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Trey Gowdy Talks Hillary Clinton E-Mails, Benghazi; Hillary Clinton E-mail Controversy Heats Up; Ben Carson's Controversial Comments on Gays; Concern as Iran Helps Iraq Battle ISIS; India Cancels Airing of Rape Documentary

Aired March 04, 2015 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now, the South Carolina Republican congressman, Trey Gowdy. He's the chairman of the Select House Committee on Benghazi.

Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for joining us.

Let me get right to the questions on Secretary Clinton's e-mails. First of all, are you making new requests for additional e-mails that she may have had?

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Yes, sir. Well, we want all the e-mails regardless of who they were to or who they are from with respect to Benghazi. So, yes, we are making new requests in light of the fact that our request to the State Department, they don't have access to or control over all of her e-mails. So we'll be making requests to her individually.

BLITZER: Has she already provided some of those Benghazi-related e- mails to your committee?

GOWDY: Yes, sir, we have some of them. But I have no way of knowing whether that represents 10 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent. There was a production made recently of about 800. So whether or not that represents the full universe or not -- part of the issue with the way that these e-mails are kept is instead of going to the State Department to ask whether or not we have everything, now we have to go to another source which makes it interesting when you're going to the source, himself or herself, to say, do we have all of your documents?

BLITZER: How long have you known that secretary Clinton was using a personal e-mail account instead of an official government account?

GOWDY: Well, Wolf, we have known since late last summer that she used personal e-mail accounts. And in fairness to her, she is not the only government official who uses personal e-mail accounts. What we did not know until recently was that she was using exclusively personal e- mail accounts. There is no official State Department e-mail account for Hillary Clinton. So we were not surprised that we saw episodically e-mails from a personal account. What did surprise us is we never once saw an official government e-mail account.

BLITZER: She and her staff have said that they did provide 55,000 pages of her personal e-mails to the State Department. Do you believe that was everything or is that 55,000 that she decided to provide?

GOWDY: And, you know, Wolf, we have no way of knowing, which is why we have certain schemes and regulations in place so you don't have to take the word -- not just of Hillary Clinton but of any -- a Republican attorney general. That's why we have certain statutory and regulatory -- in fact, the president had a policy himself for staff that worked for him, don't use personal e-mail. So somebody would be able to answer the very question you ask do you have everything? I have no way of knowing whether Secretary Clinton provided everything to the State Department and I have no way of knowing whether the State Department has provided everything to us. I believe that they have provided everything that they have, but whether that 55,000 is the entire universe or whether it's half the universe, how would we know?

BLITZER: I assume you and your staff, Mr. Chairman, have looked into whether or not she broke any laws. Do you believe she did?

GOWDY: Well, I would be among the last people to be able to answer that question. I was a really mediocre lawyer, Wolf. I have no area of expertise when it comes to this. I'll let smarter people figure that out. Really, I just want the documents. I was asked to write the final report of what happened before, during and after Benghazi and I cannot do that without the secretary of state at the time's documents including her e-mails. So I'll let smarter minds than mine figure out what violations if any exist.

BLITZER: Because we did do some checking. There were much stricter standards imposed in 2013-2014, that's after she left her four years as secretary of state. In 2009, when she was the secretary of state, the National Archives did issue some regulations that said employees, presumably including the secretary of state, could do official business on nonofficial e-mail accounts but had to ensure that any e- mails sent are, quote, "preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system." You're familiar with that regulation, right?

GOWDY: Yes, sir. You cited the code of federal regulation, which is a subset of the U.S. code. There was also a policy that President Obama sent out. You read all of those in conjunction and, yes, episodically -- I'm not aware of anyone who has not episodically had to make use of personal e-mail. I think every one of your viewers has both a work and a personal e-mail account. What I do think is unusual is you don't have any work account at all and there's no way of us -- I want you to assume that secretary Clinton would have used her personal e-mail account to e-mail someone else in the State Department on a personal e-mail account, there would be no way for that document to be captured by the State Department. So if you had an inquiry or you were doing a story and you wanted to send a FOIA request, how would you know what to ask because these are both personal accounts being used?

BLITZER: I know she's agreed to testify before your select committee. When is that going to happen?

GOWDY: I have maintained all along -- I want it to be a constructive conversation, which means I need all the documents. I need the State Department to give me the none-mails. This is going to necessitate us talking to her more than once. I have a lot of questions about the before, during and after Benghazi. But I'd be a lousy lawyer if I asked any of those questions before I had some assurance that I had all the documents necessary to ask constructive questions.

BLITZER: Will you subpoena all those documents from her private e- mail account, assuming the 55,000 pages are not everything? And they might be everything as far as we know. We don't know, right?

GOWDY: Well, we're going to use every bit of legal recourse at our disposal to make sure -- if you look at the resolution that says "all policies, all activities, all decisions," and the word "all" is a big word. If I'm going to be able to do what my colleague ask me to do, I have to have all the documents. If that means sending legal recourse to the secretary herself, that's exactly what we're going to do.

BLITZER: Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

GOWDY: Yes, sir, thank you.

BLITZER: Up next, we'll have more on the Clinton e-mail controversy including a closer look at how the issue could impact the race for 2016.

