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 podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. After about two
Speaker 1: years of waiting and talking about the Special Counsel Robert
Speaker 1: Muller's investigation, we finally have a four d plus page
Speaker 1: of his report, lightly redacted, we might say, and joining
Speaker 1: me to talk about it is George Newhouse. He's a
Speaker 1: former federal prosecutor and now at Theodore O. Anger. George, First,
Speaker 1: your broad conclusions after looking at the report, Well, really
Speaker 1: no surprises. This was pretty much summarized by the Attorney
Speaker 1: General several weeks ago, and really the the real question
Speaker 1: is what's in the redactions, because that is largely going
Speaker 1: to be the meat of the matter. That those redactions,
Speaker 1: I assume consists largely of grand jury material, testimony before
Speaker 1: the grand jury, including perhaps a testimony by some administration officials.
Speaker 1: So that's really the mystery which we yet don't have
Speaker 1: unwrapped for us. After looking at Mueller's explanation of why
Speaker 1: he did not make the prosecutorial judgment that we all
Speaker 1: expected him to, which was was their obstruction of justice
Speaker 1: or not? Here it seems it's very nuanced when he
Speaker 1: explains what his reasoning was. Well, I mean, what he's
Speaker 1: really saying is we just can't draw a conclusion one
Speaker 1: way or the or the other. Remember, the the evidence
Speaker 1: has to be sufficiently strong to prove the case beyond
Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt. That's on the criminal side. A political judgment,
Speaker 1: of course, would be an entirely different standard. So I
Speaker 1: wasn't surprised by that. He did conclusively state that there
Speaker 1: was no evidence of collusion or conspiracy with the Russians,
Speaker 1: So the president is cleared on that account. But as
Speaker 1: to obstruction, really what he's signaling is we think it
Speaker 1: may have occurred, it likely probably did occur, but we
Speaker 1: don't believe the evidence is strong enough to merit a
Speaker 1: criminal prosecution. That's essentially what what the what I interpret
Speaker 1: Mueller's report is saying. Were you surprised by the number
Speaker 1: of incidents of possible obstruction and examples of the President
Speaker 1: Trump trying to block the Muller investigation in various ways
Speaker 1: with various people. Not surprised in the slightest recall that
Speaker 1: most individuals who find themselves under investigation higher high priced
Speaker 1: white caller attorneys whose job is in a sense to
Speaker 1: impede the investigation, to close the investigation, to receive some
Speaker 1: form of exoneration. Whether that rises to the level of
Speaker 1: substruction depends on some very fine nuanced activities that would
Speaker 1: arise to the level of corruption, and that, of course,
Speaker 1: is still the mystery that remains unsolved. Do you think
Speaker 1: that mystery is could be answered if those redacted portions
Speaker 1: were unredacted. That is certainly my suspicion, and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: confident that that's where Congress will try to go. Whether
Speaker 1: they'll get those answers remains to be seen. That the
Speaker 1: Congress needs to get access to that redacted material to
Speaker 1: draw its own conclusion as to whether or not there
Speaker 1: was the essential element of corruption. Right now, we don't
Speaker 1: have it, and Mueller is not taking a position. We
Speaker 1: expect that if Congress, particularly the Intelligence Committee the Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: does not get the unredacted the redacted portions of this report,
Speaker 1: that there will be subpoenas. In fact, the House Committee
Speaker 1: has already authorized that the House Judiciary Committee. What's likely
Speaker 1: to happen in the courts though with that, actually there
Speaker 1: is a fairly clear direction. The direction is is caused
Speaker 1: by Rules six C of the Federal Rules of Criminal
Speaker 1: Procedure that essentially say that grand jury material cannot be
Speaker 1: released outside of the criminal process. If there were an indictment,
Speaker 1: that would be one thing, unless there is an exception
Speaker 1: for release in connection with a related judicial proceedings, and
Speaker 1: that requires an order of a court. But I'm not
Speaker 1: aware of any exception for release of grand jury material
Speaker 1: to Congress, and I suspect that will be the interesting
Speaker 1: issue that will be raised by the courts. Of course,
Speaker 1: there is one way for Congress easily to get the
Speaker 1: information you know what. That is the Attorney General gives
Speaker 1: it to them. No, they could pass a law amending
Speaker 1: Rules six C and and creating a new exception for
Speaker 1: the release of that information um with a subpoena to Congress.
Speaker 1: That right now, I don't believe that exception exists, but
Speaker 1: Congress has it's in its power the ability to make
Speaker 1: that change. Also, if the a g agreed, they could
Speaker 1: go to a court and get those that area unredacted
Speaker 1: the grand jury if the great if the Attorney General
Speaker 1: agreed if the Department of Justice joined them, they could
Speaker 1: go to court and get an order allowing the release
Speaker 1: of the unredacted materials to Congress. What what's happening is
Speaker 1: because some of this is so dense to read through
Speaker 1: that certain incidents are sort of popping up in people's
Speaker 1: coverage of this. And one that is popping up is
Speaker 1: when President Trump learned of the appointment of Robert Muller,
Speaker 1: he apparently said, this is terrible, this is the end
Speaker 1: of my presidency, and words that I can't repeat there.
Speaker 1: Do you make much out of that? I don't really
Speaker 1: know what to make of that, other than obviously the
Speaker 1: prospective target of the investigation this will not come as
Speaker 1: a surprise. Is rarely thrilled to learn, um, that a
Speaker 1: skilled and talented and resource laden prosecutor is now looking
Speaker 1: at your activities. So I think that's just the the
Speaker 1: usual display of emotion. UM. I don't draw I don't
Speaker 1: really draw any conclusions from that. Necessarily, if you were
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, let' say it's a regular case not involving
Speaker 1: the president, and you had all this evidence in front
Speaker 1: of you, and I'm talking about possible obstruction. The ten
Speaker 1: examples that he gives his interactions with, particularly with a
Speaker 1: White House counsel Don the Gan. Would this be the
Speaker 1: kind of case that you would indict and bring before
Speaker 1: a jury. I cannot possibly answer that question without knowing
Speaker 1: what else is in the Muller report. Again, the critical
Speaker 1: element here on the obstruction side is the element of corruption.
Speaker 1: If the President had the power too, for example, fire
Speaker 1: um the special counsel or the FBI director, and he
Speaker 1: does so, it's going to be difficult to say that
Speaker 1: was necessarily done for a corrupt intent. The courts are
Speaker 1: very reluctant to peer into the the intent of a
Speaker 1: of a high a placed executive officer like the President.
Speaker 1: So very very tough case to bring, which is one
Speaker 1: reason why I suspect that Mueller punted on that issue.
Speaker 1: Do you want to guess what happens next? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: happens next I believe is this will be thrust in
Speaker 1: the Congress. Congress will issue subpoenas demanding the release of
Speaker 1: the unredacted portions of the report, which are largely comprised
Speaker 1: of grand jury material, and there will then be an
Speaker 1: interesting battle in the court, probably go all the way
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. That will test the limits of
Speaker 1: the ability of Congress to get access to grand jury material.
Speaker 1: I think that's a novel question which will be interesting
Speaker 1: to watch certainly. Will thank you so much, George. As always,
Speaker 1: that's George Newhouse. He's a formwork federal prosecutor and now
Speaker 1: senior attorney at Theodora Oranger. 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 Brolso. This is Bloomberg