essentially the president wanted to know -- he said, oh, you know bob mueller. how well do you know bob mueller? i told him how well i knew bob mueller and how 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 mueller's integrity and so forth and so on. i said, bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. he said something to the effect like, so are you envisioning some role here? i said, actually, mr. president, right now i couldn't do it. so he asked me for my phone number. i gave it to him and i never heard from him again. >> i tried that one. you did better than me. >> i didn't hear from him until, you know, later. >> if you don't remember the history from 2016, go to any search engine you got, lindsey graham's cell phone, you'll find out the end of that. if that was a fair representation of the conversation, and there's no reason to think it isn't, and all the other things he said about bob mueller and all the promises he just made, knowi

and have hated about all the political commentary around it is that bob mueller went to capitol hill, leak central. it's gotten leaked out. mueller has known this, you have to believe, for a very long time. this is why people need to just take a breath on all this stuff. bob mueller knows more than any of us at this table, on capitol hill and will act on it when it's appropriate to act on it. meantime, people's reputations get damaged and don junior's has gotten damaged, it appears, unnecessarily. if you trust bob mueller, and i do, then let's let him do his job and when the conclusion comes, we'll all be able to evaluate it and evaluate it fairly. and that's what we should do. >> symone, i suspect you don't think that this ab solves donald trump jr. around the trump meeting. >> he was in the meeting with the russians. he did, in fact, take the meeting. and i know from being a staffer on multiple campaigns that you do not take meetings with any foreign government, any foreign entities, any foreign representatives. you alert the fbi. you alert the authorities. so this doesn't absolve

barr knows mueller. >> essentially, the president wanted to know, you know, he said, oh, you know bob mueller? how well do you know bob mueller? i told him how well i know bob mueller, 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 you know what the president thinks about mueller's friends? he told "the daily caller" in september, quote, i could give you 100 pictures of him and comey hugging and kissing each other. you know, he's comey's best friend. not so much. comey told congress last month he admires mueller, but they're not friends. and then there's this. in response to rudy giuliani's claim that the president should be able to correct mueller's report before it goes public. >> the president's attorney, mr. giuliani, said the president should be able to correct the mueller report before any public release. so, in other words, he could take this investigative report, put his own spin on it before its release. you commit that would not happen if you're attorney general? >> that will not happen. >> uh-

immediately on their doorsteps. the third thing is again, this shows how much knowledge bob mueller has that we don't know. this obstruction case which we sort of think of very simply as you know -- well, did he fire jim comey and tried ieied to ble russia investigation in may of 2017. this may stretch all the way up until the last couple of weeks. this is a pattern of activity that's ongoing and bob mueller is interested in all of it. >> yeah. trump also encouraged -- let me find the quote. he encouraged cohen to plan a trip to moscow during the campaign where the candidate can meet face-to-face with putin. >> ryan, president trump was trying to meet with vladimir putin during a presidential campaign to get something of tremendous value for his personal business, is that compromised? >> very well. i mean this report, the more i process this report is incredible details of the two biggie investigations. trump building a relationship or trying to build a relationship not just with folks in moscow but with putin himself while pursuing a project there and when it sort of unravels and is cl

, though, to say, we'll have our day, let bob mueller have his first? >> what pelosi has been saying all along, if there is hard evidence. she has been a bit more restrained than members of her caucus where she says we want to see what comes out of the mueller report. i think one of the challenges she'll have is in this instance, trump ordered someone to lie to congress. so do lawmakers take that even more personally? that's not ordering someone to even lie to bob mueller, it's to lie to their own rank and file. i think you're seeing some of that. they feel like they take this a little more personally. but i do think if there ends up being hard evidence of this, that will make it really difficult for pelosi on hold off her caucus because it would appear this one is pretty cut and dry if there is evidence to back it up. >> at this point it's significant that someone like castro, who is an active member, say that, but you have not heard jerry nadler say it, you haven't heard nancy pelosi say it and i doubt they're going to until they hold the report in their hand. they need to make sure th

