i previously sn sent you -- addressed to bill barr. i previously sent you a letter dated march 2019 that enclosed an executive summary for each volume of the special counsel's report, marked with redaxs to remove any information that potentially could be protected by criminal procedure rule 60 on grand jury materials, declarations or related to a charge case. we also marked an additional two sentences for review and have now confirmed that these sentences can be released publicly. accordingly, the enclosed documents are in a form that can be released to the public, consistent with legal requirements and department policies. i am requesting that you provide these materials to congress and authorize their public release at this time. as we stated in our meeting of march 5th and reiterated to the department early in the afternoon of march 24th, the introductions and executive summaries of our two volume report accurately summarize this office's work and conclusions. the summary letter the department sent to congress and released to the pu

this is bigger than bill barr. this is a problem now of a president who there is a strong case to be made has violated the law with innumerable acts of obstruction of justice, has potentially violated the law in terms of a campaign fraud scheme and we are engaged in a debate within our caucus about what's the right remedy for this. this just i think adds to that. we also have the problem of the administration obstructing the legitimate congressional oversight which i think only adds to the desire to, you know, take an important step to hold this president accountable. >> look, i mean, as you know some of your colleagues have called for attorney general bill barr to be impeached. so your response is that that's too politically fraught? >> no, you know, listen, i think we're going to have to consider all of the remedies that we have in terms of an attorney general who can't be trusted to level with the american people, a president who can't be trusted to level with the american people and who obstructed the justice d

what would you want bill barr to answer tomorrow morning? >> one thing that prosecutors don't like to do is asking witnesses open ended questions or questions that they don't know the answer to. i understand that congress may has a little bit of a fact finding mission here. but, i think the important question with barr who's smart and capable of dodging questions is confirm the facts so that he's pinned down. it will be important moving forward out of this mini crisis that we have seen tonight to have barr commit to what happened and when it happened and when he spoke to mueller and what he learned from mueller and what he knew when he made these statements in his prior testimony. >> chuck, let me go darker, have we just witnessed a successful campaign? >> to sit on this report long enough and maybe advance spin its details early on enough to cloud the actual findings and blunt the impact of the mueller report. >> well, it did. the narrative was defined when mr. barr came out and said that there was no collusion and he's exonerated and we do

bill barr now facing calls to resign. the attorney general under fire from democrats saying he deceived and purposefully misled congress to shield president trump. much of this centering around a moment at a hearing last month when congressman charlie crist confronted bill barr. >> reports have emerged recently that members of the special counsel's team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your march 24th her. that it does not portray the court's findings. do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, i don't. >> i don't? for real? democrats are saying that answer looks more and more suspect after mueller's letter to barr has emerged saying the four-page summary did not fully capture the spoup's work and conclusions. here is barr unfire today. >> i cannot imagine you receive that letter on march 24th and could not answer congressman crist directly when he asked you whether there were concerns about representations being made. >> my understanding was his concern was not the accurac

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

bill barr has made his side of the story clear. now we'll have to hear bob mueller's. >> thank you both. by the way joyce vance will be on "morning joe". >>> president trump sets the stage for another fight with congress over the crisis at the southern border. details on the price tag trump is offering to address the issue. >>> plus bill karins is back with another check on your forecast. - [narrator] do you have less energy than you used to? - when i was young, into my teens and when i went into college and played college tennis, i could play all day long and never get tired. as i got older, i started noticing a change in energy. - [narrator] scientist have discovered that after you reach age 40, your body produces less vital nitric oxide than it did when you were in your 20s. with less nitric oxide you have less energy. so how do you get your energy back? take one atom of nitrogen and bond it with one atom of oxygen. boom. you just created nitric oxide, the miracle molecule your body needs to help support heart health and help gi

barr. >> bill: bret? >> i totally agree with that. i totally agree with it. i think the whole thing about the administration delaying some of this has to do with the calendar. it has to do with 2020 approaching. frankly, they see an upside to democrats being mired in some of these investigations. despite the fact that, you know, some of them open up a lot of questions that we don't know the answers to on finances and other things. the longer they pushed out, the closer the election comes, the more this becomes a factor and both sides think it's positive. >> sandra: we will take a quick break here. if your buddy stand by, as we know they are taking a lunch break. lindsey graham indicated they should be back in that room at about 12:15 p.m. eastern time. he was asked how it's going, he responded "good." we will see what happens in the next couple of hours as we await their return. we will take a quick break and we will be right back. t comes te sugar in your family's diet, coke, dr pepper and pepsi hear you

