanding in Moscow that I am very clear.

BERMAN: What does -- I understand the president does intend to speak to Vladimir Putin today. Is that correct?

BOLTON: Look, I said before I'm not going to get into the specifics to that. I think Secretary Pompeo will be addressing his counterpart. We have had a lot of conversations with the Russians, that's for sure.

BERMAN: I just -- because I'm reading a transcript of an interview you just did on Fox News.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLTON: I guess, look, if you want to ask me about Russian collusion --

BERMAN: No, I don't. Not even a little. No, no, no --

BOLTON: Let's talk about Venezuela.

BERMAN: I absolutely want to. I just want to understand what the president has done -- because Russia clearly played a role. Mike Pompeo was talking about it yesterday and you were mentioning the Cuba relationship.

I just want to know what diplomatic pressure the president will exert. I understand you said moments ago there is a call scheduled for today between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. Is that correct?

BOLTON: That's not what I said. I said there was a call scheduled between Secretary Pompeo and his counterpart. You can look at your transcript.

BERMAN: OK. I will go ahead and look at that transcript again. The part I'm looking at right now it says Ambassador John Bolton told "Fox and Friends" that President Trump will call Vladimir Putin today following Pompeo's claims that Russia stopped Maduro from leaving Venezuela.

But we'll take another look at that. As you said, that's only one of the issues here. What's the status --

BOLTON: That doesn't sound like a transcript to me, it sounded like a report.

BERMAN: OK, this is not -- you're missing the overall point here. I'm not trying to pick a fight on Russia at all.

BOLTON: No, the one who is missing the point is you. We could have a conversation about Venezuela --

BERMAN: And we are.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: And if you let me, if you let me ask the next question. BOLTON: Go right ahead.

BERMAN: I think one of the most dramatic moments yesterday was seeing Leopoldo Lopez in public in the mornings. I found that surprising and unexpected. He had been released from his house confinement.

By the end of the day, he went first to the Chilean embassy and then I think now to the Spanish embassy. What's his status tonight?

BOLTON: Look, the fact is that all of the leaders of the opposition are in danger because of the authoritarian Maduro government and they have taken steps really over the last three months to protect themselves in various ways. Leopoldo Lopez was out of house arrest for the first time in a long time yesterday and he was understandably concerned about what the Maduro regime might do.

So, we don't get into discussions about where they are or what they're up to. We will see what happens today.

BERMAN: I want to play something that Mike Pompeo did say just a short time ago. This is a question you are asked regularly, it has to do with military intervention. You've said that all options remain on the table. Let me just play you the exact language the secretary just used.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The president has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible, if that's what's required, that's what the United States will do. We'd prefer a peaceful transition of government there where Maduro leaves and a new election is held. But the president has made clear in the event that there comes a moment, and we'll all have to make decisions about when that moment is and the president will ultimately have to make that decision, he's prepared to do that if that's what's required.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The language the secretary used is if that is what is required. Broadly speaking, what would require U.S. military action?

BOLTON: Well, first, I agree with everything Mike just said. I think the president has been crystal clear and it's one element of a successful strategy is that you don't necessarily telegraph to your potential opposition what you're going to do or when you're going to do it.

We have said repeatedly as well as Mike said, we want a peaceful transition of power, the Russians could assist that, the Cubans could assist it by returning to Cuba. We're going to continue to work on that basis, but we're having effectively a special meeting of national security counsel principals later today and I'm sure we will be talking about a lot of steps.

BERMAN: Very quickly, two last questions. Do you expect that Maduro will be in power at the end of today? BOLTON: You know, I don't know how one can predict that. I think as

in the case of many authoritarian regimes, what looks like a pretty imposing structure sometimes one kick at the door and the whole rotten edifice falls down.

BERMAN: All right. Let me, in just in closing because again, I don't want this to be a piece of contention here. I'm reading you the transcript of the Fox News interview. Just so our viewers know and you know what I was asking.

Brian Kilmeade said to you: If you want to back off the Russians, you have to call the Russians as the secretary of state called his counterpart Lavrov.

[08:25:05] Has president called Vladimir Putin? If so, what was the call like?

Then you apparently said: The call is scheduled for today. It's an important call --

BOLTON: That's a call between Pompeo and his counterpart.

BERMAN: OK.

BOLTON: The call has not been made as I understand it.

BERMAN: Great. Again, that was what the confusion was there, ambassador. I just wanted people to know because reading the transcript and looking at that exact question and answer it could leave the impression you were saying the president would speak to Vladimir Putin. I just wanted you to be aware of why I was asking and our viewers as well.

You do not know of a specific call coming up between the two leaders?

BOLTON: That's correct.

BERMAN: Thank you. Ambassador John Bolton, we do appreciate you coming on and giving clarity to this very tumultuous situation in Venezuela. Thank you, sir.

BOLTON: Always wonderful.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks, sir.

Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Did Attorney General Bill Barr lie to Congress when he went before them last month? Some Democrats believe yes and they are calling for Barr's removal. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is up next with his thoughts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: OK. In less than two hours, Attorney General William Barr is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Overnight, there was a big development. We learned that special counsel Robert Mueller sent a letter to Barr expressing frustrations that Barr's four-page summary did not.

END