. >> it's not because i think the reporters are bad reporters it's because i think bob mueller is a professional. he has been running an operation that has been leak free. it is sort of implying that something that has leaked out of mueller's world which seems unusual to me. my sense was that bob mueller was going to be a leak free operation. when he was ready he would tell the american public. the reason i take this with a grain of salt is not because i think president trump is this incredibly innocent guy but rather that i think he is a professional. i would be surprised if all of a sudden his ship was a leaky ship. >> i think there are a number of members in the senate and house of representatives that are saying okay. we want them -- we need to protect the mueller investigation. if this is -- if this is true we need to know what is going on. it is because of investigation on a house side was not up to par if you will. >> i think some members are feeling like they really want to do their oversite. they don't have all of the information. >> and we heard lindsey graham, is that som

known bob mueller for 30 years. we worked closely together throughout my previous tenure at the department of justice. we have been friends since. and i have the utmost respect for bob and his distinguished record of public service. and when he was named special counsel ei said his selection was good news and that knowing him i had confidence he would handle the matter properly. i still have thad confidence today. given his public actions to date, i expect that the special counsel is well along in his investigation. at the same time, the president has been steadfast that he was not involved in any collusion with russian attempts to interfere in the election. i believe it is in the best interest of everyone, the president, congress and the american people, that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work. the country needs a credible resolution to these issues. and if confirmed, i will not permit partisan politics, personal interests or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation. i will follow the special co

know -- he said, oh, you know bob mueller. how well do you know bob mueller? and i told him how well i know bob mueller and how 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 and wanted to know what i thought of mueller's integrity and so forth and so on. and i said bob say straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. >> does that sound like the kind of person who would endear himself that a president who has this to say about an investigation and the people running it? >> why don't i just fire mueller? well, i think it's a disgrace what's going on. >> i think we've wasted enough time on this witch hunt. >> it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. >> the entire thing has been a witch hunt. >> this is the most conflicted group of people i've ever seen. >> plenty to talk about. back with the team. it is interesting he was asked during the hearing if he's concerned with the way the president has undermined institutions and he said no. >> he said no

witnesses inside. that's a really good way to think about just how much visitablety bob mueller has into the depth of the trump's organization business dealings the last couple of years. second, this focuses on the lies to congress. i think the way to make it much harder for congress to ignore this. i mean this is not sort of something they can brush away. this is something that arrives immediately on their doorsteps. the third thing is again, this shows how much knowledge bob mueller has that we don't know. this obstruction case which we sort of think of very simply as you know -- well, did he fire jim comey and tried to block the russia investigation in may of 2017. this may stretch all the way up until the last couple of weeks. this is a pattern of activity that's ongoing and bob mueller is interested in all of it. >> yeah. trump also encouraged -- let me find the quote. he encouraged cohen to plan a trip to moscow during the campaign where the candidate can meet face-to-face with putin. >> ryan, president trump was trying to meet with vladimir putin during a presidential campaig

bob mueller but reduces the budget so low that his -- his investigation grinds to an absolute -- almost a halt. >> so, jack, i think he touched on it a little bit today. i don't know, i have more information, whatever. do you think his previous comments like this, do they taint anything he does in relation to mueller? >> sure they do. i mean, they taint his involvement. but his involvement has been tainted, i think, for a long time here. the idea that they can all of a sudden begin to reconsider decisions that were made, that were approved by rod rosenstein when mueller went to him and asked for agreement to -- to prosecute people or to investigate certain aspects of this, and that they're going to review these things and perhaps make additional contrary decisions, that is just fanciful. that is simply not going to happen. among other things, it's pretty clear from the regulations governing the appointment of a special counsel that when they disagree with the special counsel and -- and essentially interfere with or prohibit him from conducting an investigation or a prosecution

. >> bob mueller should be able to complete his work and turn over every rock. >> this is "new day." >> good morning. this is thursday, january 10, 8:00 in the east. this morning the president heads to the border for what he called a pointless photo op according to the "new york times." this is after he walked out of a meeting with congressional leaders saying "bye-bye" when they would not agree to funding for the border wall. >> again? >> how do you say it? >> bye-bye! >> you today say tomato. they say they should consider babysitting to make extra cash. federal workers go without a paycheck in the shutdown the president promised to own. >> the president could declare a national emergency and sign spending bills to open the government. it's not certain the president will make that declaration but the official says the white house likes being able to hold the card over democrats who they say have refused to compromise or negotiate. maybe there is a glimmer of hope on capitol hill for breaking the impasse. a group of republican senators are working privately on a potential deal, but

