The Daily Signal - #443: Mueller Report Proves Russian Collusion Claim Is a Hoax

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

The Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky analyzes the redacted report about the findings from special counsel Robert Mueller, and why it's time to investigate why President Donald Trump was ever suspected of collusion in the first place. We also cover these stories:•Democrats are trying to get Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify in May.•North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that protects the lives of abortion survivors.•New York City is actually losing residents for the first time in recent years.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal Podcast for Friday, April 19th. I'm Kate Trinca. And I'm Daniel Davis. The Mueller report is out, and President Trump is claiming victory. We'll unpack the details today with Hans von Spikovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. We'll also look at a new study that shows slumping church membership and consider what it means for the culture. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating in iTunes.

And please subscribe and encourage others to subscribe because that will help us grow. Now on to our top news. Attorney General William Barr held a press conference on the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller Thursday, the same day he released a redacted version of the report. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office and the conduct of some of his associates.

At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president's personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was, in fact, no collusion. And as the special counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the special counsel's investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, the President took no act that, in fact, deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily

against any allegation that the president had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation. Well, President Trump is taking the report as a win. Speaking at a wounded warriors event at the White House on Thursday, he responded to the report. And they're having a good day. I'm having a good day, too. It was called, no collusion, no obstruction. There never was, by the way, and there never will be. And we do have to get to the bottom of these things. will say, and this should never happen. I say this in front of my friends, wounded warriors,

and I just call them warriors because we just shook hands and they look great. They look so good, so beautiful. But I say it in front of my friends, this should never happen to another president again. This hoax, it should never happen to another president again. Well, shortly before that event, the president had tweeted out an image modeled on the hit show Game of Thrones, which said game over. And how are Democrats responding? Well, House Intelligence Committee chair, Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, is asking Robert Mueller to testify to his committee in May. In a letter to Mueller, Schiff writes, to discharge its distinct constitutional and statutory responsibility, the committee must be kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence and

counterintelligence findings, evidence, and implications for your investigation. This requires that the committee received the comprehensive testimony from you about the investigation's full scope and areas of inquiry, its findings, and underlying evidence, all of the intelligence and counterintelligence information gathered in the course of the investigation and the status of any ongoing counterintelligence investigation. And Representative Eric Swalwell, also a California Democrat, had harsh words for Attorney General Barr, saying in a statement that, quote, he made a show of allegiance to the president over the American people by declaring no collusion and excusing the president on the basis of his emotional state. He has proved that he's an embedded Trump ally who puts this president's political

future above the rule of law. That makes him unfurial. fit to serve. He must resign. Well, North Carolina's Democratic governor has vetoed a born-alive bill that would have protected babies who survive an abortion attempt. The Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill earlier this week. Governor Roy Cooper released a statement saying the bill was needless and that laws already protect newborn babies. In response, the bill's two primary co-sponsors, Senator Joyce Crawick and Representative Pat McElraft released a statement, saying caring for a living, breathing newborn infant is too restrictive for Governor Cooper's radical abortion agenda.

Bad news for the Big Apple. Turns out progressive mayor Bill de Blasio isn't encouraging people to move to New York City. The Wall Street Journal reports that population is actually decreasing, which hasn't happened in a decade. Citing census numbers, the journal reported that New York's population was down to 8.4 million, a 0.47% drop. Up next, we unpack the Mueller report with Hans von Spikoski. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head?

If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Joining us today to discuss the newly released Mueller report is Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spokosky, a legal expert. So, Hans, have you looked at the report and what are your takeaways? Yes, I've been skimming through it all day, putting my speed reading lessons to work. It's only 400 so pages, right? Right, right. Well, the key thing that I get out of it is that remember when the Attorney General William Barr sent his letter to Congress in which he basically gave what the conclusions of the report were.

One, there was no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And two, there was no obstruction of justice. There were a lot of claims by Democrats, including people like Jerry Nadler, who's had the Judiciary Committee, that, oh, well, we don't believe you. We think you're leaving things out. Well, reading through the report, it's very clear that Barr was 100% accurate in his summary of it. and that the two-volume report, half of which is the Russian collusion claim, the other half is the obstruction of justice claim. No one can read that and come to any conclusion other than the whole Russian collusion claim

was just a hoax. I mean, there was just nothing to that at all. And none of the actions that were taken by the president could be considered obstruction of justice. Now, it's very clear when you read it and you, you see the, they relate, you know, some of the internal conversations and meetings of the White House about this. It's clear the president was very angry. But that is a sentiment that I think most people would share if they've been falsely accused of a crime. And that's exactly the situation here.

The key thing is that he took no official actions of any kind that could in any way be actually considered obstruction of justice. Well, yeah, on that point, the report. says that he gave orders to do things that were not obeyed. So Mueller says, quote, the president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or exceed to his requests. I mean, I guess so it's kind of a moot point then, because it didn't happen. But is that even a crime if he tried to get them to break the law, but they didn't? No, I don't think so, particularly because And this is something that General Barr and others have talked about is that it's very clear when you read the report that he had no corrupt intent.

