The Young Turks - Mueller Report Breakdown And Trump Collusion Crimes

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

The Mueller Report is public… kind of. Trump’s involvement with Russia. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

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Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five-star rating. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks, I'm Anna Casparian. John Iderola joins us for another awesome episode of the show. That's speculation, we don't know yet. It is, it is. I should wait for a very comprehensive report to come out. It will be submitted in a few years.

Anyway, it's been a really slow news day. I don't really know what to talk about today. Do you have any stories? I talked with the head of the national nurses on the damage report today so we can talk about Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All. I would actually love to do that. But of course, I'm joking, it's been a pretty big news day. And we have a ton to report in regard to Mueller's investigation and what his actual report says.

Now, of course, it's heavily redacted, but we are going to give you specific excerpts from the report that we feel is relevant and important for you to know. Later, we will go to William Barr's press conference, not only because I'm a I'm interested to see your reaction and see what you guys have to say about it. But more importantly, the reaction from congressional Democrats following his press conference. And later in the show, we have a bunch of other really great stories that I really do hope we get to. So why don't we get started?

I was just laughing at the lower third. They have so much fun with that thing. I know, they do. Sometimes I don't get an opportunity to read them because I'm focused. Oh, and one other cheese. So if we get to it, the one story that I might present is on Facebook teaming up with a right wing news site to do fact checking, and I'm not actually, I'm not sure how I feel about it. What?

We'll talk about it. John. We'll talk about it. Alright, I'm gonna quit my job. We'll talk about it. Like if I lose you, then there's no point in what I'm doing right now. There just seems to be a lot more money on the other side. Can we agree on that?

I think we all know. I think I'm gonna turn right wing. Okay. Okay. All right. Oh, fracking, it's so efficient. Please let's get started. Let's get started.

Okay. Before I become very depressed. All right. Robert Mueller's report, the heavily redacted version, has been released to the public. And journalists, of course, are pouring over it, sharing excerpts and analysis. And we will do the same today. Now, there are various categories where we're going to break this down. But I want to start off with what I personally feel is an important part of Mueller's report.

Again, this is not interpretation. This is literally an excerpt from Mueller's report. It says, quote, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Now, there is some debate. Of course, this is a very politically driven debate as to whether or not Mueller wanted Congress to investigate the obstruction of justice charges against the president.

Now, the report specifically hones in on the issue of collusion and obstruction of justice, something that most people already know. And this report, I have to be honest, did not provide much clarity when it comes to those two issues. Now, let me give you the relevant portions of this report. I want to begin with the beginning. What was Donald Trump's reaction to the investigation? What was his reaction to the special counsel's involvement in the investigation? And here's what the report indicates.

On May 17th, 2017, the acting attorney general for the Russia investigation appointed a special counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The president reacted to news that a special counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was, quote, the end of his presidency and demanding that Sessions, meaning Jeff Sessions, of course, resign. Now, he specifically said the following, and of course I have to censor it, oh my God, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, I'm effed. Okay, so.

Flatulent, I think is the, I think that's what he said. But it's good of you to blank it out though. I just, if you have done nothing wrong, why the panic? This, maybe this is the episode where I disagree with you a lot. I don't actually interpret that section the same as everyone else. And I've seen that particular section spread around a lot. No, I think he very enthusiastically, he wanted the Russians to help him. I think he was following along as all the different stuff came out and everything, all that stuff.

You could say whether you think that rises to the level of collusion or whatever, which is of course not a legal term, that's fine. But that section is also consistent with him just thinking that it would derail his presidency, even if there wasn't a crime. Alternatively, that there's a crime, but it's not related to anything having to do with the election. If he is actually worried that the investigation could spin out to other things, which they did not look into in the Mueller report, he could think it's ended for that reason. But I also think if he thinks it would suck up all the oxygen in the room, that could explain what he said there.

It doesn't explain all of what he did, but- Yeah, we actually don't disagree at all. Okay, well, some people on Twitter are presenting that as proof itself that he was guilty. So look, there are, and I think that there's a lot of miscommunication about Trump's potential crimes. And so there's the whole issue of collusion, which Congressional Democrats have really latched onto, and then there's the issue of potential financial crime, something that we've brought up on the show quite a bit. And so the reason why I bring up that quote and how he panics is because I feel like it

appears that he's in some way acknowledging that there's something going on. And maybe it's not collusion. I personally think he was worried that the investigation wouldn't be as limited in scope. And the investigation was limited in scope. Mueller specifically looked at collusion. Did Donald Trump and his campaign willingly cooperate with the Russians or collude with the Russians in order to give him a leg up or an advantage in this election? That is what he focused on.

