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Buzzfeed: Trump Ordered Cohen to Lie to Congress about Moscow Tower Project; Pentagon Identifies Americans Killed in Syria. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 18, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He claimed negotiations about the Moscow tower project ended in January of 2016 when, in fact, they ended in June of that year. Donald Trump was already the presumptive Republican nominee.

[07:00:12] Now, to be clear, CNN has not independently confirmed the Buzzfeed report, but the reporters behind it are very solid; and they've done very dead-on reporting in the past. If this is true, it is a serious game changer.

Democratic lawmakers are seizing on the report, with former Attorney General Eric Holder writing, "If true -- and proof must be examined -- Congress must begin impeachment proceedings."

And obviously, this raises the stakes for Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress next month.

Joining us now, David Gregory, Nia-Malika Henderson, Phil Mudd, Asha Rangappa. Thank you all for being with us this morning. We have a lot to discuss.

Buzzfeed says two sources have told Buzzfeed the president personally instructed Michael Cohen to lie. And this isn't just the word of Michael Cohen, Asha, a convicted felon and an admitted liar. Buzzfeed says, "The special counsel's office learned about Trump's directive to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company e-mails, text messages, and a cache of other documents."

ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, I think that this was an implication that was hiding in the shadows when Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.

You know, we knew then that Mueller had the information to back this up; and now, you know, I don't think it's really that much of a surprise, though it is shocking to see it in writing.

I think it's important to understand why the underlying lie is important. This is about Donald Trump not being transparent about a financial interest he had with a hostile foreign adversary as he's a candidate and also promoting a positive foreign policy.

You know, what's interesting is that, even after this deal ostensibly ended, he still wanted to conceal that relationship. And so this idea that, well, it's not illegal for a private businessman to have, you know, business dealings in Russia, why the constant lies and lack of transparency?

CAMEROTA: Phil Mudd, if Donald Trump pressured or suborned, as the word is, Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, that's a federal crime; and it's an impeachable offense. And you have always told us that Mueller would never just go on the word of Donald Trump versus Michael Cohen. That, of course, there would be other corroborating evidence, and that's what Buzzfeed claims that they have.

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think there's a couple pieces here that are significant.

When I first heard about the headline here, I'm like, Michael Cohen, who would ever believe him? Nobody. Rudy Giuliani among others -- and it's a rare moment I'd be with Giuliani -- has trashed him left and right.

You read down the story, I thought the critical piece was there's a lot of other information including, for example, e-mails, other interviews that corroborate the story.

Remember when we had Paul Manafort on trial, everybody was like, "Wait, Rick Gates, his former deputy, is going to testify. He's going to trash Manafort." The jurors came out, after convicting Manafort and were like, "Rick Gates, we didn't pay attention to him. It was the documentation that got Manafort." That's part of the story here.

It's not Cohen. Cohen is not exactly credible. It's the stuff behind the story that says maybe he's right.

BERMAN: And just to reiterate it, suborning perjury is a crime, and it is also impeachable, David. And I'm saying that not just out of thin air. It's impeachable because it has been used for impeachment before. It was one of the articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon. It was one of the articles of impeachment for Bill Clinton.

This is serious for the president. And Rudy Giuliani's statement overnight -- "If you believe Cohen I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge" -- it's pithy, but it's not a denial of the facts in the story.

GREGORY: Well, it goes to the point that Phil was just talking about, which is that they'd be happy to attack Michael Cohen as a guy that you can't believe; and you're going to hear that when he testifies on Capitol Hill.

But this is why we have the old adage of it's not the crime; it's the cover-up. It's the two impeachment proceedings that you mentioned. It's the Valerie Plame investigation by the special prosecutor, which was not about an underlying crime but about obstruction, about lying to the FBI, that gets you in trouble.

And so this big backdrop of whether candidate Trump in his business dealings was compromised because of his financial interest in Russia could fill in a lot of blanks, if that's actually the case. And if that's what's provable.

I think what's so damning about this is not just the wow factor and that's a high bar, right, when we're talking about this investigation and this president. It's the fact that we're only seeing the part that we can see right now. The potential impact of Mueller's findings are what he has in total.

And think what Phil refers to -- you know, don't forget that his longtime CFO, I believe, of the company has been cooperating with Mueller.

So, you know, Michael Cohen is just one piece. And Mueller's been doing this a while. He's not going to just come in and, with a witness who's going to have his head taken off for credibility, without having a lot of backup.

[07:05:09] CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, CNN has not confirmed this. This is just the Buzzfeed reporting that we're attributing. So much still has to be confirmed, Nia.

But, if and when it is confirmed, this puts all sorts of lawmakers, particularly some of the president's supporters and Republicans in a real bind, because this came up during the Bill Barr confirmation hearing this week. And Lindsey Graham -- I think we have that sound -- asked him specifically about suborning perjury.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: So if there was some reason to believe that the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely, that could be obstruction of justice?

