Show: THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBERDate: May 28, 2018Guest: Shelby Holliday, Daniel Goldman, Randall Eliason ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Tonight we have a special on THE BEAT. Bob Mueller`s next move. A look at where the most consequential criminal investigation in America is headed in its second year. We have some special bookings and insiders join me to explain what the current indictment suggest about where this probe is headed and how Mueller deploys the secretive grand jury process to collect evidence and new clues that federal investigators are moving beyond somewhat obscure figures like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, to scrutinize Trump insiders like Michael Cohen and Roger Stone who have been keeping Trump`s council for over a decade. So we have a lot planned tonight. But we begin with the face-off that may define Donald Trump`s presidency. It`s not Trump versus Nancy Pelosi, or even Trump versus the resistance, it`s Trump versus Mueller. And while Trump has now employed Rudy Giuliani to take a tougher tack with Mueller. It is revealing that Donald Trump did not start on offense. When this probe began, Trump was careful to avoid criticizing Mueller directly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous if you want to know from that standpoint. But Robert Mueller is an honorable man and hopefully he will come up with an honorable solution. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: An honorable man. And that actually lasted for the majority of the life of this probe. Consider in the first ten months, Trump not only avoided tweeting a tax on Mueller, he avoided tweeting anything mentioning his name at all. Now, Trump did attack and undermine the FBI in many ways during that time we have reported on that. But there was at least initially something about Mueller or Mueller`s power holding Trump back. But now just recently, as Mueller works his way up this food chain, securing those five guilty pleas, securing indictments of a dozen others and exposing new and additional public lengths between Donald Trump and Russia and Russian backed witnesses, and putting more Trump aides in the witness chair, all of that has resulted in a clear shift in Donald Trump`s strategy as the ousted of cooperative lawyer and exchange for Giuliani. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it from your vantage point right now, Ty Cobb, a virtual certainty that the President will have some type of Q&A with the President? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s my belief that the President will sit down and discuss what is responsive to the investigation. RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP`S LAWYER: It is totally garbage investigation. Sorry, Jim, you are a liar. A disgraceful liar. Mueller owes us a report saying the Russian collusion means nothing, it didn`t happen. That means the whole investigation was totally unnecessary. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: I`m joined now by federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman and Maya Wiley, attorney and former counsel to the mayor of New York City. Maya, this is a big change and easy to miss, because Donald Trump talks so much trash. But what do you can interpret as this shift from ten months of relatively acquiescence, into now the Rudy strategy? MAYA WILEY, FORMER COUNCIL TO NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: What we are seeing is that the flame is being turned up on the kettle and the kettle is starting to make a lot of noise. Because at the same time Trump was trying to keep it fairly contained, fairly low, it was an attack those who seemed weaker, because he felt probably less vulnerable than he does right now. If you have your confidant, your attorney, I`m sure that`s actually not the right term for the transactions that Michael Cohn engaged in, but someone who has reason to have perhaps a lot of documents, emails, possibly taped phone conversations with you and we have some reason to believe has had actual connections to Russians and during the campaign and has engaged in some conduct that looks frankly, not quite legal, that there`s lots of reasons for Trump to be on the defensive, and trying to get back on the offensive. And I think it is particularly important that what he is really doing is using Giuliani to do a kind of spin on the facts, not even clear that they are always facts and Mueller can`t respond. MELBER: But you are saying, you view this as a lot about Michael Cohen? WILEY: I view this as a lot about a lot of things. I mean, remember, there are 19 indictments already in this investigation. I think Cohen is what puts it completely over the edge, I think that is why we are seeing the House Intelligence committee respond the way it is responding right now to this notion that this informant for the FBI that somehow did something inappropriate during the campaign, which there`s actually really no indication that anything inappropriate happened there. But I think what we are seeing is a lot is driving up the heat and the pot is boiling. MELBER: When you use the boiling metaphor, Daniel, and you use the statements that Michael Cohen made, you know, there is a saying in some musical circles, I`m not interested if it doesn`t involve any commas, commas, being a reference to how much money is involved. Michael Cohen seems to have put out a shingle and bent for sale. But that`s not so necessarily terrible for Trump if that was all personal grid, right? Why would that made Donald Trump nervous unless there`s more to it? DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, you hit the nail on the head. And I think to use the analogy, the flame has been turned up pretty much right when Michael Cohen`s office, home and hotel were searched by the FBI and when Trump realized this is not just now not just with Mueller`s office, this is gone to the southern district of New York. So he is getting it from multiple flanks. And I think, a, that made him a lot more nervous because my suspicion is Donald Trump feels like I never spoke to any Russians, therefore I didn`t collude. I don`t have any exposure to that. That is not legally correct, but I think that is what a lot of people, lay people generally think. But -- and he probably feels relatively comfortable on that and feels has been reassured that on the obstruction angle, he`s not likely to get charged for a variety of reasons, or at least feels like it`s not so cut and dried. So he felt like he was personally OK. Then when the Michael Cohen thing happens, now all of a sudden this is expanding way past the campaign, way past what his obstructive behavior has been during the presidency. And now, it`s into some of his personal finances. And so, that`s when the pivot really occurred, so now he`s attacking the entire investigation, and I think he is essentially just saying I am going to cut the legs out of the credibility of this investigation, that`s my defense. I`m going to have a legal defense, I`m going to have a political defense. MELBER: Right. And that goes to Rich-Rudy Giuliani. You`ve been in these New York circles, which is a bit of a theme for us tonight. And Trump and Rudy go back a way is indeed we are going to show something very odd which is Rudy Giuliani wearing a dress in a skit that was part of a parody thing they were doing in 2000 between the two of them. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe you could tell me this, then. TRUMP: I like that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This may be the best of all. Oh, you dirty boy, you! Donald, I thought you were a gentleman. TRUMP: You can`t say I didn`t try. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: First of all, I`m sorry to everyone that we played that. But it does actually illustrate something, which is, these are two people who were performers in a town, New York City, known for performance, and they performed their way up the echelon, right. I mean, Rudy Giuliani now has a lot of people American thinking of him as this very serious legal voice, when in fact he doesn`t have a lot of experience in civil defense law, which we point out in the show, has not clear that he has a strategy for Mueller other than a TV strategy. WILEY: He has a communication strategy. First of all, that clip in a Me Too era, is just disgusting to watch. I just have to say that out loud. MELBER: Say it. WILEY: And it is also demonstrates that [something that we know about Giuliani which is he is actually very interested in being a public persona. And so, it is -- for him, it is the perfect role. He gets to be on TV. He gets to be on TV constantly. He gets to drive news. And he is not playing a legal game, as we though. What he is really playing is a communications game. And he has the ability to say Mueller told me x, and that x might not be true. And yet Mueller then can`t necessarily come back and say, I didn`t say that. So that is actually --. MELBER: No. You`re right, I mean most of the time when we call the special counsel`s office, we get a no comment, do you want to say whether that`s, you know, off base or not? You want to give a hint on background? No. They generally don`t want to say anything. GOLDMAN: But they are talking to Rudy Giuliani. MELBER: Yes. GOLDMAN: And the fact that Giuliani is out there spouting factual inaccuracies, cannot be help to any negotiations that he is trying to do with Mueller in terms of an interview and narrowing the topics or the subpoena, you know. This is pp as a former prosecutor, when someone is out there going public and misrepresenting what I`m saying, I just stop negotiating with them. That`s sort of -- MELBER: You think it ices out the whole thing? GOLDMAN: I think it makes it a lot more difficult for Giuliani to get what he wants, if he`s telling the media inaccurate statements about what Mueller has said. MELBER: Right. Let me fill in the break. And both of you stay as part of our special. So give me one sec. Coming up, the indictments and the guilty pleas, what Mueller target so far tells about where the probe is headed and we will take you inside the special counsel`s office, what witnesses actually say goes on in that secretive grand jury process. And later, the Michael Cohen factor, the surprise twist that could lead to new fronts in the Russia probe, all ahead on this special edition of THE BEAT on MSNBC. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MELBER: Now we turn to the most tangible results of Bob Mueller`s first year of work, the indictments. And what they suggest about the future of this probe and how they may be rattling Donald Trump himself. You know, it`s easy to forget, the first indictment came fast, just five months into this probe. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first indictment into the allegation of alleged ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The President`s former campaign chief Paul Manafort has already surrendered himself to the FBI. And his former deputy Rick Gates has been told to turn himself in. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is it. These are the indictments. They did work for Ukraine and were paid the Ukrainian government. But that they hid these payments from U.S. authorities. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: That was a big deal. But Trump initially claim the reports left him feeling vindicated because the indictments, the first ones, focused on activity before 2016. Trump tweeted at 10:25 a.m. that day, this was years ago before Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. And adding a few minutes later, there is no collusion. Well, Donald Trump`s tweet aged poorly, as the old saying goes, tweet first, ask questions last, that`s almost to the so-called gangster pass because minutes later news broke Mueller secured his first guilty plea and it was campaign related. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A former Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty in a separate case to giving false statements to the FBI. MELBER: It`s 10:35 a.m. here on Monday and we are reporting the first Russia-related charge in Bob Mueller`s investigation. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: That was a big deal by any measure and the on-slot of indictments continued in the following months. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mueller has filed charges against 13 defendants who are Russians. They are charged, these defendants, with defrauding the United States of America. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These new charges in the special counsel`s Russia investigation against a guy named Alex Vanderswan (ph). UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Russian-linked attorney Alex Vanderswan (ph) departing a district courthouse moments ago after pleading guilty for lying to the FBI. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: And that`s not all. If you count it all up, you have four indictments of former Trump aides or advisors, a California based attorney, 13 Russian nationals as well as three Russian companies and then you have key members of Trump`s team who are, of course, cooperating. Now some critic say enough! Mueller should wrap it up after about a year here. And they question what he has achieved which is a fair game to debate. But as a historical factual matter, Bob Mueller is actually more productive than most people on this kind of assignment in history. During the Bush era, there was a special counsel point the probe an illegal leak which led to one indictment Scooter Libby, Trump pardoned him this year. Everyone remembers, counsel Kenneth Starr who investigated Clinton that case. Also, only led directly to one federal indictment. Iran contra, was 14 people. That`s quite a bit more. But the first year alone in Mueller`s Russia probe, has 19 indictments, that includes, of course, the 13 Russians charged directly with interfering in U.S. democracy. Maya Wiley is back with me. And I want to bring in Guy Lewis to this conversation, a former prosecutor who has worked with Bob Mueller, James Comey and Rod Rosenstein at the DOJ. Guys, put this in context for us. A good investigator does not, of course, evaluate based on a total number of indictments because their jobs are to find the facts and if the facts aren`t bad, maybe no one should be indicted. Having said that, what does this historical frame tell you about critics who say that Bob Mueller is not getting anything done? GUY LEWIS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I think this proves them beyond any doubt whatsoever. Remember, Ari, Bob Mueller didn`t ask for this job. It just like serving as a marine and serving in Vietnam, he was called upon, he agreed to serve and I think he has done a terrific job. And you and Dan and Maya who have given a terrific analysis, hit the nail on the head. Bob has indicted 22 people and various companies. He has obtained five guilty pleas so far, one individual sentenced. And maybe even more importantly, Ari, how many leaks have we heard? How many press conferences have we seen in? Zero. And I got to tell you. For someone in this kind of case, with this kind of scrutiny, I got to give Bob Mueller a lot of credit for what he is doing so far. MELBER: Maya, what does it tell you that the President is obsessed with this on a personal basis? So he talks about the personal witch-hunt. But you can`t factually dismissed what we just laid out. That there were people who got caught and pled guilty so there is no debate left and the system is supposed to work that way. WILEY: Yes. And I think Mr. Lewis is exactly right about Bob Mueller who has been nothing but been an extremely competent public servant who has simply put his head down and gone about his job. What is going on with Donald Trump, which is think we should all be concerned about is we have not seen what a credible politician would normally do under these circumstances in which people close to him or people who have been in his campaign or his inner circle are indicted, which is to immediately say that they do not condone the conduct, that they are disturbed, they would praise an investigator that actually had identified potential violations of law, they wouldn`t necessarily throw them completely under the bus, but they would certainly express concern. MELBER: How about this? Going down memory lane, I`m old enough to remember when we had like a national conversation about how candidate Barack Obama had to disown his pastor --. WILEY: That`s right. MELBER: -- for things that were regrettable. A lot of people disagree with, but this was a pastor who said words in a public setting. And there was like, it was an endless thing about how fully you have to disown (ph). In Donald Trump`s case -- I mean, you are saying something that I think it is forgot. Campaign chair indicted. Deputy campaign chair pled guilty cooperating. National security advisor pled guilty, cooperating. Foreign policy adviser, pled guilty, cooperating. At what point is there an obligation for Republican Party and everyone else in the country to say you need to condemn all of that. WILEY: Yes. MELBER: Innocent until proven guilty, sure. But some of these people are guilty. WILEY: You are the highest political official in the land of the United States. And you are sworn to hold up the constitution and the laws of this country. It is simply nothing short of despicable that you have not spoken out and said while I don`t necessarily believe any of these charges may come to actual convictions, which you could say if you want to, but I think it`s incredibly important that the American people understand what happened and that there`s a full and fair trial and that we must hear and understand what has happened. MELBER: Guy? LEWIS: Well, I think Maya is exactly right in terms of this is extraordinary. But, I think they will both, Dan and Maya will tell you, as we went through as assistant U.S. attorneys and prosecuted case after case, this wasn`t unusual that either the agents or the agency would get attacked and vilified or even the prosecutors when we would try cases big and small. Not unusual that the other side would use that tactic. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it didn`t work. But the other side didn`t have sort of a national platform, a bully pulpit that they could be tweeting at 3:00 and 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning and it would be on national news all day. So that`s the big difference here. MELBER: Yes. And that raises a couple of points, I want to actually ask you both about. So Guy and Maya, if you are willing, please stay with us. Up next, we are going to take you somewhere that very few people get to go to, that is what witnesses say happened inside Mueller`s interrogation room, including some people we have been lucky enough to have on our show directly after their testimony. That`s when THE BEAT returns in 60 seconds. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s me, Robert Mueller. Hi. I want to tell you so bad, I can`t. I`m not going to -- but, yes. It`s going to be fun. Hold on to that feeling street lights people (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Bob Mueller, he hasn`t spoken in public since this Russia probe launched a year ago. But "SNL" has deployed more than one actor to imagine what Mueller might be like and whether he will ever answer this big question about collusion. Now witnesses say the real Mueller is a sphinx like presence who sits quietly along the wall as his investigators grill people. And most of those people don`t talk a lot about their experience, a few have spoken out. The most infamous being former Trump aide Sam Nunberg who claimed he defy Mueller before cooperating as well as the wife of George Papadopoulos who has also told us about what went on. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SAM NUNBERG, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: This grand jury is taking this very, very seriously. To the extent that I was able to look at them, mostly because I was facing the person who was questioning me, to the extent I was able to look at them, they were taking notes, they were focused, they were interested. MELBER: Were the investigators professional or were they aggressive? How was it for you? SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GUILTY TRUMP AIDE GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: The situation for me was intimidating, but they were very professional and very fair. I never felting aggressed in any way. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Professional and thorough, another Trump aide who face this investigators, Michael Caputo, saying something that could intimidate anyone who want to hide from Mueller explaining that Mueller will know more than you do. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: The Mueller team knew more about what I did in 2016, than I knew myself. And I think they know more about the Trump campaign than anyone that ever worked there. They are clearly focused on trying to identify Russian collusion. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: I`m joined by David Priess, a former CIA officer who used to give Bob Mueller his morning intelligence briefing daily and also "Wall Street Journal`s Shelby Holliday, who has been reporting on the Mueller probe is back with us. David, speak to the point that Michael says, which is both true but counter intuitive, how could someone else know more about what you lived through, but the whole point of intelligence whether you gather the way you did at CIA or the way investigators do it in a criminal probe is to gather the knowledge of way more than one person. DAVID PRIESS, FORMER CA OFFICER: Yes. It makes sense, because our memories are infallible, but facts remain. And Bob Mueller has access in this investigation though a range of things. He has facts coming from other witnesses. He has facts coming from foreign intelligence. He has facts coming from bank records and transactions coming through the Treasury department`s office called FINCEN, the financial crimes enforcement network. He has got no shortage of information. His job is to process it. His job is to put all that together and say what is the picture here? And pieces are we missing that we need to ask others about? Or what pieces do we think are here that we can see if people are telling the truth? MELBER: Right. And that goes -- let me build on that and play something (INAUDIBLE). That goes to the sort of the old school part of Mueller as almost a character or a fact finder that I think has taken root in the public imagination. We showed the "SNL" clips, because in this moment right now, there is I think a fascination with people who work only with facts. I want to play his, maybe long forgotten testimony about a very dramatic time when there was a hospital confrontation in the Bush administration. James Comey was involved. Alberto Gonzalez was involved. Ashcroft was involved. And when asked about it, he stuck to the most spare factual rendering he could under oath, Bob Mueller, and didn`t want to get into anything beyond the facts. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you surprised when you heard the phone call from Mr. Comey, if there was going to be this visit to Mr. Ashcroft by Gonzalez and Card? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was out of the ordinary. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me why you decided to make notes of the conversation between you and Mr. Ashcroft? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was out of the ordinary. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Out of the ordinary. How does that square with the man you work with and that style? PRIESS: That matches up very closely. In fact, he is not somebody who likes to show his cards. He played things close to his vest. But in my case, I was the one there to answer his questions about foreign intelligence, so he could put this puzzle together. And in doing so, what I found was the same mannerism you saw there played out on the other side, which is when he is not receiving questions, but asking them, it was always with a purpose. When he asked questions, when he dug down into details that I didn`t think he would be interested in, I later found out there was always a reason. Sometimes I didn`t find out until the end of the questioning, and I found out, ah-ha, he knows something from his work at the bureau or talking with other senior officials that I didn`t know but now I see why he did this. MELBER: You thought he knew more than you. Do you think he was smarter than you? PRIESS: I think he was much better at putting together information at this tactical and the strategic level at the same time than virtually anyone I worked with in my entire career at CIA and the state department. I never saw somebody who could simultaneously be following each detail and then at the same time jump to the big picture question and back again so rapidly. It was fun to watch him work on that. MELBER: Shelby? SHELBY HOLLIDAY, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I can say that I have been speaking to some of the witnesses and possibly potential witnesses. And everybody has this fear of Mueller, not just because he has these things like a President who maybe sits against the wall and listens, but because for the exact same reason we are just talking about, he knows everything. And he is very organized. He is very efficient. We hear that he just goes through questions, his team goes through questions with a purpose, no one is just kind of chatting or kicking the can. MELBER: They`re not just chilling. HOLLIDAY: No. They have a mission in there. MELBER: They are not just hanging out? HOLLIDAY: They are not hanging out and they are aggressively pursuing collusion, as Michael Caputo said, not just about obstruction. MELBER: Take a look at something that began to get reported out on THE BEAT as it happen, because we had Sam Nunberg on, some people remember that. But long before Stormy Daniels became a case in New York, we learned that Mueller was asking some of these questions. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Did Mueller`s folks ask anything that related to these issues around payments to people or women? NUNBERG: Well, look. They asked if I ever heard anything about that and my answer is I never have. MELBER: I have never heard, you say that publicly before. And your FBI interview with Mueller`s team, they were asking about payments to women. NUNBERG: They were asking me if I knew anything about it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HOLLIDAY: I mean, as he said, we only know a few glimpses of things that are happening in the Mueller investigation beucase of witnesses like Sam who are willing to speak up. Why witnesses aren`t willing to tell us what they were asked, we don`t even know who all the witnesses are. I think that is the biggest mystery of this investigation, even members of Congress don`t know what Mueller has, as they have been simultaneously probing possible Russian collusion. So it`s just this giant mystery novel and you never know what page it ends on. MELBER: Well, and that is why it is fascinating to talk to some of these witnesses who are able legally to talk. Most of them choose not to on the advice of counsel. HOLLIDAY: Right. MELBER: To the type who do come out may have their own reasons. As journalists, we can always speculate on why someone wants to do that but it`s been very informative to hear at least as you say some of those glimpses. Shelby, stay with me. I want to get into one other thing. David Priess, thank you for your personal view there, your experience with Mueller. Up ahead the big questions, what is still secret and when and how could it come out. Also Donald Trump`s longtime fixer Michael Cohen, well, why is he becoming Donald Trump`s biggest headache? (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (END VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So how was work doing? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, really bad. Mostly just preparing to go to jail and stuff. They said I might get 20 years unless I`ll give you up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve heard. You know, it`s fun. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fun? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it`s (INAUDIBLE) plus there`s a free gym, dude, you going to get so jacked. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They even have programs in jail where you can get a real law degree. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: SNL roasting Michael Cohen as a mediocre lawyer headed for jail. The self-proclaimed fixer now sits in the red-hot core of two of Trumps biggest legal problems, paying off Stormy Daniels and taking money from a firm linked to a sanction Russian oligarch. And for all the strange events in the first year of Mueller probed, the news that the feds raided the president`s lawyer was a true bombshell. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The late word of an FBI raid on the Manhattan offices of President Trump`s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Agents also hit Cohen`s hotel room seizing records after getting a referral from the Special Counsel`s office. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: But what records? Many legal experts were noting at the time that those kind of tough tactics were unlikely to be deployed if the only issue were Stormy Daniels and that was correct. Cohen is now implicated in many other issues, operating a slush fund to sell corporations access to his boss, allegedly seeking payments from foreign governments the kind of pay-for-play that can break the law without the right registration in which Donald Trump campaigned against. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It`s called pay-for-play. Pay-for-play corruption. Pay for play. It`s pay-for-play. It`s pay for play which is illegal a hundred percent illegal. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: I`m joined now by Randall Eliason, a former Federal Prosecutor. He writes in Washington Post, Michael Cohen is in serious legal jeopardy. The Reverend Al Sharpton, my colleague, President of the National Action Network, Host of "POLITICS NATION" and a player in his own right in New York politics in the land of Donald Trump of Michael Cohen, and Shelby Holliday back with us of course from The Wall Street Journal. Rev, starting with you as someone who knows how these people work and has been around Trump and Cohen in New York. This wasn`t just any aide to Donald Trump. REV. AL SHARPTON, MSNBC HOST: No, he was his guy that would really fix things. I remember when Trump started getting very political on the birther issue, it was Cohen that set up the meeting with Trump and I where Trump wanted me to stop calling him a racist and saying that the birther movement was race-based and Cohen sat in the meeting. I mean, so, Cohen did all kind of duties on behalf of Donald Trump. MELBER: What did you glean about him and the trust that Trump puts in him from those dealings? SHARPTON: I think that as much as Donald Trump is capable of trusting someone, it would have been Cohen. Now that -- I don`t think that he has a lot of trust in anybody. MELBER: Are you suggesting that Donald Trump has trust issues? SHARPTON: I suggest that very strongly. I think Donald Trump is for Donald Trump, which is why I think Cohen has some very serious thinking to do about what he`s going to do now that he is facing serious time if any of the reports that we are reading about end up becoming true. MELBER: Shelby, you`ve been covering this story with us here on THE BEAT since the inception. It wasn`t clear exactly where the stormy Daniels case would go but everyone can now remember those fateful words Donald Trump said on Air Force One and knowing what we all now publicly know, it is remarkable in the form of a self-damaging dare. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels? TRUMP: No. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why did Michael Cohen make it if there was no truth to the allegation? TRUMP: You have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and you`ll have to ask Michael. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where he got the money to make the payment? (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Ask Michael Cohen. SHELBY HOLLIDAY, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I think you bring up a really important point because Trump`s public statements, we don`t know what he`s saying to Cohen privately, but his public statements have been very distanced from Michael Cohen. He`s backing off of you know, his fix-it man, his right-hand man in a big way. He`s saying these are Michaels business dealings, this was Michael`s legal issue. You`ll have to ask Michael Cohen. He also pointed out Michael Cohen is my attorney. He said that in April. So the fact that Michael Cohen was still considered the President`s attorney given all of the weird business dealings he was involved in also raises some major ethical and legal questions for the for the President. But I do think one of the most fascinating things about this saga is to watch how the President has was sort of publicly thrown Michael Cohen under the bus and Michael in return and through various people in the media has warned the President don`t go there. Well, under the bus and then really put it in reverse and backed up over his bleeding -- HOLLIDAY: Oh, yes, multiple times. Phone called the Fox And Friends astonishing to people close to Michael Cohen. MELBER: Wild. Randall, I want to play for you something else that come up in the first year of the probe which is what is known in legal circles as bonkers interviews. We`ve had a few of them including one with a man who preceded Michael Cohen as Donald Trump`s chief lawyer who didn`t have great things to say about Cohen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Do you think Michael Cohen`s job at times was to keep the mob away from Donald Trump? JAY GOLDBERG, TRUMP`S LAWYER: Well, if he says he was a fixer, then the question is what did he fix and what needed fixing. What needed fixing was relations with the mob and shake downs by the mob so that there would be no strikes and there would be labor peace at all costs. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: Randall, that`s not a critic of Donald Trump, that`s Donald Trump`s longtime lawyer who said I`m going to repeat, what Michael Cohen was doing was dealing with what needed fixing and what needed fixing was quote relations with the mob. RANDALL ELIASON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, I think it`s pretty clear that Michael Cohen was deeply involved in a lot of President Trump`s activities and are -- even before you as president of course, and we don`t yet know what else is going to come out of this. The key thing I think to remember is that Robert Mueller is months ahead of the rest of us when it was revealed that you know, his investigators spoke I think last November to some of these corporations that were paying Michael Cohen these large retainers that we just learned about a few weeks ago. So there`s clearly a lot going on that Michael Cohen has a lot to be nervous about and I think we just have to wait and see what Mueller`s investigation and the other investigations reveal about the depth and the nature of these ties. It`s important to remember that there`s a lot that goes on in this type of activities such as the retainers from these corporations that might be sleazy and unethical in the Washington swamp but not necessarily illegal. And so sorting all of that out is going to take some time. MELBER: Well, based on what we do know, what do you think was the most likely criminal evidence predicate for those dramatic searches then? ELIASON: Again, it`s hard to know not being involved in the grand jury investigation but it sounds like things related to possible money laundering or real estate deals in New York, maybe campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniel`s payoff but I doubt that that would alone be the basis of this aggressive step. MELBER: Reverend Sharpton, Michael Avenatti emerged as well as first Michael Cohen`s adversary and lawyers fight all the time. But then it`s something of more of a tormentor and it`s Cohen now who`s under serious federal probe, not Avenatti. We spoke to him when this all started to come out and he felt it was predicting like a Christmas gift when Donald Trump put Cohen on blast. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL AVENATTI, LAWYER OF STORMY DANIELS: We waited patiently and lo and behold Christmas has arrived. The President`s comments on Air Force One have -- are serious for him, serious for Michael Cohen. How can you have an agreement when one party claims that they don`t know anything about the agreement? I mean, these guys are making it up as they go along. MELBER: Rev, you`ve seen a lot of different things in New York politics, could you ever have imagined that Michael Avenatti, a civil plaintiff`s attorney representing this adult film actress would turn out to be such a key to Michael Cohen`s undoing? SHARPTON: No you would never predict it but I think that what Avenatti has done and in probably more subtle ways the Mueller investigators have done has identified Cohen as the one that if you penetrate him at best you may find out things if they don`t already have. And at worse you put Trump in a very precarious position because if Cohen says yes I did certain things with the knowledge of Donald Trump, the only one that can deny that is Donald Trump, would lead to Trump having to testify or say something under oath or just left unanswered and that`s a very dangerous position for the President. MELBER: Right, it seems like Donald Trump himself may realize that. My thanks to Rev Sharpton, Shelly Holliday, and Randall Eliason. Let me mention "POLITICS NATION" airs every Sunday 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Up ahead, when all the evidence is in, how will we know what Bob Mueller has found? We`re actually going to give you these legal map of where that heads. And why everything could hinge on yes Rod Rosenstein when our special edition of THE BEAT continues. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just I`m trying to be honest with you and tell you that I can`t commit to collusion right now. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just to wait two more years for him to be out of office. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly probably six. (END VIDEO CLIP) MELBER: The joke there is not on Donald Trump for once, it`s SNL knowing that people who may hope Mueller will deliver a rose and findings to end this presidency may be very disappointed. The fact is Bob Mueller`s mandate is not to look for something bad on Trump, it`s to find out what happened with Russian meddling and prosecute any Americans who helped. If Trump didn`t help and if he doesn`t obstruct the probe, then he`d be in the clear. When all the evidence is in though, how will we even know what Mueller found? Well, his boss Rod Rosenstein has the authority to publicly release the Mueller findings and Mueller may divide those findings into two separate reports. The Washington Post saying that there`s a potential plan to release findings in stages with the first report focused on the obstruction issue and a second on interference and collusion. Now this plan could account for Rudy Giuliani`s recent claim that the obstruction part of the probe will be done by September. But what is the strategy behind Muller releasing two different reports in the first place? I mean in the special probe into Bill Clinton can start tackle all kinds of different issues, rolled them up into one giant report and implicitly joined the drumbeat for impeachment based on allegations of obstruction. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In brutal and at times graphic detail, prosecutors lay out how the president allegedly lied and obstructed justice in both civil and criminal investigations charging Clinton engaged in a pattern of conduct that was inconsistent with his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. MELBER: Back with me is former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis. He worked with Bob Mueller, Dan Goldman is here as well and Maya Wiley. Guy, let me start with you. Why two reports? GUY LEWIS, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: I think it makes a lot of sense frankly, Ari, because it allows you to sort of narrow the focus to be more laser-like to deal with just the evidence that relates to those allegations in particular. I mean, you got to think they`ve interviewed hundreds of people, they reviewed thousands and thousands of documents. It`s probably a couple of roomfuls of material. So anything that the Special Counsel can do to sort of narrow that focus, I applaud him for that effort. MELBER: Well, what about the idea that if you release the obstruction report early and then you have to continue with your investigation, there could be more obstruction after the report potentially. LEWIS: Well, that that is a worry I think that Bob Mueller would have and I really do think that his team can sit down and determine up front, can we dissect this, can we make this into a manageable presentation? Because again, I don`t like the idea of a 2,000-page report that becomes virtually impossible to read and understand. Americans do need to look at this. They need to be able to consume it and make decisions for themselves. MELBER: And Daniel, looking at the actual rules, Starr had a different mandate under a different law which can matter a lot when you get to the fighting. These DOJ rules say it`s up to Rosenstein whether he releases this. Can you see any situation where after all this Rod Rosenstein says, no we`re just going to keep it secret? DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I can`t imagine that but what is going to be very tricky is redacting the grand jury information because anything gleaned by a grand jury subpoena or grand jury testimony cannot be released and it must remain confidential. So there`s some question even if he does release it, what is its use if we don`t -- if we don`t know much of what happened because it all occurred in front of the grand jury. MELBER: There is a view in the politics of this and if it`s a report that Congress is going to use to decide what if anything to do, there`s a political aspect to this that if when it`s all said and done, the only thing is "potential obstruction." A lot of which occurred through the President`s Twitter fingers that American -- the American public and the Republicans are going to say well, we kind of already knew that. There`s nothing on collusion. Let`s move on which again seems to cut against two separate reports because it may allow Republicans at a bruit level to say, well, one has nothing. Russia doesn`t touch Trump maybe other people. And the other is you know, Twitter obstruction. MAYA WILEY, COUNSEL TO NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I think you have -- you can look at it either way. I think it`s actually probably a smart strategy to release two reports primarily because the obstruction case is already pretty clear. I think to Daniel`s point so much of it has been public statements by Donald Trump himself that it doesn`t have the grand jury problem, which means you can paint a clear, a pretty clear picture in that first report that Donald Trump was obstructing justice. And then the question becomes why. MELBER: Yes, do you know -- do you know why he admitted to using Russia as the reason to fire the FBI Director on T.V.? WILEY: A lack of understanding of the law. GOLDMAN: I actually not convinced that that there`s going to be a report on collusion. I think that what may end up happening is that there will be some people indicted, probably not the president but that Bob Mueller as he has to this point will speak through an indictment and it will be quite a lengthy indictment. MELBER: By the way, it`s very -- it`s very 2018 that you say people be indicted and probably not the President, but go on. Probably not. GOLDMAN: This is the world in which we live. It`s -- it is crazy but I`m -- and that for that reason in part because of the timing issues related to the midterms, they probably can finish up the obstruction investigation before the -- by the end of the summer. And so it may make sense to get that out of the way and then continue focusing on the collusion. MELBER: Isn`t it also possible Maya -- again we speak about what we know and everyone I think judiciously has emphasized as much we just don`t know by the nature of this tonight, but when we talk about reports we`re focusing on that public aspect which is what pertains the President because he is literally different than every other person in our constitutional system with regard to his role to execute the laws. It`s also possible that the obstruction piece could involve indictments of other people around Donald Trump who helped obstruct justice and then a report speaking to his mental state intent and awareness of those activities. WILEY: That`s absolutely right and also what kinds of deals you get from people you`ve indicted on the obstruction -- the obstruction. So I think that what we don`t know -- there are lots that we don`t know and probably the -- on the prosecutorial side, there`s still so much that they must be going through just even on the Michael Cohen documents. I mean, I`m not going to let go of this one. I don`t think we know. Remember that Richard Nixon ultimately was brought down not on obstruction. He was brought down because there was a smoking gun through the tapes about his direct involvement in criminal activity. I think that that`s actually the real question here. We don`t know the answer to but we also don`t know what we`re going to find or what`s going to become available to prosecutors as a result of the Michael Cohen documents. Lightning rapid round, year two of the Mueller probe, would you expect more or fewer indictments? Starting with you Guy Lewis, briefly. LEWIS: Fewer. GOLDMAN: I think there will be fewer indictments but more pages of indictments. MELBER: Spoken like a lawyer, predicting page counts. Maya? WILEY: I think fewer but with greater consequence. MELBER: With greater consequence. Very well. Sometimes, and by that, I mean most of the time Maya puts it better than everyone else. GOLDMAN: Absolutely. MELBER: I`m kidding. We love all of our guests equally, we just love Maya more. Guy Lewis, Maya Wiley, Daniel Goldman, thanks for being part of our special coverage and we will be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MELBER: You`ve been watching our special coverage of year one of the Mueller probe but as we look towards year two, there are three big questions that remain. Will there be more indictments in year two than year one as we were discussing? Will Donald Trump do a Presidential grand jury interview as Bill Clinton did but as his lawyers continue to fight? and number three, and finally, as we were reporting, will there be a report or reports that the public sees about what Bob Mueller has learned through this probe. That`s what we have our eye on. Thanks for watching our special coverage and a happy Memorial Day to you. "HARDBALL" with Chris Matthews is up next. CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: 20 years of Donald Trump. Let`s play HARDBALL. END THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END Copy: Content and programming copyright 2018 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. Show: THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER Date: May 28, 2018 Guest: Shelby Holliday, Daniel Goldman, Randall Eliason
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Tonight we have a special on THE BEAT. Bob Mueller`s next move. A look at where the most consequential criminal investigation in America is headed in its second year. We have some special bookings and insiders join me to explain what the current indictment suggest about where this probe is headed and how Mueller deploys the secretive grand jury process to collect evidence and new clues that federal investigators are moving beyond somewhat obscure figures like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, to scrutinize Trump insiders like Michael Cohen and Roger Stone who have been keeping Trump`s council for over a decade.
