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NYT: Trump Jr. Met with Russian Lawyer; Trump Doesn't Believe Putin's Denial of Russian Meddling; Fire at London's Camden Market Under Control; Daunting Task of Rebuilding Mosul Lies Ahead; J.K. Rowling Push to End Child Institutionalization. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired July 10, 2017 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:12] CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer last year after being told she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. We'll discuss the details of the "New York Times" report that broke this story.

And Mosul declared liberated. Iraqi authorities say only a few dozen ISIS fighters are left in the city.

Plus parts of London's famed Camden Market go up in flames. We'll have a live report.

Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm Cyril Vanier, live from the CNN NEWSROOM in Atlanta.

We begin with breaking news today. The "New York Times" is reporting that U.S. President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump, Jr., met with a Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

The "Times" says the meeting took place on June 9 of last year. That was two weeks after Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination. This is the first public indication that at least some in the Trump campaign were willing to accept Russian help.

Donald Trump, Jr. has provided CNN with the following statement. I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend but told them nothing of the substance.

We had a meeting in June, 2016. After pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton.

Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.

She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along. And that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.

I interrupted and advised her that my father was not an elected official but rather a private citizen and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office.

The meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. As it ended my acquaintance apologized for taking up our time. That was the end of it and there was no further contact or follow up of any kind. My father knew nothing of the meeting or these events.

A member of President Trump's outside legal team tells CNN the President was not aware of this meeting and did not attend it. The Russian lawyer at that meeting told the "New York Times" that nothing about the U.S. presidential campaign was discussed.

But the wider context is that U.S. federal investigators are currently looking into the extent of Russian meddling in the election.

More now from CNN's Elise Labott.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump, Jr. says that he and two other senior members of the Trump team met a year ago with a Russian lawyer who claims she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

Now he says the meeting was set up by an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that was held near Moscow. And that acquaintance told Trump, Jr. that the individual might have information helpful to the campaign.

Now Trump, Jr. said he was not told the name of the person prior to the meeting but he did invite Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort. Now this person turned out to be a Russian lawyer who started the meeting saying she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee to help Hillary Clinton.

Now Trump, Jr. said this woman didn't bring any evidence saying her statements were quote, "vague, ambiguous and made no sense". And he said he quickly realized that she was using Hillary Clinton as a pretext to talk about U.S. policy.

Now the attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya formed a group who was purporting to seek the removal of an adoption ban on Russian children to the U.S. that was put in place years ago as retaliation for an American law passed in 2012. Now that law is known as the Magnitsky Act which imposed sanctions over senior Russian officials thought to have violated human rights.

And Miss Veselnitskaya has also sought the repeal of that legislation. And that is what she wanted to talk about. Now, Trump Jr. said he quickly ended the meeting at that point saying that the issue would be better addressed if his father won the election. But Trump, Jr. never reported the meeting. But it does seem to be an early indication that Russians were seeking out members of the Trump campaign.

[00:05:00] Now we haven't been able to reach Miss Veselnitskaya but she did tell the "New York Times" that she was not asking on behalf of the Russian government. She said she never discussed the matters with any government representatives.

But again she is known as someone who had worked to try and repeal this U.S. legislation damaging to Russian officials. And this could be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller whose investigation is looking into contact between Russia and the Trump campaign and allegations of collusion which President Trump has denied.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VANIER: To discuss all of this we're joined by Ellis Henican author of the "Trump's America" column in Metro papers; Ben Ferguson is with us also, a CNN commentator, host of "The Ben Ferguson Show"; and we have Troy Slaten, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. We'll want to hear his perspective, of course. That's important.

But let's go first to Ben. Is there anything about what you learned today about that meeting that bothers you?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. And look, when you're running a transition after you've gone in and you've actually won the nomination for your party, you have an awful lot of meetings and an awful lot of phone calls with an awful lot of people.

To have a conversation with somebody that says that they may have some information that you want to know about your opponent is very normal. And I'm sure there were plenty of meetings with people that said the same thing about Donald Trump with Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Also the core of this meeting actually seemed to be revolving around the issue of adoptions and how Vladimir Putin had shut off all adoptions from all Americans, even some that were on their way pick up their child in Russia. That's the majority of what this conversation was about.