Also, another possible candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, is making headlines with his comments on prison and homosexuality.

More coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Let's dig deeper right now into the Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy here in the United States. Both Clinton's camp and the White House say the former secretary of state didn't do anything wrong and that she followed the spirit of the rules.

Joining us here, our CNN senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar; and joining us from New York, our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

Brianna, the A.P., the "Associated Press," is reporting that Secretary Clinton's e-mail server was actually based at her family home in Chappaqua, New York, outside New York City.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They're reporting it was registered to her. We're still trying to figure out exactly where it was located, but basically that she owned the server. And that's key here. Not only was she using a private e-mail account but it wasn't something like maybe if you have a g-mail account or a Yahoo! account that it would be out there in the cloud. Even as it was transmitted and received, it was in her possession. You have experts saying a little of what they said yesterday even before we found this out, this is an indication of someone really trying to keep a private hold on these communications.

BLITZER: How is this playing politically, Gloria? Is it having an impact on her decision? Which we expect in the next few months, that she'll run for the Democratic nomination --

(CROSSTALK)

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I doubt it. I doubt it, but it's giving you a taste of things to come. I don't think this is going to change anyone's mind, Wolf. People who like Hillary Clinton will defend this. People who don't will criticize it.

But the "Wall Street Journal" today had an editorial which was entitled "The Clinton Rules." And I think this reminds people or raises the question again about whether in fact the Clintons do play by a different set of rules. They have not yet answered the question -- and we were talking about this on your show last night. They haven't answered the question of why? Why did they do this? Was it just more convenient? Was it to be protective? Was it to be evasive? Was it to shield her from freedom of information requests?

You interviewed Trey Gowdy, and what the congressman was saying was, we don't know the extent of the e-mails that are out there because they're effectively being curated by Hillary Clinton's people, which is saying, OK, trust our judgment and we will give you what we think you need. And that's why folks are sort of scratching their heads about this.

BLITZER: Yeah, the story is clearly not going away, at least for now.

Another presidential hopeful, Dr. Ben Carson, the former Johns Hopkins University pediatric neurosurgeon, he made some controversial comments about homosexuality while speaking earlier today with our own Chris Cuomo on CNN's "New Day".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CO-HOST, NEW DAY: You think they have control over their sexuality?

DR. BEN CARSON, NEUROSURGEON: Absolutely.

CUOMO: You think being gay is a choice?

CARSON: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Why do you say that?

CARSON: Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight and when they come out, they're gay. So did something happen while they were in there?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Gloria, first to you.

He came in fourth in that CPAC straw poll over the weekend. He has obviously got a huge following. But this is another controversial comment that he's making that's going to disappoint a lot of folks out there. BORGER: Yeah, it's kind of bizarre, to tell you the truth, Wolf. I

think what we go through in the Republican race -- and we saw it when we went through it the last time around. You have a large field of candidates. People aren't really sure who they are, what they stand for, how they would explain their positions. And just look at what happened today with Chris Cuomo. And so I think at this point, people are being voted on, on name recognition, or he seems like a nice guy, without kind of looking at all of the details. It seems to me that these kinds of statements are so ridiculous on their face. Does he have any proof to suggest what he even stated? Of course, he doesn't. So maybe there's a segment of the party that believes it. But I've got to believe that a lot of the people who will be on stage with him debating him would disagree with him.

BLITZER: The reaction only in the last few hours has been enormous already to these comments, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's been enormous. And also I think it's odd for a medical professional, one of -- his credentials are that he is a retired neurosurgeon and not just any neurosurgeon, a brilliant one. And yet the medical community is not where Ben Carson is on this. So you would think coming from a doctor that you would hear something different than this. This is sort of -- it's not just clumsy, it just isn't really based in fact, it isn't based in numbers. I also think that you have -- certainly as Gloria said, part of the party may feel this way. On average, the Republican Party is moving on same-sex marriage. And I think you would have a lot of candidates who wouldn't certainly stake out this position that Ben Carson has here. So I just think it's tucking him really into a certain corner of the party.

BLITZER: Yeah. That follows several other controversial comments he's made in recent months that have generated a lot of controversy out there.

Guys, thanks very much.

Coming up, a key battle in the war against ISIS. Iraqi forces are trying to retake a major city held by militants. They're getting some help, serious help from Iran. Why that's creating concern across the Arab world. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Now to Iraq and the bitter battle to retake the key ISIS stronghold of Tikrit. Iraqi forces are pushing closer and closer to that city best known as the hometown, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. Iran is taking a leading role, we're now told, in this fight.

Joining us, our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, who's live in Baghdad; and in New York, Bobby Ghosh, CNN's global affairs analyst and managing editor of the business news site "Quartz."

Guys, I want to play a clip. This is the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, speaking about Iranians who are now engaged in this battle. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What we're mindful that Iranian forces are also involved. And we have said from the beginning that the United States will not coordinate militarily with the Iranians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let me go to Ben Wedeman first.

We know Iraqi Shiite militias are involved. They're backed by Iranians. The White House are saying Iranians are directly involved. What does that say to you, Ben?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This really confirms what we already know, is that in addition to Iranian advisers, more than 100 here in Iraq, you have Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Irani al Quds forces here. According to the Iranian media, he's helping supervise the operation. Pentagon officials are saying the Iranians are manning artillery batteries, rocket batteries and flying drones over the battlefield as well.

Keep in mind, Wolf, that we saw the performance of the Iraqi army in Mosul and Tikrit last June. The Iranians clearly recognized they needed to step in and, in a sense, run the show. We don't know to what extent they run the show but they're definitely playing the role of strong adviser, providing advice that appears the Iraqis are listening very closely to -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Bobby Ghosh, what is your analysis?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: To have Qassem Suleimani there openly, a person who has had Iraqi war on his hands from the war between '80 and '88, is a red flag to a lot of Iraqis. Certainly, a lot of Sunnis, but not only the Sunnis. The analogy I make is, imagine if Pakistan's fight against terrorists were being led by an Indian general. It would be unthinkable for many Pakistanis. And certainly a lot of Iraqis would feel that. The Iraqi government obviously feels it is necessary at this time but it does send an awfully dangerous signal.

BLITZER: What do we know? I know you spend a lot of time in Erbil up north, Ben. What do we know about the status for the battle for Tikrit right now? Forget about Mosul for the time being but Tikrit.

WEDEMAN: Well, what we know is that they're making progress. They are taking territory and approaching the city from five different directions but progress has not been quite as rapid as was predicted initially by Iraqi commanders who said it would take maybe ten days to take the city. Here we are in the fourth day of this offensive. They have gotten closer, but they're nowhere near the outskirts of the city and there are reports that in one five-mile stretch of road as Iraqi force, the militias and army and police are moving toward Tikrit they encountered more than 100 IEDs and of course that's on an open highway. When you get to the city itself, the expectation is that there will be many more IEDs, booby traps, mines, snipers that will make this operation potentially quite long and quite bloody. not only for the combatants but the civilians as well.

BLITZER: Bobby, how awkward is it that the U.S. is providing weapons training to the Iraqi forces moving towards Tikrit, and the Iranians are now directly involved. They have their own personnel. The White House says they're no coordinating with Iran, but it looks like it's pretty awkward to me.

GHOSH: It is pretty awkward. And it might explain why the U.S., on this particular operation with Tikrit, we heard from the spokesman at the Pentagon saying that the U.S. is not providing air strikes. So this particular operation with the Iranians taking the lead, the U.S. seems to want to keep at arm's length from it. But that's not fooling anybody in Iraq. Everybody assumes automatically that the U.S. has a role in this, if not directly, than in an advisory capacity. So the message that goes out to a lot of Iraqis and across the region the U.S. and Iran are working together in the fight against ISIS. And that is very awkward, indeed.

BLITZER: Very awkward. I'm sure a lot of people actually believe that.

Ben Wedeman, Bobby Ghosh, thanks very much.

Stay with CNN, please. For our international viewers, news headlines are coming up after a quick break.

For our viewers in North America, when we come back, a close look at why India doesn't want you to see a controversial new documentary called "India's Daughter."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Indian news channels have been ordered not to show a controversial documentary about rape in the country. The film features a person, a prisoner interview, I should say, with one of the men convicted in a violent gang rape back in 2012. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The victim of that gang rape later died from her injuries.

Sumnima Udas is following this from New Delhi.

Sumnima, why did the government not allow the documentary to air in India? SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the main reason,

Wolf, is really it could possibly incite violence against women in this country, at least what the government is saying, and as the minister said in the parliament, he would not allow anyone to leverage such incidents for commercial uses.

Now, basically these were clips that were being broadcast for a while in India, until that ban was posed yesterday. So people did get a sense of what exactly this rapist said in that interview and I just we haven't been able to talk about it in India since the ban but I can tell you what he said now, in the U.S., basically, along with what you just showed there. He went on to say people have a right to teach these women a lesson, when being raped, she should not fight back, she should just be silent and allow the rape. So these are the comments that are causing a lot of the outrage that we're seeing now inside parliament, outside parliament, on social media, not really on the streets yet, but certainly a lot of people talking about this right now -- Wolf?

BLITZER: So, basically, if any of the TV channels there were to air this documentary, that would be a violation of the law. They could go to jail for just airing a documentary like this? Is that right?

UDAS: That's correct. It is a violation of the law here. Of course, this is something that was imposed just yesterday by the ministry of broadcast information here. And also the home minister of this country went on to say in parliament today not only does he want it to be banned in India but also worldwide.

And it's not just the government. I should mention this, Wolf, a lot of the women's rights activists are also saying that they're against the broadcast of the documentary, because after all, these are the viewpoints of a rapist, a very brutal rapist, one of the most. This one was one of the most brutal rapes we've seen in India, back in 2012 and so just highlighting what he says is basically giving a rapist such as him a platform. And of course, he is still in court right now, he is on death row, he's fighting his case. So why give this guy a platform, is what a lot of people are asking, not just the government, also a lot of activists -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Sumnima, thanks for that report. We'll stay on top of the story.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'm be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

"Newsroom" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.