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Whitaker to Appear Before House Judiciary Committee; Supreme Court Blocks Louisiana Abortion Law; Jeff Bezos Accuses "The Enquirer" of Extortion and Blackmail. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 08, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: The vote was 5-4 and the key here, what makes this so interesting, is that the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, joined the court's four liberal judges voting for the stay. So, does this signal some kind of a left ward shift for the chief justice? How will the president who's been critical of Roberts in the past respond though this?

Plus, just hours from now the Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker will appear before the House Judiciary Committee? How much will he say and what will House democrats do to try to force him to talk? Whitaker had refused to appear until democrats promised not to issue a subpoena during the actual hearing.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Also this morning, a story you saw first on CNN, White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, saying a woman assaulted her physically in a Maryland restaurant in front of Conway's child and other children. She says it happened this past October. The woman we've learned has been charged, though denies the allegations. The alleged assault happening just days after the polarizing confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And then there is the explosive blog post from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in which he accuses AMI the publisher of the "National Enquirer" of, in Bezos' words, "extortion and blackmail." Head of AMI, David Pecker, of course a long-time friend of President Trump; the company for its part has not yet commented on Bezos' allegations.

BERMAN: I want to bring in Maggie Haberman, "New York Times" White House correspondent and CNN Political Analylist. Maggie, I'm so excited to see you I can barely even say your name out loud.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, "NEW YORK TIMES" WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND CNN POLITICAL ANALYLIST: Wow, thank you.

BERMAN: I want to start with Matt Whitaker, the Acting Attorney General. And this was a fight. He didn't want to go appear before the House Judiciary Committee at all, only is agreeing to now that the committee has agreed to not give him a subpoena during the testimony itself. Do you have a sense of why he was so resistant to go talk and why the White House seemed to want to keep this from happening?

HABERMAN: Well look, I think that he's going to get asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about conversations with the president and I think we have seen some officials say those conversations did not take place. I think that what the Acting Attorney General says when he is testifying under threat of perjury before Congress could end up being pretty revealing. And so I think that there was a hope that they could get beyond public testimony.

I also think that the public testimony has become more contentious in terms of what to expect. I think that there is a clearly growing rancor between House democrats and the White House over the oversight hearings that are going to be taking place. So none of this is surprising, the 11th hour move last night about I'm not going to testify unless there's no threat of a subpoena I think is a little confusing. I think that it's not surprising that we're still ending up where it was going to be 24 hours ago but let's see what he says today.

HILL: I think you said it up too in terms of everything else that is happening, right, and sort of closing in here. What's fascinating is that at one point, I know you were saying last night the president actually looked at a divided government as being something that could be good for him and perhaps wasn't as concerned about everything that could be coming his way. Clearly his thoughts on that have changed as of this week.

HABERMAN: I don't know if they've changed in the sense that he still thinks can he run against, you know, a house democratic caucus, particularly as you have the green-new deal being held up by some had Trump's allies and advisers as a form quote/unquote "socialism." So I'm not surprised. I think there are aspects where they think this is advantageous. But the investigations I think the president was not quite clear on what this looks like for a White House to live through this, for a White House to have everything being subpoenaed, even if the White House decides not to comply with some of these subpoenas and we have a reason to believe that might happen, that they're going to try to stall and delay on some and cooperate on others.

It just gums up the gears of what you're doing. The Clinton White House when they were under extremely extensive investigations for a very long time they had it set up separately. They had mechanisms outside of the White House that were working with the White House. This White House has been thread bear staff in so many aspects including at the end of last year the White House Counsel's Office.

That has changed recently and I think that's going to help them but I just think that the president who is not familiar with Congress the way that other elected officials have been didn't really understand the depth of this.

BERMAN: And you got reporting though Maggie, on how there are people in the White House who have been concerned about this and have been trying to get prepared for this moment.

HABERMAN: Absolutely, look, there are a number of - first of all there's a number of attorneys who are now working in the White House Counsel's Office. They've hired as I understand it a spokesperson just to deal with their stuff who is actually a lawyer and who understands the materials. Then, of course, there are people in the White House who have a number of private attorneys. They don't need those in the same way for Congressional hearings as they will in terms of dealing with the Special Counsel's office but there are people who don't want to be subpoenaed. They don't want to go testify before these oversight hearings.

I think it is part of why you saw a number of people leave late last year and there might end up being some people who wish they had.

HILL: As we look at all of this too and everything that's playing out, we can't ignore what else is happening this week, not just in terms of investigation and oversight and staffing up at the White House, but the fact that Mueller is still ongoing.