. >> bob mueller could only be terminated for good cause and frankly it's unimaginable to me that bob would ever do anything that gave rise to good cause. i believe right now the overarching public interest is to allow him to finish. >>. >> reporter: but barr, who previously served as attorney general under president george h.w. bush signaling that mueller's final report may not be made public or shown in full to congress. >> under the current regulations the special counsel report is confidential. >> but the report that goes public would be a report by the attorney general. >> reporter: that answer prompting bipartisan concern. >> we should be able to see the informed information that comes out. >> i would strongly encourage you to put this all to rest. to make a report, a final report public and let everybody draw their own conclusions so we can move on. >> reporter: democrats grilling barr over this lengthy unso i licited report to department of justice last year calling the case against the president fatally misconceived. >> some have said on both sides that it looked like a job a

making it very clear that he is not firing bob mueller without cause. in fact, he is talking about how he is friends with bob mueller and bob mueller is a straight shooter. meanwhile, you do have this new information about manafort. you know, the great thing about a redacted document is there is less to read, but what's pretty clear is there is a lot of information that we don't know that they do know. and that can't be a good feeling up at the white house. >> michael, when you hear that mueller has evidence that manafort lied about his contacts with the trump administration, and let me repeat that, his contacts with the trump administration in 2018, one thing that this tells us is this investigation isn't just about what happened in 2016, in the 2016 campaign. it's current. >> i think that's true. what we're really hearing is every time we talk about the administration and manafort and russia, those are the three common threads that seem to be running every time this suit gets together. when something quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a duck. what it tells me is there

states? that's a very weighty issue, either bob mueller or whomever, it may be a political issue for the house or for the senate. it's a conclusion that will eventually be made. to subpoena the president is a very serious act but it is known in our law. we subpoenaed president clinton and i think you know that. >> i remember. >> i'm sorry? >> i remember. are we at that point with president trump? >> that, i don't know. i don't know all the facts. in our investigation we asked a number of times politely, we need the president's testimony. there's a process. let's allow that process to unfold if it is unfolding if this issue you're telling me about is on the table. >> there's a couple of things here. i'm still unclear how you would ever gather the facts and get to the bottom of it since president trump hasn't been forthcoming about what was said at those meetings and vladamir putin hasn't been forthcoming and the interpreter is sworn to secrecy. if you're saying now, there is a subpoena -- wait, president trump answered the questions and it didn't go far enough. the latest reportin

inspired choice of bob mueller to do that. so i would guess, i don't know, i don't have any inside baseball here but that mueller inherited whatever the fbi had done after the firing of mueller but before he stood up and i am quite confident that bob will cross every t and dot every i in coming to a conclusion about this, particularly with respect to the president which, obviously, is sensitive and politically explosive and all of that. >> you know, just days after comey was hired, trump met with russian's foreign minister. the russia ambassador, there's a picture. in the oval office. that's when he said firing nut job comey erased pressure on him. how would that resinate in the intelligence community? >> not well. it would be a real red flag. i think in an earlier segment she cited the behavior. this earlier pattern of going back to win -- >> can i play that sound bite for you? >> sure. >> here it is. >> all i can do is ask the question. my people came to me, dan coates came to me and some others. they said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russ

inspired choice of bob mueller to do that. so i would guess, i don't know, i don't know or have any inside baseball here but that mueller inherited the messageses of whatever the fbi had done before he stood up. and i'm quite confident that bob will cross every t and dot every i in coming to a conclusion about this particularly with respect to the president which obviously is sensitive and politically explosive. >> just days after comey was fired, trump met with sergei lavrov. he said firing comey erases pressure on him. how does that resonate in the intelligence community? >> not well. that is a real red flag, no pun intended. not to mention all the other -- this is consistent with the pattern of the deference to russia and to putin. i don't think he would try it in an earlier segment of yours. cited the behavior of helsinki. >> all they can do is ask the question. people came to me and dan coats came to me and some others. president putin, he just said it's not russia. zblfr still continue about the red flags that that would raise. >> well, again, i think that -- that performance

