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. Attorney General William
Speaker 1: Barr is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He's been
Speaker 1: defending his handling up Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings following
Speaker 1: the release of a letter dated March from Mueller to
Speaker 1: Bar objecting to the Attorney General's misrepresentation of his report.
Speaker 1: Bar testified that the reason he had to take three
Speaker 1: weeks to release a redacted report was because Mueller sent
Speaker 1: him a report without that grand jury material redacted. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it did not come in that form, and it UH
Speaker 1: quickly became a parent that it would take about three
Speaker 1: or four weeks UH to identify that material and other
Speaker 1: material let have to be redacted. Bar um that contradicts
Speaker 1: the statement Mueller made in his letter to Bar. Joining
Speaker 1: me is Andrew Kent, professor at Fordham Law School. Andrew,
Speaker 1: let's start with that question of whether or not Mueller
Speaker 1: had redacted the grand jury material. Is it going to
Speaker 1: come down to calling Mueller to testify in order to
Speaker 1: judge his credibility versus that of Bars? I think it
Speaker 1: seems inevitable that Muller will be called to testify. There
Speaker 1: are so many questions, and certainly among them are the
Speaker 1: ones that you point to now, Ju, and so I
Speaker 1: do expect that we will hear from him. How, in
Speaker 1: your opinion, did bar do in rebutting the criticism that
Speaker 1: his summary and press conference misrepresented Mueller's report? You know,
Speaker 1: my judgment, not so well. I think he had a
Speaker 1: lot of serious questions to respond to, and his answers,
Speaker 1: for the most part, we're come narrow, loyally parsing um,
Speaker 1: you're kind of really fine grained, sort of hair splitting
Speaker 1: that um, to my mind, really didn't answer the many
Speaker 1: legitimate questions that have been raised about how he had
Speaker 1: handled both his transmission of the report and his public
Speaker 1: statements about the report. What struck me was his answer
Speaker 1: to a question about why he concluded there was no obstruction.
Speaker 1: He said there was no underlying crime, but Muller in
Speaker 1: his report disagreed with that, and legal experts disagree with
Speaker 1: that as well. What's your take. I agree with everyone
Speaker 1: except Borrow on this. There are obstruction cases on the
Speaker 1: books where courts have upheld uh, somebody who had motives
Speaker 1: of embarrassment or shielding a friend from from justice, or
Speaker 1: or other kinds of other kinds of motives for obstructing
Speaker 1: justice other than um, you know, shielding themselves from criminal activity.
Speaker 1: So Bar does seem to have an unduly narrow reading
Speaker 1: of the obstruction statutes. Let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: specifics of bars representation of the Mueller Report that Congressman
Speaker 1: called him on. They focused a little on Don McGann
Speaker 1: because because of his presence, in fact, he in the
Speaker 1: second part of the report, he is one of the
Speaker 1: the leading players, you might say. And Bar argued today
Speaker 1: that the President never used the specific word fire and
Speaker 1: so he wasn't trying to fire him because he wanted
Speaker 1: to cover up the what was happening with the Muller.
Speaker 1: What was your take on that. I found that to
Speaker 1: be one of the more confounding aspects of the testimony today. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, Senator Feinstein, I thought that a pretty effective job.
Speaker 1: I mean, Bar seemed to be saying that it wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, the word fire wasn't used. And um, Trump
Speaker 1: may have thought, or you know, Bar seemed to think
Speaker 1: that Trump did believe that there were conflicts of interest
Speaker 1: that Mueller had, and therefore Bar seems to be saying
Speaker 1: that Trump merely wanted, you know, a special counsel to
Speaker 1: be removed, not but not fired, whatever that distinction is.
