and lied to the federal courts about the mueller report and the findings in the mueller report and about the, quote, decision as to whether donald trump would be charged with obstruction of justice. of course all of the trump hacks immediately took bill barr's lies as the gospel and continued. and continued today saying, oh, the mueller report was much to do about nothing. it was a russian hoax. they didn't find that he committed obstruction of justice when, in fact, mueller gave ten examples of that. >> yeah. mueller laid out chapter and verse all of the moments where he did, in fact, donald trump obstruct justice. wasn't his job to recommend those charges against the president of the united states and because he did not, former attorney general barr stepped into that void and said, well, i've read the mueller report before anybody else has, read it very quickly, by the way. here is my four page summary for congress and it's my judgment the president should not be prosecuted based on the findings of this report. that's what judge jackson said last night. let's bring in michael schmidt,

i mean, donald trump refused to sit for an interview with the mueller team. he provided them with written answers. there have been questions about whether those answers were factual and he took a range of actions to throw sand in the gears of this investigation including pressuring don mcgahn to create a false document on the investigation given to mueller. bill barr's assessment of obstruction was that there was nothing to see here. trump benefitted from that. barr had a huge megaphone at the time and it gave republicans the cover to say well, if bill barr is saying and he's essentially clearing trump then he's been cleared. >> and here we all are, michael schmitt, goldman, matt miller thank you for starting us off on that story. after the break, security concerns of domestic extremism to uphold a ban against donald trump and republicans apparently no longer the party of national or homeland security are lashing out. plus we'll talk to the republican candidate in texas who had the audacity to trump on an anti-trump platform. we'll ask him what he thinks abou

a federal judge now slamming barr as disingenuous for his spin on the mueller probe. the question is -- what more will we learn about barr's

the judge continues mueller called for the immediate release of his report, i. d., but it remained under wraps for another three weeks soft on april 18th 2019, the attorney general appeared before congress to deliver the report, he asserted that he had it was time for the public to see the mueller report, rather than attorney general barr's misreporting tasting about what was in it. it is now time for the public to see that advice to him, and whether the president would be prosecuted. that's supposed advice to him, on whether president trump would be prosecuted. this is judge amy berman jackson, ordering the release of a justice department document we have never seen, which was the supposed justification for not bringing criminal obstruction of justice charges against president trump. in her ruling today, she ordered the release of that never before seen document. she also just ransacks the trump era justice department and bill barr's job running it, calling him personally disingenuous, saying the justice department took steps to quote, obfuscate the true purpos

we started the mueller investigation out. i had the utmost confidence in mueller and his team. i had little confidence in william barr but that suddenly went to zero when he stepped on the stage day of the press conference and gave a summary of the mueller report, basically saying, there was nothing to see there. i thought that was odd. now we all know that was not odd. that was just a plain lie about the alternative facts, i guess you could say. that mueller, now judge who is reviewing this, is now calling him out and talking about a pattern, a pattern of dishonest behavior from the person who was attorney general, william barr. >> it goes on and on. it feels like there is a powerful of cadre men of low character who ran amok in this country for four years and nothing will ever be done to them. trump on down. let me play this. andrea mitchell, my great colleague here, interviewed the guy, he was actually listening on a call with the former u.s. attorney rudy giuliani who is donald trump's lawyer at the time. take listen. >> it was all about a smear campaign on then candidate b

one of the burn marks left by the mueller investigation, one of the reasons that trump attorney general william barr may not have been able to find himself gainful employment of any kind since leaving the trump administration, is because as attorney general in the trump era justice department, william barr was found by a federal court to have lied to the country about the mueller investigation. in a federal court decision that will follow bill barr around for the rest of his life like toilet paper stuck to his shoe, a federal judge in washington, d.c. found last year that when robert mueller turned in his report on the russia investigation to the justice department, attorney general william barr lied to the public about what was in it. the judge's ruling said quote attorney general barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the report causing this court to question whether attorney general's barr's intent was to create a one sided narrative about the mueller report, a narrative that is clearly substantially at odds with the actual report. that was last

