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E-mail Twist Sets Stage for Final Week of Campaign; FBI Chief Under Fire for New E-mail Review; Clinton Set to Rally Supporters in Ohio Today; Trump Stokes Immigration Fears In Border State. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired October 31, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now. And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

With just eight days until the election, a new headache for Hillary Clinton over an old issue, e-mails. Only this time, it's her longtime aide Huma Abedin who is under scrutiny.

The FBI is under scrutiny, too. Some Democrats are calling for Director James Comey to release everything he knows about those e- mails. Deadline for that, today. Others are calling for Comey to resign. Former Attorney General Eric Holder piling on, writing in "The Washington Post" this morning, quote, I respect him -- Comey. But good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications.

All of this coming as the candidates blitz battleground states making their final pitch to voters.

CNN is covering all angles of the story from Washington to the campaign trail. We begin, though, with Senior Political Correspondent Brianna Keilar. Good morning.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This is quite the October surprise. Never before has a candidate been going into -- a major party candidate been going towards the election with something like this hanging over them, an FBI investigation. So Hillary Clinton's campaign is concerned but they're also trying to change the narrative and take aim at the FBI Director.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election.

KEILAR (voice over): Shockwaves through Hillary Clinton's campaign following a surprise letter Friday from FBI Director James Comey.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If she never heard the word e-mail, do you think she'd be a very happy woman today?

KEILAR (voice over): Comey notifying members of Congress that the Bureau discovered e-mails that appear to be pertinent to the now closed Clinton server investigation. Those e-mails found on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton's longtime aide, Huma Abedin, currently under investigation for sexting with a purportedly underage girl.

Comey can't say if the e-mails are significant. They could even be duplicates of those already reviewed. Now, Democrats and some Republicans are criticizing Comey's decision to go public as political, worrying it could tip the scales in Trump's favor.

SEN. TIM KAINE, (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is an unprecedented move, as your folks were describing earlier, because it happens close to an election which is in violation of normal Justice Department protocol. And it involves talking about an ongoing investigation, which also violates the protocol.

KEILAR (voice over): Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid penning a damning letter to Comey alleging that he, quote, may have broken the law by violating the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity, as 100 former federal prosecutors and high-ranking Justice Department officials, Democrats and Republicans, sign a letter criticizing Comey's actions.

TRUMP: Hillary has nobody to blame but herself. Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional, and purposeful.

KEILAR (voice over): But Trump's campaign hoping to capitalize on the issue.

GOV. MIKE PENCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We commend the FBI and the Director on their decision to keep their word to the Congress and move forward.

KEILAR (voice over): House Speaker Paul Ryan called Comey's move, quote, long overdue, and he's renewing his call to suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved. Clinton remaining confident that she is in the clear.

CLINTON: We've called on Director Comey to explain everything right away, put it all out on the table. Of course, Donald Trump is already making up lies about this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Clinton is getting some back up from some pretty big names, Carol. That includes Eric Holder, the former A.G. in the Obama administration. He pens an op-ed that is in "The Washington Post" today. And it says, in part, that he is deeply concerned about what he calls a vague letter to Congress that Comey sent. He said the decision was incorrect. And he said that Comey violated rules that he should not have been talking about an ongoing investigation, and also that he shouldn't have taken action on anything so close to the election, which is actually a rule that Holder himself put in place.

COSTELLO: All right. Brianna Keilar reporting live from Washington. For her part, Clinton continues to make her closing arguments to

voters in battleground states, and she's doing it on the ground and on the airwaves. Today, Clinton will hold two rallies in Ohio, just one of several states where a new Clinton ad will soon run warning about Donald Trump and nuclear weapons.

CNN's Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the Clinton campaign. Good morning, Jeff.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Hillary Clinton is trying to change the conversation, change the message back to the closing argument here with Donald Trump, so she is heading back to Ohio, battleground Ohio, to a rally on the campus of Kent State University in northeast Ohio. And then going to Cincinnati later this evening.

[09:05:02] Ohio, of course, one of the central messages here. But what she's also trying to do, Carol, as we see in a new television ad, is remind people some of the questions that they may have had about Donald Trump. Let's take a look at this new ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONIQUE LUIZ, ACTRESS: This was me in 1964. The fear of nuclear war that we had as children, I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again. And to see that coming forward in this election is really scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Of course, that is the famous ad from 1964, the Johnson/Goldwater campaign, the "Daisy" ad. And you see that young girl, now a grown woman, of course, being interviewed in that ad, being used by the Clinton campaign to make a fresher argument about Donald Trump and whether or not he is qualified to be President.

So that is one of the messages that she will be trying to talk about today as she tries to get back to business here, Carol. But it still remains to be seen the impact of all of this FBI discussion over the weekend.

The Clinton campaign believes that they are holding on to Democrats but they are worried about independents and moderates as well, so they are still out in the field sort of seeing what the fallout of this is. But I'm told she will not talk about this today. She's going to try and talk about Donald Trump. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Jeff Zeleny reporting from White Plains, New York this morning. Thank you.

So let's talk about all of this. With me now is Matthew Miller, a former Department of Justice spokesman and Hillary Clinton supporter. David Rivkin is a former deputy director for the Department of Justice. Zeke Miller is a political reporter for "Time." And Lynn Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for "The Chicago Sun-Times." Welcome to all of you. OK. Let's jump right in. David, the FBI knew about these e-mails

weeks ago. Why wait until eight days before the election to release them?

DAVID RIVKIN, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: What we know by now is that they did not have a warrant until this weekend to start looking at the content, to analyze the metadata. They were trying to be deliberate. They were trying to be careful. Under the circumstances, I would see absolutely no evidence that FBI acted with anything other than the highest level of professionalism.

Let me just make one simple point. Not releasing any information is a decision with as much impact as releasing some information. The FBI is trying to demonstrate, Director Comey is trying to demonstrate, that there is no cover-up, trying to defend the credibility of our top law enforcement agency at a time when, frankly, many Americans have deep doubts about the integrity of our government.

And this is the same Director Comey, by the way, whom the Democrats were praising as recently as a few days ago for his decision --

COSTELLO: And the Republicans were maligning, right?

RIVKIN: Right. And so, I mean, look, you cannot have it both ways. Again, he had a tough choice. He had to release this information. He told Congress that he would keep them updated.

And I would say one thing. The only reason he made this decision is because he and senior FBI officials must have real concerns, while this data has not been not analyzed, about the body of those e-mails.

COSTELLO: OK. So I'm just going to jump off what you've just said, they have real concerns. Matthew, I want to be clear for my viewers. We do not know if these e-mails are related to Clinton's server. We do not know if these e-mails were actually written by Hillary Clinton. We do not know whether these e-mails are damaging. So how likely is it that the FBI will come to any sort of conclusion before Election Day?

MATTHEW MILLER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: I think it's going to be extremely difficult for them to do that, which goes to the point that what a bad decision it was for Comey to take this step.

I couldn't disagree with what David said more. Not releasing information isn't a decision. Not releasing information is the policy. It's the long-standing policy of the Department because, when you release information like this, there's no way for voters to have any idea what the FBI is actually looking at.

And part of the reason in this case is the FBI doesn't even know what they're looking at. They don't know whether these e-mails are duplicates of things they've already reviewed. They don't know whether these e-mails are things that -- are e-mails that even come from Secretary Clinton. It was a really, you know, gross violation by Director Comey that

flies in the face of everything the Department does, both in commenting on existing investigations and in doing so so close to the election. A really troubling act by the Director.

COSTELLO: But here's the other thing, Lynn, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting there are 650,000 e-mails on Weiner's server. 650,000, is that possible? That's a lot of e-mails.

LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Which seems like a giant number. And Donald Trump has already been using that number in his campaign rallies, Carol, over the weekend just to show the enormity of it.

So we don't know -- let's add to the "we don't knows." We don't know what the universe of e-mails are. We don't know what that 650,000 includes. Or if it's Anthony Weiner's e-mails.

Now, we know that some -- that the FBI said that there were some, you know, some e-mail trail there. That just adds to the enormity of the decision by Comey to go to Congress when he didn't even have, it seemed, some of the basic facts about what the "is" is there. And therefore, I don't you're misleading anybody.

[09:10:13] It was a very preliminary investigation and the FBI does not usually alert Congress of very preliminary investigations, no matter how news worthy.

COSTELLO: So, Zeke, you heard what Lynn said. Trump is already connecting the e-mails from Weiner's laptop to Clinton's server even though they're not connected. Will voters, you know, realize that?

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, TIME MAGAZINE: You know, we have, you know, to consider that, you know, so many people have already voted. More than 20 million people have already cast ballots in this race. You know, in some states, the Clinton campaign believes that they already have -- within the next couple days, they'll have banked the number of votes required to win even before Election Day. The states of Nevada as what Robby Mook said the other day.

But at the same time, you know, for the voters who are sort of in the middle who haven't made up their mind yet, of which there is a very, very small number, is this the sort of thing that's really going to sway them? They've heard a lot about Clinton e-mails for the last year and a half. And for a lot of them, it's been kind of baked in.