if -- do you think that bill barr should go to jail over this? >> well, i -- it's not my decision to decide whether or not he goes to jail. i mean, once again we need to make sure that we get into the bottom of the truth, making sure that everything that is exposed in the mueller report, everything needs to be unredacted that comes to us. that is how we effectively through our checks and balances with congressional oversight make decisions going forward, so i can't say that at this time, but i do have to agree with the speaker that, yes, you know, there have been behaviors that are very, very troubling, behaviors not accountable to the american people and this has to be dealt with. >> one thing we were talking about today is the fact that bill barr did not show up for the testimony before your committee today. the next steps are you can consider contempt, but there's a big question as to what the congress and the committee should do to force the attorney general to come over you. the goal is having staff attorneys ask some questions. if the goal

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

they come from the same generation when bill barr them subject, the mueller investigation and bill barr's handling of it is a sticking point. i would point out that press conference that you sort of referenced where five times bill barr says some it realizationer. that came after he knows mueller's displeasure of the waybi waybi way bill barr characterized his work. >> that's the definition going out on a limb. joyce, if you were senator of alabama, what would your first question be? what would you want bill barr to answer tomorrow morning? >> one thing that prosecutors don't like to do is asking witnesses open ended questions or questions that they don't know the answer to. i understand that congress may has a little bit of a fact finding mission here. but, i think the important question with barr who's smart and capable of dodging questions is confirm the facts so that he's pinned down. it will be important moving forward out of this mini crisis that we have seen tonight to have barr commit to what happened and when it happened and when he spoke to mueller and what he learned from muell

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

where they want bill barr to come testify. barr is still saying that he may not appear, because the democrats want to allow for an additional hour of questioning by staff attorneys. also, jake, that same question, the house judiciary committee has a subpoena for the full unredacted mueller report to be turned over by today. that subpoena demand unmet. >> thanks, manu. joining me also from capitol hill, senator chris van hollen, democrat of maryland. his exchange with attorney general barr last month took center stage today. i want to play a clip from your exchange with attorney general barr. it came two weeks after barr had received this letter from mueller, outlining mueller's concerns about his four-page summary. take a listen. >> did bob mueller support your conclusion? >> i don't know whether bob mueller supported my conclusion. >> so knowing now what the truth is, do you think the attorney general was misleading, do you think he committed perjury, or do you think that his hair splitting was acceptable? >> well, jake, his

the expectations were that bill barr would play it straight. he would be a trustworthy attorney general who wouldn't always act in the president's best interest. there are a lot of folks like yourself second guessing that assessment. what happened? >> look, i don't know. you know, i think that he is acting like a defense attorney. that's not even a controversial statement at this point. some of the arguments he was making yesterday -- and they were arguments. that's the point, right? mueller tried to present facts and evidence and let congress and the people decide. barr is taking the role of defense attorney. for example, when he was being trump getting his lawyer to dangle pardons and such. barr was explaining it away. well, no, he wasn't trying to get them not to cooperate. he was saying don't let them make you lie. he was raising a possible defense. there's also a possible defense to charges. that's not the role of the prosecutor. that's not the role of the head of the department of justice. you have to consider the defenses but you don't m

bill barr refusing to

barr, he took our ability to hear from bill barr today. to protect, maybe, because some didn't feel like they could ask proper questions, maybe they wanted more staff questions, who knows, but yesterday we found this, that he claims that he wants staff to question the attorney general because the five minute per member is not enough. but yet we approved a motion yesterday that said we could do a whole hour, an extra hour between the chairman and myself. he could have took one of these fabulous members that he has, and he has some excellent attorneys on his side, some of the best. he could have given them all 30 minutes and they could have questioned the attorney general any way they wanted to. instead we go back to a circus political stunt. to say we want it to look like an impeachment hearing because they won't bring impeachment proceedings. that's the reason. take whatever you want to take, you could go out and have press conferences, you can state it from this dais, state wherever you want, but the reason bill barr is not here today is