ascribing definitiveness there from mueller's findings that weren't, frankly, there. that stuck for many americans. i want to ask you this. beyond for the historical record, are there any potential legal consequences for bill barr? he was a lawyer. disbarment? anything like that or is this just about reputation? >> well, it depends. certainly the -- i believe bill barr is barred in washington, d.c. they could start a grievance to disbar him if they decide to do that. i suspect, though, that nothing will happen. he was fairly careful in his testimony. you know, even the judge talks about him being -- instead of saying making false statements so trying to prove there were actual lies here would be a tough one. >> jennifer rodgers, thank you very much for us. >>> still ahead -- the bitter battle between the truth and the big lie. could house republicans be closer to forcing out and replacing liz cheney from her number three position in the house republican caucus after her repeated willingness to say the president is lying. we're going to be live on the capitol hill -- o

don mcgahn spoke to prosecutors in the mueller investigation. that's why we know he's the main witness for the most serious allegations against trump when it comes to federal obstruction charges. but mcgahn has never testified about any of it. while trump was still in office, he blocked mcgahn from giving testimony. now that trump is no longer in office, mcgahn is not going to be blocked from testifying, and it's a funny story as to why. it has to do with money and someone who is feeling a little on the edges these day. this is from charlie savage at "the new york times" -- quote. >> he'd have to pay himself for lawyers to try to block mcgahn from testifying? himself? we all know that the man does not like to pay for things himself. and so he will no longer try to block don mcgahn's testimony. he would have to pay lawyers in order to try to do that and he is not doing that. and so don mcgahn is going to testify to congress next week. don mcgann, he is going to testify to trump's potential obstruction of justice next week. he's going to testify f

done began was asked by former president trump to fire robert mueller and he refused. that's not really the critical part. it's that when this came to light and the washington post reported on it, trump said i want you, don mcgahn, to lie about my request that you fire robert mueller, and don mcgahn said, i'm not doing that. and he was going to resign. a critical question to ask don mcgahn is if you didn't think he was committing a crime, or are you going to up and resign? you don't do that unless it's quite serious, being the white house counsel. and clearly, there was so much he was going to stomach. i think that would be damaging testimony, but i won't hold my breath. also, for expecting an obstruction indictment of the former president. >> could the house judiciary committee just hand there transcript of this testimony over to the justice department with a recommendation for an investigation of some kind, or prosecution? >> they absolutely could. it's worth remembering the justice department already has that because the mueller investigation consisted of fbi interv

but the mueller report specifically said it did not exonerate the president and mueller testified to congress that he did not. you'll remember at the time, mueller called barr out, writing a letter to him just after the summary was released saying it did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of the investigation and the conclusions. mueller also made clear that if trump did not commit a crime, we would know. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> if you thought it stank of a cover-up at the time, so does the federal judge now. >>> vaccine misinformation circulating online. cnn goes inside facebook mommy groups where conspiracies could be putting women at risk. when it's hot outside your car is like a sauna steaming up lingering odors. febreze car vent clips stop hot car stench with up to 30 days of freshness. get relief with febreze. >>> president biden's new goal is to -- is in the fight against covid-19, to get at least one dose of the vaccine into arms of 70% of american adults, by july 4th. but that m

but the mueller report specifically said it did not exonerate the president and mueller testified to congress that he did not. you'll remember at the time, mueller called barr out, writing a letter to him just after the summary was released saying it did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of the investigation and the conclusions. mueller made clear if trump did not commit a crime, we would know. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> if you thought it stank of a cover-up at the time, so does the federal judge now. >>> vaccine misinformation circulating online. mommy groups where conspiracies could be putting women at risk. aliens are real, alright. there's just too much evidence. kill weeds not the lawn with roundup for lawns products. that's a very good question. will there be an ev for me? what about me? an ev for me? what about me? can i get one too? an ev for this princess? what's an ev? and there better be one for me. and what about michelle from michigan? me? what about me? us? will there be an e

