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London Police: Julian Assange Arrested; Barr Stated Without Proof 'Spying Did Occur' on Trump Campaign. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 11, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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


CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A hero to some, a villain to others. He is --

[06:00:05] DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Complicated.

ROMANS: -- a high-profile figure there who has -- has escaped law, at least, for some time here and now is in custody.

There are many people who have wondered if he'd ever one day walk out of the Ecuadoran embassy. Guess what? He did not walk out of the Ecuadoran embassy. The police walked in and took him out of there.

So Julian Assange arrested, that from the London police. And again, the U.K. home secretary thanking Ecuador. Ecuador withdrawing his asylum, allowing him -- basically, taking away his shield. And so now he faces justice, and we'll see a court -- we will be in court, we're told, momentarily.

BRIGGS: So many questions for him regarding an entire series dating back from 2010, all the way through the election.

A lot of breaking news covered for you this morning. Thanks for joining us on an extraordinary breaking news day. I'm Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. NEW DAY picks it up now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, April 11, 6 a.m. here in New York.

Breaking news. Just moments ago, a huge development. London police tell us they just arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange, of course, took refuge inside Ecuador's embassy in London, where he spent seven years to avoid extradition over a sexual assault case. Now, that initial assault case has since been dropped.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We are told that Assange is now in a Central London police station. He is expected in court very soon. Obviously, this is breaking news. It's a developing story. We'll bring you all of the developments.

But we want to get right now to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh. He is live in London with what we know thus far.

Nick, what happened?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: An extraordinary development, Alisyn, bringing perhaps to a close here or opening a new chapter in the fate of Julian Assange, who's kind of become sort of a curious, almost fabled figure holed up inside the Ecuadoran embassy.

Now, we know that the relations he had between him and Ecuadoran diplomats inside that were noticeably strained, but it was today that the Met Police announced they had arrested him.

Notably, he did not walk out, Metropolitan Police have said, suggesting, as they went on to clarify, that in fact, the police went into the embassy to remove him from there.

Now of course, Mr. Assange, you can imagine, not wishing to give himself up voluntarily, because frankly, of how he'd hidden out in that embassy for quite a substantial period of time, using asylum status inside that diplomatic area.

Now, we know that in the last week, his relations with Ecuadoran diplomats plummeted. His colleagues at WikiLeaks gave a substantial press conference in which they claimed he had been spied upon inside that building. They released a treasure trove, they said, of documents that they claimed proved that.

But what he now faces is British justice, because he came to be inside that building in 2012, owing to the fact that he jumped bail here in the United Kingdom. So as you said yourself, the initial extradition request to Sweden that he went inside the embassy to try and avoid. That has since been shelved. It's now British justice. He must face it.

And of course, the fact that he's outside of that building does possibly open up the fact to other potential proceedings against him. None suggested at this time, but an absolutely key moment for his fate and, of course, the man behind WikiLeaks, such a dump of documents they put forward for Iraq and Afghanistan. And of course, more recently caught up in that 2016 election.

Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Nick Paton Walsh for us in London.

That last point that Nick made is the key here in why this is so significant, I think, to our audience, our American audience today. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, a central player in the massive dump of stolen information from the United States intelligence community and military on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it was so embarrassing to the intelligence community. We'll talk to James Clapper in a little bit about his feelings on this.

And then, of course, WikiLeaks, the central player in the release of the stolen e-mails from the Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta. So what happens now that Assange is in jeopardy? What does that mean?

I do want to tell you, the U.S. Justice Department, we did just get a statement from them. Our Evan Perez says there's no comment from the Justice Department. However, U.S. officials have said they would seek extradition of Julian Assange.

U.S. prosecutors have previously revealed that there were existing charges against Assange, and that's according to an accidental filing we saw last year.

So there were U.S. charges against Assange, also. Will the United States try to get this man from Britain?

Joining us now to discuss the impact of all of this, CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd. He's a CIA and FBI veteran.

