DC where a few miles from here Donald Trump is still stewing and fuming and tweeting about Robert Miller's press conference and the prospect that it may have increased his chances of being impeached among the ripple effects of that historic appearance by robert muller this week Elizabeth Warren one of the first Democratic presidential candidates a call for Donald Trump's impeachment today proposed shredding the DOJ policy that places presidents above the law from her proposal quote Congress should make it clear the president can be indicted for criminal activity including obstruction of justice and when I'm president I'll appoint Justice Department officials who will reverse flawed policies so no president is shielded from criminal accountability and while we're on the topic of accountability new comments today from Attorney General Bill Barr who says he's not worried about his legacy or political capital in his words everyone dies adding he does not regret taking the job in many ways I'd rather be back to my old life but I think that I love the Department of Justice I love the FBI I think it's important that we not in this period of intense partisan feelings destroy our institutions I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it's President Trump that's shredding our institutions I really see no evidence of that from my perspective the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything Hahnemann and you know really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president that's where the shredding of our of our norms and our institutions is occurring really stop and think about what he said for a second and how appropriate it is that the man who decided unilaterally what Robert Miller would not that there wasn't enough evidence to say that the President had committed a crime also seized not enough evidence that Trump is shredding institutions mr. Attorney General has this for evidence everybody sees what's going on in the Justice Department was for justice now with quotes these are really really dishonest people and they're bad people and I really think they don't like our country I really believe that questions from CNN is fake news I don't take questions from CNG that's okay I know you're not thinking you never do this was an Obama judge and I'll tell you what it's not going to happen like this anymore there was treason and it should never be allowed to happen to another president again ever ever ever I think father is a true never jumper 18 Trump haters including people that work for Hillary Clinton and some of the worst human beings on earth shredding institutions is his thing and on top of all that new calls from Republicans now for robert muller to testify so that they might make the fox news highlight reel Rudy Giuliani saying Republican Congressmen would eviscerate Muller but the special counsel is afraid Sean Hannity parroting that insisting Muller doesn't want to answer questions from Jim Jordan Mark meadows and Matt Gaetz it's worth pointing out testimony from Muller is unlikely at this point he said on Wednesday that he's retiring and that the report speaks for itself and in this post fact era championed by the current president some are wondering if Muller's by-the-book dedication to a lawful process makes him ill suited for the moment New York Times writing today quote mr. Muller seemed to expect that the system would work as it had in the past with Congress or perhaps voters making the decision about whether mr. Trump had committed a crime only to see the president's hand-picked attorney general and mr. Muller's longtime friend make his own determination that there was not enough evidence to support such a charge and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends Cara Lee is an NBC national political correspondent joining us from Los Angeles Times White House reporter Eli Stokes plus former Democratic congresswoman in Washington Post columnist Donna Edwards making some headlines of her own today also joining us is former US Attorney Joyce Vance and Chuck Rosenberg former senior FBI official and US attorney Chuck I've been waiting to talk to you all week about this extraordinary performance from Robert Muller and I want your thoughts on all of it but but but first I want to know if you have a theory on the case as to why Barre is so obsessed with bracketing everything everything his alleged friend Robert Muller does going out five times before his friend Robert Muller releases his report racing to do a sit-down with be at news the minute the minute Robert Muller leaves the podium at DOJ and continuing to disparage the process by which Robert Muller reached his conclusion on the obstruction investigation right it seems like it's really hard for the truth to catch up to Bill Barr dobar is sprinting ahead of it you know I want to just take a moment to address what the New York Times wrote about Bob Muller and I think it addresses your question Nicole you know is Bob the right man at the right time for this task and to my mind and I'm admittedly biased the answer is absolutely yes what we need now more than ever is somebody who plays by the rules Bob Muller is the epitome of that person and what you see perhaps are those that we criticize for shredding norms now including the Attorney General the United States by the way who bridle at the things that Bob Muller does and stands for and says and so if I had to choose a path even if it's less effective I would choose the path that Bob Mollica walked I will say this bar holds a robust view of article 2 of the Constitution and so perhaps he and you know and I'm not sure I believe the words about to come out of my mouth but perhaps he in good faith thinks the President of the United States didn't commit a crime fine he was entitled to his opinion but he's not entitled to disparage Bob Muller or his work or to leave him out there hanging if Bill Barr really had difficulty with what Bob Muller did he remains his boss he could demand that that Muller give him his conclusion it just seems like they're trying to set up a very good man and I find it highly distressing let me just drill down on what bar is doing bar is still Chuck Rosenberg disparaging and targeting the refusal to say that Donald Trump did not commit crimes when he obstructed the investigation Robert Muller I think you'd agree chooses his words like a precision missile said when an individual obstructs an investigation that individual clearly Donald Trump the investigation obviously his own what Barr is doing now is I think trying to stick a stick in the axle there and stop the wheels of justice from grinding up from the special counsel's office to Capitol Hill which is where they appeared to be going after special counsel Muller's press conference on Wednesday can you explain why bar would be so determined to do that why the open question about criminality around obstruction is still so dangerous and so terrifying to the president right because if the