barr said, when the mueller report came out, that it was immaterial it. didn't matter at all that trump, because he's president, is immune from being prosecuted. barr said that didn't even come into play. he didn't even have to factor that into his decision because he said trump didn't need immunity. he said trump was innocent. he consulted with justice department lawyers about all the evidence that was laid out by mueller and he concluded on the basis of that evidence that none of that was a crime. none of that was all that series and there was nothing to prosecute. trump didn't need immunity. he was innocent. earlier this month, a judge in washington d.c. issued a scathing ruling that basically said that's not what happens. in a case about whether the justice department has to release something about the internal documents of whether to prosecute trump, the judge ruled that the way bill barr described that decision, his supposed exoneration of trump, is not actually what happened. she ordered the justice department to release their internal memo about t

that was one half the mueller investigation was about. what russia did to the election to try to get trump to be president -- >> and what we thought happened happen. trump's campaign chair, paul manafort sharing this with the russian intelligence agency is the proverbial smoking gun. giving russia material they could use to target their interference on trump's behalf, which they then did. andrew weizmann, the prosecutor who led the case against paul joins us now. now one a day and done. ♪ ♪ ♪ common love isn't for us ♪ ♪ we created something phenomenal ♪ ♪ don't you agree? ♪ ♪ don't you agree? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ow! ♪ at worksman cycles, we've been building bikes for a hundred years. but our customers' needs have changed, so we expanded our product line to include electric cycles. we used the unlimited 1.5 percent cash back from our chase ink business unlimited ® credit card to help purchase tools and materials to build new models. and each time we use our card, we earn cash back to help grow our business. it's more than

the statute of limitations has not run on the conduct that was described in the mueller report. and the evidence against him in terms of these multiple seriousv allegations of obstruction of justice, that evidence was in the mueller report obtained and preserved, laid out very orderly, laid out in a very orderly way by mueller's investigators. a federal judge has just ruled within the past two weeks that justice department at the time, they never looked substantively at that evidence while trump was president. they never made a substantive determination as to whether or not criminal charges against trump were warranted. the justice department is now free to make that determination if they want to. and just last night, a deal was finally reached to finally have testimony for the first time from the main witness against the former president for those obstruction of justice allegations. it seems like a big deal. and the timing of it is shakespearean, right? that is all coming together. that revived prospect of serious federal criminal liability for v former president trump, that is

hundreds and hundreds of pages of the mueller report. judge jackson noted the attorney general's characterization of what he hardly had time to skim much less study closely prompted immediate reaction as politicians and pundits took to feeds to decry what they thought was attempt to hide the ball. attorney general was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the president should be charged with obstruction of justice, the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given. leading off, neal katyal, msnbc legal contributor. thanks for joining us tonight. as soon as i read what the judge said about william barr, i was eager to talk to you about this. disingenuous is not a word i find myself using because i'm not a federal judge but carefully used in situations like this. what do you make about what the judge is saying here about william barr? >> it's hugely significant, lawrence. yesterday in my city of washington, d.c., we really had a tale of two attorneys general. one, merrick garland testifying in congress, carefully, methodic

law ends, inside the mueller investigation." great to see you. thank you for joining us tonight. >> nice to be here. >> i know that there are parts -- you have to be careful, your ethical obligations to the justice department as a former prosecutor are real and present and i know you take these very seriously, and i don't want to ask you to talk about anything you are precluded from talking about by the ethical constraints that you are under. with that said, at the time you were detailing manafort's lies to the court in 2019, and we can see so much more of that now with the new unredactions, we have learned since then that he was passing on polling data to the russian intelligence services. you told the court at the time that the polling data was about battleground states and the word trend was all over the data. how should we understand the point that you were making to the court there? what should we take away from that given public information we have had since then? >> wel -- there was a group of people that focused on paul

embracing mueller, paul ryan, and trey gowdy to an extent, we would just let him do his work and hope donald trump did not do anything wrong, and there were people like jim jordan and john ratcliffe and others. [cheers and applause] who saw through it. and by the way, you know who was another hero during the russia hoax, the best governor in america. [cheers and applause] oh they love him. they love him. they have more -- [cheers and applause] yeah, you hear that, ron? [cheers and applause] i remember campaigning with ron desantis when we could meet in an elevator and still have room for social distancing. [laughter] he has done a great job and shown good leadership. as we take this tour, we want to highlight america first leaders across the country who need that. when you willing to draft and with the establishment, there is so much support, the lobbyist would tell you how to vote, the fundraisers will pour the money on you, telling you where the embassy parties are, and it is nice life. if you do that, then they come for you. [cheers and applause] >> we love you. rep. matt gaetz: i

mcgahn testify to information that's personal to him and available in the mueller report. is there a value to this? of course there is. because a transcript will be made available and even if limited to the testimony of just what is publicly available in the mueller report hi can be asked whether or not donald trump tried to obstruct the russia investigation and whether or not the information contained within the report that is attributed to don mcgahn is accurate and correct. people are going to unearth the mueller report, and check it out and see whether or not they cross reference whether or not the testimony to congress is exactly what is included in the mueller report. >> manhattan prosecutors are still going after trump cfo. "the wall street journal" revealing they subpoenaed the grandchildren's private school. your sense of what records authorities are looking for and potentially tie back to trump? >> it is a two fold answer for you. this is a pressure point move. we go after the grandchildren's records and for people that turn the nose to that, guess what. you try

him to direct rosenstein to fire mueller, special counsel mueller. in fact, trump said to him, call me back when you have done it. obstruction of justice. that's just one incident. another incident that he testified to, and appears in the unredacted portions of the mueller report, is then trump went to him and said, change the documents, change the paperwork around this exchange. mcgahn wouldn't do either of those things. we want to hear from mr. mcgone about those kinds of practicings by a sitting president to try to obstruct justice. >> thank you. congresswoman dean, thank you for spending time with me on the holiday weekend. i appreciate you. >>> back to breaking news in florida. a deadly mass shooting overnight in miami-dade county. happened outside an entertainment venue. police say it was a targeted act of violence involving three suspects who jumped out of an suv and open fire outside that concert. one parent described the horror of getting the phone call that his daughter was injured. >>. >> don't let it be mine and then turned out to be mine

that publicly called out barr for disporting the mueller report, and here's what is new. bill barr received the mueller report on a friday, march 2nd, 2019 and on a sunday he came out with his decision, he reviewed the 448-page document and concluded that donald trump was free and clear on obstruction of justice. a lot of people, myself included, looked at that and said there's no way he could have absorbed the whole memo and this was in the bag and bill barr did what we knew he would do all along, and turns out there was a memo from the doj and that doj tried to convince this judge, bill barr did reach a reasoned and careful conclusion but turns out that memo was not done until after barr reached his conclusion, and the judge did not appreciate that and said that doj was being disingenuous and misleading and that's a big deal. >> the bigger issue is what it says about the department of justice. they are supposed to be independent, right? >> yeah, i was taught as a young prosecutor, that's all you have, your independence and credibility, and i was taught every time you st

justice on ten instances plus laid out in great detail in the mueller report. again, has never had to testify about. it this will be the first testimony we have heard. it happens just as the justice department is deciding, right now, whether or not they're going to release to the public the memo that bill barr justice department prepared about why trump shouldn't be prosecuted for any of those alleged incidents of obstruction of justice. it's kind of happening all at the same time. >> and because of the late hour at which this justice department memo is going to be released or not, we've actually kind of adjusted the scheduling of this show so that neal katyal can appear later in the show. we don't have the memo yet. there is kind of a whole, as i think you know, in the script here where that memo is supposed to go. >> yes, that's exactly right. >> i think you know what i mean. i think there might of been something like that in the 9 pm script. >> [laughs] >> [laughs] so we are waiting. maybe this hour, maybe not. >> it's -- i mean, it's gonna be fascinating. i

goes after bill barr for a summary of the mueller report. it's not just judge jackson. it's other judges, one called it distorted and misleading, and judge emmitt sullivan said about the dropping of the case with michael flynn. so i don't think you can apply the same rule back that you can to this. that is what the garland justice department appears to have done tonight. we will have to study the decision. right now, my sense is, this is not the right call. the people need to see and understand what happened at this justice department over the last four years. we waited and waited and waited and to bury this is, i think, detrimental to what american democracy is all about. >> please stas with you. when we come back, i have a couple more questions on this, including what will happen on this appeal? what is the likely outcome if we can say when it goes to the appeals court. we will be right back. als court. we will be right back. certifie. certified from headlamp to tailpipe. that's certified head turns. and it's all backed by our unlimited mileage warranty. that means un

it caused tension between him and robert mueller, barr and robert mueller. that was a huge moment for donald trump because it framed the way this was seen. this memo relats to how that took place. the judge is underscoring that they were not candid and up front with the court and that they were not candid and up front with the public. >> did any of this as far as you can tell put new jeopardy on those involved including the former president? >> look. i can't speak to what the level of jeopardy would be. as far as i can tell, so far this is literally about a memo and how the doj interacted with the court. i don't see how we, unless we come up with something, we, meaning the public record, told bill barr to do that. i don't see how this touches on donald trump other than donald trump was obviously pleased with the way bill barr put out the mueller report and he has said so. at the moment, however, it raises for us fresh question about bill barr and his justice department and why they handled it the way they did, and that's not going to go away. >> it makes you

in fact it looks a lot more, to me, like mueller 2.0. just as the mueller probe in 2017 was based on ally, the lie of russian collusion, which didn't exist, and it was based on that because they wanted to get trump, to have all the law enforcement powers that come with a special counsel to go after his people, accuse him of collusion and obstruction of justice. this new commission is no different. it's congress. it wants all of the law enforcement powers the doj usually has to subpoena, to indict, maybe even to imprison if people don't do what congress wants them to come in and if they are contemptuous of congress, heaven forbid. and the whole thing is political nonsense. it's meant to give them something to hang onto for the next two years heading into 2022 that they can use to demonize their opposition, to shut their opposition down and make sure that they have no one to challenge them heading into the next election. >> tucker: backup three sentences. this gives democrats in the congress effectively police powers as they had during the

in many ways it's what robert mueller did. he played by the book, he brought a feather to a knife fight, not realizing people on the other side were lawless and corrupt. i think the new justice department decided we're going to play by the same rule books, appeal this decision, and i think the problem with that is they didn't have to appeal. even if they disagreed, even if they should worried by protecting prosecutors in future cases, they could have simply said, look, we disagree with this decision, its reasoning, but we're not going to appeal it. this is the people's memo, and release it, not because of technical argument. just simply saying, sometimes transparency requires an extraordinary result. leave it at that. you can fight to protect prosecutors in cases down the road. to me, this decision is rather baffling, unfortunate, undemocratic, and untransparent, and i hope to see this rectified in the days to come. >>> with your help we'll stay on it. i hope so, too. neal katyal, thank you for your time. >>> another vaccine m

. >>> big developments today in two long-standing legal fights related to mueller's russia report, and don mcgahn could be testifying next week, and the doj is appealing a judge's order to release the full memo. joining us now are associated press white house reporter and msnbc political analyst, jonathan mere, and john weissman. i remember covering the first impeachment of donald trump the white house ignored the house subpoena for mcgahn's testimony and they were thinking it will end up in the courts and take a couple years to resolve and here we are a couple years later, and what potentially does don mcgahn now have to tell house democrats? >> you are right, jeff. you and i covered that impeachment closely and the white house strategy was to just say no to not cooperate with any of the requests from the house and impeachment lawyers to try and stonewall that effort, and the white house counsel don mcgahn is somebody who we know was in the room for a lot of key moments in the trump administration. we know that he was part of the decision when the president decided to fire james comey

after robert mueller's investigation. appreciate your time today, hope to see you back this time tomorrow. thanks for joining us, it's a very busy day. ana cabrera picking up the coverage right now. ♪ >>> thanks for joining us, i'm ana cabrera in new york and happening this hour president biden is meeting with members of george floyd's family, one year after his death, it comes as lawmakers missed the president's deadline for police legislation but there are progress as negotiations are still under way. today george floyd's brother is set to urge president biden in person to help get the bill passed and to sign it following a year of unrest and a growing demand for racial equality sparked by floyd's death in minneapolis. happening right now, a celebration of life for the man whose name continues to ring out among calls for change. that is a live look at events under way in minneapolis, we have a reporter there, omar jimenez as well as kaitlan collins live at the white house for us. kaitlan, starting with you, what are y

so i hope that won't be part of their investigation. >> commissioner mueller, let me go back quickly to you. we go from mt. vernon and the department of misconduct to the d.a. to your department in neighboring yonkers, new york, also in westchester county, also under the d.a.'s jurisdiction, the difference being you have taken on the challenge of self-generating reform, which we certainly welcome here on "politicsnation." what do those reforms look like, commissioner? >> well, the first thing is from a crime standpoint, we're very big on precision policing, reverend, which is it's the recognition that mass incarceration does not work, and it never has, and crime doesn't support that. that 95% of the people don't commit any crimes. so when you dial in and you focus on the 5% that are victimizing our community and you can find it across every crime category, every crime category, gun violence, persistent offenders, it's the same 5% of people. what does this do? it allows us to really dial into the people we need to keep our communities safe. and because we're not kind of blanket carpet

a federal judge now slamming barr as disingenuous for his spin on the mueller probe. the question is -- what more will we learn about barr's actions to protect trump. >>> house minority leader kevin mccarthy setting the stage for the out of thing of liz cheney. >>> a major development on the vaccine front. the question is -- how soon will adolescents be able to get the coast shot? it's "way too early" for this! ♪♪ >>> good morning! welcome to "way too early." the show that knows the microphone, it's always on. i am kasie hunt on this wednesday, may 5th. we will start with the news. >>> a federal judge blasted former attorney general bill barr in a decision released last night accusing barr of misleading her and congress. the remarks from judge amy berman-jackson came as she ordered the justice department to released the redacted portions of a 2019 memo that was prepared by barr and top doj officials whether president trump should be charged with obstructing the mueller investigation. the justice department at the time withheld the full memo from a watchdog group s

i am joined now by andrew weissman, a former senior justice official, a prosecutor on bob mueller's team. and neal katyal and the district attorney and former federal prosecutor. thanks to all of you. this is news that's breaking. we're all absorbing it. daniel, i go to you first as a veteran of the office. walk us through what it means legally when the da convenes a grand jury like this regarding a probe like this. >> so i think, ari, as you eluded earlier, grand juries are sitting all the time. they have previously compelled evidence in their name. what's different from this, which is colloquially called a special kbrand jury, we used to call it an extra grand jury in the da's office is that now this grand jury, assuming the reporting is right, will spend an extended period hearing one or more cases. not just any old case. the usual grand juries sit for four weeks, and they hear any case that comes through the door. but this is now a more targeted thing. and that typically means that the da has a complicated case he wants to present for a potential indictment at some point during the t

probe, but could you have used his tax returns during the mueller probe? >> well, it's interesting. we did not have general jurisdiction to go after any and all financial crimes. everything that we did had to relate to the issue of russian interference, coordination with russian actors, or obstruction of justice. so that could encompass some financial information, but it is definitely not the free reign that the new york attorney general's office and the manhattan district attorney's office had. so i don't think the tax returns in and of themselves would have been a terribly interesting lead given our limited jurisdiction. but just to be clear from your viewers' point of view, they obviously are something that is very interesting and could be potentially criminal, and were certainly something that could lead to civil liability at the federal and criminal level. >> let's move to the politics here. sahil, i had, my ep and i had a conversation last night about this story. it's both hugely consequential and possibly politically inconsequential, at least for a

but there was and it was in the mueller report. i asked general garland to release the most unredacted mueller report that he can, go after barr and the previous justice department and their illegalities to get testify, and the contentiousness and arrogance of barr towards our committee were unheard of and damaging to the justice department and to justice and the american system. merrick garland in the tradition of ruth bader ginsburg who was brandized. he will act to show the american public what the justice department is about them and not about covering up for the most corrupt president in our history. i hate to use gary trudeau -- gary trudeau is great. one of the first things i go to. all of the investigations of this president, individual one, and investigations for all kind of bank fraud and insurance fraud and real estate fraud and you name it. and bill barr was working with -- i'll suspect. we'll find out bill barr resigned because we'll find out what happened on january 6th and there was even a limit to what bill barr wou

report on his investigation into trump did not support a charge of obstruction which is not what mueller's report concluded. join cans now, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and the msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. good morning. thanks for getting up early with us. we appreciate it. i want to ask you about this story. what do you make of this fact, that the kind of records were these, and just how rare is it for a justice department to ask for this kind of information, and what does it say about bill barr? >> it's a fascinating situation, because there's a legitimate vote for the d.o.j. to obtain these kinds of records but there is a lot of red flags in this situation that mean we need to dig deeper. d.o.j. guidelines are very stringent regarding obtaining reporters' records an they require the attorney general's personal signoff. the records have to be essential to an ongoing investigation. and there has to be no other way to obtain the information. so as you say, it's exceedingly rare. what's notable here is that this surrounds a political controversy in essence,

that is not what the mueller investigation concluded. joining me now is democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut, a member of the intelligence and financial services committee. good to see you. thank you for being with us. i don't know where to start, there's so much stuff here. i guess part of it is just that the justice department, we are seeing the degree to which the justice department was a corrupt arm of the -- of donald trump really, not even the trump administration. >> yeah, well, that's right, ali. this is not new news. it is not in any way surprising. americans of any political stripe should be frightened by what we're reading today, that the attorney general approved actually the requisitioning of phone records from reporters. look, regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, it is illegal and not a good idea to leak classified information, but the protection of the journalists who get those leaks, i mean, you know, this is how the pentagon papers got put out there, one of the best controls we have over gove

he released a four-page letter on the mueller report weeks before. and a judge is asked to appoint a special master about products taken from rudy giuliani's home. >>> we begin with rudy giuliani and my exclusive interview with a long time ukraine adviser. he was listening in by speaker phone for a stunning request to investigate joe biden and the claim that ukraine, not russia was responsible for the camp. >> what did you hear rudy giuliani saying to the president's top adviser? >> he wanted two things. basically it was all about a smear campaign on candidate biden, joe biden. basically, first request was multiple investigations. he wanted investigation. he wanted the situation with the ex-prosecutor general investigated. and he was especially interested in getting ukraine make a public statement and possibly back it up, this crazy allegation that it was ukraine, not russia that meddled in 2016. which is ridiculous, but that's what he wanted. >> he wanted the president to blame ukraine for the hacking investigation on the democratic party in 2016. >

so much so that you saw mueller come out and it was not his custom. he felt the needs to clarify the record. so something in there, where there's some smoke, we'll probably find some fire at the end of the day . >> we should be looking at information -- they'll likely get a former judge. the department is used to doing this. typically on a less high-profile case, let's say, they may caught in a team that is essentially a team of lawyers that review documents that may in fact be privileged to make sure the investigative team doesn't gain access to information that might help the investigation to which they shouldn't have been allowed to look. so there's nothing particularly nefarious here or should draw anybody's particular conclusion. it's a smart move by the department to go ahead and do this. it's an expected move. at the end of the day the winner are the clients. if in fact mr. giuliani has legitimate clients who may have private information that was located in his computer system or in his files, those businesses will be protected. it's not a way

apart then james comey leaked to the media inn order to get the university professor in order to get mueller appointed special counsel and it's all falling apart that they didn't have a case but they still have an appeal into the trump s presidency. who is doing that and who has a vendetta, they didn't have the goods and they're still going after trump with a really bad debunked source, christopher steele. >> they were career officers in the fbi in the justice department who continue to work against president trump draw his presidency, from all the leaks that we've seen during the trump presidency that should not come as a surprise but the fact that they would use his discredited individual discredited by everybody including comey to goc after trump is just amazing. liz: behind-the-scenes fbi inspector general was leaking, andrew mccabe got fired for leaks, behind-the-scenes insight cooking the book with media leaks that turned out not to be true in the news media has yet to retract what they were doing in 2016 and 2017 with the wrong recording of russia collusion based on steele dossier inf

