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Trump Legal Peril Grows as Prosecutors Flip Tabloid Prosecutor; Soon: Plea Hearing for Alleged Russian Spy; Pelosi Pledges to Limit Tenure as Speaker. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 13, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I would be extremely nervous. People around the president are going to prison.

[05:59:33] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a snake who betrayed the president, who secretly recorded his own client.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AMI would purchase the story, front the money that would be reimbursed.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Allen Weisselberg is now cooperating.

Nobody knows where the money has gone better than he does.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am hopeful that Michael Cohen will have that moment to tell the American people what he knows about Donald Trump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, December 13, 6 a.m. here in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill with me this morning.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: It's nice to be back.

BERMAN: Nice to see you. Thanks very much.

So this morning, the president is in legal jeopardy. That is what you will hear from lawyers on this broadcast today. In just the last 24 hours, the president's situation has changed, perhaps considerably, and it's all thanks to "The National Enquirer."

This is different. For the first time, federal prosecutors are telling us that AMI, the publisher of "The Enquirer," has effectively flipped on President Trump. In a deal with federal prosecutors, the tabloid admitted to making a $150,000 payment to silence a "Playboy" Playmate's claim of an affair with Donald Trump.

And the legal language here is crystal-clear. AMI says they did it "in cooperation, consultation and concert with and at the request and suggestion of one or more members or agents of a candidate's 2016 presidential campaign to ensure that a woman did not publicize damaging allegations about that candidate before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence the election." It is all there in black and white. So who knows what else the company has or will tell prosecutors?

This comes after the president's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison after campaign finance crimes and other felonies. Cohen told the court he felt it was his duty to cover up the president's dirty deeds.

HILL: CNN meantime, has also learned both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees are looking to talk to Cohen again. And Cohen, for his part, appears willing to tell his story before he goes to prison.

President Trump has been publicly silent on the Cohen sentence, but privately he's said to be seething. We're told the president had just three words to say about Cohen: "He's a liar."

After the sentencing, the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, though, had more to say about the Russia investigation, telling Yahoo! News: "Our strategy is to do everything we can to try to convince Mueller to wrap the damn thing up, and if he's got anything, show us."

But here are the facts on what Mueller has done so far, because the numbers tell a tale. Four people sentenced to prison; seven people with guilty pleas; 36 people or entities charged; one person, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, convicted at trial; and 192 criminal counts filed overall.

BERMAN: That seems like a lot.

HILL: Numbers.

BERMAN: Leaves us a lot to discuss.

Joining us, we have legal analysts Jennifer Rogers, Elie Honig. We've got global affairs analyst Max Boot and CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

So I laid out there what I think is so remarkable today. I think this is all of a sudden different for President Trump because of this deal with AMI, the publisher of "The National Enquirer."

Jennifer, you know deals like this are usually done if you want to stop some bad behavior from a company, keep the company from doing it again. Well, it's not like "The Enquirer" has got a -- you know, a chest of presidential candidates that it's going to help for perpetuity. That's not what this is about. You say this is about perhaps charging other people with crimes?

JENNIFER ROGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's exactly right, John. I mean, they're kind of bringing the circle closer. They're looking to either charge or turn into witnesses everyone who has culpability in these offenses. So AMI, of course, is on the witness side, with Pecker, Weisselberg. The target side has Michael Cohen and so far unnamed others on both the Stormy Daniels payment. We know in that case there were people on the Trump Organization who were covering up with the false retainer to Michael Cohen, and then, on the AMI side, we now know there were people in the campaign who were involved in this, as well. So there are people who are going to be charged here. The question is, you know, is the president among them.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, people within the Trump Organization and people within the Trump campaign, you see signs both might be in jeopardy.

ROGERS: I do.

HILL: And Elie, you pointed out, too, as you look at all of this, specifically, this AMI deal, you've said if we weren't talking about the president here, things would be much different this morning. But the wagons are still being circled.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. Look, I say this as a proud Southern District alumni, but you can see the Southern District sharks are circling, and there's chum in the water.

And you can almost do it by process of elimination. Look at who's already become a witness or who's already been convicted. Cohen convicted, still cooperating, according to his attorneys. Weisselberg immunized. Pecker immunized. Now you have AMI immunized, with those stipulations directly implicating the organization.

I think the two people who I'm most interested to see what happens to are Executive 2, if you think back to Cohen's plea, the paragraph 38, where they talk about Executive 2 is a high-ranking person in the Trump Organization who authorized the payment. That person, whoever that is -- there's speculation it may be Donald Trump Jr. -- that person needs to be very worried. And then the president, of course, there are special rules for the president, whether you can indict the president or not. If that wasn't the case, I think he'd be in the soup.

But there is a special rule at DOJ, and we'll have to see whether the Southern District abides by that or takes it to court and challenges it.

[06:05:06] BERMAN: John Avlon, we've been looking at everything happening this week, Michael Cohen and whatnot, and saying there's a Shakespearean aspect to it. I'm not so sure if, you know, Shakespeare is the right way to look at it now any more that "The Enquirer" is involved. It's like Harlequin romance. Or, you know, literally trashy supermarket fare.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, there's a certain poetic justice. You know, first this tragedy then, as far as get a picture of not just a candidate deeply in bed with the supermarket tabloid.

But a campaign that really wasn't ready to run someone for president at this level. There's a Keystone Kops. They're covering up Playboy Playmates offering to give somebody a fitness column. But it's more sinister than the silliness of it all.

Because what you have here is a media organization, AMI, which has great reach across the country, acting functionally as a front organization for a presidential candidate and campaign. This goes way beyond what we normally see as partisan media. This is actually a form of collusion.

And they've got a safe full of secrets, literally, physically, allegedly, in their office, full of documents that were incriminating and a relationship that goes back decades between David Pecker and Donald Trump. But they were covering for this candidate in a way that goes way beyond ideological affinity. It goes to criminality and campaign finance allegations.

And this agreement means they're going to be available to talk a lot more. And you've got to imagine Dave Pecker knows a lot more. So yes, the president has a Pecker problem.

BERMAN: As we've said, a big Pecker problem this morning. And you know --

AVLON: Had to go there. It's a longstanding thing.

HILL: It's only 6:06, by the way. I feel like they were restrained, Max.

BERMAN: This is legal discussion. This is a legal discussion.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Very high-level.

HILL: Indeed it is. In terms of discussion, you have said before, and I think it was right after the Cohen plea agreement back in whatever it was -- I think it was in August -- you wrote --

BOOT: A lifetime ago.

HILL: -- it does seem like a lifetime, but listen, Tuesday feels like a lifetime ago; and it's only Thursday. You had said at that point, this makes Donald Trump an illegitimate president. But you're saying now you think the DOJ is saying that.

BOOT: Absolutely. I mean, if you read the sentencing memo that was issued by the Southern District of New York, they were talking about the gravity of this offense that Michael Cohen committed on behalf of Individual 1, a.k.a the president of the United States and that this goes to the very sanctity of our political process, that this is information that the voters needed to have and that they kept away from the voters, via the process of fraud.

So yes, I think there is no question that the president's legitimacy is called into doubt, because essentially, he committed a fraud on the people of the United States in order to win this election.

And it wasn't -- it wasn't just the fact that he was hiding his affairs with the "Playboy" Playmate and the porn star. There was a lot of other stuff that he was hiding, like the fact that he is pursuing this real-estate deal in Moscow, even as he was clinching the Republican presidential nomination.

And imagine if we had known that the Trump high command on June 16th of 2016 was meeting with a representative of the Kremlin offering dirt of Hillary Clinton right before WikiLeaks, which is a Russian front operation, actually started leaking dirt on Hillary Clinton.

I mean, do you think that Donald Trump would have won? He barely won anyway. It was only 80,000 votes in three states. And so this is a president who has acquired office, essentially, by fraud and is now keeping office because of the immunity that his office confers upon him.

BERMAN: We don't know whether he would have won. We know he did win. We do know, as you say, at least as it pertains to the women here, there was an aggressive campaign to keep it from the American people, so they didn't know.

On the legality of it all, again, what the AMI, I think, does is, I think, blow some holes in the argument that the president and his team have been making. They've been using the John Edwards defense here.

John Edwards was acquitted on one charge, and there was a hung jury on many others for campaign finance charges against him. And the discussion was his defense was that "I didn't do it to win the election. I did it because I didn't want my wife to know."

Well, here in black and white, the Southern District has AMI saying nothing about Melania Trump, everything about the campaign. They're saying this was to win an election, Jennifer.

ROGERS: That's right. And the law is not that it has to be exclusively about the election. The law is it has to be, primarily, about the election. So he can have been worried about his wife being angry and people knowing about this, and it might embarrass him and his family. It can be; it's just that it has to primarily be about the election.

And that's clearly where Southern District is going with the language in the AMI agreement. And even Michael Cohen said, you know, it was about both. So they're clearly getting all of that lined up.

And another point, you know, this issue is a question of fact for the jury. This got all the way to the jury in the John Edwards case, and ultimately, the jury didn't believe that it was about the election. They thought it was about his family. You know, he's trying to trot that out now. That's an issue for way down the road. You know, only if he gets into court. Not something that could be kicked out by a judge in advance of the case.

AVLON: So many different layers of irony. First of all, the John Edwards story was broken by "The "National Enquirer," where they were actually, you know, doing reporting, not acting as a front for a candidate. [06:10:07] Second of all, you see Republicans trotting out the Bill Clinton era defense: "Well, everybody lies about sex, and you know, he just wanted to protect his family." This really does blow that argument out of the water beyond the sheer sort of hypocrisy of it.

HILL: It's fascinating to me. As we look at it, though, the other thing that's really interesting is we're not hearing very much from the president this time around.

You know, there was some talk after the sentencing yesterday, and that was just after the sentencing in the few moments we had before we learned about this AMI agreement, that it actually happened back in September, but we learned about it yesterday.

There was all this talk about what are we going to hear from the president. And we didn't hear anything for the president. We did heard from Rudy Giuliani, obviously, who was out there. He's said to be seething behind closed doors.

But it's fascinating, Max, that we are not hearing from him. And perhaps this means that the president is listening, maybe, to folks who are saying this is not the right time to speak out.

BOOT: Well, I think we've seen the pattern with this president that he can listen to that kind of advice for maybe half a day at most and then you're going to have a Twitter eruption. And probably you'll have more lies about the lies, right? I mean, that's his pattern. He just lies and obfuscates and lashes out and so forth.

And at the end of the day, I think for the president what it really comes down to is not necessarily making a credible legal case. What he's trying to do is provide enough political cover so that 34 Republicans in the Senate will stick with him and not support an impeachment motion against him. And so far he definitely has that. I mean, I've been -- I've been shocked and dismayed at the extent to which people like Orrin Hatch, who voted to impeach Bill Clinton, are now saying they don't care about these charges.

BERMAN: He's clearly got that support right now among Republicans, and we're going to have Rick Santorum on. And one of the questions I'm going to ask him is, is there anything that could change that? Is there anything that would budge you or Republicans in Congress away from the defense where you've had right now? I don't know that there is. I'm not sure there is at this point, but we'll see.

I also think one reason we may not have heard from the president over the last 24 hours is the AMI revelation so complicates --

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: -- what he's been saying over the last 48 hours. I think it refutes almost all the specific points that he's been tweeting about.

One other relevation [SIC] -- revelation, Elie, is that Michael Cohen might very well speak to Congress again soon. We know from Democratic members of Congress they want him back on Capitol Hill. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, says he wants him back up testifying again. And Cohen says he will.

So what's the impact there?

HONIG: It could be good. Look, yesterday was not the last we'll hear from Michael Cohen. He has made clear through his lawyers he's ready, willing and eager to tell everything he knows to the prosecutors, to Congress. And he knows a lot.

Obviously, he's right in the heart of the campaign finance thing we've been talking about, but let's not lose sight of all the other things that Michael Cohen has pled guilty to and implicated others in. The false testimony to Congress about the Moscow project. That's going to go right to the heart of the corruption case.

The big question there is: Who else was involved in that testimony? And if you'll remember, the documents that were filed on Michael Cohen, there was indications that he ran that false testimony by high- ranking people in the White House and consulted with people. Anyone else who was in on that is going to have a lot to answer for. So Michael Cohen has an awful lot of incentive to continue cooperating.

And the other thing I just want to point out: He was sentenced to three years yesterday. That's hard time behind jail. Federal system, you are doing 85 percent of that time, no matter what. I don't know that he can bear that.

