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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Attorney General Reacts to Criticism; Trump Response to Supporter Questioned; Latest on Istanbul Investigation. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired July 01, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:08] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to "Legal View."

The breaking news this hour, all about the United States Attorney General and boy did she make a lot of people mad this week. And so now, she is explaining herself. In fact right now, she's doing that. And I want to tell you why.

It is about that impromtu, unplanned meeting on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona. Loretta Lynch on the right is the attorney general. Bill Clinton on the left. Obviously, the former United States President and the two of them sat down for a chit-chat, about a half hour long chit-chat.

And she said it was all about grandkids and golf and some small talks and friendly stuff. And that's all fine and dandy. But there's a big problem here. And it's a problem that looks really bad because the justice department -- Lynch's department is neck deep in an investigation of Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton, all over the private e-mail service.

And for the A.G. and Bill Clinton to be seen chity-chatting together, doesn't matter if the grandkids were on the menu of the chat, it just plain looks bad. It looks like a good old-fashioned conflict of interest.

So the news today is that Loretta Lynch is going to accept the recommendation of her career investigators and all those career prosecutors in her department, those people who are in charge of the probe, who've done all the work, who've done all the investigating and will serve her up a silver platter worth of recommendations.

And she says, no matter what they are, she's going to take them. She also says she had planned to do that long ago before this meeting. The implications there that any talk with Bill Clinton would not have swayed her either way anyway. Loretta Lynch spoke about this whole thing just a couple minutes ago. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORETTA LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL: People have also wondered and raised questions about my role in the ultimate resolution of matters involving the investigation into the state department e-mails. And to the extent that people have questions about that, about my role in that, certainly my meeting with him raises questions and concerns.

And so, believe me, I completely get that question. And I think it is the question of the day. I think the issue is, again, what is my role in how that matter is going to be resolved? And so let me be clear on how that is going to be resolved. I have gotten that question a lot also over time. We usually don't go into those deliberations. But I do think it's important that people see what that process is like. As I've always indicated, the matter is being handled by career agents and investigators with the department of justice. They have had it since the beginning. They're independent.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Which predates your tenure as attorney general.

LYNCH: It predates my tenure as attorney general. It is the same team. And they are acting independently. They follow the law. They follow the facts. That team will make findings and that is to say the movement -- they would come up with chronology of what happened. The factual scenario, they will make recommendations as to how to resolve with those facts lead to. The recommendations will be reviewed by career supervisors in the Department of Justice and the FBI and by the FBI director and then, as is the common process, they present it to me and I fully except to accept their recommendations.

BANFIELD: All right, there you have it. Or do you? David Chalian is our Political Director, Pam Brown is our Justice Correspondent and Paul Callan, is our Legal Analyst. And these three super-duper minds are going to hopefully be able to give some contour us here.

David Chalian first to you, probably watched along with the rest of us, this very lengthy explanation of what happened, why it happened and how she thinks it's a insignificant at least technically speaking not optically speaking. But did she save the situation or did she make it worse with what she just said?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Oh, I think that depends on your partisan sort of lens that you are going to look through this. I think that she probably for some Democrats started correcting her way. But Republicans have an issue now. And they're going to use this.

This is -- you have the attorney general of the Unite States saying that her actions and former President Clinton's actions cast a shadow on this probe, this e-mail probe that is going on looking into the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's handling of her private e-mail during her time at the state department. That is no small thing for the A.G. to say that.

And she also left a little wiggle room for critics that she says she fully expects to accept the recommentions of the career prosecutors. Later on, she said, I will accept. But it seems to me that what she hasn't done here quite really is recuse herself entirely from this in the way that John Ashcroft did when he was the attorney general in the CIA leak investigation that was looking at Karl Rove.

BANFIELD: So Pamela, you know, you follow justice and I know that you sort of have an intimate knowledge of the workings of the department and their leader.

[12:05:08] But she has not always towed the line the administration. She does have her own mind. She has done her own thing. Does that help her in this respect to suggest, look, don't expect that Loretta Lynch is just going to do what, you know, Democrats want hero do, or what President Obama wants her to do or Hillary Clinton for that matter wants her to do. She does other things all the time.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that certainly the message she hopes is getting out there and the hope from the justice department by her coming out and saying that look the decision will be ultimately made by career prosecutors and there will be no political interventions, that will alay (ph) any concerns there might be. And then of course that there, you know, there wasn't anything unseemly happening between her and Bill Clinton, because that she says look, the final they really will be up to, you know, up to, you know, up to the career.

