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Clash over Race at Cohen Hearing; Cohen Alleges Crimes; Cohen Alludes to More Investigations. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 28, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:11] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Michael Cohen accused President Trump of being a racist and then Republican lawmaker Mark Meadows introduced what he thought was evidence to refute that. It was one of the stranger moments when Congressman Meadows invited Lynne Patton, a Trump administration official, who is black, to stand up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK MEADOWS (R), NORTH CAROLINA: You made some very demeaning comments about the president that Ms. Patton doesn't agree with. In fact, it has to do with your claim of racism. She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist.

How do you reconcile the two of those, Mr. Cohen?

MICHAEL COHEN, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FORMER ATTORNEY: As neither should I as the son of a Holocaust survivor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, that exchange led to another interesting exchange with another member of Congress that we'll get to.

We're back with Jeff Zeleny, Nia-Malika Henderson, Laura Coates and Joe Lockhart.

Nia-Malika, I'm just curious, what was that? What was that? What was Mark Meadows doing?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. I mean -- I know. I mean I am still wondering about that today. I mean, first of all, you never see folks sort of props behind, you know, members of Congress. So that in and of itself was sort of odd.

And then you saw Lynn Patton there standing there. Mark Meadows speaking for her, right? I mean she --

CAMEROTA: Yes, she didn't speak. I mean that did not make the case very well.

HENDERSON: She didn't speak. Yes, it didn't make the case. And you saw her sort of awkwardly standing there, like, what do I do? Can I -- should I sit over there? I want to be in the frame because my sort of black presence here is important in what Mark Meadows is saying. But it was so bizarre.

And then you sort of later had the exchanges from some of the freshman members who were really insulted. Brenda Lawrence, I believe, was one of them, and then Congresswoman Tlaib as well basically saying, this in and of itself was a racist act, bringing this black woman, who was silent there as a prop was in itself a racist act. And then you had Mark Meadows again citing his friendship with Elijah Cummings in citing his, I think, his relatives who are people of color, basically taking umbrage at the idea that he could have perpetrated a racist act.

[06:35:29] So there was all of this sort of tokenism and really, I think, rhetoric around race that really, I think, struck a nerve with folks on that panel and certainly the broader public.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And there was internal politics involved there too.

I mean, do we have the exchange? Did you want to hear the exchange between --

CAMEROTA: With Rashida Tlaib?

BERMAN: With Rashida Tlaib.

CAMEROTA: Yes, let's do it.

BERMAN: Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D), MICHIGAN: The fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman, in this chamber, in this committee is alone racist in itself. Donald Trump is setting a precedent that I --

REP. MARK MEADOWS (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Mr. Chairman, I ask that her words be taken down.

TLAIB: Donald Trump is setting a precedent -- I reclaim my time.

MEADOWS: Mr. Chairman, I ask that her words, when she's referring to an individual member of this body, be taken down and stricken from the record. I'm sure she didn't intend to do this, but if anyone knows my record as it relates, it should be you, Mr. Chairman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It was really strange, Laura. What she said, the congresswoman said, was it was a racist act to have Lynne Patton stand up there. And later in that exchange between Meadows and Elijah Cummings, ultimately Tlaib sort of apologized, said I didn't mean if you thought I was calling you a racist, that's not what I meant. It just was odd.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm actually surprised she retracted it --

BERMAN: Yes.

COATES: Because what she said was quite clear and what she said had some foundations that Nia-Malika was speaking about. I mean what better way, you guys, to combat an accusation of racism than actually to bring somebody out in a stereo typical fashion to say, oh, no, he doesn't hate black people. See, he knows one. He likes one. He hired one. He knows one. He has friends of one. I mean I don't know why Congressman Meadows thought that was an appropriate tactic to use. What it did it overall exemplify, particularly when Michael Cohen came back to say, well, the proof in reality is about who he has hired in the long run. How many executives are black at the Trump Organization or any other organization? The answer is zero. And that was left out there lingering.

Also the idea of this really farce that no black person has ever worked for a -- somebody who has had racist ideologies or anything else really belies the entire history of America. It's one of the reasons why there are so many diversity initiatives across Fortune 500 companies, across all spectrums, because race is a very, very polarizing yet existing occurrence in America. And the idea that, no, no, no one has ever worked for nor would, perhaps it's that she's unaware of all of the reasons why Michael Cohen, who has had a much more intimate exchange -- relationship with him would be aware of his thoughts. And he offered some advice and statements about that.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean Michael Cohen, Joe, talked about the disgraceful things that he had heard --

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

CAMEROTA: Donald Trump say, maybe even President Trump, when he was president, say that he felt were racist and sure sounded racist. So there was all of that.

I mean it was just very interesting yesterday to here Michael Cohen, who, as you said, wanted to unburden himself it seemed.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: It seemed as though this was catharsis for him to finally be able to talk about all of this. But obviously these are sensitive topics. I mean this is what Donald Trump -- this is what President Trump does to people.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: These are sensitive topics that end up getting heated.

LOCKHART: Yes. Listen, I think Michael Cohen, on a number of subjects, was doing a public service. He was laying out information that the public has wanted to know about financial fraud, about, you know, all the other things. This, to me, appeared a little bit gratuitous. I think this was he wanted to hurt the president. And there you are -- these are legitimate issues. The president has a long history of racism. You know, the Central Park Five, the how -- his first big deals in business were sanctioned by the Justice Department. You know, Charlottesville, all of that.

And I think it's -- there was a little bit of a generational thing going on there. Some of the younger members, African-American members, talking to an older white guy who thinks I can just trot out. And let's remind -- I want to leave with one thing on Mark Meadows. I'm not going to call him a racist, but he is a birther. He does -- he did subscribe and accuse President Obama of not being born in the United States and underlying that entire attack was racism.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Michael Cohen wanted to cleanse himself, I thought as well here. Like, you know, he was associated with a lot of this. It had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

LOCKHART: Exactly.

ZELENY: So I think that had they focused on more of the investigations to come, those questions from AOC were the best ones because they open the door to what's to come. That would have been more effective, I think, rather than calling him a con man and a racist.

LOCKHART: Yes, I don't -- I don't --

ZELENY: (INAUDIBLE) relevant (INAUDIBLE).

LOCKHART: I don't fault the members for pushing back on what Meadows did.

BERMAN: Sure.

ZELENY: Right.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

[06:40:03] LOCKHART: But I think that was less relevant to the hearing --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LOCKHART: And had more do with Michael Cohen trying to get one last shot in at the president.

BERMAN: All right, friends, thank you very, very much.

I do want to note, coming up on NEW DAY --

COATES: I will say --

BERMAN: I'm so sorry. We're going to come back to this, I promise. We're going to speak to two lawmakers who did question Michael Cohen, including Rashida Tlaib, we were just talking about right there, was in the middle of that, and also Katie Hill, who really moved the ball forward in terms of the president's involvement in potential criminal activity while he was in office. CAMEROTA: OK, Michael Cohen also linked President Trump to campaign finance crimes. How big of a problem is that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: President Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, in one of the most dramatic and perhaps important moments of his testimony suggested that President Trump, while he was president of the United States, was involved in committing campaign finance crimes.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FORMER ATTORNEY: This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year while he was president. Other checks to reimburse me for the hush money payments were signed by Donald Trump Junior and Allen Weisselberg.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:45:14] BERMAN: What he's talking about is this check, a copy of which I'm holding in my hand right now, written to Michael Cohen by Donald Trump on August 1, 2017, while Donald Trump was president of the United States. This was part of the hush money, according to Michael Cohen, and, frankly, federal prosecutors, used to pay off Stormy Daniels.

Joining me now is Larry Noble. He previously served as general counsel for the Federal Election Commission and is a CNN contributor.

Larry, I am thrilled to have you with us to help understand the laws that prosecutors, federal prosecutors, say were broken here and walk through this.

First, even before I get to Michael Cohen, just remind us, in 20 seconds or less, what laws did Michael Cohen plead guilty to breaking in terms of campaign finance.

LARRY NOBLE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he pled guilty to I believe making an excessive contribution and also conspiracy, I believe it was. And so it was -- it was -- it was all related to this making of the contribution, make of the payoff to Stormy Daniels. And -- yes, and so -- and so -- yes, it was -- I'm trying to think.

BERMAN: Yes.

NOBLE: And so it was -- it was a conspiracy to -- to make an illegal contribution and it was a conspiracy for failure to report the contributions.

BERMAN: And what was new yesterday was hearing from Michael Cohen's own lips that he talked to Donald Trump every step of the way when he was negotiating these payoffs to Stormy Daniels.

Why is that significant?

NOBLE: Well, it's significant. You know, if you go back a year, Donald Trump was denying that he knew anything about these payments. They were saying that Michael Cohen just -- Michael Cohen was saying a year ago that he just did this because he was Donald Trump's lawyer and this is the type of thing a lawyer does for his clients.