durham was a brilliant choice by bill barr. it was timely. we are waiting for the inspector general report. now we have the most respected prosecutor in the united states who served so brilliantly including assignments during the obama administration. he is above politics. you can't talk about he is an angry republican. he was confirmed by every member of the senate who voted. why? because of his record. we have an honest cop on the beat. i am pleased that bill barr said let's have the respect from the inspector general. let's have john durham take a look as well. great timing. and remember waiting in the wings is lindsey graham who said i want to get to the bottom of this as well. we will find out. >> laura: john, for the democrats to have done what they did last week, moving on contempt against bill barr. did they think that would cower bill barr and he would be dissuaded from what he said he was going to do, which was take a look at this spying? will they try to smear durham given his professionalism and integrity and a wide ranging experi

barr he took our ability to hear from bill barr today. to protect, maybe. because some didn't feel like they could ask proper questions. maybe they wanted more staff questions, who knows? but yesterday he claims he wants staff to question the attorney general because the five-minute per member is not enough. yet we spent and approved a motion yesterday that said we could do a whole hour, an extra hour between the chairman and myself. he could have said one of these fabulous members he has. he has some excellent attorneys on his side. some of the best. he could have given them all 30 minutes. and they could have questioned the attorney general any way they wanted to. instead, we go back to a circus political stunt. to say we want it to look like an impeachment hearing. because they won't bring impeachment proceedings. that's the reason. take whatever you want to take. go out and have press conferences and say whatever you want, but the reason bill barr is not here today is because the democrats decided they didn't want him here today. that

you also have bill barr saying that it isn't -- sorry, you have bill barr saying if it's important to look into russian interference, it's just as porlt important to look into why the investigation was started in the first place. do you see that? >> in the absence of any evidence that the investigation was started for any improper purpose, it would seem curious that the a.g. would be focused on this. there is an i.g., an inspector general investigation, ongoing. it seems to me, and i think to most others in washington, that the a.g. should let the i.g. finish his work. but of course, in the abstract, it's important for the attorney general as the head of the department of justice to know if there was any misconduct. but in the absence of any evidence of misconduct, it would seem to me to be improper for the a.g. to initiate a review based on what appears to be nothing more than presidential tweets. the a.g. has said he's not satisfied with certain answers he's received about the beginning of the investigation. but by whom? who is giving him those answers? we haven't heard from any oth

barr, wrote this letter in the starkest terms laying out that bill barr's four-page memo to congress was misleading, in his view, on the scope, the substance, the context of the more than 400 pages of the mueller report. that is serious, and the reporting is that justice department officials were actually taking a bath by this letter to robert mueller, and there was even a follow-up phone call between bill barr and robert mueller. of course, as you noted in your lead-in to me, don, bill barr testified before congress after he had received this letter, after talking to robert mueller about his concerns, and he did not convey this, and he did not convey it just before the press conference right before the mueller report was released, either. >> the lie can often be in the omission. thank you very much, pamela. >>> much more in breaking news to come, robert mueller's letter to bill barr stating that he was misleading with his conclusions. so did he mislead the public? guys, i've got an idea! oooh, what is it? so people love iphone xr, right? well, it does have an incredible camera. and

barr, he took our and to hear from bill barr today. to protect? maybe. because some didn't feel like they could ask proper questions, maybe they wanted more staff questions, who those. but yesterday we found this, that he claims that he wants staff to question the attorney general because the five minute per member is not enough. but yet we spent and approved a motion yesterday that said we could do an extra hour between the chairman and 3450i68. he could have took one of these fabulous members that he has, and he has excellent attorneys on his side, some of the best, he could give them all 30 minutes. and they could have questioned the attorney general anyway they wanted to. instead we go back to a circus political stunt to say we want to look like an impeachment hearing. because they won't bring impeachment proceedings. that is the reason. take whatever you want to take, you can go out and have press conferences, you can say it from this dais, but the reason bill barr is not here is because democrats decided they didn't want him here

