The Daily - Special Edition: Robert Mueller Submits His Report

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

The Mueller report has been sent to the attorney general. Here’s a look at what this means and what comes next. Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, who has been covering the special counsel investigation for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

So it's here. Well, it's in the hands of Bill Barr. It's not here in the sense that we can publicly consume it and see what Bob Mueller found. It has just moved from one pocket, which we can't see into, into another pocket that we can't see into. But it has moved pockets at least, which is something. Something we've been waiting two years for. Correct. Bob Mueller is done with his investigation.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is a special episode of The Daily. Today. In The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is a special episode of The Daily. Today, the Mueller report has been sent to the Attorney General. It's Friday afternoon, March 22nd. So, Mike, talk me through your day-to-day. So, knowing it was going to be a big day, I turned on the recorder as soon as I left the house this morning and made my way into the office

to hurry up and wait. All right. 10.05 a.m. I left my house at 10 a.m. We expect the report to be finished today, around noon. Walking down 17th Street, heading to the office. I got a call from the office from my editor wanting to know what I knew.

Told her I knew nothing. Last thing an editor wants to hear, nothing new. Not a ton of people on the streets. Do you agree? Yes. Do you know where the Jamaican embassy is? I do not, I'm sorry. I apologize.

Do you know what the address is? Was stopped by a woman who couldn't find the Jamaican Embassy? I do not, I'm sorry. I apologize. Do you know what the address is? Was stopped by a woman who couldn't find the Jamaican Embassy. Okay, so you were gonna wanna go this way. Go to DuPont Circle and make a right, and just keep on following that track. Oh, okay, so I'm going the wrong way. Well, we're all going the wrong way.

Come up to Massachusetts Avenue. Cold March day. Fairly cold here in Washington. 45 degrees. Just had a normal sort of walk into the office. Half block away. Coming up to 17th and... It doesn't seem like you're in a big hurry to get to the office.

Well, all the work has been done. We know what's coming. How are you? Hey, Mike. What's going on? So, coming to the building. Big day? No? Not a big day. Not a big day? Alright.

Get on the elevator. Four seven. Walk into the office, and everyone wants to know, chasing the report, when's it going to happen? This is the question I ask them every five days. Days or weeks.

The whole apparatus of the New York Times is jacked up for this moment. We've got Nick here. We're all ready. Gang's all here. There's been a lot of time and planning that's gone into this. There's a lot of stories that have been written that are ready to go. Does that seem right? Yep. Okay. Everyone's sitting around waiting and they want answers. So what's the latest? Dean Baquet, our executive editor, calls down to Washington to ask Elizabeth Bumiller, our bureau chief, what do you know? I'm not so sure.

I'm not. I'm less sure about the timing. But Elizabeth calls me over to her desk, puts him on speakerphone. Mikey, what do you know? You know how much of a heads up we may or may not get? My guess is not a lot because I don't know what there is to get a heads up on. And I said, I don't know. You tell them that you don't know because I don't know what there is to get a heads up on. And I said, I don't know. You tell them that you don't know. We don't know.

Okay. That's what we got. So that's all we got. And we have stories ready. Once we get the word from Jess, we just push a button. All the work is done. We're just hanging around. We're sort of lemmings at this point.

So sort of just having the same unsatisfying conversation with different people throughout the office for several hours while eating donuts. And then it happens. The special counsel investigation is over. Special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with associates of President Donald Trump. That report has been submitted. Now the question is, what happens to it? How much gets released and when? That is up to the new Attorney General, Bill Barr. So what do we know at this stage? It is Friday afternoon. What's our understanding?

Our understanding is that the attorney general and his deputies now have a long weekend of reading ahead of them. They have to go through the report, see what's there, digest it, and then figure out what to do with it. what's there, digest it, and then figure out what to do with it. How much of it should be made public, how much of it should be given to Congress, and how much of it should remain secret. Is that really all we know at this point? Is there anything about how this unfolded that tells us anything about the report or what Mueller has found, if he's decided to bring any charges against any figure in the White House, or how he's thinking about this. If anyone else has gotten caught up in this, they will be indicted by other U.S. attorneys across the country who have absorbed investigations from the special counsel's office. So the version of the report that will go to Congress and be seen by the public is the version that the attorney general has had a chance to go through and decide which parts should be seen by the larger world and which should not. And that's still going to take a while for him to figure out. Correct. And it's a very difficult process because if there is criminality in regards to the

president, it's a very tricky issue to navigate. The Justice Department has a policy that says the president can't be indicted. But if the president can't be indicted, Congress should deal with that behavior. How do you give that information to Congress? It's not a snap decision you can make. Like, okay, Mueller's done. This is what he found. Let's put this in another box and send it to Congress. It's far trickier.