So I think this is another example of really big exciting build up from many in the press that want this to be a smoking gun. And a week from now this is going to be yet again another non-issue because it isn't any issue of collusion.

VANIER: Ellis?

ELLIS HENICAN, COLUMNIST, "METRO PAPERS": Here's the problem with this. This is not just some generic campaign meeting at an important moment of the campaign. This is involving a topic that is right at the very center of a serious investigation about the Russians stealing our election. For months now that people connected to the Trump campaign have insisted there were no such meetings. They never met with any Russians. They never had any conversations about this.

And by the hour we're learning more disturbing details about this one. Not only did it involve top people in the campaign, not only did they discuss campaign issues, not only that they were there to hear trash about Hillary Clinton. Not only did this Russian attorney deeply connected to the Putin government.

But all of it together was previously denied. So, yes, we don't know all the details but man, it stinks.

VANIER: Let me bring in the lawyer in the room here, Troy Slaten. How does an attorney look at this?

TROY SLATEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Even if every single thing that Ellis said is true it doesn't constitute a federal crime or any crime for that matter.

VANIER: Right.

SLATEN: Collusion in and of itself is not a federal crime unless we're talking about, you know, antitrust and tipsters -- things like that.

So unless somebody from the Trump campaign colluded in order to hack into the DNC, in order to hack into John Podesta's e-mails, in order to commit some sort of federal crime, then it really doesn't matter. And campaigns are permitted to do what's called opposition research and that's to get information about the other side.

VANIER: Troy, before we get to the opposition research, collusion is not illegal? Like if you're trying to collude with a foreign government to change the result of a U.S. presidential election, there's nothing illegal about that.

FERGUSON: That's not what this was.

SLATEN: No, that's a different thing. When we talk about colluding to change an election, what you're saying is --

VANIER: That's what we're talking about here.

SLATEN: -- were people on the Trump campaign trying to win? Of course. Were people on the Hillary Clinton campaign trying to win? Of course. Were they trying to get information and collude with anyone they could to get information about the other side? Absolutely.

That's not a crime. It's a crime to hack. It's a crime to go into someone else's computer system. But to get information about the other side to try and win -- that in and of itself is not a crime.

FERGUSON: Let me also say -- VANIER: Go ahead.

FERGUSON: Go ahead. I was just going to say this. This is I think number 28 or 29 since the obsession with Russia has come out of people saying finally we have the fire, not just the smoke anymore.

The reality is you have an individual that says they have information on Hillary Clinton they would like to share with you. You're running against Hillary Clinton, you take that meeting.

And guess what, Hillary Clinton's campaign took those meetings from plenty of people that knew Donald Trump. It is very normal if someone says that they have something that you might want to see that you go and have that meeting. Now there's nothing in this meeting that would even come close to the actual issue of collusion.

So Democrats keep overplaying it. At some time there's -- and I think we're beyond that point. The only people that are getting rich off of this are the lawyers that are being hired to investigate a non-story where there is no collusion.

[00:10:04] And they're making millions of dollars off the taxpayers, grandstanding in Congress where Democrats are using this for political purposes when there is no collusion.

Remember, not one Democrat on any of those committees have seen -- said they've seen anything that remotely looks like collusion. So they're wasting taxpayer's dollars.

VANIER: All right. But Ben, then again the special counsel who's investigating this has only just started his work not that long ago and you know that that can drag on. It can last quite a long time.

FERGUSON: Look at the billable hours. There's a lot of people that have been working on this for a long time. And again, top Democrats have said that they have seen nothing. And I'm not talking about Republicans saying this. I'm talking about every top Democrat that has been asked and said they've seen no evidence of collusion.

VANIER: But what about the fact -- in fact let me get to Ellis for this -- what about the fact that this shows that members of Trump's inner circle, in his case his son and also his campaign adviser at the time, Paul Manafort and his son-in-law Jared Kushner were willing to accept Russian help?

HENICAN: Boy -- that sure is interesting. Let's see if I can unpack some of these denials just some more. First of all, the only standard isn't whether federal crimes have been committed.

There are an awful lot of things we'd like to know about this. This may be really, really important and really interesting that don't mean that these specific individuals committed a federal crime.

FERGUSON: Of course. Ellis --

HENICAN: That's the way investigations -- hold on a second. What you guys are disregarding is the reality of any complex investigation which is not that anyone fact seals the deal but added up together they produce a --

FERGUSON: You're stretching it.

HENICAN: -- pattern of behavior that is truly, may be illegal, maybe just scandals. But boy we're sure wondering more about it, don't we? Don't shut it down yet.

VANIER: Ben -- listen to the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: Was there any contact in any way between Trump or his associates and the Kremlin or cut-outs they have?

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I joined this campaign in the summer and I can tell you that all the contact by the Trump campaign and associates was with the American people.

We were fully engaged with taking his message to make American great again all across this country. That's why he won in the last election.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: -- there were any contacts -- I'm just trying to get an answer.

PENCE: Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign? Chris -- this is all a distraction. And it's all a part of the narrative to delegitimize the election and the question of the legitimacy of his presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: So Ben -- I suppose the question --

FERGUSON: Let me say this.

VANIER: Go ahead.

FERGUSON: I agree with the Vice President there.

VANIER: This was in January, by the way. Just for our viewers. This was back in January.

FERGUSON: Correct. But let's be clear about what he's talking about here. This individual who they met with was a friend of someone who was looked at as an attorney. This is not someone that represents Russia. This is not someone that is registered, from what I've been told, is a foreign agent.

(CROSSTALK)

VANIER: -- state-owned companies. She has several prominent -- hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Let's get the fact.

She works for state-owned Russian companies.

FERGUSON: Not solely. Not exclusively.

VANIER: Not exclusively. Among her portfolio of clients, there are Russian state-owned companies. There is the son of a prominent Russian figure as well as several other prominent Russian figures. I mean you can't just discard those facts.

FERGUSON: Ok. I'm not discarding those facts. But I'm also not allowing this to be turned into somehow this is only someone exclusively that works for Russians when that also is not true.

You may have over your entire lifetime of her career, two or three clients which is what the news reports have said that are Russian clients. That's doesn't mean that you're a Russian agent or even registered as a Russian agent.

And again you're meeting with someone who's a lawyer who said I have information about Donald Trump. If an American lawyer represents a Russian company on a -- in America, does that mean that now he works for the Russian government? No, it means he's a lawyer that happens to work on something that deals with somebody that is in Russia.

Again, people are stretching so far on this to try to make collusion, to try to make it into something illegal. And I'll say it again, it's just not there.

VANIER: I mean I think there are some questions out there that it is legitimate for us to ask. Before I come back to you --

(CROSSTALK)

VANIER: Yes, let me go back to Troy for a second. Is there anything that the lawyers of any of these people, whether it's Donald Trump, Jr. or Jared Kushner or Paul Manafort or for that matter the President -- is there anything that they need to be worried about with this "New York Times" article today.

SLATEN: If they made false statements with regard to their disclosures in order to obtain security clearances, that's a crime -- absolutely. And they should be worried about that.

VANIER: Well, we already know that Jared Kushner, for one, omitted several meetings that --

HENICAN: We know that.

VANIER: -- leaders from his --

SLATEN: There's a difference an intentional omission and an accidental omission. These are very long forms that have very detailed questions that ask many, many things and you're allowed to amend and revise things.

[00:15:01] And it's my understanding that he has done just that. That he's amended and revised it. And the special counsel, Bob Mueller here is going to be looking into federal crimes.

And Ellis talks about well, these are maybe things that the American people should know about. That may be absolutely true. There's a difference between a political crime and something that everybody should know about and maybe that's decision that will help them make their decision come the next election.

But there's a difference between something that everyone should know about and something that's a crime.

VANIER: Hey Ben, Ellis -- you'll have to just -- Ben, Ellis -- just a second.

(CROSSTALK)

VANIER: Hold on, guys, just a second. What's that Ellis?

HENICAN: I don't understand why both of you guys seem to keep wanting to shut this down so prematurely.