durham was a brilliant choice by bill barr. it was timely. we are waiting for the inspector general report. now we have the most respected prosecutor in the united states who served so brilliantly including assignments during the obama administration. he is above politics. you can't talk about he is an angry republican. he was confirmed by every member of the senate who voted. why? because of his record. we have an honest cop on the beat. i am pleased that bill barr said let's have the respect from the inspector general. let's have john durham take a look as well. great timing. and remember waiting in the wings is lindsey graham who said i want to get to the bottom of this as well. we will find out. >> laura: john, for the democrats to have done what they did last week, moving on contempt against bill barr. did they think that would cower bill barr and he would be dissuaded from what he said he was going to do, which was take a look at this spying?g? will they try to smear durham given his professionalism and integrity and a wide ranging expe

anything, and bill barr didn't have to release the report. so bob mueller's job was over. i thought it was inappropriate, candidly, for bob mueller to write a letter to bill barr because bill barr has total discretion as to what -- and you know that is a fact. he has -- let me finish. he has total discretion as to whether to print a summary, to send out pieces of the report, or to send out the entire report. and for him to do that, to me, was grandstanding because he knew this letter would eventually -- >> okay. let him answer. >> this idea that somehow bill barr is doing us a favor by acting in the matter of transparency on a matter of fundamental importance -- >> it's not required by the law. >> lots of things aren't required by the law. but a matter of importance to the american people. it was very important that -- the whole point of mueller's mandate here was ensuring public faith in our investigative system. that's what he was trying to do. that was undermined by a number of the steps the attorney general took. >> okay. let me bring in

>> this is the room where bill barr was supposed to be. in the chair behind me, that's where bill barr was going into sitting to be grilled by house democrats with concerns about how he handled the mueller report and its rollout. he's not attending because of a dispute with chairman jerry nadler over the format of the hearing. what nadler wanted was to allow staff lawyers on the republican and democratic side to question barr for 30 minutes each. that's not going to happen. the justice department said bill barr is not attending if that's the format. everything has been escalated. yesterday, the justice department refused to turn over the unredacted mueller report even though nadler subpoenaed it. nadler said he's going to give the justice department a day or two. then we expect him to move forward with contempt proceedings against the attorney general. here's what nadler said about the defiance he's facing when it comes to the justice department. >> he's trying to blackmail the committee into not following what we think is the most effecti

bill barr. >> have you read it? >> when did you first learn of the "new york times" and "washington post" stories that would make the existence of this letter public, the ones that came out last night? >> i think it could have been yesterday but i'm not sure. >> when they contacted you to ask for comment? >> they didn't comment me. >> contacted doj? >> i can't remember how it came up. someone mentioned it. >> at some point you knew the mueller letter would become public and that was probably yesterday. >> i think so. >> when did you decide to make that letter available to us in congress? >> this morning. >> would you concede that you had an opportunity to make this letter public on april 4th when representative crist asked you a very related question? >> i don't know what you mean by related question. seems to me it would be a very different question. >> i can't even follow that down the road. boy. that's the masterful hair splitting. the letter references enclosed documents and enclosed materials, right? are those

then they present their findings and mueller and bill barr had a choice. he could either make those public or say no prosecution. that's is their job. prosecute or not prosecute. that's all he had to say. instead they made every single thing public. so i guess this whole, you know, sort of jump on bill barr thing is a little bit hard for i think some people watching all of this to figure out. >> the mueller team identified 10 instances where the president obstructed justice. in part they said they could not indict because he was saying president. barr said today he didn't review the underlying evidence. that's maddening the person making the final signoff makes a decision without reviewing the evidence. i will say one other thing because what concerns me the most because i don't want to re-litigate the past 200 pages links between the trump campaign and russians. it was clear they never went into the financial records or the financial dealings between the trumps and the russians. that is something we're going to do on the intelligence committee. but that s

he thinks bill barr is trying to black mail the committee. he's terrified to take questions from staff lawyers of course as evan described, really the crux of the holdup over the dispute over the format and the conditions of his testimony. but nadler at the same time is making it very clear here his first priority is going to be pushing to get the full unredacted report and the underlying evidence the departments of justice tonight also told the committee that they will not comply with their subpoena to get the full report and the underlying evidence. nadler saying he's going to try to work with him over the next few days, potentially try to get a deal, but if there is not a deal he is going to move to hold the attorney general in contempt of congress over this. of course, the committee will go on as planned tomorrow. of course there is essentially a seat for bar but no expectation of course that he's going o show up. >> sunlan, thank you. >> i want to go to charlie crisp. you saw him questioning barr back in april. the question that has beco

