Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. It's the committee
Speaker 1: that has the power to impeach the president, and it's
Speaker 1: escalating its investigation into the administration's activities, the president's businesses,
Speaker 1: and its potential ties to Russia. The House Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: is demanding documents from the White House, as well as
Speaker 1: the president's company, charity, transition team, inauguration, and twenty sixteen campaign.
Speaker 1: Joining me is the former U S Attorney for Georgia,
Speaker 1: Michael Moore. He's now a partner at Pope mclamery. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining me. I'm glad to be with What struck
Speaker 1: you most about the document request? Where do you see
Speaker 1: the most danger for President Trump? You know, I felt
Speaker 1: all along with this case, whether it be through Bob Mueller,
Speaker 1: whether it be through the Southern District of New York,
Speaker 1: and now perhaps through some of the House committees, that
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a case about following the money
Speaker 1: and so what we're seeing is in fact the Democrats
Speaker 1: reaching out and closing some of the holes that we've
Speaker 1: we've had hanging out in this VS. Case for the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. I mean, a lot of this
Speaker 1: could be resolved if we just had the president's tax returns.
Speaker 1: He refused to do that looks to be like, now
Speaker 1: the Democrats are going to move forward, they need to
Speaker 1: know what what money is owed, what interest was deducted,
Speaker 1: who were creditors, was in fact rushing money and fused
Speaker 1: through the business or through through the Trump organization. And
Speaker 1: so those those things to me are probably um what
Speaker 1: I look forward to be some of the most damning evidence.
Speaker 1: There are sweeping requests that cover possible corruption, abusive power,
Speaker 1: obstruction of justice. The Chairman, Jerry Nadler said, this isn't
Speaker 1: part of an early impeachment inquiry, but does it look
Speaker 1: that way? You know, Um, I think impeachment is further
Speaker 1: down the road. UM. I have a real question on
Speaker 1: whether or not there's a political appetite it forward and
Speaker 1: what exactly you know, the Chairman and connection with the Speaker,
Speaker 1: what decisions they may make about how how to move
Speaker 1: that forward. I know there's some maybe newer members of
Speaker 1: Congress who feel like that's what's immediately what the Democrats
Speaker 1: ought to do. But I do think that again, that's
Speaker 1: a political process. The question from will will be I think,
Speaker 1: through this investigation and through what we learned ultimately from
Speaker 1: Bob Mueller's report, um, is there evidence of a high
Speaker 1: crime or misdemeanor, and the Congress will decide those standards, uh,
Speaker 1: and we'll decide how much proof in fact they have.
Speaker 1: I know some people want to say, well, the House
Speaker 1: will impeach because there's not enough votes in the Senate.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not, or I
Speaker 1: don't know if at some point the Repolis will make
Speaker 1: a collective decision that the president and and you know,
Speaker 1: his his his circle uh might be too large of
Speaker 1: an albatross to have around their necks going into those
Speaker 1: are Those are big political considerations. But I think that
Speaker 1: you may see uh some evaluations of that once we
Speaker 1: know exactly what evidence Bob Mueller has. What we have
Speaker 1: now in the public record are pretty significant connections and
Speaker 1: ties with Russia. UH. We can't get around the idea
Speaker 1: that there was this Russian meeting. We can't get around
Speaker 1: the fact that there was an attempt to cover that up.
Speaker 1: We know that Poland data was shared. We know for
Speaker 1: some reason Manaford was brought into the campaign and became
Speaker 1: the bastic of the manager of the campaign, uh without pay.
Speaker 1: We know that there was discussions about sanctions. We know
Speaker 1: that Mike Flynn's testimony is still working, that he's given
Speaker 1: Moller a lot of information that we don't yet have
Speaker 1: disclosure of at this point. So I think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of shoes left to drop, But I can
Speaker 1: tell you with what's already out there. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's it's it's some pretty damning information against the president. Now.
Speaker 1: Democratic leaders say that the all subpoena the special Counsel's
Speaker 1: report if Attorney General William Barr declines to hand it over,
Speaker 1: and they'll sue to enforce the subpoena. President Nixon lost
Speaker 1: his fight over the secret White House tapes in court. Well,
Speaker 1: this fight go that way? Or do you think that
Speaker 1: the things have changed in the court since then? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that obviously there's been a change in the court.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you. You know, there's been some
Speaker 1: discussion about whether or not there would be privileged provisions
Speaker 1: of the reports that shouldn't come out. Remember that executive
Speaker 1: privilege was never meant to be a shield to protect
Speaker 1: people from criminal conduct. Uh. There's a legitimate purpose to
Speaker 1: have executive privilege, and that is to have deliberative discussions.
