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President Trump Under Siege After Bombshell Reports On Russia; Jayme Closs Describes 88 Days Of Horror; CNN Reality Check: Barr's Back-To-The-Future Confirmation. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired January 15, 2019 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[07:32:33] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump remains under siege after a series of bombshell reports on his meetings with Vladimir Putin and the extraordinary efforts that Mr. Trump went to to conceal the details of those discussions, even from his own administration.
So, joining us now is Ken Starr. He's the former independent counsel who led the investigation into President Clinton. He is also the author of "Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation." Good morning, judge.
KEN STARR, FORMER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL WHO LED INVESTIGATION ON PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, FORMER SOLICITOR GENERAL, AUTHOR, "CONTEMPT: A MEMOIR OF THE CLINTON INVESTIGATION": Hey, good morning, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: If you were investigating a president for some sort of inappropriate contact with a hostile foreign power -- say, Russia -- and you found out that that president had had several meetings one-on- one with Vladimir Putin where there were no other advisers present, would alarm bells go off for you?
STARR: Well, you'd certainly want to know the facts, absolutely. The investigator's job is to gather the facts. But I gather that aspect is not going anywhere as far as we know. We have unverified reports.
And I'll just say this. The underlying report, to be honest, was very distressing to me to suggest that the FBI, I think honestly, made a terrible misjudgment to say based upon these public statements by someone who is given to colorful public statements -- namely the president-- we're going to launch, essentially, an investigation into whether he is in cahoots with a foreign power.
CAMEROTA: Well, hold on. Before that, Ken -- Judge, sorry to interrupt, but before that, just about the meetings.
STARR: Well, you can call me Ken.
CAMEROTA: Thank you.
But just about the meetings --
STARR: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- you want to know the facts. How will you know the facts? The president --
STARR: Absolutely.
CAMEROTA: There was an interpreter in a couple of these meetings and the president confiscated that interpreter's notes and swore that interpreter to secrecy. So, wouldn't that arouse your suspicion?
STARR: That's a good place to start. You gather the facts and then eventually, if you need -- here's the key and it goes what I think Bill Barr is going to be facing today, and I think he's going to do a great job today and tomorrow. Are you going to, as an investigator and then for Bill Barr to allow the investigator to get to the bottom of things?
CAMEROTA: Yes.
STARR: And if this is a legitimate question, you go to the interpreter and you take the other appropriate steps. You ask --
CAMEROTA: Oh, hold on. I'm interested in this. I'm sorry to interrupt --
STARR: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- but are you saying you could subpoena -- you know, there is a question about whether or not the committees -- Democrats in Congress on Foreign Affairs and Judiciary want to subpoena the interpreter's --
[07:35:06] STARR: Right.
CAMEROTA: -- notes.
You would support that?
STARR: I would just say you take a look at what -- there are going to be some separation of powers issues Alisyn because we are talking about the presidency and so forth.
But look, this will be, I think, worked out. We'll get to the bottom of this --
CAMEROTA: But how?
STARR: -- but I thought we were going to be talking about --
CAMEROTA: But how, Ken? How will we get to the bottom of it?
STARR: Fact-finding. You go step-by-step.
CAMEROTA: There's been -- how could you -- there's two people involved and only a Russian interpreter on Vladimir Putin's side. How will you ever get to the facts? STARR: But Alisyn, I've seen reports that Rex Tillerson was there. So, let's find out what the real facts are.
CAMEROTA: In one of them. In one -- here are the real facts. Let me tell you what they are, Ken.
STARR: OK, fair enough.
CAMEROTA: Rex Tillerson was involved in one of them.
However, there's also this. "Though the interpreter refused to discuss the meeting, officials said he conceded that Putin had denied any Russian involvement in the U.S. election and that Trump responded by saying, 'I believe you.'" That was one -- t he only thing that the interpreter said and that, I believe, was from the Hamburg meeting.
Here is also from the Hamburg meeting. "Trump also had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg where only Putin's interpreter was present."
So again, Ken, how could you or the American public ever know the facts if there were only three people in the room and two of them were on Russia's side?
STARR: You inquire of the people who were there. Just accepting your narrative that that's true, you go about it in a very orderly way and you say OK, what do you know about this? Now, let's get to the --
CAMEROTA: But meaning, you inquire -- hold on -- you inquire Vladimir Putin?
STARR: Let me -- hold on, hold on, let me finish. Alisyn, let me finish.
So, eventually, you're saying do you need to subpoena the President of the United States? That's a very weighty issue that either Bob Mueller or whomever -- and it may be a political issue for the House or for the Senate, but it's a conclusion that will eventually be made. To subpoena the president is a very serious act but it is known in our law.