It would be up to the career prosecutors. Who are working on this included the FBI investigators. But what is clear, Ashleigh, is that she seemed to not understand the optics of meeting with Bill Clinton on her plane.

And what the fallout would be and she basically said that she regrets having that impromtu meeting with him. Let's take a listen to what she said.

HOWELL: Do you regret not telling the former President of the United States to leave the premises.

LYNCH: Well, like I have said, you know, in a certain light. How does it impact the work i do and the work the department of justice does? I certainly wouldn't do it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: There, you heard her say that. And he asked her about recusing herself as we just heard David Chalian touch on. Why isn't she refusing herself as politician have called for. And basically she said what if recuse myself and I won't even be briefed on the findings. So she made it clear, that's not going to happen but that the decision will be up to those career prosecutors that have been working on this investigation since its inception, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK, so those career prosecutors and those career investigators, I have no doubt they are very smart people. But Paul Callan, they are very smart people, who is their boss, Loretta Lynch, whose culture do they work in, Loretta Lynch's culture, who have they been conferring on a regular at the coffee in the office on a regular basis, Loretta Lynch. So how confident can we feel that she is not a part of what they are doing?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, yeah. I think a lot of attorneys looking at what's going on with these constantly changing statements are losing confidence in the way she is handling the situation. I mean, she says essentially, she starts out by saying, I expect to accept the findings. Then, she changes it to saying, I will accept the recommendation.

And then, later on she also talks about findings again. Now, for lawyers, findings are "A, B, C, D" facts of the case. Recommendations are what do we do with the fact of the case. Her stream of consciousness explanation as to her role, leaves me entirely unclear to what the role is.

Now remember she says, I'm not going to recuse myself, because I won't be briefed. Well, why does she want to be briefed on it if she is not going to try to influence the process? I mean, how do we know what goes on in the room? When they tell her what the recommendations, that wouldn't ...

BANFIELD: Is that fair?

CALLAN: Well, I think it's ...

BANFIELD: You run the department. You want to be briefed.

CALLAN: No, you don't.

BANFIELD: One of the most high profile decision is going to be.

CALLAN: No, you don't because the whole ...

BANFIELD: Don't you? You want to learn it from CNN.

CALLAN: The whole concept of recusal is you don't want to be sending a message to your underlings during that briefing that you're unhappy with the way they handled the situation.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

CALLAN: Because you're the one who deciding who gets promoted. And I will tell you that the U.S. attorneys actually have a code on this issue about recusing yourself if you have a personal relationship or professional relationship with the party under investigation. You are required to get an opinion as to whether recusal should take place. She's not using those rules on herself.

BANFIELD: I also find it to sort of odd that these two, President Clinton and Loretta Lynch, are career politicians and they are lawyers, And just to not know those optics right away and have a half hour meeting is a strange thing all around.

Paul Callan thank you appreciate it. And Pamela Brown, thank you. David Chalian, thank you. I'm going to keep you around if I can David. I got bunch more question for you because in about 20 minutes, we're expecting to hear from Donald Trump. He's going to speak at the western conservative summit in Denver, said to be the largest of congregation of conservatives outside the national capital. And organizers say, it is the first time a presidential nominee has addressed this group. What's the big deal?

We just received some breaking news out of the Trump campaign as well about a resignation. That's why I asked David Chalian to stick around. Because as the political director, I know you have the news but I want your take on it.

CHALIAN: Yes, so we just learned now that Kevin Kellems, a former Cheney aide, who just joined the Trump campaign a couple weeks ago Ashleigh as the director of surrogate operations is now leaving the campaign.

[12:10:07] He send an e-mail to campaign staff, this morning announcing his departure. Saying though his time was brief. It was certainly an interesting experience. And he enjoyed meeting some of the people there at the campaign. You know, we do know that someone familiar with the decision around his departure said there was some concern about the dysfunctional nature in the campaign or how some staffers were being treated.

But listen, I think, you know, this is not the highest profile position. This is the campaign manager. But I think it gets to the -- just as the Trump campaign is making strides to get a professionalized operation, bring someone like Kevin Kellems are new, he had experience doing this. It shows that happens in fits and starts.

And that still converting from a very small primary season campaign into a general election, totally professionalized operation is something that you can't just sort of flip a light switch with. And I think this is an example of those fits and starts.

BANFIELD: All right, since we talked about stepping in it on the one side of the campaign and that would Hillary Clinton's husband Bill Clinton with Loretta Lynch in the meeting.

Let's talk about stepping in it on the other side of the campaign and Donald Trump had a response to a woman yesterday in the crowd. And she had a question and a comment all bundled up into one about what kind of people we should have and shouldn't be as TSA workers? And maybe more importantly what kind of people we shouldn't have according to her.

Listen to this and I'm going to ask you about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why aren't we putting our military retirees on that board or in TSA? Get rid of all these hibijabis they were at TSA. I've seen them myself.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE: I understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need the veterans back in there to take it. They fought for this country and defended it. They will still do it.

TRUMP: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

TRUMP: You know, and we are looking at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BANFIELD: The two comments to that kind of response was, I understand. And then we are looking at that. I never quite understand what that means when Donald Trump says, we are looking at that. But then doesn't go any further to say, you are right or you are wrong. We're going to change that policy and get rid of Muslims at the TSA. I'm really not sure what to make of it.

CHALIAN: Yeah, well, he clearly has more to explain on it. You are not the only one that is confused.

BANFIELD: I'm not.

CHALIAN: I know that will look into that. And we've been asking the Trump campaign. We'll continue to do so about what that means from a policy prescription point of view or they are looking at from a policy position or was Donald Trump simply looking to move on from that question and this was the expression he was using.

But it is clearly a moment where, you know, I think we see Donald Trump continuing to experience the real world impact when in terms of his events. He called the Muslim then and now trying to move away from that. As you know and see if he can come up with the policy that is just about banning immigrants from he say, you know, the campaign that indicated from nations that train and equip terrorists instead of having a religious test.

But Ashleigh as, you know, the Muslim ban, overall, has been a huge part of his primary campaign. We saw it rate quite well in the exit polls with Republican primary voters. It was a very popular proposal. And it's not at all surprising that you would hear a question like that come from somebody who's attending one of his events. And yet, he clearly didn't want to embrace or reject it in the live moment.

BANFIELD: That's the thing, David. And it just has to be a quick question. But you just nailed it. He doesn't embrace or reject a lot of these controversial topics and does, instead, what he accuses every other politician of doing, waffling, saying one thing, meaning another or not really giving you the answer. And yet, that's exactly what he is doing. But his followers hate that about politics. They hate establishment politicians for that very reason. But they are not seeing that in him.

CHALIAN: I think his supporters are not peeling away at all even when he does act like a more traditional politician. I think he's got some core support that just won't go anywhere. And perhaps I don't know. Perhaps that woman is one of those core supporters. But listen, I think there is more to learn here. We have to learn, does Donald Trump propose some different policies at TSA or not? And we'll continue to report that out.

BANFIELD: David Chalian, always good to have you. Have a lovely, long weekend if you're still lucky to have Monday off.

CHALIAN: Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Thank you David. Again, we're watching the western conservative summit in Denver where Donald Trump is expected to speak live. And just a couple of minutes the hall is getting prepared, as are we. You're going to be front row to that when it happens.

In the meantime, some breaking news on what happened in Istanbul. There have been more arrests that have been made in that terror attack. And a Russian insurgent turned ISIS commander is being pointed to as the lead guy, the mastermind.

[12:15:07] And get this? He has a nickname. This guy is known as Akhmed One-Arm, because apparently he's missing some limbs. His whereabouts at this point are unknown. But his face is not unknown. Take a good long look. That's him. Story straight ahead.

And remember you can watch Legal View anytime at CNN.com/go. You can find me on Twitter CNN Ashleigh. Keep it clean. Also on Facebook. Also back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: And we've got some breaking news for you. In the airport attack from Istanbul, Turkish state news agency Anadolu is quoting an anonymous prosecution source saying that two of the men who carried out that vicious suicide bombing and shooting were Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Ozmanov. Those are the names that were giving us now. Rakim Bulgarov.

Beyond that, we don't have a whole lot. Like we can't tell you which of the nationalities fits these two. Even though we've been told three of the nationalities, but official do say they believe that three of them, whichever three fit this or Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz.

[12:20:06] 24 people including 15 foreigners have not been brought in, detained. They're being investigated. And we also now know the name of the alleged mastermind of this whole awful scheme. Akhmed Chataev. There is he is. He's also known as Akhmed One-Arm.

And for more on him we turn to CNN's Matt Rivers n Istanbul. So how did we get there? How did we actually get to this mastermind? I know he is hard to find. But what else do we know about him?

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When we got to this point because of a U.S. congressman, the chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security committee actually told CNN that he believes or the U.S. believes that Akhmed Chataev is the mastermind behind what happened at the airport behind me on Tuesday night.

Now he said, he got that information from Turkish intelligence sources. For their part, the intelligence sources -- services here in turkey have not yet confirmed that information. But, that is not to say this man is not very well known to counter terrorism forces. He is very well known. You mentioned before the break, his nickname is Akhmed One-Arm, apparently, because he lost a limb while fighting some kind of authorities over the last several years. He is a top ISIS lieutenant based abroad. He's from the north caucus region of Russia. The U.S. has put him on their suspected terrorist list last year accusing him of trying to carry out attacks both in the U.S. and here in Turkey and the United Nations says that he is apparently in direct control of some 130 militants. And so what apparently happened is when the three suicide bombers according to a senior Turkish official came into Turkey from Syria, about a month ago. They were in contact with Chataev. His location is unknown. So where he was communicating from we don't know at this point.

But apparently he was the mastermind behind giving direction to these three suicide bombers to do what they did in horrific fashion In this airport behind me Tuesday night.

BANFIELD: And then Matt, about the breaking news that we now have a couple of name to go on of these murders. Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Ozmanov. We don't know a whole bunch more than that. But I am curious, is it possible some of those, two dozen or so people have been rounded up and brought in for interrogation. However, that's done in turkey, has maybe been coughing up some information.

RIVERS: Well, that's very, very possible. We know there have been raids going on over the last several days. In fact just this morning, we went to one of the neighborhoods here in Istanbul where there were people who were detained in connection to this.

Now we don't know what those people are saying. But we know that Turkish officials, Turkish law enforcement here very, very aggressively putting out the dragnet trying to find people who could put them in a better position to find out more about these three suicide bombers.

We know that 24 people have been detained in total, 15 of whom were foreigners. But in terms of what they are giving up at this point we're just not sure.

BANFIELD: All right, Matt Rivers reporting for us live out of Turk Airport in Istanbul thank you for that.

I want to bring in my panel now CNN Counterterrorist and Analyst Philip Mudd and Terrorism Analyst Karen Greenberg joining us right now.

So Karen, first to you, a little bit more about the names that we're learning, Akhmed Chataev the One-Arm. And then also these two other names. We can't identify them by nationalities at this point. But does this help to have the names anyway?

KAREN GREENBERG, CENTER ON NATIONAL SECURITY FORDHAM LAW SCHOOL: It certainly helps to have the names. Because what intelligence sources do are collect names that they think might be of interest. And so, they may know something about these individuals. They are certainly going to know very soon where they are from and what are the groups they might be associated with. And at the bottom line here is that the Chechen inspired ISIS militants, which now seems to be spreading through the middle east and elsewhere are something that intelligence sources have been paying attention to, and need to pay a lot more attention into.

BANFIELD: Well, I look at that picture of Chataev. Can we pop that picture of him up again. We've got a couple of angles on him the mastermind Akhmed Chataev.

And I've got to be honest when I saw the picture for the first time, that's not the image I was expecting from a guy named Akhmed Chataev, the mastermind of an ISIS inspired murderous rampage.

This guy, this guy looks like he would fold in to Time Square. He would fold in to the Eiffel Tower crowds. He would fold in just about anywhere in the wester world and wouldn't raise so much as a blink.

Phil Mudd, this is the problem.

PHILIP MUDD, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL: Yes, look at this from going from the al-Qaeda age to the age of today, when we captured. This is when I was at the CIA Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the first photo of him in the public was an individual you'd see on a college campus, clean-shave and nice shirt. Like the photo you're looking at today.

The message I have for you is that when you're looking at senior terrorists.

[12:25:00] I think from a distance, you might think they are murderous, treacherous human beings. When you talk to them face to face at the most senior levels, not talking about the guys dying in the trenches, what you find is the reason this war is so long and brutal, they are smart and committed. Because they believe they are ordained by god for success. So I'm not surprise is someone who looks like this.

BANFIELD: Yeah, so anybody who's suggesting that a Hijab by a TSA agent is going to be, you know, a defining reason to worry. Just take a look that guy. I don't know what you can take off of him to make him less scary looking, but he's ones scary character.

Karen let me ask you just about the -- listen, it always feels good for those who feel wronged by these terror activities to he vengeance right away. Into that end, coalition forces were blowing things up real good for the last couple of days. They took off 440 ISIS militants, 440 guys dead. Among that, 688 different vehicles that were obviously streaming along in large convoys taken out as well, and while that may feel good to see people die if they support these awful things, it doesn't really do much to the whole notion of the ideology and the inspiration. Those people are all over the world.

GREENBERG: Yeah, to understand what progress means in this war is very difficult. And to understand what body count means in terms of progress can work both ways. Both in terms of inspiring those who mean us ill and in terms of pushing them to do things elsewhere in the world which is what's happening I think now with ISIS in some ways.

I think where there's going to have to be some kind of recalibration about how to fight this war and about how share intelligence across borders. This is now becoming more and more of a global issue that's consuming a lot of the world that we're going to have to deal with going forward. And I think you point is well-taken.

BANFIELD: I have to leave it there. But there are so many questions that are left unanswered. Just like, how can you win a war if you are going to use conventional methods like this? And they just keep popping up in San Bernardino and Orlando and in Istanbul et cetera.

Karen Greenberg, thank you. Phil Mudd, thank you as well.

I want to show you something right now. We weren't sure that this is going to happen. But it did happen. The White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnest was asked some questions in the White House briefing about Loretta Lynch, the attorney general and that meeting, now very highly headlined meeting with President Bill Clinton. It was supposed to be a happenstance meeting according to those two. It happened on an airplane. But it was 30 minutes long.

And of course, if you are just joining us, what we said at the top of the show, was she is the head of the Department investigating his wife in terms of the e-mail situation and yet see. Anyway, here's what Josh Ernst tends to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then I wanted to talk a little bit more about the attorney general's comments about her meeting with President Clinton.

JOHN EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I suspected you might.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So she says she fully expects to accept the recommendation from investigators? If that's the case, should she accuse herself (inaudible) early and whether avoid any appearance of impropriety there? And can you tell us whether no the White House and President were involved in that decision?

EARNEST: I can tell you that the White House and the President were not at all involved in that decision. I will leave it to the attorney general to describe the role that she will play and the process that the Department of Justice will undertake as they conduct this investigation.

The president's expectation is that this investigation will be handled just like all the others, which that is the investigators will be guided by the facts, they follow the evidence and they will reach a conclusion based on that evidence and nothing else.

That's the President's expectation about how this should be handled. I think the attorney general and her most recent comments indicated that was her expectation about how this would be handled. But I'll leave it to her to describe what role she will play and what process of department of justice will follow in conducting this investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said she understood that the meetings are casting a shadow on the investigation. Do you think right now that shadow is lifted, gone far enough? EARNEST: Well, again, I didn't attend the meeting. I'll let her describe the meeting. And if it had any impact on the investigation, I'll let her describe that as well. This is something that is being handled completely independent of the President and the White House. Jeff (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Josh, just to follow up on that.

EARNEST: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said yesterday you hadn't had a chance to speak with the president about it. Have you since in this? Is he frustrated about this issue and the fact that that meeting took place?

EARNEST: Jeff, I have not raised this directly with the president. So I've not discussed this particular piece of news with him. But what I do feel confident in telling you even though I've not discussed with him. Is that, he believes this matter should be handled without regard to political.

[12:30:07] And he believe this investigation should be conducted base on facts, met not base on the political affiliation or the political standing of anybody who may --