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Inside Politics

Barr on Mueller Investigation; Barr's 2017 Trump Meeting; Gates Continues to Cooperate; Barr Confirmation Hearing. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 15, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:21] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing this important day with us.

In just moments we'll get back to the confirmation hearing of William Barr. He's the president's pick to be the next attorney general. It resumes just minutes from now. If you've been watching this morning, as throughout the testimony, Barr promising to defend the independence of the Justice Department and to maintain his own personal independence as well. Barr, very importantly, given the context of everything we've seen in the past two years, says he's promised the president nothing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: President Trump has sought no assurances, promises, or commitments from me of any kind, either expressed or implied, and I have not given him any other than that I would run the department with professionalism and integrity. As attorney general, my allegiance will be to the rule of law, the Constitution, and the American people. This is how it should be, this is how it must be, and if you confirm me, this is how it will be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Democrats and even many of the Republicans, of course, concerned, first and foremost, how would an Attorney General Bill Barr handle the Mueller investigation? Well, if the president is watching, he might have been a bit surprised to learn his nominee disagrees with him about a lot of things, including ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to recused himself and about a few aspects of the special counsel investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: I don't -- I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), CHAIRMAN, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Do you believe that Attorney General Sessions had a conflict because he worked on the Trump campaign?

BARR: I'm not sure of all the facts, but I think he probably did the right thing recusing himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Are the Democrats going to keep pushing throughout the day for more specifics? But Barr pledged that if confirmed he'd allow Mueller to complete his investigation. Barr also promising very clearly and repeatedly not to allow any improper political or White House interference with Mueller's work. He said he would support releasing Mueller's findings to Congress and the public, as much as he could, he said, within the law and the regulations, and he said the president would not get a chance to correct Mueller's report before any public release.

With me at the table to share their reporting and their insights, our senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, senior justice correspondent Even Perez, justice reporter Laura Jarrett, and chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Number one, we'll see what happens this afternoon. It's like anything, you get this break, everybody resets, they go into the room and pull out strategy. But Bill Barr helped himself this morning without a doubt. The Democrats have the big questions about Mueller. Did anything, any openings?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I mean there are 53 Republicans in the Senate, so --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes.

KING: He's in anyway. Yes, he's --

HENDERSON: Exactly. Yes.

TOOBIN: Yes, he's going to get confirmed in any case.

But I thought he was a very impressive witness. I mean he -- he was plain-spoken. He didn't, you know, try to hedge in any obvious way. I think one area where I think the more aggressive Democrats are going to try to take him on is about the report and the public release of the report because he said I will make it report -- I will make it public to the extent I can, that that being the weasel word. And I think the issue of how much the president will be allowed to cite executive privilege to keep stuff secret, that's something I expect some of the senators will want to explore.

But other than that -- I mean in terms of Mueller's independence, it's hard to imagine he could have given any more strong --

KING: If you trust Barr and if you know Barr, and some of the senior Democrats do know him, it will be interesting to see how they vote because they like him. They respect him. They know him socially around town. They've known him for 30-plus years. They're thrilled to have an adult at the Justice Department. They face pressure from their base to vote no.

KING: But if you like and respect Bill Barr, you heard that as, I'm going to get the Mueller report, read the law, read the regulations and release as much as I can. If you believe he's got a secret deal with the president, you take that as he's going to look -- go through the regulations with a fine-tooth comb and release as little as possible.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. And I think a lot of -- there's a lot of skeptical people out there, people who, obviously, are not fans of the president, who believe that Barr was brought in essentially to manage the final phase of this investigation. And, look, I mean I think he will have a lot to decide on. I mean it's going to be -- it's going to be a lot of up to his interpretation of those regulations.

One of the things that really surprised me today was the fact that, you know, for all of the positioning by the Democrats over this memo that he wrote, it's a 19-page memo that he wrote sort of opining on whether or not Mueller had the right to investigate the president on obstruction of justice, he kind of emerged unscathed in the questioning. You know, he explained it, I think, pretty fully, at least, you know, to the satisfaction of the people who were asking him questions this morning. We'll see whether or not the -- some of the 2020 Democrats you're talking about --

[12:05:09] HENDERSON: Yes, I think that's something to look for.

PEREZ: Right.

HENDERSON: I mean you're going to have some folks who, you know, are going to be much tougher on. You think about Kamala Harris, who, of course is --

KING: Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris on the Democratic side.

HENDERSON: Exactly.

KING: Ben Sasse, who's a more independent minded Republican on the Republican side, we'll see.

