>> if you have a picture of me i could flop in, give it to me. i'm not happy with that picture. >> will you call the people? >> terms and conditions, bye. >> bill: mother nature back at it again. a mile wide tornado leveling homes outside of kansas city, another night of storms now tracing a vicious path from the central plains all the way to the east coast. >> it's huge. huge tornado! absolutely huge. >> bill: massive. 12 people injured in kansas. tens of millions under a warning at this hour as we enter 12 straight days of tornadoes and that is where we begin today. some of those videos just really stunning. everybody has a camera everywhere and you'll see a lot of that today. i'm bill hemmer, welcome to "america's newsroom." >> sandra: good morning, i'm sandra smith. severe storms sparking twister warnings as far as new jersey and new york yesterday.

high winds ripping a shed off its foundation in pennsylvania. every single county in oklahoma now under a state of emergency bracing for historic flooding. >> bill: here is what we know at the moment. more storms expected across the plains and mid atlantic today. 39 million said to be under a severe weather threat which could see large hail and damaging winds, flooding and the possibility of more tornadoes. >> sandra: so far twisters blamed for 38 deaths in the u.s. so far this year. here is how survivors are describing the storms yesterday. >> i got up, put on my slippers, grabbed my glasses, went around the bed and was sitting in front of the bed. by that time that's when the wall fell. i was screaming lord help me, lord help me. i heard him say sue, we're coming, we're coming. >> like a jet engine landing right on top of your house. the whole house started shaking

and vibrating and just heard a big explosion. >> i could feel the air moving the walls and coming from above. and then i heard stuff flying around above me. >> we have severe window damage, roof is ripped off. tree is on top of cars. >> bill: we have live team fox coverage. we begin the ellison barber in trotwood, ohio, hard hit there. >> the national weather service says they have confirmed eight tornadoes touched down in ohio everynight on monday. three of those were ef3. severe tornado with winds between 136 and 165 miles per hour. trotwood where we are now saw one of those severe tornadoes and this is the mess it left behind. you can see some people are here trying to rebuild, trying to put some shingles back on their roofs. many homes are without roofs and a lot of people are having

to move. under a water boil advisory in this area. thousands of people are without power. this here is dennis, he lives in one of the homes in this area. today he and his family are moving out their things. your wife said you guys have lived here for over 25 years. do you think you will be able to rebuild? what is it like for you coming here and seeing that your home just behind us no longer has a roof? >> i believe we'll be able to rebuild. like i say, we've been here 25 years and i'm happy that everyone was safe. i was in georgia when i got the call. just got to the hotel and then turned around and drove another nine hours back. and just came into total devastation. i've never seen anything like this and never been involved in wartime but i can imagine this

is what it looks like. >> what do you hope people know about what you're going through here? >> stuff can be replaced. it is just stuff. i have three cars, four cars with major damage but i don't care about them. make sure you are very well insured. the last time we had light storm damage it wasn't covered and we paid out-of-pocket. the next time i got my insurance policy i jokingly told allstate i want to be insured that if 12 clowns came through on ooun cycles with torches i want to be covered. so it is covered and we're blessed. >> thank you so much. we're glad you and your family are safe and think you are able to rebuild. several people say they have insurance. that's one glimmer of hope in a mess of rubl and destruction and a lot of sadness. >> bill: good man with a good attitude.

give him our best. trotwood is just outside of dayton. >> sandra: all that storms and rain has the arkansas river rising to record levels putting whole communities underwater in oklahoma and arkansas. fort smith seeing the worst of it as officials try to save every home they can. >> it's amazing what people will do when they come together. our social services that have stepped up, fire, police and all of you. you turned this tragedy into something that makes me proud. we are going to get through this and the world is going to know about fort smith, arkansas. >> sandra: matt finn is live on the ground in fort smith, arkansas. the state's second largest city. matt, pretty bad. >> we're on the arkansas river right now. city officials here in fort smith tell us they expect 1,000 homes to be affected or flooded in the area.

you can see some of those homes right now. the arkansas river has engulfed this neighborhood. one of many in this area. we have seen people all morning long placing tarps and sandbags at the base of their homes, boarding up windows. one home has a pump right now that is pumping some of the water out of the house and we talked to some people in this area who evacuated homes saying they took things like pictures and work clothes and then left. did the arkansas river is forecasted to crest at 41 or 42 feet. that's an all-time high and nearly double the flood stage. unfortunately we did have some rain and hail overnight. this morning the army corp of engineers tells us it will assess what the new precipitation means and i want to bring keith from the state fish and game commission. they're patrolling the waters. these homes and these neighborhoods are left exposed when they're evacuated and you are looking out for bad actors. >> we want to make sure anybody

that's out here that are supposed to be here. yesterday my wildlife officers found two dozen people out here most of them were trying to do the right thing and check out the homes. but somebody is out here sightseeing. >> your crews found a submerged car with a fatality. >> yes, we found a body yesterday. >> very briefly the water is heading south and the focus will shift toward the state capital of little rock. >> we're looking at a crest probably on monday around little rock and it will be historic again. >> thank you very much. i'll send it back to you guys. >> sandra: matt in fort smith. we'll speak with a fema administrator at 9:20 a.m. eastern time. fema just got on the ground there. they'll be giving us the latest information and what they're

seeing thins they arrived and get a closer look at the damage in oklahoma with that state's governor kevin stitt. he will be joining us at 10:45. >> bill: a lot of folks will be in a lot of trouble for some time. the shot of the garage where the camera is perched on top and the shed is gone in a moment. stay safe out there. more to come later. former f.b.i. director james comey still defending his actions. here is the headline "washington post" op-ed. no treason, no coup, no lies and dumb lies at that. marc thiessen, good morning to you. you've read it. what is your take on comey's position? >> first of all where was jim comey's outrage when donald trump was being accused of committing treason with russia? john brennan publicly accused him of treason. i didn't remember james comey

being outraged about that. donald trump was being accused of treason for two years. the outrage is remarkable. >> bill: here is how he concludes. no corruption, no treason, no attempted coup. those are lies and dumb lies at that. good people trying to figure out what was true under unpress denlted circumstances. he said they were good guys trying to do the job. >> then nothing to fear from an investigation if that's the case. we kept hearing from the democrats over the several years, protect mueller, trust mueller, cooperate with mueller, don't obstruct mueller. if trump had nothing to fear, he had nothing to fear from mueller. well, it turned out that trump didn't do anything wrong. the whole russia conspiracy was a hoax. now if james comey did nothing and the f.b.i. did nothing wrong and it's all purely innocent john durham, a career prosecutor will find that. the american people want to get to the bottom of it.

there is a poll that just came out that said americans are sick of investigations, 65% say we shouldn't impeach donald trump. 60% believe there was no obstruction and 58 say given the mueller report we should move on and turn the page on the trump investigations. the one exception is they want to get to the bottom of how this trump/russia probe began. 55% of americans believe that there was bias against donald trump that was involved in the decision to start this probe and 61% support appointing a special counsel to get to the bottom of it and that's significant because trump's approval is only 43%. that means that millions of americans who aren't trump supporters are outraged that our country spent two years and $30 million chasing a conspiracy theory and they want to find out how it happened. >> bill: the piece does not address january of 2017 which was the meeting at trump tower and you know, marc, that is one

of the focuses that we have found out through bill barr and our interview in el salvador a week and a half ago that's a major focus. last word. >> i think we need to get to the bottom of what happened and bill barr has appointed a very good man in john durham. he is a career prosecutor who will look into all these things. all the people who were saying don't -- let's investigate donald trump, let the investigation play out. they're now saying it's outrageous that barr is looking into the origin of the probe. the american people are with donald trump on this. they want to find out how we spent $30 million and two years of time investigating the president on something that was nothing other than a conspiracy. >> bill: thank you, sir. 11 past the hour now. >> sandra: fox news alert. oil tankers that were sab tojd in the persian gulf john bolton accusing iran of the crime and

what he says is behind the regime's decision to back out of its nuclear deal. plus there is this. >> this president is actually delivering results when it comes to many things within the african-american community. versus joe biden who didn't do a whole lot under the obama administration. maybe that's why they won't vote for him. >> that conversation is based oon 2020 prediction reflecting on joe biden's role in the 1994 super predator law. what was in the law? how did it affect the nation? what has changed since? have the president's policies helped? we'll dig into that with a guest coming up momentarily. >> sandra: joe biden returning to the campaign trail after 10 days as fellow 2020 contenders slam president trump's recent attacks on the former vice president. governor mike huckabee will join us next on that. >> i don't care what the difference is on policy issue or in terms of party affiliation. it is wrong, it is contrary to

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roundup for lawns bug destroyer kills and prevents them, even grubs. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. >> sandra: fox news alert. john bolton with harsh words for iran. he blames the islamic republic for the recent attacks on saudi oil tankers in the persian gulf saying tehran almost certainly sabotaged those ships. bolton accused the regime of withdrawing from the nuclear accord with other world powers in order to develop nuclear weapons. warning the u.s. will not hesitate to strike back if attacked. >> the bottom line is this. i think the worst thing that happened to the united states of america of late is this division. talking down other people. >> joe biden back on the trail after a 10-day hiatus. president trump firing off a tweet doubling down on his

criticism of the former v.p. i was actually sticking up for sleepy joe biden while on foreign soil. kim jong-un called him a low i.q. idiot. i related the quote chairman kim is a softer, low i.q. individual who can possibly be upset with that? former arkansas governor mike huckabee and fox news contributor. get to the biden back and forth. you've heard from a lot of folks back home in arkansas and you saw the live picture there. a lot of people need help, governor. >> they do. this is unprecedented flooding that's getting to areas that have never seen this kind of flooding and certainly a lot of effort being done to help those people. just salvage what they can. most of all protect human life. >> bill: >> bill: our best to them. the president's comments are beneath the dignity of the office to side repeatedly with the murderous dictator of former v.p. speaks for itself. joe biden for his part in houston said i'm not going to get down in the mud wrestling

with this fellow. so how do you see this going back and forth? >> says the same fellow who wanted to take donald trump out behind the school gym and beat him up. as it's been said so many times politics ain't bean bag. this is going to be a rough and tumble campaign. joe biden has said some very interesting things through the years. has said a lot of things toward donald trump and donald trump is not a guy that hides over against the wall with his face turned from the crowd. are we going to see a rough and tumble campaign? yes, we are. biden has been absent for 10 days. when he is out on the trail, he sometimes the gaffe master if he is not out there sniffing people's hair and giving inappropriate touches it will be a fun thing to watch from start to finish. >> bill: does it tell you how he would take the hits? because he held his fire for

some time. >> well, he did but right now i think he has been surrounded by a whole bunch of aides trying to tie him down with heavy duty ropes. but joe biden is joe biden and let's not kid ourselves. he will come out swinging. that's what he does and what he should development he needs to be who he is. the one thing people want in a candidate, democrat or republican is authenticity. let us see who you are and what you think. one reason donald trump is president now. people appreciated even though they didn't like the way he said things, thought it was rough, it is who he was and didn't hide his feelings and he didn't say one thing in public and something else in private. i think people appreciate the authenticity. >> bill: kamala harris is suggesting move forward with impeachment. listen to this right here, governor. >> what he has done is what we need more people in the united states congress to do. which is to put country before party. put country before party.

when we talk about a process of impeachment, it is about the checks and balances. that the framers imagined would be in place to be a check against abuses and that's another reason why i support that process. >> bill: don't know if she will get her wish in the end, do you? >> i can't imagine pelosi will let herself be played and go into an impeachment situation which guarantees the reebb election of donald trump and angers the american people. what are they impeaching him for? they don't like his personality or some things he said? you can't impeach a president for that. if anybody forgets, even if he is impeached by the house, he is never going to be convicted by the senate ever. it is not going to happen. what you are going to have is a one-egg pudding that flops and falls and nothing is going to happen other it will be the destruction of the democrats. >> bill: mike huckabee, enjoy that pudding. talk to you soon.

our best to the folks in arkansas. thank you, governor. >> sandra: we'll have more on joe biden's education policy with dr. bill bennett. he will join us at 10:30 a.m. eastern one hour from now. >> bill: there it is. look at the video out of pennsylvania. that shed ripped off its foundation in minutes. debris flying through the air. more violent storms could be on the way. we're tracking all of that coming up here. >> sandra: historic flooding causes catastrophic situations in both oklahoma and arkansas at this hour. up next we'll be speaking to a fema administrator who is now on the ground there and putting this slow motion disaster to the test. >> the event is still unfolding. the river has not crested. we still have some trouble ahead and it will be important that everybody kind of stay linked up. to look at me now,

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>> we've never seen flooding like this before. and the river is out of its banks and it is affecting a lot of places. a lot of displaced people. >> prepare for the worst case scenario that we've had in our history. >> sandra: lawmakers addressing flooding concerns with the swollen arkansas river expected to crest today at record levels. all 77 counties in oklahoma are right now under a state of emergency following a much of flooding, storms and tornadoes. tony robinson is the fema administrator for oklahoma, arkansas, louisiana, texas and new mexico. they call that region 6. he is on the ground this morning in denton, texas. good morning to you. i know you're busy. a lot happening there.