All of the other potential issues, which the report does indicate. there were other issues, were outsourced to other investigators. So again, Mueller's investigation was limited in scope. Yeah, or specifically to coordination or conspiracy, not to collusion, which is a term that they only use in the report in quoting other people or explaining why they don't use the term collusion. Right. Yeah, and then there's another section of the report that specifically says that obstruction

of justice might not have been founded on trying to hide any sort of underlying crime having to do with conspiracy, but could well have been generated by his justifiable fears that it would uncover other crimes that we don't necessarily know about, and that could be personal or financial or whatever. That specifically is talked about in the report. Exactly, exactly. So so far we are in agreement. Now, in the very beginning, of course, there was the issue of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

He decided to recuse himself and Donald Trump was furious about it. And so he wanted Jeff Sessions to resign. And so according to the report, Sessions submitted his resignation, but the president, ultimately did not accept it. The president told aides that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the special counsel therefore could not serve. The president's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice.

Now, I bring up this portion of the report because it really does show you that while someone like William Barr, Donald Trump's attorney general, argues that, no, I mean, look, Donald Trump has done everything to cooperate. He didn't try to use his executive powers in preventing others from cooperating or he didn't use his executive privilege in a way that would hinder this investigation. That is, in my opinion, misleading because Trump was surrounded with AIDS who kept trying to convince him or talk him out of jumping off a cliff. Yeah.

Right? And so that's an important point in the report for you to know and, you know, just go back to for context when we talk about William Barr's press conference today. Yeah, I mean, when he claimed this morning that there had been full and total cooperation, that was when he jumped the shark. Like nobody actually believes that. They might pretend to if you're Jesse Waters or something, but nobody believes it. I mean, we know that he didn't actually sit down and testify before Mueller.

So you're gonna fall far short of total cooperation with that, let alone trying to fire literally everyone involved in the investigation at one point or another. Exactly. And one final portion of this having to do with Jeff Sessions. In early summer of 2017, the president called sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Oh, and also, I just want to mention this because you had in your last graphic that he was told that the concerns were meritless.

Just bear in mind, this is going to be a sort of constant theme throughout all of this, is that he was told that his concerns about Mueller and his partisanship or whatever were meritless. Remember, of course, he's a Republican. And of course, for almost two years, he continued to say that it was the case, that that these were angry Democrats and all that. So he just lied and lied and lied month after month after month, going far beyond just saying that this guy is a Democrat when he's not, but also saying that he is treasonous.

So when you're keeping a scorecard of all of the things that are not obstruction of justice, accusing the person investigating of you committing treason, not obstruction of justice. Exactly. And so now I want to go to a more in-depth look at what the report says in regard to collusion. So, understand that based on Mueller's findings, there was not enough evidence to prove conspiracy, right? There just wasn't enough evidence. But there were certain parts of the campaign that raised questions and that did come up during

this investigation. So according to the Mueller report, Mueller found there was-Muller found there was insufficient evidence to establish that Trump or his associates engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to disrupt the 2016 election. That is the interpretation of the New York Times. Let me give you more from the New York Times. Apparently, Barr repeatedly said that the president's campaign did not collude with Russia. Mueller's report, though, offers a more nuanced definition.

This is what I was alluding to. He writes that while there was ample evidence of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, as it carried out its social media influence and hacking campaigns, the evidence was not strong enough to support. bringing criminal charges. So again, there were moments in the campaign where things were happening that were super questionable, but you have a high burden of proof here to prove conspiracy, and Mueller was not able to do that. Yeah, and specifically they say to prove that, you would need to show not only that they

were both working towards the sort of shared interests or helping out each other, but that there was a formal agreement between them, which is a bar that I don't think many people ever expected that you would find, like, a signed letter with, like, Trump's, like, ring, seal, and wax or something saying, I would like to collude with you. Nobody actually thought we were going to find that. But that is similar to the bar that was set for proving a criminal conspiracy. And again, just bear in mind when, when, because we're going to throughout this, we're going to be talking a little bit about what Barr had said a couple of weeks ago and what

we ended up getting, Barr keeps using the term collusion. Mueller does not use that term. Barr uses it because Trump uses it because it's a purposefully vague thing that has little connection to actual law. Conspiracy is a different thing, and you can do all sorts of things that look extremely unethical or arguably criminal that do not rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy. Exactly, and that's an important distinction to make. Finally, I gave you the New York Times interpretation, and I think it's important to give

you what the actual report says. The report says, quote, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principle. So let's, honestly for me, the collusion, conspiracy question, I just want to put it to rest.

Because Mueller says he doesn't have enough evidence to prove that conspiracy occurred and let's let it go. Well, again, I don't like collusion and conspiracy. being used in the same sentence as if they're the same thing. I mean, there are all sorts of things throughout the report that look extremely unethical, and that indeed Trump and his associates lied about constantly at the time and while the investigation was going on, which is incredibly suspicious. There are also sections that you reference that the report is heavily redacted, and it

is, but it's not redacted consistently throughout. It tends to be certain sections are heavily redacted. In fact, there are a couple of pages where there's nothing but the page number and the header. And those sections tend to be involving the actual hacking that produced the emails and any Trump campaign coordination with WikiLeaks. Those sections are heavily redacted. We don't know much of what's in there, probably because of Roger Stone's ongoing legal troubles. Yeah, that was cited as the reason for those pages being heavily redacted.