BILL BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Yes, under that -- under an obstruction statute, yes.

GRAHAM: So if there's some evidence that the president tried to conceal evidence, that would be obstruction of justice potentially, right?

BARR: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Interesting to hear that now, Nia.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Really interesting. It also came up in Amy Klobuchar's questioning of Barr there.

And it was surprising, though, that it came up from a Republican. And you look at both what Graham said and what Klobuchar said, and you wonder what do they know? I mean, obviously, they know that Cohen was convicted for, in part, lying to Congress about this deal. So that is something that could, I think, potentially come back and bite Republicans. This is what we've always been looking for, right? Is there some sort

of breaking point for Republicans in terms of this president? We've seen it a little bit, fits and starts with, you know, a handful, a very small handful of folks on the Hill.

But the idea, if this is true, that the president directed Michael Cohen, who was his personal attorney, long-time fixer, deeply involved in his business affairs as well as the campaign, if he instructed him to lie to Congress, you wonder, if you are Congress, how is that something you tolerate? Right?

We have seen this Congress, particularly, sort of cede power to executive branch, cede power to Donald Trump. But the idea that this is the president who may have directed his -- his one-time fixer to lie, you wonder if that would be enough to peel some of those Republicans away who want to maybe assert the power and the importance of Congress. And also point to the fact that this, you know, this shouldn't happen, an American president lying or forcing or compelling or asking someone to lie to Congress. So we'll see.

But again, we've been waiting on Republicans to kind of speak out against this president. Haven't seen it. We'll see what the reactions are today.

BERMAN: Suborning perjury shouldn't happen anywhere. Right? And again, it's one of these things that is clearly over the line legally, clearly over the line politically in terms of impeachment.

Nia brought up the Amy Klobuchar line of questioning with Bill Barr who, by all accounts, will be the next attorney general. I think that's worth listening to here, as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: In your memo, you talked about the Comey decision. And you talk about obstruction of justice, and you already went over that, which I appreciate. You wrote on page one that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction. Is that right?

BARR: That -- yes.

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

BARR: Or any -- well, you know, any person who persuades another.

KLOBUCHAR: Any person.

BARR: Yes.

KLOBUCHAR: OK. You also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction, is that right?

BARR: Yes.

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Bill Barr just said, the man who will be the next attorney general, Asha, that if the Buzzfeed story is true, the president's a criminal. I don't think there's any other way to interpret that exchange.

RANGAPPA: No. And he's someone who has a pretty expansive view of the president's power. And even he is saying that.

And I think it's important, because if you remember, he hedged about whether, you know, what amount of the special counsel's report he would pass on to Congress. He literally has no choice but to pass on information regarding this particular crime to the extent that Mueller lays it out, even if he says, "I don't recommend indicting because of Department of Justice policy," because it goes to the institution, to Congress's role; and they have a right to know what the president has done as another coequal branch.

BERMAN: There's no executive privilege here.

RANGAPPA: No. No.

BERMAN: You can't protect this.

RANGAPPA: No. I mean, exactly. Michael Cohen was not some adviser. This was not about policy.

And this goes directly to Nixon. This -- I mean, even if he tried to assert it, you can't use it to shield criminal activity or evidence of criminal activity.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There's another --

MUDD: I'm sorry, go ahead, David.

GREGORY: There's other examples, too. I mean, as we keep bringing up, as they did in their questioning, the idea of lying to Congress. I mean, Iran-Contra, as well.

I mean, there's so many examples of where this could be what is seized upon in the political sphere to go after particular people in part of this investigation.

[07:10:05] MUDD: Let me give you one angle here that nobody's talking about, about that Barr exchange, and that is when Jeff Sessions was there, the president could claim there's one guy, Mueller, with a bunch of random Democrats running an investigation.

This is a Comey moment. You fire Comey, you get Mueller. You dump Sessions, because Sessions isn't involved in the investigation. You can't say, "My nominee is overseeing the investigation." You get Barr, who just basically said, "When I see this stuff, I'm going to bring a hammer down." I'm going to tell you, Barr will be one of the most significant

appointees the president has ever made, because Barr, I suspect, is going to crush the administration. The president's going to say, "I never saw that one coming."

CAMEROTA: But, Phil, one of the reasons that I think we need to pump the brakes on the Buzzfeed reporting just for a moment, is because all the corroborating evidence that you talk about -- the e-mails, the texts, the phone records -- I don't think the president uses e-mail or texts.

And in terms of the phone calls, that shows if a call was made, it doesn't show the -- it doesn't capture a conversation, right? So, I mean, I think the interviews with other Trump Organization people are obviously relevant and interesting, but we need to wait to see what all of that proves.

