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New Details on Manafort & Cohen to Be Revealed in Filings; Senate Resolution Faults Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi Killing; Canada Arrests Chinese Tech Giant CFO. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 06, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bob Mueller, he's a skilled prosecutor the whole way.

[07:00:05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senators from both parties are planning to confront Saudi Arabia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to have a relationship with some players that we don't agree with.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The crown prince has been a wrecking ball. He was complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi.

BRIAN MULRONEY, FORMER CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: No occupant of the Oval Office was more courageous, more principled.

ALAN SIMPSON, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: He never hated anyone. He knew hatred corrodes the container it's carried in.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT/SON OF GEORGE H.W. BUSH: I said, "Dad, I love you," and the last words he would ever say were "I love you, too."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me.

Great to have you here this morning.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good to be with you.

BERMAN: So this morning we sit on the precipice. It sounds dramatic, but it is true. This is an important moment in the Mueller investigation.

It's clear it's important, but not much else is crystal-clear here. The special counsel's office is beginning to release court documents that may help fill in several significant gaps. Of courses, sometimes those gaps look larger than ever, like with the pages of blacked-out redactions in the sentencing memo for former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Tomorrow prosecutors will release the sentencing memo from Michael Cohen in his plea deal for the special counsel where he admitted to lying to Congress about a Russia deal that he was working on for then- candidate Trump well into the election.

Also tomorrow -- and this could be even bigger -- prosecutors tell us exactly what Paul Manafort has been lying so much about, so much about that it sunk his plea deal with the special counsel's office. So what we've been trying to do this morning is lay out the big questions that remain that might -- might be answered soon.

HILL: Also this morning, the final farewell for President George H.W. Bush. These are live pictures at St. Martin's Episcopal Church. The 41st president lying in repose there in the Houston church he attended for more than 50 years.

There will be a second funeral service this morning before he is buried at his presidential library.

The latest president's son, George W. Bush, delivering an emotional eulogy at his state funeral, while in the pews, all eyes on the president's club. The current president clearly the odd man out.

We are also this morning keeping a very close watch on the stock market at this hour. U.S. futures, as you can see there, down sharply, along with Asian and European markets seeing lots of red, and there's a lot at play here. So we're going to keep an eye on all of that. We'll also bring you up to speed on what exactly is fueling the selloff.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, CNN political analyst David Gregory; CNN national security and legal analyst Susan Hennessey; and chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Jeffrey Toobin.

Jeffrey, I want to start with you here. We've been talking about the questions that are looming in this investigation, and questions that could be answered soon.

And you note with Michael Cohen there is something perplexing, even to you, our chief legal analyst, which is why Michael Cohen is being sentenced next week, which falls into this whole question of why, exactly, was Michael Cohen charged exclusively by the special counsel after being charged by the special district. These are interesting questions. Why?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, because the usual practice when a cooperator is -- is sentenced is that prosecutors put it off until all the cooperation is completed, because sentencing is a tremendous lever that a prosecutor has to ensure someone's cooperation.

You say to the defendant, "Look, we want to make sure you continue telling the truth, so we are going to not tell the judge about your cooperation until you're completely done." Here, the -- Cohen just pleaded guilty in the special counsel case,

and it looks like he's going to be sentenced next week. I still would not be surprised to see it put off, but Cohen seems very anxious to have the whole thing put behind him. And so far, as far as I can tell, the prosecutors are allowing him to do that.

HILL: It's interesting is everybody is trying to read between the lines. Because obviously, this investigation, the special counsel has been so tightlipped. So we're all going through these filings and these documents, the little that we have.

Susan, one of the things that's interesting, I know you pointed out is this recommendation of no jail time for Michael Flynn. You say that that also sends an important message. What is that message?

SUSAN HENNESSEY, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think it does. So we've seen the president of the United States essentially dangling pardons here, talking about we're considering pardoning various people who might be in a position to incriminate him.

I think by not -- by recommending that Michael Flynn not get any jail time, that's a way for Mueller to also message to people that there are alternatives here. Obviously, only the president has the power to pardon. But, you know, there are probably individuals here who have either witnessed things or actually, you know, are co-conspirators who have, you know, testified before Congress or spoke with federal investigators that might have reason to worry right now.

And I do think that this is Mueller showing them that, if you come to federal investigators, if you cooperate fully, if you're honest, then this is another route and another path to leniency, ultimately.