So, okay, so that's what we know so far when it comes to this particular issue, the accusations that Trump's campaign had worked with the Russians in order to undermine the election. election. This is what we know, and you can do with that information what you will. But what I think is much more unclear is whether or not Donald Trump obstructed justice. And there seems to be- I don't think it's unclear at all. Well, I'm on your- But perhaps we'll disagree. I mean, I'm trying to be fair, but I'm on your camp.

Okay. There are several instances where Trump's behavior appear to obstruct justice, and Mueller highlights that throughout the report. The important thing that I want you to take away as you watch this is that the narrative that we're getting from the attorney general who is not supposed to be Donald Trump's personal lawyer is very different than the very nuanced report that Mueller put together. Yeah, and in certain cases is directly, they're contradictory. So when it comes to obstruction, for instance, Barr said two weeks ago, Mueller left it up

to me to decide whether or not there's going to be a criminal like prosecution or we're going to go forward that way. That's not in the report. Mueller seems to be pretty clear that he doesn't believe that there could be charges because of that old DOJ memo that I think is extremely questionable, but apparently Mueller was abiding by it that he would not be able to bring forward charges. That's perhaps why he talks so much about Congress's role, potentially in that that you started off this segment with.

He never said it was up to Barr to determine, but that was exactly what Barr said at the time. So at least in that area, Barr's interpretation or his presentation of what was in the memo was not borne out by the Mueller report itself. Absolutely. So with that said, let's go to the details of the obstruction part of this investigation. Mueller's report focused on obstruction in addition to collusion, and the obstruction portion of it I think brought up a number of issues that the American public should be aware

of and you should especially be aware of as you watch some of the comments coming from Attorney General William Barr. So the report detailed Trump's efforts to thwart the investigation. The report said that by virtue of his position as president, he had the authority to carry out several of the acts in question, including firing James Comey as FBI director. So the report says, look, as president, he can go ahead and fire the FBI director. But it also continues to talk about some of the efforts to harm the investigation. These actions ranged, and this is the report, I'm reading from the report, these actions

ranged from efforts to remove the special counsel and to reverse the effect of the attorney general's recusal to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation, to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony. That's huge. I can't tell if that's a description of what he did or if that's a description of all of the potential ways one could obstruct justice. No, no, no. I mean, if you read the report.

It sounds like that's a bullet point list of how you diagnose obstruction. That's right. And these are things that Trump's accused of doing. Exactly. So this is the reason why it's so important for the public to have access to this report. Because if you simply rely on what William Barr says, I mean, it conflicts quite a bit with what the actual report says. Let me give you more.

Again, this is from Mueller's report. In early 2018, the press reported that the president had directed McGahn, that was the lawyer McGahn, to have the special counsel removed in June of 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The president reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and to create a record stating he had not been to be in the news ordered to have the special counsel removed. We should be done with this topic with that.

Okay, so one of the things that's really standing out is the differences in the legal standard, right? And so with someone like William Barr, I've heard legal experts refer to him and his theory, his legal theories, as fringe legal theories. Because in his mind, if there was no underlying crime, and in this, you know, it's, you know, investigation, the potential underlying crime was conspiracy. If that hasn't been proven, and he's not guilty of conspiracy, well, then he can't be guilty of obstructing justice.

That is the argument that they keep making. Yeah, that's BS. Yeah, I agree. It's not only BS from my non-legal standpoint. It's another area where, man, the people who got the bar memo and were like, this confirms everything I've ever said, we win, and we're so excited. And some, now still I saw tweeting saying, well, I mean, the Mueller report, pretty much confirms everything, like what you just said about the no underlying crime means

you don't have to worry about obstruction of justice was in the Barr memo. The Mueller report not only doesn't say that, but it specifically lies out why you do not need an underlying crime. There's a gigantic paragraph specifically about that. And then on top of that also lays out other explanations for potential underlying crimes other than conspiracy or coordination that could justify obstruction of justice charges. It was in the report, a big section, Barr saw it. And he didn't care.

That's right. Because that's what he's, he got into that position because he doesn't believe that obstruction of justice is a real thing. He is there to protect powerful people from the consequences of their actions. That's what he auditioned for with his 19 page letter to Trump last year. And that's why he has the position today. He must have been bored in retirement. I guess.

Devastatingly bored. I guess, but again, on two of the biggest issues, the bar memo is directly contradicted by what's in the Mueller report. Yes, exactly. So let me give you more. And again, this is going back to what happened. happened or what transpired between Donald Trump and McGahn. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the president

had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed. The president then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. In the same meeting, the president also asked McGahn why he had told the special counsel about the president's effort to remove the special counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversation with the president. Allegedly, McGahn had responded to Trump by saying, you know, I'm paraphrasing, I'm a lawyer, I'm supposed to take notes, I take notes.

Trump thought it was strange. I think he said, I'm a real lawyer. And Trump was like, I've had lots of lawyers, they never take any notes. Yeah, you don't like a paper trail. That's suspicious is what that is. Yeah. Yeah. Let me give you more.