HENDERSON: Yes, yes. So it's going to be tough, I think. They're going to ask some pretty pointed questions. They're probably a little bit more suspicious of Barr, why he wrote this memo, why it was disseminated so widely and whether or not this is why he ended up in this position, because of his positions on Mueller.

TOOBIN: And the next Democrat up is Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been probably the most critical of the Justice Department.

But just going back to what Evan said about the 19-page memo, I thought Barr did a pretty good job. It's like, I was just like an old guy on the sofa with my remote and, you know, I thought I'd write up this memo. I didn't really know anything. I mean it sort of -- it has the ring of truth to it.

KING: And he also smartly -- he also smartly brought up that I sent a memo saying, don't prosecute Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat. LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes.

KING: That this is what I do.

JARRETT: Three calls from the Justice Department.

KING: Yes. Right. That there are a number of us who used to serve in these positions. We play Monday morning quarterback and we share our ideas. And so if you don't like this one, what about that one? I'm doing this as an independent. Again, if the -- if you believe everything Bill Barr just said, my question is, will the president come to regret this pick? We know what Jeff Sessions went through for two years. The president said you should never have recused yourself. We know James Comey ultimately got fired. We know that Rod Rosenstein, currently the number two, has gone through.

And that was one of the questions for Democrats to Bill Barr, 68 years old, former attorney general in the George H.W. Bush years, a distinguished career in the law. He's made a lot of money in the business. Why, with children and grandchildren, why in the world would you come back in? Bill Barr saying, I actually think I'm the right guy for this job because I don't have a political future. I don't have to listen when the president tweets.

Dick Durbin, the exchange came up, the word was, will you be bullied?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong. And I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards, or Congress, or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Interesting to hear that answer because I want to go back in time. He was asked by the Democrats. This time the president asked you to be attorney general. There was an earlier time, back in 2017, where he was -- the idea was, do we want Bill Barr to join our private defense team, helping to fight back against the special counsel investigation. And listen to Bill Barr describing the moment where he's being rushed into a brief meeting with the president of the United States, he sees the staff waiting around, they have important business to do at the White House. What does the president ask right off the top?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: It was a very brief meeting where essentially the president wanted to know -- yes, he said, oh, you know Bob Mueller. How well do you know Bob Mueller? I told him how well I knew Bob Mueller and our -- and how, you know, the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is all over and so forth. And he was interested in that, wanted to know, you know, what I thought about, you know, Mueller's integrity and so forth and so on. And I said Bob is a -- is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. And sort -- he said something to the effect like, so are you envisioning some role here? And I said, you know, actually, Mr. President, right now is -- I couldn't do it. And so he asked me for my phone number. I gave it to him and I never heard from him again, until --

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), CHAIRMAN, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, I tried that once. You did better than me.

BARR: Well, I didn't hear -- hear from him until, you know, later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If you don't remember the history from the 2016 primary, go back. Just Google or any search engine you got, President Trump Lindsey Graham's cell phone. You'll find out what the end of part of that was about.

But if -- but if that's a fair representation of the conversation, there's no reason to think it isn't.

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: And all the other things he said about Bob Mueller, and all the promises he just made, knowing what the president did to Jeff Sessions, knowing what the president had done to Rod Rosenstein over the years, how did Bill Barr even get this job?

JARRETT: But what's fascinating also there, John, is this idea that he and Mueller are friends, something he took care to say a couple times. Even I noticed with Pat Leahy, top Democrat, he was taking care to say, I wasn't criticizing Mueller, I was just pointing out that the team should be more balanced.

KING: Can Democrats use that to say, OK, we're going to go the flip way. First we thought you were too harsh on him. Now you're cozy, you're his friend? Should you recuse yourself?

HENDERSON: Yes, I think some of them will do that.

JARRETT: Yes.

KING: They'll try.

HENDERSON: Yes, they'll try.

KING: And is there anything in the regulations?

JARRETT: Is that -- no.

PEREZ: No.

JARRETT: It's totally up to him.

TOOBIN: (INAUDIBLE), you think they'll do -- they'll say what?

HENDERSON: They'll try to say your -- maybe you're too cozy to Bob Mueller and that's why you should recuse yourself. I think Democrats are going to try everything to try to get him to recuse himself. You've heard them already say that even before this hearing, you know, and he's plainly said, he doesn't think (INAUDIBLE).

JARRETT: But how many times have we heard the president say that Comey and Bob Mueller are best friends? They're not.

HENDERSON: Right.

PEREZ: Right. That's not true.