VANIER: Ok. Well, that was going to be my question.

HENICAN: We're just getting rolling here.

FERGUSON: Look, I have no problem with there being an investigation. But I do have a problem with people trying to make things in the investigation much bigger than they actually are. I care about facts. If there was collusion, I want to know about it.

But I also don't think that it's appropriate to slander someone or make it a bigger deal than it actually is. A perfect example is a moment ago when you just implied that Jared Kushner was somehow lying on his forms.

HENICAN: Jared Kushner --

VANIER: Hold on. Hold on. Who just implied that?

FERGUSON: I think Ellis was making it pretty clear.

VANIER: He already did that. He already left off information.

(CROSSTALK)

HENICAN: There were denials of things on these forms and we now know --

VANIER: Ellis.

(CROSSTALK)

VANIER: We know he left information with meeting the foreign representatives off the forms. We know that.

FERGUSON: There's an important point that should be made. He went in and told the FBI on his own accord with no pressure or no news story coming out that he needed to amend that filing. He did that before any of this news came out in the press.

He did that on his own accord which to me says, I forgot something. There is no story that now is forcing to correct it. I'm doing it on my own. So to act as if somehow there's a crime committed there I think is irresponsible.

VANIER: Well, absolutely --

FERGUSON: If you go in on your own and you do that on your own, there should be no issues with that.

VANIER: Yes. And it's important for our viewers to take in Ben's point that absolutely Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort for that matter, several weeks ago disclosed to the --

FERGUSON: Exactly.

VANIER: -- federal authorities their meeting with this Russian lawyer. However they didn't disclose what the meeting was about --

FERGUSON: And guess what --

VANIER: -- or what the content of the meeting was.

FERGUSON: Right. But guess what, how do you think the "New York Times" got their hands on this info? You think it's probably because somebody in the U.S. government leaked the information that Jared Kushner put it on forms? And that's how they knew who the lawyer was in the first place? That's my problem with the story.

VANIER: And that's going to be the end of this conversation. Ben Ferguson -- thank you very much for joining us. Ellis Henican -- always a pleasure.

HENICAN: Good seeing you guys.

VANIER: Troy Slaten -- thank you very much.

SLATEN: Thanks for having us.

VANIER: This all comes on the heels of the face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. During that conversation, Mr. Trump brought up Russia's meddling in the U.S. election. And here's how he explains it in a tweet.

"I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I have already given my opinion."

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said definitively on Sunday morning that Donald Trump does believe Russia hacked the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: He does not accept Putin's denial. He believes the Russians meddled. REINCE PRIEBUS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: He's answered this

question many times. He said they probably meddled in the election. They did meddle in the election. The one thing that he also says which drives the media crazy but it's an absolute fact, is that others have as well.

And that's true. China has, North Korea has -- and they have consistently over the many, many years. So yes, he believes that Russia probably committed of all of these acts that we've been told of. But he also believes that other countries also participated

WALLACE: Ok. Let's, let's move to the next --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: But some Republicans don't necessarily buy that. Here's how one top senator explains the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: But when it comes to Russia, he's got a blind spot and to forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber attacks is to empower Putin. And that's exactly what he's doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: Mr. Trump also tweeted about his meeting with Mr. Putin. "We negotiated a cease fire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it's time to move forward in working constructively with Russia. Putin and I discussed forming an impenetrable cyber security unit so that the election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded."

Other lawmakers were bewildered by the idea that the President wants to work with Russia on forming a cyber security unit that would guard against, you guessed it, election hacking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I am sure that Vladimir Putin could be of enormous assistance in that effort since he's doing the hacking. I mean it's --

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: We might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow. I don't think that's an answer at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: And the U.S. President himself is now backing away from that idea. Just a short while ago, he tweeted this. "The fact that President Putin and I discussed a cyber security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't. But a cease fire can and did."

[00:20:03] We're going to take a short break. When we come back, more on our breaking news. The "New York Times" reporting that Donald Trump's son met with a Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Now Clinton's former campaign manager is talking to CNN.

