The NPR Politics Podcast - Mueller Report Doesn't Find Russian Collusion, But Can't 'Exonerate' On Obstruction

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

Special counsel Robert Mueller did not find evidence that President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election, according to a summary of findings submitted to Congress by Attorney General William Barr. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson and Congressional reporter Kelsey Snell. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Viola. And this is Kasson. Like Scott Detro, we're recording this from under a blanket in a hotel. Only we're at Lake Tahoe to go skiing. This show was recorded at... That's my favorite place in the world to visit a hotel at. It is 548 Eastern on Sunday, March 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

Like hopefully Scott won't be under a blanket anymore and neither will we. Amazing. Adorable. That was so good. I have made it back to Washington, D.C. where I am sitting in front of a microphone in a real grown-up radio studio. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Carrie Johnson, National Justice Correspondent. Well, as fun as that was, we have some really serious news to talk about in detail. So we now know Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings, at least Attorney General Bill Barr's four-page summary of them. Carrie, this was broken

up into a few different parts. Let's walk through them. Let's start with that key question of Russian interference in the election and any collusion or coordination from the Trump campaign. So the Mueller investigation did charge Russians with trying to interfere with and attack the American presidential election in 2016. But the conclusion of these investigators with respect to Americans is this. The investigation did not establish members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. No American was charged with conspiracy against the U.S. The only people charged with trying to attack the election were Russians. And like you said, a whole bunch of Russians were charged before.

But this was the key question. And the answer from Mueller is no. The answer is no. In fact, the investigation seems to have determined that even though the Russian government tried to reach out to people in the Trump campaign repeatedly, that no one knowingly coordinated or conspired with them. Well, and there's a footnote in this letter that actually defines what coordinated is. And it says that coordinated, as defined by the special counsel, was an agreement, tacit or express, between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference. So they're saying there was no deal. There was no deal. And we're not really talking about collusion. The crime here is conspiracy. And conspiracy is an agreement

to do something among one or more people. And we're going to circle back to the details on this. But first, Carrie, let's get to that second big question. And that's the issue of obstruction of justice. And I will be honest, I have read this part of the letter a couple of times and I'm really confused. So I'm very looking forward to what you have to say here. There's a reason you're confused, Scott, because it's kind of squirrely. Here's what we know from the special counsel report. The report does not conclude the president committed a crime, but it also does not exonerate him. Apparently, the special counsel considered these issues of obstruction thoroughly and did not decide the question. That left it up to the Attorney General, Bill Barr, who reached into that issue and decided the question. The

Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, concluded there wasn't evidence to prosecute the president for obstruction of justice. They didn't even take into account, they say, the sitting DOJ interpretation that you can't indict a sitting president with any crime. They say that most of the president's actions here took place in the light of day in public, like when he fired the FBI director, Jim Comey. And they say that there's just not enough evidence, in part because they say the special counsel didn't find the president committed any underlying crime like Russian election interference. And this is the political crossroads that we now find ourselves at. So, Tam, what is the president saying? Today, he did not call it a witch hunt. In fact, he said that he is totally exonerated. He doesn't

normally, when he's visiting Florida, which is where he is, he doesn't normally stop and talk to the reporters waiting under the wing of Air Force One before he gets on. Today, he stopped. It was just announced there was no collusion with Russia. The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction and none whatsoever. And it was a complete and total exoneration. So, Kelsey, obviously, President Trump is not totally accurate saying it is a complete exoneration. But still, the fact is, Democrats across the country put their hope and faith in Robert Mueller. He investigates this for about two years and he says, yeah, no collusion with Russia. I mean, that's a pretty huge political win for Trump.

Yeah, it absolutely is. And Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to talk about this so that they can maintain the political heft of their investigation. That's something that they're really concerned about, is they want to be able to say that they are on the political upper hand as they continue these investigations. And now that Mueller has come back and has said that the collusion isn't there, it puts Democrats in a more defensive position. Now, they're going to continue these investigations, and they say that they have a strong foundation to be looking into other things about the Trump administration and the Trump campaign. But yes, there's no denying that this is a serious political blow to them. Especially given the fact that from Pelosi on down, most Democratic leaders all along on the impeachment question had said, wait for Robert Mueller to deliver his report. It's hard, given the conclusions of no collusion and no clear cut recommendation on obstruction of justice.