barr show, today was the bill barr no show. >> failure of bill barr to come to the hearing today is simply another step in the administration's growing attack on american democracy. >> attorney general apparently is afraid of cross-examination. >> as the president told bill barr what he should do, sarah? >> i'm not aware that he's instructed him to do anything. what i am aware of is how much the democrats embarrassed themselves yesterday. i lost confidence in jerry nadler a long time ago. >>

i said do you regret your vote for bill barr. he would have said i don't regret the vote yet, but he said he is getting very close to losing confidence. he said i am incredibly disappointed with barr's handling of the mueller report. you hear democrats criticizing the attorney general in very stark terms. some republicans want to hear from bob mueller, at least one does, john kennedy. >> thanks so much. moments from now barr's testimony will continue. we will discuss how the attorney general answered the question of whether it is appropriate for the trump campaign to be receptive to the help being offered by the russians. stay with us. minor accident -no big deal, right? wrong. your insurance company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different insurance company. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liber

it was not anywhere as clear-cut as attorney general bill barr. in fact, it was almost exactly the opposite, not clear-cut. >> it was a parting shot at his soon to be former boss bill barr who basically whitewashed what mueller said in the four-page summery he distributed back in march. >> so john, that's baer and napolitano as part of their news programing. they go into opinion programming as this network does, as well. here were some of them banner graphics on the screen. mueller gets political just as america was starting to move on from the russia hoax. mueller's pathetic final bow. that was on laura ingraham tonight. but this question also appeared as a graphic. why didn't mueller let the work speak for itself? answer that for us. >> well, mueller has tried to let the work speak for itself and i think he knows to the extent -- i hate to answer questions posed rhetorically on screen by fox and primetime, but i think the frustration of people on the left and many people who are anywhere moderately left of center, including robert de niro who is

the barr bill is coming due. they already occurred meetings between the attorney general, cia director and director of national intelligence have now focused on a laser that the core of this conspiracy began with john brennan and ends with john brennan in london and d.c. and the democratic national committee. this is serious business and for the first time, i now believe that some of these guys are going to go to prison. >> laura: wow, you've mentioned brennan and congressman jordan, we got some profound sound from both brennan and klapper. this was brendan today explaining what's going on with this new probe, let's watch. >> it went through a rigorous due process, it was approved by the fisa court, it went through all of those steps and what they are trying to do is uncover something they will misrepresent as being part of his deep state effort to try to undermine donald trump selection. >> laura: it was all copacetic copacetic. it went to the fisa court, investigating the investigators. >> he used the term misr

bill barr has reelevated robert mueller. to almost sanctified status. perhaps after director mueller testifies, if that ever happens, perhaps he falls back off that pedestal, but compared to what the attorney general's been doing, director mueller, you know, looks like maybe thomas moore's not a bad example. >> and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why our guest tonight has a pulitzer prize and i have a valid driver's license. jon, always a pleasure. please come back. thank you, sir, for joining us on this, as we say consequential wednesday night. more of "the 11th hour" when we come right back. termites. we're on the move. hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we're good. we're good. terminix. defenders of home. >>> in reaching your conclusion, did you personally review all of the underlying evidence? >> ah, no. we took -- and -- >> did -- did mr. rosenstein? >> no. we accepted the statements in the report as factual record. >> did anyone in your executive office review the evidence supporting the report? >> no. >> no. yet you represented to the american public th

what do you make of the name bill barr now? >> i think he's a liar. i mean, it's sad thing to say but i can't be more -- i like to be direct and here i am being direct. bill barr led the country to believe that mueller did not take into account the olc memo and rule you can't indict a sitting president. that's what he led us to believe. that isn't true. you can use a lot of fancy words to say it and hide in alaska and do all kinds of things but the bottom line is, he lied to us. >> so matt, how big a service looking back on it did this attorney general supply to the man he apparently regards as his client, the man who appointed him, the president of the united states? >> if you look at the statements come down to, a lot of them revolve around what happens next. if you take bill barr's view of the world, nothing should have a next because his view of the world, there was no obstruction. there was no collusion. he said both of those things in his press conference and at other times in testimony before congress and so there is nothing else that needs to