hunt if it had bob mueller in charge. expressed high personal confidence in bob mueller so that whole area of inquiry seemed to go very much in his direction. the difficult areas were would he release the mueller report? he was very cagey about what he would release and when. and what he would do within the department of justice that a sitting president can't be indicted by the department of justice. so it's a self-fulfilling prof fireworks and the proposition that you can't indict a sitting president never gets tested so we have to look at ways to try to get that question before a court so that it can be determined where questions of law get determined and that's in the court and not the department of justice. >> does this betray a sense that you think that this president should be indicted? >> i think that if there with crimes that he has committed that he should be indicted. i don't subscribe to the theory that a president can't be indicted. i think the office of legal council and department of justice bends over backwards and are able to take the position it possibly can. but a co

says trump is done. no more questions from bob mueller, he won't answer anymore. is mueller about to issue his report? let's go "outfront." >>> good evening. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" night, bye-bye. those are president trump's exact words. trump walking out of a meeting with congressional leaders about the shutdown when he didn't get his way late today and the president walking out set the tone. both sides addressing reporters afterwards with two very different versions of what went down. >> it wasn't even a high-stakes negotiation. it was a petulant president of the united states. >> we saw a temper tantrum, because he couldn't get his way. >> i saw schumer continue to raise his voice. >> i thought the president was very calm. >> as for the president, he saved his version of the meeting for twitter. quote, just left a meeting with chuck and nancy, that total waste of time. i asked what is going to happen in 30 days if i quickly open things up. are you going to approve border security which includes a wall or steel barrier? nancy said "no." i said, "bye-bye." nothing else works.

him a liar. >> i think that is right. i think the president misses the point that bob mueller is not a novice prosecutor. i'm not surprised that he has information that corroborates michael cohen. he knows what he is guilty of and admitted to. it is a normal drive when you have a witness who is less than candid or has been tarnished to go in and back up or build up his or her story. that's essentially what has happened here. there is nothing surprising about that. the pattern that the president has is he continues to attack people in the hopes that he can somehow diminish the findings of the outcome of this investigation. i think he is going to fail at that. what's particularly interesting and i will give you two big ifs, if the story is correct and if, in fact, we are to believe the attorney general's -- i mean the president's nominee for attorney general, it seems to me that it may be that the president has hired his own hangman. he may very well put in place the man who has admitted now in his congressional hearings that in fact the conduct that is alleged in the story would in fact

surprise you this is coming on twitter. rudy giuliani had some kind words for bob mueller if you can believe the twilight zone. he said i commend bob mueller's office for correcting the false story that president trump encouraged cohen to lie. i asked the press to take heed that their hysterical desire to destroy this president has gone too far. they pursued this without critical analysis all day, and i think you know from when we were covering this last night and today, one of the difficult things about this story is other news outlets, including cnn, were not able to confirm the details of this, and cnn never independently corroborated this, and we saw rudy giuliani as well as others from the president's team say that was patently false, and now we have the special counsel's team saying look this evidence as described in the buzzfeed story doesn't exist in the special counsel's office. >> sara murray. thank you for that. susan glasser and max boot, the author of "the core rose of conservatism: why i left the right." good evening to both of you. max since i have you here with me, th

bob mueller, he expressed a clear determination to protect the mueller investigation. denied that it could be a witch hunt if it had bob muellerer in charge. expressed his high personal confidence in bob mueller. that whole area of inquiry seemed to go very much in his direction. the difficult areas are would he release the mueller report, he was caged about what he would release and when had. the concerns about executive privilege. and how much the president would assert executive privilege over the mueller report and what he may then do to push back on it and then, he said that he would not likely to question the existing precedent within the department of justice that a sitting president cannot be indicted by the department of justice. so, it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. if you are the department of justice and you say, you cannot indict a president because of the policy, then a president never gets indicted and the proposition that you cannot indict a sitting president never gets tested. so we have to look at ways to try to get the question before a court, so that it can

country other than bob mueller about it. to take word's matt's word for it. bob mueller doesn't feel to me like he's almost done. i don't think he's ending on roger stone. might be. >> could there be more indictments? >> there could be. we know there's certain leads that are out there. andrew miller is a grand jury witness. they're trying to compel. there's the mystery we talked about the foreign own corporation that's gone up to the supreme court. there's evidence in the stone search warrant. even though this is one of those every one could be true. even though the investigation is a mature investigation and many people have been charged and we may have less to come than has been already occurring in the past, at the same time there's so many open doors for investigation. it's hard to say it's ending like it's ending tomorrow. >> sam, one of the reasons that people keep saying this isn't done yet is something that's in the indictment of roger stone. the key par photograph, after the july 22nd, 2016 release by wikileaks a senior trump campaign official was directed to contact st