It just seems hard to envision a path where impeachment is politically viable at this point forward. Yeah, and I actually think that that will probably come as a comfort to some of the more moderate Democrats who are uncomfortable with the impeachment conversation in the first place. But we should say that there are plenty of Democrats out there who really are just going to believe that impeachment needs to happen no matter what. And they were going to believe that with or without the conclusions of this Mueller report. So there is going to be serious tension among Democrats about how they have that conversation going forward. And there are a lot of congressional investigations underway. And as Kerry's been saying, still some criminal investigations underway. So, you know, more information could come out in another forum on another topic. Absolutely. We just got a statement

from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer while we were sitting here talking, and they said that the report raises as many questions as it answers. You know, and they're also going down a path that they started earlier in the weekend where they said they are going to demand all of the underlying documents for this investigation because they say that's the only way to really understand what the special counsel looked at and what they didn't look at. And the question of what they didn't look at is really kind of indicative of where these investigations are likely to go. What President Trump and his allies are trying to do right now is say this report, this letter from Bill Barr says we're in the clear, all done, no more conversation.

If there should be a conversation, it should be about the bad, bad people that investigated us. discrepancy between what Mueller actually found and what Bill Barr and the deputy attorney general decided. Yeah. And you know what? I don't think that's going to work already. Since this letter came out, I've had lawyers tweeting at me and emailing me and calling me on the phone to say that actually you can obstruct justice even if the underlying investigation turns up nothing. And actually, you can be guilty of conspiracy even if your conspiracy does not succeed. So there are big questions right now about how Bill Barr came to that analysis. And I think Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has already announced he wants Barr to testify about that. Carrie, in the obstruction of justice section, there's a part here that really sticks out to me.

They're talking about the burden of proof for obstruction of justice, and they talk repeatedly in this letter about it needing to be something that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in court. And I'm wondering if that standard could be part of why they felt they couldn't make any kind of decision right now. There is a high bar to proving obstruction of justice. There is. It's absolutely true that you have to demonstrate it's in connection with some kind of proceeding or some kind of investigation that's happening or about to happen, and that the person involved had bad intent. And one thing, Kelsey, that's interesting to me here is that how do you find out somebody's intent?

Well, maybe listen to them talk on TV, maybe read their tweets or maybe interview them one on one. And President Trump never agreed to a one on one interview with Robert Mueller or the FBI in the course of this investigation. But the other thing you said there, Barr says in this letter, many of these actions happened in public. I guess I'm confused because, yes, we know that President Trump went on NBC News and said, I fired Jim Comey because of this Russia thing. We know that he trashed then Attorney General Jeff Sessions over and over and over again about the fact this investigation was taking place. He did all these things. Is the fact that it happened in public, is there any legal weight to that as opposed to doing it in a closed door,

which is another thing that he did do? Scott, I'm going to reserve judgment on that. And I very much want to see this part of the underlying Mueller report. We know a whole bunch of things that happened in public. There are possibly things that this investigation has uncovered that are not yet public. I want to read what these investigators found, because we know they issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 500 witness interviews. I want to read what these investigators found, because we know they issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 500 witness interviews. I want to know what they have come up with on this score. Bill Barr has not yet given us that evidence.

I hope very much that he will. Well, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Democrat Gerald Nadler, agrees with you and wants to see that information as well. And we are going to talk about that and what comes next after a quick break. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, developing solutions to support strong families and communities to help ensure a brighter future for America's children. More information is available at AECF.org. What does what you eat or don't eat

say about who you are and where you fit in? It's the memories and the feelings of nostalgia that is what connects you to your family. It's not chicken or beef or pork. This is Gene Demby of NPR's Code Switch. This week on the menu, food and family. Okay, we are back. And Kelsey, let's pick up with that question.

Democrats, Gerald Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and many others are saying, this four-page letter is great and all, but we want to read the actual report and we want to see the evidence. So what happens next? Yeah, they put out a letter earlier this weekend saying the chairs of the committees on the House side

and the top Democrats on committees on the Senate side put these joint letters saying to DOJ, you have to preserve all of your work product and we want to see everything. Now, those are requests. They phrase them as demands, but there's nothing that says DOJ actually has to listen to them. I think it's going to be an interesting process here, right, where they are going to make these demands of the White House and the White House can make the decision to say no. And we could see a really combative situation where the White House is trying to fight back against any requests from Congress moving forward. And we know there are going to be a lot of requests and not just limited to, you know, who testified and, you know, who asked the questions. They want to see the full questions. They want to see the full questions.