We subpoenaed President Clinton and I think you know that --
CAMEROTA: I remember.
STARR: -- but we did that only as -- I'm sorry?
CAMEROTA: I remember.
STARR: But we did --
CAMEROTA: And you think that we're at that point with President Trump? STARR: That I don't know. I don't know all the facts.
What I do know is that in our investigation we asked a number of times, politely, we need the president's testimony.
There's a process, so let's allow that process to unfold and it apparently is unfolding --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
STARR: -- if this issue that you're talking about is actually on the table.
CAMEROTA: Well listen, I mean, there's a couple of things here.
So, I'm still unclear about how you would ever gather the facts and get to the bottom of it since President Trump hasn't been forthcoming about what was said in those meetings. Vladimir Putin certainly isn't forthcoming about what has been said at those meetings. And, the interpreter's notes were confiscated and sworn to secrecy.
So, if you're saying that now it's up to Robert Mueller to subpoena the president --
STARR: I --
CAMEROTA: Hold on one second. As you know, President Trump answered written questions and those were apparently --
STARR: Right.
CAMEROTA: -- didn't go far enough. The latest reporting is that Robert Mueller has more questions. Those begged more questions.
So, are we at the point where it's time for Robert Mueller to subpoena President Trump?
STARR: That's an ultimate judgment for Bob and I can't -- for Bob Mueller -- and I can't substitute myself for that. But I will tell you this. Knowing Bob Mueller, he will not be rushing into anything nor will he be fearful of doing whatever he thinks he needs to do professionally, with integrity, to get to the bottom of things.
And by the way, that's the same thing I've been saying about Bill Barr, with whom I served. Bill Barr is a person of complete integrity who does, indeed, have very strong views with which I share about the protection of the prerogatives of the presidency in our separation of powers system. Congress has powers but so does the president.
And the founding generation warned us about constant intrusions by Congress into the prerogatives of the president.
CAMEROTA: Right.
STARR: That's really what the Barr memorandum ultimately was all about -- CAMEROTA: Yes.
STARR: -- as I read the memo.
CAMEROTA: And so, since he called it, in his memo -- that 19-page memo -- since he called it fatally misconceived -- the investigation into obstruction of justice -- if today he says, as he's expected to, yes, he'll get out of Robert Mueller's way and it can conclude on its own in its logical conclusion, and that he thinks that it should go forward, which Bill Barr is to be believed?
STARR: First, his analysis of the memorandum of the particular statute of obstruction of justice was devastatingly correct spot-on, but we can litigate that separately.
But here's the key point for the American people. Bill Barr is a person of integrity. He will be taking an oath and then he'll be operating when he's confirmed, as I'm confident that he will. He'll be operating under the existent regulations. It's not just his word.
But he's a person of the law and those regulations under which Bob Mueller was appointed -- they've been in place for over 20 years, as you know -- guarantee the independence of those day-to-day judgments.
[07:40:07] Now, there will be issues that Bill Barr should be looking at, such as an issue of subpoenaing the president.
CAMEROTA: Ken Starr, we thank you. You know more about all of this stuff --
STARR: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: -- than most anyone. Thank you for sharing your perspective on this -- John.
STARR: My pleasure.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Eighty-eight days of horror. We are learning disturbing details of how Jayme Closs was abducted and her months in captivity. We have a live report, next.
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BERMAN: Horrifying new details in the kidnapping of Jayme Closs. Investigators say the 21-year-old suspect told them he first spotted Closs getting into her school bus and decided she was the girl he was going to take. He did not even know her name.
CNN's Jean Casarez is live in Barron, Wisconsin with the very latest. Jean, this is just awful, awful stuff.
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, it's unbelievable and we did not know these facts until that complaint came out yesterday. And the defendant is being held on $5 million bond in the local jail right behind me. But what we learned from the complaint -- and he is charged with two counts of intentional homicide first-degree, one count of kidnapping, one count of armed robbery.
But after he saw her on that school bus, about two and a half weeks later he started making trips to the house to go in the home to capture her.
[07:45:04] He went to Walmart and he purchased a mask. He got a black jacket, two pairs of work gloves, steel boots. He took a shower before he went on the third time that he went over -- which actually is when he captured her -- and he shaved his head to make sure there was no DNA at the scene.
He found his father's shotgun, he wiped it down. He wiped down the shells. He was ready, he said, and he knew that this was the girl he wanted to get.
When he walked up to the house and he pulled up in the car, it was Jayme that woke up because her dog was barking, and she looked out and she saw someone in the driveway in a car.
