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Report Indicates Attorney General Barr Assembling Team to Investigate Origins of FBI Interview into Trump Campaign; Treasury Secretary has Tense Exchange with House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 10, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:01] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actress Lori Loughlin facing more charges in that college admissions scandal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those who didn't strike a deal with prosecutors ran the risk of facing more charges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This raises the ante and says plead now.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, April 10th, 8:00 now in the east.

But we do begin with some breaking news because CNN has just learned that Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team at the Justice Department to look into the origin of the FBI's investigation into those potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016. We'll have much more on that.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barr returns to Capitol Hill in just two hours, this time before the Senate. There are still many unanswered questions, among them has Mr. Barr spoken to the White House about the contents of the Mueller report. Barr also told lawmakers they will get only a redacted version within a week, but Congress vows to issue a subpoena for the full version of the Mueller report.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: But, wait, there's more. The IRS is likely to miss a deadline today, will almost definitely skip the deadline intentionally to turn over the president's tax returns. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin sparred with Democrats over the release and revealed that Treasury lawyers, they have been coordinating with the White House on this matter. During this hearing Mnuchin said he is not afraid of getting fired over the president's tax returns, and notably got into a very tense, awkward exchange with the chair of the committee, Maxine Waters over the hearing's length.

I want to get right to the breaking news. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live on Capitol Hill. I get the sense that the attorney general is now doing a much more comprehensive investigation into the investigators, Sunlen.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, John. This is a notable move by the attorney general that we're learning this morning, thanks to my colleagues Evan Perez and Laura Jarrett. According to a U.S. official they say that Barr has assembled a team at the Department of Justice to review how the FBI's counterintelligence probe and looking into the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia first began back in 2016.

Now, this is notable because it seems to suggest, of course, that Barr is looking into a similar line of inquiry that we of course have heard from many Republicans up here on Capitol Hill looking into the origins of that probe. This is also something that Bill Barr when he was up here on Capitol Hill testifying yesterday seems to allude to.

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WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016.

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SERFATY: Additionally, the U.S. official also told my colleague that Barr's work is separate from the ongoing investigation that the DOJ I.G., inspector general, is are already conducting. But certainly, John and Alisyn, this will likely be a big line of inquiry in addition to many, many other unanswered questions that Bill Barr will face up here on Capitol Hill today, second day of questioning, this time Senate side. Back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: Sunlen, thank you very much for explaining that breaking news.

Joining us now to talk about all of this we have CNN contributor Bianna Golodryga as well as Jake Sherman and an Anna Palmer, co- authors of the new book "The Hill to Die On," and of course co-writers "Politico" playbook. So let's start with this. Bianna, this breaking news, the Justice Department is already doing an investigation into the origin of the FBI's investigation into any sort of Russia ties, the inspector general and, in fact, that report is due out in May or June. So why would Attorney General Bill Barr need to do more than that?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Like I told you off camera, I think the president should be very happy with his new attorney general. He came in unphased, very seasoned. This isn't his first rodeo. It's his second time in the job. And he had clearly heard loud and clear what the president had been asking for, an investigation into the investigation. He didn't reveal anything new other than the fact that they were also looking into in addition to the inspector general. Obviously I'm assuming the president had been watching and probably was pleased with what he heard. BERMAN: Under the Sessions-Rosenstein Justice Department, I got the

sense that they were doing just enough to shut some of the Republicans up on this issue, the Freedom Caucus and others who were saying, the investigation is flawed, it's tainted, investigate the investigators. They were doing just enough to sort of allay their concerns. What I can't tell is if this is significantly more than that, Jake.

JAKE SHERMAN, SENIOR WRITER, POLITICO: I don't think we can tell that, either, to be honest, at this point. And I think a lot of the theories that the Freedom Caucus -- I have had a conversation with a member of the freedom caucus about this, and he kept saying to me why isn't the mainstream media covering some of these scandals about the investigators?

[08:05:00] They have gone down so many rabbit holes trying to find corruption in all these -- and confirm their theories, and they have not been able to. And they have an ally now as A.G. who is going to probe and going to go deep here and try to find evidence to back up their theories.

ANNA PALMER, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO.COM: And certainly it's giving credence to some of the concerns that a lot of Republicans and the president have publicly stated for a long time, saying we are going to look into this. And I think Bill Barr is a serious person, so he's going to command that agency to do that.

GOLODRYGA: And it also muddies the waters, right? One could argue that the initial Barr memo was the best news that the president was going to get. Once we get this report, over 300 pages, there may be some damaging or embarrassing information that comes out. If you counter the Mueller -- the Mueller report with an additional investigation into the Russia investigation, then that does seem to balance out the news that will be coming out from the attorney general.

CAMEROTA: Look, Republicans have been saying -- I mean, we hear the talking point on our program all the time. They say that it was all about this shoddy dossier, that that's why the investigation was started. Whereas, if you look at the timeline from the FBI, there were all sorts of strange things that began happening in 2015, in the spring of 2016, that raised -- that piqued their interest. Namely, some of them, George Papadopoulos saying that he knew that dirt was going to be coming out on Hillary Clinton. He told it loudly, drunkenly at a bar, so much so that Australia was really concerned about it and called their counterparts in the U.S. That's just one of the things. We have a timeline somewhere that spells out all the strange things that the FBI thought were happening.

But the question is, does Bill Barr not think that the I.G.'s report, which we might see next month, is going to be good enough? Does he not trust his own I.G.'s report? Why does he need to do more?

SHERMAN: I think a D.C.'s inspectors general are viewed with a bit of skepticism from the top of the department almost in every agency. I think that's kind of a truism. I do think the difficult thing here is no one is stipulating from the same set of facts. There are facts as we see them about how this investigation started, and then there's facts some of the president's allies see them. So when you're working with two distinct sets of information, you're not going to be able to come up with a coherent solution.

BERMAN: I will also say what we learn about obstruction from the Mueller report itself may serve as a counterargument to the notion that this was a flawed investigation. It doesn't get to the 2016 aspect of it, but it gets to the idea that the president wanted to stop it perhaps in February, March, April and May of 2017, the steps he took, the firing of James Comey, and why the FBI was so concerned about that and then ramped up their investigation. Maybe this is something to counteract what we're all about to find out about obstruction.

GOLODRYGA: And don't count out what we could be hearing from the inspector general as well. Remember, he didn't handle the McCabe incident with kid gloves. He said that there was reason to fire McCabe and pursue an investigation as well. So we have yet to hear from him. I think the news out of yesterday's hearing was that Barr in addition to the inspector general was also aware of this and following it.

CAMEROTA: So what did you hear yesterday with Bill Barr? What was your take away?

PALMER: Listen, he clearly is going to do things his way. I think he was a very stoic, and wanted to answer what he wanted to answer, he feels very comfortable doing it. You see sometimes a lot of government officials wither under hard questioning, and that was not the case in this instance.

SHERMAN: It's a guy who has had a career, right, a guy who has had a past, so he's not looking to make a name, it doesn't seem to me. It seems like he's going to stick to his guns and proceed as he wants, not wither up political pressure, as Anna said. And that's for the president good, for Congress, for Democrats in Congress and perhaps people who are seeking the most amount of information about our president, right, this is information that should be presumptively public except for grand jury information, that might be a bad thing.

BERMAN: So Bill Barr not a witherer.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERMAN: Right.

BERMAN: Bill Barr is not a witherer, but he did, I think, whether it was inadvertent or not, open up this big new door about the possibility that the White House has been coordinating within the last week to 10 days about the Mueller report. So let's play this exchange with Nita Lowey.

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REP. NITA LOWEY (D-NY): Did the White House see the report before you released your summarizing letter? Has the White House seen it since then? Have they been briefed on the contents beyond what was in your summarizing letter to the Judiciary Committee?

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I've said what I'm going to say about the report today. I'm not going to say anything more about it until the report is out and everyone has a chance to look at it.

