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In an exclusive interview with "CBS This Morning" Attorney General William Barr Robert Mueller and the Justice Ministry disagreed on "the legal analysis" in the report of the special council on the interference of Russia in the presidential election of 2016. Mueller said his investigation had not established that President Trump had committed an obstruction of justice, nor had he exonerated him either. Barr said that he believes Mueller could have come to a conclusion as to whether the president obstructed justice.
During an interview that lasted nearly an hour in Anchorage, Alaska, CBS News' senior legal correspondent, Jan Crawford, insisted on the Attorney General on a number of issues. obstruction to his new examination of the investigation on Russia. The Attorney General said that he was surprised when Mueller told him that he would not decide whether the president was obstructing justice, but added that he had not insisted . Then, in collaboration with lawyers from the Ministry of Justice, he intervened and made the decision himself based on the evidence. Mueller was gathered.
Asked about the fundamental difference between his view and that of Mueller on the significance of the evidence gathered during the investigation of Russia, Barr said: "I think Bob said he was not going to engage in the analysis, he was not going to make a decision or We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing it and determined that in law, a great number of cases would not be an impediment. "
"In law?" Crawford asked.
In law, in other words, we do not subscribe to legal analysis, to much of the legal analysis contained in the report, it does not reflect the views of the department. "Barr said. "It was the point of view of one or more lawyers, so we applied what we thought was the right law."
This decision – presented in a four-page summary – opened the Attorney General to criticism that he was too lenient with President Trump.
"I was trying to take stock," said Barr, responding to this criticism. And in the end, Bob Mueller identified some episodes He did not come to a conclusion He exposed both sides of the question and he – his conclusion was that he was not exonerating the president, but that he did not find a crime either. "
While Barr testified before Congress about the special council's report, Mueller wants the report to speak for itself and said he did not want to testify. Barr said that he would do it or not.
"But I think the line that he traces and that he's going to stick to what he said in the report is the line that suits any department official," he said. said Barr.
Crawford also questioned the Attorney General on Mueller's last warning in which he stated that there were "multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election" and on how the Ministry of Justice is working to ensure that this does not happen again in 2020.
"Yes, we have, I think, an increasingly strong program that focuses on foreign influence in our electoral process," Barr said. "I recently spoke with the FBI director of the constitution of a high-level task force to make sure we are fully prepared for the upcoming elections."
The president has repeatedly accused former intelligence officials of dropping the ball by focusing too much and "spying" his campaign. Barr said that he thought he was spying on the Trump campaign took place and took some criticism to use the word "espionage" in particular.
"Yeah, I mean, I guess it became a big word, it never happened to me, I think there's nothing wrong with spying on it, the question is always whether this is allowed by law, "said Barr.
Some former intelligence chiefs said that President Trump had spoofed him with his repeated accusations that the investigation of Russia was a witch hunt and a hoax. Critics say that Barr's use of the word "espionage" testified to his loyalty to Mr. Trump.
"You know, it's part of the madness of modern times that if a president uses a word, he suddenly becomes disconnected, that's a perfectly correct English word, I'll continue to use it" Barr said.
"What did you see? What evidence?" Crawford hurry.
"Like many other people familiar with intelligence activities, I had a lot of questions about what was happening," Barr said. "I thought I would get answers when I got in and I did not get any answers, well, well, and in fact, I probably have more questions." and that some of the facts I've learned, do not trust the official explanations about what happened. "
When asked what he meant by that, Barr replied, "That's all I'm really going to say, things just are not crazy."
Barr said that in his opinion, government interference in an American election was just as dangerous as foreign interference, and that is why he opened an investigation into the actions of the intelligence community in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
He asked the president 's authority to declassify the information that he thought was in the public interest.
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