She woke her parents up. Her father went to the front door. He had a flashlight shining out.
The defendant said, according to the complaint, that he saw that flashlight. He walked up, he yelled to the man to get down and her father didn't do that. So he took that shotgun and he fired one shot through the glass and he went down. He killed him -- one shot to the head.
He made his way in the house. He looked through the rooms. He saw one door that was locked -- it was barricaded. He pushed and pushed and pushed his way in. That was the bathroom.
The shower curtain was drawn and Jayme and her mother were holding each other in the shower. One shot to her mother's head.
She was duct taped, put in the car, driven, she thinks, two hours to the cabin where she stayed for three months. And she was many times, for hours, under a bed so she could not escape.
When she finally decided he was gone, she was going to run for it. She got out from under the bed. She went out to the street. A lady with a dog found her and took her to a home.
Listen to the 911 call that happened minutes after she was found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 DISPATCHER: Douglas County 911.
CALLER: Hi, I have a young lady at my house right now and she says her name is Jayme Closs.
911 DISPATCHER: OK, have you seen her photo, ma'am? CALLER: Yes, it is her. I 100 percent think it is her.
911 DISPATCHER: Are you? OK.
CALLER: One hundred percent.
NEIGHBOR: So, we're kind of scared because he might come.
911 DISPATCHER: Yes.
NEIGHBOR: So, if the cops could get here soon, we would --
911 DISPATCHER: I have -- I have many deputies headed that way. I'm going to keep you on the line.
NEIGHBOR: OK.
911 DISPATCHER: And she said I am Jayme Closs?
NEIGHBOR: Yes. She said he killed my parents. I want to go home. Help me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Alisyn, at the initial appearance yesterday, Jayme's family en masse were on one side of the courtroom. The other side, a man and a younger man who we have now confirmed was the father of the defendant.
When the defendant's face came on that screen in the courtroom, his father began to sob and buried his head into the shoulder of his son. It was too much for him to watch -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, Jean, it is all so shocking. Thank you very much for all that reporting.
Let's discuss it now with Gregg McCrary. He is a former FBI profiler. Greg, thank you so much for being here.
What Jayme has just -- I mean, sorry, what Jean has just described about what Jayme endured is chilling. The details get more and more shocking.
Tell us, from what you've heard, what you make of this suspect.
GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER PROFILER, FBI, DIRECTOR, BEHAVIORAL CRIMINOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, AUTHOR, "THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS": He seems to fit -- excuse me -- what we know about this type of offender. In other words, there's a paraphilic interest in coercive sexuality. In other words, a sexually deviant interest in coercive sexuality.
They have targeted victims. They have victim types that they like and this is very typical of what we see here. She went from a victim of opportunity to a targeted victim.
He saw her on the school bus. And many of these offenders have a particular age, gender preference, body type, hairstyle, and so forth. She apparently fit his fantasy of a -- of a victim and then targeted her.
Then there's a lot of planning and preparation that went into this. It was his third try, apparently, that he successfully did this. There's not only this sexual pathology but also, it's interlaced with a psychopathy where there's no guilt, no remorse, no compassion.
He killed those parents without -- with all the emotion of butting a cigarette -- it didn't matter. He wanted to get to that victim.
And I think what we're going to find at the end of this is that he will have enacted his sexual fantasies -- forced those on this victim while she was in captivity. I think that's what we'll find.
I also think that we're going to find a lot of pornography that's going to be consistent with this theme -- whatever his paraphilic disorder or his sexual perversions are. I think we're going to find -- or investigators will find that. They'll look for that sort of thing.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
MCCRARY: Pre-offense behavior -- not unusual for these offenders to not have a criminal history, necessarily. If they do, it's typically for minor offenses -- peeping, prowling, burglaries, B&Es. Those sorts of things that are really a precursor to what he's interested in doing, which is this sexually violent behavior.
[07:50:08] CAMEROTA: And is this guy in a different category than other sexual predators, in that he planned it so well -- what Jean just told us? He went and bought a mask. He took a shower beforehand. He shaved his head so that there was as little --
MCCRARY: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- DNA as possible. And that he killed her parents in such cold blood.
Does that put him in a different category?
MCCRARY: Yes. Think of this as on a continuum from impulsive sex offenders on one end to ritualistic on the other. He's more on the ritualistic end of that continuum due to the planning and the preparation and all this -- not an impulse -- he just didn't see her and grabbed her at the bus stop and do something. He apparently surveilled her and worked all this out.