Speaker 1: That's to be able to talk about policy things in private. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's never it's never meant to be sort of
Speaker 1: the cloak of protection against criminal prosecution. And that's that's
Speaker 1: what it's being used for today. So you've got the
Speaker 1: question of privilege. You also have the question, now how
Speaker 1: much under the regulations of the report of motors report
Speaker 1: might come out under the new Attorney general. It sounded
Speaker 1: like during this confirmation here and he was not a
Speaker 1: big fan of just letting the whole thing out, and
Speaker 1: that he was going to try and to follow that.
Speaker 1: And but remember those regulations are sort of the product
Speaker 1: of this the Keen Star era, when we had you know,
Speaker 1: these these uh, you know, sort of softcore porn almost
Speaker 1: uh reports out there, put out with great public fanfare
Speaker 1: and all the scandalous details, and so there was they
Speaker 1: were looking for some way, I think to sort of
Speaker 1: put the reins on that. Um. I think you could
Speaker 1: see people subpoena. And I think you know, whether or
Speaker 1: not there was an enforcement of Bob Mueller subpoena, that
Speaker 1: would be a question or whether or not he would
Speaker 1: he would feel like he should come forward. You might
Speaker 1: find him joining that because he's particularly respect respectful of
Speaker 1: his role, of his the breadth of his authority. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think of the process as a whole. So
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to see him out there
Speaker 1: on a voluntary tell all stage. UM. But I also
Speaker 1: think the public has a significant interest in having information
Speaker 1: about the president, about the administration, about these ties that
Speaker 1: have been alleged with a foreign government. UM. And you're
Speaker 1: going to see, I think enormous political pressure for a
Speaker 1: lot of that information to come out. So you may
Speaker 1: have some committee hearings, you may have some subpoenas, you
Speaker 1: may have somebody stand up and read the report from
Speaker 1: the floor. You know, of what are the chambers? I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows at that point. But UM, I do think
Speaker 1: there's a benefit in getting in getting information out. On
Speaker 1: the other side of that, UM, I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: the Justice Department typically as a rule, does not like
Speaker 1: to drag people through the mud who are not going
Speaker 1: to be criminally prosecuted. In other words, you might do
Speaker 1: an investigation, find there is no evidence. You don't take
Speaker 1: somebody and just drag them on sort of air all
Speaker 1: their public dirty laundry out to to for everybody to
Speaker 1: see if if you're not gonna move forward the case.
Speaker 1: That hadn't necessarily been the standard that's been followed in
Speaker 1: recent years. Um, but that's the that's the reasoning behind
Speaker 1: that policy. So it's fighting some balance between the public's
Speaker 1: right to know, the policy of protecting innocent people, the
Speaker 1: fact that this is a taxpayer fund and investigation, and
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigations through Congress into the president and his
Speaker 1: business operations. It will be finding that that that balance
Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, cooler heads will will prevail there.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we just have about a minute here. There have
Speaker 1: been reports for months about a large number of sealed
Speaker 1: criminal indictments on the federal court docket in d C.
Speaker 1: Speculation that they could be connected to Mueller's inquiry. Knowing
Speaker 1: what you do about him, do you think that's likely.
Speaker 1: I think it's likely. I think that the Special Council's
Speaker 1: Office is very likely uh U seal indictments again in
Speaker 1: connection with the idea that there may may have been
Speaker 1: pardners promised or whether or not they can indict a president,
Speaker 1: they could always go back, remember and try to charge
Speaker 1: the president's company, so they could charge his son, and
Speaker 1: they could charge his son in law, they could charge
Speaker 1: his company. At that point, MULA would not have been
Speaker 1: violating the Office Legal Council's guidance about indicting a sitting president,
Speaker 1: but would rather be able to talk about the acts
Speaker 1: of this president as he led the company while at
Speaker 1: the same time charging people connect with the company who
Speaker 1: happened to be very close to the president. So I
Speaker 1: think it's very likely that there are sealed indictments out
Speaker 1: there that that that we've we've yet to learn about.
Speaker 1: Pleasure having you on, hope you'll come back again. That's
Speaker 1: Michael Moore's former U S attorney for Georgia and he's
Speaker 1: a partner with Pope mclamery. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg