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Comey Testifies Thursday; Russia Probe Detracts from Agenda; Comey on Trump Conversations; British Prime Minister's Strategy Questioned. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 06, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 in London, 7:00 p.m. in Paris. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with breaking news from Paris. Prosecutors have now opened an anti-terror investigation after a man wielding a hammer attacked a police officer at the Notre-Dame Cathedral. The suspect, who was carrying an Algerian student I.D., was shot and injured by police.

Amid chaos, people inside the iconic cathedral forced to put their hands up as police officers swarmed the area. We'll go live to Paris in just a moment.

Also, President Trump meets today with congressional leaders, all Republicans, to discuss health care and tax reform, but the administration concedes that the Russia investigations are distracting from the president's agenda.

Meanwhile, we're only two days away from the fired FBI director, James Comey's, testimony before the U.S. Congress. Comey is expected to discuss his conversations with the president, and he could say whether he felt pressured to drop the Michael Flynn investigation.

We're also standing by for today's White House press briefing, set to begin the top of the next hour. The press secretary, Sean Spicer, he will be back at the lectern today taking reporter's questions and there are lots of them.

First, let's gets to the news out of Paris. The breaking news where police are investigating the attack at a popular tourist spot right in the heart of the city. CNN's Jim Bittermann is joining us from Paris. Jim, we're learning more about what the attacker yelled out as the incident unfolded.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this is why they've opened up a terrorism investigation, Wolf. He cried, this is for Syria, as he came at the three-man police patrol with a hammer.

He struck one of the policeman in the back of the neck. He was not badly injured. One of the partners had immediately responded with his firearm and shot two shots, according to witnesses. The attacker went down and he's not dead. He's been treated in the hospital now as we speak. They'll be wanting to talk with him. They want to confirm his identity.

As you'd mentioned, he was carrying an Algerian student I.D. card which might indicate where he was coming from. It's not clear if he was here just temporarily or if he lived here for some length of time.

In any case, hundreds of people were in the cathedral at the time. They went on immediate lockdown and they kept them inside. And they've been slowly releasing them over the last two and a half hours since this took place, questioning each person as they let them go, just to make sure that there's no one else with the attacker.

The interior minister said, just a short while ago, that, in fact, they think he acted alone, but they're going to be investigating that - Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, we know that some of these terrorists have been inspired by various terror groups who have told them, if you don't have a gun, get a knife. If you don't have a knife, get a hammer. You don't have a hammer, get a car. This seems to be, potentially, one of those incidents.

Has anyone yet, Jim, claimed responsibility?

BITTERMANN: Not to this point. But I think that's going to be one of the things they'll be looking at.

The other thing is they're going to be looking at, even though this country has been on a state of emergency since November of 2015, they're looking at stepped up ways they can improve security. They realize that these low-tech attacks, like we saw in London and now here, in fact are very difficult to prevent.

But they are talking about increased surveillance means and that sort of thing. There's going to be a defense counsel meeting, that was scheduled anyway, tomorrow morning to talk about these kinds of things.

With a new government taking office, they wanted to increase things given the fact there had been the attack in London and what not. Now, of course, they've got even more reason to look at different measures that they can take to help prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future - Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Jim Bitterman on the scene for us in Paris. Jim, thanks very much. We'll check back with you.

In the meantime, let's get back to politics here in the United States. Dramatic politics unfolding. President Trump trying to get his agenda back on track, as the White House braces for testimony from the fired FBI director, James Comey.

Our White House Correspondent Sara Murray is standing by on the north lawn of the White House. Our Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly is up on Capitol Hill.

Sara, the White House had been working on what's call a war room to respond to the Russia investigation in Comey's testimony on Thursday. What's happening with that so-called war room?

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they had hoped to create kind of a war room to create their own narrative, to back against not just the Comey testimony but the Russia story more broadly.

It does not look like that is going to come to fruition before Comey testifies. They've had difficulty setting it up. They've had difficulties trying to create this at the same time that Mark Kasowitz, the president's outside legal counsel, is trying to stand up his legal team.

[13:05:00] So, in many ways, it leaves the administration a little bit flat footed going into these hearings.

Now, obviously, we know that this is something President Trump has been very preoccupied with. And we've seen him tweet about it. And we know he was very frustrated when Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, recused himself from the Russia investigation, stepping aside and then allowing Rod Rosenstein to appoint this special prosecutor.

So, we have a frustrated president and a White House that's struggling with how to deal with this, at a time when Russia questions are popping up everywhere.