JARRETT: That's not true. But he's tweeting about it. He's using it, raising it as a so-called conflict. But the fact that Barr and Mueller are actual friends doesn't seem to be an issue for him.

KING: That's --

[12:10:02] PEREZ: And one small thing. Just the fact that someone is describing a conversation with the president -- by the way, how many people have we seen in these hearings who refuse to talk about what they had --

JARRETT: Yes.

KING: Right.

PEREZ: A conversation with the president about. So here's Bill Barr really setting a new tone. Perhaps we're going to get a lot of information when he comes (ph) --

KING: And, remember -- and remember the joke with Lindsey Graham saying, do you think the president's a one-pager? Meaning, do you think the president (INAUDIBLE). I think -- I think the president may be learning a bit about his nominee for attorney general that maybe he didn't understand about his depth and his history. But we shall see as this one goes out.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, again, we're waiting for the hearing to resume, the confirmation hearing of William Barr to be the next attorney general of the United States. You see the hearing room right there up on Capitol Hill.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back. We're keeping an eye on Capitol Hill. You see it there on the right of your screen. That's the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room.

William Barr, the president's choice to be the next attorney general of the United States, at his confirmation hearing. The questioning from senators will continue momentarily and we'll take you right back there when we can.

[12:15:05] As the new attorney general, Mr. Barr would oversee the special counsel investigation, the Robert Mueller investigation. Some news on that front today. We've been asking the question for weeks, if not months, when will it wind down. Rick Gates, the former deputy Trump campaign chairman, has had a plea deal with the special counsel. There was supposed to be an update in court today on the disposition of his case. The special counsel now saying, Evan Perez, he needs more time, which tells you, work still underway.

PEREZ: Right. I think everybody, that's the question I get most often from people is when it's going to be done. And I ain't no fool. I'm never going to say exactly when it's going to be done.

Look, I think this tells us that the work is continuing and it's going to be done when it's done. The filing says that they're asking for two more months, but it doesn't mean necessarily two more months. It could be three. It could be one and a half. We don't know.

KING: Right. But we do know, Jeffrey Toobin, from the continuing developments in the Manafort case, Paul Manafort gets convicted. Then he says he's going to cooperate. Rick Gates was his deputy, both in private business and then at the Trump campaign. And the special counsel's office says Paul Manafort was lying. He's promised to cooperate and he kept lying. And part of their evidence is about stuff that happened during the campaign, including sharing polling information with some Ukrainians close to Russia that Rick Gates was involved in. Therefore so you have some evidence on the public record that Rick Gates remains an important, cooperating witness.

TOOBIN: That's true, but in the brief item that was filed by the Mueller office today, they said several investigations, which at least suggests, doesn't say, that it's not just Manafort.

KING: Right.

TOOBIN: It could be people who haven't been charged yet.

KING: He was deeply involved in the Trump inauguration. We know that that is an area that's under some scrutiny.

TOOBIN: Right.

KING: That's just --that's just one.

TOOBIN: So, I mean, you know, there seems to be this somehow consensus that, you know, Mueller's wrapping up, Mueller's almost done. I don't know where that comes from. I mean, in fact, it is -- I mean there are -- there are some hints. I mean the fact that he is allowing Michael Cohen to testify in front of Congress does suggest that, you know, he is more or less done with Cohen. But, you know, that's -- he's not the only witness in this case and --

KING: Right, we don't know -- we don't know how broad the portfolio is, therefore he might be done with chapter a or subject a. We have no idea --

JARRETT: And the grand jury's been extended.

KING: Grand jury's been extended.

TOOBIN: Right.

JARRETT: And we still have the mystery case before the Supreme Court. We don't know, right?

KING: Right. And the Michael Flynn sentencing was delayed because the judge was quite skeptical, are you sure you want to do this at this moment, which, to get back to where we are today, so you have the new choice to be the president's attorney general. You will oversee Robert Mueller. You've described him as a friend. You know what the president of the United States did to his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for a year and a half essentially belittling him, ridiculing him, undermining him at just about every turn and attacking the Justice Department. The Gates continuance. The Flynn continuance. The investigation continues.

You see the members coming back into the room.

Bill Barr was asked the question, do you see any circumstances, especially as pressure came from the White House, where you would fire Bob Mueller?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: Are there any circumstances that would cause you to terminate the investigation, or any component of it, or significantly restrict its funding?

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Under the -- under the regulations, Bob Mueller could only be terminated for good cause. And I -- frankly, it's unimaginable to me that Bob would ever do anything that gave rise to good cause. But in theory --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We'll go right -- sorry, take you right back to the live hearing right now.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: This is my first chance at a committee hearing to congratulate you on taking the gavel here. We worked well together when you were chairman of the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, and I hope that that will continue here.