But learning more about the SDNY investigation and how close it is getting to the president, the Trump organization, that is also -- I mean, that's a cloud that we can't ignore either.

HABERMAN: In fact, I think that's the cloud that's going to linger in the sky for much longer than certainly the Mueller probe is expected to. Look, you know, people close to the president have said for months, months, months since the raid on Michael Cohen in April, 2018, that this was going to be much more of a problem for the president, the southern district of New York, than the Mueller probe was going to be.

They believed that was where the real threat lied. And think we're seeing that. I think CNN reported the other day that the Southern District is now starting to reach out about having some Trump organization officials come in and speak to investigators. I think you can expect a lot more of that. This probe into the inaugural committee is very problematic for the president. There's a ton of finger pointing going on and everybody is blaming everybody else.

But at the end of the day it's 106 some odd million dollars that appears to have been spent in questionable ways in a lot of cases and then there's questions about whether foreign actors were trying to influence it through straw donors. Foreigners are not allowed to donate to things like the inaugural committee. There's just a lot to sift through and a lot that's going to linger for a long time.

BERMAN: In the midst of all of this, we are hearing from the president's daughter Ivanka Trump, advisor in the White House. They talked about the investigation more than I've heard her speak outloud about it. She was talking with Abby Huntsman for ABC. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

ABBY HUNTSMAN, CO-HOST ON "THE VIEW": Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love...

IVANKA TRUMP, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT AND DAUGHTER OF DONALD TRUMP: No.

HUNTSMAN: ...being involved? IVANKA TRUMP: I'm not. I'm really not. You mentioned the Moscow

example, that's a perfect example. There's nothing there. Yet it's created weeks and weeks and months of headlines. So, no, I have zero concern.

(END VIDEO)

BERMAN: So on the one hand what else is she going to say? Our Lauren Jarrett offered last hour? On the other hand Maggie, I am curious if you're picking up any signals from inside that world people close to the president's family that they do think they are almost through with this and they may be able to get out of this without any of them being charged?

HABERMAN: I think they really don't know what Mueller has and I think that, you know, none of us know what Mueller has. So I think that until it's done I don't think any of them are going feel safe. We have heard them say repeatedly that they don't believe that there is anything there and they don't have any reason to expect that there's going to be something that ties to them.

I would say, though, the problem with what Ivanka Trump just said is that, you know, she's acting as if this is, you know, some unfair news story. The Moscow Tower Project is something that her father tried to minimize repeatedly throughout the campaign after the campaign it was going on much longer than they had said, which they have since acknowledged. And so this is a story because of their actions. It's not a story because people are looking to find bad things.

HILL: It's also fascinating, and, look, we all understand people speak when they want to speak; certainly when it comes to this White House, certainly when it comes to the trump family. We know Ivanka has other things that she wanted to talk about this week. But it is fascinating that we're actually hearing from her in this moment. I don't think that can be ignored.

HABERMAN: No it can't be, although I'm actually not sure that she sought out to do an interview talking about that.

HILL: No, certainly not.

HABERMAN: My guess is she was doing an interview about an initiative that she was promoting and she certainly did not look thrilled to be answering that question.

BERMAN: Maggie, can just get your take, one take quickly we're going to talk extensively about Jeff Bezos and the "National Enquirer" in a little bit. But you a unique angle on this which is you've been reporting on the president and his relationship "The New York Times" and David Pecker for some time. What's the nature of that relationship and why does that matter as we look forward on this story?

HABERMAN: There's two things I'm struck by here. David Pecker and the president have a historic mutually beneficial relationship, friendship, whatever you want to call it. President Trump was somebody who helped sell "National Enquirer" magazines and David Pecker was, you know, happy to have his outfit endorse the president in 2016 in exchange or return or just as its own thing. The "National Enquirer" engaged in these catch and kill operation where's they were paying people essentially to put their stories on a chef if they were damaging about the president, make sure that they were not going to come out.

I'm not convinced that that relationship is actually where it was because remember, David Pecker had been receiving immunity in the Southern District of New York case in order to go after Michael Cohen. Right now Michael Cohen is the only one who has faced jail time in any of this because everybody else cut an immunity deal. Not sure how that deal holds up now. I'm not a prosecutor, obviously, but, you know, there's certainly questions that are going to be raised about how long that deal can hold up in light of this unbelievable letter that was written to Jeff Bezos threatening to expose him in which Bezos characterized as extortion.