give us an update first on the situation on the ground. >> good morning, sandra, thanks for having me. first and foremost our thoughts and prayers with those across the country suffering from severe storms and flooding this morning. so our efforts here at fema region 6 have been working very closely with our state partners in oklahoma, arkansas, louisiana on the extended flooding. the president has declared an emergency on may 25th that allows us to work with our federal partners to provide life-saving and life-sustaining resources in those states and we've had small teams in oklahoma and we've had a team in arkansas that's working closely with the state emergency management partners to provide technical assistance and provide resources they may need that is ongoing flooding situation. >> sandra: considering the worst, it may not be over for some of these areas. the governor, governor stitt, of oklahoma talking about things could still get worse this week. he said we still have water rising in the east. we aren't out of the woods yet.

what's the plan, tony? >> we'll work closely. one of the things we have to continue to watch the weather, the forecast, rain is called for again today. that obviously exacerbates the situation here. we need a break from that rain so the water can go down. we'll continue to monitor the situation closely with our state partners, our travel partners, and look at being ahead of need for individuals. >> sandra: what sort of resources are needed that you have -- could possibly not have planned for since you've been on the ground there. what is this going to take to help people in this region? >> right now we're really in the life safety area. so swift water rescue, those immediate resources, and then we'll look at transitioning into the recovery phase when the water recede. >> sandra: these are 70-year-old levies that we're dealing with in tulsa, oklahoma. what's the update as you monitor the levy situation

there? >> working closely with our partners from the united states army corp of engineers and watching the levies along with our partners to take whatever emergency levels we need to to insure the safety of those levies and what's behind those. >> sandra: massive thunderstorms and flooding that continue to pose threats to that area. tony robinson, our best to you on the ground there as you try to help these people and help this community recover and many still needing a lot of help. thank you very much, tony. >> thank you, sandra. >> bill: we'll be dealing with that for some time. effort to build a border wall hitting a bit of a legal snag. will the red tape stop the effort in its tracks? we'll let you know. >> sandra: the 1994 crime bill coming under new scrutiny in the 2020 campaign. president trump saying joe biden could lose the african-american vote for having supported the measure. but what exactly was in that law? did it help or hurt our country?

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a little down time can lift you right up. ♪ flights, hotels, cars, activities, vacation rentals. expedia. everything you need to go. >> i'm going to predict he will get more african-american votes in 2020. the crime bill disproportion naturally incarcerated so many black americans. he has that issue. maybe the issue is that again under the obama administration when he was the vice president, things really didn't change for the black community in this country. >> sandra: 2020 senior campaign advisor lara trump predicting joe biden will not do well with african-americans in 2020 due to his role in passing the 1994 crime bill. many critics blame the clinton-era legislation for

mass incarceration. trump says anyone associated with that bill has no chance of being elected. let's get to some of the facts here. heather macdonald is a senior fellow at the manhattan institute and author of the diversity solution. good morning to you, heather. it's amazing how this is becoming more and more of a conversation. the president is directly targeting joe biden for his support of the 1994 crime bill. why are we talking so much about this today? >> because the left has been dominating our discussion about criminal justice and biden is trying to protect his left flank. he should own this bill and should defend his support of it. it resulted in saving tens of thousands of black lives. >> sandra: why is he running from it? >> he has no principles right now. he wants to get elected and he is worried about the constant sniping from the left wing media. nevertheless it was the right thing to do.

some things are beyond politics and the narrative that the criminal justice system is racist, which is where these attacks are coming from, is very dangerous and it hurts law-abiding black citizens most of all. >> sandra: it will be fascinating to see how it plays a part in the 2020 race. it has already become a major talking point and a target on joe biden. kamala harris, other progressives, cory booker have condemned the legislation. it was signed into law by bill clinton. you look at violent crime. it started to fall before the bill was actually passed and then it dropped a whole lot more in 1994 to 2000. the president our current president donald trump, how have his policies changed things? >> i liked his rhetoric when he was running for president when he talked about the carnage that was going on in inner cities, carnage we saw again this weekend in chicago.

i'm not such a fan of the policies that he has pursued himself with this recent criminal justice reform bill because he has done it in the name of a false narrative of criminal justice racism. his policies, he has been good and backed off on consent decrease for police departments. but again, sandra, i support president trump in many things but i think in demagoging this and going after biden for supporting this bill he is wrong and he is putting law abiding citizens at risk. >> sandra: i'm getting breaking news right now and if you could grab my phone that robert mueller is going to be making a statement on the russia investigation. pardon me for a minute here. we're just learning now he will be making a statement on the russia investigation. there have been calls for robert mueller to testify publicly. we know that he has asked to speak to lawmakers behind closed doors rather than a

public hearing. robert mueller we're just now learning is set to speak on the russia probe at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. let me pull this up here. see what else i can learn about this. 11:00 a.m. eastern time today. it is going to be on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this is going to be a statement only we're being told. no question and answer period will follow. department of justice just put out this statement and bill you are with me right now as we learned this. >> bill: working through this now. public testimony has been a source of debate for bob mueller when we believe that jerry nadler has apparently at least for now settled on bob mueller testifying in private and not public. why that is, is a source of debate in washington, d.c. today. with interview with bill barr about 10 days ago he doesn't have a problem with bob mueller testifying. how that goes, how that works out we're not clear.

but to repeat the news we're getting at the moment 11:00 a.m. a statement only, no questions from bob mueller which will apparently address the interference of russia in the election of 2016. remember now bob mueller, sandra, in his report, concluded there was no collusion on behalf of the trump campaign and russia. >> sandra: all right. so i'll make my way back over there but we did not get a heads-up on this. this could have been a last-minute decision or planned a long time ago, bill. but we're just learning of this. this is an hour and a half from now that we'll hear from robert mueller himself speaking publicly for the first time since that mueller report was made public to all of us. of course, with redactions. this is going to be big at 11:00. >> bill: andy mccarthy joins us by telephone. news is just breaking. i don't know if you had a heads-up on this or not. your reaction, bob mueller's statement on the russia matter. >> i think he is obviously

wrestling with the pros and cons of testifying and there has been a lot of information that has been put out there by people who are purportedly dealing with him and they're spinning things that way they want it spun and i imagine he wants to be understood on his own terms. >> bill: when it comes to russia meddling how far does he go? what do you think he will reveal to us about russia's efforts? there has been no evidence to date of any votes being changed as a result. >> well, i think, bill, probably what he wants to address in the first instance -- let me back up and say this. having written long legal-type briefs which are a mixture of law, facts and analysis, you often feel after you've made a submission like this that's the best way you can conceivably say what you wanted to say.

so it may not be that he wants to be understood with respect to the facts in a way that's outside of his report. what i think is going on now he wants to be understood in terms of his level of cooperation with congressional investigators. and his weighing of the competing obligations between investigative secrecy, respecting people's privacy, things like the grand jury, a very different role a prosecutor has from an investigator. the different proceedings that a criminal investigation is from an impeachment inquiry. i think those are the kinds of things he may want to address. i would be very surprised if he told us substantively something that was different from what he has articulated in the report, which is probably the best way that he could have articulated it.

>> sandra: if i could ask you a question again the news is robert mueller will speak at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. he will not be taking questions afterward. this will be a statement only, we're told. we just learned about this. this is an hour and 20 minutes from now. first time we'll hear him publicly speak since the release of the mueller report. what can you tell us about any sort of pressure there may be behind the scenes for robert mueller to publicly back up a.g. barr's conclusions on that report? >> well, i think at this point, sandra, what he would probably say about that is that the report speaks for itself and that people can read the report and they can look at barr's letter and compare them and draw their own conclusions. i doubt that he wants to say more about that than that.

>> bill: andy, what are you hearing as to why there is such a hesitance either on behalf of bob mueller or others in congress about publicly testifying? >> what i'm hearing, bill, goes to what we were talking about a few moments ago. there are -- there is push on him to go further than his report went. he is comfortable going there and there is also, you know, big controversy over whether it's appropriate for him to testify or not because clearly what they are going to want in connection with his testimony is information that has been -- >> bill: our apologies, andy is

getting a breakup of the signal. not sure where you are today. andy mccarthy is trying to finish up a book right now and our ability to get him and speak to him has been somewhat limited. it won't be forever. once we get him back on the line we'll get him back to our viewers. one thing to keep in mind in all of this is that especially on the republican side of this whole russia/mueller matter is on what day did bob mueller know and conclude there was no collusion with russia? was it two years into his investigation? was it six months prior, a year prior? did he know from day one? there are those who expressed that opinion without factual basis to back that up that bob mueller knew in the very early days when he began his investigation that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia. so then the question would go to, sandra, why did he not go public and tell the american people then as opposed to allowing us to twist into this

world of speculation over the past 24 months or so? and that would be a primary question that republicans certainly on the judiciary committee would have for bob mueller whether he testifies publicly or in private. >> sandra: so we'll take you along with us here because we just learned about this public statement that robert mueller will make at 11:00 a.m. eastern. we're working the phones trying to gather guests to tell us what they think could possibly come from the special counsel at the top of the 11:00 eastern time hour. will we learn anything new from robert mueller beyond what we learned from his investigation and obviously from the mueller report itself? there has been a lot of pressure for him to sit in the hot seat and publicly testify on capitol hill as to his findings in that report. he did not want to publicly testify. there was an agreement for him to speak to lawmakers behind closed doors. this, of course, will be the first time that we hear from

mueller publicly since the release of that report. >> bill: jay gibson is working the phones and emails. we'll get you more information as he feeds us from the department of justice where bob mueller will be later today. two things are going on behind the scenes we need to remind our viewers. there are two separate investigations underway. one is the inspector general's report conducted by michael horowitz. that's only contained within the department of justice. what decisions did they make during the campaign of 2016? what about the trump tower meeting where james comey briefed the then president elect donald trump on the dossier? and why did that happen with others there? why did james comey leave that tower meeting, walk into a black suv and take copyous notes of that meeting. why did that take place? all this will be investigated by michael horowitz. the other investigation is done

by a federal prosecutor from connecticut who has been at work for two months. the distinction between number one and two is the following. the inspector general only looks at those who are working for the government now. the federal -- or then. the federal prosecutor has the legal authority to go outside and interview former employees of government so you would think based on that, that prosecutor would have morally e -- more leeway. >> sandra: statement only, no question and answer period to follow for robert mueller. we heard that a short time ago. he will be speaking at 11:00. bill, you just sat down with the attorney general william barr in el salvador and you very well know the narrative that has been out there about william barr and his characterization and his conclusions from this report.

there has been a lot of public pressure on robert mueller to speak publicly on -- for the nation to hear from robert mueller himself and we now will. >> bill: i felt that the big story that came out of that, sandra, was essentially the roadmap that bill barr has laid out for his investigation now. one would include the fisa court, how the court granted the approval for those to do surveillance or spying on members of the trump campaign or those affiliated with it including carter page and george papadopoulos. james comey referenced his piece overnight in the "washington post". the other aspect i thought was intriguing when you asked bill barr what sort of lead does he have, he went right to the trump tower meeting in january of 2017. why did that happen? why did it take place? why did they feel compelled to brief the president at that moment? there is a thought out there that the decisions made between the election day of november