Today, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was on the Hill. Today, he was asked about Jared Kushner and Russia. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KELLY, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We have to make the assumption, --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

KELLY: -- and I will, --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

KELLY: -- that Jared Kushner is a great American.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

KELLY: He's a decent American. He has - he has a - he has a security clearance at the highest level.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no red flags that come up for you at all on this?

KELLY: Not at the time. I didn't know about it. Since it's been reported, back channels are normal or are in the course of normal interactions with other countries is very, very common.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: It leaves more questions, of course, about Jared Kushner trying to set up some kind of back channel with Russia during the transition. An indication that, while we watch the Comey testimony, we may be looking for his interactions with President Trump. What exactly was said there.

But these are questions that go beyond the president to his inner circle even to members of his own family - Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Sara, Stand by.

I want to go to Phil up on Capitol Hill. How frustrated are Republican lawmakers up there, Phil? And the - and the White House is pretty frustrated, clearly, that the Russia investigations are derailing the president's legislative agenda.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, frustrated is one - is one word for it, Wolf, but exhausted, I think, is another one.

If you look at what Republicans are trying to do, not just here in Congress but also in the White House, when it comes to a legislative agenda, it's extraordinarily ambitious. Health care, something extremely divisive. It really hits people at home in their districts, in their states. It's something where you really need all hands on deck.

And when you talk to members, particularly now in the Senate where they're trying to figure out some path forward for their repeal and replace of Obamacare plan, the reaction you get is that there's just no central focus from the White House.

Yes, the Russia investigation certainly a cloud that's hanging over everything. But it's not just that. It's the president in general. Can't seem to focus on one thing at a time.

And when you talk to lawmakers, look, they recognize that when it comes to the details, particularly in the Senate, they want to be on their own. They want to be able to work on things, kind of in isolation.

But when it comes to selling something, that's when they need the president fully on board, focused on the issue, focused on the policy, focused on the details. That's where they feel things have been looking.

And that's why they feel like their legislative agenda has been stymied. I think the big issue, right now, Wolf, as they try and figure out some path forward on health care, is when you look at what they've stacked up to do for this year. It's health care reform. It's tax reform. It's infrastructure. It's a border wall. It's things that are incredibly ambitious, take a lot of work and take a lot of unity inside the party. Unity that, at least up to this point, hasn't really been settled on.

And one of the reasons you hear constantly from senior GOP aides and from lawmakers themselves is the president is the force that can help bring all that together. And, at least up to that point, that's been severely lacking -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And with a Republican majority of only 52 to 48 in the U.S. Senate it becomes really, really hard. Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill, thanks to you. Sara Murray over at the White House, thanks to you as well.

President Trump demanded that the Justice Department crack down on leakers. And now, a national security agency contractor is in custody after being accused of leaking a classified government document on Russian hacking attempts. Her name, Reality Winner, a 25-year-old contractor in Georgia. Sources say Winner sent the document to an online news site called the intercept.

Our Correspondent Diane Gallagher is joining us now. So, Diane, what was in the document? How did investigators track down the suspected leaker?

DIANE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, Wolf, we're talking about a classified report from the National Security Agency dated May 5th of this year. It basically detailed how a Russian military intelligence unit attempted to hack into the U.S. voting system.

So, we should point out, there is no evidence right now that any votes were actually affected by this attempted hack. But, according to CNN sources, the classified reports that Winner allegedly leaked is the same one the intercept described in the piece yesterday.

And what the document does is, kind of, give us new details in just how it is Russians went after local election officials and a voting software supplier.

Here's the thing, though. Prosecutors say that they were able to catch Reality Winner almost instantly. It appears because of the way that the intercept may have operated. The Intercept told CNN that the document was provided anonymously. And they stress that the Department of Justice's version of events is unproved, at this point.

But the DOJ says that the news outlet sent a copy of the document to verify the authenticity before they publish the story. Well, the government could see that there was a crease, indicating it had been printed out.

And, according to the complaint, only six people had printed it out and Winner was one of them. And she was the only one who had any previous e-mail contact with the news outlet.

Now, Wolf, the complaint said that Winner admitted that she intentionally leaked the classified information. [13:10:02] BLITZER: You know, Diane, WikiLeaks founder, Julian

Assange, came out in support of Reality Winner.

So, what happens next for her? What kind of punishment, potentially, does she face?

GALLAGHER: So, right now, she's in custody in Georgia. On Thursday, her attorney says that a judge is going to decide whether to let her out on bond.

