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Mueller Filing: Michael Flynn Gave 'Substantial Assistance'. Aired 6-6:29a ET

Aired December 05, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flynn provided information that is allowing Mueller to make a criminal case against someone.

[05:59:29] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no suggest that Michael Flynn had anything to do with collusion. I think it's good news for President Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump is sending a signal, "Shut up and I'll pardon you," and Mueller is sending the signal, "Cooperate and you might get to go home."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is conduct that none of us in America would approve of.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not have a smoking gun.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: There's not a smoking gun. There's a smoking saw.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, December 5, 6 a.m. here in Washington.

And we do begin with breaking news for you. A highly-anticipated court filing by Special Counsel Robert Mueller spells out for the first time that former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn has given, quote, "substantial assistance" to the Russia investigation, so much so that Mueller recommends Flynn serve no prison time. Flynn has been interviewed 19 times by federal investigators, providing them with first-hand information about interactions between the Trump transition team and Russian government officials.

Mueller also says that Flynn has helped with at least three investigations. Two of those are redacted. Mueller says Flynn's early cooperation was particularly valuable and gave prosecutors a road map for the Russia probe, and it may have prompted others to cooperate, as well. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So as Alisyn said, the sentencing memo was heavily redacted. Heavily, heavily redacted, which means there is a lot we do not know, but also that there are investigations that are still ongoing. We've not heard a response from President Trump. Remember, he dumped all over the deal that Michael Cohen struck with the special counsel. So how does he feel about Flynn providing substantial cooperation?

In the meantime, it is a national day of mourning. The state funeral for President George H.W. Bush occurs today. You're still seeing live pictures from inside the Capitol Rotunda. President Bush lies in state there for about another hour.

All five living presidents and several world leaders will join the Bush family for the memorial service at the National Cathedral. We will cover this throughout the morning. As I said, public viewing will end one hour from now, and then the flag-draped casket will depart for the cathedral.

We've got a lot to cover this morning. We're going to start with the breaking news, the Michael Flynn document. Our justice correspondent, Jessica Schneider, has that -- Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. This highly-anticipated memo, it was heavily redacted, but it still gave glimpses into where Mueller's investigation is headed.

The special counsel saying Michael Flynn provided so much information that he should not serve any prison time. And the filing also hinted at two other investigations aside from the Russia probe that aren't yet public that Flynn has also assisted in.

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SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommending that President Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, serve no jail time for lying to the FBI, citing his substantial assistance in several ongoing investigations, including Mueller's probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

According to the filing, Flynn began cooperating with investigators shortly after being approached by Mueller's team, sitting for 19 interviews and handing over key documents and communications. Mueller's team arguing that Flynn's "early cooperation was particularly valuable, because he was one of the few people with long- term and firsthand insight" into events under investigation, noting that Flynn likely inspired other witnesses to cooperate.

But many crucial details about what Flynn told investigators remain unknown, since the majority of the court filing is redacted.

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What I think here is Flynn provided information that is allowing Mueller to make a criminal case against someone. We don't know who that is. We can speculate or not speculate. But there's certainly somebody out there who has a criminal case that could be coming.

SCHNEIDER: President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, playing down the significance of Flynn's cooperation, telling NBC News, "If he had information to share with Mueller that hurt the president, you would know it by now."

Flynn pleaded guilty last December to lying to the FBI about discussions he had with Russia's then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, during Mr. Trump's transition, including asking Kislyak not to retaliate over sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for Russia's election interference.

Mueller noting that several senior members of the transition team publicly repeated this false information.

REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STATE: I have talked to General Flynn. None of that came up. The subject matter of sanctions or the actions taken by the Obama administration --

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

MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign?

SCHNEIDER: After "The Washington Post" reported that Flynn lied and misled the vice president, he was fired. A few days later, FBI director James Comey has said President Trump asked him to let the investigation into Flynn go.

Mr. Trump denies the allegation, but it has put Flynn at the center of a probe into whether the president obstructed justice, which gained steam after the president also fired Comey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And the next step for Michael Flynn is sentencing. That will happen on December 18. Flynn, of course, is just one of five Trump associates who have pleaded guilty as part of this Russia probe. And it continues to be a jam-packed week for Mueller's team. By Friday, they'll submit a report on the extent of Michael Cohen's cooperation, after his most recent guilty plea to misleading Congress.

[06:05:09] And they'll also tell the judge how Paul Manafort broke the terms of his plea deal by lying to prosecutors.

So John and Alisyn, still a jam-packed week and a lot to come -- guys.

BERMAN: All right. Jessica, great to have you with us. Thanks so much.

Want to bring in an august panel of CNN political and legal experts: David Gregory, Carrie Cordero, Garrett Graff and Laura Coates.

Carrie, I want to start with you. There's what we know and what we don't know. And by that, I mean all the redacted stuff in here. But the fact that there's so much redacted may be the most significant thing here. What do you see?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think that's right. I think the fact that so much of the information was redacted in these documents, which means that we don't actually, today, know exactly what Michael Flynn told the prosecutors. We know that he met with them 19 times, which is a lot of interviews, and we know that they're -- he cooperated in the special counsel's investigation. And then we also know that he cooperated in another criminal investigation --

CAMEROTA: Two others.

CORDERO: -- about which there is no other information provided.

BERMAN: Yes, but we also know the fact that it's redacted, there are still ongoing investigations. They didn't want to tell us, because they didn't want to, perhaps, endanger those investigations.

CORDERO: Right. So the reason that the information would still be redacted is because they don't want to compromise whatever are still the ongoing investigations. If there's other witnesses, if there's other pieces that they're still tracking down, they don't want to reveal that publicly, so it has to be provided under seal.

CAMEROTA: Laura, what's the headline for you?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The headline for me, of course, is that the person who chanted the "lock them up, lock her up" chants is actually not going to be locked up, according to what Mueller is asking for, which is not as odd as it may seem. He wasn't facing a great deal of time in the get-go. They could have charged him with multiple things. He lied, obviously, multiple times, and they chose at the outset to charge him with limited cases.

So we knew that was going to be a case in terms of a limited amount of scope of endangerment, but if he did no jail time, shocking, especially because Mueller goes to great lengths to explain that this person, because of his background, because of his record, should be held to a higher standard.

And he also says that he doesn't necessarily buy the argument of a false memory or a feigned memory, or the feigned absence of a memory. This notion of selective amnesia has haunted the administration, and Michael Flynn and everyone who has come across the Russian ambassador, Kislyak.

So of course, the timing of it's important here. We have the president of the United States, who began every single written response answer with, "my recollection," "the best of my recall," et cetera. So the president is already tipped off right now that Mueller does not suffer any fools; he does not indulge fake amnesia, or affected amnesia. And if you -- if there is corroboration to show that you are lying or that you should remember, they'll point that out.

And finally, the one thing is the pardoning dangling here. The president of the United States has been dangling a pardon for quite some time. Well, Mueller is saying, "Cooperate with me and guess what? The equivalent of a pardon just happened to you."

BERMAN: "I see your pardon, and I raise you the no jail time."

GREGORY: Can I just say, this qualifies as a wow moment for me. I mean, in all of this, where we're looking at crumbs and pieces and shreds, and there's so much we can't speculate about, I mean, here they're saying he provided substantial assistance with regard to who in the Trump orbit may have had contact with Russians who were trying to compromise the election. I think that's a big deal. We don't know the substance of it, but there are so many pieces here that are interesting.

Remember, it was Sally Yates who was at the Justice Department who said to the administration, "Look, this guy may be compromised by the Russians." We know about his dealings with the Russians at critical moments that Mueller is looking at: before the campaign, that Trump Tower meeting; other contacts around the leaking of materials by WikiLeaks, having hacked the DNC.

So I think this is significant. We know that Trump said, you know, "Lay off this guy" to Jim Comey, who he later fires. So, you know, you put all of this together, it's, again, for me, a wow moment. And I think we're beginning to see something take shape here. That's the power of narrative. Mueller is going to finally do something, wherever it leads legally and politically, to put all of this together; and I think that's powerful.