2016 and inauguration day in january of 2017, not a sense of covering your tracks, but justifying the actions and the decisions you made because you knew after donald trump won the election that he would have access to the information that you were doing on the inside. so then it was just a question of time before donald trump and his team found out about this. so then do you do certain actions to justify your decisions? and that appears to be a focus of bill barr's investigation with mr. durham, the federal prosecutor out of connecticut. >> sandra: we've reached out to the white house and will get a reporter set outside the white house in a moment and we'll hear from kevin corke. meanwhile it will be the first time we've heard robert mueller since this investigation began in may 2017 as we know democrats have been calling for him to publicly testify and, bill, you go back to just last week when nancy pelosi before that meeting in the oval office with nancy pelosi and chuck

schumer accused president trump of being engaged in a cover-up. and you go back to the moment and days after the mueller report was released and you remember reporters stopping -- a reporter stopping robert mueller outside his car at church when he was attending with his wife. that has been the scene for robert mueller and we have not heard him publicly comment on that report. >> bill: the reason why this statement is so significant, we were not quite sure what shoe was going to drop next. we knew the i.g. report was in the offing. we thought that in the next two to four weeks will be made public. the federal prosecutor probe will take a year at least. it could take us into the election of 2020 and possibly beyond. the other thing that's intriguing about the whole russia matter is they tried, how successful were they. did they take the bait. they throw out the malware and try to infect your computer and

get your password. that's what happened on behalf of the dnc. what does bob mueller tell us about how deep this effort was on behalf of moscow? remember two weeks ago the republican governor in florida held a press conference. 67 counties, he said two counties were breached by russian intel officials trying to access the election data, the user base. what desantis described is they were effective getting into the system but not much more effective going beyond that. so does mueller clarify that or does it take it to a different part of the country? how much does he say in the statement at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. >> sandra: kevin corke is live at the white house for us as we have just learned robert mueller will speak to the nation at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. kevin. >> good morning, guys, as you can imagine, i'm working the phones as we speak trying to figure out exactly what the guidance might be based on what

my sources might be able to tell me at the white house. this is a circumstance, to be clear, where we can go in a number of different directions. i heard you mentioning the idea the i.g. reports are coming out. the grand declassification of massive amounts of documents giving the attorney general effectively the opportunity to look over material, sources and methods between various agencies. might he talk about that? or might this simply be something like a farewell? i've done my job and served the american people. this ends this stage of my career which could then open the pathway for him to testify on capitol hill. i would push back on that and suggest that if i were bob mueller maybe you don't go up there and testify. it opens up a number of other questions and en trails that could go back to the origins of the mueller report and the russia probe more broadly speaking. that said, transparency is key. the attorney general is moving in that direction. we don't know what will happen

here. i have notes out to one, two, three senior administration officials. as soon as i get more i promise to share it. but i can only tell you this. generally when things like this happen at the white house, they will gather, the staff will talk about what might happen, what directions you may want to take information as you bring it to the press and public. but do understand this, bob mueller is from their perspective, i have had a number of conversations about the job he has done. he is perceived as a patriot, as being very thorough and even despite the heavy criticism that he faced not just from the president of the united states but certainly some of the people who have backed his position on the russia probe, at the end of the day he was allowed to do his job. that's their perspective. we'll see what he has to say about that. >> sandra: have you been able to -- i'm sorry we're digging through the news here. have you spoken to anyone

inside the white house to let us know if this news takes them off guard or if they knew about this upcoming statement today at 11:00? >> you read my mind. i was actually just texting back and forth with an administration official. any nuggets for me? did they catch you off guard and surprised you as much as it surprised us? no nuggets to give just yet. then again, we simply don't know what the conversations are like. as for the surprise angle of this, i would have to say -- i don't mean this in sort of an i know more than you the public because i'm here every day but i would say when you are hear every day, sandra, you typically here rumblings. sometimes a simple conversation, i'm in contact with some people every morning around 6:00 a.m. i heard nothing in this circumstance. the fact that it caught me offguard and that and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at

starbucks doesn't mean very much. it surprises a lot of people here. whether it surprised the administration is yet to be seen. one senior official told me that -- i can't share all that. i'll just say she said she is not as surprised as perhaps some people might be. >> sandra: got it. that can be telling in itself. we won't look too far into that, kevin. thank you. >> bill: good stuff. thank you very much. the headline from the media advisory however states an update on the russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. so one would assume we'll get something as it pertains to what they found and what we need to know. >> sandra: department of justice put out that statement a short time ago and he will be speaking emerging from his silence since the investigation began two years ago. he will take to a microphone and talk directly to the american people which you don't have to look far.

op-eds across the outlets calling for him to speak publicly. but whether or not this will be on the findings of his report or kevin corke just suggested perhaps it is my job is done here. he is still an employee of the justice department. so we'll see. >> bill: just looking over this bill barr transcript from the interview two weeks ago. he says a lot of things. we talked for 25 minutes. here is one thing. when i asked him this appears to run deep, why is it so hard to figure out? and barr says there are two things here. one no one has really looked at it. i think there is a misconception out there we know a lot about what happened. the fact of the matter is, bob mueller did not look at the government's activities. he was looking at whether or not the trump campaign had conspired with the russians. he was not going back and looking at the counter intelligence program. and we have a number of investigations underway that touch upon it. the main one being the office of the inspector general that i just detailed there.

the counter intelligence program is something that bill barr is keen on trying to figure out what decisions were made and why at that time. >> sandra: of course, democrats in the house have been relentless for their calls for the entire text of the mueller report to be released without redactions. they've also jerry nadler house judiciary has demanded the underlying evidence behind the report, the documents that were used to come to this -- these conclusions and draw up the report. but mueller has certainly been at the center of a fight between the trump administration and house democrats and this is going to be quite a moment one hour from now, bill. >> bill: also back to the barr interview. here is what he said again. i found that some of the explanations i've gotten don't hang together. remember that phrase we were talking about together, sandra, don't hang together. barr continues. in a sense i have more questions today than i did when i first started to which i said some of what things don't hang

together? barr says some of the explanations of what occurred. i said why does that matter? he said because i think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. if we're worried about foreign influence, meaning russia, for the very same reason we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power or put their thumb on the scale. >> sandra: really interesting that all of this is happening as you were talking about at the top of the 9:00 hour with marc thiessen that james comey op-ed, the former f.b.i. director saying investigate the investigators if you must. when those investigations are over you will find the work was done appropriately and focused on disterng the truth of serious allegations. james comey has put himself out there the former f.b.i. director. this will be happening one hour from now. wish we had more information for you. but we just learned about this and we're all learning that robert mueller will be speaking publicly together. as we await that. >> bill: do we have a little

bit of that barr stuff queued up yet? give me the go ahead when we do. we'll play it for the viewers. the interview continues to which i say did anyone in government or intelligence take action to justify their decisions between election day and inauguration? he says i think there was some very strange developments during that period. that is one of the things we want to look at. i said such as. he said such as the handling of the meeting on january 6th between the intel chiefs, brennan, clapper, comey, and the president and the leaking of information subsequent to that meeting. was that meeting in new york city at trump tower? yes. what questions do you have about what happened that day? i won't get into it. i said that's on your mind? that's one of the things we need to look at. characterize it. how far advanced are you in understanding that meeting? we're still in the stage of gathering that information. that is now being looked at.

>> sandra: i'm taking you back to last week. remember i just referenced back nancy pelosi making her public statement and her public claim the president is engaged in a cover-up shortly before she met with the president along with chuck schumer at the white house. that was quick. they quickly departed. supposed to be on infrastructure. they left the meeting. the president said you have to get the phony investigations over if you want me to talk infrastructure. they left and then he quickly called the pool together and walked out into the rose garden unexpectedly and delivered a speech with a poster on the front of the lectern talking about the mueller investigation. it says no obstruction, no collusion, 2000 subpoenas, listed out the cost of the investigation. that was the response from the president just days ago ahead of the holiday weekend. >> bill: in the meantime bill barr is on a trip to alaska meeting with law enforcement.

that was a trip planned for two or three weeks. we'll wait to see when his plane is on the ground and find out whether he has anything to add. in the meantime back in washington, d.c. bob mueller has been a quiet guy. he has said very little if anything during the entire course of this and i remember one time a conversation i had with a former official from the white house who was in law enforcement as well and he car pooled with bob mueller to the white house almost every day for a year. and he said bob mueller would reveal very little about what was happening in his head or on his mind on the daily commutes. that's the way bob mueller operates. today will be an unusual day. he will speak. what he has to say is something that we and the rest of the country wait to hear 60 minutes from now. >> sandra: investigation began two years ago and concluded a couple months ago. we still have not heard from robert mueller. the nation has been asking for that particularly democrats have been calling on robert mueller to speak himself to the country.

he will one hour from now. all right. the man who has dominated the headlines for more than two years now stepping out of the shadows one hour from now. robert mueller, the special counsel, will be making a statement on his investigation into russian meddling. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom." i'm sandra smith. this is breaking news. >> bill: good morning. we do not know a ton right now and we do not know the thrust of the special counsel's statement. a lot of ground to be covered since the a.g. bill barr was given new authority to review the origins of mueller's investigation. let's go to washington now and chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge standing by now. let's begin with you. kevin corke was caught offguard. we'll see what bob mueller says one hour from now. do you have any clue at the moment? >> i can offer you my inside covering the special counsel

investigation. i covered him since he was f.b.i. director in 2001. -- [inaudible] >> bill: whether there -- >> bill: against the president. that has been publicly denied by the office. that's something else to be looking for. in these situations i'm always paying attention to a couple of other factors. one is the format and the other is the timing. first on the format. it is unusual for an individual to just make a public statement and to not take any questions from reporters. in effect the reporters are there to watch the public statement but i would argue they're like props because they aren't in their role as asking

questions of the individual. the second thing is the timing. this comes at a very interesting period. congress is out this week as you noted the attorney general william barr is out of town traveling in alaska and the president is on his way back i guess soon back in washington from traveling in japan. so to not draw too much of a line under this but it appears that bob mueller really has the stage to himself today to make whatever statement he wishes to make. this also dovetails with the end of his term as a justice department employee. of course, as you know that opens the door to allow him to make a decision effectively on his own as to whether he would be willing to testify to congress. so again look for indicators on the congressional testimony and the differences with barr, obstruction issue but also play close attention to the format. no questions from reporters at this point and also the timing

when his principal bosses are out of town. >> bill: tell us what you are picking up as to the public testimony of bob mueller. what's the hold-up? what's preventing this from happening? and who is the principal driver on taking the private testimony as opposed to public? >> well, it's a high-risk proposition really for republicans and democrats on capitol hill because nobody knows what bob mueller will testify to. it's the kind of testimony whether it's in public or private that there will be something for everybody, democrats focusing on the obstruction piece of the investigation. i would also emphasize to folks at home that's the part of the investigation where the attorney general made almost all of it public, 99%. when they've been crying foul on heavy redactions to the report that's the part of the report that democrats aren't focused on but it deals with russia election interference and a fair amount of jeopardy for republicans as well. they don't know to what extent

bob mueller will say there were differences of opinion between himself and the attorney general and whether he feels it is warranted to do this investigation of the investigators. as you noted earlier, that was not a subject that was rolled into his mandate as the special counsel. it is a high-risk proposition for both republicans and democrats. whether it's really in public or in private. >> bill: thank you so much for that. barr said as we know and pointed out repeatedly that bill barr and bob mueller have known each other for 30 years. when i asked barr about how he would describe his relationship he said we're still friends. we'll see bob mueller in an hour. >> sandra: catherine, are you still there? >> one final point on that if i could. they've known each other for a long time but these issues are i would argue maybe bigger than a long-time friendship. the reason i say that is that based on my reporting the attorney general was really put

off by the letter that robert mueller wrote saying that there were differences or he had concerns about how the media had portrayed the findings and how barr had delivered that information to capitol hill. the attorney general testified he said to mueller bob, why didn't you pick up the phone instead of writing a letter? this is a tension point between the two men and it may be one of the issues that's finally addressed in the statement today. >> sandra: one other point, too. you go back to the hearing when william barr made it very clear that he offered robert mueller the opportunity to see those principle findings before he released them to look at them and he said no, he didn't want to or he chose not to. i don't know how you would say it. but that's how little robert mueller really got involved

past the release of the report. >> robert mueller's job was to come to a conclusion about russian interference. his critics argued that part of his job was to also reach a conclusion about obstruction and not kick the can down the road essentially leaving that decision to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who has been highly criticized for not making a call one way or the other on obstruction which has really led to sort of an ongoing festering of this wound if you will because it has been seen as unresolved by democrats who felt he should have made the decision and that the attorney general because he is a political appointee was not someone who was neutral in this particular situation. as you note, the attorney general gave robert mueller the opportunity to review what he was going to put out and he declined at that point. >> sandra: got it. we have to let you go on the breaking news. we appreciate it. thank you. >> bill: thank you, catherine. let's take you back 10 days ago. part of the exchange with bill

barr now. we were at a prison 30 minutes west of san salvador. the first thing is the conclusion of no obstruction on behalf of bill barr from the mueller report. here is the exchange and we'll talk about that right after this. >> you mentioned bob mueller a few moments ago. were you surprised he came back with no recommendation on that obstruction charge? did that surprise you? >> yes, it surprised me. >> how come? >> because the function of a prosecutor is to make a call one way or the other. >> did you ask him why? >> we discussed it. >> what did he say? >> i already have said we met on march 5th before he delivered the report and he gave an explanation for it and it is pretty much reflected in the report. >> you are okay with him testifying? >> absolutely. >> sandra: which he said all along. let's bring in the a-team.

david avella is joining us, leslie marshall, radio host and mr. bevan. david. we're awaiting robert mueller at the top of the hour. what do you expect? >> what we can expect is he won't get up and say i left some things out of my report. his report pretty much states what his findings were. what we should expect is he is going the refer people back to his findings and his statement. will much news be made? probably not. here is what would be newsworthy if every 2020 democrat is asked do you believe the investigation was handled correctly and was the information and the process the f.b.i. used done legally? for a lot of americans they don't believe it was done correctly. and what are you going to do to restore confidence in the f.b.i. amongst americans who think the president was illegally spied on? >> sandra: tom, top of the

hour, what do you expect? >> well, i hope that he is going to explain to us this question of why he has been unwilling to testify. you just heard in the clip being played barr is open to him testifying. the democrats want him to testify. they've had trouble getting him to commit to testifying publicly or privately and i hope he explains whether he will testify or not and his rationale behind why he is choosing to do that. >> bill: leslie, jump in here. before you start, the advisory says this. that word for word, special counsel bob mueller makes a statement on the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. it may only deal with the matter of russia meddling. >> i don't think so, bill. i think it will be a reiteration of the letter he put forth before. i am certainly hoping there is more clarification and i think he may even touch upon his final paragraph in his final report where he does not agree with the president with regard

to exoneration. i'm disappointed as i think many people are left or right that there won't be any q and a period. the american people have a right to that and i think that the findings with regard to obstruction of justice and why he didn't make the recommendations and did pass the ball to the attorney general, those questions aren't going to be answered but we do know that he certainly doesn't want to come out as seemingly -- >> bill: we're all guessing at the moment, david. perhaps he goes further. we shall see in 50 minutes. >> we shall see. the question as you think again about 2020. does this move independent and swing voters in the suburbs? what would he have to say to do that? i don't see him saying anything that would move suburban voters who are ready to move on from this. they've already made their decision whether they think the president did something wrong or didn't do something wrong. what they are upset about and what they continue to be frustrated with is a congress

that wants to continue to be obsessed with it and having a speaker of the house who can't control her members and focus on an agenda that ultimately the members are the ones driving this investigation and she can't get an agenda through the congress. >> sandra: various reporting is out there now, the white house did have a heads-up on robert mueller speaking at 11:00 a.m. kevin corke confirmed that per our white house official a few moments ago. other reporting out there "washington post" is reporting that he is going to deliver a substantial statement at 11:00 eastern time this morning. so as we await all of that, tom, all we can do is talk about it because this is going to be big news and many have been calling for this moment for a long time for robert mueller to publicly speak. >> yeah. i do think again as i said the public deserves to hear from bob mueller and we will. it remains to be seen what exactly he is going to say.

