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State Department on Clinton E-mail Investigation; Obama Stumps with Clinton for 1st Time; Why North Carolina is Important in Election. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 05, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So can you confirm that that's the case, that administrative processes or sanctions don't apply to people who are no longer employed by state. Second, as it's been explained to me, it is possible for people who are no longer employed at state, but who retain a security clearance, to be subject to a security clearance process and perhaps sanction. Is that your understanding as well? And then a couple of other specific things. Are any -- does former Secretary Clinton or any of her senior aides, specifically Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin, continue to have security clearances by the State Department? And if so, is it theoretically possible that you would then review those security clearances in the light of whatever is Justice Department prosecutorial decision and the FBI's investigative material?

ADM. JOHN KIRBY, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: There is an awful lot there. Let me see if I can dissect it.

I'm certainly not going to get ahead of that is still an ongoing process now at the Justice Department or speculate one way or the other about which way this will go. I don't know. I'm happy to answer your question about administrative processes. I don't know if there is a technical definition for administrative and whether that applies in broad scope to only current employees or former employees. I'll have to take that.

On the security clearance process or review, all I can tell you, generally speaking, is that if there is a not to this. The way it typically works, as I understand it, is that the department that issues a security clearance, if there is -- if it is determined that that clearance needs to be reviewed, for whatever reason, it is up to the department that issued it to review it. Regardless of whether the employee is still at the -- is still employed by the agency. The agency has that responsibility, unless, of course, that employee went to a different federal agency and then got it renewed there. Does that make sense? I'm not going to speculate one way or another about the degree which this is even -- part of it. The FBI director was very careful. I'm going to be very careful. These are now decisions that have to be discussed. Findings and recommendations have to be absorbed by the Department of Justice and then they'll take decisions or not going forward. And then on your last question about the individuals, we do not discuss the security clearance of individuals as a matter of policy. We just don't discuss those.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But these are former officials. KIRBY: We don't -- we do not discuss.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: One of them, Jake Sullivan and the transcript of his deposition in the civil lawsuit in which he was deposed as part of discovery, his lawyer said that his security clearance was restored so that he would have the ability to look at some of the material that was classified that they wanted to talk to him about. And so it's at least in the public domain in that one instance, according to his lawyer, that he had, as of that date, about a week ago, a security clearance. Why can't you talk about whether former officials have security clearances?

KIRBY: Because that's our policy. It's been a long-standing policy. We do not discuss the security of individuals, current or former. That's our policy.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It is a State Department policy?

KIRBY: I know it is at least a State Department policy. I'll find out if it goes beyond that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Certainly, there have been instances, whether General Petraeus or Sandy Berger and others, that when there was punitive action taken, they did discuss the security clearance.

KIRBY: I'm not going to discuss the individual security clearances from this podium. Just not going to do it. And if -- I refer you to the individuals in question and if they represented by others, to speak to that. But I won't do that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the question of laxity, you state that you disagree with the assessment that the State Department was -- is lax as a culture being lax in the protection of classified information. Why is it that the highest State Department official was allowed to establish and use a private e-mail server with, as I understand it, no government provided security for e-mails that contain information that, as the FBI director said this morning, some of which was classified at the time it was sent and received. I mean if it's not lax, how can the top official of the department go off and set up their own system that isn't subject to the normal procedures here?

[14:35:33] KIRBY: Look, I'm not going to re-litigate the investigation. As I said, I'm not going to speak to the findings or recommendations. The FBI director spoke to that earlier today and to what they found in terms of the practices back then and how those practices were followed. What I'll just tell you, broadly speaking, we don't share the assessment that as an institution, an entire institution, that the State Department or does today, take lightly the issue of sensitive and classified information. They absolutely don't.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The reason I asked it is that you look at -- as I understand it, every level of potential check or balance here, right, the assistant secretaries for D.S., the undersecretary for management, according to the inspector general's report, these people were not asked, and did not voice an opinion on the use of this system. The person on the seventh floor who was charged with these kinds of issues, at least according to the report, told people -- told two people not to talk to anybody about it. So even if the quibble is with "laxity," do you feel that your systems were sufficient to safeguard classified information sent by or to the secretary of state?

KIRBY: Again, I think the FBI director addressed that as well as part of their investigation. I am simply not going to discuss or comment on their findings and recommendations with respect to this case. This issue --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Wait a second. Wait. Wait.

And to your question.

And as he said himself, his assessment of the State Department's rules was not part of this investigation and I'm comfortable addressing that, that on -- as a whole, in the main, we absolutely do not share the broad assessment that the entire culture there at the State Department is lax when it comes to protecting sensitive and classified information. What I'm basing that on, brad, not just me, the long standing indoctrination once goes through before you get employed here and the periodic reviews of the training and sensitive information handling that you have to go through all the time. I've been here little bit more than a year. I've already had to you go there it several times myself. That we have two networks for e-mail traffic that are deliberately set up to handle various degrees of sensitive information. And that the work of diplomats all around the world is by its very nature sensitive, but it is also outward facing, and has to be. There is a role here at the State Department to be communicative, to have dialogue, to foster communication. That's a big part of who we are. And I can tell you that understands the risks and the opportunities of it and takes it very seriously. So to say --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: -- to say that the culture here is lax, that's a pretty broad brush, and again we wouldn't use it. We don't believe it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The problem is this indoctrination that you speak of obviously didn't work when it came to the past secretary or the hundred or so officials who all contacted her during the course of her tenure or the dozens of officials who would have known that she wasn't using a state.gov address or would that known have information that was at least on the borderline, was going to a non-government account. So that failed across the board, right?

[14:40:04] KIRBY: I'm not going to make qualitative assessment. The I.G. spoke as well to this. I'm not going to talk about the findings and recommendations of this investigation. But this was --

(CROSSTALK)

@: But there is a difference, Brad, between an assessment of e-mail practices under Secretary Clinton's tenure, and how they were implemented, and saying that the culture here at the State Department is lax.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No, no, no, hold on. Sorry, but you can't separate the head of the agency and everybody who worked around her at a senior level in this agency and say --

KIRBY: I'm not trying to.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, there was somebody there who was following the rules so the culture isn't OK.

KIRBY: It's more than somebody, Brad.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, I don't know. Show me an I.G. report that shows all the adherents.

Secondly, you make the statement the department was an outward looking agency. None of these e-mails from Secretary Clinton were outward focused. They were all about internal messaging. They were all about her and her aides consulting on matters that weren't meant for public consumption. There's even messages about not wanting things out for public consumption. So I fail to see how that's an argument that shows why somehow this is distinct or excusable.

KIRBY: It is a valid argument when you talk about the entire institution, Brad, and not an individual inside it. Regardless of whatever level that individual serves --

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to move away from the State Department spokesperson. Listen, he's getting tough questions, should be getting tough questions about the state of the culture at the State Department under Secretary Clinton, given the fact that we heard from Director Comey that even though they're not recommend criminal charges, there was carelessness. So you have that.

But let's focus right now on this picture. Let's go back. Charlotte, North Carolina, the bird has landed here. Air Force One there on the tarmac. We've just seen both the president of the United States standing outside the beast. President of the United States, and Hillary Clinton who took a ride with him. This is huge, huge, huge today. This is the first time the president has been on the trail with the presumed Democratic nominee. Let's stay full on these pictures.

Hillary Rosen, let me bring you in. Hopefully, we still have you.

Can you just walk me through what we're seeing, why this is significant?

HILLARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What we are seeing is a president with approval ratings upwards of 60 percent of the country putting his arm around Hillary Clinton and saying I know this woman. I trust this woman. She is the best person to lead this country forward. And we're seeing them do it in North Carolina, which is a swing state that has represented youth, diversity, change, many things that Barack Obama's hoping to pass along to Hillary Clinton. Now he didn't win that state in 2012. But nonetheless, the harder Donald Trump has to work for those votes, the better off Hillary Clinton is. So this is a big day for Hillary Clinton, and it is an important day for President Obama wants to see his legacy upheld.

BALDWIN: All right. To be fair, from the Clinton supporter.

To the Trump surrogate, Boris, same question. Hillary Clinton. President Obama side by side. What do you see?

BORIS EPSHTEYN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I feel bad for President Obama. I'm sure when he agreed to this trip he did not expect to be traveling with somebody who was under such scrutiny today, under such a cloud like Secretary Clinton is. Someone who again was told by FBI Director Comey should have been reprimanded if she were still employed by the State Department, and most likely lose her security clearance.

Let's take a step back from all this politicking here. If you're a voter in North Carolina, you're looking at Secretary Clinton, do you believe she did not know it was against the rules to set up that private server, she really didn't expect --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We can't crawl inside of her mind.

(CROSSTALK)

EPSHTEYN: I let you finish. I let you finish.

BALDWIN: Let's just function on facts. This is Brooke.

EPSHTEYN: Brooke. Sorry. My point is this. Sorry. My point is this. The voters know better. The voters know that Hillary Clinton is someone who broke the rules. The inspector general of the Department of State said she broke the rules. This appearance today in North Carolina is unfortunate for President Obama because it will hurt him long term. He is the boss. The secretary of state works for him and he allowed for this to continue for four years. He allowed for this carelessness to continue. He maybe approved it, maybe he didn't. But you know he got e-mails, he received e-mails from Hillary Clinton from the personal account. So he definitely knew about the personal account. Why didn't he put atop to it? That should be asked as well.

As you are seeing, the secretary of state is now getting very tough questions from the media, the Department of State, about what's going on there now. And what Mr. Kirby is trying to do, the spokesperson for the Department of the state, he's trying to deflect and say, it used to be that way then, it is not this way now. It used to be that way when Secretary Clinton was in charge of the Department of State. That's when all this awful, awful --

(CROSSTALK)

[14:45:13] BALDWIN: No, no, he's not saying it was awful. This is Brooke, by the way, Boris.

EPSHTEYN: Hi, Brooke.

BALDWIN: No, he was just being asked about the culture. He was asked about whether it was lax. He said, no, we can't comment on security clearance.

But what he was being asked was whether or not anyone at state would being affected by this despite the findings of the FBI and the DOJ. He couldn't answer that just yet.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: With that in mind, we'll stay on these pictures.

Let me bring in Jeffrey Toobin.

It's worth noting, for people watching and thinking, hang on a second, when you look the timing of this -- by the way, nobody expected to see the director of the FBI drop the bombshell that he did today. We knew he was speaking. We didn't know what exactly he would say. That said, he made it crystal clear that this was an impartial, independent finding that he would then pass along. Yes?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: It really is an unusual situation where you have someone with so much institutional credibility embracing this decision. Jim Comey is not just the director of the FBI. And he has a 10-year non-renewable term.

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Exactly. He was President George W. Bush's deputy attorney general. And before that, George Herbert Walker Bush named him United States attorney in Manhattan, perhaps the most important U.S. attorney's office in the country. He has had experience both on the lawyer side, the U.S. attorney side, and at the head of the FBI. He brings an enormous amount of credibility to this decision. And I think you can say this was a very even-handed decision. The Clinton people can take an enormous amount of satisfaction and gratitude for the fact that she will not be charged with a crime. However, he was scathing about how she conducted her business at the State Department. Conduct that is really bad that is not criminal. And that's as it should be. We don't want to prosecute -- our jails are full enough. We don't want to prosecute every single possible violation of law because all of us might be in trouble in that case.

BALDWIN: He did say -- maybe even if she still was secretary of state, the behavior, the actions, would still bear -- I think his word was sanctions or some sort of consequence. It is not criminal, but sanctions.

TOOBIN: Right. Right. There are lots of situations when people who have access to classified information in the government make mistakes. They disclose it in some improper way. They use the wrong server. They leave something on an airplane. There are many sanctions, if you work for the government, that are short of criminal prosecution. Criminal prosecution is very, very rare. But, something can be put in your file. You can lose a security clearance. BALDWIN: What about the foreign actors' part? I think that's another

layer of this. We've heard Donald Trump in the past, one of his talking points has been about how foreign countries, foreign leaders could hack into some of these classified e-mails. Director Comey did acknowledge that while there is no evidence of this with her servers or her devices overseas, if she was e-mailing with let's say a former U.S. leader or foreign leaders, that their e-mails could have been compromised.

TOOBIN: That's right. And that is, of course, a very chilling possibility. He also said something which I found very interesting, which I certainly didn't know, even as someone who's followed this very carefully, is that her private server -- the one she set up in her basement in Chappaqua -- was less secure than if she'd simply had a Gmail account.

BALDWIN: Say that again.

TOOBIN: Her server that she set up with the suffix .Clintonmail, was less secure than the kind of Gmail account that anyone can get, because Gmail, as he pointed out, they have an entire security staff. They worry about their people, their customers, and how -- whether they can be -- their sources. Her independent operation was less secure than just a regular g mails account which struck me as quite startling. It was news to me.

BALDWIN: Hillary, as we were staying on these pictures here, this is a packed house, Charlotte, North Carolina. Let's talk about the politics of North Carolina and why this is also significant, why they're there. Why know that Obama won the state in '08. He lost it to Romney in 2012. People have talked about this sort of conservative resurgence in the state of North Carolina though. In some of my reading, as a result of HB-2, the discriminatory transgender bill about to become law, that Democrats are hoping the uproar over that will get voters to the polls in November. Why is North Carolina so important?

[14:49:58] ROSEN: Well, North Carolina's been a swing state in the last three or four presidential elections, and as you said, President Obama carried it in '08. What you have in North Carolina now is a very -- a surging young electorate, a very diverse electorate, a significant portion of African-American voters. And so again, I think Hillary Clinton does not have to have North Carolina to win the presidency, but Donald Trump does. If Donald Trump ends up having North Carolina defending his position there, that's time away from much more opportunistic battle ground states for Hillary Clinton like Virginia and Florida and Ohio. So I think from Democrats' perspective, this is kind of a defensive play. But for Donald Trump, this is a must-win state.

So again, it's the optics of President Obama going there saying these are voters who are swing voters, undecided voters. But for Hillary Clinton, this is an opportunity. For Donald Trump, it is a must-win.

BALDWIN: I want to thank my panel. We'll take a quick break here as we are watching and waiting to see

the president of the United States for the very first time on the trail with the presumed Democratic nominee.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:55:] BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news here, the FBI issuing a major announcement. Director Comey saying that Hillary Clinton was extremely careless in her use of personal e-mail servers while secretary of state for the bureau not recommending any criminal charges against her based upon what they found over months and months of investigating.

The most stinging criticism of Clinton's actions at state, FBI Director Comey raised the question that hostile nations or hackers could have intercepted Clinton's e-mails containing sensitive information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: They used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mails account.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's bring in Bob Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst, former CIA.

Bob Baer, you just heard Director Comey, the folks she was e-mailing with, whether U.S. leaders or foreign leaders, their e-mails were compromised. So they were exposed.

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Brooke, they could have been exposed, but so could she have. A server like hers, a public server, you can do what's called a side channel attack. It is a standoff attack and still read her e-mail. They could have done it at the home in New York. They could have done it on her cell phone. As we've been talking about, the Chinese and the Russians would have been very negligent if they wouldn't have gone after the server. I would have, if I were them.

BALDWIN: You're saying they would have been negligent had they not tried to hack her.

BAER: Absolutely. We go after the Chinese and Russian leadership with the same sort of attack. Sophisticated intelligence services can get into her server and e-mail without leaving a fingerprint.

BALDWIN: Would we ever know if they did?

BAER: I don't think we'll ever know. We could have a factor some day come out. There's no way to tell. The Russians in particular are very, very good at this, communications, attacked it remotely and got into our diplomatic correspondence through the '70s, '80s and '90s.

BALDWIN: Bob, I don't know if you were listening to the tough questions thrown at the State Department spokesperson, but based upon what we learned today, do you think -- I think the tough questions are merited. He was talking about the culture at state and not only Hillary Clinton and her servers and devices but those who worked around and under her. Does that need a good long looking at?

BAER: It does. It is the leadership, and it is Republican and Democrat alike. The CIA, FBI complain about it all the time. These people take classified information in the White House and get on the phone, open lines or e-mails, and it is discussed openly. If I had been caught sending this kind of information, top secret, I would have been fired, same day. Anybody in the intelligence or State Department would, too. There's just different rules for people in the White House or the secretary of state.

This is not a partisan issue. Just sloppiness as Director Comey said. It should be corrected. I'm just not sure how to do it.

BALDWIN: We'll see how and when it is.

Bob Baer, I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Let's continue on. Hour two.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Her we go. Top of the hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Live pictures here of Charlotte, North Carolina. Two major breaking stories with huge impact here for the race for the White House.

Any minute now President Obama will begin his first campaign event for Hillary Clinton. We just saw them get off of Air Force One together. That was quite the visual, the proverbial hand around her shoulder as his approval ratings are at 52 percent. We'll take it live.

Other story today, this damning conclusion by the FBI that Hillary Clinton exposed top-secret information to hackers, was careless -- that was Director Comey's word over and other -- in her use of her personal e-mail servers and her multiple devices. But despite all of that, in their months of investigating, the director of the FBI says ultimately it falls short of criminal intent so does not recommend charges.

Here's Director Comey just a short time ago.