So how does the AG make the decision about what to include and what not to include in this report? Barr's in this incredibly difficult spot because he has to figure out how much information to share with the public in Congress in a way that is enough to leave people convinced that this investigation was done thoroughly and based on following the facts. But he has to protect the president from disclosures about him that the public may be interested in, that his political enemies may want to know, but that has no bearing on the actual criminal investigation that was done. And does how the attorney general handles that balance depend, in your mind, Mike, on what the report from Mueller finds and says and recommends? Yes. If Mueller says the president didn't break the law, then Barr has to figure out how much information to give to Congress so that Congress takes those findings seriously.

The problem is Barr is in a very difficult spot politically because the Democrats have already concluded the president did something wrong. So if Barr learns from Mueller that there's no criminality on the president, how does Barr then win over those Democrats and show them that Mueller truly made a decision based on the facts? How much of what the investigation found does he have to give to the Hill? In a normal criminal investigation, all of that information would not become public because the just Department would want to protect the individual who they have found did not commit a crime. But this situation is different because a lot of people do think the president committed a crime. So how do you show

the Democrats and the rest of the country that, hey, look, this is what Mueller found. He only found X, Y, and Z. And if we wanted to make a case, he would have needed to have uncovered these other things, which he did not. And that's why we are confident with his findings. And on the other hand, if Mueller does find criminality and perhaps recommend charges against the president, how does Barr have to proceed? Well, how much of the evidence that Mueller uncovered should go to Congress? What should be told to Congress? Should Congress be told explicitly, look, Mueller believes the president violated these laws, and here's the evidence to back it up? But what if some of that evidence has been obtained from a grand jury? The

Justice Department can't just hand over grand jury information to Congress. What if the information is classified? They're not going to want to hand over classified information to Congress. They think Congress leaks like a sieve. Is it safe to say, though, Mike, that if criminality is found by Mueller, Congress and the public will see more of the Mueller report than if that is not found? Maybe. Maybe, maybe. But look, this is a highly unusual situation. The person who runs the executive branch,

the president, has just been under investigation by folks inside of his own branch for the past 22 months. Very awkward situation. And the person making the decision about what we all will learn about that investigation is a direct appointee of that president. Correct. Has the job because the president put him there. So the perception here is one where the average person looks at this and says, well, how can a guy who was made attorney general by the president look at this situation and make a decision that is free of politics? And how can I have confidence that this was done based on the facts? So when will we know more?

When will we know what the attorney general has decided on that front? Oh, now you want to know more. Yes, please. The greed of the news business. If you'll indulge us. When will we know more? Barr and his deputies will go through this. And I don't know, sometime in the next few days, sometime in the next few weeks. It may be a difficult process to unbraid. Mueller has been rummaging around the president's life for 22 months. We don't have clarity into everything Mueller's found. What if Barr looks at it and says, eh, Mueller thinks he violated this law and that law, but actually I don't think he has it. Maybe there's not enough

there. Maybe Barr disagrees with what Mueller has found, simply on a legal basis. The other thing is that Barr only really gets one shot to get it right. Whatever he goes out the door with in terms of handing over information to Congress, he's got to have it right. He's not going to have a second chance to say,

well, you know, I gave you that stuff, but like, meh, maybe it's not what I thought it was, or, oh, let's give you more. He has to get it right the first time. Otherwise, he'll look like he's waffling. And how much of how Barr handles this will be with a mind toward the expectation that a democratically controlled House of Representatives is already into a series of investigations that they only want to redouble once this report is in their hands. Barr clearly knows Congress is going to jump up and down

until it is satisfied with the information that it wants about this investigation. He can drag that out and probably lose it one way or another, either in the court of public opinion or in the actual courts. So he probably just wants to get it over with as soon as possible. He knows this has been an enormous weight on the country and that the sooner it is resolved, the sooner the country can move on.

And like, what is the likelihood that the way we find out more about the Mueller report is not from the version that's sent to Congress, but from something else? I think we're all really mindful of the fact that this is the era of the leak and that this is the biggest potential leak in recent memory. Yeah. Will it leak? I don't know. I mean, the number of people who will have access to this document will be very small. And they will know that if there are a lot of leaks about this, then the president can start to raise questions about what's really going on. It will look nefarious. The Democrats will get their backs up and say, well, if this stuff is leaking out, why can't we have access to it? They will know that their lives will be much more difficult if there are leaks here. Obviously, you could come up with a scenario where someone working

on the investigation is frustrated that the Justice Department has decided to go one way or the other on the report, and they think, ah, screw it. I'm going to make this public. But my guess is they have gone to great lengths to ensure that this is heavily protected. So now we wait again. Hurry up and wait. Mike, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

In a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress sent on Friday afternoon, Attorney General William Barr said he would brief them on the major conclusions of the special counsel's report as soon as this weekend. On Friday evening, the Times reported that Mueller is not recommending any new charges against President Trump or anyone else around him. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.