Mueller Begins Looking into Collusion

campaign and Russians, with indictments possible by the fall. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained the significance of that issue on Bloomberg earlier this month. What Bob Muller and his team are doing is extremely important for the country. There's a cloud I think that's over the nation, particularly with respect to the issue of collusion and the I think the only hope for actually resolving that one way or the other is through the Special Council investigation. My

guest is Jimmy Grulier, professor at Notre Dame Law School. Jimmy, the reports are that Mueller is first going to resolve whether there was obstruction of justice. Why break up the investigation that way? Well, I think that the obstruction of

justice charge. First of all, it's much more manageable. You know, involves a single statute or and and and incidents involving the president's conduct, and so I think it would be easier to charge rather than going into the collusion Russian coclusion issue, which by the way, could involve multiple UH

former members of the of the Trump campaign. There's been at least thirteen individuals that have been identified with engaging and suspicious activities involving the Russian So so that's much broader, it's more, much more complex, and and therefore the obstruction I think it's just an easier charge to to allege

and and to prove in the case. We know that Trump has said no collusion over and over again, but there have been no suspicious contacts that you mentioned, and enough to set off alarms among US intelligence officials earlier. What's the case for collusion, Well, again, there's no actual crime of collusion. Instead, it would be conspiracy would be

the charge. And whether or not it's it's conspiracy under the general conspiracy Statute, So conspiring against the United States UH, conspiring to violate the federal campaign laws would be another example. Of the type of conspiracy or slash collusion collusion charge that the MULLA would be considering an investigating. But again it's important to note that there's no charge, there's no federal charge of collusion. Would be conspiracy to violate some

other federal federal crime. And will you explain what it takes to prove that someone's involved in a conspiracy, Yes, conspiracy. The essential element is an agreement. There is to be an agreement between two or more people to engage in criminal conduct, to violate some some criminal statute, to commit a crime. And so again that the agreement can be

proven through circumstantial evidence. I mean, it doesn't have to be a proven through uh, let's say surveillance or electronic surveillance that indicates two people agree, you know, So it's not doesn't require proving yes, let's violate this statute. You and I, let's commit this crime. But it can be inferred from from the surrounding facts and circumstances of the case. We've discussed this before, but in April, Deputy A. G. Rod Rosenstein told Trump he was not a target of

the Mueller investigation. How does that statement fit in here? Well, it's it's simply limited to that point in time. At that particular point in time, that was the case, that was the view of the former director of the of the FBI. But evidence, uh, that's been collected since then could have changed that that situation or that view, or

perhaps it's still the same even today. But eventually it's going to be the evidence that has been recovered uncovered through this investigation that's gonna be that's gonna be telling. So it's certainly not binding on on the Department of Justice. It's simply a snapshot at that particular point in time. Now there are reports that Mueller has called in some new prosecutors to work on the part of the investigation, sort of spinning off the part of the investigation that

pertains to the Russian firms that he previously indicted. What does that tell you if he's spinning that part off? Is that a difficult part? Well? I think it's it tells you a little bit about the focus of the investigation and uh, and that that particular aspect of the investigation may require a particular skill set, particular expertise that these particular investigators or lawyers have based upon their their their their prior practice, or perhaps when they were former

federal prosecutors. So it is telling and in one sense as to the direction and focus of the investigation, and again the skills and the experience that's needed to develop that aspect of the investigation more fully. Now tell me if this is telling as well. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, hosted a dinner party Friday and said apparently and and Trump has responded to this, um, if you get me one more glass of wine, I'll tell you stuff only Bob Muller and I know, and buckle up.

It's going to be a wild couple of months. And Trump picked up on that in one of his his tweets, Well, what does it tell you that a U A senator saying something like that, and he's on the Intelligence Committee. It's it's difficult to ask to ask how much should

be read into that. I mean that that again could be simply maybe some boastful, loose language again at a at a dinner party, and and and perhaps maybe there's not all that much to it, but perhaps it could also be an indication that that the Department of Justice has been keeping members of the of the Senate Intelligence Committee updated on the development and progress of the investigation, and that would of course require disclosing some of some

of the the the information regarding the scope of the investigation, the focus of the investigation, the progress of the investigation. And so maybe the senator was was referring to that, but again it's very unfortunate that he would make that type of of a statement in public that that again might be prejudicial or might be you know, might tip off targets of the investigation. And uh, and probably a

statement that should have been made. Now. Um, Michael Cohen, that the name you know of Trump's personal lawyer, former personal lawyer, keeps coming up, and there are all kinds of rumors that he is going to cooperate. Is that

moving a little bit slowly? I don't think so. In fact, there's a recent report that's the first of all, that there was over three million items of evidence that were seized by federal investigators and when they conducted the executed the search warrant at Michael Cohen's office and and then of course they're the federal judge required that that those items be examined to determine if any of those involved

attorney client or attorney client privileged information. And the latest is of that approximately three point seven million dollar million items sees only one d sixty one of those were recommended to the judge and the judge agreed that they were protected attorney client information. So again, well over three

million items are not protected. And so the question and therefore they're going to be disclosed to the prosecution, and the question is of those items, do any of those items reveal any illegal activity between Michael Cohen and and President Trump? Thank you, Jimmy. That's Jimmy Garoule, professor at

