Source: President Trump Was Expressing His Opinion Abut Mueller Testifying, Not Saying He Could Stand in the Way; Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) in Interviewed About Mueller Testifying Before Congress.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": Good evening. There are looming questions tonight on whether Robert Mueller will testify to Congress and the American people about his findings in the Russia probe with conflicting messages from the president. Plus, the attorney general has missed a deadline made by Democrats to turnover the full, unredacted Mueller report. We're going to get to all of that but, first, we have breaking news on another defiant move, that's becoming a pattern. The Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is refusing to give six years of the president's tax returns to House Democrats. Let go to CNN's Jim Acosta at the White House. So, what is the reasoning that Mnuchin is giving for denying the request for the president's tax returns?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, as you said, he fired off a letter off to Capitol Hill, up to the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Richard Neal, saying essentially that this is an unprecedented request and that raise a serious constitutional questions. And those ground, the treasury secretary is saying you're not getting the president's tax returns. This is probably one of the least surprising stories of this year, Anderson. The White House, the president's private legal team have made it very clear they are not going to willingly turnover the president's tax returns. And, in fact, I talked to an administration official just a short ago, earlier this evening, who said at this point it appears the Justice Department, quote, is prepared to litigate on this matter if the chairman takes it to the courts, which is the expected next move, Anderson.</s>COOPER: Yes. As you said, it's certainly not surprising. The president has been trying to keep his tax returns out of the public's eye for the last three decades.</s>ACOSTA: That's right. He has. And the president's legal team, they've gone as far to try to block major banks like Deutsche Bank out of New York from cooperating with any kind of congressional investigation that would involve turning over those tax returns. And so, you know, they have drawn a line in the sand over this, Anderson, they are not just going to do it. The question is just how far House Democrats are going to go and, of course, they are making the case that this is one of the building blocks in their case, this administration on a variety of fronts whether it be the less redacted or fully unredacted Mueller report, Robert Mueller testifying and so on. They see this White House as stone walling this administration as stone walling at every turn, Anderson.</s>COOPER: There was certainly a lot of back and forth in the past few days about if Mueller will testify or not. I understand you're getting some new reporting on that.</s>ACOSTA: That's right. I just talked to a source familiar with this matter, with these discussions going on inside the White House, inside the administration, and, Anderson, we saw over the weekend where the president tweeted that Robert Mueller should not testify. This was a departure from what the president was saying last Friday when he was saying up to the Attorney General William Barr on all of this. And, of course, William Barr when he testified said this would be fine with him. Now, according to the source familiar with all this who I spoke with a short while ago, the view inside the White House is that the president was just expressing his opinion when he made that statement and that tweet over the weekend that he's not necessarily issuing a directive or order to his administration to block Robert Mueller from testifying. Essentially with the president saying he views this investigation is over and that it's time to move on. But, Anderson, interesting there are sources inside administration familiar with this matter essentially saying the president was letting off steam there, not necessarily signaling at this point that he's going to block the special counsel from testifying -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Jim Acosta, thanks. You now, the president not standing in the way as Jim said as consistent with what Attorney General Barr has been saying about Mueller testifying. Listen.</s>REPORTER: Robert Mueller remains a Justice Department employee as of this moment. Will you permit him to testify publicly to Congress?</s>WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I have no objection to Bob Mueller personally testifying.</s>SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): What about Bob Mueller? Should he be allowed to testify before the Senate?</s>BARR: I've already said publicly, I have no objection to him.</s>COOPER: No objection from Attorney General Barr both times. Now, earlier, I spoke about all this with Congressman David Cicilline.</s>COOPER: Congressman Cicilline, what's the current status of Mueller appearing in front of your committee?</s>REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): Discussions are underway. There has been no agreement reached or commitment made but the committee hopes the special counsel will appear on the 15th of May. The American people have a right to hear from him as does the committee.</s>COOPER: You said discussions are underway, is that between the committee and the Department of Justice or with Robert Mueller? Do you expect the White House will try to stop him from testifying because as of right now, he's still an employee of the DOJ?</s>CICILLINE: Well, you remember the president initially said when asked that question whether he would stop Mr. Mueller from testifying, he said that's up to the attorney general and the attorney general testified publicly he had no objection to Mr. Mueller coming before the committee and the president immediately changed his mind and said Mr. Mueller should not testify. So, it's unclear whether the president will attempt to but I think it's very important that Mr. Mueller come before the Judiciary Committee to walk the committee and American people through the report, to his findings, to explain the context of the decisions and judgments he's made.</s>COOPER: So, the president's assertion Mueller testified would be in his words a redo for the Democrats -- I mean, is that what this is about?</s>CICILLINE: Not at all. Look, this is an investigation which resulted in a 400-and-some-odd page report presented to our committee that first of all establishes a sweeping and systematic attack on our democracy by a foreign adversary, the Russian government, and then ten specific instances of obstruction of justice by the president of the United States who's tried to impede, interfere, or stop this investigation. Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, lays out this evidence and really calls upon Congress in the final part of the report as the only place that has the responsibility to conduct oversight and to hold the president accountable and to ensure that no one is above the law. So, it's our responsibility. This is not a redo. This is the beginning of our work and our responsibilities to conduct congressional oversight.</s>COOPER: In terms of the Judiciary Committee voting Wednesday to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for missing today's deadline to provide the complete Mueller report, the DOJ says it's willing to keep negotiating with the committee in what they say is good faith. Are you willing to do that? Is the committee willing to do that? Is that offer enough to hold off a contempt vote?</s>CICILLINE: Chairman Nadler has been very accommodating. He's tried in every way to accommodate the attorney general, to invite him to provide the report, to try to accommodate his concerns and he did not appear or did not present the full report as the subpoena required and the chairman of the committee noticed a contempt report for this Wednesday in response to that notice. Mr. Barr has written to the chair of the committee requesting a meeting on Wednesday afternoon to discuss some kind of accommodation. The chairman will have to consider that request and decide whether or not it's a good faith effort to actually provide the report and the supporting materials or an effort to delay the inevitable. But the chairman is committed to ensuring that we get the materials we need to do our work. That means the full report and all the supporting materials and the committee chair has been incredibly accommodating and patient in trying to ensure that we get what we need to do our job.</s>COOPER: What is -- what is getting the full, unredacted report and supporting documents, what would you hope to glean from that that you can't learn from the report as it is?</s>CICILLINE: Well, the report as it is damming and very concerning and presents evidence of very serious misconduct, obviously. But we also need to see the other materials, the supporting documents, of what has been covered up, other investigations referenced, the grand jury proceedings that required us to go to court, hopefully, with the attorney general, to get those materials. We need to collect this evidence and the committee has a responsibility to see it and to study it and to make informed judgments, and the attorney general ought to be willing to help us in that process and not be impeding our ability to collect evidence.</s>COOPER: Congressman Cicilline, appreciate your time. Thank you.</s>CICILLINE: My pleasure.</s>COOPER: All right. Let's get more voices and more perspective. Joining me is former federal prosecutor and former Whitewater independent counsel, Robert Ray, also CNN legal analysts Carrie Cordero and Laura Coates. Robert, do you expect the president will allow Mueller to testify without a fight? Should he?</s>ROBERT RAY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I think on Mueller's team, maybe the best place to lead this is why don't we let Robert Mueller decide? I mean, short of subpoena, he could take one of two positions and both are potentially reasonable. One is, I said all I intend to say and it's in the report. Alternatively, that there is more that the American people should have. I tend to kind of agree with Senator Sue Collins, who I have a lot of respect for when she says the American people well may need context here and they should hear from the special counsel, something that the attorney general has made clear that he is not opposed to --</s>COOPER: Right.</s>RAY: -- and the White House seems to be sending the signal that it up to the attorney general. And I guess my view of this is if Bob Mueller wants to appear before the American people and in Congress, he would be afford that opportunity to do so.</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>RAY: And if he doesn't and he wants to step aside and say, hey, listen, I've said all I intend to say, I said it in the report, you know, it was passed onto the attorney general and it's within the attorney general's prerogative and he made the call, we'll leave it at that. I think that's where I come out.</s>COOPER: Carrie, I mean, we live in the crazy time where the president can tweet something one day and the next day have it reported that he was expressing his opinion and didn't mean what he was actually going to do anything about it.</s>CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, so the difficulty with that is that we don't know whether the president's words and statements are actually actionable, and it's relevant in this context because then we don't know if he's actually giving an order about whether or not he's going to assert some sort of legal privilege over the special counsel's testimony. It doesn't seem like it. It seems like they are trying to walk it back and, of course, the attorney general said he has no objection. So that seems to be what the legal position, the legal advice that's been given to the president. But it's a bigger problem for his presidency in particular the commander in chief role that we actually don't know and other officials in government don't know if the president's words have meaning. If when he says something or when he writes something or when he tweets something, if it actually is actionable. And that's actually a real national security problem and it's bad for his presidency.</s>COOPER: Yes. I mean, the last person who words you want to have -- the first person whose words you want to have meaning is obviously would be the president of the United States, Laura. I mean, if the attorney general were to decide he didn't want to allow Mueller to testify, even if, to Robert's point, Mueller wanted to, the special counsel's boss, I mean, he is the special counsel's boss in the Justice Department, he could stop him from doing it, couldn't he?</s>LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He could. And, of course, remember, he has been on a power trip of sorts as we've seen through his testimony, making every one clearly aware that he is the actual employer of sorts and the boss of the special counsel Robert Mueller, and that he is the final word because the confidential report once it was handed over to Bill Barr was actually his baby now. He could say listen, you've done all you're supposed to do here and you essentially did not come to the one determination you were supposed to on one area of obstruction, therefore, let the report speak for itself. My concern is not whether or not he actually will appear to testify. It's likely that he will. It seems very clear from one of his letters to Bill Barr he does not like anyone else to be his mouthpiece if he feels he's being misconstrued. The issue for me is whether will it be meaningful, to the extent that Bill Barr as attorney general has concerns about the full report going out or aspects of it ready to grand jury material in the like. If those four categories are not going to be discussed or the process decided to take over the obstruction part of it, then it may not be as meaningful and productive as even Congress would like.</s>COOPER: Robert, the president quoted in a tweet over the weekend. I just want to read it. He said, quote: The report sounded an awful lot as being Comey-esque. In other words, I'm not going to charge this person. It wasn't even close to being crime, but I'm going to criticize him on the way out the door. That's unfortunate because it's stepping outside of the role. Is this one of the reasons why Mueller perhaps should testify to give his direct opinion on why he didn't offer a prosecutorial judgment?</s>RAY: Well, I was speaking in the context that the president references about one sentence in the report which was the -- you know, this is not an exoneration sentence.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>RAY: And trying to make the point that's not what prosecutors do. They don't pass out exoneration cards at the end of a criminal investigation. They have a binary choice about whether or not they believe charges are appropriate. Either, yes, they are, in which case you proceed to indictment before a grand jury, or no, you don't, in which case there is a declination. So, you know, leaving exoneration aside, I have no problem with the release of the redacted Mueller report, and the only remaining issue appears to be this question, which is a complicated one about the potential release of grand jury material, which is the only remaining portion that Congress doesn't otherwise have access to.</s>COOPER: Carrie, I mean, is Congress --</s>COOPER: Go ahead. Go ahead.</s>COATES: I was going to say, Anderson, one of the things I keep hearing about is binary decision and that is absolutely true that most prosecutors have the binary choice to prosecute or decline to prosecute and do not actually provide information. What prosecutors do not have against them is an Office of Legal Counsel opinion that says there is a policy that may actually preclude you from reaching either of those binary choices, but feel free to have an investigation nonetheless, a grand jury with subpoena power nonetheless and then actually not reach conclusions. I think in many ways, as Bill Barr mentioned at his testimony last week, that it was a prudential matter for Robert Mueller, the issue of that OLC opinion that he may be precluded from actually fully investigating and also that kind of Comey effect of presenting prejudice or pejorative material, they also could not answer to, defend against or go forward. I want to make sure it was very clear about that binary choice perhaps being excluded from Robert Mueller which is a reason he should be able to testify.</s>COOPER: You got to take a quick break. We'll have more. I want to get everybody's reaction to the open letter signed by hundreds of former prosecutors who worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. They say the president would be facing multiple felony charges stemming from the Russia investigation if he were not president. Also tonight, the top concerns for Democrats, President Trump loses the 2020 race by a slim margin, will the contest -- will he contest the results and refuse to leave the White House? We'll talk about that, ahead.