We were not, and again, this is Mueller's report, we were not persuaded by the argument that the president has blanket constitutional immunity to engage in acts that would corruptly obstruct justice through the exercise of otherwise valid Article 2 powers protecting the integrity of its own proceedings and the proceedings of Article 3 courts and grand juries. So that is what you were alluding to earlier, John. It shows that there is a difference in legal interpretation between Robert Mueller and William Barr. So let me give you, yeah, so that is what stood out to me personally when it came to the obstruction portion of the report.

Of course, the report came out this morning, it was hundreds of pages, over 400 pages, and more information is gonna come in as we pour over it, as other journalists pour over it. But I do think that it's interesting to juxtapose William Barr's interpretation and what the report really says. Yeah, and look, we can go to their conclusion. I also have my conclusion. I think that what was revealed on obstruction of justice and the reaction to it thus far should horrify us, I think.

I think that it is the best example yet of how much has been normalized over the past couple of years of Trump's presidency, that we now think that this is acceptable. He did way worse stuff than Nixon did, which took down Nixon, but for Trump, it's like maybe he'll get a bad news cycle out of it. He obstructed justice under one condition that obstruction of justice has any meaning whatsoever. Either it does or it doesn't. If you can fire the head of the FBI and then try to push out your AG and then try to remove the special counsel himself and then bring in an AG whose only qualification is a sense

of profound loyalty to you as an individual, if you can do all of that while also tampering with witnesses, dangling pardons and attacking them in social media, lying about virtually every aspect of the investigation, trying to get others to lie about the investigation, not actually cooperating in terms of sitting down with the investigator and testifying. If you can do all of that, then I am asking you 100% serious, honest question. What could a future president possibly do that would count his obstruction of justice if this doesn't? In the future, I've been saying for like two years now, even if you don't care about anything to do with Russia, you should be terrified about what he's doing in terms of obstruction of justice.

because this is a precedent now for no accountability for the president ever again on anything. And up until now, we have had a couple of different ways to stop the president from breaking the law, something a president has many opportunities to do. Either he has a personal sense of ethics that stops him for breaking the law, or we have accountability in terms of investigations. Unless Congress does something about this, that one is gone. And so now all we have is the hope that they are a good person and that they personally don't want to break the law.

We know that that doesn't stop Donald Trump. maybe we'll get lucky with future presidents and they will feel like they should not do bad things. But this is this, any president could break the law from that one. And why would they ever have to fear an investigation? Let the investigation start. Fire them all. Fire all of them. Yeah, I think that this does set a dangerous precedent.

And I think that Trump has surrounded himself with people, including William Barr, who believe that the executive branch has the most power, does not believe in a, uh, of what our constitution, you know, is supposed to protect, which is checks and balances, three branches of government. And I just want to, in terms of the obstruction allegations, I want to read you one more portion from the Mueller report that I thought was important. So it writes, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would state so.

Yeah. So that's important to keep it in mind. And while Trump has surrounded himself with people who protect him, while the Senate is full of Republicans who are more interested in protecting him rather than doing what's right for the country, I just want you to think about how these very Republicans responded to and handled the investigation into Bill Clinton when he engaged in an affair with an intern. And with that said, let's go to this old video.

of Senator Lindsey Graham. Again, he's commenting on Bill Clinton. He doesn't have to say go lie for me to be a crime. You don't have to say less obstruct justice for it to be a crime. You judge people on their conduct, not magic phrases. Yeah, there's no way that Trump passes that test, obviously. Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see. I know we're going to talk a little bit more about some of the Democrats with what they've said, which I find it would be a little bit worrisome. But it is good to know that we do have some strong progressives in office right now. And I saw that Bernie Sanders came out after this and he was saying that further investigations

by Congress are warranted. AOC said that she is, as a result of this report, she's signing on to Rashida Talib's impeachment proposal. And so thankfully, we do have strong progressives that are taking these concerns seriously. When we come back from the break, there are other portions of the report that I want to share with you all. And we will, of course, get to William Barr's press conference today and debunk some of the statements he made.

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So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Right back. Welcome back to TYT. I have an important announcement to make. I love it when you do that with your shirt instead of the tie. No.

Yeah, don't say that. You look so suave. And like, I'm into it. I'm into it. I don't think anyone agrees with you right now. Why? I mean, I like what you're saying, but I don't think anyone else is like, yeah, swab is what I'd say. Well, we're surrounded by dude, so.

Can I, look, you just gave me a compliment and I have very low self-esteem. so I have to undercut the compliment. Do you know why I'm not wearing a tie with this? Because this collar won't actually shut around my neck. Oh, really? And my neck is too thick, so I can't wear ties with it. I could start, but it's not gonna end well. Isn't it a good thing to have a thick neck as a guy?

