, that barr's staff took. and mueller may have taken notes, as well. these are the first rough draft of history that we need to see. and we also have the house of representatives that can subpoena them. >> speaking of the house of representatives, barr is supposed to, scheduled to testify before the house judiciary committee tomorrow morning, as well. but he's threatening not to show up, because the democrats, including the committee chairman, jerry nadler say, in addition to representatives asking questions, committee staff, lawyers, will ask questions 30 minutes from a republican staffer, 30 minutes from a democratic staffer. and barr, at least until now, says, that's not going to happen. >> and the question is, why? what is he trying to conceal? what does he think he'll be asked through that kind of sustained follow-up questioning, which can be done over 30 minutes, very difficult to do in the seven minutes or five minutes. >> if he does show up tomorrow, what do you want your house colleagues to do? >> i w

barr: ok. chairman: five seconds. >> attorney general barr, i thank you for your service to our country and especially today, i thank you for your civility in your composure -- commits what has been a needlessly and unfairly hostile environment. your professionalism has been remarkable. chairman: it was pretty interesting. generally speaking, the committee did pretty good and this is what democracy is all about. thank you for being our attorney general. atty. gen. barr: thank you, mr. chairman. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> sunday, a look at some of the hearings and events surrounding the mulder report from the house side of capitol hill. judiciarym., the decides i format for the hearing voting to extend questioning of attorney general barr. after which mr. barr announced he would not attend the formal hearing the next day. after

barr. now we're learning mueller sent this letter to the attorney general expressing dissatisfaction that that four-page letter from bill barr did not accurately capture the nuance in the more than 400-page mueller report that we have now seen in the redacted version. robert mueller, according to "the washington post," saying in this letter to the attorney general who was his boss, of course, is his boss and a longtime friend saying that the redaction process of the mueller report, quote, need not delay release of the enclosed materials. release at this time would alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigations. so the principal concern was that bill barr's four-page letter to congress shaped public perception, public understanding of the special counsel's investigation when, in fact, as we know the picture that was laid out in the mueller report was far more damning to the president, par

supported his conclusions and barr said he didn't know, he also called on barr to resign calling are b.a. president trump's chief propagandist. and the chief of the senate finance committee wondering why barr was there in the first place. and now all of them want robert mueller to come up here to testify as soon as possible, steph. >> nbc's pete williams and geoff bennett, thank you. >>> let's head to venezuela where the political standoff is intensifying with violent protest breaking out after the opposition leader called for an uprising and military defection to oust nicolas maduro. associated press reporter philip crowder is live in caracas. philip, a lot of chaos yesterday. disturbing images overnight. what is the situation like there this morning? >> it was a really quiet night actually. it almost seemed too kwie eliminate with what had come before in tense moments and violent protests on the streets of caracas and other cities in venz wail yacht today we're expecting the opposition leader, juan guaido, to call for the biggest protest in the history of the whole country. those m

barr: no. senator graham: usually there is. tty. gen. barr: usually. there is normally an underlying crime and the person implicated or people concerned about that criminalality being discovered, taken inherently malignant act, s the supreme court said, to obstruct that investigation. senator graham: people were worried he fired comey to stop the russia investigation, that's one of the concerns people had. let me tell you a little bit about comey. i do not have confidence in him, comey, any longer. that was chuck shumer, november 2, 2016 -- chuck schumer, november , 2016. i think comey should take a hard look what he's done and i don't think it would be a bad thing for the american people if he did step down, bernie sanders, january 15, 2017. the president ought to fire comey immediately, and he ought to initiate an investigation. that is congressman nadler, november 14, 2016. did you have a problem of the way comey handled the clinton email investigation? atty. gen. barr: yes. i said so at the