[07:10:00]

Pecker has other relationships around the president. Remember, Jared Kushner at one point in "The Observer" and the "National Enquirer" had some potential business deal together and so I think that there's a lot going on here and we're going to spend several days trying to figure it out.

BERMAN: Thank you Maggie. Appreciate it. I always like your insight on this.

HILL: Now more on the breaking news that we brought you at the top of the show. The U.S. Supreme court blocking a Louisiana law going into effect today that would have imposed new restrictions on abortion clinics. Chief Justice John Roberts joining the four liberals on the court to stay the law until it's fully reviewed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a dissent on the decision. Joining us now, CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. You were the one who said when Jeff, when everything was starting with Brett Kavanaugh when he was confirmed. This is going to be the start of the end of Roe v Wade, I'm paraphrasing there.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: No, you're quoting exactly.

HILL: See, I remember everything you say, Jeff Toobin.

TOOBIN: That's right, yes.

HILL: Is this starting us down that road or is that reading far too much in the fact that this is a stay and they need to look into something?

TOOBIN: I -- I think this is the beginning of the end of row v wade. This case, you know, it is true that John Roberts, the chief justice joined with the four liberals on this essential procedural ruling in the preliminary part of this case. What's important to remember about this Louisiana case, it's virtually identical to a case the court decided just in 2016 where they said Texas could not force abortion clinics to have doctors who had admitting privileges nearby. They said that was an undue burden, it was going to force most clinics

to close, and they said it was unconstitutional. Louisiana in defiance of that court decision said we're passing a law anyway and that court -- that law is now being challenged. In this preliminary ruling, Chief Justice Roberts joined with the liberals in saying let's wait and let's -- we're going to keep the law off the books while we review it, but Roberts voted with the conservatives against the Texas law. So he's going to vote the other way.

And remember, all that talk from Susan Collins, Senator Susan Collins that Brett Kavanaugh, oh, he's very respectful of the president. Here you have Kavanaugh saying in effect we're going to review -- we're going to overturn the decision from 2016. His replacement of Anthony Kennedy who voted with the majority in the Texas case really suggests that this law is going to be upheld and Roe is increasingly in peril.

BERMAN: Just two points. Number one Roberts voted against the Texas, or he said the Texas law was constitution what it was there. This time he's voting differently for now. If he switches.

TOOBIN: Yes.

BERMAN: That would be a giant deal. But you're saying you don't think he will?

TOOBIN: No, I don't think he will.

BERMAN: OK.

TOOBIN: On the merits, I don't think he's going to switch. I think he's going to join with the conservatives.

BERMAN: You think he'll go back to the conservatives. That's the big question. Does he stay with the liberals as he does to this day or go back to the conservatives and the previous ruling?

TOOBIN: Correct.

BERMAN: Brett Kavanaugh in this case seemed to be trying to find some kind of strange middle ground here which is to say that he would uphold the Louisiana law for 45 days?

TOOBIN: Because he said Louisiana has promised not to enforce the law aggressively, whatever that means. I mean, the law is so completely contradictory to binding current supreme court precedent that, you know, it's just hard to see any other way to look at that case, except that the court is about to change that precedent. And the other three justices in the dissent, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch are clearly on record wanting to overturn Roe v Wade; Gorsuch is newer. But this is about changing the law on abortion, that's what this case is about.

HILL: And these wheels that were put in motion years ago and that could be part of a larger discussion later on. But in states meaning there have been things put in motion.

TOOBIN: But state legislatures, they know who's on the Supreme Court.

HILL: Exactly.

TOOBIN: And they are passing laws now...

HILL: Yes.

TOOBIN: ... that they knew would be unconstitutional when Anthony Kennedy was on supreme court but now with Brett Kavanaugh they are being more aggressive in trying to ban abortion.

HILL: Right.

TOOBIN: In more circumstances and eventually altogether.

BERMAN: So you don't believe Roberts is doing something permanent here. We will have to wait and see.

TOOBIN: That's sort of our job.

BERMAN: Thank you, Jeffrey.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the "National Enquirer" tried to extort and blackmail him. The e-mails at the center of this truly bombshell revelation, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

HILL: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is accusing the "National Enquirer" of extortion and blackmail and offering up evidence in a bombshell blog post. Bezos included an e-mail he says came from an American media executive threatening the release of compromising pictures of Bezos unless he dropped his investigation of the tabloid and also publicly stated that "The Enquirer's" coverage was not politically motivated.