But, if convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison. Winner did not enter a plea at her initial hearing yesterday. Her attorney said that Winner is, quote, "not a traitor." She's a veteran and that he believes that the government has some sort of political agenda by going after her.

Now, Winner's mother has said that her daughter is not incredibly political and never praised any famous leakers. But we can now conform that she did follow the likes of Edward Snowden, several WikiLeaks and all government agency accounts that became popular after Donald Trump was elected.

She also retweeted posts about leaking on her Twitter account and didn't really hide her disdain for President Trump. She even directly tweeted at him back in February, calling him an orange fascist.

Wolf, her last tweet was March 5th. She tweeted, at anonymous, what happened to the February 28th call for Trump to resign? Her attorney, though, has not - has said that he can't confirm that's actually her Twitter account.

BLITZER: All right. Diane, thanks very much for that report. We'll stay on top of this story as well. Diane Gallagher reporting.

Coming up, the president seemingly taking credit for the isolation of Qatar. What does that mean for the United States' strategic alliance with that Gulf state?

And all eyes on fired FBI Director James Comey, ahead of his public testimony before Congress on Thursday. We have new details about what he could reveal. That's coming up next.

[13:11:41]

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[13:15:31] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're only two days away now from the fired FBI Director James Comey's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Comey is expected to speak extensively about his private conversations with President Trump, but may offer few details on the FBI's Russia investigation.

Joining us now is Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the former Michigan congressman, a Republican, Pete Hoekstra. He's the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He was also Michigan co-chair for the Trump campaign and adviser to the Trump transition team. Congressman, thanks for joining us.

PETE HOEKSTRA (R), FMR. CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good to be with you, Wolf. Thank you.

BLITZER: Let me read a little bit, the lead paragraph of today's lead editorial in "The Wall Street Journal," a publication you're familiar with. And I'll put it up there. You see it. Quote, "some people with a propensity for self-destructive behavior can't seem to help themselves. President Trump apparently among them. Over the weekend and into Monday he indulged in another cycle of Twitter outbursts and pointless personal feuding that may damage his agenda and the powers of the presidency."

You're familiar with the editorial page writers of "The Wall Street Journal." They went on and bitterly criticized the president. Your reaction?

HOEKSTRA: I think the criticism, it's well-founded. The - you know, there are many of us, including the president, who probably would like to have a lot more focus on what he proposed for the FAA yesterday, what they proposed for the veteran's health plan yesterday, tax reform, and health care. So, yes, we'd much rather be talking about other things, what he's getting done, what he's gotten done than these kinds of things, which really do undermine the agenda.

BLITZER: But he has himself to blame for that by all that tweeting when he goes ahead and he criticizes his own Justice Department when - because of the revised travel ban, when he lashes out at the mayor of London, when he takes all these tweets and goes publicly, you can't ignore that, right?

HOEKSTRA: You can't ignore that. You move on. And, you know, I think - you know, I've been talking, I've been writing about the things that I think are important. The underlying threats, the underlying issues in places like the U.K., in Europe that have created the environment where you see the kind of actions and the activities that we've seen over the weekend in trying to identify what we need to do here in the United States to make sure that we don't fall victim to the same mistakes. That we go through and lessons learned activity.

But, sure, Wolf, yes, this distracts - you know, it is his way of communicating. We have different - you know, everyone has their own style. And, obviously, this is a very unique style.

BLITZER: But if he called you up and said, congressman, what do you think, you would immediately say, you know what, stop all the tweeting, right?

HOEKSTRA: I would encourage him to limit his tweeting. I wouldn't get out of the business of tweeting. But I'd be more judicious in how he used them. I think he can be very effective using Twitter, but he's got to be a little bit more restrained.

BLITZER: What's at stake for the president when his fired FBI director, James Comey, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday?

HOEKSTRA: There's a tremendous amount of things that may be at stake. Only he and James Comey know what was actually part of the conversation between those two. The president has said, you know, move forward with the hearings. I've got nothing to hide. Move ahead with the testimony. And if that's - if that's an accurate reflection, there's not that much at stake and then we can get back to what the Senate and the House Intelligence Committee said that they were going to be focused on, what Mueller said he was going to be focused on, and that is Russia's involvement in activities in trying to influence the 2016 elections and hopefully that is where we will stay focused and that's the only place that we have any issues.

BLITZER: What happens if Comey brings along contemporaneous memos that he wrote about those conversations with President Trump in which the suggestion might be that the president tried to get him to pledge loyalty and then to stop the investigation of the fired national Security Adviser Michael Flynn. How will those memos be interpreted from your - and you're a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee?