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[08:10:00] BERMAN: So that's not a wither, but it is a dodge. It is not answering a question about have you been talking to the White House about the report. Justice and the White House had told us they didn't speak prior to the release of the summary, but what about since then? What does it matter, and what's the implication, Bianna, if they have been talking about it over the last few days?

GOLODRYGA: The White House also said that they hadn't been speaking. And look, this was an opportunity to give a clear, definitive yes or no, full stop answer, and he did not do that. He has command of the room and he was able to say I'm not going to go there and let's move on. But at the same time, it does raise questions at least from a partisan perspective as to what the White House knew about the report, when did it know it, and what did they know about the drafting of the four-page memo.

You had Barr seemingly want to acknowledge his independence by stating I gave Mueller the opportunity to review these four pages, in a way of him saying he trusts me enough to say I didn't need to do that. You could interpret that the other way in which Mueller doesn't want to put his fingerprints on this right now. But you did have Barr open the opportunity and open the door for future debate, which, of course, we're going to see here.

CAMEROTA: So today is the deadline that the House Ways and Means Committee has set up to get six years of President Trump's taxes, and it is up to Steve Mnuchin, or the lawyers at the IRS to hand those over, though the legal code seems to suggest that that is exactly legal, you can do that, you can ask for it and you can receive them. So Steve Mnuchin was testifying yesterday, and he got into this back and forth with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. It seemed as though Steve Mnuchin's internal time clock had run out on wanting to be there, so watch this.

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STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: I've sat here for over three hours and 15 minutes, I've told you I will come back. I just don't believe we're sitting here negotiating when I come back. We'll follow up with your office. How long would you like me to come back for next time? I've told you I'll accommodate you.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): I appreciate that, and I appreciate your reminding us of the length of time other secretaries have been here. This is a new way, and it's a new day.

MNUCHIN: Well, the --

WATERS: And it's a new chair, and I have the gavel at this point. If you wish to leave, you may.

MNUCHIN: Can you clarify that for me?

WATERS: Yes. Clarify this --

MNUCHIN: So --

WATERS: If you wish to leave, you may.

MNUCHIN: OK. So we're dismissed, is that correct?

WATERS: If you wish to leave, you may leave.

MNUCHIN: I don't understand what you're saying.

WATERS: You're wasting your time. Remember, you have a foreign dignitary in your office.

MNUCHIN: I would just say that the previous -- when the Republicans -- they did not treat the secretary of the Treasury this way. So if this is the way you want to treat me, then I'll rethink whether I voluntarily come back here to testify, which I've offered to do.

WATERS: Mr. Secretary, I want you to know that no other secretary has ever told us the day before that they were going to limit their time in the way that you are doing. So if you want to use them as examples, you have acted differently than they have acted. And as I have said, if you wish to leave, you may.

MNUCHIN: If you would wish to keep me here so that I don't have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here. I will be very clear. If that's the way you'd like to have this relationship.

WATERS: Thank you. The gentleman, the secretary, has agreed to stay to hear all of the rest of the members. Please cancel your meeting and respect our time. Who is next on the list?

MNUCHIN: -- my foreign meeting. You are instructing me to stay here and I should --

WATERS: No, you just made me an offer.

MNUCHIN: No, I didn't make you an offer.

WATERS: You made me an offer I accepted.

MNUCHIN: I did not make you an offer. Just let's be clear. You're instructing me, you are ordering me to stay here.

WATERS: No, I'm not ordering you. I'm responding. I said you may leave anytime you want, and you said OK. If that's what you want to do, I will cancel my appointment and I'll stay here. So I'm responding to your request. If that's what you want to do --

MNUCHIN: That's not what I want to do. WATERS: What would you like to do?

MNUCHIN: What I've told you is I thought it was respectful that you would let me leave at 5:15, which is the current period of time --

WATERS: You are free to leave any time you want. You may go anytime you want.

MNUCHIN: Please dismiss everybody. I believe you are supposed to take the gravel and bang it.

WATERS: Please do not instruct me as to how I am to conduct this economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: She will handle her gravel how she wants to. You guys are steeped in the doings of Capitol Hill. Have you ever seen anything like that?

PALMER: Never in my even tire life. He seemed like a kid who was fed up and wanted to go home and take his toys with him. It's pretty stunning. Maxine Waters had clear control of the room there, she came off, I think, very commanding. And I don't quite know what he was thinking honestly.

[08:15:00] SHERMAN: Mnuchin has -- and we document this in our book, has a disdain, it would appear, for Congress. He has said at various points throughout the last year, you know, you're keeping an important person here when he was in a meeting with Republicans.

When he tried to get Republicans to raise the debt ceiling, there was a line of people lined up in September 2017, and he said, actually, I have to go, I have an appointment, leaving then OMB Secretary Mick -- OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to answer questions.

Here is the thing. The Congress has an inordinate amount of power over this administration -- over any administration. Congress controls the purse strings. And to do that seems incredibly short- sighted to a committee that has direct oversight over Mnuchin, controls his budget. He --

PALMER: In an industry that is super concerned that Maxine Waters has taken over and is anti-banks and anti a lot of the industry, to have that kind of a contentious relationship is not going to be helpful.

GOLODRYGA: And remember, he's not acting. He's one of the few that's confirmed --

BERMAN: Yes, he's been confirmed.

SHERMAN: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: -- and he's been there for a long time. The President is a fan of his. Maybe he was doing this for an audience of one, but juxtapose that with what we saw from Barr yesterday and you have a neophyte before Congress versus one who is seasoned. And I still want to know who his important meeting was with.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PALMER: Yes.

BERMAN: It was someone -- an official from Bahrain.

GOLODRYGA: There you go.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: But it is interesting that the constitution is so inconvenient for Steve Mnuchin.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: That he's not willing to give Congress sort of the things they need (ph).

CAMEROTA: I feel he's overscheduled. He's making too many meetings in one day.

BERMAN: That's the lesson here.

CAMEROTA: I think that is the lesson.

BERMAN: That's the lesson here.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, Anna, Jake, and Bianna, thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much.

All right, we're following some breaking news. Right now, Benjamin Netanyahu appears poised to win a historic fifth term as Israel's Prime Minister. He is calling it a, quote, great victory, but his top challenger is also claiming victory.

So let's get to CNN's Oren Liebermann. He is live in Jerusalem with more. What's the status at this hour, Oren?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's path to victory is becoming clearer and clearer as more results come in from the Central Elections Committee. At this point, more than 95 percent of the votes have been counted.

And although the head to head is very close between Netanyahu and his rival, his former Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz -- in fact, just a few thousand votes separate them, it looks like -- the path to putting together a coalition, the path to making a government and being in charge of that government, that advantage looks firmly in Netanyahu's corner. According to the latest numbers, it's something like 65 to 55 pro-Netanyahu.

And Netanyahu has said he has the support of the crucial right wing parties he needs to form a government, and that's what it will take for him to secure not only a fifth term in office but to become Israel's longest serving prime minister this summer. His opponent seemed to have realized the situation he is in. Gantz has said the odds are against him.

One major question, of course, who else's support does Netanyahu have? Well, of course, President Donald Trump. In the last two weeks of the campaign, gifting Netanyahu major political victories, coming out as almost blatantly campaigning for Netanyahu. For example, in recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, allowing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to visit the Western Wall in the Old City here behind me with Netanyahu, which was unprecedented.

So Trump has clearly, at this point, come out in favor of Netanyahu, and that holds a tremendous amount of weight here because Trump is more popular here than he is in the U.S.

John, there are still some numbers to come in. Those could shift the favor even more towards Netanyahu. We will certainly keep you posted as they come in.

BERMAN: All right. Oren Lieberman for us in Jerusalem keeping a very close eye on that. Oren, thank you very much.

Already 18 Democratic candidates in the 2020 race but there can be only one nominee. Some of the candidates who have jumped in might appear to be long shots, some people say they have no chance to win. So why do they get in? What drives these people to get in the race? We're going to speak to a former presidential candidate who's faced these questions next.

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[08:21:49] BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. I'm holding in my hands right now, as is Alisyn, a new article from the "Wall Street Journal," which has new information about the investigation into the President's role with the hush money payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

And let me just read the lead paragraph of this article. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office has gathered more evidence than previously known in its criminal investigation of hush money payments to two women who alleged affairs with Donald Trump, including from members of the President's inner circle.

They talked to Hope Hicks who was the White House communications adviser and an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump for a long time.

CAMEROTA: Oh, one of the closest people in his inner sanctum.

BERMAN: And Keith Schiller. Talk about inside the inner sanctum. His body man and guard --

CAMEROTA: Bodyguard.

BERMAN: -- for a long, long time. Those are the two interviews we know about. And there is the implication here that the Southern District of New York had gathered a lot of information about the President's role in this, specifically the President's role in this before the public became aware of it when Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to this issue last fall.

Joining us now to discuss this is Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst who did work in the Southern District of New York.

This article -- and I couldn't get through it because it was just published a moment ago -- seems to suggest that the Southern District has a lot of evidence, conducted a serious investigation into specifically what the President did and knew about these hush money payments.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. Well, this is what the Southern District does, right? They get a thread and they pull on until the sweater is completely unwound.

Now, we had some indications of this. The Southern District is already on record, you'll remember from the Michael Cohen plea, as saying that individual one, Donald Trump -- candidate one I think he was called in the Cohen case -- was the one who directed Cohen to make the payments.

And so now, I think what they're trying to do is, a, flesh out just how much did the President know by going into his inner, inner sanctum, people like Hicks; and, b, who else was involved?

And what I think we need to show -- there's no question these payments were made, but the remaining questions are who knew about these payments and were they for a campaign-related purpose?

CAMEROTA: A couple of other things that jump out at me -- Keith Schiller. So the President's long-time bodyguard, security chief.

Investigators have learned of calls between Mr. Schiller and David Pecker. He, of course, is the chief executive of the "National Enquirer's" parent company. So why is the head of security calling David Pecker? Number one.

Number two, they also possess a recorded phone conversation between Mr. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who we know said that he had lots of recorded conversations and the lawyer who represented the two women. So what is said on there? What were they negotiating?

I think it's also interesting that Hope Hicks and Keith Schiller, both of whom the President very much liked and wanted to keep around him in the White House, are both gone. They both left against the President's wishes.

HONIG: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so now you can see a little bit more about them having to protect themselves.

HONIG: I think the circle of knowledge is going to expand here, right? This kind of transaction is a complex transaction. It involved a lot of different people and a lot of different layers within the President's orbit, and I think we're going to see that.

[08:25:00) I want to hear that tape. I mean, that tape is something that jumps out at me because you can cross-examine a witness all you want and you can say you're not telling the truth, you have bad motives, but a tape is a tape. Smart defense lawyers, one of the first things they'll ask you is, do you have a tape?

And Hope Hicks, I think, is sort of uniquely situated to be a really potentially devastating witness here. She had access, right? She's in the room when the big conversations get -- have been made, and she has pretty good credibility. She hasn't gone out there too badly and damaged her credibility, and I think she can be brought along as an effective witness.

CAMEROTA: But I guess my question is, since they had jobs in the White House -- they seemed to like those jobs in the White House. The President liked having them around. When you get a call from the Southern District of New York and you have to go testify, does that tell you, I better start distancing myself from the job that I have?

HONIG: You got to have priorities. And as much as people might like their jobs, the Southern District always poses a major threat. So if I was advising a client, I would say let's deal with the potential criminal stuff first.

BERMAN: So what this report does tell us is how much more the Southern District might know and how much more work they have done specifically investigating the President than we've previously known.

And I agree, the Keith Schiller element of this -- phone calls between Schiller and Pecker is huge -- what we still don't know is even if the Southern District has determined that the President broke the law, even if they have determined that they have a clear case against him, what they will do with it?

HONIG: They will not indict a sitting president. I know there has been speculation maybe they will, maybe they'll find a way around it. That is long-standing DOJ policy. It goes back well before this administration.

As independent as the Southern District is, historically, they will not go absolutely rogue and simply defy a policy. But they can indict the President when he is out of office. They can potentially even issue a grand jury-type report publicly or potentially even refer it over to Congress for appropriate action.

And they certainly can indict people very close to the President in his inner circle, in his orbit. And I do think there is a decent chance they're working towards that as well.

CAMEROTA: Just on the -- yes, go ahead.

BERMAN: Oh, I just want to read -- we actually -- there's a paragraph that describes the questions to Hope Hicks here. CAMEROTA: Oh.

BERMAN: It says in the months after the raid -- this is the raid on Cohen's office, a hotel room at home -- investigators interviewed Ms. Hicks and Mr. Schiller. They asked Ms. Hicks about her contacts with Mr. Pecker, the CEO of American Media, publisher of the "National Enquirer."

Prosecutors also asked at least one other witness whether Ms. Hicks had coordinated with anyone at American Media concerning a journal article on November 4th, 2016, days before the election, that revealed American Media had paid $150,000 for the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal's story of an alleged affair with Mr. Trump.

The "National Enquirer" never ran an article about her allegations, a practice known as catch and kill. So coordination between Hope Hicks and David pecker as well.

HONIG: Yes, Hope Hicks could be in trouble here, too, right? First of all, as a general rule, if they're asking they probably already know. If prosecutors are asking, they probably already know the answer to the question.

Hope Hicks is not necessarily in the woods now -- out of the woods. Now, if she was involved in coordinating this, if she was involved in the effort to make the payments, and she understood these were being made for a campaign-related purpose -- to silence these women in the run up to the campaign -- she could have liability, too.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean she's going to get charged criminally. Sometimes, as a prosecutor, you have someone who you think is a good witness and maybe the conduct isn't clear enough and that's where you end up with things like an immunity deal, which I believe AMI already has from the Southern District.

So you have to make that decision as a prosecutor. Is this person somebody I need to charge, or this is somebody I'm satisfied with turning into a witness against others?

CAMEROTA: Speaking of which, Allen Weisselberg. So there's always been questions about Allen Weisselberg. He's not as well known to the general public, but he was the chief financial officer at Trump Organization since Fred Trump. OK, so he -- I mean, he has been described to me from people on the inside as being as close as a family member. So the person right outside that first concentric, you know, ring.

HONIG: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so he knows everything, people have said, because he had to sign every one of the checks or knew which checks were going out. Here's what it says.

Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's long-time chief financial officer also testified before a grand jury last summer. He too received immunity as we knew, meaning his words wouldn't be used against him as long as he told the truth.

Since then prosecutors have examined discrepancies between his account and Mr. Cohen's. Mr. Cohen told them that Mr. Weisselberg had a deeper involvement in the hush money payment to Ms. Daniels than Mr. Weisselberg has indicated.

HONIG: Well, the biggest mistake you can make, if you're in Allen Weisselberg's shoes, is to lie and to get caught in it. Once you get an immunity deal -- look, Allen Weisselberg got kind of lucky to get immunity because, from the sound of it, he could have been charged. But, again, that decision was made and reasonably so, let's have him be a witness.

But if it turns out he lied to them, that agreement gets ripped up, and he is right back in the soup. He could get -- end up getting charged, too, if they have definitive proof that he was dishonest.

BERMAN: This one other thing here, investigators -- about Keith Schiller. Investigators were aware he had spoken by phone to Mr. Pecker, and they wanted to know if Schiller ever handed the phone to Mr. Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

[08:30:00] BERMAN: "Journal" could not determine whether investigators ever learned the answer to that question.

HONIG: Yes. Well, if he did, then, again, that's going to go right to the President's knowledge of this whole scheme.

BERMAN: All right, Elie, thank you for helping us digest this.