Also ahead, Iraq says the cruel rule of ISIS in Mosul has ended. But the battle against the terror group is not over yet.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Weather watch time. I'm meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

Look at these severe storms around the Midwestern United States -- (inaudible) some flight impact out of places like Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago with these storms.

Down across the southern U.S., the scattered storms across this region have really been persistent. In fact, when you look at the forecast for the month of July, expecting wet weather and above average rainfall and that is precisely how it's playing out so far in the first week of the month.

And again, some of those strong storms could eventually push in towards portions of the northeast and accumulation of the rainfall in the next couple of days heaviest right along that region across the Great Lakes.

Here is your Monday forecast. You're looking at temps. It could be into the upper 20s out of Winnipeg, Chicago 29, Denver one of the warm spots there at 36 degrees. Same score out of Dallas and the trend remains rather hot for the northeastern U.S. through much of this week.

Bound towards the Caribbean though watching some thunderstorms roll through across part of say Havana. About 32 degrees in the forecast there, Guatemala City looking at 26 and take you down towards the western United States there where, of course, extreme heat has been the big story around this region and also throughout in place with a fire concern that is elevated across a lot of these areas.

Look at these temperatures. You want to play the slot machine in Las Vegas, it wasn't for Monday, 42 would be your number there. 42 across the board out of Phoenix, high temperatures in places like Los Angeles starting off toasty, cool off into the upper 20s.

If you have any weather photos, share them #CNNWeather.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VANIER: Welcome back. More on our breaking news.

The "New York Times" is reporting that U.S. President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump, Jr. met last year with a Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

CNN's Ana Cabrera spoke earlier with the former manager of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign Robby Mook. She asked him what his reaction was to this "New York Times" report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBBY MOOK, FORMER MANAGER, HILLARY CLINTON'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: First of all, I think we need to start asking ourselves, and I think in particular Republican leaders in Congress, you need to start asking themselves at what point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt here. The evidence here of these close ties with Russia continue to mount with each and every day.

[00:24:58] But then secondly what's particularly concerning to me is we're seeing it play out in actual policy. And you mentioned Don, Jr. was in a meeting, so was Jared Kushner who is now a government employee. He's the senior advisor to the President, an official in the government.

We saw the President propose this morning that the Russian government work with the United States to create some sort of cyber security entity for our elections -- which is frightening. We've been reading that the President is doing everything he can to stop a bipartisan bill to impose further sanctions on the Russians to punish them for intervening in our election.

So at some point, somebody needs to step up and say enough is enough. And the Trump administration has to clean house. It has to get rid of conflicts of interest. And somebody's got to step in to make sure that our foreign policy is not being overtaken by Russian influence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: London firefighters are keeping watch over the city's iconic Camden Market after a raging fire broke out there overnight. Now, this was the scene earlier as they worked to douse the flames.

They did manage to snuff out the fire. Authorities are saying that the crews are going to damp down the site well into the morning to keep it from reigniting.

Let's go to Phil Black who joins us from central London with the latest. Phil -- do we know -- tell us more about what happened and maybe why it happened.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Cyril, it was around midnight local time. The authorities here say that the emergency calls started coming in about a large fire here in the Camden Market area, one that according to the authorities was visible from across a wide area.

And the pictures posted in social media overnight certainly indicate that. They show a big red glow, almost a tower of flame visible on the London skyline.

Now the firefighters say the fire moved through three floors of this building, damaged the roof as well. They responded with some force. They sent 70 fire fighters, ten engines and then battled it for about three hours. That was when they declared the fire to be over.

But as you touched on there, still working here as we speak dealing with the smoldering areas of the building to ensure that it doesn't take -- light up again once more.

The positive news in all of this, this had come from the police only a short time ago, there have been no reported injuries or casualties as a result of this fire -- Cyril.

VANIER: What part of London are we talking about? Camden town is a place that tourists will know.

BLACK: Yes. Camden Market in north London is probably one of London's better known, most popular market areas. It's an area that pretty much every tourist who comes to the city visits at some point.

What it means though is that at that time on a Sunday night, there wouldn't have been too many people too around. And I guess that's why the police are saying that there are no casualties. It's not a residential area, certainly not the market building itself.