Speaker 1: But the fact is, as as Mueller found, the claims
Speaker 1: about a suppose it's a conflict of interest are just
Speaker 1: beyond silly, I mean, entirely specious. And Muller reports that
Speaker 1: White House officials told Trump that there was no obstruction
Speaker 1: of justice at all. Excuse me, no, no conflict of
Speaker 1: interest by Mueller at all. And therefore it's quite hard
Speaker 1: to understand why why Borrow would assume presidential good faith
Speaker 1: in this instance. I really did not understand his answers
Speaker 1: and found them pretty unconvincing. Does this bring out the
Speaker 1: point that the House is trying to make the House
Speaker 1: wants to have some lawyers, some committee lawyers, question Bar
Speaker 1: tomorrow in a thirty minute session, and is it because
Speaker 1: what happens here? You have a five minute session by
Speaker 1: you know, mostly non lawyers in a cross examination kind
Speaker 1: of setting, but they never really get to their point
Speaker 1: in those five minutes, they can't follow up enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a exactly why the House wants to
Speaker 1: change the format somewhat. It is very difficult for individual members, who,
Speaker 1: as you say, only have five minutes each broken up
Speaker 1: by the other party, having their chance to really develop
Speaker 1: a line of question. Really, um, really press somebody. And
Speaker 1: I think um Barr is aware that the questioning of
Speaker 1: him would be a lot more effective if it was
Speaker 1: done in the way that the House Judiciary Committee wants
Speaker 1: to So he um, you know, as as as you indicate,
Speaker 1: you know he's objecting to that, and as my understanding
Speaker 1: is so far as said, he's not going to show
Speaker 1: up if he's going to be counseled questioned by by
Speaker 1: a lawyer instead of by the members themselves. It would
Speaker 1: be refreshing to me if a witness at some point
Speaker 1: I said I was wrong, I shouldn't have used that word.
Speaker 1: Yet Bar went through a long explanation of why he
Speaker 1: used the words spying and saying it doesn't have you know,
Speaker 1: derogatory meanings to most people, which I think is on
Speaker 1: its face wrong. I agree with you. I thought he
Speaker 1: could have just said I was speaking quickly. You know,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, I would have used a different language. I mean, because,
Speaker 1: after all, in context, what he was talking about was
Speaker 1: court authorized, you know, legally authorized surveillance after the government
Speaker 1: had met a very substantial burden of of showing a
Speaker 1: judge that there was reason to believe that Carter Page
Speaker 1: uh might be an agent of a foreign power. And
Speaker 1: to call that with such a colloquial and and sort
Speaker 1: of negative terms spying, you know, is I think really inappropriate.
Speaker 1: I mean, for one thing, the Attorney General is one
Speaker 1: of the you know, one of the officials in our
Speaker 1: government who is himself is authorized to approve these warrants
Speaker 1: for surveillance and appropriate circumstances. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think that he should be suggesting that it's you know,
Speaker 1: somehow you know, inappropriate or improper by by using a
Speaker 1: word like that. I that that was something where I
Speaker 1: absolutely agree he should have clarified and walked back some
Speaker 1: of the dismissive tone that he used. Only about a
Speaker 1: minute here what so far what stands out to you
Speaker 1: this half day of testimony. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that I also was quite surprised that he was
Speaker 1: sticking with was when he had said in his press
Speaker 1: conference previously that the president had fully cooperated with the investigation.
Speaker 1: Some of the senators, like Senator lay He were pressing
Speaker 1: him on that and saying, you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the president refused to you know, sit for questioning the president, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, pressured Manafort not to cooperate with the special counsel.
Speaker 1: You know, how can you know, Mr bar say that
Speaker 1: this is full cooperation And Barr really stuck to his guns,
Speaker 1: which again I think is quite surprising and and sort
Speaker 1: of hard to believe. Um. And you know, the other
Speaker 1: thing was just that you know, we're now, you know,
Speaker 1: how many years removed from the summer of sixteen, you know,
Speaker 1: almost three years and there, Andrew, But there'll be more
Speaker 1: hearings to come for sure, and more testimony. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. That's Andrew Kent. He's a professor at Fordham
Speaker 1: Law School. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg m