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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Congress returns today

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Speaker 1: from a week long recess, with Democrats faced with questions

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Speaker 1: about how to follow up on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's

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Speaker 1: statement last week that he could not clear the president

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Speaker 1: of obstruction. In the meantime, many Democratic presidential candidates are

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Speaker 1: turning impeachment into a campaign focal point. That was evident

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Speaker 1: this weekend, as fourteen presidential hopeful's addressed a weekend convention

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Speaker 1: of the California Democratic Party. Home State Senator Kamala Harris

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Speaker 1: drew the loudest applause during her speech on Saturday when

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Speaker 1: she lit into the president he obstructed justice and then

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Speaker 1: hired an attorney general to clean up the crime scene.

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Speaker 1: We need to begin impeachment proceedings, and we need a

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Speaker 1: convert joining me. Is Brad Moss, a partner in Mark XA.

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Speaker 1: So Brad, the Senate would have to vote to impeach Trump.

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Speaker 1: The House has to start impeachment proceedings, and some Democrats

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Speaker 1: are putting forth the argument that you have to do

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Speaker 1: impeachment in order to show that no one is above

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Speaker 1: the law, but would have failed impeachment proceeding due just

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Speaker 1: the opposite. Well, that's certainly the concern, the risk that

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Speaker 1: is implicated here if the Democrats move forward on impeachment,

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Speaker 1: if they impeach him in the House, which I'm certain

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Speaker 1: they could probably get passed, but then they fail in

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Speaker 1: the Senate, which is at least the moment very likely.

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Speaker 1: I don't really anticipate there's enough Republicans in the Senate

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Speaker 1: who would defect that would enable them to convict In

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Speaker 1: the Senate. You give Donald Trump, who is probably one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest messengers seen in the last twenty thirty years,

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Speaker 1: an amazing political tool. He could make the entire election

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Speaker 1: about democratic overreach, about playing the victim card. It would

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Speaker 1: juice up his base like crazy and would be a

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Speaker 1: bit of political leverage that you have to wonder if

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Speaker 1: it helps you in any way with critical voters, not

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Speaker 1: only if you're not only in the Democratic base but

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Speaker 1: also independence, will they view this as an overreach, is

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Speaker 1: an overstep that makes them wonder if it's truly congress

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Speaker 1: running buck, truly gone too far and not about principle,

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Speaker 1: but only about politics. Let's turn to Robert Muller. He's

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Speaker 1: clearly said he doesn't want to testify that the Special

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Speaker 1: Counsel's report is his testimony, and any testimony he would

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Speaker 1: give wouldn't go beyond what the report says. But is

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Speaker 1: there value in having him testify to the public. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm one of those who are originally thought he should testify,

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Speaker 1: But having watched his I hesitated call of the press,

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Speaker 1: commerce doesn't want any questions that remark, and watched his speech,

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Speaker 1: the remarks for those ten minutes, and having you know,

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Speaker 1: considered what he said, I kind of understand why there's

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Speaker 1: no need for him to do a separate bit of

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Speaker 1: congressional testimony. That report is extensive. It's over four hundred pages.

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Speaker 1: It outlines everything he could possibly say. The only possible

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Speaker 1: relevance of any testimony he'd have beyond what's already on

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Speaker 1: those pages that everybody can read, is to address the

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Speaker 1: discrepancies between his statements and those of the Attorney General,

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Speaker 1: which they can do in a private, close session. Beyond that,

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Speaker 1: to do a hearing and relitigate the entirety of this

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Speaker 1: report is a crazy political circus that Robert Mueller, the

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Speaker 1: ultimate institutionalist, has no desire to engage. And he's watched

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Speaker 1: Comey go through it, He's watched others go through it.

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Speaker 1: It's not what he wants to do because he thinks

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Speaker 1: it would discredit his own integrity, in his own reputation.

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Speaker 1: We want to turn to something that came out on Friday,

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Speaker 1: and it has to do with the federal judge Emmett Sullivan,

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Speaker 1: who's overseeing former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's case, ordered

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Speaker 1: prosecutors to make public a transcript of the voice recording

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Speaker 1: of President Trump's former lawyer John Dowd, as well as

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Speaker 1: portions of the Mulla report that relate to Flynn in

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Speaker 1: full without Justice Department redactions. So what do you make

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Speaker 1: of the doubt call to Flynn's lawyer? There was already

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Speaker 1: reference to this in the Mulla report. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we've got some more contexts, some of the entirety of

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Speaker 1: the transcript that was the only selectively quoted in the

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Speaker 1: Mulla report. I don't know how much it really added

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Speaker 1: to it beyond what was already clear from there. It

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Speaker 1: looks it doesn't paint John doubt and the greatest of lights.

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Speaker 1: This is really not something, not a call he should

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Speaker 1: be making like this. That's you know, that was a

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Speaker 1: mistake on his part. But for the people who are

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Speaker 1: pointing to that as evidence of obstruction or trying to

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Speaker 1: whitnast witness tampering, you know, I kind of look at

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Speaker 1: it as the maybe it's combined with other pieces, but

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Speaker 1: on its own, no, this was the president's personal lawyer

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Speaker 1: making call. I mean, listen to that voicemail. It's ham handed,

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Speaker 1: it's awkward. It's not enough on its own due reference

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Speaker 1: to be you know, to implicate an obstruction statute. Prosecutors

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Speaker 1: didn't provide any unredacted portions of the report that the

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Speaker 1: judge ordered, saying that there were none that were relevant

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Speaker 1: to his order. But I wonder if he's going to

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Speaker 1: come back at them because it seems as if they

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Speaker 1: might have been evading part of his order. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: was a very risky gamble by the Justice Department. But

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Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting situation on its own because

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Speaker 1: what Judge Sullivan had done with requiring that seemed to

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Speaker 1: be beyond the scope of what truly would have been necessary,

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Speaker 1: you know, requiring the public disclosure of those, uh the

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Speaker 1: transcripts of the calls between General Flynn and the Russian ambassador.

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Speaker 1: Everybody kind of, you know, their eyes kind of perked up,

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Speaker 1: going I'm kind of surprised that Judge went that far

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Speaker 1: and that wasn't really truly ring theory, but he did it,

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Speaker 1: and the just Department then said, we're not relying on

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Speaker 1: any of it, so we're not going to produce it.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of sticking the judge between a rock

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Speaker 1: and a hard place. Does he view it as relevant enough,

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Speaker 1: especially for purposes of Brady, you know, exculpatory reasons to

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Speaker 1: require d o J to to go back and produce it. Anyways,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna have a little constitutional class here

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Speaker 1: between the judiciary and do o J. Or is he

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Speaker 1: going to basically let that, you know, go off a

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Speaker 1: shoulder and say, yeah, I don't really care. In the end,

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Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what d o J was doing there,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not really sure what Judge Sullivan was doing.

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Speaker 1: So we're kind of waiting to see which one of

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Speaker 1: these two you know, contenders and their different Corners is

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Speaker 1: going to blak first, Well, federal judges don't like to

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Speaker 1: be defied in any way, correct, But they also don't

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Speaker 1: like to be overruled on appeal. And that was kind

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Speaker 1: of one of those things where, you know, we were

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Speaker 1: all scratching our heads when Judge Sullivan first required this disclosure,

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Speaker 1: because again it was it was a debatable point whether

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Speaker 1: this was actually required under you know, the prosecutorial disclosure

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Speaker 1: rules and with you know, various case laws tied to

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Speaker 1: Brady and having to produce exculpatory information for criminal defendants.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know who would win in that argument

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Speaker 1: on appeal if the government views they've met their burden,

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Speaker 1: they're met their requirements, and the judge tries to sanction them,

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Speaker 1: I honestly don't know how the appeal that the appellate

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Speaker 1: court would view it. I don't know if Judge Sullivan

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Speaker 1: knows either. It certainly would be an interesting hearing, though,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't it. Thanks thanks so much, Bred As always, that's

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Speaker 1: Brad Moss. He is a partner at mark Z And

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Speaker 1: also this week, as early as the second week of June,

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Speaker 1: actually the contempt of Congress citations to punish Attorney General

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Speaker 1: William barr In Former White House Counsel Don McGann will

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Speaker 1: be coming up, but we will, of course, we'll keep that.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg