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Reporting Indicates Members of Mueller Team Took Issue with Attorney General Barr's Summary of Findings; Rep. Adam Schiff (D) California is Interviewed on House Democratic Requests to Release Full Mueller Report and President Trump's Tax Returns; Pete Buttigieg Touts April 14th Announcement. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 04, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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


UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and John Berman.

[08:00:02] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, April 4th, 8:00 now in the east. "The New York Times" reveals that the Mueller report may be far more damaging for President Trump than Attorney General Bill Barr outlined in his four-page summary to Congress. The "Times" says some of Mueller's investigators have told close associates that they feel that Barr did not adequately capture the findings of their nearly two year long probe. Mark Mazzetti is one of the reporters who broke the story. He was on NEW DAY this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MAZZETTI, WASHINGTON INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": William Barr had the first shot at shaping the narrative here, and in doing so he certainly downplayed the information that potentially was perilous for Donald Trump.

We don't know how extensive this frustration and concern is inside the team. We don't suggest that it's every member, but we think that there is a significant strain here inside the investigation about -- of concern and frustration about how this all played out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So the "Washington Post" this morning added to that reporting. They write, quote, "members of Mueller's team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was," quote, "alarming and significant."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also new this morning, a key turning point in the president's years' long effort to keep his tax returns secret. House Democrats put in a formal request to the IRS to hand over six years of the president's personal and business returns. This is more than just a typical Congressional request, please, this is more than that. There is a law in place that requires the IRS to turn over tax returns if requested by certain committees. And in a letter to the IRS first obtained by CNN, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal demanded returns from 2013 through 2018. The president says he is not inclined to comply until he is no longer

under audit, which in and of itself, we should add, is something that has never been confirmed.

Let's go back to the "New York Times" report. Joining us now to talk about that is Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff. He is the chair of the house intelligence committee. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for being with us and helping us understand what could be a turning point, a split between the Mueller investigators and the attorney general's office.

Let me read you part of this story. "The Special Counsel's investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report," their own summaries, "and some team members believe that Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions." How do you see that?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D-CA) CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, we don't know yet whether this represents the majority view of the Mueller team, but nonetheless it's very concerning. You would expect that in a report that's 400 pages long that there would be a summary or summaries of the findings. And it is, I think, significant, if that's the case that the attorney general arrogated unto himself to write his own summary rather than using the ones that the Mueller team may very well have expected to be made public. Those summaries may be among the most carefully drafted, worded parts of the entire report by the Mueller team. They know that most Americans aren't going to read all 400 pages, they are going to look to those top lines. And so they were probably wordsmithed very carefully, which means that any deviation by Barr to give perhaps an overly optimistic picture of the president's behavior, particularly as to obstruction, would have concerned the members of that team.

BERMAN: Let's put up P-104 in the control room, if we can, because "The New York Times" does address this issue, "the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contained sensitive information, these summaries prepared by the Mueller team, like classified materials, secret grand-jury testimony, and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential according to two government officials." So that would be the response about why they didn't use the Mueller summaries, because there was stuff in there that they didn't feel was ready yet for public consumption. Is that adequate to you?

SCHIFF: No, it isn't adequate at all, because if that was the case, first of all, I would imagine the Mueller team would have all that in mind in drafting the summaries. and as it pertains to classified information, they might have included that in a separate annex. So that doesn't explain it at all, and in particular doesn't explain why Barr felt he had to draft his own summary rather than seeking court permission to release grand jury material and providing the Mueller findings when they were ready instead of trying to color the public's perception.

And now we are two weeks into this, all we have is Bill Barr's word for this, and of course that comes from someone who was picked for his hostility to the obstruction case, which appears to be what some of the Mueller team is taking issue one.

BERMAN: There's one thing that obviously could clear this up, which is the release of the report, which is something the American people in every poll have said they're eager to see. Mr. Chairman, I do want to ask, though, about --

[08:05:00] SCHIFF: Yes, and John on that point, you're absolutely right. There's little, as you can see, that unites the American people about the Russia investigation, but everyone is united on the need to make this report public and this underscores why.

BERMAN: But completely public, 100 percent public? Do you feel that every person in America has the right to see all the grand jury material, all material that might be classified, all the material that has to do with ongoing investigations?

SCHIFF: I think that the attorney general should have done what he pledged to do in his Senate confirmation, which is be as transparent as law and policy allows, and that would mean going to the court to seek the court's permission to, yes, release the grand jury material. There may need to be small redactions if there's a classified annex that can be shared with Congress in a closed session. But these broad categories that the attorney general is trying to redact are unnecessary redactions, and it looks like he is trying to hide information rather than be forthcoming as he promised.

BERMAN: All I will say is, again, we don't know if they're necessary or unnecessary because we haven't seen them. We haven't seen it yet. That, again, is the one thing that can clear it out. You say that some could be given to Congress in some kind of annex that would be top secret. There are critics who say nothing stays top secret in Congress, that if it went to Congress ultimately it would leak. How could you promise that it would never get out to the public?

SCHIFF: Look, we deal with classified information all the time. That's what's provided to the intelligence committees, and the attorney general can't take the position that now I'm not going to share any classified information with Congress because it might leak. All too often the leaks, in fact, come from the administration, not the Congress. But more than that, John, there is a statutory obligation to share counterintelligence information with the Congress. That's not discretionary on the part of the Justice Department. They are going to need to share that information.

BERMAN: The framing of the article first in the "New York Times" and then the "Washington Post," there's concern within the Mueller team about how the narrative is being framed here. Should that be the concern really of investigators here, how a narrative is being framed? Shouldn't they just be concerned about the facts?

SCHIFF: Well, I think they are concerned that the facts may be misrepresented or that they may be slanted by this Barr summary. And I think they have every right to be concerned about that. They put two years of hard work into this. I think they did a real service to the country. And to see their work product in any way mischaracterized, if that's their feeling, yes, they should be concerned about it. And again, it all comes back to the fact we need transparency. Let the American people judge whether what Mr. Barr did was fair or unfair. And the only way that can happen is if they make this report public.

BERMAN: There's one way to clear this up, and that's to see the report, and I think many of us need to suspend our criticism what's in it or not until we see how much is in there. Maybe it's soon, maybe it's in the next few days.

Mr. Chairman, your committee is very busy. You want to see inauguration information from the Trump Inaugural Committee. Why?

SCHIFF: We're concerned about foreign influence and whether any of the resources that went into that massive fundraising came from foreign parties interested in influencing this new administration. We already know because there's about a conviction of Sam Patten that there was at least a straw purchase involving $50,000 to buy tickets for the inauguration on behalf of a Russian and a Ukrainian. Whether that was the sum total of foreign investment or there's more, we would like to find out. And apparently we are not alone. There are prosecutorial authorities in New York reported to be looking at the same thing.

BERMAN: On the tax returns, Americans have wanted to see the president's tax returns for some time, the polls also show that. By law the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee can ask for them, and Richard Neal from Massachusetts has asked for them. I'm sure you would like to see them, but do you feel that you have a right to see them legally, or will they stay just within the Ways and Means Committee?

SCHIFF: Well, I did he ever to Chairman Neal. I think he has made a narrowly tailored request, and this is not going to be discretionary on the IRS part. They shall provide them to Chairman Neal, and I think the chairman is on very rock-solid ground here. What happens after that, if the chairman determines that other committees need to review them, I'm sure he will take whatever the appropriate process is, but I defer to the chairman on that. I think he has set out quite clearly the interest of the Ways and Means Committee under its tax oversight responsibilities to obtain those returns, and I think that's exactly what's going to happen. I do expect the administration is going to fight it, indeed, they're fighting every request by every committee, but I think they're going to lose, and the law is very clearly on the chairman's side.

BERMAN: They will fight it. Whether or not they lose, one thing is possible, it could go on for a long time, months if not years.

Finally, I know you are concerned about the incident in Mar-a-Lago where a woman with two Chinese passports, four cellphones, malware on a thumb drive, got in. From an intelligence perspective, the intelligence committee, what is your concern?