but to david's point a little bit this is largely a fascination of the beltway, of elected officials in washington and the media. we'll focus on it and it will be wall-to-wall coverage until he speaks and the rest of the day for sure. it will lead all the papers tomorrow but i'm not sure how much people outside of washington are wrapped up in the nuances and details of this. the report has been released to leslie's point it has been released. most of it has been released. the public has largely made up their minds. i don't know if bob mueller will say anything today that will clang the narrative. >> bill: does it strike you there was no coincidence in america. you have bill barr in alaska. you have bob mueller who has been absolutely silent for years now. you have the white house being tipped off last night that he would make a statement today. james comey had to have penned that piece in the "washington post" before all this went down. now it's in print today.

there is a confluence of events that don't happen for no reason or explanation, tom. >> if you believe, as many folks do, that there are no coincidences in washington the timing is certainly suspect. the fact all the points you just mentioned, bill. and this thing sort of pops up out of nowhere and will dominate news coverage. we'll see what he says and how it plays. the timing is interesting to say the least. >> sandra: all right, david. does this change the narrative for democrats? they've been asking for him to speak. what i just heard from leslie she says now she is disappointed he won't be taking questions but he will speak to the american people. >> there is a false narrative spread that we haven't heard from bob mueller. we have heard from him. he turned in his report. to think he will do a press conference again saying i left

this out of my report, i said this but i don't really believe it. that's what democrats want him to come out and say. why anybody in the media or in washington thinks that something like that is going to happen are just trying to again send a false narrative that is not true. we know what bob mueller said. he said it in his report. >> sandra: leslie. >> i find it interesting that when the inspector general comes out and says look, republicans looking into spying if you will prior with regard to trump and his campaign, that report wasn't sufficient, right? we want more investigation. when the democrats say look we have some questions regarding this report, we have some questions regarding the redaction and when you have the house who have a majority democrats who are tasked constitutionally with oversight of the executive branch in a sense they're doing their job and they're saying look -- >> sandra: to be fair i don't think democrats are just saying they have questions.

nancy pelosi publicly claimed that the president is engaged in a crime, a cover-up last week before meeting with the president. >> speaker pelosi with regard to what she said about the president is not necessarily the q and a that left or right would have for robert mueller. it is not just democrats disappointed he won't take any questions. republicans have some questions as well that they want out there. to david's point, this isn't going to do anything with regard to the meter for voters left or right because this isn't even on the radar of voters. it is certainly not in the top ten issues they care about. >> bill: andy mccarthy is with us. had a telephone issue 30 minutes ago. we have the line established now, andy. welcome back to our coverage. try to piece this together. what would be your expectation for bob mueller in 45 minutes? >> i'm having a little trouble with our connection but again i think based on what we were

discussing before, the likelihood here is that he is not going to address his report. he is going to address the pros and cons of at most he will address the pros and cons of whether he would appear to testify. i think the fact that he won't take questions is quite indicative of the notion that he has something he wants to impart. he would like to say it and be done with it. >> bill: one of the issues that came out with bill barr was asking him whether or not he felt that bob mueller was influenced by those who served and worked around him. what is your conclusion on that, andy? >> i'm sorry, i didn't catch the end of that. >> bill: whether or not -- what the president said for two years you have 13 angry democrats working on behalf of bob mueller and the question then that barr was whether or not he believes bob mueller was influenced by those around him to push for a certain outcome. do you believe that to be the

case? >> i certainly do believe that he was pressed to arrive at a certain outcome. my own read of the report for what it's worth is that there are a lot of places where ordinarily a prosecutor would simply say we don't have enough evidence here and leave it at that. prosecutors don't do things like say we can't exonerate because we haven't gotten every piece of information that we could ever get in a way that suggests that it's the burden on the person being investigated to establish his innocence rather than the prosecutors' burden to get enough evidence to charge or what would normally happen is say nothing. i absolutely think that was going on. i don't think, though, that he is going to address that much today. >> bill: there is an i.g. report that will be made public any day now. maybe it's this afternoon. perhaps it's a week or two weeks from now. is bob mueller trying to get a word in prior to the release of that report?

>> i don't think so, bill. it's possible but i think mueller viewed his mandate as determining the culpability or not of president trump and people around president trump. and i think he would see that as different from the mandate of the i.g. which in connection with this particular investigation that we're talking about is to look at the decision making by the investigators. i think those are two -- even though they are related facts they are two different considerations. i don't think that mueller will want to step into that. he could have, if he wanted to, and he clearly didn't. >> sandra: manage expectations as far as the possibility that robert mueller would say anything that went beyond the release of his 400-page report on this investigation. is there any possibility that

we would learn anything different than what he revealed in that report in a few moments? >> well, sandra, i'm too lawyer -- we've been surprised one day after another, right? you always have to have that little bit of caution involved. but i think the thrust of your question is quite right. when you are a prosecutor putting together a submission that has complex facts, that has different doctrines of law that apply, that has a lot of controversy in terms of how to apply the facts to the law and you draw a conclusion after a lengthy consideration and you do it in 448 pages, you've said that as well as you think that you can say it under the circumstances where the facts and the law are complex. you are never going to say it as well shooting from the hip. so what you always have to

guard against in these situations is that you say something that kind of either runs afoul of what you've put in the report or can be spun as if it ran afoul. i think he is going to want to stay away from that. plus if he goes outside the four corners of the report, that would increase the pressure on him, i believe, to testify before congress and my own view of it is he must not want to testify before congress. if he did that probably would have happened already. >> sandra: interesting. we know when he does answer questions from lawmakers he wants it to be behind closed doors. martha maccallum joining us now. good morning to you. you are learning all of this along with us this morning. robert mueller set to speak at 11:00 a.m. eastern, 40 minutes from now. >> sandra: it is a remarkable development and it is clear that robert mueller wants to have his moment in front of the cameras. he wants to make a statement and i think, you know, andy mccarthy makes a great point

here. if he wanted to testify in front of congress he would have done that. it appears he has been looking for a way out of that opportunity and he may believe that making this statement will satisfy that. i think there is a couple of things that we want to sort of be open to and looking for here. it is clear the folks on the team that he worked with that the president has complained about so much over the last couple of years definitely had a great bearing on him and sort of encouraged him to push back against bill barr in terms of his interpretation of their report. will he leave open the question -- will he say anything about congress, such as, you know, whatever congress does from here is their decision. anything along those lines i think will be interpreted as a message from bob mueller that he wants congress to continue to go down this road. so i think any sort of little bread crumbs that he lays out today in the form of this is

still open to some extent is kind of a sentence we'll listen closely to. if he says the opposite. this is done. if he does suggest that his finding was definitive with the question of obstruction, that would also obviously be huge news. but as you both have pointed out, you know, bill barr, who you see on the screen there, the attorney general he and his team worked closely with and with rod rosenstein throughout the entire process here. it is not like these were huge surprises to them when this report came out. they had a little disagreement over the wording in the summary of the findings that bill barr made when he put out that one-page statement that said the president had been exonerated on collusion and there was no determination on obstruction. that's where there is some daylight, a little daylight here between these two men in the interpretation of those words. that is what everybody will be parsing every single word.

>> bill: as a reminder, too, what barr has said he ran everything by bob mueller before he went public with this and that would seem to indicate that mueller was okay with whatever he was putting forward. >> he also said that he offered to show the statement to bob mueller and bob mueller said don't worry about it. or something to that effect, no, i don't need to see that statement. put out your statement. >> bill: what i find interesting about whatever happens at 11:00 a.m. he could do this in front of a house committee quite easily. you wonder why he is having this separate moment today. it may perhaps indicate that there will be no public testimony. not that he doesn't testify but all behind closed doors and does not sit in front of a hearing room for television cameras to watch. maybe this is bob mueller's moment and the end of that moment. >> that would be what it looks like at this point. that he wants to do this in

lieu of that. and we know they've had a hard time negotiating the circumstances under which he would speak to congress. the suggestion is that he put out a 480 some odd page report and worked on it for two years. this is exactly what democrats asked for. they wanted a special counsel. they wanted an outside arbiter. they praised robert mueller in every way when he was assigned to that task. he went about his job. he did it with a team of attorneys that the president felt had a bias against him and yet given all of that they put out a report that showed there was no collusion with the russian government, which was really the primary task of this report to try to figure out whether or not russians are interfering in our elections. interesting to also to remember when you go back on just that note. president obama said right before the election, nobody messes with our election. the russians can't affect the outcome of a united states election. and he said that in the context

at the time because it was a lot of discussion if president trump and candidate trump lost that he might contest the election. well, what a strange sequence of events that it turned out to be exactly the opposite. when president trump won, democrats were very upset and believed it had been stolen from hillary clinton and the nexus of how we found ourselves here years later. >> sandra: we learned about this from the department of justice via a statement a short time ago that robert mueller would be speaking live at 11:00 a.m. eastern time to the nation. a reporter didn't find out about that beforehand. you wonder when the decision was made for him to speak publicly. it is amazing to think we've come to this moment after years now of talking about robert mueller and his investigation and his report and then the release of the report and then hearing from a.g. barr and him testifying public before congress.

and now this moment when he is emerging to speak publicly for the first time 35 minutes from now, martha. >> one of the questions that i have is did he give bill barr a heads-up on this? did they talk about this statement? just given their history i think it's highly likely perhaps they did. >> bill: agreed. >> i think when you look at this statement, which as i say we have to listen to every single word, if he wants to stake his ground and he wants to put any daylight between his report and the interpretation of it by bill barr this will be the moment he chooses to do that. >> bill: he has chosen not to take questions. we can certainly bet on more questions coming out of the statement whatever is said. five days ago the president before his departure from the white house for japan said the following about the mueller matter. >> president trump: they want to do a redo like even the fact they're asking bob mueller to come and testifying. he just gave them a 434 page

report which says no collusion, which leads to absolutely no obstruction. he just gave that report. why does he have to testify? it's ridiculous. >> bill: our coverage continues. we're 32 minutes away we believe from hearing bob mueller make a statement of russian interference in 2016 election. what will he say? we wait together. no questions, just a statement as our coverage continues. want to bring in dr. bill bennett former secretary of education, fox news contributor and judge napolitano as martha maccallum rides shotgun with us. what do you expect in 30 minutes, dr. bennett? >> don't know. remember, my wife and i were watching forrest gump. he finishes running, running for 20 years and four months and they say he will speak and

he says i'm tired, i think i'm going home. that may be what bob mueller says. i'm tired, going home and it is finished. i attach some significance, wisely or not, to the fact he is speaking, correct me if i'm wrong, from the justice department. he is not speaking from the floor, he is not speaking from the house of representatives but from the justice department, a recognition that he is an employee of the justice department for this task. >> bill: fair point. he worked for bill barr. he is an employee as you point out of the department of justice. let's bring in the judge right now and get your sense right now andrew napolitano. >> the attorney general is in alaska as this is happening. we know he won't be there with bob mueller. i doubt that he would draw all of our attention at 11:00 in the morning on a wednesday to his saying i'm submitting my resignation. my guess is he wants to address this latest so-called news

about this which is the allegation by bob woodward, which woodward stands by notwithstanding mueller's press person denying it yesterday, that mueller's team actually drew up an indictment of the president of the united states but decided not to go forward with it because of the angst that would cause in the body politic. that's the best speculation i come up with. >> bill: we were just talking about this with martha and bill i'll bring you back in on this. there is a back and forth in washington whether or not bob mueller sits if front of a tv camera under oath in front of a house committee. we're led to believe negotiations are underway to not do that. to deliver your testimony in private. why would we allow that after two years of twisting in the wind on this russia matter?