bill barr's testimony set to begin in less than an hour. focus has changed now on the new reporting that robert mueller voiced frustration over barr's summary and maybe mischaracterization of the investigation. what is the white house saying about that? >> yes, steph, that's right. in the last few minutes for the first time we are now hearing president trump reacting to this. his position over the course of the last several days, even weeks, since that four-page summary initially came out was let's move on, enough, this thing is over. here's his effort to punctuate that thought this morning within the last few minutes writing, no collusion, no obstruction. besides, how can you have obstruction when not only was there collusion by trump but the bad actions were done by the other side? the greatest con job in the history of american politics. late yesterday i spoke to the president's personal lawyer rudy giuliani, who described it in his words as very odd. that was the quote from giuliani, about this letter from mueller to barr saying that if

and so bill barr stepped in and came to a decision on obstruction. so mueller, we now know from reading this letter, is upset by that. he feels like that, for all intents and purposes, mischaracterizes his work. the quotes that are pulled out themselves aren't inaccurate, but the picture it's painting overall is just not accurate. so he writes this letter. they have this call that you just described. one other detail is this kind of results in bill barr sending another letter to congress. people might not remember this one, where he says, look, i wasn't trying to summarize mueller's findings. i remember feeling at the time that's pretty weird because that's exactly what you did. but we now sort of know this is why. he had heard from mueller, knew mueller was upset, and i think was trying to tamp down the kind of -- i guess he was trying to make sure people held their breath and sort of waited for the actual mueller report because that's what mueller himself wanted. >> one of the details here as well, right, is that there were these executive summarie

first it has been a bewildering couple of months for bill barr. imagine you are bill barr. verse served at the attorney general and the george h.w. bush, 1991. alexandria ocasio-cortez had just turned two years old. this february, purely by process of elimination, he became attorney general of the united state

will democrats stay on bill barr as a target? no question as we move into june we'll see what happens on the floor of the house and democratic leadership there. >> sandra: a lot of great stuff there. a lot of reaction. we'll continue to pour into that interview today. the trump administration bringing out a tool that highlights social media accounts and political bias. is that a good move? that story in our next hour. >> jon: fox news alert, hearing underway right now is a chicago judge was whether to assign a special prosecutor to investigate the handling of the jussie smollett case. this after the attorney dropped all charges against the actor in march. a grand jury indicted smollett in connection with an alleged attack police say he staged against himself. an appellate judge later filed a petition requesting a special prosecutor, to take a fresh look at the case. we are keeping an eye on the hearing and we will bring you details as we get them. >> sandra: the newsroom vault taking us back to 1792 when the new york stock exchan

bill barr has been doing what bill barr has been doing for decades. he did it for george h.w. bush during the iran contra investigation. he has tried to neuter the congress when it comes to executive oversight. >> i was going to ask, you have covered the president so long, is it the people that they become these sycophants or are they weak individuals that he knows how to prey on to bring into the administration. >> it's both. if you're hitching your way into donald trump's star, what do you want out of that? if you're somebody who's a nobody, and there's a lot of them, or if you're a third tier talent and there's a lot of them in the white house, you're getting your resume stamped. if you're somebody who wants to get an agenda, mitch mcconnell has held his nose because he can get the courts packed. lindsey graham is holding his nose for multiple reasons, he lacks a spine, he didn't stand up for john mccain, and i think he wants to stay relevant. >>st it also power, and i want to get your reaction to what happened at the end of the hearing, he leaves and tells reporters, it's

bill barr's been lying for three weeks. the senate and the congress should just get rid of him and bring mueller in. what do you say about that? >> i wouldn't give bob mueller the opportunity to perjure himself. we also want to hear from bob mueller. but from what i know, william he took an oath to the constitution, not to donald trump. he's supposed to be america's attorney, not trump's stooge. and because he misused his position, he's got to go. >> i've got to ask you from some of the frustration from the american public. people are saying the democrats have oversight power now, they have the congress. and this is not me saying it, but they appear to have no spine. when are you going to start taking some action? when are you going to start jailing people? when are you going to start doing something about people who defy subpoenas and don't follow the constitution? what are you going to do and when? >> >> we do need some of these people to actually violate the subpoena, so bill barr has until tomorrow to provide the unreda