BERMAN: Of course, and it's the signal that is sent in advance of another filing, where they tell us what Paul Manafort has been lying about back and forth. And David Gregory, that will be interesting. It will be interesting to see, are these lies about things that have to do with Paul Manafort's business dealings before he was in the campaign. Or has he been lying about questions when he was the campaign chair in events that took place in 2016.

GREGORY: Well, and we have a temptation to see corroborators as corroborating on the main investigation, which is about interference in the 2016 election. But we know from the Flynn documents that there are other -- there's other criminality that's being investigated and that is -- could be charged, that may not be on the main point, or it may be related. So there's so much that we don't know.

What was so striking about the Flynn documents, as he talks about the document, talk about what he knows about those in the Trump orbit who had contact with Russian officials. So that would be the main thrust of the investigation.

What I think is interesting, apart from the legal maneuverings, is how much of this is for political consumption ultimately, as there's a back and forth. Mueller is aware of the political environment in which he's operating and which will ultimately operate when there's a report to Congress. So there will be charges filed against those who warrant them.

As he is targeting the president, to the extent that's happening, that becomes a political process that he takes his legal investigation and puts it into the other domain.

TOOBIN: If I can just add one point to what David was saying. We don't -- I think -- I was surprised, at least, that so much of the Flynn document was blacked out, because it apparently relates to continuing investigations. Some of the Manafort document may be -- may be blacked out. And that tells me, at least, that this investigation is not over.

We've been talking about it as if it's wrapping up, as if it's about to be done. If it was about to be done, there'd be no reason to black out information about a continuing investigation.

So one thing I'll be looking for is how much of the Manafort documents are blacked out, as well. I hope not, very little, just because I'm a journalist and I want to find out stuff. But it suggests that this investigation is not over.

BERMAN: And Jeffrey, this is one reason you, if you were representing the president, but you're not, that you would be a little bit nervous about what has been going on this week and what is going on this week?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. I mean, you know, all of this suggests an active criminal investigation that is increasingly focused on the president. I mean, the Michael Cohen plea from a couple of weeks ago about, you know, the negotiations with the Russians during the 2016 campaign, that was as close to President Trump as Mueller has ever come in terms of any of the public disclosures he's made. That's got to be nerve- racking for good reasons.

GREGORY: And you have cooperators who have intimate knowledge of the Trump business organization and their dealings, which gets to this really opaque question of what were the financial ties between the Trump Organization and Russian officials and all that that implies. But still, my question to kind of throw out there to the other two is going back to Iran-contra and then the -- the Ken Starr investigation, did they seem, at this juncture, to be as difficult to discern or to penetrate as this one does?

TOOBIN: Big difference. Ken Starr used to give a press conference, in effect, every week when he took out his garbage at his House in -- in the Washington suburbs. He -- that office leaked like crazy. Starr gave interviews.

This office is completely opaque. It's a completely different approach. And I think it has led to sort of a mystique around the Mueller office that's even more intimidating than if they had been transparent about what they're doing.

HILL: It's led to -- it's led to that mystique has led to a heck of a lot of speculation, I think it's safe to say, and other narratives being put out there, obviously not by the office of the special counsel. And one of the most recent examples of that, obviously, is this filing that is so heavy redacted, which has led to a fair amount of speculation in sort of a redaction game, if you will, which Susan, you were very quick to point out on social media is a dangerous road to go down, to play that game because, in your words, it never ends well.

HENNESSEY: Yes, so people love to do those sort of -- to take redacted documents whether it's court filings or classified materials, and attempt to see what words might fit and speculate on what might actually be contained behind those black lines.

You know, it doesn't -- you know, it doesn't end well, because people are, more often than not, wrong. And so in this case, people are speculating that maybe behind those black redaction bars, it says "President Donald Trump," and it's some sort of indication that, you know, what's redacted here is a criminal investigation into the president himself. You know, that doesn't make a ton of sense just from, sort of, the conventions of filing. You know, I don't think it's likely that those are the words.

But I also think it speaks to sort of this wish fulfillment that we're seeing. You know, we see in the absence of lots of information, as Jeffrey alluded to, a really tight investigation.

You know, we're seeing people try and project, you know, the smoking gun is right around the corner. You know, the Mueller investigation is going to unearth the next, you know, big significant fact, and Trump is going to be sort of marched out of the Oval Office.

You know, the problem with that is it's probably not what's going to happen there. You know, we're at the beginning of a long and complex political process. You know, I think one thing people might be underestimating, however, is the power of what we already know. People are really, really focused on the next new sort of piece of shoe to drop, the next new piece of information to come out.

You know, but I do think that what we already know is pretty remarkable. And sort of the power of a Mueller report, putting that in a formal record, putting it all in one place, you know, I think it could have a lot more of an impact than people are currently giving it credit for.