BERMAN: Garrett Graff, you are the czar of that notion. Please explain to us what David is talking about there. And again, you keep track of the big picture here better than anyone I know. So what do you see?

GARRETT GRAFF, AUTHOR, "THE THREAT MATRIX: ROBERT MUELLER'S FBI": Well, so what you're seeing is Mueller build a pretty methodical legal case, and as David said, sort of the challenge is we're only getting these little glimpses of it. And we're sort of seeing individual puzzle pieces without necessarily knowing what the picture is.

But you know, we're looking at an investigation that is larger than we think it is. We're looking at an investigation that is better informed, more knowledgeable and more insightful than we think it is.

I mean, one of the things that stands out is that every document that Bob Mueller has filed since the first one, we have been surprised by how much Bob Mueller knows. And if you begin to put that together over 17 months, it's clear Bob Mueller knows an incredible amount of information; and we don't yet know where that's all going, as David says.

[06:10:04] CAMEROTA: Is it also clear, Carrie, that this is not wrapping up soon? That that was wishful thinking for the people who thought, "Well, surely, before the midterms, it will be wrapped up," "Well, surely before the end of the year, it will be wrapped up." Does this new -- all of these redactions and all of this new filing tell you, "Uh-huh, it's not wrapping up soon"? CORDERO: Well, I don't -- you know, soon, it's hard for anybody to

measure when it's -- I've -- when it's going to end. I have felt like we are seventh-inning-is. That's how this has felt to me, when the Internet Research Agency and some of the hacking indictments were launched over the summer, that felt fifth-inning-ish to me. So that's how I measure where we are in the case.

I think, certainly, the Flynn documents show that there are ongoing investigations that the prosecutors are not yet willing to reveal publicly, and so that means that there are still people who potentially might be charged with things.

There are still aspects of this investigation that are live and that are sensitive. That's what that tells us.

On the other hand, we are seeing some of the individuals come towards their sentencing, some of the key individuals. And so, as it pertains to individuals, other than perhaps the implications of those closest to the president or the president, we're seeing some of those ends wrapped up.

BERMAN: So some parts of this investigation do appear close to being at an end, at least for these people.

But Laura, I want to ask you, because one of the messages sent in this memo was that Michael Flynn cooperated early; and that was very helpful, the special counsel's memo said. It was helpful, in a way, to corner other people and get them to testify and maybe testify honestly, to send a signal "We know what Michael Flynn has said. We know what went on here." So what did you see there?

COATES: Well, that's fine prosecution. I mean, you really want to have the cloud of secrecy and this aura of anxiety to be building. What does Michael Flynn know? Why has he been on the hook for over a year? Why is somebody who was so key in the transition period; somebody who purportedly was the very first person to tell the president, "Hey, Vladimir Putin called to congratulate you," and he was the first person on your presidency; the same person who is the common theme every time a Russian ambassador is mentioned, the idea of the Logan Act and the sanctions against Russia and telling Vladimir Putin not to retaliate and the president responding -- what does he know?

And I think that, methodically, the notion that Robert Mueller operates, and every prosecutor does, best when people do not know what is coming next. They are incentivized to come forward. And you see this in the actual filing.

Listen, the very first domino to fall is the person that makes everyone else nervous and says, "Well, I better go ahead first." Because the first to actually squeal may get the best deal. And you're seeing right now, the very first person to squeal in the issue is the person who has no jail time.

Compare and contrast to Paul Manafort. Compare and contrast to, perhaps, Michael Cohen. And, you know, you think about this case, especially, and the anxiety is building even more. Now that you have all of the bars, all of this anxiety building about who might be next, you can imagine people are raising their hands and trying to perhaps secure the deal, because that speculative pardon no longer seems very appealing.

GRAFF: One of the things I think that stands out in this that Laura sort of touched on there's just the shear amount of unrelated criminality that was going on in the Trump campaign. I mean, you just look at the three figures this week. We sort of gloss over it in these documents with Michael Flynn.

