JUDY WOODRUFF: As the investigation into ties between the Trump organization and Russian
officials by special counsel Robert Mueller continues, The New York Times is reporting
on the frenzied days around Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision to remove himself
from overseeing the inquiry, and of President Trump's firing of then FBI Director James
Comey.
Our correspondent William Brangham has more.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The New York Times report paints a revealing portrait of Mr. Trump and
his inner circle in those crucial early days of the Russia investigation.
To break down the revelations and what they mean for the president and the man who is
now investigating him, I'm joined by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Jack White House reporter
for The New York Times who worked on this story, and Jack Goldsmith, professor of Harvard
Law School and co-founder of the Lawfareblog.com.
He also served as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal
Counsel during the George W. Bush administration.
So, Julie, I wonder if you could just start off.
This story had so many interesting details to it and helped tell us a little bit more
about what may be an obstruction of justice case.
Can you just tell us -- give us some of the details that you guys reported.
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, The New York Times: Well, what we're learning is more about what
the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, is looking at as he tries to figure out whether
there is a case for obstruction of justice.
And one of the key things my colleague Mike Schmidt and the rest of us learned in the
course of reporting the story is that the president -- we had known before that the
president was very upset that the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from
the Russia investigation.
What we have found out now is he actually dispatched the White House counsel, Don McGahn,
who is the top lawyer at the White House, to essentially lobby Jeff Sessions not to
do that.
He had been considering it.
He sent McGahn to try to talk him out of it.
And when that failed, Trump really erupted in rage and said he wanted a protector just
like previous presidents.
He felt that he wasn't being personally protected in the way that he wanted to be.
And he said, "Where is my Roy Cohn?"
of course referring to his former personal lawyer, who was also the top aide many decades
ago to Senator Joe McCarthy when he was doing the anti-communism hearings.
So we learned about that and the degree, the lengths to which the president tried to keep
Sessions in control of this investigation.
We also learned about the sort of way that White House lawyers were trying to manage
this idea that they knew the president had to fire the FBI director.
One of the lawyers in the White House Counsel's Office knew that he wanted to do this, that
he was considering it, and had told the president that he needed a reason if he wanted to fire
the FBI director.
He subsequently researched that and found out it wasn't in fact the case, but he deliberately
kept that information from President Trump because he was afraid that he would act on
it and go ahead and fire Jim Comey, which, of course, he did.
We're also learning more about the justification that the president sort of and his top aides
were trying to put in place for getting rid of Comey.
We know that Jeff Sessions apparently dispatched an aide to go to Capitol Hill and see if there
was any dirt they could dig up on Comey, ostensibly, I would assume, in an effort to discredit
him before letting him go.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Some really revelatory tidbits here.
Jack Goldsmith, what of these elements stand out to you, and why?
JACK GOLDSMITH, Harvard Law School: Well, they are all three interesting tidbits, but
I'm not sure how much they add to what the president himself has already admitted to
in his tweets and discussions about a possible obstruction of justice charge.
We know from the president and from lots of previous reporting that the president's very
strongly against the investigation, that he's angry at Sessions for doing it.
We know that he fired Comey, because the president told us so, in connection with the Russia
investigation.
There is a lot of interesting details in the story that gives a lot of richness to what
we already know, but I'm not sure it advances our understanding of a possible obstruction
of justice charge.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, again, we should say we really don't know if Mueller is pursuing
obstruction of justice.
But you are a lawyer, served in the Pentagon and the DOJ.
Is your sense that these elements start to add up to what feels like an obstruction of
justice case to you?
JACK GOLDSMITH: So, I'm -- I'm not sure.
And here's why I'm not sure.
First of all, there are legal complications for Mueller to be able to bring an obstruction
case.
One is, there are some tricky questions about what would it would take.
Corruption is when someone tries -- excuse me -- obstruction of justice is when someone
tries to impede an investigation with a corrupt purpose.
It's a very tricky and difficult legal problem to know what that means when it's the president
basically trying to influence an investigation, even of himself, because the president's at
the top of the executive branch.
He has authority to fire people.
He has in some sense the authority to direct investigations.
So he has a lot of constitutional authority to control the executive branch.
On the other hand, there are certainly some things the president could do that would probably
constitute obstruction of justice.
The problem is knowing whether Mueller, who has -- excuse me -- Trump, who has been so
overt in admitting his reasons for doing this, because he thinks that the whole investigation
is a sham and the like, whether that amounts to obstruction of justice.
And, moreover, even if it does, and we don't know what Mueller knows, there is -- the Department
of Justice's position is that a sitting president can't be prosecuted.
I believe Mueller would probably abide by that.
So I think all of this investigation that's looking at obstruction of justice or possibly
obstruction of justice is more for a report that would be sent to Congress and for public
consumption and congressional consumption for a possible impeachment proceeding.
I don't think Mueller is going to indict the president.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Julie, there was another piece of information in this report and in
prior New York Times reports.
And that's pertaining to the letter that President Trump apparently drafted when he was putting
out his rationale.
This was the letter that was going to be sent to Jim Comey saying, here's why I'm firing
you.
We know that the actual letter that was sent to Comey was all about Hillary Clinton and
the investigation and how Comey handled that.
Can you tell us what your reporting showed about what the first letter actually contained?
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: Right.
So, we reported the existence of this letter some months ago.
And it basically was a letter that the president put together with Steve Miller, his senior
policy adviser, in consultation with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, but basically laying out the
reasons for firing Comey.
This may have been in that period of time under which -- in which he was under the impression
that he needed a reason, beyond just I don't want him there and I'm firing him.
And it talks about the investigation being a complete fabrication.
And it makes it very clear what, as Jack said earlier, the president has actually said publicly,
which is that the reason he was firing Comey, or at least one big reason, was that he didn't
like the Russia investigation, he didn't think it was -- he thought it was baseless, and
that that was really what was largely behind his decision to try to get rid of him.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jack Goldsmith, I know that your -- you believe that the details of this
letter and the involvement of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that's much more interesting
to you, what the deputy attorney general's role in this justifying how Comey got sacked
is all about.
Can you explain?
JACK GOLDSMITH: Yes.
I actually think this is the most interesting revelation in the story.
So, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, is acting as attorney general for purposes
of supervising Mueller.
He was the one who appointed Mueller.
And that was because his boss, Sessions, recused himself.
So Rosenstein is actually supervising Mueller in his investigation.
And Mueller is ostensibly investigating whether or not, at least according to reports, whether
or not Trump's firing of Comey was an attempted obstruction of justice.
So what makes that problematic is that Rosenstein was also involved in the firing of Comey.
He wrote a memorandum to the president that the president, in his firing letter, relied
on, said it was the reason he fired Comey.
And then it turned out soon thereafter that it really wasn't the reason he fired Comey,
that the memorandum was pretextual, at least for the president.
And what this -- what the New York Times reporting last night shows is that Rosenstein himself,
before he wrote his memorandum to the president to justify firing Comey, knew the president
was motivated to fire Comey because of the Russia investigation.
So, that puts -- seems to put Rosenstein, who is supervising Mueller, right in the middle
of what Mueller is investigating.
And that seems to be a conflict of interests.
So, it's a puzzle to me.
But Rosenstein has said he doesn't believe he has a conflict of interests.
He's testified about that.
He says, if he has one, that he will recuse himself.
So it's a puzzle how he can supervise an investigation that seems to be investigating something he
was involved in.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Jack Goldsmith, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, thank you both very
much.
JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS: Thanks.
JACK GOLDSMITH: Thank you.