bill barr's i guess at the -- what can you call it? spin of the mueller report and the investigation is very positive for the president. and he is like that so far he thought that this was good and bringing mueller back can be nothing but problematic for him. >> you used the word, spin. philippe, naturally i will come to you. >> i'm being attacked. >> hillary clinton's spin-meister and probably could have. what is your -- i mean, as somebody who has spent a lot of time thinking about how to shape a narrative, what is the impact of the summary that barr put out? because this essentially seems to be, you know, mueller feels his work misrepresented by how it was covered and seems to me that barr potentially materially changed the political course of this. what's your take on how that unfolded? >> it was very ham handed and i think there have been two sets of people who have come into the administration at that level. one has been the people that shouldn't be there, almost, and other side is washington, d.c. establishment people. and they'

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there a movement to impeach bill barr? then senator richard blumenthal on the question bill barr avoided. >> i don't recall having substantive discussion on the investigation. >> plus, 2020 candidate bernie sanders on the white house push to end obamacare.

anything, and bill barr didn't have to release the report. so bob mueller's job was over. i thought it was inappropriate, candidly, for bob mueller to write a letter to bill barr because bill barr has total discretion as to what -- and you know that is a fact. he has -- let me finish. he has total discretion as to whether to print a summary, to send out pieces of the report, or to send out the entire report. and for him to do that, to me, was grandstanding because he knew this letter would eventually -- >> okay. let him answer. >> this idea that somehow bill barr is doing us a favor by acting in 9 matter of transparency on a matter of fundamental -- >> it's not required by the law. >> lots of things aren't required by the law. but a matter of importance to the american people. the whole point of mueller's mandate here was ensuring public faith in our investigative system. that's what he was trying to do. that was beyond mined by a number of the steps the attorney general took. >> okay. let me bring in garrett because if only we had an expert

barr to come before the committee because bill barr doesn't get to tell the house judiciary committee mittee run our com hearing. >> woodruff: what do you say, congressman, to republicans whod are saying tocrats just -- they've turned what is a -- should b typical government a process in political investigation, something that is driven by politics rather than by law. >> they are absolutely wrong. we're just trying to t the facts. we just want the unredacted mueller report, and duing watergate, the special ilarecutor issued a sim report. the white house tried to suppress did you using the same grand jury secrets and the court of appeals held for congress, so we just want to get the inrmation and we just want bill barr to come testify before us and gest questionsed by staff counsel the same way other witnesses have been questioned by staff counsel. >> woodruff: in conthnection hat, some of your uspublican colleagues are saying the e judiciary proceedings are basically operating more like an impeachment inquiry than a judiciary proceeding. >> they are absolutely wrong. last term when re

barr, he took our ability to hear from bill barr today. to protect, maybe. because some didn't feel they could ask proper questions, maybe they wanted more staff questions, who knows. but yesterday we found this, that he claims he wants staff to question the attorney general because the five minutes per member is not enough. but yet we approved a motion yesterday that said we could do a whole hour, an extra hour, between the chairman and myself. he could have sent one of these fabulous members and he has some excellent attorneys on his side, some of the best, he could have given them all 30 minutes. and they could have questioned the attorney general any way they wanted to. instead, we go back to a circus political stunt. to say we want it to look like an impeachment hearing. because they won't bring impeachment proceedings. that's the reason. take whatever you want to take. go out and have press conferences, you can say it from this dais, whatever you want to have, but the reason bill barr isn't here is because the democrats decided they

now this letter goes much further than bill barr did. it is a scathing evaluation of not only robert mueller and how he handled this investigation but, wolf, it also turns an eye to the battles between the white house and house democrats by saying that president trump wanted it to be known and understood at the department of justice that just because he didn't exert executive privilege over the mueller report doesn't mean he won't do so in the future. [ applause ] with the russia investigation still on president trump's mind -- >> people say how do you get through that whole stuff -- how do you go through those witch-hunts and everything else? and you know what we do, mike, we just do it, right? and we think about god. >> reporter: new cnn reporting reveals his white house sent attorney general william barr a letter last month blafsting the special counsel claiming its report suffers from an extraordinary legal defect, acuesing robert mueller of playing politics and straying from the mission, alleging the team failed in their duty to act