So we have a lot planned tonight. But we begin with the face-off that may define Donald Trump`s presidency. It`s not Trump versus Nancy Pelosi, or even Trump versus the resistance, it`s Trump versus Mueller.
And while Trump has now employed Rudy Giuliani to take a tougher tack with Mueller. It is revealing that Donald Trump did not start on offense. When this probe began, Trump was careful to avoid criticizing Mueller directly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous if you want to know from that standpoint. But Robert Mueller is an honorable man and hopefully he will come up with an honorable solution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: An honorable man. And that actually lasted for the majority of the life of this probe. Consider in the first ten months, Trump not only avoided tweeting a tax on Mueller, he avoided tweeting anything mentioning his name at all. Now, Trump did attack and undermine the FBI in many ways during that time we have reported on that. But there was at least initially something about Mueller or Mueller`s power holding Trump back.
But now just recently, as Mueller works his way up this food chain, securing those five guilty pleas, securing indictments of a dozen others and exposing new and additional public lengths between Donald Trump and Russia and Russian backed witnesses, and putting more Trump aides in the witness chair, all of that has resulted in a clear shift in Donald Trump`s strategy as the ousted of cooperative lawyer and exchange for Giuliani.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it from your vantage point right now, Ty Cobb, a virtual certainty that the President will have some type of Q&A with the President?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s my belief that the President will sit down and discuss what is responsive to the investigation.
RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP`S LAWYER: It is totally garbage investigation. Sorry, Jim, you are a liar. A disgraceful liar. Mueller owes us a report saying the Russian collusion means nothing, it didn`t happen. That means the whole investigation was totally unnecessary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I`m joined now by federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman and Maya Wiley, attorney and former counsel to the mayor of New York City.
Maya, this is a big change and easy to miss, because Donald Trump talks so much trash. But what do you can interpret as this shift from ten months of relatively acquiescence, into now the Rudy strategy?
MAYA WILEY, FORMER COUNCIL TO NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: What we are seeing is that the flame is being turned up on the kettle and the kettle is starting to make a lot of noise. Because at the same time Trump was trying to keep it fairly contained, fairly low, it was an attack those who seemed weaker, because he felt probably less vulnerable than he does right now.
If you have your confidant, your attorney, I`m sure that`s actually not the right term for the transactions that Michael Cohn engaged in, but someone who has reason to have perhaps a lot of documents, emails, possibly taped phone conversations with you and we have some reason to believe has had actual connections to Russians and during the campaign and has engaged in some conduct that looks frankly, not quite legal, that there`s lots of reasons for Trump to be on the defensive, and trying to get back on the offensive. And I think it is particularly important that what he is really doing is using Giuliani to do a kind of spin on the facts, not even clear that they are always facts and Mueller can`t respond.
MELBER: But you are saying, you view this as a lot about Michael Cohen?
WILEY: I view this as a lot about a lot of things. I mean, remember, there are 19 indictments already in this investigation. I think Cohen is what puts it completely over the edge, I think that is why we are seeing the House Intelligence committee respond the way it is responding right now to this notion that this informant for the FBI that somehow did something inappropriate during the campaign, which there`s actually really no indication that anything inappropriate happened there. But I think what we are seeing is a lot is driving up the heat and the pot is boiling.
MELBER: When you use the boiling metaphor, Daniel, and you use the statements that Michael Cohen made, you know, there is a saying in some musical circles, I`m not interested if it doesn`t involve any commas, commas, being a reference to how much money is involved.
Michael Cohen seems to have put out a shingle and bent for sale. But that`s not so necessarily terrible for Trump if that was all personal grid, right? Why would that made Donald Trump nervous unless there`s more to it?
DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, you hit the nail on the head. And I think to use the analogy, the flame has been turned up pretty much right when Michael Cohen`s office, home and hotel were searched by the FBI and when Trump realized this is not just now not just with Mueller`s office, this is gone to the southern district of New York.
So he is getting it from multiple flanks. And I think, a, that made him a lot more nervous because my suspicion is Donald Trump feels like I never spoke to any Russians, therefore I didn`t collude. I don`t have any exposure to that. That is not legally correct, but I think that is what a lot of people, lay people generally think.
But -- and he probably feels relatively comfortable on that and feels has been reassured that on the obstruction angle, he`s not likely to get charged for a variety of reasons, or at least feels like it`s not so cut and dried. So he felt like he was personally OK.
Then when the Michael Cohen thing happens, now all of a sudden this is expanding way past the campaign, way past what his obstructive behavior has been during the presidency. And now, it`s into some of his personal finances. And so, that`s when the pivot really occurred, so now he`s attacking the entire investigation, and I think he is essentially just saying I am going to cut the legs out of the credibility of this investigation, that`s my defense. I`m going to have a legal defense, I`m going to have a political defense.
MELBER: Right. And that goes to Rich-Rudy Giuliani. You`ve been in these New York circles, which is a bit of a theme for us tonight. And Trump and Rudy go back a way is indeed we are going to show something very odd which is Rudy Giuliani wearing a dress in a skit that was part of a parody thing they were doing in 2000 between the two of them. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe you could tell me this, then.
TRUMP: I like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This may be the best of all. Oh, you dirty boy, you! Donald, I thought you were a gentleman.
TRUMP: You can`t say I didn`t try.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: First of all, I`m sorry to everyone that we played that. But it does actually illustrate something, which is, these are two people who were performers in a town, New York City, known for performance, and they performed their way up the echelon, right. I mean, Rudy Giuliani now has a lot of people American thinking of him as this very serious legal voice, when in fact he doesn`t have a lot of experience in civil defense law, which we point out in the show, has not clear that he has a strategy for Mueller other than a TV strategy.
WILEY: He has a communication strategy. First of all, that clip in a Me Too era, is just disgusting to watch. I just have to say that out loud.
MELBER: Say it.
WILEY: And it is also demonstrates that [something that we know about Giuliani which is he is actually very interested in being a public persona. And so, it is -- for him, it is the perfect role. He gets to be on TV. He gets to be on TV constantly. He gets to drive news. And he is not playing a legal game, as we though. What he is really playing is a communications game. And he has the ability to say Mueller told me x, and that x might not be true. And yet Mueller then can`t necessarily come back and say, I didn`t say that. So that is actually --.
MELBER: No. You`re right, I mean most of the time when we call the special counsel`s office, we get a no comment, do you want to say whether that`s, you know, off base or not? You want to give a hint on background? No. They generally don`t want to say anything.
GOLDMAN: But they are talking to Rudy Giuliani.
MELBER: Yes.
GOLDMAN: And the fact that Giuliani is out there spouting factual inaccuracies, cannot be help to any negotiations that he is trying to do with Mueller in terms of an interview and narrowing the topics or the subpoena, you know. This is pp as a former prosecutor, when someone is out there going public and misrepresenting what I`m saying, I just stop negotiating with them. That`s sort of --
MELBER: You think it ices out the whole thing?
GOLDMAN: I think it makes it a lot more difficult for Giuliani to get what he wants, if he`s telling the media inaccurate statements about what Mueller has said.
MELBER: Right. Let me fill in the break. And both of you stay as part of our special. So give me one sec.
Coming up, the indictments and the guilty pleas, what Mueller target so far tells about where the probe is headed and we will take you inside the special counsel`s office, what witnesses actually say goes on in that secretive grand jury process.
And later, the Michael Cohen factor, the surprise twist that could lead to new fronts in the Russia probe, all ahead on this special edition of THE BEAT on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: Now we turn to the most tangible results of Bob Mueller`s first year of work, the indictments. And what they suggest about the future of this probe and how they may be rattling Donald Trump himself.
You know, it`s easy to forget, the first indictment came fast, just five months into this probe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first indictment into the allegation of alleged ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The President`s former campaign chief Paul Manafort has already surrendered himself to the FBI. And his former deputy Rick Gates has been told to turn himself in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is it. These are the indictments. They did work for Ukraine and were paid the Ukrainian government. But that they hid these payments from U.S. authorities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That was a big deal. But Trump initially claim the reports left him feeling vindicated because the indictments, the first ones, focused on activity before 2016. Trump tweeted at 10:25 a.m. that day, this was years ago before Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. And adding a few minutes later, there is no collusion.
Well, Donald Trump`s tweet aged poorly, as the old saying goes, tweet first, ask questions last, that`s almost to the so-called gangster pass because minutes later news broke Mueller secured his first guilty plea and it was campaign related.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A former Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty in a separate case to giving false statements to the FBI.