And Phil, I just want you to put this in perspective in terms of your experience, in knowing what you know about Julian Assange in his central role in the release of all that information on Iraq and Afghanistan, in his central role in the release of political e-mails related to the 2016 campaign. What does this all mean?

[06:05:05] PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think there's a small story and a really big story here, John, that Trumps my business in the old intelligence world.

The small story, of course, is what you're talking about. It's the information not only about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's whether Julian Assange will ever talk about his participation, obviously, with WikiLeaks and releasing information from John Podesta from the Hillary Clinton e-mails back going to mid-2016. It's not just whether he violated the law.

I'm sure the Mueller team would like to know whether Assange will talk about what his relationship was with the people who acquired those e- mails. We know now those people were directly linked to Russian intelligence.

The bigger story here, and I think the story that's going to break today and maybe including when Assange, if he speaks in court today, will be what's the right of a private entity, that is WikiLeaks, to publish information? What are the freedom of the press questions? I think that is going to go big-time here, including if the United States requests extradition from the U.K.

CAMEROTA: John, he's been holed up there in the embassy for years. Why today?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's a great question. We know that, first of all, the Ecuadoran government changed. And so the asylum, underlying assumption of asylum came under -- seemed rickety.

WikiLeaks held a press conference a few days ago, raising red flags, questioning whether something like this might occur. No one expected it at precisely this time. But remember, the bigger backdrop is Jeff Sessions did announce the

Justice Department was exploring charges, that for the past decade, as John Berman and Phil pointed out, this -- WikiLeaks has been a central player in geopolitics.

And one of the reasons he's taken a lot of heat is that a lot of the information they've released has seemed to be one-sided, directed at the United States but not, for example -- oh, I don't know, Russia. And that's raised a lot of questions about the underlying integrity of WikiLeaks as a journalistic or, you know, let all the information out organization.

BERMAN: And Phil Mudd, just to go back to the point, the indictments that Robert Mueller and the special counsel's team released last summer against Russian individuals or entities, it names WikiLeaks, not by name, as Organization One, as a conduit. It was delivered, it was given, it was delivered, the stolen information, by people connected to the GRU, to Russian intelligence. They used WikiLeaks.

So how have foreign intelligence services used Julian Assange and his organization to make information public?

MUDD: Well, you don't have to stick with just the indictment. You can look at what American officials have said.

Remember, Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director, now secretary of state, referred to WikiLeaks as a hostile intelligence service.

To John's point a moment ago, the issue here, I think, is when you're talking about how WikiLeaks exposed information, it's not just the kind of standard story you might see on CNN or "New York Times" or "Washington Post," where you're looking at both sides of a story.

It's WikiLeaks purposefully saying, "We're going to take one angle. That is an angle that attacks Hillary Clinton. It looks it's favorable to one political party and one candidate. That is Donald Trump. We are going to weaponize the information we receive illegally -- It's stolen information -- and favor one candidate.

That's where the freedom of the press story, I think, gets really tough. Because you've got to say, "How does freedom of the press work if the press is itself biased?"

AVLON: Yes, and this goes well beyond questions of bias. I mean, you know, it will be an argument raised. The press conference the other day was from WikiLeaks' editor in chief.

But as Phil pointed out, Mike Pompeo's comments and many other administrations point out is they've been functioning more as a disseminator of stolen information, as an adjunct of a foreign intelligence service, than a press outfit. But this has all been a cutting-edge debate over the past decade or so.

CAMEROTA: And Phil, I mean, in July when Robert Mueller charged 12 Russians with hacking the DNC computers, and then they gave it to Organization One, as you say, which was WikiLeaks. I mean, people -- many people thought, "Well, it's only a matter of time for Julian Assange." But people have thought that for years. And there was some feeling that he was protected, I guess, by staying in the Ecuadoran embassy, but not so much today.

MUDD: Yes, well, and there's some stories behind the scenes, if you believe the press reports from the past few years that he was a very difficult individual within the embassy, not only for political reasons but personally difficult.

I'll tell you, there's another story here. And that is, obviously, in the midst of what's happening with Brexit, with the British withdrawal from the E.U., the British prime minister is under a tremendous amount of pressure for what Britain does on that front.

Now you have a different issue on your plate, though, a lot of British are going to be interested in. Do we extradite a citizen for what was revealed on what some people will say is a free speech forum? That's going to be interesting in the U.K.

BERMAN: All right. One other little bit of color, information we just learned in the last week. A lot of swirling tidbits around Julian Assange over just the last few days and probably not coincidental.

CNN's Nina de Santos reported last week that Julian Assange was never contacted by the Mueller investigation, never contacted to speak to him or to get documents from him. That apparently is now according to people close to WikiLeaks and our reporting, Nina de Santos. And that could mean a few things.

No. 1, it could mean that he was always a target in the investigation, and ultimately, charges could be filed against him. You don't speak to someone who is a target in your investigation. We don't know for sure.

Phil, what happens now if the United States wants to get its hands on Julian Assange? How does it go about doing it? And when you look at the charges, you look at what the U.S. might want him for, which has to do with the leak of the information in 2010, plus the attacks in 2016, it does seem to outweigh whatever the British concerns might be, which is bail jumping.

[06:10:18] MUDD: Yes, but you're looking at this from an American optic. From the British optic, you have the first question, which is what you're going to do in the court today on bail jumping in 2012?

I think the challenge the British are going to face, assuming the American Department of Justice goes in with an extradition request, is what does this look like under British law? What does this look like under the American extradition request? I mean, pardon me, under our agreement with America to extradite individuals.

This is a legal problem that I don't think is going to be resolved within the next few days. One of the advantages we have here from the American perspective is that, because the British have charges, I presume they're going to hold him. The Americans and the Brits can work through the complicated questions of whether the British want to hand him over. That's going to take, my guess is, months.

CAMEROTA: All right. That's the perfect entree for our legal expert. Let's bring in Jennifer Rodgers, who's been sitting, listening to all this. Jennifer, what do you see that happened this morning?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think that Phil is exactly right. So what happens is when you have charges in the U.S. and someone is arrested elsewhere, is you have to file the extradition request with the country. So they do get a little bit of breathing room here for a few days because of this bail jumping offense.

But they will promptly file with the Brits, if they haven't already, to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. to face those charges. And then it does take months. It can take years if it's something like a death penalty case. But it will take months.

CAMEROTA: But do we know what the charges are? They're sealed, right?

RODGERS: We don't know. I mean, my suspicion is it's from the 20 --

BERMAN: Ten.

RODGERS: -- -10 leak of the classified information. That is the sort of thing --

CAMEROTA: About the wars.

RODGERS: -- that they would bring. And, you know, we'll have to see how it plays out.

But on the First Amendment question, you know, there is no First Amendment defense to leaking classified information. Typically, administrations have not gone after that criminally. But --

CAMEROTA: Hold on a second.

RODGERS: -- it is possible.

CAMEROTA: This is the shot of him being taken from the Ecuadoran embassy by British police.

BERMAN: Oh, my God, look at him. Whoa.

CAMEROTA: Look at him.

BERMAN: The beard. I have not seen him looking like that. Clearly not being taken willingly. He's being dragged, to an extent, to the police van.

CAMEROTA: You know, that's what they call, colloquially, the perp walk or the grab shot. And that is a fascinating one. Because look at how many people they've taken to take him down. He's not going willingly. He looks like, you know, Rip Van Winkle. He has aged more than seven

years since he's been in there. And it's just fascinating to watch this. Let's see it again.

He's yelling something. Impossible to know what he's yelling. But just fascinating to watch. I mean, everybody wondered if he was going to walk out voluntarily some day. Everyone wondered what the end game to this was going to be. And here it is.

BERMAN: Yes, this is the answer to that question. He is not walking out voluntarily. He is shouting, which just shows you his position in the world.