Notre Dame Law School. To be continued. A big win for the Trump administration and one of the highest profile cases of the year and one of the most contentious issues, the Supreme Court of held Trump's travel ban against a broad legal attack. The vote was five to four along ideological grounds, with the conservative justices in the majority joining me Is Bloomberg. New Supreme Court reporter Greg Store Greg Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority tell us

about the essence of his opinion Hi June. The essence of his decision is notwithstanding claims that he made discriminatory comments toward towards Muslims in the campaign and after he became president. UH. He said, we generally afford the president very broad discretion in dealing with these questions about who

can come into the country. This was a policy that went through multiple agencies, that has a lot of detail in it, and we are going to defer to the President UH in this area because it is generally an area where Congress wants the president to decide and we want to defer in terms of what he thinks about the national security interests of the country. Justice is Stephen Bryer and Sonya Soto Mayor read their descents from the bench, which is rare, and I understand that Justice Soto Mayor

was some said furious. Yeah, she both in her words and the pens and UH in the opinion itself, she was very pointed. She she likened the decision to the nineteen Cormatsu decision where the Supreme Court upheld the government's policy of interning Japanese Americans during World War Two. Um, she Uh invoked talked about all the individual people that this will this policy will harm in her view. UH. Interestingly, it was a dissent that was joined only by one

other justice that was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justices Briar and Kagan uh dissented on on different and and somewhat less pointed grounds. You mentioned the Karamaso decision and the dissenters comparing that to Trump's policy. Chief Justice Roberts took umbrage at that to say, the least tell us what he said about that. Yeah, so he said that there that

the two things are not the same. Uh, the Chief Justice, and I'm gonna I'm gonna find find the part in the opinion here so I can quote quote it directly for you. But essentially he said, uh, Kamatsu was a morally repugnant order to a facially new Uh. He called that a morally repugnant order. He said, it's not like this, which is a neutral policy that just desies some people

the privilege of coming into the country. He also said, essentially said now that you mentioned Kamatsu, which has never formerly been overruled, he said that the decision was greatly wrong the day it was decided and have no place in the law under the Constitution. So he disavowed the Cormatzi decision and said this is different. Well, President Trump has called the Supreme Court decision a tremendous victory. We're going to hear his comments in a few moments and said,

of course he'll go ahead with the travel ban. He also proclaimed that the Supreme Court has upheld the clear authority of the president to defend the national security of the United States. That was in a written statement. How far did the court go in upholding presidential authority? Well, pretty far, but but the court had already gone pretty far.

This is an area where if you look at the immigration laws, Um, they're pretty clear that the president has very broad authority to decide who can come into the country and can exclude uh classes of people if the president deems it to be in the national security interests.

I think the way to look at this case was, Um, you know, is there an exception to that general rule in this particular case where you have a president who has prohibited uh hundred and fifty million people from even qualifying for the possibility of entry into the country, and where he has made some comments that suggests that he was targeting Muslims with this order. The Supreme Court said, no,

we're not going to make an exception. So the broad authority that presidents get over who comes into the country applies to President Trump as well. Now, this was, as I mentioned to five four split down ideological lines, and we've seen in these final cases of the term, which tend to be the most controversial, we've seen that same split. Does that tell you anything, Greg, Yeah, you know, there were a lot of cases this term June that could

have been ideologically divisive. Some of them the courts sort of uh resolved on very narrow grounds and avoided the ideological split. So I'm thinking about the partisan Gerryman Dreen case and the case involving the baker who didn't want to make a cake for same sex weddings. Those were decided pretty narrowly and didn't end up with that sort of split. But yes, we're getting to the end of the term, and in the more recent cases, including this one,

possibly including one we'll get tomorrow. Um. Also including the second second ruling today involving UH pregnancy clinics that that oppose abortion UH, the court have been divided five to four with the five conservatives on the victorious side. All right, thanks so much, Greg, Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcast, SoundCloud and on bloomberg dot com slash Podcast. I'm June Bolso. This is Bloomberg