friendship with robert mueller and how he disclosed the close bond to the president. >> bob mueller, how well do you know bob mueller. >> i told him how well i knew bob mueller and the barrs and muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is over. >> barr committed to releasing what he can of mueller's results. >> when his report comes to you, will you share it as much as possible. >> consistent with regulations and the law, yes. >> barr later clarified, mueller's actual report wouldn't be released. instead, he expects the attorney general would release his own summary, but senator feinstein wants mueller's report. >> will you provide mueller's report to congress, not your rewrite or a summary? >> well, the reges do say that mueller is supposed to do a summary report of his prosecutive and declanation decisions and they will be handled as a confidential document, as are internal documents relating to any federal criminal investigation. i'm not sure. and then the a.g. has some flexibility and discretion in terms of the ag's report. >> the nominee did leave a lingering q

to what he said. >> the president wanted to know -- he said, you know bob mueller? how well do you know bob mueller? i told him well how i knew bob mueller and the barrs and mulers would muellers were good friends. >> the president did not like that. he was complaining to aides saying he didn't know how close they were and he didn't know how much their work had overlapped previously. we are being told this by three sources. it doesn't mean the president is thinking of withdrawing bill barr's nomination. it gives you insight. the president calmed down from being so upset about the new details that emerged during that hearing. he said, bill barr and robert mueller are part of the washington establishment. that's why they have this relation going on. it's interesting his complaints about james comey and said was best friends with robert mueller. tomorrow the president's pick for attorney general is someone who is friends with robert mueller. >> i assume the president was irritated when he heard bill barr say he doesn't believe mueller would ever be involved in a witch hunt. the presid

having worked for bob mueller and his press shop back in the day, getting him to talk to the press is like squeezing blood out of a turnip. >> it's huge. >> it's huge. so the fact that he would come out and make a statement and say, you know, even though it was very general, to say that we're refuting this reporting says a lot. and i just -- i had dinner with some folks who know bob mueller very well. they're not versed on his current investigation, but the consensus at that table was that mueller is probably trying to signal that, look, whatever these leaks are coming from these quote, unquote law enforcement officials, they didn't come from him, and they didn't come from his shop. we know that he runs a very tight operation, and he can be commended for that. obviously running an investigation in this highly charged political climate. but, again, they're trying to make that case -- at least signaling that didn't come from him. >> i probably shouldn't tell people i ran into you at dinner so i know who you're talking about and you're exactly right. these are people who would know. >> e

meanwhile the grand jury in special counsel bob mueller's investigation has been extended for another up to six months. i know you're not directly working with mueller's investigation, but what do you make of that? >> well, he's clearly not done. there's more work for the grand jury. now, whether that is a full six months' more work or some portion less than that, clearly, there are other potential charges that he must be considering. there's no purpose for a grand jury, i think, otherwise. we are trying to deconflict with the special counsel. over the last two years, frankly, our committee was working to conflict itself with the special counsel to make the special counsel's work more difficult. we hope as one of our first acts to make the transcripts of our witnesses fully available to special counsel for any purpose, including the bringing of perjury charges, if necessary, against any of the witnesses, but also to see the evidence that they contain and help flesh out the picture for the special counsel. we also really immediately went to work in reaching out to private institutions to

president and bob mueller. >> reporter: that's right, erin. we have learned that the president's legal team in recent weeks rebuff eed robert mueller request to ask follow-up questions to the president in person. this was after the president and his team had submitted answers to those written questions from before trump was in office. and so sources tell me, my colleagues, evan perez and shimon prokupecz, that robert mueller then followed up and put in this request to ask follow up questions without specifying which questions he wanted to ask to the president in person. that was rebuffed by the president's team. so what is clear here, erin, is that that continues to be a sticking point as robert mueller's probe is winding down. he stimwants to ta s still wank to the president in person. as one source told me, robert mueller is not satisfied. now, we've heard the president's attorney, rudy giuliani, say that a presidential interview would happen over my dead body. and sources are telling our team that robert mueller has been upset or concerned the president's legal team in recent weeks.