Obviously, this is a bit of momentum for Donald Trump who's had a lot of trouble bringing Republicans back home. This whole rally of the Republican base, which has certainly contributed to driving up his numbers up, and which we've seen them sort of the biggest contributing factor for Donald Trump narrowing the gap with Hillary Clinton over the last week and a half has been Republicans coming home in light of the Podesta e-mails, Obamacare, and now this.

So we can probably see a bit of an uptake in the polls. The question is, he still doesn't have a ground game, doesn't have a way of getting those voters to actually show up and cast their ballots for him. This might not be enough to do that.

COSTELLO: OK. I want to go back to the investigation itself because, David, Donald Trump is accusing Clinton of criminal action. But if the e-mails are written by her aide Huma Abedin, how could Clinton herself be charged?

RIVKIN: Let's forget what Donald Trump is saying. I want to make a very important correction. There is evidence based upon reporting by "Wall Street Journal" and other papers that thousands of these e-mails have metadata that indicates there was a traffic back and forth between Hillary Clinton's private server and those e-mails from Huma Abedin.

It's also possible based on metadata analysis -- that's all FBI has been doing for the last several weeks -- to discern at least with some degree of confidence what the e-mails cover. So I would hazard a guess that these are not e-mails of a private nature. They're e- mails, indeed, from her server.

Now the big question is, why is this body of e-mails being discovered now after everybody involved had given assurances to the FBI that all their devices had been turned over. All available preserved e-mails that have not been deleted have been provided. This is a big deal.

And let me just say one more point, if Director Comey did not go with this letter, you and I and everybody on this program knows this information would have leaked. It would have been far worse for the health of our democracy to have front page stories in every newspaper indicating a cover-up on the part of the FBI and the Justice Department.

COSTELLO: Oh, I hear you.

RIVKIN: So Director Comey had no choice.

COSTELLO: I hear you. But, Matthew, that is the most confusing thing to me, what David just brought up. How did these e-mails get on Anthony Weiner's computer? As sources tell us, Huma Abedin says she has no idea. So how did that happen?

M. MILLER: Yes. We have no idea. And we have no idea about any of this. That's part of the problem. We've seen leaks we don't know. And I think part of that is because the FBI doesn't know what they have. They didn't get a warrant until yesterday. That really -- it's such a troubling thing, as I said earlier, to have this kind of reporting.

You know, David said that this would have -- Director Comey had to do this because it would have leaked. Well, the FBI has apparently known about these e-mails for weeks and it hasn't leaked yet, so I don't know why he felt the need to suddenly rush this letter out now.

And secondly, I would say, the fact that he can't control his own Department from leaking is not an argument for him to then violate Department rules and precedents that have stood the test of time for years. COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Matthew Miller,

David Rivkin, Zeke Miller and Lynn Sweet, thanks to all of you.

Still to come at the NEWSROOM. Forget red or purple. Donald Trump is focusing on blue. But will this final stretch strategy pay off?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:45] COSTELLO: Donald Trump's map to victory is unusual this late in the game. He's not shoring up support in red states, but blue. Warning Democratic leaning voters in New Mexico that a Clinton presidency will lead to a surge of illegal immigrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You could have 650 million people pour in and we do nothing about it. Think of it. That's what could happen. You triple the size of our country in one week. Once you lose control of your borders, you have no country, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: New Mexico isn't the only blue state Trump is targeting. He's hitting a string of them this week. Some say it's just kind of strange. So let's talk about this strategy with Jeff Roe. He is the former campaign manager for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. Welcome, Jeff.

JEFF ROE, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER, TED CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here. So we're eight days out. Trump has long needed to expand his base, but isn't it a little late at this point in the game?

ROE: Well, there's eight days left until you have -- still have four days left for persuasion before you have to get into the last four days which is all get out the vote. What the Trump team is looking at, let's assume they have Florida and North Carolina. Let's assume they have Nevada and Iowa. Let's assume that they still have Ohio in their camp.

They still need another state. So they can pick one state. They could pick maybe just pick a Michigan or Wisconsin or New Mexico. They can pick one of those states and put all their chips on that state, but I think it's probably smart to spread it out.

But keep in mind, this is all without any data because the last data that you get out of the field was last Thursday. And on Thursday, obviously was a big day but Friday was an enormous day that maybe scrambled the entire map.

[09:20:08]It's hard to poll in one night. Today is Halloween. No polling today. Then they get polls tomorrow night late and so a lot of us are having to make on gut, which is I think maybe why you see some erratic decisions. The fact of the matter is, they have to put a new state in play in order to get over 270.