And he now has an incentive. There is a procedure called Rule 35. The prosecutor can go back to the judge and say, "He's given us extraordinary cooperation, and we ask for a little less time for him." He may be auditioning between now and March, when he has to surrender, for that extra relief. So he's heavily incentivized to tell everything he knows now.

BERMAN: I want to point out one other thing. Both Elie and Jennifer here said that Michael Cohen would get three years.

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: And you were exactly right about that, so congratulations. We'll see how right you continue to be --

HONIG: You win the sweepstakes.

BERMAN: -- in our next segment.

HILL: Our next segment is called pick the Powerball numbers. It's going to be --

HONIG: That's called -- that's called a lucky guess.

BERMAN: All right. We have much more with Elie and Jennifer being right about stuff coming up next.

Plus, Nancy Pelosi, she seems to have secured her position to be the next speaker of the House. What deal did she cut? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:42] HILL: In keeping with the holiday spirit, John, you have called it the 12 days of Mueller.

BERMAN: Only because I love turtle doves.

HILL: Listen, who doesn't? And a partridge in a pear tree goes a long way.

But seemingly every day, there is a new little bit of information on the Russia probe and the cases connected to it. Today, of course, is no different. Accused Russian spy Maria Butina is expected to change her plea in a D.C. federal court, cooperating with the U.S. government; and then tomorrow, prosecutors will make a new filing on Michael Flynn's sentencing, and arguments begin in a mystery grand jury case.

So back with us, Jennifer Rogers, Max Boot, John Avlon, Elie Honig.

When we look at what's happening, what's coming up today at 10:30, this is a big change from the "not guilty" to now. She is expected, Maria Butina, expected to plead guilty on these two counts. And we could learn a little bit more about not only what is known but what she may know about it.

HONIG: It's so interesting. Because when someone cooperates, you get to open the book and learn everything they know.

She is 30 years old from Siberia and comes to the United States as a grad student in Washington, D.C., and forges all these connections with the NRA. And it looks like the strategy here was to use the NRA as a vehicle to influence American politicians. The charge that she faces is being an unregistered foreign agent. That's the technical agent. But really, what it means is being a Russian spy on American soil. The question is, is this something bigger? Who is involved in this? Who did you manage to get through to? So this could be interesting.

AVLON: And what the role as the long-time boyfriend, who she's been checked up with, who's been a political operative; ran Pat Buchanan's campaign going back in the day. And the overall influence operation through the NRA is really, striking, given the role NRA has played in polarizing American politics, the fact that they seem to have been consciously infiltrated by Russians looking to forge connections between the right wing and the Kremlin, is just a fascinating plot twist with huge historical reverberations, as well as this particularly election.

BERMAN: And look, for me, as each day in these 12 days of Mueller passes, it's what we learn that we didn't expect --

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: -- that I think is so stunning. Yesterday, it was the AMI.

HILL: Yes. BERMAN: It was the Enquirer revelation.

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: We didn't see that coming. We didn't know that.

HILL: No.

BERMAN: We thought we were getting a Michael Cohen sentencing. Today, we have Butina. We have more Flynn stuff. We have this mystery hearing.

Each day that passes, Jennifer, more and more comes to light.

ROGERS: That's true. I mean, we knew that there was going to be a break before the midterms, right? And so I think they'd been busy working away while we were all paying attention to the election. And we knew things were going to start to drop once the election was over. And that's what we've seen now, the fruits of the last few months while they've kept quiet, all of these things coming out.

And they have pieces still to wrap up. There's the whole Roger Stone piece. You know, he and his associates, particularly, have not been cooperative, so they've been in litigation over subpoenas and the like. That whole side of the case has yet to be wrapped up. So we're going to see that coming soon. So you're right. It's just something new every day.

HILL: And it makes -- you can go down so many -- so many pathways here because they are -- they are also so good, of course, at keeping everything close to the vest. I mean, we learn things from filings and what have you.

But -- but, Max, as we look at this, and we have Rudy Giuliani saying, you know, "It's time to show us what you've got. Wrap the damn thing up," saying yesterday, when you look at what's coming out of it and even these, you know, 12 days of Mueller that we've launched into now, what does that say to you in terms of how much more there could be here?

BOOT: I think we have to assume there's an awful lot more. I think we're only looking at the tip of the iceberg, because Mueller has developed so much new information, as these court filings have come out. And obviously, he's flipped a lot of important people, including Michael Cohen.