and bill barr did and that is what the white house is going on now. and she also added in some comments to reporters not long ago that she and the white house believe it was mueller's responsibility if he felt there was wrongdoing when it comes to obstruction, it was his moral responsibility to say something about it. to put it in the report. well, mueller did answer that question. he made it clear that he felt like he could not even accuse the president in writing of some kind of crime or wrongdoing if the president had no venue to have that tried in a court of law. so mueller does answer that critique. but that is the line that we're getting from the white house today. they're criticizing mueller for sort of leaving this door open in some ways on obstruction saying that if he had the goods, he should have put it on paper. and saying that by closing the special counsel office, saying that this is done, the american public and democrats should move on. now at the same time, dana and my sources and gloria borger sources all telling us that the white ho

i think bill barr is still a friend of his. i think he is trying to say bill barr is an honest broker in the handling of the report but cl r clearly they disagree on the importance of the office of legal counsel memo. the idea is that they couldn't consider charging this president because of this memo. without it, perhaps they would have been able to reach something there. just the idea that the memo exists and it is binding on mueller. he said that they couldn't consider this. >> i don't think these are head on conflict, but you have to be a very good lawyer to see how they can fit together. barr used the term but for meaning that this is the only reason that mueller didn't -- that olc opinion is the only reason that mueller didn't charge the president. mueller said that was one important reason and also that the principle of fairness guided him. i think that's the distinction between the two noting that it was unfair to accuse the president of a crime if he couldn't be charged. he said there is another forum where this can be

who have been skeptical and critical of bill barr's handling. he's going to be appearing before congress in a hearing. >> what's so fascinating about it is essentially mueller is saying to barr that he and his team wrote summaries that were ready for publication, wrote summaries that did not need to be redacted that, they had thought was out. redactions would have no impact on summaries they wrote. those could be released and would give a fuller sense of what was actually in the report. >> that's right. so that was conveyed and bill barr's point of view, according to what we have learned, is that he didn't want to just release information in piecemeal fashion. his perspective was he wanted to release the full report with the redactions. now we've also learned from a justice department official that robert mueller did not tell barr that anything he put in the letter was inaccurate but the concern was more it didn't provide a fuller picture, didn't provide the nuance and didn't provide the summaries that as you pointed out robert mueller's team wr

who have been skeptical and critical of bill barr's handling. he's going to be appearing before congress tomorrow in a hearing. >> what's so fascinating about it is essentially mueller is saying to barr that he and his team wrote summaries that were ready for publication, wrote summaries that did not need to be redacted that they had thought out. redactions would have no impact on summaries they wrote. those could be released and would give a fuller sense of what was actually in the report. >> that's right. so that was conveyed and bill barr's point of view, according to what we have learned, is that he didn't want to just release information in piecemeal fashion. his perspective was he wanted to release the full report with the redactions. now we've also learned from a justice department official that robert mueller did not tell barr that anything he put in the letter was inaccurate but the concern was more it didn't provide a fuller picture, didn't provide the nuance and didn't provide the summaries that as you pointed out robert mueller's tea

. >> while wednesday was the bill barr show, today was the bill barr no show. >> failure of bill barr to come to the hearing today is simply another step in the administration's growing attack on american democracy. >> attorney general apparently is afraid of cross-examination. >> as the president told bill barr what he should do, sarah? >> i'm not aware that he's instructed him to do anything. what i am aware of is how much the democrats embarrassed themselves yesterday. i lost confidence in jerry nadler a long time ago. >> his testimony yesterday, five hours of it, whatever it was, was really a revelation that he is, he is more the president's lawyer than he is the lawyer for the united states and our constitution. i think he should recuse himself from the 14 criminal referrals that came out of the mueller inquiry. >> it turns out he didn't even look at the evidence. that is a report. it is not evensvillidence. >> if i were trump, i would fint them. i think this is trying to destroy him and his family. >> did he commit a crime? >> he lied to congress. he lied to congress. if anybody