BERMAN: Just so people know what we're talking about there, because I just want to put a fine point there on the redacted document, if we can put it up. People on Twitter were literally speculating that part of this blacked-out part, it matched the number of characters in the words "President Donald J. Trump." That's the extent to which people are going here -- you can see it there -- to try to figure out what's there.

TOOBIN: Can I offer a suggestion for those people?

BERMAN: Yes.

TOOBIN: Get a life.

BERMAN: Thank you. Susan --

TOOBIN: You cannot find out what's behind the toner, you know? I mean, it just -- it's like you can't do that.

BERMAN: Susan put it much more delicately yesterday on Twitter, Jeffrey, but thank you for that.

And Susan, again, because you write for this so constantly on the Lawfare blog. Just give me the highlight of what you were looking for tomorrow. Because we have these two big documents on Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.

What do you realistically think we'll get from them?

HENNESSEY: Yes, I think the most interesting or sort of important thing to find out from Paul Manafort is what he lied about, you know, what was it that caused his agreement with the special counsel's office to fall apart?

You know, the other sort of big mystery here is this joint defense agreement. So it was reported, actually, early on -- and I think people didn't necessarily believe it -- that Manafort was continuing to be in a joint defense agreement with the president, whereby their attorneys were sharing information with one another.

You know, that raises a lot of questions, you know, about whether or not there was -- there was communication related to pardons. I think it raises a lot of questions related to obstruction issues.

Ultimately, I think the most important questions to be focused on here are not necessarily the ones that are going to be answered in the court filing. I think the single most important question right now is who is overseeing this investigation. Is it -- does it continue to be Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein or the new acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker.

If it is Matt Whitaker, has he sought ethics advice on whether or not he has an obligation to recuse himself. You know, these are really big core questions. There's absolutely no reason why they -- why the American people shouldn't know. And it is astounding that we've gone this long without getting really basic answers.

BERMAN: Fascinating. All right. Susan, David, Jeffrey, thank you very much. It's a fair question and one that would be very easy to answer very, very quickly.

HILL: It would be. All right. Thank you all.

The Senate, meantime, taking action, rebuking President President Trump's inaction on Saudi Arabia. The message lawmakers plan to send the crown prince after the murder of a "Washington Post" journalist.

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[07:17:29] HILL: Top senators will meet today, looking to broker a bipartisan deal to hold Saudi Arabia's crown prince accountable for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

This comes as President Trump is still siding with the embattled crown prince over his own CIA's assessment.

Joining me now, independent Senator Angus King who, of course, serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sir, good to have you with us this morning.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Good morning.

HILL: I know you didn't attend the briefing with CIA Director Gina Haspel. But we certainly heard a lot from your colleagues who did -- were briefed -- you were briefed, obviously, before Thanksgiving.

I just want to play a little bit of what they had to say, specifically senators Graham and Corker. Take a listen.

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GRAHAM: You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people in -- under the command of MBS, and that he was intricately involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi.

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: If he was in front of a jury he would be convicted in 30 minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Strong reactions there. You've said in the past you believe the administration gave MBS a pass here. Where do you stand today?

KING: Well, I saw Bob Corker yesterday afternoon and said, "Bob, I disagreed with his comments. I think it would only take the jury 20 minutes to convict.

It's very clear, and this isn't based upon the classified information. I did have the classified briefing from the CIA before Thanksgiving, as you've mentioned, but not based upon that, just based upon public- source information and what we know about how Saudi Arabia is being run these days.

There's no question that the crown prince was involved. This was not some kind of rogue operation. And the administration kept saying there wasn't -- there isn't a smoking gun; there's no direct evidence. I heard that a dozen times last week. That's not required. If there had to be a smoking gun, three quarters of the people in prison in the United States today would be walking free.

You make these decisions on the totality of the evidence, and in this case, I don't see how there can be any doubt that MBS was directly involved. We're not going to find an e-mail saying, "Don't forget the bone saw," but everything else points in that direction.

HILL: So with everything pointing in that direction. in your estimation, there is this bipartisan group, as we mentioned, of senators meeting today. You're trying to put together a deal here to punish the Saudis.

And I think we can put up some of what you're looking towards, obviously halting sales of arms. We're talking about limiting involvement in Yemen.

[07:20:00] The issue, though, being that even if this gets done, we know the House has said they can't really do anything right now, lame duck session. The White House is not going to support it.

So what can be done that will really send a clear message to the Saudis that you believe will make a real difference?

