The Note: New Mueller wait game looms over Trump

Snap judgments about Robert Mueller's findings are all subject to revision.

By
Rick Klein
 and
MaryAlice Parks
April 10, 2019, 6:00 AM ET
6 min read

The TAKE with Rick Klein

Things could get interesting all over again.

If Attorney General William Barr was seeking to dispel mystery about what isn't known about special counsel Robert Mueller's final report, he didn't accomplish it on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

"The bottom line is binary, which is: charges or no charges," Barr said, promising a redacted version of the report inside the next week.

Prosecuting or not is one line, but one that may have been written from the start. The Justice Department was always exceedingly unlikely to bring a case against the president, if based only on the department's legal interpretation that a sitting president cannot be charged.

Mueller's top lines are not yet known and Barr hasn't expanded on his initial four-page letter. They will be filled out by the final report and the political judgments that stem from it.

Recall Barr's letter said that regarding potential obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, "most" of the information found by Mueller has been "the subject of public reporting," suggesting some isn't yet known.

It also means that snap judgments about what Mueller did or didn't find are all subject to revision in the days ahead.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

Wednesday is the deadline for the Internal Revenue Service to respond to House Democrats' request for information on the president's taxes and any potential audit, but Trump's returns are not the only ones in the news this week.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign appears to have brought in the largest donation haul in the first quarter, has faced questions about having not yet released his own tax returns. Many of his Democratic primary opponents have.

During a New York Times interview Tuesday, the Vermont senator pledged to release 10 years of returns next week, while admitting he's now a millionaire.

Sanders had likely hoped to focus on re-introducing his Medicare-for-all legislation this week. So far, 15 senators have signed on as co-sponsors, including Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who are all running for president.

But this pitch of his, designed in part to help vulnerable populations, could be overshadowed by headlines about his own finances.

The TIP with Will Steakin

Former U.S. Rep. John Delaney was the first Democrat to enter the race for the White House nearly two years ago. He currently has $10 million in cash on hand from his personal finances, according to a senior campaign official, and he's just one national poll away from making the debate stage.

While he's yet to cross the new fundraising bar set by the Democratic National Committee to get onto the debate stage, his campaign told ABC News it's "confident" the former Maryland congressman will make the cut by soon reaching 1% support in a third national survey.

His $10 million should help sustain his bid while other candidates scramble to raise money within an ever-expanding and competitive fundraising field. As a point of comparison, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., finished the first quarter with $7 million in the bank.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Wednesday morning's episode features ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, who tells us about policies we could see instituted following the recent departures at the Department of Homeland Security. And ABC News' Trish Turner tells us about the moments that mattered most from Attorney General William Barr's testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, will talk about the leadership shakeup in the Department of Homeland Security and border security with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl and ABC News Political Director Rick Klein. https://apple.co/21V9721

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

  • President Donald Trump travels to Texas for a roundtable, a fundraiser, a speech, a signing of an executive order, another roundtable and another fundraiser.
  • Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., will deliver remarks at North America's Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference beginning at 9 a.m. in Washington.
  • The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies will hold a hearing on the Department of Justice's fiscal year 2020 funding request and budget justification at 10 a.m. Attorney General William Barr will testify.
  • The Senate Committee on Finance will hold a hearing on the 2019 Tax Filing Season and the 21st Century IRS at 10:15 a.m. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig will testify.
  • Presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang will be in Boston for his second stop in his Humanity First Tour at 6 p.m.
  • Hedge fund billionaire and progressive activist Tom Steyer will host an Impeachment Town Hall in Boca Raton, Florida, at 6:15 p.m. to urge constituents to show their support for the full release of the Mueller report.
  • Former Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia Stacey Abrams will hold a book discussion at 7 p.m. at the New York Public Library.
  • Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., kicks off a two-day visit to Iowa with a town hall at the University of Iowa beginning at 7 p.m. Central.
  • Presidential candidate and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee will appear at a CNN town hall at 10 p.m.

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