Mr. Barr, welcome.

Did you make it a condition of taking this job that Rod Rosenstein had to go? Just to be clear so we're not bandying words here, did you request or signal or otherwise communicate in any way that you wanted Rod Rosenstein to go?

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: No. The president said that the decision on the deputy was mine, anything I wanted to do on the deputy was mine.

WHITEHOUSE: So we will find no William Barr fingerprints on Rosenstein's departure?

BARR: No. Rod and I have been talking, you know, about his plans. He told me that he viewed it as a two-year stint and would like to use, if I'm confirmed, my coming in as an occasion to leave. But we talked about the need for a transition, and I asked him if he would stay for a while, and he said he would. And so as of right now, I would say there's no -- he has no concrete plans, I have no concrete plans in terms of his departure.

WHITEHOUSE: And you have not --

BARR: We're going to sort of play it by ear and see what makes sense.

WHITEHOUSE: And you have not undertaken to run him out in any way?

BARR: Absolutely not.

[12:19:58] WHITEHOUSE: That leaves an opening at the DAG position whenever you work this out.

Can you tell us, since attorneys general are very often defined by the immediate appointments around them at chief of staff, DAG, criminal chief, what are the characteristics and qualifications that you will seek as you fill -- particularly that position, but all three that I mentioned?

BARR: I'm sorry, the -- the deputy and what was the other one?

WHITEHOUSE: Deputy, chief of staff, and criminal chief.

BARR: There is already a criminal chief.

WHITEHOUSE: I know.

BARR: Yes.

WHITEHOUSE: There's already a deputy attorney general but he's leaving.

BARR: Well, for a deputy, I'd like someone who's a really good manager and who's had good management experience running government programs. And I want a first-rate lawyer and someone I -- whose judgment I feel comfortable in.

WHITEHOUSE: Experience in the Department?

BARR: Not necessarily, but -- but experience in government at -- at a high level.

WHITEHOUSE: When we met, I gave you a letter that you've seen, just so none of these questions would be a surprise, so I hope it is no surprise to you that I'm going through some of them.

If you're confirmed, what will be the Department's rule regarding communications between White House and Department of Justice officials regarding criminal and investigative matters? Who at DOJ will be allowed to have those conversations with the White House? And who at the White House will you entertain those conversations from at DOJ?

BARR: So I, you know, I've looked through the existing regime and my instinct is to keep it, maybe even tighten it up a little bit more. I remember when George W. Bush's administration was coming in, my advice was start tight, and then as you realize who has judgment and so forth, you -- you can go back to...

WHITEHOUSE: Yes. They went the other way and it was a bad day for Attorney General Gonzales in the hearing room when that was brought to his attention.

What is your understanding right now of who, at the Department of Justice, is authorized to have communications with the White House regarding investigations?

BARR: ... Well, it depends -- it depends what it is. But on -- on -- on criminal matters, I would just have the A.G. and the deputy.

WHITEHOUSE: And what do you think the rule is now in the Department?

BARR: I think that's what it is.

WHITEHOUSE: OK.

So if the reports are true that, as chief of staff, Mr. Whitaker was involved in conversations with the White House about bringing criminal investigations against the president's political enemies. That would not be consistent with your understanding of that policy?

BARR: Well, it would depend upon, you know, what -- what his understanding was with the attorney general, I mean, the...

WHITEHOUSE: Well, the attorney general was recused, so hard to step into the shoes of a recused attorney general on that matter, right?

BARR: ... Well, I don't know what the communications related to. I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

WHITEHOUSE: OK. Well, I hope you'll become sure when you get there because there is a fair amount of, I think, questionable behavior that has gone on that does not reflect well on the Department that I hope will get your attention.

I also asked you about the special counsel investigation and to give us a clear exposition of how that memo came to be; who you talked to, when, who was involved in it. There were a number of questions in that letter that...

BARR: Yes.

WHITEHOUSE: ... at this point, you have not answered. You have, I gather, told the chairman the names of some dozen or so people whom you contacted, as I understand it, once the memo was written, but it's not clear.

Do you have any objection to answering the questions that I wrote as questions for the record so that the committee can understand who you worked with, who you talked with about this idea, who you worked with in preparing the memo, who helped you things with things like citations that people at your level don't often do yourselves and -- and where it was circulated and vetted and what edits were made and so forth.

BARR: No, I have no objection to that.

WHITEHOUSE: Great.

BARR: But I -- just to -- just to be clear, no one helped me write the memo and I know how to do legal citations. Which I do.