To an extent, it is the governments of the world minus Russia against Julian Assange. And Assange is a hero to some people for -- for revealing information, private secret intelligence from the United States. But vilified by others for putting U.S. troops and intelligence officials at risk around the world. A very controversial figure.

And again, that changed in 2016 when, according to Robert Mueller and others, his organization was used to disseminate stolen e-mails from the Democrats and the Clinton campaign, e-mails that were stolen by Russian intelligence. Really fascinating to see this.

We'll keep playing this. And Phil, I want to bring you just back in the discussion. One more point: Had this arrest, had what we're looking at now happened three months ago, before the Barr summary, before Robert Mueller had turned over his report, would we be looking at this differently? And would the Mueller team be on planes to London right now to question him?

MUDD: No. They wouldn't be on planes right now.

Look, we had information already, accidentally revealed in a Mueller filing that there was -- there was an indictment from the U.S. government for Assange.

But you can't turn a request around for extradition that fast. And if I were the British I wouldn't give access to the Americans yet. The British have to go through their own process.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, I'm just remembering that from November 15. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal prosecutors inadvertently revealed in a recently unsealed court filing. That was a mistake. It was supposed to be redacted, or it wasn't supposed to be in there, or his name. And so people -- that obviously got people's antennas up that something might be happening.

BERMAN: What we didn't know at the time, though, was whether the sealed indictment there was for 2010, was for the stealing all that information in 2010 and disseminating it or whether it was for something to do with the Russian investigation. We still don't know for sure.

All right. CAMEROTA: I mean, I feel like Joe Lockhart has been sitting here patiently.

[06:15:03] BERMAN: Do you want to weigh in on this, Joe Lockhart?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it -- I defer to the legal experts and to Phil on extradition. And I think that will take some time.

But this creates a somewhat unique problem for the Trump administration. Mike Pompeo is on the record, when he was CIA director, saying that it's a hostile, nongovernmental power to the U.S.

But the last thing in the world, I think, Donald Trump wants is Julian Assange in a courtroom in the U.S., talking about how WikiLeaks got all the e-mails, who they talked to, when Roger Stone called or didn't call. So I think it's -- politically, it's fascinating and difficult for the president.

BERMAN: And I will just remind people as the founder of WikiLeaks is dragged to a police van in London, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, during the political campaign said, "I love WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks." Its founder being taken to a police van.

AVLON: And he didn't just say, "I love WikiLeaks." He said it hundreds of times in the final weeks of the campaign. This was a central issue with conservatives and Trump cheerleading. So it's a fascinating development. We'll see what the president does. But this is also an organization that has evolved over time into what many people consider a sphere of Russian influence.

CAMEROTA: All right. We have so much more to talk about. Obviously, this is breaking news and a developing story. We'll bring you new developments, new video as soon as we have it. We're going to take a very quick break and talk about some of the other news happening this morning, as well, when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:07] BERMAN: So this morning, what is the attorney general of the United States doing, why is he doing it, also for whom, exactly?

Attorney General William Barr went before Congress with a stunning claim, and quite possibly intentionally stunning claim, that he believes spying did occur on President Trump 2016 campaign by the U.S. intelligence community. Now, Barr did not provide any evidence for this. He just exploded that giant concern bomb on national TV.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live in Washington with the repercussions of all this.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. That was such an explosive statement from the attorney general, suggesting to lawmakers that Donald Trump's presidential campaign was spied on, echoing rhetoric we've heard from President Trump before and done so, as you said, without providing evidence for those claims, which has set off Democrats on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think there's spying did occur, yes. I think spying did occur.

SERFATY (voice-over): An explosive statement from Attorney General William Barr, echoing unproven claims from President Trump.

BARR: For the same reason we're worried about foreign influence in elections, we want to make sure that during an -- I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.

SERFATY: Barr's comments coming under scrutiny from the former director of national intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I thought it was both stunning and scary. The term "spying" has all kinds of negative connotations. And I -- I have to believe he chose that term deliberately.