to leave the justice department shortly after william barr is confirmed. >> bob mueller or rosenstein it it already handled appropriately. >> rosenstein signalled he intended to lever when he was satisfied the mueller probe was close enough to completion that it was producted. protected. >> congratulations on the president nominating you. >>. >> barr's confirmation hearing set for mid-january. it could be february or longer that rosenstein is still on the job. >> all right. thanks so much. i want to bring in former house intelligence committee who is the assistant under president obama. let me start with you. you also ran campaigns. this could be innocent i guess theoretically. it shows up in the context of the mueller investigation. >> it is not definitive. they have got to determine what was the intention of that meeting. was it having the russians use this information? was it intended to get back to the russian government? it was not an intelligence officer directly. they have hurdles to get over. what it does do is sends a pretty clear signal he has not been truthful fa

stranger than that? >> i think that's a chance bob mueller will play that clip to the jury. >> you think so? >> sure. >> they call people rats, stoolies. and on and on. what does that saw about their world view you think? >> well, it shows very much trump is from that world that roger stone is in and out of that is very organized crime oriented and roger has taken the worst lessons of watergate and adopted all of the tactics of the mob as his mentor the president has done. >> if you look at his career, this is an intelligent operative. he loves conspiracies. he's not good at it but he loves that world. this is a guy who views cutouts to engage in the kinds of game that's he's always wantsed to play. >> he says he's a conspiracy realest. >> well with, whatever. he believes he lives in a world of conspiracies. >> the only thing worse than talking about it is not talking about it. >> a co can host with roger stone in october of 2016. >> are you suggesting on the basis of what you know through your mutual friend that in the next three weeks that wikileaks will release or could release

of the record. if you're sitting there with bob mueller and you're watching this and you want to talk to the president and you say wait a second. we have written answers that say this stops in january now his lawyers saying they talked in october and november mueller is going to say i want to talk to the president. i'm sorry. we are not going accept written answers any longer because of the confusion giuliani is creating. >> it is so hard. michael is right. he is telling a lot of different versions of the story. he keeps having to correct himself or say that. the thing i come back to is the new york times quote. how can you say the president said the conversations are happening from the day i announce to the day i won in a quote in the president said x and then say, well, i was only speaking in a hypothetical. i get the point. you can't directly quote the president of the united states telling you something and then 24 or 48 hours walk you back and say actually -- >> well, where did the quote come from? maybe he made the quote up. you have to say well, the president would have sa

watching all of those hearings couldn't have been pleased at what william barr said about bob mueller. >> jeff zeleny, with the latest. thank you. joining me now, cnn legal analyst, and matthew rosenburg. he covers intelligence and national security for the "new york times." as we look at all of this, barr was asked directly and we heard him answering the question there in the sound we played about obstruction. you tweeted out that if this buzz feed story is true we are actually talking about more than obstruction here. what else do you think is on the table? >> sure. so it is a crime to lie to congress. that on its own is a crime. directing somebody to commit a crime means you are guilty of a crime. this is how a crime boss gets in trouble. you direct other people to deal drugs. directing other people to lie to congress is a crime. you don't need to get to the obstruction of justice issue. the legal issue is very straightforward. as long as michael cohen was directed to lie as to a material issue, something that was important to the united states congress, that is a federal crime. >> in terms

. if you look at everyone that bob mueller indicted or who he put the screws to they all folded and they all turned into cooper ra raters except one person. he was offered a really sweet deal and he has not cooperated. i think he is seeking to protect the russians and the president. >> manafort's attorneys say he has cooperated extensively and any lies he told were unintentional. do you buy that? >> i don't. i don't buy it at all. he was charged with lying. he made false statements he was convicted of. this man is a convicted liar. i don't think a leopard clangs its spots. >>> what about there was mueller contact with individuals in the trump administration including the president? >> i believe it because we saw in our own investigation that it appeared they were trying to get their stories straight. you had a number of witnesses that had the same lawyer which seems to be a conflict of interest. the only people had been the american people because the republicans wouldn't release our transcripts while they were working in concerts. i think they have been working together to protect

trump/putin meetings. why? >> sarah sort of touched on this bleakly. bob mueller has an enormous amount of access to classified intelligence, not just from our own u.s. intelligence agencies but foreign intelligence partners through the five is, intelligence sharing, alliance, the five english speaking countries as well as presumably german and dutch intelligence which has been great partners throughout this entire russia probe as well. so, you know, mueller probably has some access to information from the russian side about what has transpired in some of these conversations. any time you have two heads of state talking together, that's a conversation that's going to be targeted by any number of foreign intelligence agencies. >> julia, i know you're saying you understand why the chairman of the intelligence committee might not ask for it. he doesn't want to set a precedent, but it would be crucial, wouldn't it, for bob mueller to know what happened to the best of his knowledge, to know what the interpreter says occurred, you know, if the president is going to leave one of those m

bob mueller interested in the trump campaign's ties to the nra? 30 million i say because that's how much the nra spent to back trump's candidacy in 2016, and the organization is facing scrutiny for connections to russian nationals like the woman that tried to infiltrate the nra, and he caught attention with the then, just donald trump, in 2015. >> what would be your foreign politics especially in relationships with my country? >> i believe i would get along very nicely with putin. i don't think you need the sanctions. i think we would get along very, very well. >> i talked to you about that sound before and i never have been given an answer about why he called on her? what was she doing there? and let's discuss it. good to have you both, and yes, i only read the report from sam nunnburg saying i was asked by bob mueller about this stuff. they gave trump, you know, just to quit the laughing quick, they gave trump a hell of a lot more money than they usually do. the butina connection, not a good look for the nra. what do you see in this suggestion? >> what i see is how i have been mak

will be read into it, he will know what bob mueller knows, where bob mueller is heading and what evidence he has collected, what the targets are and what the timeline of the investigation is. there are plenty of reasons to believe mueller is very far down the road of this probe as well and potentially bringing large parts of it or major new parts of it to a conclusion in the next couple of weeks. i think there's plenty of reason to believe mueller's probe could still make it to its natural conclusion, even if barr steps in. >> i'm going to say, i don't disagree entirely. the end of the day, especially in these hypersensitive polarized times the american people have to have confidence the justice department is acting fairly. this isn't to say mr. barr would act in an inappropriate way. with so much malfeasance we have seen across the board, at the end of the day, the american people have to have confidence. if he's read in and knows more and changes his mind but they need to know whether he came in with this intent. >> isn't part of the problem he wrote a 19 page memo about someth

attention getting. >> i told him how well i knew bob mueller 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 mueller's integrity and so forth and so on. i said bob is a -- is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. i have known bob mueller for 30 years. we work closely together throughout my previous tenure at the department of justice. we've been friends since. and i have the utmost respect for bob and his distinguished record of public service. and when he was named special counsel i said his selection was good news. and that knowing him, i had confidence he would handle the matter properly. and i still have that confidence today. >> i guess you get the point. and so what the reporting is now from cnn is that apparently president trump wasn't paying attention to when bill barr mentioned all of that and so now he was distressed to hear how close friends they. >> he has no idea how the government works. i don't know why you woul

deeply concerning. this is why we have to make sure that bob mueller investigation is able to continue to proceed in a fashion where he can continue to collect the facts and connect that with the applicable law and then eventually present those conclusions to the department of justice, to congress and to the american people. with every passing day, every passing week, every passing month, the circumstances around the 2016 campaign and the possible conspiracy that seems like it may have existed between russian spies and some high level members of the trump campaign to sell out our democracy grows stronger. that's deeply troubling for the republic, for the democracy and for a significant number of american people. >> giuliani tells reuters, the president won't answer anymore questions from mueller, won't do interviews in writing or person. he has only done them in writing so far once. he is promising a fight if they decide to issue a subpoena to the president. what does that tell you? >> giuliani was a failed mayor, then a failed presidential candidate. now he is a failed lawyer

and it helps bob mueller's investigation. >> congressman, thanks. >>> so we're seeing divided government play out tonight and challenges to the president have been coming all day. i want to talk about it with jeffrey toobin and columnist kirsten powers. and former republican senator rick santorum. jeff, you heard the congressman talk about the very real consequences when the intelligence committee turns over those unredacted witness testimony. do you buy that? >> yes, i think it is significant. i don't know if any of those statements will be proven to be false, but you could not bring a criminal case without the actual transcripts. so it is an indispensable -- it is a necessary but not sufficient step for mueller to bring these cases. and it's only logical, it's only fair for him to have these, to do a complete investigation. >> senator santorum, how worried would you be if you're the president and you don't have an ally like devin nunes running the house intelligence committee anymore? >> look, for the president, this comes down to two things -- number one, impeachment. and t