Depends. I don't know, whatever. I don't know. Look at Alex Jones, it's not a good thing in some cases. Okay, members' comments, I love hearing from you guys. So Gabby Marito writes in and says, let's be honest, if this sort of report came out about Obama, he would have already been impeached and removed from office. No, Gabby, what you don't understand is if this report came out about Obama, he wouldn't

even have to wait for someone or for Congress to impeach him. He would just leave himself. Like you see what I'm saying? Like he was just too willing to concede to the other side, whereas Trump and the people that he surrounded himself with make me fearful about the precedent it sets moving forward and And also, how someone like Trump would react if he were to get impeached, right? Like, he's not the kind of person who's just gonna step down easily. Well, there's been no consequences for his actions up until now.

Why would he start assuming there would be later? And I will just say, one of the things that scares me the most about obstruction, which is the part that I think precedent wise has always been the most important part of this, because I think that every other politician is looking to this to see what would I do in this circumstance. And someone will eventually end up being the next president and the president after that. is that it's not just that we're having a conversation about whether he obstructed justice or not. What scares me is how obviously so many people don't care.

Like they, I mean, obviously all of Trump's defenders don't care. They think he should do whatever he wants. He should have fired Mueller and all that. But so many people that otherwise brand themselves as caring about transparency and accountability and questioning the government, in this case, hands off, don't care. It's not important. Don't talk about it. And that is very scary for the future.

Lloyd writes in, you'll like this, John, you'd make an awful right winger, simply because you're stating way too many facts. And suave. And finally, one of 19 writes in and says, so Trump takes no responsibility for initiating this investigation. However, it seems the report includes numerous examples that support the reasons for starting this investigation. And you're absolutely right.

That's why it's so important to see the report. So we can see with our eyes what Mueller actually found through his two year long investigation. And just imagine if he hadn't fired Comey. Like the FBI would have still investigated a little, but it would have been 10% maximum of what he ended up getting. And he only did that because he's got this expectation of 100% loyalty. And he believes that if you will not give that, that you're a disloyal, that you're a traitor. And that put him in this position that has harmed him so much.

Yes. So let's talk about Game of Thrones. for a second, think about things that make us happy before we get back to things that make us unhappy. Game of Thrones has begun. Last week was the season premiere, and it's the last season. And so, TYT for years now has been doing post Game of Thrones analysis and reviews. And so if you are interested in that show, if you're a huge fan like most of us are here,

you can tune in every Sunday to watch live as the analysis happens. It happens, of course, right after Game of Thrones airs. And you can catch it live if you're not a member. Anyone can watch that by going to t-y-t.com slash live. But if you are a member, you get to watch it whenever you want. It's in our archives, and that's pretty nice, pretty sweet, because you can't really DVR, you know, the online stream, I don't think, can you? Well, and also I believe that part of it is exclusive to members, like the last half,

which is generally we go through the episode and everything, we talk, we have fun. A little bit of that in the members exclusive thing, but there's also sort of predictions for the next episode responding to the episode teaser and all that, and so that's a lot of fun too. Yes. And if you want to get access to all of this stuff uninterrupted, just go to t.t.com slash join, and please become a member. We want to make sure we give you guys exclusive content just to thank you for helping us survive

and exist in this very tumultuous media landscape. Yes. All right. Following the release of the Mueller report, there were a number of things that came up that either confirmed or verified previous news reports or gave us more in-depth information into what was really going on with Donald Trump's campaign and Donald Trump's presidency. So one of the things that of course was reported early on was Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower.

And so Mueller's report, of course, looked into that. that, and I wanted to share you portions of the report that I thought were relevant when it came to that situation. So the report says, quote, on several occasions, the president directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9th, 2016 meeting, suggesting the emails would not leak, and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Now, this is an important thing to bring up because not only does it have to do with the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians.

It also has to do with how Trump was, of course, behind the scenes trying to cover things up or trying to manipulate the situation. And so that is relevant, because again, you have his attorney general claiming that there was no obstruction of justice, but the report does not actually indicate that. And he specifically says that they made every effort to make all documentation available. They're specifically here trying to stop emails from being acquired. Exactly. The report continues to say, before the emails became public, the president edited a press

statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with an individual who Trump Jr. was told might have information helpful to the campaign and instead said only the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. So we can all recall how that really played out publicly and how it was later discovered that, no, they discussed other things. They discussed sanctions. They discussed situations that hurt Russia financially. And of course, they wanted some of those issues to be resolved.

And so Don Jr. was not forthcoming. The Trump camp was not forthcoming when it came to that meeting. And now we know what was really going on. We know who the puppet master was behind the scenes. And it was Donald Trump. Yeah, well, I will say he wasn't forthcoming, but as well, I mean, I hate Don Jr. as much as anyone, he was going to be more forthcoming than Trump was. Like, he was actually going to say that they talked about some of this stuff.

Trump ended up deleting it and hiding it a little bit. So, yeah. When the press asked questions about the president's involvement in Trump Jr.'s statement, the president's personal lawyer repeatedly denied that the president had played any role. And again, that just every page, it just screams from it. Every opportunity where it made sense for them, they lied, even in opportunities where it didn't make any sense and where people risked spending years in jail if they lied, they chose to lie. They lied and they lied.