MELBER: It`s 10:35 a.m. here on Monday and we are reporting the first Russia-related charge in Bob Mueller`s investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That was a big deal by any measure and the on-slot of indictments continued in the following months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mueller has filed charges against 13 defendants who are Russians. They are charged, these defendants, with defrauding the United States of America.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These new charges in the special counsel`s Russia investigation against a guy named Alex Vanderswan (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Russian-linked attorney Alex Vanderswan (ph) departing a district courthouse moments ago after pleading guilty for lying to the FBI.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: And that`s not all. If you count it all up, you have four indictments of former Trump aides or advisors, a California based attorney, 13 Russian nationals as well as three Russian companies and then you have key members of Trump`s team who are, of course, cooperating.
Now some critic say enough! Mueller should wrap it up after about a year here. And they question what he has achieved which is a fair game to debate. But as a historical factual matter, Bob Mueller is actually more productive than most people on this kind of assignment in history.
During the Bush era, there was a special counsel point the probe an illegal leak which led to one indictment Scooter Libby, Trump pardoned him this year. Everyone remembers, counsel Kenneth Starr who investigated Clinton that case. Also, only led directly to one federal indictment. Iran contra, was 14 people. That`s quite a bit more.
But the first year alone in Mueller`s Russia probe, has 19 indictments, that includes, of course, the 13 Russians charged directly with interfering in U.S. democracy.
Maya Wiley is back with me. And I want to bring in Guy Lewis to this conversation, a former prosecutor who has worked with Bob Mueller, James Comey and Rod Rosenstein at the DOJ.
Guys, put this in context for us. A good investigator does not, of course, evaluate based on a total number of indictments because their jobs are to find the facts and if the facts aren`t bad, maybe no one should be indicted. Having said that, what does this historical frame tell you about critics who say that Bob Mueller is not getting anything done?
GUY LEWIS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I think this proves them beyond any doubt whatsoever.
Remember, Ari, Bob Mueller didn`t ask for this job. It just like serving as a marine and serving in Vietnam, he was called upon, he agreed to serve and I think he has done a terrific job. And you and Dan and Maya who have given a terrific analysis, hit the nail on the head.
Bob has indicted 22 people and various companies. He has obtained five guilty pleas so far, one individual sentenced. And maybe even more importantly, Ari, how many leaks have we heard? How many press conferences have we seen in? Zero.
And I got to tell you. For someone in this kind of case, with this kind of scrutiny, I got to give Bob Mueller a lot of credit for what he is doing so far.
MELBER: Maya, what does it tell you that the President is obsessed with this on a personal basis? So he talks about the personal witch-hunt. But you can`t factually dismissed what we just laid out. That there were people who got caught and pled guilty so there is no debate left and the system is supposed to work that way.
WILEY: Yes. And I think Mr. Lewis is exactly right about Bob Mueller who has been nothing but been an extremely competent public servant who has simply put his head down and gone about his job.
What is going on with Donald Trump, which is think we should all be concerned about is we have not seen what a credible politician would normally do under these circumstances in which people close to him or people who have been in his campaign or his inner circle are indicted, which is to immediately say that they do not condone the conduct, that they are disturbed, they would praise an investigator that actually had identified potential violations of law, they wouldn`t necessarily throw them completely under the bus, but they would certainly express concern.
MELBER: How about this? Going down memory lane, I`m old enough to remember when we had like a national conversation about how candidate Barack Obama had to disown his pastor --.
WILEY: That`s right.
MELBER: -- for things that were regrettable. A lot of people disagree with, but this was a pastor who said words in a public setting. And there was like, it was an endless thing about how fully you have to disown (ph). In Donald Trump`s case -- I mean, you are saying something that I think it is forgot.
Campaign chair indicted. Deputy campaign chair pled guilty cooperating. National security advisor pled guilty, cooperating. Foreign policy adviser, pled guilty, cooperating. At what point is there an obligation for Republican Party and everyone else in the country to say you need to condemn all of that.
WILEY: Yes.
MELBER: Innocent until proven guilty, sure. But some of these people are guilty.
WILEY: You are the highest political official in the land of the United States. And you are sworn to hold up the constitution and the laws of this country. It is simply nothing short of despicable that you have not spoken out and said while I don`t necessarily believe any of these charges may come to actual convictions, which you could say if you want to, but I think it`s incredibly important that the American people understand what happened and that there`s a full and fair trial and that we must hear and understand what has happened.
MELBER: Guy?
LEWIS: Well, I think Maya is exactly right in terms of this is extraordinary. But, I think they will both, Dan and Maya will tell you, as we went through as assistant U.S. attorneys and prosecuted case after case, this wasn`t unusual that either the agents or the agency would get attacked and vilified or even the prosecutors when we would try cases big and small. Not unusual that the other side would use that tactic.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, it didn`t work. But the other side didn`t have sort of a national platform, a bully pulpit that they could be tweeting at 3:00 and 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning and it would be on national news all day. So that`s the big difference here.
MELBER: Yes. And that raises a couple of points, I want to actually ask you both about. So Guy and Maya, if you are willing, please stay with us.
Up next, we are going to take you somewhere that very few people get to go to, that is what witnesses say happened inside Mueller`s interrogation room, including some people we have been lucky enough to have on our show directly after their testimony.
That`s when THE BEAT returns in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s me, Robert Mueller. Hi. I want to tell you so bad, I can`t. I`m not going to -- but, yes. It`s going to be fun. Hold on to that feeling street lights people
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Bob Mueller, he hasn`t spoken in public since this Russia probe launched a year ago. But "SNL" has deployed more than one actor to imagine what Mueller might be like and whether he will ever answer this big question about collusion. Now witnesses say the real Mueller is a sphinx like presence who sits quietly along the wall as his investigators grill people. And most of those people don`t talk a lot about their experience, a few have spoken out. The most infamous being former Trump aide Sam Nunberg who claimed he defy Mueller before cooperating as well as the wife of George Papadopoulos who has also told us about what went on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM NUNBERG, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: This grand jury is taking this very, very seriously. To the extent that I was able to look at them, mostly because I was facing the person who was questioning me, to the extent I was able to look at them, they were taking notes, they were focused, they were interested.
MELBER: Were the investigators professional or were they aggressive? How was it for you?
SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GUILTY TRUMP AIDE GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: The situation for me was intimidating, but they were very professional and very fair. I never felting aggressed in any way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Professional and thorough, another Trump aide who face this investigators, Michael Caputo, saying something that could intimidate anyone who want to hide from Mueller explaining that Mueller will know more than you do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: The Mueller team knew more about what I did in 2016, than I knew myself. And I think they know more about the Trump campaign than anyone that ever worked there. They are clearly focused on trying to identify Russian collusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I`m joined by David Priess, a former CIA officer who used to give Bob Mueller his morning intelligence briefing daily and also "Wall Street Journal`s Shelby Holliday, who has been reporting on the Mueller probe is back with us.
David, speak to the point that Michael says, which is both true but counter intuitive, how could someone else know more about what you lived through, but the whole point of intelligence whether you gather the way you did at CIA or the way investigators do it in a criminal probe is to gather the knowledge of way more than one person.
DAVID PRIESS, FORMER CA OFFICER: Yes. It makes sense, because our memories are infallible, but facts remain. And Bob Mueller has access in this investigation though a range of things. He has facts coming from other witnesses. He has facts coming from foreign intelligence. He has facts coming from bank records and transactions coming through the Treasury department`s office called FINCEN, the financial crimes enforcement network.
He has got no shortage of information. His job is to process it. His job is to put all that together and say what is the picture here? And pieces are we missing that we need to ask others about? Or what pieces do we think are here that we can see if people are telling the truth?
MELBER: Right. And that goes -- let me build on that and play something (INAUDIBLE). That goes to the sort of the old school part of Mueller as almost a character or a fact finder that I think has taken root in the public imagination. We showed the "SNL" clips, because in this moment right now, there is I think a fascination with people who work only with facts.
I want to play his, maybe long forgotten testimony about a very dramatic time when there was a hospital confrontation in the Bush administration. James Comey was involved. Alberto Gonzalez was involved. Ashcroft was involved.
And when asked about it, he stuck to the most spare factual rendering he could under oath, Bob Mueller, and didn`t want to get into anything beyond the facts. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you surprised when you heard the phone call from Mr. Comey, if there was going to be this visit to Mr. Ashcroft by Gonzalez and Card?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was out of the ordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me why you decided to make notes of the conversation between you and Mr. Ashcroft?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was out of the ordinary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Out of the ordinary. How does that square with the man you work with and that style?
PRIESS: That matches up very closely. In fact, he is not somebody who likes to show his cards. He played things close to his vest. But in my case, I was the one there to answer his questions about foreign intelligence, so he could put this puzzle together.