. barr said yesterday about bob mueller, right? he cannot imagine him doing anything that would justify removing him or improper conduct. do you agree with that about bob mueller? >> no, i would not say i cannot imagine. i would say that the president has not removed him and this whole idea of obstruction is really stupid because the investigation has come to an end and nobody has obstructed it. >> i don't think the investigation has come to an end. look how much was redacted in those manafort papers -- >> if it hasn't come to an end, it's certainly come to an end on collusion. they either have it or don't have it. >> how do you know? we just learned the manafort stuff and that's the most damning -- >> that's not collusion and hacking the dnc. >> but that's not the bar. >> that is the bar! >> that's, are you doing something -- no. look at the mandate. it doesn't just say crimes it says contacts. pinpoint says coordination. >> the justice department doesn't do ethics investigation. >> a special counsel can, it can be part of their mandate and you know that. >> they're doing a criminal in

witnesses. and i think bob mueller, by virtue of the fact he's been able to conduct this investigation using tools that we didn't have in our committee, meaning compulsion, is in a better position to determine, okay, who was telling the truth? who wasn't? and who can i make a case against in terms of perjury. there's no reason to protect these witnesses. there's every reason to validate congress' interest in not having people come before it and lie. and i think people felt they had some kind of immunity with the gop majority at the time because they would often intervene to tell witnesses you don't have to answer that question. you don't have to say anything you don't want or come in, even if you don't want to. we're not going to compel you. and that's no way to run an investigation. >> a knowledgeable source told me this morning that the trump white house, quote, forced out pentagon chief of staff rear admiral kevin sweeney. here's what samantha power, the former ambassador to the united nations under president obama tweeted last night about admiral sweeney's departure.

i said a second ago. you have the special counsel bob mueller who is attacked every day by the president of the united states and by his allies, including giuliani, who saw a bad story that's not their responsibility to fix in any way. they're not part of the press. they are doing their thing. they have their secret proceedings. the grand jury done in secret. they saw a story in part that was bad for the sitting president of the united states, that raised an expectation that further bad things were going to happen to the president of the united states, where you have policem members of congress committed to doing actions and talking about impeachment. they said, even though they get maligned every day as trying to take the president down, they said, you know what? we have to speak and tamp this down in part, i believe, because it is unduly hurting the president. that's what they did, because i think they are committed to doing the right thing. >>presidency and the institution. >> to me, the most interesting part of the buzzfeed story was the citation to two federal law enforcem

than fiction. and i think bob mueller will play that clip for the jury. >> you think so. yeah. >> they call people rats, stoolies and on and on. what does it say about their world view, do you think? >> well, it shows very much that trump is from that world that roger stone was in and out of that is very organized crime oriented. and they have adopted -- roger has taken and learned the worst lessons of watergate. and he's also adopted all of the tactics of the mob as his mentor, the president, has done. >> yeah. >> if you look at his career, this is an intelligence operative mon operative monkate. he loves conspiracies, he loves running agents. he is not good at it but he loves that world. this is a guy that used cutouts to engage in the kind of game he always wanted to play. >> he says he is not a conspiracy theorist. he's a conspiracy realist. i saw a sound byte. >> whatever. he says he lives in a world of conspiracy, some of which he created in his own mind. >> the only thing worse than talking about him is not talking about him. >> the circus on showtime this weekend. i want to pla

do just this connection as a pressure point for donald trump. bob mueller has found so much already. we're talking about 192 criminal convictions, 36 people and entities, seven people have pled guilty. paul manafort has been convicted by a jury of his peers. we saw this on the hill this week. we saw the acting epa administrator, his hearing confirmation, as well as the attorney general nominee. what's interesting about that is maybe they both get through, brianna, i'm not sure about the senate votes, but both of them took a series of positions, whether it was on climate change or the mueller probe, that were directly in opposition or close to directly in opposition to donald trump's established position. two more republicans. no matter what donald trump says about how united they are, there are cracks. susan murkowski, people saying, $5.7 billion for the wall isn't enough. you have a few million people working for nothing or getting furloughed. should -- the inspector general said the way they interpreted this when donald trump was elected president was incorrect. this is a big deal