And so for people who were like who maybe haven't been following this or wondering, why were people following this so much for two years? It's because everywhere you turned, they were lying. And generally when a huge group of people lie constantly about one subject, it leads you to believe that there might be something there. Right. And so every time you saw analysis or, you know, predictions when it came to this investigation, I think you can understand why people, and this includes me, I didn't know in the beginning.

I don't know if there's conspiracy. I have no idea if he actually colluded with the Russians. But as this investigation kept going on, the actions of Donald Trump and those who surrounded him. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs, only did this July 18th. Started to make me skeptical about these denials because they were not forthcoming. It was proven over and over again that they would make statements and then later it was discovered that they were lying when they would make those statements. And why, why? Why would you do that? Just be straightforward and tell the truth about what's going on.

Now again, as John and I talked about earlier, I think that Trump was worried that the scope of the investigation wouldn't be as narrow and that Mueller would look into other issues. And the fact of the matter is, Mueller in the report does say that other issues came up. However, those investigations were outsourced to others. So let me give you the details on that. During the course of the investigation, the office periodically identified evidence of potential criminal activity that was outside the scope of the special counsel's jurisdiction established by the acting attorney general.

After consultation with the office of the deputy attorney general, the office referred that evidence to appropriate law enforcement authorities, principally other components of the Department of Justice and the FBI. So again, this further confirms and verifies that Mueller's investigation was in fact limited in scope. The question is, did Donald Trump know that? And had he not known that, then I can understand why. there would be panic and a number of people refusing to be forthcoming about what was really going

on. Now, whether or not those investigations come up with any type of real criminal activity or prove criminal activity, I don't know. But there are other investigations happening. Yeah, and there were almost more charges in the case that you were just talking about, about the Trump Tower. I mean, he says in the Mueller report that he considered charging the people there. And the people there were the president's son, the campaign co-chair, Jared Kushner, are the highest ranking people in the campaign, almost faced charges because what they were doing with the meeting was attempting to solicit a contribution, something of value from a foreign national, which is a felony.

And the only reason, in Mueller lists this, you can read it yourself, the only reason they didn't face charges was because the Mueller team didn't think that they could prove that the people at the meeting were savvy enough to know that they were breaking the law. And in this case, because in the end they didn't end up receiving anything, you would have to show intent to break the law. And they're effectively saying that Don Jr. is such a dope that he probably didn't know it was legal or illegal. And so he's not facing any charges, but what they attempted to do, like we have murder, we've attempted murder. You've attempted versions of crimes, that's attempted coordination.

They might not have actually done it, and it might not be enough to land them in jail, but it certainly is, it's bordering on illegal. It was an attempted crime, and it's certainly unethical. Yes, and one other portion of the report pertaining to the other potential crimes that were outsourced to other investigators. Mueller writes, 12 of those referrals remain secret. I'm sorry, this is not from Mueller's report. This is actually from the New York Times. Twelve of the referrals remain secret. Two others have been made public, including prosecutions involving Trump's former personal

lawyer, Michael Cohen, and Gregory B. Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration. So again, there were 14 other potential crimes that were referred to other investigators. 12 of those potential crimes are not public. We don't know the details, we don't know what they entail. And we don't necessarily know if they're still ongoing. That's true, that's a good point. They might have already wound down. That's a good point.

So again, I go back to what I would argue is far more important, and that is potential financial crimes, conflicts of interest, maybe some money deals when it comes to foreign governments. That is something that would not only compromise the president, if it's proven, but more importantly would give him an incentive to look out for his own best interests, which is financial motives or whatever, as opposed to the best interests of the American people. And so it's important for an investigation to happen in regard to those financial ties and conflicts of interest. But when it comes to obstruction of justice, again, a bunch of problematic things came up. William Barr has shared a questionable interpretation. And it does appear that Mueller has said, look, there's not enough evidence to prove conspiracy. So that's where we're at.

Yeah. So we have to take a break. But when we come back, we are going to get to William Barr's testimony. And as I've said earlier, we will show you the inconsistencies between what William Barr said during his press conference and what the Mueller report actually says. Come right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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And we're back. Anna and John with you. Welcome back to TYT. John, I don't know if you know this, but Monday night will feature multiple specials here at TYT. What are they about? Well, one of them you're very much involved in, and that is the Earth Day special. Wait, I'm doing that? You are. You're doing that with Jake. I wanted to go see a movie. Okay, can I just, I'm going to give you guys some inside info.

If you follow Jank on any social media, then you're already aware that he's losing his mind because he's not here talking about the news. He's supposed to be on vacation, on a cruise. I don't even know. He's on a cruise? He's on a cruise? How do you even have access? I was on a cruise recently, like last April, actually.

Oh my God, it's been almost a year. Wow. It's really hard, like, first of all, internet connection is super expensive, but more importantly, it's not good because you're like in the middle of the ocean, what is he doing? What are you doing? Like, relax. Tweeting and eating. So, he- I'm not making a joke about him, that's what people do on cruises.