And in doing so, what I found was the same mannerism you saw there played out on the other side, which is when he is not receiving questions, but asking them, it was always with a purpose. When he asked questions, when he dug down into details that I didn`t think he would be interested in, I later found out there was always a reason. Sometimes I didn`t find out until the end of the questioning, and I found out, ah-ha, he knows something from his work at the bureau or talking with other senior officials that I didn`t know but now I see why he did this.
MELBER: You thought he knew more than you. Do you think he was smarter than you?
PRIESS: I think he was much better at putting together information at this tactical and the strategic level at the same time than virtually anyone I worked with in my entire career at CIA and the state department. I never saw somebody who could simultaneously be following each detail and then at the same time jump to the big picture question and back again so rapidly. It was fun to watch him work on that.
MELBER: Shelby?
SHELBY HOLLIDAY, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I can say that I have been speaking to some of the witnesses and possibly potential witnesses. And everybody has this fear of Mueller, not just because he has these things like a President who maybe sits against the wall and listens, but because for the exact same reason we are just talking about, he knows everything. And he is very organized. He is very efficient. We hear that he just goes through questions, his team goes through questions with a purpose, no one is just kind of chatting or kicking the can.
MELBER: They`re not just chilling.
HOLLIDAY: No. They have a mission in there.
MELBER: They are not just hanging out?
HOLLIDAY: They are not hanging out and they are aggressively pursuing collusion, as Michael Caputo said, not just about obstruction.
MELBER: Take a look at something that began to get reported out on THE BEAT as it happen, because we had Sam Nunberg on, some people remember that. But long before Stormy Daniels became a case in New York, we learned that Mueller was asking some of these questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Did Mueller`s folks ask anything that related to these issues around payments to people or women?
NUNBERG: Well, look. They asked if I ever heard anything about that and my answer is I never have.
MELBER: I have never heard, you say that publicly before. And your FBI interview with Mueller`s team, they were asking about payments to women.
NUNBERG: They were asking me if I knew anything about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLIDAY: I mean, as he said, we only know a few glimpses of things that are happening in the Mueller investigation beucase of witnesses like Sam who are willing to speak up. Why witnesses aren`t willing to tell us what they were asked, we don`t even know who all the witnesses are. I think that is the biggest mystery of this investigation, even members of Congress don`t know what Mueller has, as they have been simultaneously probing possible Russian collusion. So it`s just this giant mystery novel and you never know what page it ends on.
MELBER: Well, and that is why it is fascinating to talk to some of these witnesses who are able legally to talk. Most of them choose not to on the advice of counsel.
HOLLIDAY: Right.
MELBER: To the type who do come out may have their own reasons. As journalists, we can always speculate on why someone wants to do that but it`s been very informative to hear at least as you say some of those glimpses. Shelby, stay with me. I want to get into one other thing. David Priess, thank you for your personal view there, your experience with Mueller. Up ahead the big questions, what is still secret and when and how could it come out. Also Donald Trump`s longtime fixer Michael Cohen, well, why is he becoming Donald Trump`s biggest headache?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So how was work doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, really bad. Mostly just preparing to go to jail and stuff. They said I might get 20 years unless I`ll give you up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve heard. You know, it`s fun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fun?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it`s (INAUDIBLE) plus there`s a free gym, dude, you going to get so jacked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They even have programs in jail where you can get a real law degree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: SNL roasting Michael Cohen as a mediocre lawyer headed for jail. The self-proclaimed fixer now sits in the red-hot core of two of Trumps biggest legal problems, paying off Stormy Daniels and taking money from a firm linked to a sanction Russian oligarch. And for all the strange events in the first year of Mueller probed, the news that the feds raided the president`s lawyer was a true bombshell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The late word of an FBI raid on the Manhattan offices of President Trump`s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Agents also hit Cohen`s hotel room seizing records after getting a referral from the Special Counsel`s office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: But what records? Many legal experts were noting at the time that those kind of tough tactics were unlikely to be deployed if the only issue were Stormy Daniels and that was correct. Cohen is now implicated in many other issues, operating a slush fund to sell corporations access to his boss, allegedly seeking payments from foreign governments the kind of pay- for-play that can break the law without the right registration in which Donald Trump campaigned against.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It`s called pay-for-play. Pay-for-play corruption. Pay for play. It`s pay-for-play. It`s pay for play which is illegal a hundred percent illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I`m joined now by Randall Eliason, a former Federal Prosecutor. He writes in Washington Post, Michael Cohen is in serious legal jeopardy. The Reverend Al Sharpton, my colleague, President of the National Action Network, Host of "POLITICS NATION" and a player in his own right in New York politics in the land of Donald Trump of Michael Cohen, and Shelby Holliday back with us of course from The Wall Street Journal. Rev, starting with you as someone who knows how these people work and has been around Trump and Cohen in New York. This wasn`t just any aide to Donald Trump.
REV. AL SHARPTON, MSNBC HOST: No, he was his guy that would really fix things. I remember when Trump started getting very political on the birther issue, it was Cohen that set up the meeting with Trump and I where Trump wanted me to stop calling him a racist and saying that the birther movement was race-based and Cohen sat in the meeting. I mean, so, Cohen did all kind of duties on behalf of Donald Trump.
MELBER: What did you glean about him and the trust that Trump puts in him from those dealings?
SHARPTON: I think that as much as Donald Trump is capable of trusting someone, it would have been Cohen. Now that -- I don`t think that he has a lot of trust in anybody.
MELBER: Are you suggesting that Donald Trump has trust issues?
SHARPTON: I suggest that very strongly. I think Donald Trump is for Donald Trump, which is why I think Cohen has some very serious thinking to do about what he`s going to do now that he is facing serious time if any of the reports that we are reading about end up becoming true.
MELBER: Shelby, you`ve been covering this story with us here on THE BEAT since the inception. It wasn`t clear exactly where the stormy Daniels case would go but everyone can now remember those fateful words Donald Trump said on Air Force One and knowing what we all now publicly know, it is remarkable in the form of a self-damaging dare. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?
TRUMP: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why did Michael Cohen make it if there was no truth to the allegation?
TRUMP: You have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and you`ll have to ask Michael.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where he got the money to make the payment?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Ask Michael Cohen.
SHELBY HOLLIDAY, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I think you bring up a really important point because Trump`s public statements, we don`t know what he`s saying to Cohen privately, but his public statements have been very distanced from Michael Cohen. He`s backing off of you know, his fix- it man, his right-hand man in a big way. He`s saying these are Michaels business dealings, this was Michael`s legal issue. You`ll have to ask Michael Cohen. He also pointed out Michael Cohen is my attorney. He said that in April. So the fact that Michael Cohen was still considered the President`s attorney given all of the weird business dealings he was involved in also raises some major ethical and legal questions for the for the President. But I do think one of the most fascinating things about this saga is to watch how the President has was sort of publicly thrown Michael Cohen under the bus and Michael in return and through various people in the media has warned the President don`t go there. Well, under the bus and then really put it in reverse and backed up over his bleeding - -
HOLLIDAY: Oh, yes, multiple times. Phone called the Fox And Friends astonishing to people close to Michael Cohen.
MELBER: Wild. Randall, I want to play for you something else that come up in the first year of the probe which is what is known in legal circles as bonkers interviews. We`ve had a few of them including one with a man who preceded Michael Cohen as Donald Trump`s chief lawyer who didn`t have great things to say about Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Do you think Michael Cohen`s job at times was to keep the mob away from Donald Trump?
JAY GOLDBERG, TRUMP`S LAWYER: Well, if he says he was a fixer, then the question is what did he fix and what needed fixing. What needed fixing was relations with the mob and shake downs by the mob so that there would be no strikes and there would be labor peace at all costs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Randall, that`s not a critic of Donald Trump, that`s Donald Trump`s longtime lawyer who said I`m going to repeat, what Michael Cohen was doing was dealing with what needed fixing and what needed fixing was quote relations with the mob.
RANDALL ELIASON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, I think it`s pretty clear that Michael Cohen was deeply involved in a lot of President Trump`s activities and are -- even before you as president of course, and we don`t yet know what else is going to come out of this. The key thing I think to remember is that Robert Mueller is months ahead of the rest of us when it was revealed that you know, his investigators spoke I think last November to some of these corporations that were paying Michael Cohen these large retainers that we just learned about a few weeks ago. So there`s clearly a lot going on that Michael Cohen has a lot to be nervous about and I think we just have to wait and see what Mueller`s investigation and the other investigations reveal about the depth and the nature of these ties. It`s important to remember that there`s a lot that goes on in this type of activities such as the retainers from these corporations that might be sleazy and unethical in the Washington swamp but not necessarily illegal. And so sorting all of that out is going to take some time.
MELBER: Well, based on what we do know, what do you think was the most likely criminal evidence predicate for those dramatic searches then?