And what I mean by that is it's one thing if you act because you're innocent and you don't believe that the government should be investigating you because you haven't committed a crime. That's very different from having a corrupt intent to interfere with an investigation because, in fact, you did commit a crime and you want to cover it up. So legally there's a distinction? There is a distinction, and they talk about the fact that the president's anger over this makes it clear to General Barr that there was no corrupt intent with any of his hot talk, if I can call it that, over what Bob Mueller and others were doing. And again, key point there, remember, there were no restrictions placed on Bob Mueller. He had all the resources he needed. He had 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, and he did a very comprehensive, wide-ranging investigation. I've already heard some folks claiming that, well, he didn't have everything he needed to do a complete investigation.

Again, that's just not correct. So the report says that President Trump did try to remove Mueller, presumably a special counsel, but that people didn't follow his orders, whatever. it didn't happen. Is that telling or significant? I don't think so when it comes down to the obstruction of justice charge because it didn't happen and the investigation was completely and thoroughly done. So again, I just don't see how you can bring an obstruction of justice charge. And, you know, the Attorney General agrees with that assessment. The report also said that Trump was asked a lot of written questions by Mueller and that that Mueller was sort of unsatisfied with those answers that I'll just read from the report here.

Mueller says the president stated on more than 30 occasions that he does not recall or remember or have an independent recollection of information called for by the questions. Other answers were incomplete or imprecise. I mean, it sounds like maybe he just got good legal advice. It could be. And so what? that Mueller wasn't satisfied with that. Well, that's just Mueller's claim. He hasn't proved in a court of law that somehow those answers were untruthful. So again, I don't pay much attention to

accusations by a prosecutor who in the end concludes there's not enough evidence for a prosecution. So liberals are calling for Mueller to testify before Congress in May. Is that a good idea? Is that something he should do? What do you think? Well, he can do it, but if Democrats think they're going to somehow get something out of it more than they've already gotten this report, I think they're going to be sadly disappointed. If they believe that Mueller's going to come up with some kind of smoking gun that's not in the report, I just don't believe that. I think Mueller put absolutely everything he could into that report, and they're just not going to discover anything else. I mean, that's a real problem for all the liberals with the Mueller tattoos and all that other stuff, there's going to be no smoking gun.

But it seems like, you know, there's enough in this report for both sides to really build a narrative. I mean, Trump clearly has the no collusion and no criminal charges, no indictment. But Democrats do have the, you know, what seemed like, you know, the president potentially trying to undermine the investigation, although that didn't happen. What do you think is the political fallout? I actually don't think from the standpoint of an ordinary American that there's going to be much fallout because I think the ordinary American will look at what happened and say, boy, if I was falsely accused of a crime in my neighborhood or my work, I would have been just as angry and just as frustrated as the president. And I also probably

would have wanted to tell off the prosecutor who was investigating me with no valid reason to do so. So in light of the fact that they found no collusion, despite two years of efforts, a huge amount of manpower and financial resources, frankly, applied to this. You know, they're talking about looking into further, you know, the spying on the Trump campaign and how this whole thing began. Right. Do you think there needs to be much more of an investigation and why they even thought there was collusion to investigate in the first place? The answer to that is yes. And the reason being that people should not forget, this is not start. off as a regular law enforcement investigation. It started off as a counterintelligence operation

because, in fact, what the FBI did is they went to the secret FISA court. You know, that's the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That's the court that are intelligence agencies and the FBI go to when they suspect there's a foreign spy in the United States, and they want to, for example, initiate secret electronic surveillance. There are certain evidentiary you have to meet to justify that. And never before in the history of the United States has a counterintelligence operation been opened, sanctioned by a court against a presidential campaign.

And now that we know that, in fact, there was no basis for the claims that were being made and the claims that were used to open up the investigation, we need to find out, was there actually a sufficient basis? Was there sufficient evidence? for them to open up the investigation. Because if there wasn't, then people at the FBI and DOJ abused their law enforcement powers. And not only do they need to be punished for that, but we need to be sure that never happens again. Well, and as Senator Lindsey Graham has pointed out,

usually when those FISA investigations happen, it's to protect the American entities. And they will notify them and say, hey, these Russians or whoever are trying to spy on you, but that never happened. So it certainly allows for the possibility that there was some, some foul play. Yeah, I have to say, I heard the senator say that, and I have to agree with him, that makes what happened highly suspicious to me. You know, if the FBI had knowledge that Russians were contacting the campaign, and as we now know, in many efforts, there were many efforts where they were disguising themselves and trying to fool folks into not realizing they were Russian, why didn't they go to the campaign and warn them about it? Right.