Not the tweeting part, but cruises are about buffets, buffets and the occasional dolphin. And sometimes combined. So I only bring him up because he's gonna be like bursting at the seams on money. Monday because he's just gonna wanna be on air the entire time. And lucky for him, he will be. Yes, he will be. We're doing two specials that night after the main show. That includes the Earth Day special and that is gonna be hosted by you and Jank.

And you guys can check that out live at 8 p.m. Eastern time or 5 p.m. Pacific, of course. For uninterrupted coverage though, you should become a member. Go to t.t.com slash join. That same night, Monday night, we're gonna do all of the town halls. Okay, CNN's having- You get a town hall. The Hive town halls. Amy Klobuchar, like everyone's involved, okay? Yeah, it looks like I've got the first one and then you come on and you talk to Jake

Tapper and then Ida, no. Yeah, Bernie is one, right? I believe so, yeah. Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Buttigieg, as I mentioned, Amy Klobuchar. So lots of town halls and we will be providing analysis and doing specials for that. So please tune in. Again, Monday night's going to be a big night for us. And we're looking forward to having you guys watch and support if you're a member.

Go to t-y-t.com slash join. Real quick, I want to read a few members' comments. Stiff upper lip says Anna and John, together is great. I think so too. Also, together forever. What? Because we're news buddies. Come on, we should do this forever.

We're going to be 70 years old. You think we're going to do this together for us? A long time? If I can't find a parachute. No, no, I'm not saying we're not going to, but no, I like, John's one of my favorite people. If my fantasy novels don't take off, yes, we'll be doing this forever. Perry S says, thinking about it, Donnie is acting a lot like Viceris?

Viceris? Viceris. Sorry. And we all know what happened to him. He got his crown of, oh yeah, that's right. Yes, season one. Danny's brother. Yeah.

I see you, I see it. Yeah, nobody make a cartoon where Caldrogo is Robert Mueller, please. Okay, so as I promised, we are now going to get to William Barr. Immediately before Robert Mueller's investigation and report was made public, Attorney General William Barr had a press conference, and during that press conference, he said a number of things that made him appear to be more of Trump's defense attorney as opposed to an attorney general that's supposed to represent and serve the American people. Now with that said, I want to go to the first video and I'll explain why his statements here are problematic. In assessing the president's

actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. 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 Council'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 aids 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.

You lying. The reason why I wanted to break down the Mueller report before going to this press conference is so our audience understands what the Mueller report entails. If you're watching this on YouTube or one of the other platforms that we're on, go to our previous video where we break down the Mueller report because I think that gives you important context in dissecting what William Barr is saying here. Now, as we know from the report, it is not true that Donald Trump fully cooperated and was very easy to deal with and did everything he possibly could to give Robert Mueller the

information in order to do this investigation. In fact, I'm gonna go back and read you some of the relevant parts pertaining to obstruction of justice. So Trump's attempts to harm the investigation, this is what it included. In early 2018, the press reported that the president had directed. Don McGahn to have the special counsel removed in June of 2017, and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The president reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn

to dispute the story and to create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the special council removed. Let me go ahead and continue. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating the president had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed. The president then met with McGahn in the Oval Office. and again pressured him to deny the reports. In the same meeting, the president also asked McGahn why he had told the special counsel

about the president's efforts to remove the special counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversation with the president. I have more. We were not persuaded by the argument that the president has blanket constitutional immunity to engage in acts that would corruptly obstruct justice through the exercise of otherwise valid Article II powers protecting the integrity of its own proceedings and the proceedings of Article III courts and grand juries. So I read you that because the theory that William Barr and some of the fringe people in

the legal world believe is that if there wasn't an underlying crime, then there couldn't have been obstruction of justice. There is a lot of disagreement when it comes to that. And finally, the Mueller report says, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would state so. Or we would so state. And there was a lot of mention of Congress getting involved in this, in, you know, sussing out whether or not obstruction of justice occurred.

But the way that William Barr spoke about it in that press conference made it appear as if this report completely cleared Donald Trump of any wrongdoing of any obstruction of justice, and that is not the case. Yeah, and that's why he had the press conference. That's why he wrote the memo in his own words rather than using the summaries that were in the report when he gave it out two weeks ago. It was about setting the narrative. And some people in the media helped him with that by parroting uncritically what he said.

Many people have pointed out, like some people are just, I guess, new to politics. That's not what the AG does. They do not go forward as the personal lawyer of the president and defend him. It's supposed to be independent. But there he, like that could have been Rudy Giuliani delivering all of that. It was a bit more coherent than Rudy Giuliani would have been, but the perspective was the The same, the goal was to protect Donald Trump, his reputation and all of that. And also the argument, in terms of why he doesn't have a corrupt motive, yeah, maybe he did

some obstruction, but he was just really frustrated. He was really mad. Yeah. These are the same people that believe that only men should be able to be president because women are too emotional for it. He's breaking the law because he's triggered. That's effectively the argument that was provided there. That's exactly right.