Joining us now, Jeffrey Toobin; Brian Stelter, CNN Chief Media Correspondent and the anchor for "Reliable Sources"; and Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House Press Secretary. What I want to do first, and John and I have been talking about this, it really is so important that we lay out the timeline here. So Brain, I hand it over to you for that because that really sets up just a fascinating look at how we got to today.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I'll take it way back. Jeff and McKenzie Bezos have been married for years.

[07:20:00]

They enter into a trial separation. The "National Enquirer" was hot on their tail. "The Enquirer" had been tipped off. They found out that Bezos had a relationship with a girl name Lauren Sanchez. He had been dating her, seeing her quietly, secretly. "The Enquirer" last month was about to publish a story exposing the relationship. That's when Bezos said I'm getting a divorce. Lauren Sanchez and Bezos have been linked, they've been photographed together. This was a tabloid story on front of "The Enquirer" but then behind the scenes, Bezos said, "How did the Enquirer found out? Who leaked? How did they get a hold of some of the photos? How did they get a hold of these text messages?

So Bezos' security chief, Gavin de Becker concludes it was politically motivated. That started to come out in "Daily Beast" last week and "The Washington Post" this week and apparently that set "The National Enquirer" folks blew up their - blew them up. They were like you cannot out and say this. You cannot claim it's politically motivated and that's what led us to this alleged blackmail plot.

BERMAN: That is such a good explanation here. Why did it leak? Bezos wanted to know why did it leak and he was told ...

STELTER: Who found out? Yes.

BERMAN: And - and he was told it was politically motivated. Just one more connection is necessary there. When you say politically- motivated what is the implication?

SANCHEZ Lauren Sanchez has a brother, his name is Michael. Michael has connections to associates of Donald Trump. The reason why that's interesting is because the owner of "The National Enquirer", David Pecker, has been friends with Donald Trump for decades. And we know back during the campaign "The Enquirer" was used to promote Trump and hurt his rivals.

That continued into the Trump Presidency, but then last summer or last fall we were all under the impression that American media has flipped on Trump. That Pecker had flipped on Trump in the Michael Cohen case. So what you wonder now this morning is was the "Enquirer" trying to get back in Trump's good graces by trying to take out one of his rivals? We all know Trump calls Bezos Bozo after all.

BERMAN: And remember, it's not just "The National Enquirer" was editorially supportive of the president, they paid $150 thousand to Karen McDougal in the famous catch and kill situation where they paid her all this money so that she would not tell the story of her affair with Donald Trump. So the relationship between Pecker and Trump was beyond simply a supportive publisher, it was an actual money-based relationship.

STELTER: Not in this case Bezos is the richest man in the world. He could afford to reveal this attempted blackmail threat. So he's published all these emails which essentially say that the American media came to him and said, "Stop it. Stop talking about political motivations, denying that we investigated you for political reasons, then we'll make the pictures go away, we'll make these dirty pictures go away.

HILL: And - and all of that as you point out is detailed in this post from Jeff Bezos who not only published these emails but published the email addresses which we're not putting up for you although interesting he actually blacked our a phone number in one of them; I think he got an email out there. But these came from the Chief Content Officer he says.

And also the general council. Let's just take a look at some of what Jeff Bezos put out there in his blog post. So these are the emails - I can't speak either this morning -- put it up on the screen for you, noting with "The Washington Post" poised to publish unsubstantiated rumors of "The National Enquirer's) initial report, I wanted to describe to you the photos -these are the photos that Brian was referencing, obtained during our news gathering in addition to their blow the belt selfie otherwise colloquially known as a "blank" pic, "The Enquirer" obtained a further nine images.

Goes on to post saying in this exchange affirming that they have no knowledge or basis this is again what we were talking about, they want Bezos to say apparently affirming there no knowledge or basis for suggesting AM's -- American Media's coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.

What's also remarkable in all of that to me is it's written out Joe and it's put out there. It would seem to me, again I'm operating in the realm of reality, that if you're going to try to get someone to do something, that if anybody found out about it might look bad, you probably don't want to put it in an e-mail and, by the way, maybe you shouldn't have your general counsel involved.

LOCKHART: Yes, listen, I think this exposes "The National Enquirer" for practices that they've been doing for many, many years. And in some ways it degrades journalism as a whole. But I think, you know, Jeff Bezos did something remarkable here by calling their bluff. And I think he'll come out the winner here despite the personal embarrassment that he has been suffering and will because this stuff will all come out.