KING: Well, I think the -- the vote of the Senate last week, getting 63 votes on the intervention in Yemen issue, was a clear message. I think this resolution that's circulating now is a clear message. And people's minds can change.

I mean, the Senate would have been reluctant to do this two or three weeks ago, but now that the information is coming out. And I think members of the House may take a look at this and say, "We just can't sit still for this."

I think the administration got out early and too early, frankly, on this issue. And -- and the basic point here is you can rebuke an ally for improper action without breaching the entire relationship.

And I think that the administration is presenting it as either/or. Either we're an ally of Saudi Arabia or we -- we respond to this murder. I don't think it's that clear. I think there is an opportunity to do something serious, and I think that message is being received in Saudi Arabia right now, in spite of whether it passes or this president signs it. I think they have to be getting the message.

HILL: I also want to get your take on a story that is developing at this point. We're learning that the CFO of Huawei, who was picked up, obviously, while traveling through Canada. The markets already volatile, as we know. We're watching what's happening overnight here and especially in advance of markets opening here stateside.

First, I'm just curious your reaction. Again, we're still waiting to hear on the exact charges?

KING: Well, I don't know what the exact charges are, and so I really can't comment on that. But I think there are a couple of things to say.

One is this person who's being detained is not only a high-ranking official, but I believe, is related to the founder or somehow deeply involved in a family connection to this company.

Secondly, this is a company in China that makes, essentially, network equipment, among other things, and there's a grave concern in this country and Europe and other countries, that embedding Huawei equipment in our next generation of the 5G generation of cellular, for example, creates a really serious national security risk. I don't think this -- this detention has anything to do with that. But that's an overarching issue in the background and it's one that I believe we really have to take serious.

HILL: And you are correct there, because the CFO also, though, is in fact, the daughter of the founder of Huawei. Are you concerned at all about potential repercussions in China for U.S. business people?

KING: Well, you know, who knows. I think that's certainly a possibility. We're dealing with a regime that has absolute power over all levers of state power. And they may feel that they have to respond in some way.

Again, I think it's important to understand, which frankly I haven't heard yet, exactly why this action is being taken. I don't think it's to do with the national security issue that I just mentioned. I think it's something to do, for example, with Huawei breaching sanctions and going around sanctions on Iran, for example.

So I think we need to find out exactly what the charge is, but clearly, some kind of response in China is -- is absolutely possible. We certainly saw that in the tariff situation. We put on tariffs. They immediately put on tariffs in the opposite direction, one of which was on lobsters, by the way, which is a real problem in my state.

HILL: Definitely.

KING: So there's going to be some response in China, I suspect.

HILL: There is also, again, a lot to get to this morning, Senator, so we're sort of playing a quick -- a quick lightning round here.

But in terms of this filing involving Michael Flynn, as we know, a good amount of it was redacted, but we were able to read, of course, talked about the substantial help and -- in more than one investigation. What is your take on what we have learned in that filing?

KING: Well, you answered your own question in your emphasis on the word of "substantial." In prosecutor's speak, that means really significant, something that is very useful to the investigation, not just a minor add-on.

And I think one way to characterize this is, I realize there's a lot of talk about the presidential pardon and whether there would be a pardon. This is a signal from Robert Mueller that if you cooperate fully, in effect it's a pardon. They recommended no jail time for a serious offense of lying to the FBI.

So this is a signal that, if you cooperate, you will be treated fairly by the special counsel. And I've looked at those charging -- the memo that was submitted, and I would characterize it as more Swiss than cheese. There's so much redaction. It's very hard to tell. There are some major issues, it appears, that are redacted. But the key word is "substantial." [07:25:06] And it looks like here's somebody that was very much inside

the Trump campaign during the campaign, during the transition, that had, we know, connections or communications with Russia and the fact that he cooperated fully, I think, is very significant.

HILL: In your estimation, this is also a signal to any potential witnesses.

HILL: Senator Angus King, appreciate your time, as always. Thank you.

KING: Thank you. Please to be with you.

HILL: John.

BERMAN: A rare gathering of all the living presidents, for former President Bush's funeral. The frosty interactions that we all saw in that front pew as the current president, President Trump, joined his predecessors. We'll discuss that next.

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BERMAN: A final farewell for President George H.W. Bush. A ceremony at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, ahead of the 41st president's burial. This follows the moving state funeral in Washington where the president was eulogized by his son, the former President George W. Bush.

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BUSH: In his old age, Dad enjoyed watching police show reruns with the volume on high, all the while holding Mom's hand.