I thought one of the most interesting things relating to the Michael Cohen sentencing and something that Donald Trump needs to be very concerned about is that the special counsel's office said that "Michael Cohen has provided our office with credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation and within the purview of the special counsel's office."

Now, Donald Trump has to be very nervous hearing that kind of thing, and that's -- you know, there's a lot of stuff still to come out about the collusion, I think, but also about his lies and about the fact that he was open to blackmail from Russia because of this relationship which he would not publicly acknowledge.

And also, finally, because of obstruction of justice. And don't forget obstruction of justice, which I think is actually the easiest thing to prove, the easiest offense to prove on the part of the president.

AVLON: That hasn't discussed at all over the last few weeks with any of these filings.

I want to shift gears, if I can, to look at the other side of the aisle. Nancy Pelosi, who now -- I think we can safely say, will be the next speaker of the House. She has -- they have announced this deal with some of the dissident Democrats, which essentially creates a time term limit situation on her. She's going to get time served for speakers. Two terms, plus one. She's committing to serve no more than four years as speaker of the House.

I'm not surprised that she's figured out a way to get this. I'm a little surprised by how much dealing she had to do, John, to get there. It's not just the term limits, but she had to make side deals with Marcia Fudge, and Steven Lynch of Massachusetts, you know, and the guy from Buffalo. I mean, she's had to go almost member by member and give a little something to secure this vote.

BERMAN: But it's extraordinary. We all know Nancy Pelosi has been turned into a very polarizing figure in American politics over a period of decades. And her own caucus has raised concerns.

But she has picked off one by one a lot of these folks who were threatening to oppose her or challenge her. All fell into the fold over the last few weeks.

And this deal, considering that Nancy Pelosi and the other leading Democrats, Clyburn and Hoyer, are all in their late 70s, actually makes a bit of practical sense. It fulfills her commitment to be sort of a bridge to a new generation. It would theoretically get her through now just the last two years of the first term of Trump, but if there's a Democrat, the first two years of Democratic office. Obviously, that's TBD. And it would kick in and she'd leave the speakership when she's 83.

So I think it actually speaks to her ability to not only corral her caucus, but she's much more skilled at managing her caucus and as a parliamentary maneuver than I think she's usually given on main street America. We saw that even in the Oval Office meeting, I think, yesterday when she really was the only one who came out looking good toe-to-toe, insisting on an evidence-based debate while everybody around them were losing their heads. So I think this is a deal that makes sense for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

BOOT: And I think that there's a certain licking of chops which is going on in the White House and among Republicans thinking that, "Oh, you know, we'd love to have Nancy Pelosi to kick around." And they have certainly kicked her around and done a pretty good job of attacking her. But I think that they may be in for more than they bargained for. And

I think you saw that in the Oval Office meeting, where she went toe to toe with Trump and acquitted herself very effectively. And I think she's said and done the right things, for example, saying that they're going to hold off on impeachment proceedings until they can get some Republicans onboard. So I think she's actually a very shrewd and tough adversary, so I don't think that President Trump ought to be rejoicing to see Nancy Pelosi in the speaker's chair.

BERMAN: All right, friends. Covered a lot of ground this morning, and I've got to say, it's just the beginning. So thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

HILL: Just ahead, we have breaking news on a high-speed train crash in Turkey. We'll tell you more about what we know about this deadly accident. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Breaking news. At least nine people are dead, dozens more hurt in a head-on train crash in Turkey. State-run news media reporting the train collided with a maintenance vehicle at a station in Ankara, causing part of a bridge to collapse on two of the train's carriages.

Three employees have been detained as investigators look into the cause of the crash.

BERMAN: British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a major leadership test from her own Conservative Party, but her troubles are far from over. The prime minister heads to Brussels for the second time this week in an effort to renegotiate Britain's exit from the European Union.

CNN's Nic Robertson live outside Parliament in London. Nic, the no- confidence vote, she got past that, but there's more.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: There's a lot more to come, and the no-confidence vote has really exposed the deep divisions within her party. A third of her MPs don't support her position.

So what has she gone to Brussels to try to get today? She said it's reassurances, legal and political reassurances on the biggest hurdle for her in the Brexit deal.