and if this is, in fact, what happened, if mueller called barr and wrote barr a letter right after barr put out his supposed summary of what mueller found and said, hey, you are getting it wrong, that is not what we found at all. if we can't trust you to accurately summarize our materials, then put out our own materials. here's the summary. they're redacted for public view. send these out. if that conversation happened, both in writing and then on the phone between mueller and barr, on or about the 27th of march, why is it that a few weeks later, april 10th, barr testified under oath in the u.s. senate that he had no idea whether or not mueller had any problem whatsoever, whether he had any objections whatsoever with without barr had handled his findings? joining us now is devlin barrett from "the washington post." he was first to report tonight on this confrontation by special counsel mueller, directed at the attorney general over how barr handled this. devlin, congratulations on this scoop. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> let me ask if i summarized your -- i

bill barr has some explaining to do. in hours the attorney general will face the senate judiciary committee and the country to defend his handling of the mueller report. overnight we learned the special counsel robert mueller sent a letter to bill barr in late march expressing concern about the attorney general's four-page summary of his report. mueller told barr those four pages failed to fully capture his findings. the two old friends spoke by phone with mueller raising concerns about how barr's conclusions made the public more confused >> did robert mueller get played by william barr? if he meant to send a message on obstruction, did he fail because he was outmaneuvered by barr? when will we hear from robert mueller himself? his testimony seems guaranteed and crucial. did the attorney general lie in testimony he's already given on the report? how will he explain his selective quotes from the mueller report that seem to twist mueller's intent? some democrats are calling for impeachment of the attorney general. this mak

i think that barr should resign. if he does not resign, he should be facing impeachment proceedings also. he has abdicated on his responsibility. he's lied. he has used the very words coming right out of the president's mouth, no collusion, no collusion, no collusion, and made a decision that despite what the special counsel put into that report about obstruction of justice, he said he made the decision that he had not obstructed justice. it is outrageous, and he needs to go. >> all right. congresswoman maxine waters, thank you so much for your time tonight. >> you're welcome. thank you. >>> joining me now is former watergate prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. there's not really a legal issue per se. there might be a constitutional issue in barr's conduct here. but there is kind of a procedural issue, which is are you undertaking your duties as the head of the department of justice in good faith, and what do you think this letter that we now know mueller wrote and the phone call say about barr's performance? >> abso

bill barr refusing to

that was not bill barr today. at least in my view of how he offered the depiction of what the issue is. he kept saying, what do you mean by receptivity to russian help and we know what that means. >> and this is an important point, as we go into 2020, the question of what are foreign countries going to try to do and what is the role -- what are political operatives supposed to do if they get approached and we have on one hand jared kushner belittling what the russians did as a couple of facebook ads, we have rudy giuliani saying to me, a couple of sundays ago, that it is not a crime to get information from the russians, and here today you have william barr not definitive on the question of what do you do, what should someone do if a foreign individual says we have ways to help. now he said if it is a foreign intelligence agent, clearly you should reject it. and he made -- and he underlined -- >> we have the clip. this is -- this is number three. >> if a foreign intelligence service, a representative of a foreign g

when barr pressed him whether he thought barr's letter was inaccurate? mueller's worries was the public did not get an understanding of the obstruction investigation. mr. barr and senior justice department officials were frustrated with how mr. mueller ended his investigation and crafted his report. mr. mueller fell short of his assignment by declining to make a decision whether mr. trump broke the law, that left mr. trump to clear mr. trump without the special counsel's backing. tonight, jerry nadler is requesting the justice department give his committee a copy of mueller's letter by no later than 10:00 a.m. this morning. house intel chairman adam schiff and amy klobarchar had this to say. >> the attorney general have gone way on a limb here at the point where he's not allowing the 400-page report speak for itself. that's why we'll continue to demand and we'll hear from director mueller and other witnesses. >> that brings us to our lead-off discussion on this tuesday night, there is one of the by lines on this breaking news tonight, security reporter f