COSTELLO: OK, so let's talk about what new state is best put into play, right? Because, Donald Trump is going to focus on Michigan. But a poll done for the "Detroit Free Press" has Clinton up seven points. That's a lot of ground to make up.

ROE: It is a lot. Ohio -- so with a Republican doing so well in Ohio, you would think that he would have a better opportunity in Wisconsin or Michigan. Michigan has been a very difficult state for Trump. One because there is good blue collar support for him there.

But those suburban areas of Detroit are just going to very difficult. It's much like Pennsylvania in that way more than Ohio. I think Wisconsin is a state, it swings back and forth. It elects Scott Walker, or Republican legislature, send Democrats to Congress, and the United States Senate.

So it's back and forth states, but that's a blue collar state that he should have in his column. And I think it's the best opportunity that he has on the map.

COSTELLO: But, but, but in some of these swing states right now, Ohio for example, it's really close there. Right? He has a very small lead. So why not go there, where voters aren't particularly excited about Hillary Clinton even in Northeast Ohio, Cuyahoga County where there are many African-American voters. Why not go there and like really jazz people to get to the polls to vote?

ROE: Well, I think that's what they'll do the last four days. That's why I said there's two kind of split in half. Next four days he still has a chance to bring states into play. The last four days he's got to camp out and, if you will, hunt where the ducks are, and Ohio he has to win, to even worry about Wisconsin.

He has to win North Carolina to worry about another state and Florida and I think you'll see him shore those states up. He has in the polling that I've seen, he has soft leads in all those states or within the margin of error.

But he does have to bring another state even if he won all those states it's not enough so he could have a really strong base of 266 and just not get there. That's why they have to find another state to put in play.

WHITFIELD: OK, so here's the other thing. Millions of Americans have already voted and I have trouble believing there are many undecided voters out there, Jeff. I just do. So, will any of this really matter?

ROE: Well, so there are 22 million people who voted. We're going to have about 122 million people. So there's 100 million people left to vote. What always happens in campaigns is the early voter, typically the most partisan, so you're just banking your own votes.

In fact, you cannibalize Election Day support to get it in early so you don't have to worry about it any longer so that's important. The second piece of it is here is where the undecideds are. I don't believe anybody is choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at this stage of the game.

I do think they're choosing on whether to vote or not. And I do believe they're choosing to vote for a third party or not. If Trump lags support with Republicans. If he gets every Republican to vote for him he wins the election.

But he doesn't need all of them, he needs 90 percent, plus he's only getting 80 percent. And so those people are choosing between not voting or voting, which -- or whether to vote for Johnson or not or Stein or not, those are the people that are swinging around at this stage in the game.

And that's why the e-mails scandal, the latest iteration of the e-mail scandal is most important. Nobody's going to change their mind. It's whether they participate and whether they swing to and from the Libertarian or not.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. Jeff Roe, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, could Hillary Clinton's top aide become her top liability with just days before the election? We'll have that discussion next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. E-mails linked to Hillary Clinton's top aide are roiling her run for president eight days before the election.

The FBI discovered thousands of e-mails involving Huma Abedin on her husband's computer. Abedin's estranged husband, as you know, is Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for sexting with a 15- year-old girl.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I wonder, is she going to keep Huma? Huma's been a problem. Do we agree? Huma? Huma's been a problem. I wonder if Huma's going to stay there, and I hope they haven't given Huma immunity because it seemed that everybody that walked down the sidewalk got immunity. I hope they haven't given Huma immunity, because she knows the real story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Abedin is not commenting publicly, but back in March she did talk about how it felt when the FBI released thousands of e-mails from Clinton's personal server.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUMA ABEDIN, HILLARY CLINTON'S AIDE: I can't -- it's something I can't really think about, because I -- I can't even imagine what's in -- what's in those e-mails. But I'm sure I would be -- I would be -- I would probably be mortified. I have no idea. I haven't read any of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now to talk about this is Brianna Keilar. I'm also joined by CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes. Tom is also a former assistant director of the FBI. Welcome to both of you.

Tom, sources tell us Abedin does not know how her e-mails landed on her husband's computer. How would you characterize that as an investigator?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I can't confirm that she said anything to them. So I really don't know about that.

COSTELLO: So is it strange that -- that -- because sources are telling CNN she doesn't know how her e-mails got on her husband's computer so how -- isn't that -- is that strange in your mind?

FUENTES: Well, I think it's strange, period. But again, this whole thing, and all of the aspects of Director Comey sending that letter Friday, we really have to back track everything about those case in the last four months has been very unusual starting --