why not hear from him? >> that's me? >> bill: indeed. >> well, fine to hear from him but he avoids the lights. this is not a guy who pushes someone else out of the way to get in front of the camera. i agree with the judge that he wants closure. the guy likes -- he submitted a 480-page report. he doesn't want to throw out more dust and thus invite more inquiries from the committee. he wants to be done with it, i think. whether it's that specific issue relating to the bob woodward suggestion or things in general. my guess is he wants to put a rest to it and an end to these deliberations. we're all guessing. we'll wait to see. >> bill: we are. justice department screen left. go back to san salvador and the question. you get the mueller report, you rule there is no obstruction. did you look at any other

possibilities of a crime that were committed? here is the exchange on that. bill barr on white house cooperation. let's roll this now. >> mueller decided not to attempt to subpoena or force the issue with the president. so he made that judgment. and i did say the white house cooperated. what i was referring to there was truly unprecedented delivery of information in the form of millions of pages of documents and the ability to interview white house staff including the president's white house counsel with no holds barred, no privileged claim. that was unprecedented and that's what i was referring to. >> bill: did you find it satisfactory on behalf of the white house? >> it's more than satisfactory. bob mueller obviously felt it

was satisfy >> rudy giuliani fought this for a year. the president was presented questions on the piece of paper. that was the answer by bill barr. i see bill bennett back up here again. do you have something to add? >> no, again, i just think there is criticism of bob mueller that he punted on the obstruction issue. i would be surprised if he addressed that but he might. again, if this is a guy who is interested in closure and ending this issue and getting out of the camera lights and not going to testify, he may want to say something to try to put an end to all this. otherwise this speculation continues. but what barr says there is very interesting. given the opportunities that mueller was offered to push on the president and the testimony there, to make a decision about

obstruction, he passed. and i expect today he is going to say again it's a guess, this thing is over, we completed our report, the country should move on. >> sandra: that was in the hands of attorney general bill barr, judge. just what are the -- when you look at the legality of what robert mueller can and can't do at this moment, he was asked to conduct an investigation. that investigation played out. he said he would not release the findings until a full and fair investigation was completed. he released a 400-page report. are there any chances that robert mueller could change any aspect of his findings when he steps to that lectern? that's what people are wondering. >> i think there are no chances of that whatsoever unless some evidence has come to his attention since he delivered the report. and again i agree with what my friend bill bennett has been saying.

but i would add this. the decisions that he made with respect to obstruction of justice was i am not going to seek an indictment of the president of the united states because my boss is not going to authorize me to do it. i'm not going to embarrass the boss. the attorney general is of the view that a sitting president ought not to be indicted. the justice department has three opinions on this. one says he can be indicted, two say he can't, all three say if a statute of limitations is about to run you have a secret indictment and release it to stop the running of the statute of limitations after the president leaves office. bob mueller is not the type of guy to defy his boss and embarrass his boss in public. so i would defend bob mueller's decision not to come to a definitive decision on obstruction of justice because he knew no matter what he came up with the attorney general was not going to let him seek an indictment which is why i find it a little lacking in

credibility to accept bob woodward's contention which came out two days ago. >> bill: michael wolff, not bob woodward. >> he is not coming on to respond to that. we don't know anything right now other than we'll hear from robert mueller. martha, you have been listening to this. you just wonder if anything is about to change at the 11:00 a.m. eastern time. robert mueller could have easily released a statement. he could have put out a written statement but he is choosing, we assume, to stand up publicly before the american people at that lectern in a few moments to address the nation. >> there is no other way to look at this in this moment other than that robert mueller, who is a long, upstanding member of the washington community, washington, d.c.

community, wants to have his moment to say his piece on this matter. and i think we have every reason to assume that judge napolitano is right. he won't come out and say he found anything different from what we think he found. it does remind me of waiting for the moment when james comey came to the lectern and talked about his findings on hillary clinton and throughout the entire course of that statement by james comey, who as you guys have pointed out wrote a very interesting op-ed that came out yesterday, throughout the entire course of that statement it looked like he had found hillary clinton guilty of something. and then at the very end he said but given the circumstances, no prosecutor would bring charges in this case. it may be and that was so heavily criticized that he made that statement the way he made it. he took the reins of that investigation. robert mueller was handed the reins of this investigation. i wouldn't be surprised in terms of him wanting to put his

own perimeter on this report just as bill barr did when he put out the statement i think robert mueller wants to have his moment. no questions, he probably doesn't want to testify in front of congress or he wouldn't do what he is doing do and say his piece. one last point with regard to the michael wolff book, we've only seen the special counsel speak out twice so far in this whole investigation. once was to shoot down a story that came out about michael cohen that suggested that the special counsel had information on something that the president tried to persuade him to do. they came out and said that's not true. we don't have that information. you won't see it in the report. you have michael wolff saying they wrote an obstruction charge against the president and no doubt that shooting that down or commenting on the validity of that statement may be part of what has prompted this. >> bill: fair point. want to take you may 29th today, 2019. bob mueller was appointed

special counsel on may 17, 2017. you think about that 24 months and counting now october of that year you had the manafort and gates matter, indictments handed down. march of this year mueller delivers his report, two weeks prior to that mueller met in private with bill barr to give him an idea where he was in his conclusion on his report and now we move to today may 29th 2019. we'll hear from bob mueller said to make a statement about russian interference in the 2016 election. we'll wait to hear on that. in the meantime here is bill barr answering the question about collusion with russia. >> bill: can you say when bob mueller knew there was no collusion in russia? >> no, i count say that. >> bill: no date given? >> i couldn't say when he knew. >> bill: part of the reason why this is so important andy

mccarthy, when did bob mueller know there was no collusion. if he knew six months or a year ago why not just come out and tell us? >> i think that's a very good point and i've always thought so. in fact, i've tried to point out that the last fisa warrant that they got for carter page -- remember now the context of the fisa warrant is they're going to court and they're saying the f.b.i. believes that there is this conspiracy that the russians are running a cyber espionage conspiracy that at least carter page and perhaps other people in the trump campaign are involved in. they make that assertion in every single warrant. it would have been time for them to go back to the fisa court and reaffirm those allegations in order to get a warrant in september of 2017. and by that time everybody in the justice department and the f.b.i. who had been involved in the fisa warrants was

essentially gone from the investigation. it was mueller's baby and at that point they did not go back to the fisa court to get another warrant. i think that had to be because they were doubtful about the information that the warrant had been issued on the basis of. i'm pretty convinced it must have been no later than the end of 2017 that they knew that there was no collusion conspiracy because if you look at mueller's indictments after that, especially the indictments of the russians, there is no indication in those indictments that they were looking for partners on the american side. not the trump campaign or anyone else. >> sandra: is there any reason for which robert mueller needs to speak publicly at 11:00 a.m. eastern time that you can find? >> well no, i think the interesting thing here that we need i think to keep our eye on is that this is clearly not a renegade move. mueller is going to speak at

the justice department. evidently this announcement was put out by the justice department. i thought martha's point was very intriguing. i'm actually envious i didn't think of it myself. the last time we heard from mueller was when he shot down this false story that had been put out by media reporting about whether president trump had directed cohen to lie to congress. and i think it is interesting that we have this story now that apparently it was a story that they started to draw up an obstruction indictment against the president. the only times we've heard from mueller and there has been -- remember, there has been a million rumors over the last two or three years. but the time that we heard from him was when it was kind of the honor of his own investigation that was called into question. that buzz feed story about cohen was sourced to people

that when you read the story, that could have indicated to people that mueller's own shop was leaking to the media. and that's the kind of thing that obviously got him agitated. so whether that's relevant to what we're about to hear or not, i don't know. but i just would point out whatever he is about to do has been coordinated with the justice department. >> sandra: one of our producers in washington confirming the white house was advised that robert mueller would be making this public statement last night. whether or not they were informed by the justice department what that statement will be we do not know. as we await that tom dupree joins us now. we can wait and 18 minutes from now we'll hear from robert mueller. >> it is intriguing. many of us including myself thought the first time we would hear from bob mueller publicly would be when he testified before congress. they put this together on relatively short notice

apparently. while we can't know for sure what the exact substance will be, we can be sure mueller is not about to go rogue. it won't be a free wheeling press conference. he won't take questions. i think mueller for whatever reason decided presumably in conference with the attorney general it made sense for him personally to make a tightly scripted public statement. that's what i'm expecting. i don't think it will catch the attorney general offguard. i suspect the attorney general knows the message that bob mueller is delivering but it is notable he is holding this press conference and making the statement personally as opposed to speaking through a press release or as people have said special counsel speaks through his written report which he has already submitted. >> bill: what's interesting the viewing public would not understand but bob mueller and bill barr had a lot of communication together and they've gone back a long time. here is the exchange number eight on mueller's testimony with bill barr. >> bill: you are okay with him testifying? >> absolutely. >> bill: he works for you or

under you. or did. >> yes. >> bill: what seems to be the hold up. jerry nadler said it will happen soon, june or not. do you have any information or not? >> my understanding is that chairman nadler is talking this over with bob mueller and his staff and trying to schedule it. >> bill: you expect it to happen? >> i have no reason to think it won't. >> bill: do you believe members of mueller's team around him put pressure on him to include certain aspects in that report? >> i don't want to speculate. i just don't know. >> bill: do you believe he gave into the pressure? >> i don't want to speculate. i wasn't there to watch the interaction of the staff. >> it's intriguing. one thing that surprised me a little bit. right after the mueller report dropped everyone was talking about when will he testify on the hill? that appeared to be the democrats and congressman nadler's priority was to get

bob mueller under questioning. that's on the back burner. they are still in discussions, the attorney general said he had no objection but it is a bit of an intriguing mystery why it hasn't been scheduled and why we haven't heard from bob mueller before congress. >> bill: a note from jake gibson. you see that there? multiple sources familiar with the matter tell us that a.g. barr is aware of mueller's plan to make this statement today. one source saying barr has been made aware of the contents of mueller's statement. so they are in perhaps not lock step but are well aware of the intentions. >> sandra: other reporting one of our fbn reporters in washington to add to all this reporting that the white house was advised the statement will be made last night. sarah sanders was asked about whether the president was made aware of the upcoming remarks from robert mueller. they said they're monitoring the situation. she said that she had no comment on whether the president would be making a

public statement following the mueller remarks. and they are also reporting that senior press staff is heading into a half hour meeting right now. so this is just -- we're learning all this. as we get it we'll share it with you. the white house had a heads-up this will be happening. we don't know they know what he is about to say but they are monitoring the situation. >> bill: back to andy mccarthy. piece a few things together based on what you are gathering now. >> i think it just underscores what we've been saying, bill. not a renegade move. this is something that has been coordinated and i don't say that in a schemey way. it's the way things are supposed to happen. you know, a lot of times -- i think ken starr has spoken very eloquently and inform actively to this. when he was an independent counsel it was under a statute that required the independent counsel to be a hybrid who

reported both to the justice department and congress. the special counsel, a creature of regulation after the independent counsel last very firmly makes the special counsel a subordinate prosecutor in the justice department chain of command and i think bob mueller, you know, whatever you may think of him and his report, is somebody who is a believer in institutions and a believer in chain of command.

>> bill: maybe this statement replaces testimony on the hill. >> that's right. that's one of the most intriguing things about all this. we heard the drumbeat to get mueller on the hill. not clear whether it will happen or when it will happen. it wouldn't surprise me if mueller came out. made his statement and there would be a response to congress and nadler to say mueller has already appeared in public an discussed it. he is not taking any questions, which is what the democrats will hammer away on. this is the first opportunity the public will have to hear directly from the special counsel himself. >> bill: our viewers at home

are learning as we are. we won't leave it until we see mueller in the room. it appears to have been according to blake a very tight circle of those in the no including lindsey graham chairman of the senate judiciary committee who found about it today. joining our coverage ian prior, from the department of justice and good morning to you. weigh in on what you believe we are embarking on today. >> thanks for having me. it's been said earlier, bob mueller works for the department of justice. this is something where he will go -- he won't contradict something the attorney general was done or at justice in a press conference setting. i would suspect he will get up there and spend time selling some of the things that have come out about his report specifically i think he would address the letter that the attorney general sent to congress and i would expect mueller to say that he did not

believe that was a misrepresentation of the mueller report. i would also expect him to say his decision on obstruction of justice was not solely because of the department of justice ruling against indicting a sitting president. it had more to do with other factors as well and it was not a simple but for cause. >> bill: okay, all right. there is another opinion that might take us in a different direction, sandra. >> sandra: certainly, ian, it has been a moment that so many on the left and the right have been wanting and asking for. some have been demanding. others said let it happen. that's what is about to happen. we have no guidance as to the contents of his statement. >> certainly. i think that again if mueller were to do something that i think democrats would be happy with, he wouldn't do it in this

setting. i think he would talk to a reporter, grifsh an interview. this is a d.o.j. sanctioned press conference on the seventh floor. i saw a report from a "washington post" reporter that the d.o.j. beat reporter saying that this is going to be a substantive press conference which means that information was given to him from somewhere inside the department of justice. so i really think that democrats and the entire trump crowd that will be another -- again are going to be solely disappointed in the contents. it is possible that he gets up there and also stands up for what he thinks may have been accusations against some of his team. i think that is a possibility as well but i think by and large most of this is going to be backing up what the attorney general has said and done with respect to the mueller report. >> bill: a lot of people will be pining for details as i'm certain you are as well. the viewing public will be certainly and everybody in congress. andy mccarthy points out it is not mueller's call to end it

here or to just ride into the sunset. he could be sub eened before congress. >> he could. by going out there and expressing some questions that congress has publicly put out there he will strengthen his case and the department of justice's case not to put him out there in front of congress if that's the decision they want to make. if he goes out there and says what he has to say and it would be difficult, not impossible. we've seen a lot from house democrats. for them to come out and say we can't trust what mueller says unless it's under oath and for two years they talked about his integrity. he has strong integrity. marine, f.b.i. director. when he says what he needs to say it will be very difficult for democrats to credibly say they need him under oath or can't take his press conference at his word. >> bill: you make some interesting points. let me bring in andy mccarthy

to respond to that as you are listening there, andy. interesting his points there. what do you make of it? >> i agree with all of that. i think that one thing he could do today if it actually is a coordinated press conference, is underscore the reasons why he has filed his report. he said what he wanted to say as well as he can say it. the things that have been withheld have been withheld because of legal requirements like grand jury information, so that a public hearing would put him in a position of being asked to address things that by law are not supposed to be addressed, which he probably doesn't want to be put in that kind of a position. that's a long winded way of saying he could be strengthening the formal case of why they should not call him as a witness. my only point is especially with the committees talking about bringing in people like

don mcgahn the former white house counsel, that underscores it is really on them who they call. it is really their choice who to subpoena. i don't think they want mueller unless they think he is going to be a good witness for them. and he very well not be. >> bill: how could he not be a good witness, andy? >> well, the report is not something that you would sensibly to my mind at least launch an impeachment inquiry about. if he is going to testify in a way that's consistent with the report, i don't see how that advances their political case to impeach the president. >> sandra: it has been 68 days since the special counsel delivered the entire report to the attorney general william barr. march 22nd. here we are may 29th, 68 days later. some saying this is the first time he will speak publicly

since the investigation. that report was 400 pages. that was robert mueller's report. this is the first time that he will address the nation publicly since he released that report. it is an important moment, andy. >> it's a critically important moment and he is not only released the investigation -- the investigative report, it is not like we didn't hear from him before then. he filed a number of indictments and i pointed out a number of times some indictments can be the bare bones paragraph where the prosecutor lays out what the charging language is. mueller's indictments were speaking indictments and narratives about what his investigation was uncovering. we have heard quite a lot from him but it is still an important moment. >> sandra: you've got a live look there at the justice department. bret baier joining us now anchor of "special report". the room is filling up. the moment is coming where we'll hear from robert mueller three minutes from now. >> that's right. you have done a valiant job

after we had this announcement kind of filling this space to figure out what potentially he is going to say but it is very difficult. we don't know. we're getting those nuggets throughout the time. jake gibson saying the attorney general knows the contents of the statement. the white house learning about the statement last night. we now know jerry nadler, the house judiciary committee chairman knows about and knew about the statement. we're seeing the "washington post" is reporting it will be about eight minutes long. while they say it is substantial. any time bob mueller will speak publicly it's substantial. so i think it's all, you know, until we get him on that lectern you don't know exactly what he is going to say. i will say this, that the attorney general in that interview with bill was kind of matter of fact and he was very -- he is going to go down the

row of looking into all these things including investigating the investigators. this comes after that michael wolff book and the reporting on it and the public statement from the mueller team that it was not true and the documents don't exist of an obstruction of justice indictment that he says that they were writing up. >> sandra: as you mentioned, bret, we're so dependent on any nugget coming in because we don't know what the statement will include. this is per the print pool reporter just a few moments ago who was in the press secretary's office as they prepare the lectern there. they are describing this as a half hour meeting that is about to convene with senior press staff. interesting to note that sarah sanders would not rule out whether or not we'll hear from the president following the statement from robert mueller. but they are monitoring the situation, we know that much. bret, if you could stand by for us. >> bill: we'll pause a moment for our fox stations to join us

as our coverage continues as we go on stand by here for bob mueller. just give a little time-out here. you'll hear a pause in the audio and then when we rejoin you in a matter of moments we expect to see bob mueller there. we were given a two-minute warning about a minute or so ago. bob mueller is in the offing at the podium at the department of justice. let's get a pause and allow stations down the line to join us as our coverage continues of what will be possibly a significant announcement from bob mueller. this is fox news coverage of bob mueller set to make a statement on the russia probe. i'm bill hemmer in new york along with sandra smith and bret baier in washington, d.c. bob mueller should be at the microphone in a matter of seconds. what he says we do not know. we were given one statement that says bob mueller set to make a statement on the investigation into russian interference during the 2016 election. a statement only.

no question and answer period to follow. >> the key part. the first time we will have heard from him in two years and it is after his 400-page report has been submitted. we don't know if he is going to testify on capitol hill. he may address that as well in this statement. we do know the white house knew about it last night. they were informed of it and we do know the attorney general, who is in alaska today, was briefed about it and the contents of this statement. >> bill: very interesting that barr is in alaska and he knew the statement was coming and knows the content of the statement. bob mueller now at the microphone. >> good morning, everyone. thank you for being here. two years ago the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel's office. the appointment order directed the office to investigate

russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this included investigating any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign. i have not spoken publicly during our investigation. i am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. the attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. we are formally closing the special counsel's office and as well i'm resigning from the department of justice to return to private life. i'll make a few remarks about the results of our work but beyond these few remarks it is important the office's written work speak for itself. let me begin where the appointment order begins and that is interference in the

2016 presidential election. as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment russian intelligence officers who were part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and then released that information through fake online and identities and through the organization wikileaks. the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian entity engaged in a social media operation where russian citizens posed as americans in order to influence an election.

these indictments contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant. every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. the indictments allege and the other activities in our report describe efforts to interfere in our political system. they needed to be investigated and understood and that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office. that is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. the matters we investigated were of paramount importance and was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. when a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government's effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.

let me say a word about the report. the report has two parts. addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. in the second volume the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president. the order appointing the special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. and as set forth in the report

after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. the introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. it explains that under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept underseal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. the department's written opinion explaining the policy

makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. those points are summarized in our report and i will describe two of them for you. first, it permits the investigation of a sitting president because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. among other things that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now. second, the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. beyond department policy we were guided by principles of fairness. it would be unfair to potentially -- it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there

can be no court resolution of the actual charge. so that was justice department policy. those were the principles under which we operated, and from them we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. that is the office's -- that is the office's final position and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. we conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general. as required by department regulations. the attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and to the american people. at one point in time i requested that certain portions of the report be released. the attorney general preferred to make the entire report public all at once.

we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public and i certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision. now i hope and expect this to be the only time i will speak to you in this manner. i am making that decision myself. no one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter. there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. it contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself and the report is my testimony. i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. in addition, access to our underlying work product is

being decided in a process that does not involve our office. so beyond what i've said here today and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the justice department or congress. it's for that reason i will not be taking questions today as well. now before i step away, i want to thank the attorneys, the f.b.i. agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. these individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel's office were of the highest integrity. i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments that there were multiple, systematic efforts to

interfere in our election. that allegation deserves the attention of every american. thank you. thank you for being here today. >> bill: in about an eight or nine minute at the same time there from bob mueller at the department of justice he says he is now leaving the department and his work is finished. two points there. there was insufficient evidence to conclude there was any russian collusion between the trump campaign and moscow. the second point on obstruction based on longstanding policy, he says, the president cannot be charged saying we did not make a determination because it was unfair to conclude a crime if there is no trial. this is the only time according to bob mueller that he says he will speak about the matter. this was his call suggesting that there will be no testimony from him before congress. we'll see whether or not that stands. there could always be a

subpoena now the road on that. the statement from bob mueller, d.o.j., attorney general himself bill barr is traveling in alaska. updates from his trip as we get them. please stay tuned to the fox news channel for continuing coverage on this story. i'm bill hemmer in new york. >> bill: now our coverage continues on cable. sandra. >> sandra: bret baier standing by. your take away from all that? robert mueller resigning and returning to private life. he said a lot there. >> he did. he also said he is not planning on testifying and bill is right. there could be a subpoena that compels him to but he is making the choice not to. i was struck by the tone and tenor of the remarks as he laid out his case wrapping up this report. this was not as the president says time and time again no collusion, no obstruction. it was much more newanceed than

that. he said they couldn't find evidence on the collusion part of the investigation of the trump campaign. he said if they had found that the president did not commit a crime on obstruction, they would have said that. and then went into specific details about the d.o.j. policy and why they couldn't move forward with anything else than their decision. now, what is going to happen with this? this statement is going to be digested and looked over, analyzed word for word up on capitol hill. it was not anywhere as clear-cut as attorney general bill barr. it was almost exactly the opposite. not clear-cut. >> sandra: he said this is the last time you will hear from me in this matter. as you just said and bill noted he could be subpoenaed, of

course. and we will continue to hear likely the push for him to testify on capitol hill. he could do that also as a private citizen, right, bret? >> he could, he is choosing not to. he is saying the report speaks for itself and at 400 pages plus there is a lot in there. i think it was also compelling to listen to him talk about the danger of russia and the actions that russia actually took. and oftentimes as we talk about the politics of where this is going, you forget the substance of russia did take an attack mode towards our election. and is the u.s. ready or prepared for that if it happens again? ending his remarks with that. i think this was striking. i think it is different than what attorney general barr has been saying about it. and i think it will be a firecracker or a bomb up on capitol hill today. >> sandra: all right. bret if you could stand by.

>> bill: tom dupree is with us as well. your reaction to what we just heard from bob mueller. >> i think it was typical bob mueller. i think that he is obviously a sober man of few words and the one message that i took away again and again is that he spoke through his report. he does not intend to go beyond that. he made explicitly clear if he were someday to be brought to congress or public forum he wouldn't say anything that was already in the report. i think what was also interesting although he is careful not to go beyond what he said in his report he was very careful and thoughtful about highlighting certain passages in the report. i think as a way of drawing public attention to some conclusions that may have gotten lost in all the political back and forth. >> bill: such as what? >> for example. one of the things he talked about was the statement in the report that if they had had evidence ex cull pateing the president she would have said it. they didn't say it. he deliberately put a spotlight on that and deliberately put a spotlight on the bottom line

conclusion about insufficient evidence to charge anyone beyond the russians themselves in the conspiracy portion of volume one. i think what mueller was doing without going beyond the words of his report he wanted to focus the public's attention on specific statements, specific findings and in all likelihood as rebutting a lot of inferences that people have been drawing about his work. >> bill: two years, $35 million and it's insufficient evidence, so let it go. >> right. and i think that he also performed a useful service in reminding people by beginning his statement with reminding everyone why he was appointed. russian interference and his bottom line there was interference by the russians but insufficient evidence to charge any american with that. >> sandra: andy mccarthy. you have been with us as we awaited the statement from robert mueller. what did you take away there,

andy? >> sandra, this is an explosive statement. we will be talking about impeachment from now until the foreseeable future. what mueller said which runs against what we had heard up until now but was certainly suggested in his report, was that the office of legal counsel guidance was essentially the reason why they didn't make a conclusion about obstruction. now, as it happens on the legal merits of that i think he is completely wrong. i think it was his responsibility to make a decision about whether there was a prosecutable case and then it would have been up to the attorney general and justice department to decide whether to invoke the guidance or not that says that a sitting president can't be indicted. but whether i'm right or wrong about that, what mueller said was the reason we didn't draw a conclusion about obstruction was because the president couldn't be charged anyway so there was no point in indicting him. then he took the next step of

saying in any event, in this system the way that you discipline presidential excess is not left to federal prosecutors. what he meant by that obviously is it's meant to congress and or left to congress in the impeachment process. so pretty explosive. >> sandra: i'll repeat those two lines that you've just paraphrased word for word. he just said if i had evidence and if that evidence was clear that he did not commit a crime, we would have said so. he then said charging the president with a crime was not an option we could consider. he did not question the attorney general's good faith in his decision. no one is telling me whether i should speak or not speak or testify or not testify. but anything he says will not go beyond the report. the investigation is complete. he made that point twice and he said we chose our words very carefully.