barr, that is congress. and that is what barr was angry about, that mueller was forcing his hand by taking a decision that mueller wanted to make away from him and giving it to these gentlemen to say if you all think there has been obstruction of justice then you have remedies this department does not. and barr is saying i am going to take the fact that i don't have a remedy to say there isn't a problem when there was a problem. >> neal katyal, to that point, it seems that that interpretation of the mueller report then suggests that what william barr did was in effect intercept it. if the report was intended to be delivered to the body that can make a judgement about obstruction of justice, it was then intercepted by an attorney general who, according to the department's own rules, actually can't make a decision about obstruction of justice, and then he made a decision about obstruction of justice. >> exactly. i mean, the whole thing is so snowflaky, just like much of the trump administration. they have all

he's talking about the barr letter. and he says, "the summary letter, that the department such a congress, "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's working conclusions." we communicated that to you on march 25th. there is now public confusion about critical aspects. this threatens to undermine the central purpose which is full public confidence. i'm not saying barr doesn't have the right to decide what is going to do, he's like u.s. attorney. once he handed me the report, "it's my baby, he worked for me, i was going to decide what to do." it's inaccurate to say that was mueller's concern. his concern was that he did not feel that the 4-page letter that barr sent him on march 24th and now also put out to the public, that accurately reflected what he wanted to get across in terms of what the report did. >> bill: it appeared that barr characterized it the following way, that he offered the knew a chance to look at the stuff. and he declined. >> but here's mueller saying -- that he didn't l

barr apparently still says no. and so, two days later, on wednesday the 27th, mueller sends over his summaries and his introductions again. hey, barr, what are you doing? you're really going to try to get away with this? this is what you're supposed to release. we wrote summaries of our own findings. what you put out instead is wrong. these are the accurate summaries of our findings, which we wrote ourselves. this thing that you are shopping instead as your supposed description of our findings is creating public confusion about critical aspects of our investigation. and mueller says full stop, quote, i am requesting that you provide these materials to congress and authorize public release at this time. and barr says nope, nope, too bad. who cares what you think. so, the first time they met, after barr was named attorney general, then right after the report was handed in, before barr put out his own supposed summary of the report, and then right after barr put out that supposed summary, and then again right after th

dear attorney general barr, quote. i previously sent you a letter march 25 that enclosed the introduction and executive summary of each volume of the special counsel's report parked with redactions. we also marked two sentences for review and we now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly. accordingly, the enclosed documents are in a form that can be released to the public. i am requesting that you provide these materials to congress and authorize their public release at this time. as we stated in our meeting of march 5 and reiterated to the department early in the afternoon of march 24th, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this office's work and conclusions. the summary letter -- excuse me, the summary letter the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of march 24th did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. we communicated that concern to the department on the

william barr? if mueller meant to send a message to the american people on obstruction did he fail because he was outmaneuvered? when will we hear from mueller himself? his testimony really seems guaranteed 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? >> 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" as a new explosive element to all of this where democrats are goi

barr declined to do so. today barr had to answer to accusations he worked to skew the narrative in trump's favor by announcing a decision on obstruction weeks before he released the full body of evidence which turned out to be more damning than bar suggested. this exchange with senator chris coons, under scores the conflict. >> i made it clear in the march 24th letter that bob mueller didn't make a decision, but that he felt he could not exonerate the president. >> that's right. >> i wasn't hiding from the public interest standpoint, i felt there should be one thing issued, it should be the complete report. as complete as it could be. >> you somehow concluded the president didn't obstruct justice and you announced you cleared the president 25 days before the public could read the mueller report for themselves. i think it's no wonder special counsel mueller thought your four-page letter created public confusion about critical aspects of the results of the investigation and that threatened to undermine the cen

barr. was he sincere ever about wanting to testify tomorrow or is this perhaps just a convenient excuse, right? he didn't formally say i'm not showing up until he ends today's hearing, which was, you know, obviously pretty unpleasant. >> well, if his doing it just for the reasons of form over substance, erin, then i think it probably all was a rouse. i'm certain he made his decision earlier in the day given that cnn reported very early on, before noon, i believe, that the house had already voted to actually allow their staff counsel to make the -- ask the questions. he knew very early on in the day there was a possibility. did not accurately tell anyone until after. why? he didn't want further questions about why he had promised transparency and instead as an overall theme over his administration has been opaque to say the least. >> david, starting today's hearing, there was just -- one thing that kept standing out to me was that all of a sudden these two men are supposed to know each other

did barr, do you believe, that barr actually lied under oath? >> i don't know if i'm -- i don't know if i'm willing to make that legal finding here. he's got some explaining to do today and tomorrow. a number of members of congress will want to specifically hone in on that precise question. look, there are people now going to be calling -- people are certainly calling for ses nation and impeachment, but on a lower level for barr disciplinary -- ba a.r., not b.a.r.r., barr disciplinary actions for an individual who has lied about the proceeding with the intent to mislead. even if it doesn't rise to the level of perjury it rises to the level of certainly inaccurate and troubling statement. just to piggyback on a point that laura coates had made earlier, it bears mentioning how robert mueller made the choice to put this in writing knowing full well that this letter is going to be released. there's nothing that bars public disclosure of this letter, it's not deliberative information, it's not going to be grand jury material. so he is creating a reco

bill barr wasn't present for that. i don't know how he can say that the president didn't order him to fire him >> we don't know if bill barr has read the transcripts. he didn't say he looked at the underlying evidence. all he looked at was the mueller report. david, i want to ask about this political revelation yesterday. the revelation was lindsey graham and his handling of this. >> cover your ears. >> october 19, 2016. trump is a [ bleep ] idiot. he's unable to provide a coherent answer. i'm sorry to the kids out there. these are the people that made a decision that clinton didn't do anything wrong and that counter-intelligence investigation of the trump campaign was warranted >> in addition to being fcc public enemy number one right now lindsey graham was reading text messages between lisa struck and lisa page there. david, what it teaches us is what the chairman of the judiciary committee, the republican in charge, what his disposition is going forward. >> yeah. >> which is to be not just a defender of the presiden

barr. i gave him the benefit of the doubt when he was appointed, but this the latest link in the chain of misrepresentation. and he's acted inappropriately. he's basically steve bannon with a suit and a tie and a clean shave. and that shouldn't be the case. he is the attorney general, and he is acting in ways that are clearly misleading. and as you showed in the previous couple of segments, he misled congress. he went in to this trying to frame it in a way that was fundamentally dishonest, really, in a way that was favorable to the president. and that is really sad. and it shows that the people who get in the orbit of donald trump almost without exception are st stained by it or corrupted by it. i'm afraid that william barr is the latest person to add to that long list. >> it's very sad. michael, you know, speaking of framing, the barr framing of mueller's findings was in the public for nearly a month, and it gave the president a lot of time to exploit it. i want you listen to this and then

did bill barr lie to congress? >> well, that's a question he is going to have to answer during congressional hearings today and tomorrow. there is a lot of concern among congressional democrats when bill barr was asked about the mueller report and about his conclusions and summary about the mueller report, he may have misled congress. it's clear now that we have seen the redacted version what mueller found and what barr found are different. barr made the president look better and claim total exoneration and vindication when the report, itself, from mueller and his team was more damming on the issue of russian election meddling and the obstruction of justice. democrats are going to push bill barr very hard on whether or not he misrepresented to the public or his conclusions when he answered questions before congress a few weeks ago. some democrats running for congress will be there today, klobuchar, booker and harris. there's that, too. it's so important. it's so incredibly important for the country, but doesn't cha

mueller to barr? >> this letter is unquestionably an stunning rebuke of the attorney general of the united states. very significantly under mining, devastating his credibility and likely tomorrow in our hearing. there is going to be some tough questioning of him tomorrow about not only his four-page summary, which then mueller said in effect mischaracterized his report, but then why he doubled down three weeks later in a press conference and in effect lied again to the american people. i realize that characterization sounds harsh. we said it at the time. now we have bob mueller himself saying in effect that william barr's characterization was deceptive and misleading, in effect a lie to the american people. that's going to be reframing and adding a new dimension entirely to the questioning tomorrow. >> it certainly only raises the interest, i'm sure, by democrats at the very least to hear directly from robert mueller in hearings and also i assume as part of that to get hold of this letter that he wrot

we'll have barr testify. we will run the clock longer so that the barr version of events which is essentially the trump version of events will have longer to take hold before the country actually gets to hear from the man himself bob mueller. so it's all part of the same tactic. >> well, we don't know how it's going to be cracked. chairman schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight. prosecutor appreciate it. >> when we come back, senator richard blumenthal cornered william barr repeatedly today. we'll show you william barr trying to run away to answering blumenthal's questions about his communication with the white house. and neal katyal will join us with his analysis of the attorney general's testimony today. spoiler alert, he didn't love it. today. spoiler alert, he didn't love it the bed is huge. it offers a built-in 120 volt outlet. man: wow. plug that in for me. various: whoa! holy smokes! and the all-new silverado has more trim levels than any other pickup. whoa! (laughter) oh wow! woman : there

two days later mueller sent another letter to barr followed by a phone call with barr on march 28th. while it is unknown what was communicated in the time that followed this occurred before barr's testimony three weeks ago where he said he did not know of any concern from mueller's team, something that democrats pressed him about yesterday. >> why did you say you were not aware of concerns when weeks before your testimony, mr. mueller had expressed concerns to you. that's a fairly simple -- >> i answered the question and the question was related to unidentified members who were expressing frustration over the accuracy relating to findings. i don't know what that refers to at all. i talked directly to bob mueller, not members of his team. you know, the letter is a bit snitty and i think it was written by one of his staff people. >> while being questioned by senator richard blumenthal attorney general barr said notes were taken of his phone call with robert mueller but barr said he would not make them public. >> did anyone, either you or anyone on your staff memorialize your conversati

barr and mr. mueller discussed whether or not mueller thought barr's letter was inaccurate and mueller said he did not think it was inaccurate. that's from the call. we don't have a record of that. in the letter and what is excerpted from the letter it doesn't make barr look complete, accurate, and honest in his answer before congress. >> when you're mueller up on the hill, let me give you two questions. number one, can you characterize precisely the differences between what you wrote and what mr. barr wrote that became public knowledge? let me give you the question i would ask, director mueller, a former marine, do not ask him political questions. do not try to game him. i want precise yes or no questions for a career prosecutor. here's the one i would have. director mueller, former u.s. attorney in san francisco, if you saw this kind of obstruction in a case that did not involve the oval office, would you have brought charges? yes or no? that's the kind of precision i want to see from the congre

barr's just like, say what? hmm? so this was a -- i think this was a good use of that second round of questions from senator klobuchar, right? get him on the record on stuff. get him on the record in this case suggesting that the senator should go directly to robert mueller on this question and get him on the record -- i mean, get mueller on the record -- he should go -- she should go to mueller directly on this matter to find out what the underlying evidence was that mueller looked at and she should be asking him to obtain it. okay. and to the extent it matters, she gets him on the record, she gets barr on the record not objecting when she notifies him that if mueller did look at trump's taxes and financial statements she and the committee would expect to be furnished with those, since that is underlying evidence related to mueller's investigation. well, william barr struggles to keep up and swallows his tongue and says nothing. it was this very quick exchange. that's kind of what you need to move these things forwa

i think bob barr has misserved the president. i think the public was starting to turn its attention elsewhere. i think the mischaracterization of the barr report, together with the attacks on mueller and the stone walling of subpoenas is exactly the lessons that we learned not too in 1998 in terms of effective pushback. they're keeping this issue in the media for a much longer period of time. they've reignite this debate. they've done all the things wrong in the last two weeks, even though the story line was headed in there their favor. they are dramatically misserving this president who wants to get this story tots completion. and they've extended this thing into the foreseeable future. >> one of the reasons the attorney general cited that he wouldn't show up was because staff lawyers would be, that was the reason. staff lawyers would be questioning him in addition to congress people. what is the advantage of that? >> well, the advantage is you have skilled attorney. i love them all, they love to make big speeches and get on tv

i'm a bill barr fan. i think based on some of the conductive seen, he's one of the few sane people over in the department of justice. look, let me say this again, and i say this on behalf of republicans and democrats, because there were two investigations in 2016. one was of donald trump, but the other one was of hillary clinton. and i think they hare may have some people and perhaps still are over there at fbi and justice who acted on their political beliefs. and some of them were for trump and some of them were for clinton. they both went through it. we need to find out who they were and get rid of them because that's not what they're supposed to do. >> senator graham -- go ahead. sorry, finish your thought. >> i bet if you checked with secretary clinton today, i certainly don't speak for her, she's not real happy with the treatment she got by the fbi and the department of justice either. >> there's no doubt, the clintons don't like the new york fbi office and trump doesn't like the d.c. fbi office. is

at that point, the reason they'll want to talk to william barr is because of barr's own behavior, is because of what mueller himself says is barr's mishandling of his investigation, his misrepresentation of mueller's finding, his creation about what mueller did and mueller found. and to that point, to that point of william barr's behavior and what he has done here and how it may be affecting what we know about the investigation and what impact its having on the presidency, to that point after his testimony yesterday, we are still trying to get to the bottom of this. >> was it special counsel mueller's responsibility to make a charging recommendation? >> i think the deputy attorney general and i thought it was. but -- but not just charging, but to determine whether or not conduct was criminal. the president would be charged -- could not be charged as long as he was in office. >> do you agree with the reasons that he offered for not making a decision in volume two of his report? and why or why not? >> i'm not really sure of his reasoning. i think that if he felt that he shouldn't go do

. >> barr denied knowing. you know that, he denied knowing about mueller's objections twice when he testified before congress. let's remind people. here it is. >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bob mueller supported my conclusion. >> reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report's findings. do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, i don't. >> hmm. you heard him. okay? we know the attorney general chooses every single word carefully. do you think he lied to congress? >> i do. but let's just take a step back and see how extraordinary it is, what bill barr did. not only did he write a four-page summary that misled the american people, he was then told by robert mueller that he misread the american people, then he lies in front of congress, then he does a press con

barr. if he's by the book barr, why didn't he go and get ethics clearance on whether or not rosenstein needed to be recused on that? >> look, rosenstein was appointed acting attorney general as it related to overseeing this investigation. certainly he can make charging decisions relative to that and ethics officials would raise it. certainly no one's going to question the integrity. at least democrats said rod rosenstein was the savior of the mueller investigation, now they want to turn around and attack barr, make rosenstein a foil, rather than just sticking to their guns and saying, look, rod rosenstein is a standup guy, a good lawyer -- >> jimmy -- >> -- well respected, and can make these judgments. >> that bothers you but you just saw a.g. barr, who says he's 30-year friends with bob mueller, throw him under the bus and sit there and implicate mueller in an alleged cover-up -- >> two lawyers -- let me respond. you saw two lawyers disagreeing on points. we fight as lawyers all the time i

you said that barr should step down. they've even said, i believe it's those two, have said that he should be impeached. he should face potential impeachment. do you agree with that? >> look, jake, i think that the house has a very, very full plate right now. they've got all sorts of important investigations ongoing to try to hold this administration accountable. you have a president who refuses to provide documents so they've got to decide how to prioritize the time that they have in the house of representatives. he should do the right thing and resign. his testimony today indicates he's not going to -- now thinking about doing that. i thought the way that he belittled the mueller letter was very revealing. >> when he said he thought it was a little snitty and a staff member probably wrote it. >> yeah, he called it "snitty." and this was obviously an effort by mueller to document mueller's concerns. i think we all know that bob mueller has been a professional, he doesn't do things lightly. he doesn't contract out his wo

