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Analysts Examine Multiple Investigations by Multiple Entities into President Trump and Related Organizations; President Trump Appoints Mick Mulvaney as Acting White House Chief of Staff. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired December 17, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- all under a legal microscope. So, how is the president responding this morning? Name calling and lies. He called his former attorney, his fixer, his right-hand man, Michael Cohen, a rat. And despite the fact that the FBI obtained a search warrant from a judge and had to show probable cause to search Cohen's office, the president is falsely claiming -- it's a lie -- and saying they broke in.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, I was settling in for a longer read.

BERMAN: It's a short reading. A lot of the readings are short.

CAMEROTA: I understand now. I'm not going to get that comfortable.

Meanwhile, two new reports prepared for the Senate reveal how Russia used every single major social network to get Donald Trump elected, and the Senate intelligence committee is being told that firms like Facebook and Twitter provided their investigators with just, quote, the bare minimum amount of data, end quote. On top of all of that, a decision that could impact nearly every American, a federal judge in Texas striking down the Affordable Care Act. So what is next?

BERMAN: Joining us now, David Gregory, Josh Campbell, Abby Phillip. Friends, let me just give you a sense of the number of organizations and entities being investigated right now. The U.S. attorney's office for the southern district, the SDNY, is investigating the Trump Organization, the Trump Inaugural Committee. Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel, is investigating the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, the Trump administration. New York State is investigating the Trump Foundation. We've got the New York attorney general's office, the Maryland attorney general's office, New Jersey, SDNY, all investigating. And this leaves out, by the way, Congress, a Democratic Congress, Democratic House, which will take over in a few weeks, David. They will be investigating as well. That's a lot of investigations.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's a huge amount of investigations. It's so destabilizing. And for an administration that is already rocking back and forth because of a president who responds to every piece of this and seems to be destabilized by it, it doesn't look to be a great 2019 for the west wing and for the president. And those congressional investigations will be so public. And the president has already said if Democrats take him on, he will find a way to investigate him using the Senate. They won't get anything done.

So here is the impasse coming up this week over funding the government, the president forcing a showdown over funding a border wall in particular, saying he'll shut down the government, he'll take responsibility for it. I think we could see a lot of this in 2019.

And I think it bears repeating -- something Jeff Toobin said at 7:00, the Mueller investigation has been a vault. We have tried to learn what we can from it, based on disclosures, based on filings. We still don't know what it is he has. Congressional investigations from all different directions into Trump finances, business, and his conduct in the White House will be something that's very public that the president will respond to.

BERMAN: Yes. No House committee is a vault. It's like the anti- vault. It will absolutely be public in something --

CAMEROTA: It's a steel sieve. But, Abby, obviously, we can't read the president's mind, but Twitter gives us a window into how he's feeling and what he's focused on. And he is very angry that the FBI was doing their job by looking into Michael Cohen when they had suspected illegal activity.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. The president has been aware for some time that the Michael Cohen raid was basically a pandora's box for the problems that he is now about to face over the next several months. That's why when that raid happened, the week that the president was exceptionally agitated. Our sources told us he was very upset. He came out publicly and said so. He kept calling it an illegal raid, breaking into Michael Cohen's office, even though Michael Cohen himself said that the officers were pleasant and professional as they came in to execute on their warrant.

And so President Trump has known for some time that Michael Cohen has the keys to a lot of problems that he's going to face when it comes to his business, when it comes to his personal life, when it comes to the campaign, the transition and the inauguration. These are all -- all these investigations -- some of these investigations we've heard more about, particularly this inaugural committee investigation, most of this is coming from the fact that Michael Cohen had access to documents, to recordings, to other hard evidence, not just his word, that will put the president in some serious trouble here legally.

And the problem for president Trump is that while he has taken a public relations approach to dealing with these problems the last year or two, that is not going to continue to fly now that we have so many investigations in so many different jurisdictions and real legal issues at hand. This is not just where the public sees these problems. This is also about people actually going to prison as we've now seen. And I think the president is still not quite there yet in terms of understanding that that's what's at stake here, not just his ability to spin the narrative on Twitter or on television.

[08:05:08] BERMAN: And Josh Campbell, this statement that the president made, calling Michael Cohen a rat and lying about how FBI agents entered his office when they searched it, in all the time that we've known, just admittedly a few months, you seem like a pretty calm, mild-mannered guy. This is something that you find deeply upsetting.

JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO FBI DIRECTOR COMEY: It is. I find it upsetting. My former colleagues in the FBI find it upsetting. My phone was blowing up yesterday as it has been for much of the last year. Every time the president has taken this political attack, this political campaign to undermine the FBI, to undermine law enforcement, they're frustrated. They're angry. They see it for what it is, a campaign to undermine law enforcement for the sole purpose of attempting to discredit whatever Robert Mueller is going to find or Congressional investigators or the litany of investigations now that you've talked about.

The issue is here we have a president of the United States who is speaking like a mob boss. And we have to call it for what it is. No one is comfortable saying that. This is the highest office of the land that we respect, but he's speaking like a mob boss. We've come a long way in calling out his lies. It used to be uncomfortable to call it a lie. We called it a half-truth or a misstatement or a falsehood. These are lies.

And now he's talking like a mob boss. He is using the same language that people have used throughout history to attack law enforcement, to try to protect themselves. And these were not innocent people, but he's using these same tactics.

I think long term, and again, this really pains me to say this, people talk about what the end goal is here. Robert Mueller may come up with something, there may be some type of legal issue that the president faces at the end. There may be some type of impeachment issue politically. In the middle we have to understand that the president of the United States has violated his oath of office. And the reason I say this is because when he raised his hand, he swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, the document on which everything else rests in our society. He's undermining the rule of law. That should trouble every single American whether you're Republican, Democrat, independent.

CAMEROTA: Jim Comey said as much. As we know, he was fired from the FBI. He says this, "from the president of our country lying about the lawful execution of a search warrant issued by a federal judge. Shame on Republicans who don't speak up at this moment for the FBI, the rule of law, and the truth."

And then David, there happens to be a poll out by "Wall Street Journal"/NBC News about some of this, about whether or not Americans believe that the president is being truthful about Russia -- 62 percent now do not believe he is being truthful. That's up from August when it was 56 percent. Only 34 percent say that he is. But I'm not sure what that matters. Again, the election is not today. Who knows if this even would even sway the election. This is just a snapshot that he's losing people, people are finding him less credible on matters of Russia and the investigations. GREGORY: Well, I would be interested to see how that breaks down

among Republicans and Democrats because where the president has been effective, unfortunately, is persuading his most ardent supporters that the rules are rigged, that somehow the system is rigged against him. It is not. And those professionals who he has put in to the highest levels of law enforcement, Chris Wray among them, know that it's not. They're doing their jobs.

And so I agree that the president says things that undermines the rule of law, that undermines democratic institutions. But those institutions are standing strong. Law enforcement is standing strong, investigating potential crimes and seeing where that evidence takes them. The search warrant that was executed against Michael Cohen was perfectly lawful. He knew it. Everyone involved knew it. And now Michael Cohen is someone who has been pressured to tell the truth about what he knows about Donald Trump.

So the reality is that this president is under scrutiny for so many different things, including his role as a businessman and his financial relationships around the world that may be compromising his work as president of the United States. It's a very serious set of allegations. No wonder he's feeling so much pressure as a result of that.

CAMPBELL: Can I jump in real quick? So David, the only thing I would disagree with there is with respect to how the public is viewing this. We've seen numbers for the FBI tank. Confidence down some 51 percent of the American people have confidence in the FBI. You look 2014, Gallup had that in the 70s.

GREGORY: Jim Comey has a lot to do with that.

CAMPBELL: Let me finish.

GREGORY: Jim Comey intervened in a way --

CAMPBELL: Let me finish, if I can. What I'm saying is that this narrative that somehow the FBI is corrupt, or they're out to get the president, these people who swear an oath to protect the rule of law, it is taking hold and the narrative is taking hold.

I agree, law enforcement is not perfect. We call them out. There were decisions made in 2016 that we have to hold people accountable for. But this constant narrative that the FBI is corrupt, that law enforcement is out to get the president and he's the victim of some rogue, out-of-control government, it is taking hold based on the numbers that we've seen.

And the last point there, this will have long term consequences for American public safety, because if an FBI agent stands in someone's doorway and asks them for help, and they even think for a second I'm not going to help these people, I know they're corrupt, that's not going to hurt American public safety in the long term.