WHITEHOUSE: Well a lot of people know how but that doesn't always...

BARR: I do it. I do.

WHITEHOUSE: OK.

BARR: OK.

WHITEHOUSE: You might want to get out of that habit.

(LAUGHTER)

You may have other things to look at.

BARR: I like to have some fun in life.

WHITEHOUSE: In -- if you think citations are fun, you're going to -- you're not going to have the problem some other nominees have had.

My letter to you also asked about the Bork order that set out a series of protections for the then independent counsel operation. Do you have any objection to any of those rules or principles applying and should we see those rules and principles which I gave to you then as being more or less adopted into the statement that you made earlier about your protection of the Mueller investigation from political interference?

[12:25:00]

BARR: I looked at them. I -- I think the current regime is -- is what I'm happy with. In other words, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't change the current rule that we're -- those rules were put in place at the end of the Clinton administration. And -- and sort of I think reflects the back on back experience of the Reagan-Bush years and then the Clinton years and then sort of Justice Department's thinking under the Clinton administration as to how to balance all the equities and I think it's working well. So...

WHITEHOUSE: Well if there's anything that you would disagree with in the so-called Bork rules, I'd ask you to explain that in a...

BARR: In a follow up?

WHITEHOUSE: (Inaudible). In a follow up.

BARR: OK. OK.

WHITEHOUSE: Now, also in my letter to you, I expressed my concern that Mr. Whitaker was paid a $1.2 million through what I consider to be a front group that has very little reality to it and that the funding that came to that front group to pay him the million dollars came through another entity that is essentially an identity laundering operation that has no independent business operation. And the result of all of this is that somebody out there arranged to get over $1 million to Mr. Whitaker and we have no idea who that somebody is.

And as I mentioned to you in our conversation, I don't see how the department can do a proper recusal and conflict analysis for somebody when the player who delivered the million dollars is still hidden behind the curtain. Is that something that you will help us fix?

BARR: Well first, you know, I -- I don't think there was anything wrong done or...

WHITEHOUSE: Well we don't know that yet because we don't know what the facts are.

BARR: Yes, well I'm just saying just the facts that you've said, you know, doesn't necessarily mean there was anything wrong done. What you're saying is that if the ultimate financial backers are behind some entity and the current ethics laws require only the reporting of the entity, you're not really sure where the -- the money is coming from. And that -- you know, I -- I -- I think that that raises a very interesting point that I think I would like to review with the ethics people and experts and even OGE to talk about that.

Because I -- the more I thought about it, the more I thought that the trick is going to be deciding what kind of entities and how far back you go, because that can be said of a lot of different kinds of entities.

WHITEHOUSE: Yes.

BARR: And -- and sometimes you have...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITEHOUSE: I would submit to you (ph) that if the department's money- laundering folks looked at this operation, they would see it as almost amateurish and simple and something quite easy to penetrate and it would be quite easy simply to ask Mr. Whitaker what he knew, to ask whoever is still at FACT, if it even has any existence with Whitaker's departure, what they knew and to ask donors trust to cough up the identity of the donor and then you can do your homework. And if they refuse to do that, nothing guarantees anybody a job at the highest levels of government who's not willing to provide those disclosures.

BARR: Well as I said, you know, one of my first considerations always is where do you -- where do you draw the line and also what are the implications for other kinds of entities because, you know, there are membership groups and First Amendment interests and you don't want to disclose memberships and who's...

WHITEHOUSE: Yes. And my point was I think you're money laundering folks took a look at that, they'd be able to help show that this is something that looks a little bit different than that. My time is expired. And see you on the second round. Thank you.

GRASSLEY: Senator Sasse.

SASSE: I believe Senator Ernst is filling in for Senator Cruz next. Thank you, Chairman.

GRASSLEY: OK with me.

ERNST: Thank you. Mr. Barr, I want to commend you for stepping forward. Thank you very much. And I want to say thank you to your family as well for being so supportive in this endeavor. I'm really pleased to have all of you here, so thank you for doing that.

Mr. Barr, later this month I do plan on reintroducing Sarah's Law, which is a bill that would require the detention of illegal aliens who have been charged with a crime that resulted in the death or serious injury -- bodily injury of another person. Now that sounds pretty common sense but I'll give you a little background.

This bill is named after Sarah Root. She was a resident of Council Bluffs Iowa and Sarah was killed by an illegal alien who was driving drunk. And that alien had a blood alcohol content of more than three times the legal limit yet he was allowed to post bond and has not been seen since.

[12:30:00]