He was working as an unregistered foreign agent for the government of Turkey while serving as President Trump's campaign national security adviser. Michael Cohen, decade-long tax fraud, bank fraud that he's been charged with, in addition to his campaign finance violations. Paul Manafort, campaign chairman, working on a decade-long $60 million money laundering scheme.

So this is incredible leverage that Mueller is bringing to each of these people when he's sitting down and talking with them. Is just the shear amount of criminal stuff they were involved in, unrelated to the criminal stuff they were doing on behalf of the Trump campaign.

GREGORY: And it's a reminder that people will be critical of the special prosecutor that goes in different directions. People have to understand: prosecutors prosecute crimes where they find them. That's what they do. And if they come upon them, they will make a case.

The other point, and I think we have to see through, as most people would, Rudy Giuliani's political spin, you know, the idea that, "Oh, well, all these cooperators. This is all they have."

Mueller knows what he's doing. And by the way, not another new revelation to former U.S. attorney Rudy Giuliani, who employed the same tactics, that you pinch someone, you face -- if they're facing some kind of criminal charge, they might actually be pressured to tell the truth.

And we know it's the truth, because Mueller is not just going with anybody's testimony here. All of these are puzzle pieces that fit together in whatever the narrative is going to be. We don't know where that leads. We don't know if it leads to President Trump directly. We don't know if it leads to people directly close to him. But these are people whose testimony can be corroborated, not just "Oh, they're lying to save their skin."

CORDERO: I would just say, part of the reason that Michael Flynn's recommended sentence that it's low, you know, that he's not going to get jail time, most likely, is because he was only charged with one count of making false statements to federal investigators. And so that does provide some discretion for a very low sentencing.

[06:15:08] BERMAN: That's because the special counsel basically cut a deal with him and said, "We're not going to prosecute the Turkey stuff."

CORDERO: For all the --

BERMAN: That was in the memo. It was in the memo, but he's not pleading to that, necessarily

CAMEROTA: Panel, thank you all very much for all of the insight.

BERMAN: All right. There are a lot of questions here. Coming up next, we're going to talk to someone who was there at the very beginning, the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper. We'll talk to him about this sentencing memo. He knows Michael Flynn very well. We'll also talk to him about dramatic developments in the Jamal Khashoggi investigation. Stay with us.

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CAMEROTA: Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommending former Trump national security adviser, Michael Flynn, get no jail time after giving what he called "substantial assistance" in the Russia probe. Mueller says Flynn is cooperating with at least three ongoing investigations, two of which we know nothing about.

Joining us now is former director of national intelligence and CNN national security analyst, James Clapper.

Director, it's great to have you here with us. Of course, you know Michael Flynn. He worked for you. What did you think when you saw the headlines of what came out last night from Mueller?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, actually, I wasn't terribly surprised. I, like everybody else, have been torturing the filing for -- you know, getting as much out of it as we can, and of course, as others have noted, the most intriguing thing is what's not there, what's redacted, particularly about the ongoing investigations. And you -- you know, obviously, the question is, well, who's that?

[06:20:11] So -- but I think the leniency shown towards Mike is -- was probably appropriate, given his long military service, five years deployed in a war zone, and his early and frequent cooperation. So overall, not surprised.

BERMAN: There's a -- there's a line in this memo, which is particularly interesting. I want you to weigh in on it. It says, "The defendant's extensive government service should have made him particularly aware of the harm caused by providing false information to the government, as well as the rules governing work performed on behalf of a foreign government."

You've worked, you know, in the government for decades. He should have known better is what he's saying.

CLAPPER: Exactly, John. And at the time -- when you reach that level as a three-star officer, you have been briefed and warned by the likes of general counsels and people like that about the dos and don'ts. And so it's quite amazing, frankly, that he engaged in, you know, criminal activity. And that's one thing that did strike me about the filing was, with all

the attention focused on lying about contacts with the Russians, well, they also misled about the -- his engagement with Turkey. So it was much more widespread than I was led to believe.

CAMEROTA: I mean, since you have been parsing this document word for word since it came out, what else have you gleaned? What do you think? How do you think this moves the narrative forward, if it does?

CLAPPER: Well, I think the combination of this document and what's not revealed in it, and what's forthcoming this week with Michael Cohen and --

CAMEROTA: Paul Manafort.