[08:10:12] GREGORY: I don't disagree with that in terms of what the president is doing. Unfortunately, Jim Comey has to own a lot of that, too, in terms of his conduct in the Clinton e-mail investigation, the way he inserted himself into the political process. But I think the FBI, its tremendous record is able to withstand that and overcome this period of time.

BERMAN: If I can change the subject for a moment, I'm of the belief that nothing is pure coincidence in politics, especially with Rudy Giuliani, who was a lawyer but also a long-time politician. He spent a lot of time talking, saying words out loud on Sunday morning shows. And I was struck by a few of the things he said, and I'm curious why he was saying them now. So, Abby, he said among other things that collusion is not a crime. He said that if Roger Stone or anybody gave a heads up about Wikileaks, that's not a crime. And he noted when pressed about why the president's changed his story so many times on Stormy Daniels, stories that contradict each other, so, clearly, some are lies, he said the president is not under oath.

This looks like, and in fact is, to an extent, dumbing down the standards by which we judge the president, Abby. I'm curious about why now, why this week? Does Giuliani, does the White House think something is coming? Do they think that there's going to be evidence presented to the effect of these claims that he just laid out?

PHILLIP: Yes, pretty textbook example of moving the goal post. But whether or not it's because he knows something is coming, that's entirely possible. But it also isn't the first time that he has done that. Remember when they used to talk about contacts with Russia? That used to be the metric by which we were trying to gauge whether there might be any there there. And then all of a sudden the Trump Tower meeting happened, and then all of a sudden contacts with Russia became no longer a problem for the president's attorneys. So this moving of the goal posts is something that's been going on for quite some time.

But what's extraordinary is that the president's no collusion narrative has now become, well, even if there was collusion, collusion isn't even a crime. Collusion isn't even something that's even a problem. Look, this is a public relations battle that Rudy Giuliani is trying to wage in terms of trying to undermine anything that might come out that might make the situation look worse for this president.

The difference, though, is what Giuliani says and what the actual law says, what the court of law might find or what Congress might find are completely different things. And I think that you have to keep that in mind. But he's trying, clearly, there to basically change the rules of the road here in terms of what we've been talking about for many, many years. It will be interesting, though, to see whether President Trump suddenly drops the no collusion moniker that he has been using for months and months on Twitter. If that goes away for President Trump it's not clear to me what else is left. How on earth can we judge what collusion is if suddenly it doesn't exist, if suddenly cooperating with a foreign government to influence an election is no longer something that we think is either illegal or at least completely unethical.

CAMEROTA: David, very quickly in our few waning seconds, Mick Mulvaney is now acting chief of staff and head of craft services in the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: He has a lot of jobs. He's obviously a very capable guy. And how long do we think this will last? It's supposed to be acting, but there's no end date.

GREGORY: What a hard job. You have somebody in the White House who is the president who is such a gut player, who really calls all the plays, and yet you have to have a chief of staff who can hold it all together, who is on record saying he thinks he's a horrible person going back to the campaign. Presumably, he will overcome that.

I think the difficulty is if the president had so much respect for top military men like John Kelly, with whom he had such a difficult time getting along, I think it's long odds that Mulvaney can do well. They seemingly do fit together pretty well, but that will be tested by everything we've talked about that's unfolding in the new year that's going to stress this president a great deal.

BERMAN: I just love the idea of green mashed potatoes, of Mick Mulvaney putting out a tray of the green mashed potatoes.

CAMEROTA: He seems to do a lot of things.

BERMAN: I get it, I get it. I'm hungry now. All right, Josh, Abby, David, thank you all very much. Great to have you hear with us this morning.

CAMEROTA: Lawmakers ready to cross President Trump's red line. What do they want to know about his finances? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: There could be more legal woes for President Trump in the new year. Congressman Adam Schiff who is expected to become the new Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says he plans to dig into the President's finances.

CNN's Jeffrey Toobin spoke with Schiff for a "New Yorker" magazine profile and he writes quote, "Schiff talked about his plans for conducting an investigation that will be parallel to Mueller's, probing Trump's connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia and the other places around the world. As Schiff described his approach, it became clear that he was not just planning to cross Trump's red line, he intended to obliterate it."

Joining us now is Jeffrey Toobin, and David Cay Johnston, an investigative reporter and author of "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What The Trump Administration Is Doing To America."