What this shows, in fact, Donald Trump was involved from the very beginning. Michael Cohen testified yesterday that Donald Trump told him to use his home equity line of credit, and that Donald Trump was involved in the actual paying back of Michael Cohen for the money he used to pay Stormy Daniels.

So Donald Trump is very much involved in it. We now have proof that Donald Trump is very much involved in it. And also he was involved in putting together the scheme to hide the money. And the reason that's important is for this to be a criminal violation of the campaign finance laws, it has to be a knowing and willful violation. And that means you had to know that what you were doing was illegal.

One of the things that is evidence of a knowing and willful violation is efforts to hide what you're doing. And it was very clear from Michael Cohen's testimony that the whole goal of Donald Trump in doing this was to hide his involvement with paying Stormy Daniels.

BERMAN: Again, yes, that's right, it was -- come from a home equity loan from Michael Cohen. Donald Trump, Michael Cohen testified, didn't want his own fingerprints on it or his own signature on it directly. And then breaking up the payments over time helps mask that.

We also -- we don't have to take Michael Cohen's word for it that the president knew and was involved in this. We've heard him on tape discussing the payoffs here. So we know the president knew. Knowledge of needs to be happening here. Knowledge of breaking the law needs to happen here. And also proof that it was just for campaign purposes. And, again, it's the timing here that matters so much, Larry.

NOBLE: Right. Absolutely. You know, if this payment had happened before Donald Trump was running for president, you know, it would be a very different issue. Even if he was paying off Stormy Daniels way before he decided to run for president and continued to pay her off, it might be a different issue.

But what's really remarkable about this is that he didn't decide to really pay her off until right before the election. And this is at a time when Donald Trump's treatment of women was a very big issue. There was the Billy Bush tape that was out and I think they were very concerned about how this would look. And all of a sudden it becomes imperative for them to pay off Stormy Daniels. So you have the direct connection to the election.

BERMAN: As someone who has been in the campaign finance field for some time and done -- and been involved with investigations like this, when you saw a copy of this check that was written in August of 2017, while Donald Trump was president of the United States, I just want to know what your first reaction was. NOBLE: Well, my first reaction is, this is -- this is hard evidence of -- of a campaign finance violation. Now, to be fair, it does not say on the memo line of the check to pay off Stormy Daniels and -- or it does not say contribution. But what we have here is hard evidence that Donald Trump knew about the payoffs, he authorized the payoffs. We have Donald Trump's signature on a check. So this is really concrete evidence that, frankly, supports the narrative.

You know, one of the things that you have going on here is a narrative about what happened. Why did this happen? And Michael Cohen is telling a story about what happened here. And what supports the story is these checks. He can explain why these checks were paid. And the fact that this went on through the presidency is also significant because it shows that this is something that Donald Trump kept involved with and it's something that he felt was important to make sure that this all stayed silent.

[06:50:03] There's also another issue that I wondered about listening to the testimony, is -- Cohen says that Trump, when explaining why the checks were late coming to Michael Cohen, said something about it was hard to get through or took to get it through the White House. And I'm not sure how much they used government resources to try to get these checks to Michael Cohen, which could be a different problem.

Also, at the same time, they talk about Trump Organization people, Weisselberg, being involved in this, Donald Trump Junior being involved in this, and they may have -- and Cohen may have very well implicated these people.

BERMAN: He may have involved other people, or at least fingered other people in possibly illegal activity, campaign finance. Lawyers may want to look at this and Congress may want to look at it as well.

Larry Noble, thanks so much for being with us.

NOBLE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, Michael Cohen is actually back on Capitol Hill today for even more testimony, this time behind closed doors. What more can he reveal? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:00] BERMAN: All right, new this morning, what exactly is under investigation? Michael Cohen dropped a huge hint saying that federal prosecutors in New York are investigating other unspecified criminal activity involving the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D), ILLINOIS: Is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding Donald Trump that we haven't yet discussed today?

MICHAEL COHEN, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FORMER ATTORNEY: Yes. And, again, those are part of the investigation that's currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, Jennifer Rodgers and Elie Honig, both former federal prosecutors.

And, Elie, really, that's interesting.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I had the same reaction, John. I perked up with I heard that. And the way he was asked the question was very broad, is there any other investigation into wrongdoing? Look, I think that's maybe the biggest takeaway for those trying to figure out what's going to come next. We know not only that the Southern District is engaged, we already knew that, but that Cohen continues to actively assist them.

Another interesting and related thing that we learned, that we had sort of theorized about, and Michael Cohen confirmed yesterday, is that he's trying to get further sentencing relief. We call it rule 35. And what that says is that a prosecutor can go back to the judge after sentencing and say, this person has given us additional cooperation and so we ask you to reduce his sentence further. It's somewhat rare. I probably did it five, ten times in my career. But it does happen. And Michael Cohen said yesterday that's what he's going for. It kind of makes sense now when you look at him postponing his surrender date to prison.

So, look, that's going to impact Michael Cohen's incentives. He is heavily incentivized to get that benefit and to be truthful.

CAMEROTA: But, Jennifer, back to the Southern District of New York, didn't we know that there were ongoing investigations? Why was that a bombshell?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's not so much that that's a bombshell, but we did kind of think we knew what they were. So the notion that he's saying, oh, there's other stuff that I haven't even told you about I think is a big deal.

CAMEROTA: That I can't talk about (INAUDIBLE).

RODGERS: That's right.

What we didn't hear yesterday was about the Trump Organization investigations. I think that there's all sorts of looking into corporate malfeasance there, you know, tax fraud, bank fraud, accounting fraud, personal issues with Donald Trump. Again, bank fraud, he brought those financial statements yesterday, tax fraud, insurance fraud we heard about. So all of this is fair game.

And then, of course, we also know that there are kind of corollary investigations in various states, D.C. and New York, which could be pardon proof, which is a big deal to him.

BERMAN: Again, right, all of this is outside Mueller world to an extent. RODGERS: Right.

BERMAN: I mean the SDNY investigation and all the state and city investigations, they go on even after the Mueller report comes out next week.

Elie, in another exchange, Michael Cohen was asked directly when the last time he spoke to either the president or people connected to the president or the White House was and he said about two months after the raid on his home and hotel room, but he couldn't talk about that conversation because it might be connected to the various investigations. And that's the one that I find truly confounding. I can't figure out what that might be about.

HONIG: Yes, again, I was trying to work that one through. It could be that it's somehow related to what the Southern District's doing. It could be that it's somehow related to what Mueller's doing. It's a little unclear how they set the ground rules for this thing and who was responsible for policing it.

My first reaction was that it must go to obstruction of justice somehow. I don't know why exactly that would be off limits. But if you look at the timing of that conversation, the context, the search warrant having just been done and the president sort of wants this conversation, that would be my best guess as to what that was about.

CAMEROTA: It was also interesting, Jennifer, to hear him talk about the Trump Foundation and that he was involved in doing sketchy things with charity money, which, of course, is illegal. So my question is, today, he appears behind the -- behind closed doors, House Intel Committee, and so can he reveal more to them because it's behind closed doors or does he still not want to give up what he's helping with the SDNY?

RODGERS: Well, you know, prosecutors don't love it because Congress leaks like a sieve, right? So even when it's behind closed doors, you aren't sure that stuff won't get out. But he can. You know, I think he will be a little more free to talk because, in theory, it is closed and they shouldn't be disclosing details of an ongoing investigation.

So I do think he will be able to be more forthcoming. I think he'll be able to answer the question about, what was your last meeting about, what was discussed, you know, get into more details, things that he wouldn't talk about and at least defiant the scope of what's going on. I mean I think this committee is going to want to know, you know, you basically said there's other investigations that you wouldn't be willing to talk about. What are those? I think he will have to answer those questions.

BERMAN: Elie, can Michael Cohen do interviews or can he say anything in public now before May 6th? This was testimony, but there are a lot of questions that maybe with some more direct efforts yesterday could have revealed more information. Is there a second chance for someone to get those answers?

HONIG: Yes, legally, there's nothing preventing him from doing interviews, doing media. But, again, having been a prosecutor, if someone is cooperating and trying to get an additional benefit, I think the first thing I would tell them is, no more public statements, no more PR tour, no more media, no more Lanny Davis leading you around. If there's something that you want to talk about, you need to run it by us first. If it's an official proceeding, like we saw yesterday, then go ahead, but no freelancing anymore.

CAMEROTA: All right, Elie, Jennifer, thank you both very much.

And thanks for our international viewers for watching. For your CNN "TALK" is next. For our U.S. viewers, we have breaking news on the North Korean summit.

[07:00:02] NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We thought it wasn't a good thing.

END