[08:10:07] SCHIFF: Well, I think people need to realize that apart from the White House itself, that resort, Mar-a-Lago, where the president spends so much of his time, has got to be the top intelligence target for foreign intelligence services around the world. They are deeply focused on that. And so when we saw early in the presidency the president looking at documents by cellphone light, we all asked what kind of documents are they, and is that cellphone that he's using secure? And now we have this report of someone going to this property with multiple electronic devices, with a thumb drive containing malware. And we don't know anything about that malware. And I have to say that if she was part of any kind of an operation, it looks very amateurish. I'm more concerned about something more sophisticated. You can buy your way into Mar-a-Lago, which means that those that are interested in gathering intelligence there don't have to try to go into the ruse of being a guest going to the swimming pool or some nonexistent conference. They will be more sophisticated than that. They will buy a membership and they'll use that access to do whatever they feel they can get away with in terms of gathering information. That ought to concern all Americans.

BERMAN: Chairman Adam Schiff, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: You've given us a lot of food for discussion. Joining us now is CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. He's a former federal prosecutor. Let's start with the reporting this morning that Mueller's team, some of his investigators have shared with their close associates that they feel that what they've found in terms of investigating President Trump and his orbit and their contacts with the Russians and what the Russians were trying to do was much more, what was the word they used, significant and alarming, than the way Attorney General Bill Barr depicted it. It was only a matter of time. If you think that somebody is speaking for you and mischaracterizing your work, can you blame them for wanting to speak out and wanting the full report now to be seen in the light of day?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Of course. And it is worth remembering that in that letter, the four categories that Barr set out about information he plans to censor, grand jury material, classified information, information that may be damaging to third parties and, gosh, I'm forgetting the fourth one --

BERMAN: Intelligence --

TOOBIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Ongoing investigations.

TOOBIN: Ongoing investigations, all four of which are potentially vastly broad. And those four categories are not mentioned in the regulations.

Now, I don't think anyone would disagree that classified information can't be shared with the public, but other than that, there are ways of getting those three other categories out to the public if you are inclined to get things out to the public. And if he is not inclined, this could be a swiss cheese release. And you can see why Democrats are going to be furious, and the public.

BERMAN: Democrats and the public are one thing here. The Mueller team is yet a different entity than either Democrats or the public, and that may be the most significant thing that happened in the last 24 hours is that some of them appear to be saying, enough, at least, we don't know exactly on what, but on the idea that their words in their report are being portrayed inadequately.

TOOBIN: And this, unlike many problems, is a problem with the solution. Release the report, because, did Barr characterize the report correctly? Are the Mueller people charactering it correctly? These questions have an answer, and the answer is the report. Whether we will see it or see it in a form where we can make an intelligent judgment about it, that's what we should be finding out in the next week or so.

CAMEROTA: But there was yet another solution to a problem that the Mueller team felt that they had, and that was that they had already prepared these summaries of the different chapters, portions of what they came up with, they released a summary -- they wrote a summary, I should say, for each one of them that they felt could be released to the public. So they had already gone through the exercise of scrubbing it of any of that classified information, and that isn't what Bill Barr chose to do.

TOOBIN: And what's so significant, I believe it was in the "Washington Post" story, is that apparently the Justice Department concluded that those summaries had too much information that couldn't be released to the public. If even the summaries have too much information, think about how much is going to be censored from the body of the report, from the core of the 400 pages. That -- again, I don't want to prejudge until we've actually seen it, but if it's true that even the summaries couldn't be released, certainly it would stand to reason that a lot more of it would not be released.

BERMAN: The fact of the summaries is also just a huge bit of new information that we did not know. We did not know that the Mueller team did that and we learned that they may have had more intentionality about how the Congress and public saw their findings than we now believe or that we now know.

[08:15:11] JEFF TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: And this is what's so different about a special counsel within the Justice Department as opposed to an independent counsel like Ken Starr who didn't have to deal with the Justice Department at all, who could release his report without authorization from the Justice Department.

Robert Mueller is a subordinate of the attorney general of the United States, so what Barr decides to release is the last word, at least as far as Mueller is concerned. Now, Congress can try to intervene, but Mueller has no remedy.

BERMAN: It has to be a yes or no answer because they're yelling at me in the control room, but can the 19 lawyers and 40 FBI investigators be subpoenaed at some point to testify before Congress? TOOBIN: Yes, they can be, whether this is a legal fight, again, about

the subpoenas remains to be seen, but certainly they can be subpoenaed and Mueller certainly will be, I don't think there's any doubt about that, Mueller himself.

BERMAN: Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.

TOOBIN: Certainly.

BERMAN: We have breaking news in the 2020 presidential race. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, who has just been exploring says he has a big announcement to make in April. Whatever could that be?

And there is yet another possible candidate who dropped a big hint just a short time ago. We will discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:01] BERMAN: Big new moves in the 2020 presidential race.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says he will make a special announcement on April 14th. So, up until now, he's just been exploring a run for president. April 14th looks like the official real deal.

This morning, he addressed concerns about his experience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), SOUTH BEND, INDIANA: I get that it's more traditional if I were to spend years or maybe decades marinating in Washington, but I think we would be --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Marinating.

BUTTIGIEG: That's what people expect of you, you soak up the ways of the Congress, and I get that. But I actually they we would be better off if Washington started looking more like our best run cities and towns and not the other way around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: If Washington marinated in the rest of us. So, there's that.

Now, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is going as far as she has yet on the question of whether she might run for president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY ABRAMS (D), FORMER GEORGIA CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR: I am thinking about it. I truly am. I think that the timing for me is first deciding about the Senate, because I do think you cannot run for an office unless you know that's the job you want to do. I don't think you use office as a stepping stone. So, my first responsibility is to determine whether a Senate run is right for me and then the next conversation for myself will be, if not the Senate, then what else?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, M.J. Lee, CNN political correspondent, and David Chalian, CNN political director.

First of all, David, Pete Buttigieg is in April 14th --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I thought he was already in.

BERMAN: That's a formality, we will put Mayor Pete to the side here for a second.

The Stacey Abrams comment was fascinating because she's opening that door ever wider on a presidential run and to me at least -- Chuck Schumer is not going to like this, this kind of shut the door at least a little bit on a Senate run there. She wasn't all that enthusiastic about running for Senate in Georgia.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: She wasn't, but I would caution, again, that it is entirely isn't ruled out for her. I have been speaking to people who are familiar with her thinking on this and for the longest time they kept saying, you know, I think a presidential thing is something she's clearly giving thought to because people are coming to her and asking her to think about t but they all sort of seem to think that a Senate run was more likely.

But I agree with you, John, just listening to her it sounded at least she wasn't showing any cards, let's give it that much. I don't know that she shut the door. We know that Chuck Schumer can be a persuasive fellow. If she sees that as the better opportunity to serve, I would imagine she will still go that Senate route.

It is a very crowded presidential field adds you know. Stacey Abrams is a rising star in the party and clearly could offer a voice into the race that isn't there yet, but it is a very crowded field versus having the entire party behind you for a run for the Senate, that still may be an appealing option.

CAMEROTA: I mean, there you have it. M.J., I'm fascinated by people who make the calculus, OK, there's 13 other really qualified on some level one or the other people in the race, but I'm going to jump in, too. I mean, it just seems like -- I don't know, is it a risky year or a good year for people to jump in that field?

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: If Pete Buttigieg has shown anything it's that you can be the longest of the long shots and in the matter of days become a really serious candidate. If there are Democratic candidates who are even thinking about making a run for president in 2020, they are watching someone like Mayor Pete and thinking to themselves, if this person who was deemed by everybody as having really no chance at becoming a serious candidate, then why not me?

I think what the first couple of months of this year have also shown is that the Democratic base, they are eager to do speed dating right now and as a part of that it is not just about the number of sort of candidates that are willing to look at seriously, I think they're willing to look at candidates that they traditionally in the past would not have necessarily considered dating.

BERMAN: Look, Donald Trump in some ways has opened the door for Democrats and Republicans who may never have considered running for president before because who is to say you can't do it.

CHALIAN: We have never seen it sort of harm people to run for president and lose, right? More options become open to them, more often than not.