Great to have both of you here. Jeffrey, so Adam Schiff, he is not paying attention to the red line? We can take away from this.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST, CNN: Absolutely. And you know, he has got a very specific reason he says. He says, "Look, we are interested in compromises," you know risks to America's intelligence and national security position. And if the President has financial interests in Russia, with Saudi Arabia that skew how he governs, that's something we need to look into.

And, specifically, he wants to know, is Deutsch Bank, which has been fined for its Russian money laundering operation engaged in conduct or have they engaged in conduct with the President and the President's family that is compromising to American national security interests.

CAMEROTA: Here are the things we've gleaned from your article.

[08:20:09]

CAMEROTA: Correct us, if we're wrong, that he wants to look at the - as you say, the possible Trump organization, money-laundering through Deutsche Bank. Records from 1990s - he also has told us on air that he is very interested in whoever that blocked number was that Don, Jr. called after the meeting with Russians in Trump Tower and he also wants to release transcripts to the public from conducted interviews.

David, you have been investigating Donald Trump for many years. What do you think Adam Schiff is going to find?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER AND AUTHOR: Well, the tax returns are the beginning point to look at Trump's connections and in addition to the - and then you need the books and records behind them. But in addition to that, their wire transfers are all searchable - every single transaction where Saudi money, Russian money, any other dubious transactions took place, those are can all be found and identified and they have at least partial cooperation from Allen Weisselberg who has been executing the Trump financial actions for decades.

So I anticipate they're not going to have a great deal of difficulty, they just have a lot of work to do to uncover what money flowed where, when, and what obligations are known. And Alisyn, don't forget the Donald Trump said in the summer of 2015 that the disclosure forms from what we have seen are not designed for a man of Mr. Trump's great wealth. Well, they're not and there may be a lot of things he was not legally required to disclose that will be very disturbing to the American public when they come out.

CAMEROTA: And Jeffrey, I mean, I guess the question for Adam Schiff is to what end? Right? So while he now is you know, in control of the Investigative arm of the House Intel, the Senate is still in Republican hands. And so does he fear that the American public has some sort of investigation fatigue that he could run up against?

TOOBIN: You know, I think it's funny to think about fatigue before they've even done anything.

CAMEROTA: Well, but you know that we have been admired in lots of investigations up until now.

TOOBIN: Well, that's true, but there have been no congressional investigations of this White House, and look, I mean, let's think about something very specific. Here you have an American relationship with Saudi Arabia where you have many people in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, say you know, given the apparent involvement of the leadership in the murder of the American journalist - the American resident journalist in Turkey, why is Donald Trump so solicitous of Saudi Arabia?

One explanation might be is that he's making money in Saudi Arabia. That is something that Schiff is going to look into. I don't know what he's going to find. But that, to me, is a very contemporary example of what is going on today that is worth finding out.

CAMEROTA: Right, of course, but - so Schiff is just going to shine a light on all of this. But he is not concerned that - I mean, look, there is a feeling I don't have to tell you that sometimes there's overreach when, you know, parts of Congress want to investigate a President and did he discuss that at all?

TOOBIN: Right, I think he - they are very aware of the multiple committees that are interested in getting involved and David mentioned the tax returns. That is very much the province of the Ways and Means Committee. And that's going to be up to the Ways and Means Committee.

You also have Elijah Cummings' Oversight Committee and Jerry Nadler's judiciary committee. They are - and you have for example, Michael Cohen, who is of interest to all these committees. They're going to have to parcel out these investigations and not be duplicative but you're right, I mean, it is a concern, but it does seem sort of amusing to worry about overreach and overkill before they've done a single thing.

CAMEROTA: David, listen, I think that you have recommended the adage of follow the money and so is that what you believe the revelations that will come in the next two years, do you think that the revelation will be that this was - that we will see some greed and we will see financial connections, possibly more than collusion?

JOHNSTON: Well, remember, collusion is just another word for conspiracy, which is a crime. We're going to absolutely see that Donald has done things that are illegal. Remember, this is a man whose own tax lawyer, when Donald had one of his trials for - civil trials for income tax fraud testified, "That's my signature, but neither I nor my firm prepared that tax return."