They want to see the transcripts. They want to hear the tapes. Well, and the White House, let's step aside from the Mueller report. The White House this year has taken a pretty firm posture that they are not cooperating. They are not turning documents over. Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said that so far this year, the White House has not there's a lot that we don't think can be released, either because it is testimony that was provided to a grand jury and there are laws preventing grand jury testimony from being released, though there have been exceptions to that, or also because they could claim executive privilege at some point if they wanted to for anything related to the 30 White House employees who testified and did interviews with Mueller's team and the volumes of documents they turned over. OK, so guess where this is all going to end up in the courthouse? No, not the Ninth Circuit, the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where I have spent a lot of time over the last 22 months. And that's because the following. When you're talking about grand jury information, that grand jury was housed and overseen by the chief judge overseeing the Watergate matter actually made

of the call to allow the special prosecutor to transmit grand jury material to the House Judiciary Committee for the purposes of impeachment. I'm not sure we're going to get there, but there could be a request to the judge to do that. The other thing is that executive privilege does not apply to the period before Donald Trump became the president of the United States. And even for the period where he has been president, the interviews with people like Hope Hicks and former White House counsel Don McGahn and the cases, actually ruled in favor of Congress in an Obama era dispute over executive privilege. And I think you can expect Democrats to make those requests because they've already basically said that they're going to.

It kind of all goes back to what House Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler keeps saying, which is not everything that is impeachable is a crime and not everything that's a crime is impeachable. And it all goes back to that mentality. Carrie, Barr did say, though, that he is going to, independent of congressional requests and demands, he is going to release at least some of this report publicly, right? He is going to be transparent, consistent with the law and the rules and guidelines of the Justice Department. And he did say in this letter today that he's going to be consulting immediately with the special counsel team about what grand jury material is in that report, what needs to be protected. Barr also wants to protect materials on ongoing investigations. Scott, we know the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Virginia, D.C., federal prosecutors in all these places, as well as Justice Department headquarters, are looking at parts or offshoots of this Mueller investigation.

They're still working very hot and heavy for the time being. And we may not get a lot of information about those probes for a while. Sam, one thing I've been thinking about in the last couple hours is that for almost two years, Robert Mueller had been this like liberal hero on T-shirts, on votive candles and so many different places. Now he comes out with a report. And aside from the ongoing big questions about what exactly he was saying and obstruction of justice, he says, you know, to mirror what Trump's been saying for years, no collusion. What do you think the political fallout of that is? Oh, man. Well, I think that there are going to be a lot of people on the left

who are not happy and will be looking at this, trying to see if if the attorney general is hiding something. And then beyond that, this does lift a cloud from the president. He can be free to say that, you know, they didn't find collusion. I won the election fair and square. Though Barr does point out in this letter that Robert Mueller laid out in detail several different Russian operations to influence the election. He just says there's no evidence any Americans or Trump campaign employees were working with it. Right. You know, I've covered Robert Mueller since he was the FBI director or something like 12, 13 years. He is a registered Republican. He is a law and order guy. He is a prosecutor, Scott. He's not anybody's savior. And anybody who thought for

the last 22 months that he was going to come in and save some percentage of the country from some other percentage of the country has got it wrong all along. This guy is going to go about his life. He's 74 years old, hopefully go back to a much quieter life than the one he's lived over the last few days. And he's not going to be really worried about the political implications of what he found. He doesn't have anything to do with all these decisions going forward, right? His job is done. The fight will be between the Department of Justice and Congress and the courts. The special counsel's office is winding down. A few people are going to stick around to help close up shop and probably move those documents out and answer questions from other

prosecutors continuing parts of these investigations. He's also going to be involved, Robert Mueller, in the grand jury material analysis. But he was not at the Justice Department all weekend long like the rest of us. And DOJ did not consult him at all in the writing of this four page letter. All right. That is a wrap for today. It is very clear from our conversation that there is a lot more to talk about for this story. But, Carrie, I just want to say you have been covering a whole bunch of stuff for a long time. But you've been covering this story from the Comey firing to the Mueller appointment through all the all the indictments and all the court appearances. So I just want to say for all the people in this building who get all of our analysis from you

and have you make sense of all this for us, I just want to say thank you for all your work. It's all in a day's work. And you know what? The job's not yet done. We're going to see some more of this Mueller report and I'll be watching for it. And I'm just going to say it looks like Carrie

was emailing someone a question as I said that right now. She may not have heard all of your praise. It was very nice if you want to listen back to it. All right. All right. No more compliments for you. I'm Scott Tetra. I cover Congress.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover Congress. And I'm Carrie Johnson, national justice correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.