You know, the other thing I think that goes to this pathological narcissism is the fact that he's really kind of bragging about this in the confession. He wants to show us how really cool and well-prepared that he was. Again -- and this is more of this narcissistic preening that we see. He tells us how he wiped the weapon down, how evidence- conscious he was and so forth and so on.
So, I think that's another indication of what we're talking about with this malignant narcissism and the psychopathy that it's the core not only of his erotic pleasure but the destructive and sadistic criminal behavior as well.
CAMEROTA: Greg McCrary, you have made a career out of obviously being a profiler at Quantico. Thank you very much for sharing all of your expertise on this with us.
MCCRARY: Thanks for having me.
CAMEROTA: John --
BERMAN: William Barr going back up to Capitol Hill for confirmation hearings to be attorney general. You know what? I saw this episode before. It was like 31 years ago or something.
How much history is expected to repeat itself today? We have a surprising reality check, next.
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[07:56:00] CAMEROTA: All right.
President Trump's nominee for attorney general, Bill Barr, has been through a tough confirmation hearing before. That was decades ago.
So, what has changed since then? A lot less than you might think, John Avlon tells us in our reality check. Hi, John.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, Ali.
Time is a flat circle -- at least that appears to be the case in some Senate committee rooms -- because in a few hours, William Barr will sit for his second confirmation hearing to be Attorney General of the United States, nearly 30 years after he first did it for Bush 41.
Two of the same senators will be there -- Pat Leahy and Chuck Grassley. At least three possible 2020 candidates on the committee -- Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. And another potential candidate residing over Barr's 1991 hearing. That would be chairman Joe Biden.
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JOSEPH BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, THEN-SENATOR (D-DE), CHAIRMAN. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: In these hearings, much of my focus will be on whether or not Mr. Barr will -- how Mr. Barr views the proper relationship between the attorney general and the president.
This issue is of particular concern to me because during his years in government service, Mr. Barr has gained the reputation as a staunch defender of broad executive power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: Sound familiar? Today, the big issue facing the Justice Department is as big as it
gets -- an independent counsel investigation into the president's connections to a hostile foreign power.
Back in the fall of 1991, it was an international money laundering scandal involving a bank called BCCI. Barr oversaw the investigation run by a prosecutor named Robert Mueller, and Barr described the guarantee he'd given Mueller about his independence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, THEN-1991 NOMINEE FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: That spare no resources. Whatever resources are necessary to pursue the investigation as aggressively as possible and follow the evidence anywhere and everywhere it leads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: Now, Barr is again assuring us that Mueller's independence will be respected, calling the investigation "vitally important" in his prepared testimony and pledging, quote, "On my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work."
Now, in Barr's "Back to the Future" confirmation hearing, senators will ask many of the same questions.
On abortion, Barr said he supported overturning Roe v. Wade. He backed gun control, like waiting periods and an assault weapons ban. But based on his past comments, senators may want to press Barr on LGBT equality and criminal justice reform.
Barr is conservative and doesn't come across like an ideological warrior. Even at the age of 41, there was a soaring dullness about the man. He makes Jeff Sessions look like Elvis.
But our country could do far worse than a steady hand if he defends the integrity of his institution against presidential pressure, which brings us back to Barr's response concerns -- about Barr's response about concerns about executive power in the DOJ.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARR: Nothing could be more destructive of our system of government, of the rule of law, or the Department of Justice as an institution than any toleration of political interference with the enforcement of the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: And, Biden's assessment of Barr may be a sign of coming attractions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: And I personally like you. I think you're a heck of an honorable guy. I think you are a person somebody can work with. But I am concerned, as I told you from outset, about one thing, and that is your view about separation of powers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: That remains the question three decades later, but the stakes far higher.
And that's your reality check.
CAMEROTA: Did you just call him soaringly dull?
BERMAN: A soaring dullness is the exact quote.
AVLON: Yes.
BERMAN: And he said it as a compliment, I believe.
AVLON: Yes, we could use some of that.
CAMEROTA: That's really fascinating -- all of that history. Thank you very much, John.
AVLON: Thanks, guys.
CAMEROTA: All right, a high-stakes hearing, as you know, for President Trump's attorney general pick. What it means for the Russia probe. We have all of that covered right now.
And good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, January 15th, 8:00 in the east.
Ninety minutes from now, President Trump's choice for attorney general will make his case before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American public. William Barr will face questions about how he views the special counsel's Russia investigation which, of course, he would oversee if he's confirmed.
Now, last year, you'll remember Barr sent that controversial 19-page memo to nearly all of President Trump's lawyers, we now know. It was critical of the special counsel's --