MUDD: None of this is the story. Let's step back for just a moment. You know, I feel like watching congressmen, I've got to put my hand in a blender. I can't stand this. I'd rather -- I don't know.

CAMEROTA: Spare us.

MUDD: Yes, I'll spare you the details.

But my point is the charge -- slow down, the charge for the special counsel was to give us a story. The story of what happened during the campaign and, potentially, afterwards. During that story, what did Roger Stone, for example, do in his potential exchanges about the stolen e-mails?

During that story, people are potentially lying and obstructing justice. We have a narrow sliver here that includes things like what did the president know? But my question would be, are there other people who've spoken about this, family members, for example, who also lied?

Let the story roll, and if there happens to be, at the end of the story, lying, obstruction, that's fine. But let's not move yet.

BERMAN: It just so happens that Donald Trump Jr. mentioned in this Buzzfeed story. It just so happens that Ivanka Trump mentioned in this Buzzfeed story.

We also have much more to discuss about Rudy Giuliani and his positioning over the last few days. Did he see this coming? And was he trying to wall off the president to just this type of report?

Guys, we're going to have you back in just a moment to talk about all of that. In the meantime, we do have breaking news.

The Pentagon has just revealed the identities of the Americans killed in the suicide bombing in northern Syria on Wednesday. This is the attack that ISIS claims responsibility for.

CNN's Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon with the breaking details -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Those names now being published by the Pentagon. We want to show those names to all of our viewers. They are identified as Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan Farmer, 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Navy Chief Cryptological Technician Shannon Kent, upstate New York. She was assigned to to Fort Meade just here outside Washington, D.C., specializing in electronic intelligence activities. And DOD civilian Scott Wirtz of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Wirtz was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, a civilian operations support specialist.

There was a fourth person killed. We are told it was a contractor. His -- that person's name will be published by whomever he was working for. He was not a federal government employee.

Let's step back a minute. Shannon Kent of upstate New York, this is a female Navy chief petty officer. It may get some attention throughout the day that a female service member was killed in action and, if it does, let us remind everyone right off the top this morning: women are in combat, have been in combat in this country for hundreds of years. The question these days for women serving in the military is they're being able to serve in front-line positions like Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force, Rangers, frontline infantry units.

That is all opening up to women these days, but women have been serving, of course, in these positions. They have been killed in places like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Barbara, we really appreciate that context. Thank you very much for that breaking news.

All right. We have more on our top story, of course. What will the fallout be today of this Buzzfeed report? We break all that down next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:17] CAMEROTA: We have more now on the breaking news. Buzzfeed News is reporting the president personally obstructed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about that Trump Tower Moscow project, which is a federal crime and impeachable offense.

Let's bring back David Gregory, Nia-Malika Henderson, Phillip Mudd and Asha Rangappa.

CNN has not confirmed the Buzzfeed reporting. Obviously, we would need to wait until Robert Mueller's report comes out. But this does give us a window into what two -- Buzzfeed's forces are two federal law enforcement officials who say that Robert Mueller knows all of this and has texts, e-mails, phone records, and interviews with other people at the Trump Organization to confirm that Donald Trump suborned perjury by telling Michael Cohen to lie.

Here is what Congressman Chris Murphy said when he read this news. "Listen, if Mueller does not have multiple sources" -- oh, sorry -- "Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller should not end his inquiry, but it's about time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act."

Phil, I know you disagree with this, but what's wrong with the piecemeal approach?

MUDD: Well, there's a couple things wrong with it. The first is pretty practical. What was the charge of Robert Mueller? Was the charge to refer an obstruction case, a suborning perjury case to the Congress if he found it? Or was the charge to say the American people deserve an answer, a full answer, almost like a novel, a story about what happened during the campaign? Which was it?

CAMEROTA: Well, we don't know if the American people. He is not tasked with telling the American people. There's one person who's going to get this report, the attorney general.

MUDD: I wouldn't agree with that. The Department of Justice is investigating this to determine whether the American people, represented by the Department of Justice, should prosecute a crime. And we will determine -- I don't care what Bob [SIC] Barr says -- we will determine at some point what happened here.

There is one other story here that's political. And that is this -- no Democrat should hope for impeachment. This is not great for America.

Should they choose do go down that path, this should be -- there should be as little partisanship as -- as possible. Let me give you a real-world situation.

If you went into a department store and said, "I want to spend my own political capital," like the Democrats starting impeachment now, and I said, "I'm going to give you a $1,000 gift card," which is what Robert Mueller is going to get, which would you take?

I'd say, "Can you guys hold on a minute? Start Christmas vacation in January, if that's what you want to do. Take 11 months off. Robert Mueller is going to give you $1,000 gift card, and you don't have to spend your political capital and divide us."

BERMAN: All right. Nia -- Nia, the thing here is, Nia, that Nancy Pelosi has been a careful shopper in this case, to us Phil Mudd's analogy. She has been very careful about using the word "impeachment," and she's holding back her caucus, to an extent, of charging ahead and investigating in some cases.

How much harder does this story make it? Because, again, if it's true, it's just crystal-clear; and there's historic precedent.

HENDERSON: It's true, and you do hear some rumblings from folks who are close to Nancy Pelosi on Twitter talking more about impeachment. You hadn't heard that. It wasn't a real big topic. You think about the midterms, not many Democrats who ran and won were running explicitly on impeachment. It was sort of the word that was not to be said. And it's something that you've seen Nancy Pelosi be very disciplined about: essentially, wait on the Mueller report, see if there's anything in the Mueller report, and then you proceed.

Also knowing that you would need that Mueller report, given that the Senate is obviously controlled by Republicans, you need 2/3 folks in the Senate to actually remove the president from office. So you have seen Nancy Pelosi be cautious.

But you are, I think, going to see more restless Democrats talking about this report if -- obviously, if it's proven true. That exerts more pressure on Nancy Pelosi. So she, I think, is at a place where she's got to figure out how to maintain control of this restless caucus, which she's done pretty good so far. But, again, I think this report, if true, changes the dynamics for her quite a bit.

GREGORY: But I think the difficulty that Pelosi faces and what you heard from Chris Murphy is this angst the Democrats feel, because they've got plenty of progressives in the party who are ready to go to begin a political impeachment proceeding.

But only by trailing Mueller do you have the prospect of getting Republicans in line, as well. And if you listen to Senator Graham's testimony, I mean, his questioning of Bob Barr that you played a few minutes ago, it's as if those were leading questions, as if he --

BERMAN: Yes.

GREGORY: He knows these -- this information is there. And he's making a record. That's what attorneys do.

And so you want to be in a position where -- look, so much of the action, so much of the political commentary about all of this has been around specific Russia collusion, about hacking the election. It has not been about pure corruption, obstruction. And, you know, that could put Republicans, if it's true and it's proven, in a very difficult position.

Democrats ought to wait to build that bigger case, or else they're going to be marginalized. You know Giuliani and Trump are going to make this nothing but a witch hunt in their argument, and there will be Republicans along with them. So you want a broader group if you're going down that road.

CAMEROTA: One of the things that got my attention, I mean, this is sort of neither here nor there. But I thought it was really interesting during the Bill Barr confirmation hearing, was when Bill Barr talked so glowingly about Robert Mueller and about how they have been long-time friends and their families are friends; and they'll still be friends after all this.

And I thought, "Wow, President Trump really is taking a sort of magnanimous view of this." Turns out, there's new CNN reporting that he did not know somehow --

RANGAPPA: No. CAMEROTA: -- that they were friends. Let me just play this moment for you that I thought was attention-getting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARR: I told him how well I knew Bob Mueller and our -- and how, you know, the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is all over and so forth. And he was interested in that, wanted to know, you know, what I thought about, you know, Mueller's integrity and so forth and so on.

I said Bob is a -- is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such.

I have known Bob Mueller for 30 years. We worked closely together throughout my previous tenure at the Department of Justice. We've been friends since. And I have the utmost respect for Bob and his distinguished record of public service. And when he was named special counsel, I said his selection was good news. And that knowing him, I had confidence he would handle the matter properly. And I still have that confidence today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I guess you get the point. And so what the reporting is now from CNN is that, apparently, President Trump wasn't paying attention to when Bill Barr mentioned all of that; and so now he was distressed to hear how close friends they are, Asha.

[07:25:11] RANGAPPA: He has no idea how the government works. I mean, I don't know why you would not assume that two people who, you know -- Mueller is a career prosecutor at DOJ. Why wouldn't he know the attorney general from some point?

But you know, going to the piece where there's an expectation that Mueller should provide this information to Congress. Here's why it's a problem.

From Congress's point of view, it may seem cut-and-dry; this is lying to Congress. However, as I mentioned before, the underlying lie here is about his relationship with Russia and what was happening and why he had that financial interest.

The defense to the lying to Congress or even suborning perjury is, "Well, it's not material. It was just some irrelevant detail." So in order to substantiate it, that underlying potential collusion --

BERMAN: Yes.

RANGAPPA: -- is actually inextricably bound with this issue.

CAMEROTA: Can't do it piecemeal.

RANGAPPA: You can't do it piecemeal.

BERMAN: And that it doesn't matter; this was a minor issue. Maybe that's what Rudy Giuliani was saying over the last few days when he, out of the blue, says the only possible crime that the president could have committed here is somehow hacking the e-mails personally. No, there are other crimes you can commit, including, it turns out, suborning perjury.

Phil Mudd, David Gregory, Asha Rangappa, Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you.

CAMEROTA: What will Congress do about this bombshell of a report? We ask a member of the Senate, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)