Somebody who will go that far in committing fraud is undoubtedly going to be uncovered by these investigations, has committed other bad acts. But I think Jeffrey raised a very important point. I think the four key Democratic House Committees have to be strategic. They have to come up with solid stuff, and if they get running down rabbit holes or pursuing ephemeral things, the public will turn on them about that. There's plenty of substance here for them to go at and all they have to do is be smart, solid and keep revealing ...

[08:25:10]

JOHNSTON: important and stunning new facts.

CAMEROTA: Do you --

TOOBIN: You know, I interviewed Nancy Pelosi for this "New Yorker" story and she was making very much the same point as David, and giving a bit of a warning to her Committee Chairman saying, you've got to go with your best stuff. You have got to have substance. You can't investigate everything. That's one thing she said. You can't investigate - you know, I don't think they're going to be caring about Ivanka Trump's phone records.

CAMEROTA: E-mails?

TOOBIN: Or her e-mails. I mean, that stuff is embarrassing, but that's not the core of their jurisdiction. So I think that that message has been heard. We'll see whether they can act on it.

CAMEROTA: David, in the next year, will the public see Donald Trump's tax returns?

JOHNSTON: I don't know if it will be within a year, but yes, we're going to eventually see his tax returns. There's a law that absolutely says the IRS shall turn those tax returns over, but by themselves, it's going to require a lot more work to understand them.

One thing to watch for is what happened to all the money from the Inaugural Committee, particularly the $26 million paid for five weeks of work to the friend of Melania Trump? That's just tremendous amount of money. Where did it go? Who did it end up with? My guess is they will try and track down that money. I, for a long time have said we need an audit of what happened to those proceeds.

TOOBIN: Well, that's under the investigation - that is a criminal investigation now in the Southern District of New York.

JOHNSTON: Right.

TOOBIN: As well as whatever Congress may decide to investigate with the Inaugural. Earlier in the program, you listed all the Trump affiliations that are under investigation, and the inauguration is one of them.

CAMEROTA: Very, very quickly, I just want to - as our kicker talk about "Saturday Night Live." The President --

TOOBIN: Can we, please?

CAMEROTA: Yes, because the President apparently did not like the depiction of "It's A Wonderful Life" showing if he had never become President. So much so that he said, "The real scandal is the one- sided coverage hour by hour of networks like NBC and Democrat-spin machines like "Saturday Night Live." It's all nothing less than unfair news coverage." I don't know if he knows that "Saturday Night Live" isn't news.

And Democratic commercials should be tested in the courts. Can it be legal, Jeffrey? TOOBIN: You know, we are so inured to his crazy tweets that it's hard

to be outraged because you can't be outraged all the time. But the idea that "Saturday Night Live" should be tested in courts, should it be legal? I mean, there are certain core values in this country and mockery and opinions about the President of the United States is something that is really in the core of our national fabric. And the idea that the President should claim that that's something that belongs in courts is pretty chilling.

CAMEROTA: A court will laugh it out of the courtroom.

JOHNSTON: And Alisyn unfortunately --

CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead, David.

JOHNSTON: Alisyn, unfortunately, Donald is a man who has no ability to laugh at himself. Every other President lets it roll off their back. George H.W. Bush, you know, thought that Dana Carvey did a wonderful job the way he mocked him. But Donald has no sense of humor. There is no joy in this man at all, which for him is very sad that he will never know joy, or contentment or be able to laugh at himself as the rest of us can.

TOOBIN: You know one thing - this is just a weird thing. But you know, I read - I forgot where I read it, but someone pointed out that you never see Donald Trump laugh. You see him smile occasionally.

JOHNSTON: That was me.

TOOBIN: But you never see - was that you, David? Really? I apologize and not --

JOHNSTON: Yes. You'll see some forced laughs.

TOOBIN: But it's a weird thing.

JOHNSTON: There's a few forced laughs, yes.

CAMEROTA: Well, on that cheery Christmas note, gentlemen --

TOOBIN: See, I just laughed.

CAMEROTA: David Cay Johnston ...

TOOBIN: I just laughed.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We are still capable of laughing. Jeffrey Toobin thanks for sharing your reporting with us and David as well. John?

JOHN BERMAN, HOST, NEW DAY: All right, thank you. So this new report, showing the Russians used just about every social media platform to influence the 2016 election. There are two reports out, both with new details about this huge Russian effort. That's next.

[08:30:00]