>> very carefully and very wrongly. it is simply not true that he couldn't make a decision about whether there was enough evidence to prosecute an obstruction case or not. the guidance doesn't say the president can never be indicted. it says a sitting president can't be indicted and the prosecutor who has the investigation has the job of making that determination. do we have a case or not? if you decide you do have a case, and then the justice department wants to invoke the guidance that says a sitting president can't be indicted, then so be it. mueller's job, i think, was to find out do we have a prosecutable case or not. regardless of that, what he says is important in two ways. number one, he is saying there may very well be a prosecutable obstruction case but they decided they couldn't go there because of the guidance. and secondly, under circumstances where congress doesn't need a prosecutable

case in order to impeach, what he said is in this system the way a president gets disciplined is not by federal prosecutors, it is my congress. >> sandra: andy mccarthy, thank you. >> bill: bret hume is with us. as we bring you into this conversation take you back to a moment ago. the key statement that bob mueller delivered that is the point of controversy now. >> under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional. even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. the spshl counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. >> bill: mueller a moment ago. brit hume by telephone. what is your read on this at

the moment? >> this will be parsed to death as everybody has suggested. i would say, bill, i didn't really hear him saying anything that isn't in the report. that whole disposition about whether they could or could not charge a sitting president, that was all set forth in the report as part of the rationale for not reaching a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice. i the end to think andy mccarthy is right. it was his job to make a determination one way or the other and let the department of justice go ahead and invoke we can't prosecute guidance or not. and i would add this. look at this way, bill. if this is the guiding policy, that would mean that had mueller found collusion coordination, conspiracy, he wouldn't have been able to say that, either, for the same reason. now, i think everyone will recognize that doesn't make any sense. as it happened he didn't find

that. he was able to say that. if he had found otherwise, he is saying here he couldn't say it. he couldn't conclude that, which means that from the beginning if there was anything found he was on a fool's errand. setting out to do an investigation about which on neither matter -- major matter involving the president could he reach a conclusion. so i think we can see that there is something faulty in his argument but it is going to be picked up and cited as evidence that there was obstruction you see and only justice department guidelines prevented mueller from reaching that conclusion. >> bill: i'll go to bret in washington after this. is your answer suggesting that for those on the left that are pushing nancy pelosi to pursue impeachment this will give them more fuel? >> i think it will. i don't know whether it legitimately will. as i say, everything -- all that stuff he said about why

they couldn't reach a conclusion is in the report. but the determination to keep this alive is not going to be deterred by this. and so that's where we are and that's where we'll be for as far as the eye can see as the democrats have to figure out a way to deal with this issue to please their base and yet not go so far as to alienate the broader american public and that is as a political matter exactly where the matter now stands. >> bill: thank you for that. >> sandra: interesting, bret baier, many different takes in the few minutes that followed that statement. what reaction are you seeing? >> first of all i think brit is right. i will supercharge democrats ton the left and make nancy pelosi's job lot harder. the impeachment calls will increase after this statement. even though what he said is in the report.

but you have the republican congressman amash who did a town hall who said people aren't reading the report and saying he is moving forward calling for impeachment. what mueller does here is he says what really he said the prosecutors shouldn't do. that is they couldn't make a case. they may have had a case but they couldn't bring one. they didn't bring one. and he suggested essentially impeachment as a solution there on the obstruction side. i also think that as i mentioned at the beginning, he phrased it that there was not enough sufficient evidence to make the conspiracy charge on a broader conspiracy looking at the trump campaign. he didn't say there was no american that worked with the russians. he didn't say there was no collusion at all. he said there wasn't enough sufficient evidence to make the case. so in both cases it is almost like jim comey where he says there were a lot of bad things that happened but we're not going forward because we can't make the case. >> bill: we have that sound

bite, bret. that phrase insufficient evidence that you were just describing. play it for the audience from bob mueller. >> the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. >> bill: there it is again. insufficient evidence on a broader conspiracy. if you're the white house and the president and rudy giuliani you're saying two years, $30 million, insufficient? >> you're bill barr and say let's be more clear. he is getting a lot of criticism for whatever they call it protecting the president but the attorney general looks at that report and comes to a conclusion and delivers his summary, his conclusion, his decisions. and it's just very different

tone and the focus from bob mueller's statement >> sandra: bret, stand by. thank you, brit hume joining us again. brit, of course we've been asking the white house for any sort of response from the president to robert mueller's remarks. no response yet. that's about all we have at this point. still waiting on a lot of reaction and reaction from capitol hill. >> you can certainly expect at some point the white house or the president or both will say we're right where we started before today. no collusion, no obstruction. of course the no obstruction decision was made not by mueller but by the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. it was perhaps noteworthy that in the course of his statement mueller said with regard to the way the attorney general handled this and especially with regard to the way he released the information that he did not doubt barr's good faith. it is clear that mueller wasn't

too pleased with the initial summary of top line conclusions that barr put out but i never said they were inaccurate. and he didn't again today. if he wanted to say that he could have. he didn't. in fact, as i say, he noted what he considered to be the good faith of the attorney general and his behavior. so mueller now leaves the stage. it seems doubtful he will testify before congress. once again i come back to this point. if his legal reasoning is correct about the obstruction of justice matter it would have applied as well to the collusion conspiracy matter. if he found evidence to that effect that was sufficient to bring an indictment he couldn't have said so according to him because of justice department policy. i think that reasoning is on its face questionable. >> sandra: brit, stand by. we also want to bring in catherine herridge chief intelligence correspondent live at the justice department where

robert mueller made his remarks and something else that stood out is he said it's very important that the written work referring to the mueller report, speaks for itself >> sandra, often it's a little bit different when you're inside the room with the principal speaking. a few of the high points i noted. he spoke from a prepared text for eight minutes based on our reporting the attorney general william barr was briefed in advance on the contents of the mueller statement. and he said in a sense that the testimony he would give to congress if he did testify is contained in the four corners of his report. he said the report is my testimony and i think this is the strongest indicator that he has no plans at this stage to testify to congress either in public or behind closed doors. he gave us a systematic run threw of the findings of the report. he talked about russia interference. he said it is a serious and

systematic approach by russian intelligence to hack into accounts. release emails to create maximum damage for a presidential candidate, hillary clinton and he talks about the use of social media accounts spoofing as american citizens to create issues that further divided americans. the big headline is his discussion of the obstruction issue and there are two buckets here if you could let me run through them. what robert mueller said today is that the office of legal counsel's opinion this is an office that's housed inside the justice department behind me. the lawyer for the executive branch. they have found you cannot indict a sitting president and robert mueller said that this was one of the guiding principles that prevented any indictment of president trump on the obstruction matter. but on the other side of it when attorney general william barr testified what he said is that he looked at the construct

and metrics laid out by robert mueller's team and the evidence they presented and he analyzed it along with the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and they felt putting the olc opinion aside that you can't indict a sitting president, based on the framework laid out by robert mueller's team and the evidence they had found, they still did not believe that they had met the standard for bringing an obstruction charge. final point and i say this as someone who has covered robert mueller for 18 years and i was here a couple of years ago when director comey gave his statement, it is highly unusual to see events where a principal delivers a written statement in effect and does not take questions from a reporter. that's highly unusual and that may open him up to criticism that he is in effect a dirtying up the president and not allowed reporters to question that motivation. >> sandra: catherine herridge for us. >> bill: we'll go to newt

gingrich in a moment. want to bring back our attorneys andy mccarthy and tom dupree. the law can be judged in different ways, tom, you start again. there is the house speaker, newt gingrich. if he is ready i'll go to newt gingrich. if you're just joining our coverage. bob mueller spoke 20 minutes ago. tell us your initial reaction, mr. speaker. >> well, you know, ken starr issued an independent counsel report on bill clinton. he said used the word guilty 11 times. 6 of them were obstruction of justice. it wasn't complicated. he just said you asked me to report, here is my report. he is guilty. he did these things. now, if mueller had used the word guilty once we would be in a different world. mueller wrote this convoluted, complex two entire chapters and

doesn't conclude anything that is -- as a historian he didn't come out and say president trump is guilty of anything. where starr said unhe quifshically that clinton was guilty of 11 counts. that is a major difference where we are today. comey and mueller are trying to have it both ways. they want to be statesman and like everybody to respect them. in mueller's case he had two full years, a huge team. they wrote a report. now if they can't get their report right, i don't know why they're coming back later to tell us what it is they wish they might have said and i think mueller is better off just it's over, go home, relax, and comey's case i think he is scared to death of what attorney general barr is doing and the fact a lot of stuff will be public that will make comey's directorship look

really, really bad. >> bill: two things here. address them. point number one insufficient evidence on russian collusion. you could draw the inference that they could not find it because it did not exist or they weren't able to locate it because they could not make it fact. your reaction. >> oh, come on. give me a break. they interviewed 500 people. they spent millions of dollars. they put several people in solitary confinement for lengths of time which frankly should be unamerican. then find, what are they complaining about? they didn't find it. they had all are resources, left wing lawyers that didn't like trump. they went all out and didn't get anything. at some point in the hunt you have to decide there is no deer in the forest. and the fact is they couldn't prove anything. and they ought to relax and just say you know, in the absence of proof in america, you are innocent.

therefore by definition president trump is innocent. >> bill: point two on obstruction. we didn't make a determination based on longstanding guidelines within the d.o.j. that a sitting president cannot be charged. it would be unfair to consider it a crime if there is no trial. react to that. >> you don't have to say oats a crime. you could say we found him guilty of obstruction. ken starr didn't say indict clinton. he said congress should be aware of the following facts. and he rendered a judgment. now mueller had every right to render a judgment without demanding an indictment. he could have said we have reached a conclusion that he was guilty of obstruction. they don't say that. so again, in the absence of a conclusion that he is guilty under the american system he is innocent. on the two major areas that mueller investigated you have to say if you are playing by the american rules and a person

is innocent until proven guilty, that trump is innocent on both those counts. >> bill: thank you, stand by in washington, d.c. back to sandra for more. >> sandra: let's go to the legal team andy mccarthy and tom dupree and judge napolitano. you have all had time to digest the words of robert mueller a short time ago. let's look back at his final thought before he left the podium there. >> i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments that there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election. that allegation deserves the attention of every american. >> sandra: where is your thinking on all this, judge? >> my thinking is the white house can't be happy about this, sandra. and you actually put your finger on one of the two or three core things that he said. the multiple systematic efforts to interfere with the

investigation were led, conducted and orchestrated by the president himself. that's at least a fair reading from the report itself if you read the evidence behind each of the 10 allegations of the attempts to interfere. i was surprised at this because i didn't think it was necessary. i thought that he was going to deny michael wolff allegation about the preparation as i told you earlier of an indictment which never got anywhere. he didn't deny that existence even though everybody knows that allegation is out there. he really took a parting shot at his former boss because the statement he made today is far harsher towards the president of the united states than anything attorney general barr has said. and he has opened up a can of woerms for democrats yet again to say did the president commit crimes? but he wasn't charged just because he is the president? i think a fair answer to that is out of bob mueller's mouth yes. >> sandra: tom dupree, he did

say in his remarks he did not question the attorney general's good faith in his decision, tom. >> right. that was a clear signal that he disagreed with what the attorney general said. no need to say i think he was acting in good faith if he was 100% supportive of what the attorney general. it was his way of saying his disagreement with attorney general. the obstruction issue. mueller said that charging the president was not an option. but he also said that ex cull pateing the president and declaring him innocent was an option but they didn't take that option. what mueller is doing here is now saying to the congress, to the democrats in particular, the ball is in your court. you aren't going to be getting any more help from me, bob mueller. my farewell from the public stage. i won't comment beyond what we said in the written report. it is up to you to take my work and decide what to do with it. >> sandra: andy, him saying we

did not however make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. he went on to explain department policy and concluded that portion of his remarks by saying charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we would consider. you said the left is going to run with this now and we'll hear a lot about impeachment. where is your thinking now? >> well i think what tom just said is right. he may have just -- he may be saying democrats can't expect any more help from them but he gave them lots of help today. basically what he said is that we didn't find obstruction because the office of legal counsel guidance prevented us from drawing that conclusion. hint, hint, otherwise we may very well have drawn it. secondly, by the way, in this system, the way that a president is supposed to be disciplined if the president has acted in an untoward way or abused his power is for congress to step in implicitly

to impeach. congress doesn't need a prosecutable offense in order to do that. so what he is essentially saying is it's for the democrats to take it from here but you get to take it from here under circumstances where you can now argue that the prosecutor would have found felony obstruction of justice had it not been for the olc guidance. that's what we'll hear from here on out. one of the things that has to happen here is there is a dispute between barr and mueller, i believe, on what federal obstruction law holds. barr tried to get past that and just say on the facts of the case there is no obstruction. i don't see any avoiding now that you have to work out what the legal standards of obstruction are in the department of justice. i think that now has to happen. >> sandra: what are the chances this is the last we heard from robert mueller? >> slim and none.