barr. former insider neal katyal is here to explain some of what he views as unprecedented in that story that is obviously hitting a fever pitch. and later, a republican challenging donald trump for the republican nomination for president is here live for the first time. so a lot to get to. >>> but we begin with the legal and political hurricane that has been heading towards trump attorney general bill barr. they say elections have consequences. i'm sure you've heard that. tonight democrats are saying deadlines also have consequences. critics arguing that mr. barr has used his short but very controversial tenure to already become one of the most questionable appointees of this entire trump presidency. and today mr. barr gave them more ammunition, blowing past congress' long known deadline to provide the full unredacted mueller report. house democrats are not having it. they are moving towards a vote this week to hold him in contempt. now if that happens, mr. barr would become only the secon

even the facts of barr's report, you have barr contradicting stuff that we can read for ourselves here. the d.o.j. guidelines factors into his decision newt indict because he said it repeatedly. barr made a claim that mueller never pushed it on getting the president to testify. they were pushing and negotiating for months to do that. the president refused. even the facts are in question here. ultimately, it is a political decision riven with politics. >> think back to the very beginning of this. what you have here is proof of the success of the president's political attacks on the special counsel, political attacks on anybody who criticizes him. if you go back to the very beginning there were a lot of republicans still skeptical about donald trump. if he took over the republican party he was sort of the accidental president in the mind of many republicans. they weren't sure what to make of this. now you had the chairman of the committee at the very beginning bob mueller is the gold standard. let him do his job. now you have the chairman of the committee. how much is the president's att

barr will say this. the exercise of responding and reacting to the report is a matter of the american people in a political process as i am sure you agree it is vitally important to the darnlt of justice. and not to become an agjt of it. after everything he has done in the roll out of the report, how can he say it is now time for the derks oj to stand down? >> this is life in trump world where reality gets inverted. the attorney general has pliticized his process. look, i went into this with bar rar in the bush administration. i gave him the benefit of the doubt. and he's acted inappropriately. he's basically steve bannon with a suit and tie and clean shave. he's the attorney general and he's acting in ways that are clearly misleading. and as you showed in the previous segments, he misled congress. he went in this trying to frame it in a way that is fundamentally dishonest in a way that is favorable to the president and that is really sad and shows the people who get in the orbit of donald trump, almost

what does barr want? did barr want mueller to say, yes, there was obstruction? i have the feeling barr would be saying no, no, no. you have a crisis of a split between the attorney general and the special counsel >> i don't know enough to assess if barr would spin it in another direction if there had been a top line finding of obstruction of justice. mueller made clear there are -- should you read the summaries, the report and the actual documentation there were instances where he considered there to be mitigating factors that could weigh against the idea that the president had corrupt intent. there were a couple where he made it explicit he thought there could not be some other logical explanation. what was striking about barr's testimony was that he was giving an enormous amount of benefit of the doubt to the president. really the office of the presidency, but he's ignoring a lot of the realtime conduct of the president which has included lying and falsehoods which has included claiming that things aren't true when they clearly are. many press accounts that ar

>> barr answered that question. >> -- that they had a completely different conversation? >> barr answered that question. he answered the question by saying, i don't believe mueller wrote the letter. i think some staffer did. >> oh, give me a -- >> that's bad leadership to start -- >> i'm just telling you what -- >> garrett, how likely is it that a letter of this significance was written by some staff member, and mueller doesn't agree with every single word -- >> so this, i thought, was one of the absurd moments in the entire testimony today -- the idea that this letter was going to be thrown out by a junior staffer and an auto pen. bob mueller -- >> a sni it, tty junior staffer. >> and for him to be like i have no sense of what my -- complaining about his summary. this was obviously something robert mueller spent careful time considering. i'm sure that draft went through multiple drafts and that wording was very carefully chosen as, by the way, every word in the mueller report was. i mean this is something that he h

barr. and we begin with new video tonight of the attorney general not telling the truth about special counsel robert mueller. >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bob mueller supported my conclusion. >> the video is, of course, not new, but our knowledge, our understanding of that video is completely new. our knowledge that the attorney general was not telling the truth. that is what's new tonight. we also know tonight that the attorney general did not tell the truth about the special counsel in the house of representatives. >> reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th letter. that it does not adequately or accurately, necessarily, portray the report's findings. do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, i don't. >> two weeks before william barr answered those questions in the house and the senate, he received a letter from