Well, so how does this investigation into the FISA warrant happen? Does the Attorney General now launch this, or does Senator Graham have a special investigation? Well, both could happen at the same time because obviously the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees and the Judiciary Committees potentially have a jurisdiction over this. But, in fact, if I was the Attorney General, I probably would attack a special. I would appoint a special inside task force, not a special counsel, but a group of lawyers on the inside who can take a look at this and examine all of the documents, interview the FBI agents and original DOJ lawyers involved and find out that they actually have a real basis for opening up the investigation. Okay. Well, Hans, thanks so much for making time and pulling away from the 400-page to talk to us today. Sure, thanks for having me.

Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. The church membership isn't what it used to do.

to be in America. That's probably not a surprise, but a new Gallup survey shows just how precipitously it's declined in the last two decades. In the last 20 years, the percentage of Americans who claim church membership has dropped by 20%. In 1999, 70% of Americans were church members. Now it's just 50% and all-time low. Most of that decline, as you might expect, comes from growth among those who have no religious affiliation. In the last 20 years, the percentage of Americans with no affiliation has more than doubled from 8% up to 19%. So, Kate, what do you make of this trend? So I'm not really sure, to be honest.

I am Catholic, but I don't belong to any parish. I probably should, but frankly, it doesn't really affect your life unless you're looking to get sacraments like baptize a baby or get married or something like that. It doesn't matter that much, although it's encouraged. But I was curious if to you, as a Baptist, is church membership hugely important? Yeah, it absolutely is. So for us, I mean, church membership is, it's, you know, the church is a covenant. And so you're covenanting with each other to hold to certain standards, to hold one another accountable, to love one another, all the things that, you know, Jesus commanded us to do. We understand the local body of the Christ is kind of the locus of our Christian life and community. So church membership is essential. And if church, if individuals, if individuals, are not upholding their end of the covenant, we have something called church discipline,

which is, like, we talk to you about that and say, hey, you know, this is an issue. You're not holding up your side of the covenant. And ultimately, like, if you don't attend and if you just kind of, you know, stop being a part of it, then we, you know, we remove you from membership. At least that's why it's supposed to work, and historically it has worked. So it's different in different denominations, but yeah, the local church for us, us, obviously we don't have a pope and we don't have like a church hierarchy, but so for us, the local church kind of is, is the locus of the church. Right. And that's, that's, see, that's

really, really interesting to me because I think it's, so if you're Catholic, I think you technically belong to whatever parish geographically is assigned to you, but a lot of Catholics go to different parishes for different reasons and it's not considered that big a deal. I mean, you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to just do your own thing, although obviously some do. you're supposed to continue receiving the sacraments and going to confession and going, you know, you don't have to go to the same church every Sunday, but you were supposed to be at a church every Sunday. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know if, I guess this would concern me if the drop in church membership is associated with a drop in religious participation in seriousness. Yeah, well, it's also, it was interesting that it showed that, yeah, a lot of the drop was because of the rise of the nuns, the people with no religious affiliation.

Yeah, not the cool nuns. Not the Catholic nuns. Right, the opposite of those. But also it was a decline in church membership among religious people, which I thought was pretty interesting. And, you know, in the Protestant world, the non-denominational world, there's also this trend of church hopping, which I don't know if you're familiar with that term, it's kind of. We use it, but it just means going to different Catholic churches. I mean, you guys do the same thing, right, right. Which is, I don't know, a little bit.

Like, it's all the same denomination. Right. But the church hopping, at least phenomenon, is basically never committing to a particular congregation and only kind of jumping around different places. We call it church shopping if you're looking for a different church. But I think that's a phenomenon. I see it as a negative thing long term. Like you need to settle down and plug in. But I thought it was interesting that 42% of millennials are members of churches.

That's actually higher than what I expected. Yeah, I was wondering about that too. And I was, I don't know, I'd be sort of curious as more numbers. Like, for instance, I joined a church back in, I don't know, 2010, which ironically, I'm now technically in the right area for again. But I don't really, I doubt. You did join a church? I did. And then I moved.

And then I was like, well, I don't know. I mean, I haven't. So this is why I think it was really interesting your explanation of what it means to you as a Baptist. Because I think for Catholics, it doesn't. So there's two churches that I regularly go to more than any other Catholic churches. And I make a point of donating to both of them and like, you know, trying to take it a bit more seriously, my affiliation with them. But in general, I just, and I don't know if it's because, like, yeah, as you said, we have a Pope, we have a hierarchy. There's bishops.

Like, I don't know if maybe just the individual church membership isn't quite as important. But I think the overall point that, like, yeah, you should be invested in something. And seeing the same faces every week. Right. I can see. The same lunch in the same, you know, community. Right. And that's something that I guess because I do go to a couple different churches for Sunday Mass isn't necessarily true for me.

But I can see why it would be a good thing. Yeah. Well, there's so much more in that Pew study, but I recommend you to check it out. Right. Very appropriate for Easter. It is. Actually, they dropped it at just the right time on Mondi Thursday. Yeah.

So if you're one of those folks who only show up on Easter, maybe get you. consider going to week after. There you go. Well, we'll leave it there for today. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. Have a great Easter weekend. We'll see you on Monday. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and the Leah Rampersad. For more and

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