once bob mueller is no longer an employee of the justice department. which is the case by the end of the day today. he can be subpoenaed by jerry nadler and the judiciary just like everybody else. he has no privilege. the president has no ability to assert a privilege and he has to testify. they may want him to testify in secret, gravely disappointing to the american public who would like to see him questioned. i would like to have seen him questioned today. but there is no way for him to avoid or evade that subpoena which we know will come. >> sandra: i hear you responding, andy. >> i just think that the judge is right. he can certainly be subpoenaed but he still has obligations because this work that he did was work as a government official. he still has obligations to classified information. there is justice department regulations that still apply to him about what he can say about matters that he learned about in his capacity as a federal

prosecutor. it is not like he can go in and say whatever he wants. >> sandra: andy mccarthy, tom dupree, reaction from the president. nothing changes from the mueller report. insufficient evidence and therefore in our country a person is innocent writes the president. this case is closed. thank you. president trump just a moment ago. >> bill: amash held a town hole. moments ago he tweeted ball is in our court, congress. i want to bring back if bret baier on this. he was in grand rapids last night. they asked him why doesn't he leave the republican party if this is the way he feels. he suggested that it's difficult to run as an independent in the state of michigan. makes it hard. he is the first republican in the party that is moving forward like many of the left are. >> he was also well received in that town hall overall. and explaining himself. i want to pick up something

that andy mentioned. that is that there was a big, big difference in what attorney general barr said about the olc, the office of legal counsel. and that is the barr said in the q and a originally when he came out and talked to reporters that mueller had told him the olc opinion had nothing to do with mueller's and the team's decision not to move forward on an obstruction charge. that's what barr said publicly. i think he reiterated that in his testimony on capitol hill probably can pull that sound bite. that's exactly opposite of what robert mueller said today. also the report itself is more definitive in its lack of collusion or conspiracy. the fact they couldn't find any american who worked alongside the russians to interfere with the russian investigation. we've read those sentences before. to hear robert mueller say it today, it was much more dialed back and much more insufficient evidence to make a case on the

broader conspiracy. that is not no american colluded with the russians. i think the tone and tenor and substance of the difference between mueller and barr will be something that is going to be really hyped on. >> bill: kevin mccarthy threw amash under the bus and dismissed his criticism suggesting he doesn't vote with republicans and almost wondered why he was still ?t party, bret. >> there will be more of that and he is welcomed with trumpets and fanfare in other cases making the case for impeachment. i think the real political question here is for nancy pelosi. after this statement, there will be a ton of pressure on the speaker of the house and she has not wanted to move forward with impeachment. >> bill: she is 18 months away from a national election. she rules a caucus that can be

very progressive and very much against this white house. she also rules a caucus with members who come from the state of virginia, and california that barely won their elections in 2018. her play is to keep both satisfied. what is the state of that play today do you believe? >> it's dangerous tight rope is what it is. because you saw her press conference when she came out and made the case that they can actually do things, walk and chew gum. you saw her say there is not a wish by the democratic caucus overall to go after impeachment. the problem is that she would like to have impeachment without the impeachment. she would like to have the hearings and negativity without the actual process. she remembers the political backlash of impeachment and how much time and effort and oxygen it takes out of washington >> bill: bret, i want to bring in rudy giuliani by telephone

now, the president's attorney. thank you for your time. go ahead. you watched bob mueller. your reaction to what he said. >> i don't think it's much of a reaction. it just repeats the report. he said no evidence or insufficient evidence, the same thing for a prosecutor. of collusion. and although he couldn't reach a decision on obstruction, that's his decision. when a prosecutor can't reach a decision that's the decision. there is no case on obstruction, there is no case on collusion. when he goes on to discuss the d.o.j. policy, we all know that's the d.o.j. policy. when i first met him he was unsure whether he could indict or not. but obviously he can't. we all know that. he still wanted his opinions in the report. the report is 430 pages of opinion. so the reality is he offered his opinion on collusion and obstruction, opinion on

collusion was there is no case. opinion on obstruction was that he couldn't conclude that the president committed obstruction. >> bill: two things if i could interject. insufficient evidence on russian collusion. what does that suggest to you when he concludes it that way? do you believe that is stated any differently than in the mueller report? >> no. there are all different ways of saying it. the reality is that's what a prosecutor does. when he has the -- it is completely foreign to american law. i did it for years, i never exonerated anyone. i found is there enough evidence to bring a charge or isn't there? if not enough evidence to bring a charge, end of case, case is over. >> bill: as a lawyer, why does he use that language insufficient evidence? >> because i believe spending all that time with people

likewiseman he has lost his notion of american status. i think to me as a lawyer it's astounding that he is expounding on can we or can't we exonerate. can't we do this or that. the reality is he doesn't have a collusion case or an obstruction case. if he was constrained by this justice department rule why did he do the investigation at all? >> bill: when do you think he knew there was insufficient evidence zblie think the republicans would have a field day with him. i think he concluded that a year before. in fact, i think it's going to come out in the next couple of months the investigation should never have been started in the first place. >> bill: are you suggesting it's april or may of 2018? >> i think when papadopoulos fell apart that he knew they didn't have a case. >> bill: i don't know when that date was? >> i don't know exactly when

but it was a year before they filed their report. >> bill: on the obstruction charge here he said based on longstanding guidelines the president cannot be charged. now, you fought for a year to make sure that president trump did not sit down with bob mueller or anyone on his team. you did submit answers on paper, question and answer back and forth but no face-to-face interview. he is making the case that a sitting president cannot be charged. what do you think of that? >> that's the law. a sitting president can't be charged. so then if that's the case, then why did he offer all those opinions? why did he offer all those recommendations and suggestions? why did he investigate? the reality is that he gave us his opinion on collusion and obstruction. his opinion is you can't bring a case. bob, that's the end of it. that's what a prosecutor does. you don't prove negatives.

it's impossible to do that. what they've done here is a perversion, a combination of him and the media. i'm surprised with bob. he is a better lawyer than that. i don't know where this notion he has to exonerate. >> bill: i want to squeeze in more questions. have you spoken to the president in the past hour? >> i don't comment on that. >> bill: did you speak to the president -- the word was the white house knew bob mueller would make a statement today. were you aware of the material or what bob mueller was going to say? >> i thought he would do what he did. basically repeated his report. it's a five-minute version of his report and this whole -- what did he say? he said i don't have a collusion case and i don't have an obstruction case. he says different things about it but that's the conclusion and that's all that matters from the point of a prosecutor. the real question whether it's

ethical at all to be discussing it or writing about it. if you concluded you can't bring a case the rules of ethics say you have to keep your mouth shut as a prosecutor. 430 pages of regurgitating every possible thing they could regurgitate much of which was unfair. >> bill: you know that democrats will go forward possibly -- here is the statement from jerry nadler that came out. >> i'm sure it will be objective. >> he said given that special counsel mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the president it falls to congress to respond to the crimes and wrongdoing of president trump and we will do so. no one, not even the president of the united states is above the law. end quote from jerry nadler. >> he just proved he shouldn't be the chairman of that committee by saying -- jerry nadler has figured out already without an investigation that he will respond to the crimes of the president?

even mueller didn't say that. mueller said he couldn't reach a conclusion. jerry has already reached a conclusion. something as sensitive as this, somebody like that shouldn't be sitting as the judge. this is what i'm saying, you're guilty, i'm going to hang you, let me give you a trial now. jerry nadler has gone so far in showing his prejudice that it is totally intolerable that he is the chairman of that committee without coming to the conclusion that is truly is a witch hunt. >> bill: how real is it they move forward on impeachment? >> i don't know how real it is. that's being handled by the white house counsel. from my point of view unless nadler is removed and they put a chairman on there who at least hasn't made all sorts of prejudicial comments that a crime has been committed where nobody else has, i would think their investigation is illegitimate. it is a misuse of congressional

power. >> bill: thank you for your time, rudy giuliani with us as our coverage continues of the breaking news. bob mueller has made a statement and now the rest of the world is left to chew on it. >> sandra: i suppose and we're getting reaction from 2020 presidential candidates. you heard from democrat jerry nadler, chairman of the house judiciary committee. now we're hearing from elizabeth warren. his statement makes clear it is an impeachment referral she writes on twitter and up to congress to act. they should. senator cory booker saying robert mueller's statement makes it clear congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately. andy mccarthy is standing by. what does that tell you how democrats plan to move forward with the word we're hearing a lot about impeachment after we heard from robert mueller? >> i think it's much more likely today at this moment than it was an hour ago, sandra. one of the things that has been

debated since the report was released is whether mueller was basically giving congress a roadmap and saying you run with it from here. a lot of people were saying no, that wasn't really what he was trying to do. i think he made it pretty clear today that's what his idea was. he couldn't make a decision about obstruction. and that in this system it is up to congress to discipline the president. and if you put two and two together and come up with four that's what is saying, here it is, you run with it. >> sandra: robert mueller made it clear in the statement this is according to him the last we'll hear from him. here is robert mueller a short time ago. >> i hope and expect this to be the only time i will speak to you in this manner. i am making that decision myself, no one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter. there has been discussion about

an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. and the report is my testimony. i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. >> sandra: judge napolitano reacted to that saying there is a slim to no chance that's the last time we'll hear from robert mueller. what do you think? will we hear from him again? >> well, i think he will be ultimately subpoenaed and i think his confident statement that he can confine his testimony to the four corners of his report and he wouldn't have anything more to say simply isn't so. they will be able to ask him things for example how did you come to this conclusion? when did you decide to rely on the olc guidance? my recollection going back to what bret baier said before is that he told barr in a meeting on march 5th when they first

discussed it he would not be making a decision about obstruction and he was still formulating his position. he didn't at that point say he was relying on the olc guidance. barr said he said he wasn't. 2 1/2 weeks later barr gets the report and there is a section about the olc guidance. i think congress is entitled to ask him about that and if he thinks he is going to be able to say my report is my report, i don't think so. >> sandra: we heard jerry nadler's response to robert mueller a short time ago. the chairman of the house judiciary committee, andy. now doug collins the ranking member of the republican on the judiciary committee put out his own response saying for the past two years robert mueller has done something no one is possible. he stayed out of the spotlight and conducted his work. he concludes his statement by saying that the special counsel confirmed today what we knew months ago when his report was

released. no collusion and no obstruction. he said it is time to move on and focus on real solutions for the american people. you wonder if that's possible or did what we just hear from robert mueller change things? are there -- is there going to be more of this than there already was? >> i think it changes things in the sense that the democrats who wanted impeachment are going to be more aggressive and more forward on that. now, where it goes because impeachment is political and not legal, really depends on what the polls say. i think if the polls say the public has had it with this and wants to move on, then there will be a lot of blagter about impeachment but not go further. if it gets traction we'll see more proceedings and more hearings. >> sandra: all right, andy mccarthy. we appreciate your time today. thank you for sticking with us through the breaking news. we appreciate that and bill it is worth noting that the stock

market has been reacting to the news today. while robert mueller was speaking the stock market was down. the dow was already down. it fell further as robert mueller was making his statement to session lows during his comments and right now it's worth noting the dow has fallen below 25,000, down 382 points right now. can you directly tie it to what we just heard from robert mueller? not necessarily. but it was happening. >> bill: you have the issue of the china tariffs and there is some play in that as well. the news of the last hour has clearly seen a drop of what 200 points since we've been watching, sandra? there is a political equation that must be weighed into all of this now. that is whether democrats move forward with what some believe is the only way they should go, that's on an impeachment issue. >> sandra: if what we're heard so far from 2020 presidential candidates and beyond democrats, that would be the case.

>> bill: it's a political question for the house and something we'll sort through over the coming days and weeks. keep in mind you have an election in a year and a half. you have nancy pelosi as house speaker trying to hang onto a caucus strongly divided on a lot of this and how she manages and how she goes forward with jerry nadler or others that is something that will be a parlor game as we guess on the outside. the other thing to keep a close eye on now is what bill barr is doing as attorney general. we know there is a federal prosecutor by the name of john durham out of connecticut. he has been on the case two months. the word leaked out he was investigating during what happened during the campaign of 2016 and what happened during that critical transition period between the election in november and the inauguration third week if january. what will he find? it will take at least a year, i believe, if not longer, for us to know where durham is going with his investigation.

however, there is another one now, the inspector general's report he is looking within the department of justice as to find out what decisions were made and why with regard to fisa abuse, etc. and whether or not those leading members of the f.b.i. and the c.i.a. within the department of justice itself acted within the law. that's happening right now. could be out in a week, could be out in a couple of weeks. that's going to come. >> sandra: you think this is the last time we heard from robert mueller? >> after listening and watching bob mueller today he would very much like to put a period on this and walk away figuring that his time was done. i think it's much easier said than done as as well. there's the possibility of a subpoena that could dry before congress. maybe even private testimony. they can negotiate this back and forth and try and reach some sort of resolution, whether that happens, i do not know. i think he would very much like to say bye-bye.

>> sandra: interesting that at the same time he was concluding his remarks, he said that he was done. this is the last you will hear from him. but he did say, "nothing i say will go beyond what is in that 400-page report." saying that that is the final word. we chose the words carefully, said he. >> bill: we just read, "it falls to congress to respond to the crimes, lies, and other wrongdoings of president trump, and we will do so. you know where he is coming from. at the same time, bill barr is in alaska. james comey has an op-ed in "the washington post" that just came out this morning, late last night, defending the decisions he made in 2016, with regard to the trump campaign and with regard to hillary clinton. what he does not address is the meeting in january of 2017 with then-president-elect donald trump at the trump tower here in new york city. why did he choose to brief him on the dossier at that time?"

>> sandra: and the president's response? "nothing changes from the mueller report." he tweeted that out a few moments ago. thank you for staying with us through all this. we didn't know that was coming. we will see you here tomorrow morning. "outnumbered" starts right now. >> melissa: fox news alert for you now, new reaction to special counsel robert mueller's first public remarks since completing his report on russian interference in the 2016 election. that was 68 days ago. you are reiterating there was insufficient evidence to charge the trump team with conspiracy. >> speak of the report as 2 parts -- addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. the first volume of the report details numerous efforts in a needing from russia influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity, as well as our