ELIASON: Again, it`s hard to know not being involved in the grand jury investigation but it sounds like things related to possible money laundering or real estate deals in New York, maybe campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniel`s payoff but I doubt that that would alone be the basis of this aggressive step.
MELBER: Reverend Sharpton, Michael Avenatti emerged as well as first Michael Cohen`s adversary and lawyers fight all the time. But then it`s something of more of a tormentor and it`s Cohen now who`s under serious federal probe, not Avenatti. We spoke to him when this all started to come out and he felt it was predicting like a Christmas gift when Donald Trump put Cohen on blast. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL AVENATTI, LAWYER OF STORMY DANIELS: We waited patiently and lo and behold Christmas has arrived. The President`s comments on Air Force One have -- are serious for him, serious for Michael Cohen. How can you have an agreement when one party claims that they don`t know anything about the agreement? I mean, these guys are making it up as they go along.
MELBER: Rev, you`ve seen a lot of different things in New York politics, could you ever have imagined that Michael Avenatti, a civil plaintiff`s attorney representing this adult film actress would turn out to be such a key to Michael Cohen`s undoing?
SHARPTON: No you would never predict it but I think that what Avenatti has done and in probably more subtle ways the Mueller investigators have done has identified Cohen as the one that if you penetrate him at best you may find out things if they don`t already have. And at worse you put Trump in a very precarious position because if Cohen says yes I did certain things with the knowledge of Donald Trump, the only one that can deny that is Donald Trump, would lead to Trump having to testify or say something under oath or just left unanswered and that`s a very dangerous position for the President.
MELBER: Right, it seems like Donald Trump himself may realize that. My thanks to Rev Sharpton, Shelly Holliday, and Randall Eliason. Let me mention "POLITICS NATION" airs every Sunday 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Up ahead, when all the evidence is in, how will we know what Bob Mueller has found? We`re actually going to give you these legal map of where that heads. And why everything could hinge on yes Rod Rosenstein when our special edition of THE BEAT continues.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just I`m trying to be honest with you and tell you that I can`t commit to collusion right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just to wait two more years for him to be out of office.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly probably six.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: The joke there is not on Donald Trump for once, it`s SNL knowing that people who may hope Mueller will deliver a rose and findings to end this presidency may be very disappointed. The fact is Bob Mueller`s mandate is not to look for something bad on Trump, it`s to find out what happened with Russian meddling and prosecute any Americans who helped. If Trump didn`t help and if he doesn`t obstruct the probe, then he`d be in the clear. When all the evidence is in though, how will we even know what Mueller found? Well, his boss Rod Rosenstein has the authority to publicly release the Mueller findings and Mueller may divide those findings into two separate reports.
The Washington Post saying that there`s a potential plan to release findings in stages with the first report focused on the obstruction issue and a second on interference and collusion. Now this plan could account for Rudy Giuliani`s recent claim that the obstruction part of the probe will be done by September. But what is the strategy behind Muller releasing two different reports in the first place? I mean in the special probe into Bill Clinton can start tackle all kinds of different issues, rolled them up into one giant report and implicitly joined the drumbeat for impeachment based on allegations of obstruction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In brutal and at times graphic detail, prosecutors lay out how the president allegedly lied and obstructed justice in both civil and criminal investigations charging Clinton engaged in a pattern of conduct that was inconsistent with his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws.
MELBER: Back with me is former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis. He worked with Bob Mueller, Dan Goldman is here as well and Maya Wiley. Guy, let me start with you. Why two reports?
GUY LEWIS, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: I think it makes a lot of sense frankly, Ari, because it allows you to sort of narrow the focus to be more laser- like to deal with just the evidence that relates to those allegations in particular. I mean, you got to think they`ve interviewed hundreds of people, they reviewed thousands and thousands of documents. It`s probably a couple of roomfuls of material. So anything that the Special Counsel can do to sort of narrow that focus, I applaud him for that effort.
MELBER: Well, what about the idea that if you release the obstruction report early and then you have to continue with your investigation, there could be more obstruction after the report potentially.
LEWIS: Well, that that is a worry I think that Bob Mueller would have and I really do think that his team can sit down and determine up front, can we dissect this, can we make this into a manageable presentation? Because again, I don`t like the idea of a 2,000-page report that becomes virtually impossible to read and understand. Americans do need to look at this. They need to be able to consume it and make decisions for themselves.
MELBER: And Daniel, looking at the actual rules, Starr had a different mandate under a different law which can matter a lot when you get to the fighting. These DOJ rules say it`s up to Rosenstein whether he releases this. Can you see any situation where after all this Rod Rosenstein says, no we`re just going to keep it secret?
DANIEL GOLDMAN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I can`t imagine that but what is going to be very tricky is redacting the grand jury information because anything gleaned by a grand jury subpoena or grand jury testimony cannot be released and it must remain confidential. So there`s some question even if he does release it, what is its use if we don`t -- if we don`t know much of what happened because it all occurred in front of the grand jury.
MELBER: There is a view in the politics of this and if it`s a report that Congress is going to use to decide what if anything to do, there`s a political aspect to this that if when it`s all said and done, the only thing is "potential obstruction." A lot of which occurred through the President`s Twitter fingers that American -- the American public and the Republicans are going to say well, we kind of already knew that. There`s nothing on collusion. Let`s move on which again seems to cut against two separate reports because it may allow Republicans at a bruit level to say, well, one has nothing. Russia doesn`t touch Trump maybe other people. And the other is you know, Twitter obstruction.
MAYA WILEY, COUNSEL TO NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I think you have -- you can look at it either way. I think it`s actually probably a smart strategy to release two reports primarily because the obstruction case is already pretty clear. I think to Daniel`s point so much of it has been public statements by Donald Trump himself that it doesn`t have the grand jury problem, which means you can paint a clear, a pretty clear picture in that first report that Donald Trump was obstructing justice. And then the question becomes why.
MELBER: Yes, do you know -- do you know why he admitted to using Russia as the reason to fire the FBI Director on T.V.?
WILEY: A lack of understanding of the law.
GOLDMAN: I actually not convinced that that there`s going to be a report on collusion. I think that what may end up happening is that there will be some people indicted, probably not the president but that Bob Mueller as he has to this point will speak through an indictment and it will be quite a lengthy indictment.
MELBER: By the way, it`s very -- it`s very 2018 that you say people be indicted and probably not the President, but go on. Probably not.
GOLDMAN: This is the world in which we live. It`s -- it is crazy but I`m -- and that for that reason in part because of the timing issues related to the midterms, they probably can finish up the obstruction investigation before the -- by the end of the summer. And so it may make sense to get that out of the way and then continue focusing on the collusion.
MELBER: Isn`t it also possible Maya -- again we speak about what we know and everyone I think judiciously has emphasized as much we just don`t know by the nature of this tonight, but when we talk about reports we`re focusing on that public aspect which is what pertains the President because he is literally different than every other person in our constitutional system with regard to his role to execute the laws. It`s also possible that the obstruction piece could involve indictments of other people around Donald Trump who helped obstruct justice and then a report speaking to his mental state intent and awareness of those activities.
WILEY: That`s absolutely right and also what kinds of deals you get from people you`ve indicted on the obstruction -- the obstruction. So I think that what we don`t know -- there are lots that we don`t know and probably the -- on the prosecutorial side, there`s still so much that they must be going through just even on the Michael Cohen documents. I mean, I`m not going to let go of this one. I don`t think we know. Remember that Richard Nixon ultimately was brought down not on obstruction. He was brought down because there was a smoking gun through the tapes about his direct involvement in criminal activity. I think that that`s actually the real question here. We don`t know the answer to but we also don`t know what we`re going to find or what`s going to become available to prosecutors as a result of the Michael Cohen documents. Lightning rapid round, year two of the Mueller probe, would you expect more or fewer indictments? Starting with you Guy Lewis, briefly.
LEWIS: Fewer.
GOLDMAN: I think there will be fewer indictments but more pages of indictments.
MELBER: Spoken like a lawyer, predicting page counts. Maya?
WILEY: I think fewer but with greater consequence.
MELBER: With greater consequence. Very well. Sometimes, and by that, I mean most of the time Maya puts it better than everyone else.
GOLDMAN: Absolutely.
MELBER: I`m kidding. We love all of our guests equally, we just love Maya more. Guy Lewis, Maya Wiley, Daniel Goldman, thanks for being part of our special coverage and we will be right back.
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MELBER: You`ve been watching our special coverage of year one of the Mueller probe but as we look towards year two, there are three big questions that remain. Will there be more indictments in year two than year one as we were discussing? Will Donald Trump do a Presidential grand jury interview as Bill Clinton did but as his lawyers continue to fight? and number three, and finally, as we were reporting, will there be a report or reports that the public sees about what Bob Mueller has learned through this probe. That`s what we have our eye on. Thanks for watching our special coverage and a happy Memorial Day to you. "HARDBALL" with Chris Matthews is up next.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: 20 years of Donald Trump. Let`s play HARDBALL.
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