But there are hundreds of businesses at stake here because we're talking about small stall holders, street foods, restaurants. It's a busy place when it comes to market comers and so although there's been no human cost in terms of lives, what they'll be assessing over the course of the day is the degree of impact on people's livelihoods, the businesses that have been damaged.

There was a fire here back in 2008, another big fire. That resulted in a lot of big damages to business that took months to overcome -- Cyril.

VANIER: Our Phil Black reporting there from the very early London morning hours in the city center. Thank you very much.

After three years of ISIS atrocities in Mosul, Iraq is declaring the key city has been liberated. Next -- the challenges that lie ahead to prevent future conflicts.

[00:28:50] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:32:20] CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. Let's look at your headlines.

Iraq is declaring Mosul has been liberated after three years of ISIS control. Small pockets of ISIS resistance remain and the terror group does still hold other territory in the country. Now the daunting task of rebuilding Mosul begins.

The world is waiting to see if the latest ceasefire in Syria will hold. The deal went into effect, Sunday, in three areas of southwestern Syria. The U.S., Russia and Jordan brokered the agreement which was announced at the G20 Summit on Friday. So far there have been no reports of any serious violations of the ceasefire. U.S. President Donald Trump is tweeting about that Syrian ceasefire and about Russia's meddling in last year's election. In a series of tweets, Mr. Trump said he pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin about the election issue and he says Mr. Putin vehemently denied meddling in the election.

A top adviser to Pope Francis has touched down in his native Australia to fight sexual abuse charges against him. Cardinal George Pell rejects the allegations. Australian police said there are multiple charges but have not released any more details yet.

Let's bring you more on the major military victory against ISIS in Mosul. Iraq is declaring that the terror group no longer controls this city. Soldiers and civilians celebrated in the streets. Even though fighting continued in small parts of Western Mosul.

The Iraqi prime minister says the last ISIS fighters there are surrounded now.

Jomana Karadsheh is monitoring this for us from Amman, Jordan.

Jomana, when you think back to three years ago, and the leader of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who made his declaration from within the mosque in Mosul, and you think back to those three brutal years of occupation of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, what does it mean the prime minister is now able to walk through the streets of Mosul?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a great moment in Iraqi history. For Iraqis, it's a moment of celebration. It's a moment of victory after years of fighting the terror group. After, you know, all the lives that were lost. The thousands of lives that were lost. The hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed and displaced. And all the destruction to communities like that in Mosul.

So this is a great moment for Iraqis. But, Cyril, the challenge is what comes next after this celebration of these -- to make sure that these hard-won gains are not wasted.

[00:35:00] They need to make sure, you know, the major challenges will be to rebuild places like Mosul, for example. But perhaps most challenging is stabilizing a city like this. It is to rebuild trust between the different communities. It is to make sure that there is a real true national reconciliation process, to try and bridge that sectarian divide that was exploited by ISIS in the first place that led to the rise of that group.

You know, you think back, Cyril, Iraq has been here before. At a much smaller scale obviously. But it did that. It pushed out al Qaeda in Iraq. And that re-emerged years later as ISIS.

They need to make sure that they try and change those conditions that led to the rise of ISIS in the first place -- Cyril.

VANIER: How much of the city has been destroyed? And how much of it is still left standing? KARADSHEH: Well, I think -- we did ask the Iraqi president a couple of months ago of what he thought about, you know, how much destruction there is when it comes to Mosul and other areas that were controlled by ISIS. And at the time he told us we have to wait for all military operations to end to truly assess how much damage there is. He could not put a total on how much it was going to cost to rebuild these cities. But he described it as phenomenal destruction.

You're seeing those images, Cyril, of a city like Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, completely destroyed it would seem. But we've seen some figures coming out from the United Nations estimating that it would cost about $1 billion at least for basic rebuilding and reconstruction, to restore some basic services in Mosul.

And I was just looking at some figures that came out overnight from the United Nations. They're saying in Western Mosul, out of the 54 residential neighborhoods there, 16 have been heavily damaged and 23 moderately damaged.