But the really interesting part here is this is no longer just about "The National Enquirer" and some baby aliens. There's a direct connection with the president here. This is a close associate of the president. And when you dig into what the dispute was about, it's not about Bezos' behavior, it's about the political connections.

[07:25:00]

What they're saying here is we don't -- you know, these normal extortion deals, if there are normal extortion deals, is we'll about the political connections. About the political connections. What they're saying here is we don't -- you know, these normal extortion deals, if there are normal extortion deals, is we'll go away if you'll go away. What AMI was looking for here, what Pecker was looking for, was an overt statement saying we don't think this has anything to do with politics.

Clearly Gavin de Becker, the Security Chief found a nerve and touched that nerve about -- and we don't know yet exactly what the details are, but it's about politics and when you think about David Pecker's politics, it's very much tied to Donald Trump, the President of the United States.

TOOBIN: And-- and as they say on television, but wait, there's more. There's a Saudi Arabian connection here too. There's another part of this sorry that relates to the American relationship with Saudi Arabia. David Pecker has been trying to solicit and ingratiate himself with the Saudi government. He came out with special issues endorsing the new regime in Saudi Arabia.

STELTER: As one does.

TOOBIN: Which is so out of character for a supermarket tabloid. He presumably is trying to get investment capital. The Saudi government is incredibly angry at "The Washington Post" because Jamal Khashoggi was their contributor, "The Post" has been extremely aggressive in investigating the relationship between the Saudi government and the murder of their contributor Jamal Khashoggi. So you have these alliances here, you have Trump, Saudi Arabia, Pecker on one side. Bezos on other. And as Bezos points out in his letter which was interestingly on medium.com, not on "The Washington Post" website, pointing out that is another motivation here.

STELTER: I was with Jamal's editor last night and they are not letting go of Jamal's case. You know "The Washington Post" is leading the charge for justice against Saudi Arabia and that means they have the support of Jeff Bezos. So if you can get to Bezos, and it's a little bit murky here Bezos says in his letter, the Saudi angle is not fully explained yet. If you can get to Bezos then you may be able to hush some of the challenging of Saudi Arabia.

BERMAN: Look, there's so many bread crumbs in this long post by Jeff Bezos that he wants people to ask about. Whether or not substantiated or not, he wants people to ask about the Saudi connection, he wants people to look into the political connection although it's in writing about AMI, say this isn't political else we'll post naked pictures of you, that's remarkable.

It's so threatening for them to have this be political that they're threatening the publishing of these naked photos. Jeffrey, there are two major legal questions here. Number one is this type of threat we're going to publish this embarrassing stuff if you don't do that, is that legal and the second bigger question is that AMI is in a legal agreement with the Southern District Of New York which essentially said they weren't going to be charged for campaign finance violations which they more or less admitted to as long as they cleaned up their act going forward. So is that in jeopardy?

TOOBIN: The language in Bezos' post is this is blackmail, this is extortion, both of which are actual crimes under New York state and federal law. Is this letter a crime? I don't know. I think it's an unusual to say the least, situation. The classic extortion scenario is you give me a million dollars or I'll kill you. That's, you know, this is a threat, but because it relates to the press, I'm not aware of a case like this. If I were AMI I'd be concerned. I'd be retaining a criminal defense attorney, which they already have, but I don't know if it's a crime. Now, as you said, they have a nonprosecution agreement with the

southern district of new york. One condition of all nonprosecution agreements is don't commit anymore crimes. Is this a crime? Again, I don't know, but it's a -- it certainly places that agreement in jeopardy. I can't say it voids it altogether.

TOOBIN: The big question I've asked to Amazon to Bezos, have you turned over evidence already to prosecutors? Are you in touch with law enforcement already? We don't know. We also don't know American Media's side of the story. They said not a word about this in the last 12 hours. I assume that's --

HILL: Maybe they're talking with those lawyer.

TOOBIN: On advice of counsel. They also have to decide whether they're going to publish the pictures now.

STELTER: All right, there's that.

BERMAN: When was the last time the president talked to David Pecker? Another question.

LOCKHART: And I think all of this, just to tie up the Saudi Arabia part, the administration reportedly is going to issue their report today.

TOOBIN: Today.

LOCKHART: Today on the Khashoggi killing. And khashoggi killing. Khashoggi killing. And according to CNN's reporting, they're going to side with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. There's a piece of this and you know it goes to Jeffrey's but wait. It's what I call the white water effect. Once you get people digging into something, a lot of times they find it. I think one of the things that Bezos was trying to do here was to say hey, everybody, look at Saudi Arabia.