question on criminality is decided if it's resolved if it's resolved the way that Muller and his team obviously think it should be resolved then this president ought to be impeached by Democrats by Republicans by libertarians by independence by everybody up there and so if you want to save the president you have to talk about him in ways that just don't square with the truth you have to say that there was an exoneration you have to say that there was no collusion you have to say that it was a hoax you have to characterize it as a witch-hunt you have to do everything Nicole but read the darn report once you get into the details once you get into those stubborn facts what you see is a pattern of obstruction of justice and oh by the way we don't need to convict a president of obstruction of justice to remove him from office we just have to reduce those facts in an impeachment trial to remove him from office and so what I think you're seeing on the other side is an attempt to hide two outfits off you skate right to to sort of decode the facts and I think that's really dangerous it's not new we've seen a lot of it but I think it's really dangerous I have one more for you jack and then I'm gonna open this up but I spent a lot of the week trying to I've a seven year old so I spend a lot of my life trying to boil things down to seven-year-old comprehension and I'm not saying the Congress is seven but you can take from that parallel whatever you want so presidential motorcade speed I've been in a lot of them they speed for safety they speed to get through sometimes dangerous cities they speed for efficiency and they speed because most presidential motorcades drive on closed freeways they drive above the speed limit no police officer sits on the side of the freeway with that you know speed gun to catch them and no presidential motorcade vehicle receives a ticket doesn't mean they weren't speeding a former national security official said that was a suitable analogy to obstruction just because Muller wasn't examining or prosecuting Donald Trump for the crime of obstruction doesn't mean he wasn't obstructing and just because at the end he didn't write him a ticket for obstruction of justice doesn't mean that he couldn't be charged if he were anyone else is that an appropriate parallel absolutely and I think it's actually a good way to think about it lots of people do things that are wrong and don't get caught or don't get charged for it you know in the world of criminal tax evasion not civil tax mistakes but criminal tax evasion we know we catch a very small percentage of people who cheat on their taxes so you can cheat on your taxes and go to jail you can cheat on your taxes and skate by but the conduct is still cheating on your taxes or speeding down a freeway even if it's shut down to the regular public and so I think the analogy works what Bob Muller found was a set of facts that would for anybody else on the planet constitute an obstruction of justice the fact that he couldn't charge the president with it based on DOJ policy doesn't mean the president didn't do it so I think your analogy is spot-on Joyce Vance let me ask you to jump in on what is not not a good-faith campaign on the part of Rudy Giuliani or Sean Hannity for the public or the Congress to hear from Robert S Mulliken astir and very different but calls from the right some of the president's allies to have robert muller on capitol hill to be pressed by jacket list Jim Jordan what's that about so we all know what it's about we've seen this dog-and-pony show before this won't be about asking questions of director Muller it will be about congressmen jumping up and down on their stage using the bully pulpit to make statements and then ending their statements with a question mark at the end so they remain within the procedural rules of the house it's I I think unfortunate it may be worth it so here's from Bob Muller firsthand in that forum perhaps being questioned more cohesively by Democrats but this is just another part of the Republican effort to discredit a man who is Chuck I think has said very eloquently has played by the rules has tried to preserve the country when those around him seem to be burning down its norms at a frightening pace and we're gonna get to your calls because it's double sided right I mean we saw the power of nine minutes from robert muller to move this conversation to move people's understanding about what was in the report and there is a valid and legitimate wish desire effort to see more of that on Capitol Hill to educate the public and that's what you write about today right it is I mean I think it's actually really important to be able to tell a story that is a full narrative and my fear right now is that Democrats have spread this information out across six different committees multiple subpoenas and court proceedings and it's kind of incoherent for the American public and I think it is important to hear from Bob Muller and frankly in a select committee setting or something like that they can actually set the terms where there's questioning from counsel and not from members where members pass off questions to counsel to try to tell a story they don't have to have the terms of the debate set like ordinary congressional hearings and I think that's what Democrats need to do and if the American people don't hear it in that way and I describe it as the difference between reading a book and I read the book and seeing the movie the movie kind of sticks with you because that's the kind of world that we're in people are busy and Democrats in order to move public opinion have to begin to tell the story otherwise they don't have the narrative at all where are we though in that process I talked to a former national security official who thought that that the moment was slipping away from Democrats well I think it's I think it's close I think the danger here is that the president pretends in his language that he wants to bring impeachment on I don't believe it for a minute you need his tweets you look at his demeanor and a you know on a press cluster this is somebody who is fearing impeachment like you know you fear the measles he wants he doesn't want impeachment Democrats should not run away from it and frankly the Constitution requires it all right now to the people who know more than I than all of us the reporters where is this story going what is the president doing because the president disagrees with Sean Hannity and Rudy Giuliani he tweeted last week I don't know why the radical left Democrats want Bob Muller I guess that's you to testify when he just issued a 40 million dollar report that states loud and clear for all to hear no collision no obstruction now he's got a different message or at least his friends do and maybe it's thinking that that is not what Robert Muller concluded where is the White House on the Moller testimony on Barras antics and on where this thing is heading well clearly they were a bit nervous watching