It's going to be a challenge to get the money to rebuild Mosul. You know, the United Nations are saying that they've only received 40 percent -- 43 percent of the money that was pledged last year for the humanitarian relief effort that it needed when the operations began for Mosul. And Iraq will probably be looking for support from the international community to help it rebuild after ISIS, Cyril.

VANIER: Jomana Karadsheh reporting live from Amman, Jordan. Thank you very much.

Let's get more on this with our CNN military analyst retired Colonel Cedric Leighton. He joins us now over the phone.

Sir, even Jomana was saying this, Iraq has been down this road before. Years ago they defeated al Qaeda, and then they experienced an insurgency, and then they had the birth of ISIS.

So if they are on the road to defeating ISIS, how do you convincingly win that fight? Not just drive them out of Mosul, but actually reclaim all of the Iraqi territory?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Cyril, this is going to be an issue of hearts and minds. It's going to be an issue of being able to not only capture territory such as the way in which Mosul would actually be, but you'd also have a situation where you have to deal with territory, and the ability to not only hold that territory, but also be able to find out exactly where the different elements come together from a social perspective.

So what you need is being able to have services in place. You need to be able to have really the end to the discrimination that the Sunni fighters and the Sunni people have been feeling against, you know -- that was levied against them before ISIS gained control over Mosul. So that is -- I think one of the key factors.

And the other thing that we have to look at is the ability for the Iraqi government to sustain the governance, a good governance program for this area. And that is something that they haven't been able to do historically, but perhaps under the regime of Prime Minister Al Abadi, they may have a chance to do so.

VANIER: And, Colonel, you mentioned the importance of governance and politics in this. But security-wise, in terms of actually fighting the insurgency, right now, Iraqi security forces have the help and the assistance from the coalition, especially the jets who are carrying out all the raids that are indispensable to this fight.

Are they going to be -- is Iraq going to be able to stand on its own two feet in the coming years, or will the coalition have to stay there?

LEIGHTON: I think the coalition is going to have to stay there, Cyril. What they're going to have to do is perhaps not provide as visible presence as you get with fighter jets. But what you end up having to do is you end up having to have people present on the ground, whether it's in the form of aid workers or people who are helping with construction projects, or people that are happy helping with the governance process.

That's the kind of aid that I think is essential, because it also indicates that there's a commitment from the outside world to Iraq and to as a people in these regions, especially the newly liberated regions so that ISIS has just until recently controlled.

[00:40:00] VANIER: All right. CNN military analyst Colonel Leighton, thank you very much for joining us on the show.

We're going to take a short break. We're back right after this.

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VANIER: British author J.K. Rowling conjured a magical world that has enthralled readers for 20 years. And with her global success from the "Harry Potter" series, Rowling has been able to pursue another passion, ending child institutionalization.

She sat down with CNN's Christiane Amanpour for an exclusive interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.K. ROWLING, AUTHOR, "HARRY POTTER": Our ambition is to end child institutionalization by 2050. That's the ambition. And --

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All over the world?

ROWLING: All over the world.

AMANPOUR: How many kids are we talking about?

ROWLING: We estimate there are 8 million children in institutions worldwide. But that might be a low guess. And we know that around 1 million children disappear in Europe every year. AMANPOUR: Why Lumos?

ROWLING: Well, it's a spell in "Harry Potter."

It's a life-giving spell so the metaphor is glaringly obvious.

AMANPOUR: Harry Potter is an orphan.

(CROSSTALK)

ROWLING: Harry Potter --

AMANPOUR: So it's kind of obvious that you're doing this, isn't it?

ROWLING: It wasn't obvious to me at the time. But to be very candid, I think my worst fear, my personal worst fear is powerlessness and small spaces. And I think that just the idea that these children were being kept penned like this was horrific to me.

But then so although I didn't think that's like Harry and his cupboard, I suppose why did I put Harry in the cupboard? Because this is my fear of being trapped and being powerless. Just powerless to get out of that space.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: And tune in to see all of Christiane Amanpour's exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling, Monday at 7:00 p.m. in London, 2:00 p.m. New York time.

All right, that's it from us. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier. "World Sport" is up next. And I'll be back in 15 minutes with more news.

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