HOEKSTRA: Right. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, if I had the opportunity and the - and the former FBI director came in and for the first time revealed that information, you'd say, wow, this was a successful hearing in terms of bringing that out. Without knowing exactly the context or, you know, exactly what is in those, you know, self-written e-mails, it's hard to know exactly what they will mean.

[13:20:21] You know, asking for loyalty, you know, the president, you know, is not necessarily asking for loyalty to violate the law or something, but just saying, hey, if I'm moving forward on this type of an agenda, I need people who are moving forward, quote/unquote, "legally," to make sure that my agenda is put in place. You know, he's had enough people that are still holdovers or, you know, from - or who are in the bureaucracy who clearly are not on the same agenda, who work for the president, who work for the executive branch who are undercutting him.

BLITZER: Former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, thanks, as usual, for joining us.

HOEKSTRA: Good - always good to be with you. Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Thank you.

President Trump fired him and now the Congress and the world gets to hear his side. Tune in Thursday morning beginning our coverage at 9:00 a.m. eastern for special live coverage of James Comey's historic testimony on CNN, as well as cnn.com.

Coming up, new developments in the deadly terror attack in London. A third attacker now identified. Police revealing he had been on a watch list.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [13:25:56] BLITZER: All right, you're looking at these live pictures coming in from the white House Briefing Room. Sean Spicer, the press secretary, expected to come out soon, start taking questions from reporters. We will, of course, have live coverage.

British police have identified a third attacker in Saturday's London terror attack. Twenty-two-year-old Youssef Zaghba. Authorities say he was placed on an Italian police watch list after being suspected of attempting to travel to Syria and having extremist material on his phone. Police say Youssef Zaghba and two other men rammed a van into pedestrians on the London Bridge, then went on a stabbing rampage killing seven people and injuring dozens more. The three attackers were shot and kill by police at the scene.

Meanwhile, the U.K.'s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, told British media that the country's intelligence service has questions to answer, like how one of the London attackers was well known to authorities and had even been featured in a documentary entitled "The Jihadis Next Door." And the current prime minister, Theresa May, is facing rather tough questions on her record when it comes to security, especially by her opponents in Thursday's national election.

Let's bring in our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour. She also anchors the CNNi program "Amanpour" that comes up next hour.

Christiane, give us a sense right now of the serious questions surrounding the prime minister and her handling of these recent terror attacks with the election only two days away.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it's unprecedented. There hasn't been an election in modern times with this amount of security and fear and terrorism just preceding it. It's the third in three months. So, yes, her record as prime minister for a year and before that home secretary, in other words, dealing with all issues of police, law and order and the rest, is coming under the microscope.

Now, particularly she's being accused particularly by the opposition, including the mayor of London, of presiding over draconian cuts into the police service. Now specifically not the counterterrorism force or intelligence, but the - but the other police, the police on the beat, that many in the community think are the vital front line for intelligence gathering on a street level and an interface with the community.

BLITZER: How much second guessing is going on about the intelligence community, law enforcement, they had knowledge at least or one or two - at least two of these terrorists who were shot and killed, but apparently not enough was done?

AMANPOUR: There's a lot of second guessing going on with one side defending and saying there's nothing we could have done about it, specifically regarding Horam Bart (ph), who was the one who was featured in that documentary, and also was an acolyte (ph) of a radical preacher who I interviewed several times before he was arrested and finally put in jail. They're saying, you know what, when we had him on our watch list, it was 2015 and there was no evidence of any attack being planned so therefore they downgraded the supervision or the watch list that he was on.

So this is causing a huge amount of questioning. Is there a sort of midway between actually following every last person, which they obviously cannot, or figuring out some kind of reversion back to the sort of old days of the control orders. In other words, people who are under suspicion for hate speech or belonging to radical groups, even if they're not actually planning an attack or there's no evidence of that, can they be put back in sort of restricted surveillance, tags and restricting their Internet use and the like.

BLITZER: Serious questions and I'm sure they're all looking at trying to find lessons learned from this horrific incident.

AMANPOUR: Yes. That's right.

BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour, thanks as usual. Thanks very much.

[13:29:40] Meanwhile, President Trump suggesting he's the reason that major Gulf Arab countries have now isolated Qatar. We're going to take a closer look at what's behind this apparent 180 degree turn on policy. What it could mean for the region and beyond when we come back.

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