this pertains to bill barr. in plain english, it sure seemed to a lot of people these past few weeks that trump's new attorney general may have shaded the truth of the mueller report from the get-go, may have cherry picked the facts in it. he certainly tailored his words to please his boss and gives donald trump air cover, plenty of it to say as trump did loudly and proudly and incorrectly that he totally had been vindicated, no conclusion and no obstruction. tonight we learned robert mueller had some of those concerns as well. both major newspapers relentlessly covering the story are on the board tonight with different versions of the same big story. mueller was bothered by what he saw and heard. enough to write a letter to barr objecting to how his 22-month worth of work was being portrayed. the two men spoke on the phone and the attorney general continued to verbally carried the president's water. the story first broke tonight in "the washington post," this comes out on the eve of barr's appearance before sen

>> because attorney general bilp barr hgenned himself in congress twice. he had t the mueller letter and testified in congress both the house and senate when asked direct questions about whether robert mueller agreed with bill barr's conclusions and whether bill barr had any knowledge aboumewhy stafmbers of the special counsel's office would be upset with his characterization. in both cases, he basically n answerand he was lying in those cases. he alsoam misled thican people both in the press conference before we ever read the mueller report and with his four-page inaccurate summary. so if bilbarr wants to mislead the american people, he can do that as a member of th trump campaign, but he can't do that as attorney general. that is a position that requires independence, integrity and an oath to the constitution. if he doesn't understand his job, he needs to resign. woodruff: but, as you know, that's very unlikely. so what can be done,s this just one of those calls that members of congress make that don't go anywhere? >> we're looking at different tools and

bill barr famously said the barrs and the muellers have been friends before this report and the barrs and the muellers will be friends after this report. that comforted people to think, okay, they are on the same team, looking for truth. they both want to get the facts out. now to know they had what was described as a cordial and professional conversation, that's not a friendly conversation. >> right. i think clearly mueller felt he had gone way too far in being reductive of the report, reducing it and shorthanding it in a way that violated the central mission and raising concerns which we still don't know the basis of. disagreeing with parts of the legal reasoning. was that a trip wire to say, no, there was no obstruction. rod rosenstein signed off on this as well. finding out what was behind that is important. in the end, donald trump, president trump had got the attorney general he wanted. someone who would protect him, basically lead the charge in shaping the public narrative around this report such that his own legal team has not put out its rebuttal. i think they feel they don't

barr to decide after two years and all this time, he said, mr. barr, you decide. mr. barr did. there are a bunch of lawyers on this committee and i will tell you the following. you have tor specific inte havet to obstruct justice. the president never did anything to stop mueller from doing his job. so i guess the theory goes now okay, he didn't collude with the russians and he didn't specifically do anything to stop mueller, but attempts obstruction of justice of a crime that never occurred i guess is sort of the new standard around here. we'll see if that makes any sense. to me it doesn't. there was another campaign. it was the clinton campaign. what have we learned from this report? the russians interfered in our election. so can some bipartisanship come out of this? i hope so. i intend to work with my colleagues on the other side to introduce the deter act and to introduce legislation to defend the integrity of the voting system. senator durbin and i have legislation that would deny anyone admittance into the united states a visa in the immigration system if they were involv

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barr. i think it was pete williams or perhaps an analyst used the word that in the view of william barr, these lawyers are pip squeaks. he's the attorney general, why should he allow these lawyers to be able to question him. but on the other hand i think you saw the effectiveness of having questions from seasoned lawyers who know how to conduct this kind of pressured questioning. kamala harris was a great example. i saw her on the program earlier. she is one who used veteran techniques across examination as a former prosecutor to yield new information and put barr on the spot. so that is also kind of a potential risk for the attorney general. but either way, once yesterday they voted to allow this to happen, william barr and his people at the department said no way, we're simply not showing up. so considering how partisan the senate hearing was yesterday, today would have been frankly farther down that line. but again what you will see is posturing here at the top. jerry nadler potentially