CLAPPER: -- Paul Manafort, it's probably not going to be a good week at the White House.

BERMAN: Director, if we can, the other major development over the last 24 hours is that senators were briefed by CIA director Gina Haspel about what happened with Jamal Khashoggi, and they left that briefing fuming. I want to play some sound from the senators who were there.

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GRAHAM: There's not a smoking gun; there's a smoking saw. It is zero chance -- zero -- that this happened in such an organized fashion without the crown prince.

CORKER: If he was in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes, guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So that is so different than what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week, or Secretary of State James Mattis. They keep on insisting -- let along the president -- "There's no smoking gun here. There's no direction of Jamal Khashoggi [SIC]."

They're saying, "We just heard from the CIA director, and there is." So how -- how can there be such a difference?

CLAPPER: Well, first -- first thing I'd like to do is commend Gina Haspel, because it's pretty clear to me, just from what has been said, that she did intake -- did, in fact, abide by the writ of "truth to power." I think she laid out very straightforwardly the evidence that -- from the intelligence sources about what happened and, obviously, Mohammed bin Salman's complicity in this.

So I think what the administration acolytes are doing is, you know, using that very elastic evidentiary bar that this administration is prone to use. I guess if -- their smoking gun would have been, say, you interviewing Mohammed bin Salman, and he admitted publicly on live television that he directed the killing. Well, you probably didn't have that but not too far short of that. When the intelligence community comes out, and any component of it

comes out, and says, you know, they have high confidence, as I said before, you can take that to the bank. And I imagine there were multiple sources here used to put this story together, in -- each of which the agency had high confidence. So it is a pretty compelling case, and I'm sure she laid it out.

CAMEROTA: Does this tell you why they didn't have Gina Haspel go last week? As you know, Lindsey Graham and other people were saying, "Why aren't we hearing from the CIA?" And there was a question about why isn't the White House offering her up?

CLAPPER: Well, I -- I didn't get the strategy there, because typically, in any event like this, you would always have an intelligence component and a principle -- in this case Gina or Dan Coates, the DNI -- as a part of the delegation. And it's clear the administration's strategy was, "Well, we omit intelligence, we can --"

CAMEROTA: Nobody will notice.

CLAPPER: "-- nobody will notice and we'll marginalize the evidence." Well, that's going to come out. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they do get an all-Senate or all-House briefing on this. I think there will be mounting pressure for that, because, you know, then some senators who were excluded were very -- not very happy about that.

[06:25:07] BERMAN: Not at all. Let me play you what the president has said about this, and take that for what it is. But I also think it's more interesting, in a way, what the secretary of state and the secretary of defense have said out loud about this. Let's listen.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. They did not make that assessment. The CIA has looked at it. They've studied it a lot. They have nothing definitive.

Nobody's concluded. I don't know if anyone is going to be able to conclude that the crown prince did it.

JAMES MATTIS, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We have no smoking gun that the crown prince was involved.

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There's no direct evidence linking him to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I guess I'm most surprised to hear it from Secretary Mattis. A sliding scale, Secretary Mattis, Secretary Pompeo, and President Trump, who's a politician there. But what's -- you know, what's the defendant secretary doing there?

CLAPPER: Well, I -- I don't know. I -- I wish Secretary Mattis had just remained silent about it, if nothing else, because -- and he of all people, because he is an expert on the Mideast. And you know, has extensive experience in the region when he was Central Command commander, and he understands how things the region. He understands how things operate in the region and specifically in Saudi Arabia.

So I was, frankly, a little taken aback by his saying that, because the intelligence evidence, even from what's publicly known, pretty compelling.

CAMEROTA: Director James Clapper, thank you very much.

CLAPPER: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Great to be with you this morning.

BERMAN: All right. Ahead on NEW DAY, we're going to speak with Senator Marco Rubio about the briefing on the Khashoggi murder. He's got a lot to say about this.

CAMEROTA: And it is a national day of mourning. The state funeral for President George H.W. Bush gets under way in just hours. What we know about how it will all unfold, next.

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