him on television unsure of what he was going to say they had some you know imagery ready to tweet out afterwards saying case closed and everything else but I think the reason that the White House is sending out this message that we what you do not comply with these subpoenas from House Democrats is because they appreciate the value of a televised hearing they understand what that would mean for the country how everybody would focus on the president understands the power of television as well as anybody and and he knows that you sit Bob Muller there for several hours and everybody in the country is watching it that's going to be a serious moment and that may change public opinion in a way that a lot of other things have not I think Bob mower also understands the spectacle that that would be and that's why not to disagree with anything that Chuck said about Bob mower and his Constitution and how he he sees things and not wanting to get involved in something that would come across incredibly partisan but that is if he decides not to go testify that is depriving the Democrats of that opportunity just as the way that his you know because he's following the rules he's thinking I can't say this explicitly that the president of – justice so I will say the president you know if I could have said that if I could have exonerated him I would have he's basically in the absence of saying that proving a negative saying you can deduce what I'm saying but he enables the White House to come and basically do the opposite and Sarah Sanders and everybody else to say well see if he if he'd been able to prove it he had a moral obligation to say so so they're just flipping it around and because there's that gray area and because Robert Muller simply will not go quite as far as would be convenient for Democrats to go that is at this point preventing them from making that case more publicly the White House doesn't know where this is going back to from this thing to that thing no we mean this no we're having that I mean now the strategy Israel robert muller has to has to testify we need him in there we want him in the rudy giuliani analogy that this would be you know he would be eviscerated worse than michael cohen well Michael Cohen was something that the president his testimony was obsessed with and was unhappy about and it didn't really work right this week and so there just seemed to be it's like the spaghetti on the wall like what sticks they're totally reactive they're not in control they're trying to figure it out they don't know and you know we may have a better sense of where it's going next week when the house is back and there's more of everybody's in the same space and you can kind of see the speaker try to figure it out and where and how far she's going to be pulled towards impeachment or whether they're gonna try to subpoena mall or her who knows but the White House doesn't know and they don't ever know they don't never know what spilled bar doing that I'll tell you from Informer Republican circles both from people who knew him during his CIA days people who knew him and his first tour of duty as Attorney General and people who knew him in private practice some of them not all of them find this version of Bill Barr unrecognizable yeah you talk to people and you hear that and then you talk to other people and you say well this is kind of some of what he's saying is what you would expect because of his his the idea that he has about president executive power and how much he believes in that and he's believed in that for a long time and he thinks that that's something that should be preserved and you wanted to step in and you know he saw it being eroded and feels this duty what I find interesting about when you look at what bar says in his interview and then you look at what the Giuliani and the others are saying they're basically saying some of the same things there and it's all the undercurrent of it all is to discredit Muller and and bars just saying it and the things that he's saying are much more they're just softer and he's you know he's a figure who doesn't he's not bombastic he's kind of you know barely gesturing while he's speaking far yeah exactly and so you're sort of it's a little bit you're like oh yeah listening but it's but he's his message is very similar to these other people around Trump who are saying very directly I mean Barr says in his interview that there's evidence to make that make some believe senior government officials improperly surveil the Trump campaign well the people around the president say the same thing they just say it differently if he did it they were spying they were do and he actually used the word spying you know and then when you look at what he has said about Muller you know oh I thought he was gonna give me a report that I could just hand out I had to write that summary everyone was clear media were camped out you know that's just saying like how did they not first of all how do they not figure that out or they on the same page before that happened but it's just this whole undercurrent of trying to discredit Muller and he's doing in a very subdued way and other people around the president are doing it in a very aggressive overt way Joyce I would I would just add that bars doing it in a soft voice but an extremely extremely aggressive way and Bart the thing about bar to track is that their story is changing the first read from senior Justice Department officials close to the investigation when Muller finished was that there were no disagreements about the law or the evidence bar has totally changed his message to CBS interview he he questioned the legal analysis any had a different take or different words on the evidence and this is this is this is Clintonian parsing the likes of which we really haven't seen since that era I think that's absolutely right bar seems to almost be taking a leaf from Trump's book and saying what he needs to say to get through this particular day without worrying about whether it's consistent with what he said in the past this is such a level of disingenuous conduct from the person who sits on the fifth floor in the Justice Department is and is supposed to be our top federal law enforcement officer and you know it's I think one of the difficult things here is that bar on the one hand says well I just couldn't withstand the pressure of depressed during those two days after I had the report and Muller didn't give me what I thought he was going to give me so I had to rush something out couldn't withstand that pressure from the press but at the same time he had no trouble with standing the pressure of a duly issued subpoena asking him to testify in front of Congress this is just new levels of dishonest behavior hey there I'm Chris Hayes from MSNBC thanks for watching MSNBC on youtube if you want to keep up to date with the videos we're putting out you can click subscribe just below me or click over on this list to see lots of other great videos