And also, and every part of that was false. He could have exercised executive privilege and he didn't. He didn't need to. He had you. He didn't need to remove sections from the bar report. You'd redact anything that he wanted. He didn't need like executive privilege to get access to it earlier. You just handed it over because the AG has been turned into effectively a crony to the president.

All of those normal uses of executive privilege that are corrupt themselves are not necessary because of the way they've perverted the system. What really stood out to me in regard to William Barr's press conference and that video that we just showed you was where he said, and I'm paraphrasing, something along the lines of Donald Trump, you know, had no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and the information he needed to conduct the investigation. Well, that's not necessarily, that's not true, it's just not true. I'm not going to say necessarily true, because remember, the report specifically notes

that Donald Trump was the person who had Don Jr. change his statement in regard to the Trump Tower meeting and completely lie about the whole purpose of that meeting. Remember, originally they claimed that the purpose of that meeting was to discuss Russian adoptions. But in reality, the purpose of that meeting had to do with sanctions and with other issues that the Russian government wants to fix or change with Trump in office, or should Trump be in office. And so that is relevant to bring up because behind the scenes, Trump is like this puppet

master who's trying to manipulate the situation. And the way that William Barr is talking about in that press conference makes it appear that he was like completely hands off, there was no obstruction, he was fully cooperative, and that is just not the case. Yes. Let's go to the next video. The special counsel indicate that he wanted you to make the decision or that it should be left for Congress.

Special counsel Mueller did not indicate that his purpose was to leave the decision to Congress. I hope that was not his view since we don't convene grand juries and conduct criminal investigations for that purpose. He did not, I didn't talk to him directly about the fact that we were making the decision, but I am told that his reaction to that was that it was my prerogative as Attorney General to make that decision. I'm just going to go to graphic one. Again, this is from the Mueller report, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. That is not an interpretation from the media. That is from the Mueller report.

Let me read it to you again. We concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Now, I bring that up, that is just one of the times that Mueller brought up. Congress and its ability or the necessity to investigate the obstruction of justice allegation because there were so many things that came up that could prove that there was obstruction of justice. Yeah, exactly. Which we of course outlined in the video that we did earlier.

And while what he said there at the press conference was false, it was also a retreat from the way he presented that same information a couple of weeks ago in his memo. There he's saying, you know, it was my interpretation. He stated it as a fact a couple of weeks ago. Now he's starting to retreat because, of course, we have the actual source with the primary source, we can look at it. It was also reported earlier this month by NBC News. I believe this was after his memo.

So it was in response to that. A member of the Mueller team said that, quote, their intent was to leave the legal question open for Congress and the public to examine the evidence. And the thing is, we can have this debate now, and we're going to, but apparently Robert Mueller is going to be brought before both the Senate and the House to testify. about this. And so if it's his intent to let Congress get involved, he can stay it there. I don't know why he would hide that.

And the thing is honestly, either way, Congress is probably going to investigate this. But they're gonna have the opportunity and not too much longer to ask Robert Mueller directly about this. Yes, and you're right. Oh, and one of the quick thing, the press conference that they just, it was totally unnecessary, there's no reason to have it. But isn't it weird that neither Robert Mueller nor anyone from his team was there? Why have this additional press conference when we're like 70 minutes out from having the report,

and did not have anyone available to answer questions. You're gonna take questions from the media, but not have anyone that actually knows what the point of the investigation was, what their actual intent was. Why are you opining about their intent when you can have a member of the team actually there? Well, I think that this was a strategy and it could prove to be a successful strategy for Donald Trump and William Barr, because remember, public support is something that they want to manipulate and have some control over. And so do most Americans, and we got to get out of our bubble and really think about this,

and I could be wrong, but do most Americans have the time to pour through a 400-page plus document or investigation that Mueller has put together? I would argue, no. Are they more likely to come across this press conference, which is easier to just watch And believe. Yeah, or our headlines summarizing the press conference. That's right. And we all know how the media usually reacts to these things.

It'll have a headline, something along the lines of. William Barr says that there was no obstruction of justice. After the bar memo, there were headlines that say exoneration when the specifically, he only gave you 98 words of the actual report, and a couple of them were we don't exonerate him. And so the media can't be trusted in these sorts of things very often. So they know- In terms of headlines, at the very least. They know how to manipulate the media.

They know how to unfortunately manipulate some Americans, certainly not all. And we might see this as ridiculous because we're going to go through the actual report. And we are going to watch whatever testimony Robert Mueller gives to both the House of Representatives in the Senate. But we can't just assume that everyone else is, you know? So I think that does it for, no, there's one more story that we're. we'll get to after the break related to all of this. And it's the reaction and the response from Democrats.

John, thank you for helping me go through all of this and analyze it. And where can people watch your show? It is the damage report. Members obviously get it and all that. But it's also available at YouTube.com slash the damage report and Twitter.com slash the damage report. Yeah. Okay. Because Facebook has the damage report.

But yeah, just damage report. All right. Thanks for watching. We will be right back with more on this story. and I promise you we have other stuff produced and ready to go for you guys. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.