BERMAN: All right. A major development in the presidential race yesterday, which is former Vice President Joe Biden felt the need to release this video explaining some of the criticisms and complaints from women who say that he has made them feel uncomfortable over the years. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Social norms have began to change, they've shifted and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it. I get it. I hear what they're saying. I understand it.

I will be much more mindful. That's my responsibility. My responsibility. And I will meet it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Look, I think this is interesting on at least six different levels but the top of top lines, David, is I'm running says Joe Biden, I think, by this message.

[08:25:04] CHALIAN: Yes, I mean, call this his announcement video, probably not the one he wanted, but this has all but forced Joe Biden into the race in a way where he is playing defense and trying to reshape a narrative so that when he does eventually get in the race perhaps at the end of the month that will be more of a reset opportunity for him than the original launch that I think team Biden had planned. But, yes, I think you are 100 percent right about that.

Clearly he wanted to -- you don't hear sort of an I'm sorry full mea culpa kind of apology. He says he gets it, he says he's going to adjust accordingly, but he asserted also his belief in the need for as he called himself a tactile politician, but of humanity in some ways and that did not sound like to me when he was saying that that part of him was going to change.

CAMEROTA: Well, I agree, David, and I'm just wondering about that decision. M.J., why didn't he apologize? What would it have hurt to have snuck in a sentence saying it wasn't my intention and I certainly apologize to the women who I made feel uncomfortable? Why didn't he decide to do that?

LEE: Because I think if he had literally said the words I'm sorry every single head line and every single chyron would have been Biden: I'm sorry.

I think that that's not where his head is at right now. I think that that's not the outcome that his strategist and advisers want to see. I think that he obviously showed contrition in the tone of that video, he obviously tried to show that he gets it. I mean, he literally said I get it, I get it, more than once.

He is a he trying to show that he understands and he is listening and he gets that the social norms are changing as he put it. I think that Joe Biden right now is standing at the edge of the pool and he is sort of dipping his toes in and trying to see and take the temperature.

The reality is no matter when he jumps in and if he does, the water is going to be cold. He is going to get a shock to his system. Whether it's because of the many other candidates that are running and how broad the field is, whether it's because of the #metoo movement and the cultural norms that have changed as he put it. For so many reasons this is going to be a shock to the system, whether he announces tomorrow or whether he announces weeks from now.

BERMAN: I think he is up to his belly button in the pool.

Biden is leading in the polls, David, but there is a different clear cleared when it comes to fundraising. Let's put those numbers up right now. Bernie Sanders is just far and away brought in the most impressive haul at $18.2 million, Kamala Harris is at $12 million. Beto O'Rourke, $9.4 million, it's good in 18 days but it's not earth- shattering.

CHALIAN: Yes, John, I had the same reaction to O'Rourke's number. Yes, it is 18 days, I understand, but the vast majority of that 9.4 was raised in his first 24 hours. So when I look at that O'Rourke number, here is a person that came in with outsized expectations because of what he did on the fundraising circuit in Texas last year and came so close to defeating Ted Cruz and all these people that had hopes and dreams for him.

I think what that number does is bring O'Rourke down to earth a little bit more. He is clearly in the group of leaders of the pack but he is in that pack. The lowering of that is probably good for him at the out start of this election to maybe temper expectations. But Bernie Sanders, that number is huge and I've got to say he is the clear -- of the folks in this race, he is the clear front runner and I think anyone that dismisses the notion as Bernie Sanders as the front running candidate for the Democratic nomination does so at their peril.

CAMEROTA: M.J., we don't talk, I think -- quickly, all these other people because they're newcomers I guess get some more of the attention but Bernie Sanders deserves to be called at the moment the front runner.

LEE: He is the front runner. There is no spinning that and there is no reason to spin it in the polls, in the number of contributions that he is getting, the amount of money that he is raising, he is the current front runner in the Democratic primary of the declared candidates.

BERMAN: Of the declared candidates, asterisk, Joe Biden. More on that later. Maybe soon. Who knows?

David Chalian, great to have you. M.J. Lee, always a pleasure.

CHALIAN: Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: OK. Investigations into Trump world are ramping up. Democrats say it's oversight, Republicans call it overreach. We will talk to a Republican senator about that and so much more, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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