a viewer asks, will the decision by a federal judge about will barr's handling of the mueller report lead to new public disclosures about whether doj tried to cover up for former president donald trump. >> yes, first of all, the judge found that bill barr was, and i quote, disingenuous in how he described the mueller report to the congress and the public. we already knew that from another federal judge. second, this part is new. it turns out there was an internal legal memo in doj. doj tried to tell this judge that the memo was what we call predecisional meaning it's something he relied on. this judge found that that was disingenuous that that was intended to obfuscate. she said this memo was not finalized until after the fact in an effort to make it look like bill barr really considered the issue, when according to the judge, he was in the bag for donald trump from the start. now, doj can appeal this ruling. i do not think the new a.g. merrick garland will do that. and we will see this memo within a couple of weeks. >> okay. and finally republican congressman matt gaetz is currently

now, if you remember, barr was criticized for how he came out and presented the findings of the mueller investigation. >> because he misrepresented them. >> misrepresented them. . the judge has said exactly. in this case judge jackson here in washingson finds what bill barr did disingenuous and says this memo far from essentially informing what barr was trying to make a decision on which was to not bring charges against president trump at the time for obstruction of justice. she's saying that, no, he had already made -- made this decision so the idea that he was using this -- this memo to help make his decision is just false. >> the memo from the office of legal counsel. >> yeah. so she's seeing essentially that this is a memo that needs to be released. we don't know whether the biden justice department will appeal this or if they will just turn it over, but it also, i think, jake, if we get to see this memo, we may get to see a little bit more of why this decision was made because, you know, so far they have -- all we know is what barr has said. >> interesting. evan, thanks so much. >>

he did not believe that special counsel robert mueller should have been appointed. he also had a much more expansive view of executive power than any attorney general before him. you combine all the things together, and he had an incredibly protective posture around the president. then during the election, we saw he was doing everything he could from walls of the justice department to get trump re-elected. without that, you kind of see career prosecutors unfettered to go through an investigation with a leadership that's going to give them the benefit of the doubt and in most cases let them do what they think is correct. >> there's other non-federal criminal exposure, too. there's the manhattan d.a. and then georgia. the law is like anything. it's debatable. that's why there are lawyers like yourself who can argue different sides. i said this before and i will say it again. that phone call, someone who covered politics in chicago when i was younger, that phone call from a chicago alderman to the county clerk about an election, gets that alderman indicted by the north

we know that, for example, because robert mueller told us and misled the public about his report. now two federal judges have said the same thing. that is such an unusual and extreme thing for a federal judge to go on record and say the attorney general, you misled me. i was always taught as a prosecutor all you have is your creditability. you never lie or exaggerate or stretch the truth. to have multiple federal judges say you lierd, that's very rule >> very quickly, what are we going to see? >> merrick garland needs to get out of this litigation. doj has been fighting to protect bill barr's back ever since he did damage at doj. merrick garland needs to take the position, we're going to put it out there. merrick guardland has a decision to make at the heart of the report. that can still be charged. >> we're going to see this memo. >> i think, for sure. >>> other big development overnight having do with rudy giuliani, the deraid, the devices that were obtained there. we're understanding the prosecutors are asking for a special master -- that's a specific term -- to do through this

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also the author of "where law ends inside the mueller investigation." great to have you with us. based on judge jackson's ruling, what do you expect to see in this memo? >> well, this decision by judge jackson, who doesn't mince any words, is a bit of a bombshell in two ways. one, she -- it is not new to your audience that the attorney general misled the american public in his so-called four-page summary. what is new is that judge jackson has seen in camera, meaning she, herself, has seen the memoranda that she has ordered to be disclosed, and she says in her decision that it provides further evidence of the deception played by the attorney general, including his statement to the american public that robert mueller left it to the attorney general to decide whether the president had committed a crime. and she says that's simply not the case. the second part of her decision that was pretty upsetting to many of us was that she said that the trump administration lawyers who presented the arguments to her were misleading to her. so, she was obviously, as a federal judge, quite upset t