SERFATY: Barr telling senators his team will examine the genesis and conduct of the FBI's counterintelligence probe into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

BARR: I adems Demsam m not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I'm saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it. That's all.

SERFATY: The Justice Department watchdog is already looking into separate allegations the FBI abused its powers in surveilling former Trump foreign policy aide Carter Page. But Barr offered no evidence to substantiate his spying claim.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They spied on me. They spied on our campaign. Who would think that's possible?

SERFATY: Barr igniting a firestorm with Dems over the attorney general's independence.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails. He is the attorney general of the United States of America, not the attorney general of Donald Trump.

SERFATY: And President Trump taking his attacks on the Mueller probe to a new level.

TRUMP: This was an attempted coup. This was an attempted takedown of a president. And we beat them. We beat them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And all of this, of course, comes as the attorney general is preparing to release the redacted version of the Mueller report at some point next week -- John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Sunlen, thank you very much.

Let's bring back Phil Mudd, Jennifer Rodgers and Joe Lockhart.

Phil Mudd, instead of using the word "surveillance," Bill Barr used the word "spying," though he wouldn't, you know, put any meat on that bone and explain why he felt that way.

What did you think when you heard that?

MUDD: Well, I found it offensive. Look, the American people knew this happened already, because the American people have known since at least a year ago, when the inspector general at the Department of Justice said he was looking into how the U.S. government, the FBI investigated people during -- during the Trump campaign. Everybody knew this.

What did Mr. Barr do? He suggested to the American people that there was something new afoot, and that something new sounded like an episode of "24."

Why didn't he just say, "The inspector general, 13 months ago, has already publicly announced that we're looking into whether anything inappropriate happened. I'll review it and I'll let you know"? Yawn.

Because he wanted, I think, to tell the American people, "I'm as concerned as the president is."

I think lawyers are known for precision of language. I think he used the word "spying" purposefully, and I think he misled the American people into suggesting there's something new here. There isn't. We've known about this investigation by the Department of Justice into the surveillance during the campaign for more than a year.

BERMAN: We've known that there was a FISA warrant for Carter Page in the fall of 2016. We've known that an intelligence operative, Stefan Halper, made contact with George Papadopoulos. Is that what Barr's talking about? Or is he raising some new possibility? Or is he just trying to make us wonder a week before the Mueller report comes out?

And Joe Lockhart, I'll throw one other piece of information out there, a data point. William Barr worked in the CIA. Right? He knows the power of the word that he chose yesterday.

LOCKHART: No. It was obviously very deliberate. And it's almost like a new front in the conspiracy wars has been opened from the calm tortoise shell voyeur. For the last two years, we've heard everything from the president screaming to Sean Hannity to Alex Jones on Infowars, this has been their defense of a president, that there's some massive deep-state conspiracy.

And now the attorney general goes before Congress and says, well, maybe there's something to that. It is -- it is outrageous. It's irresponsible. You can do all of the words you want, unprofessional.

And you couple it with what the president said yesterday. One, at this point, has to assume DOJ and the White House are coordinating. It would not be unusual for DOJ to tell Congress, "Here's what we plan to testify at our appropriations hearing."

CAMEROTA: And he didn't deny that they'd made contact.

LOCKHART: They'd been in contact. The president goes out and throws out red meat, and then the attorney general very calmly says, "Well, the president has really something to be concerned about here," giving credibility to it.

It is really impossible to overstate how much Barr has hurt the credibility -- his own credibility and the Department of Justice in the last two days.

CAMEROTA: He was also, Jennifer, all over the map in terms of if he is assembling an investigation. He called it a team, but he hasn't put it together yet. But he has his eye on some people that might be able to help.

And so, I mean, can we assume he doesn't trust his own inspector general? He doesn't trust what the outcome of Michael Horowitz's report is going to be?

RODGERS: Well, I'm not sure if he trusts Michael Horowitz or not, but we do know that he's at least given Donald Trump a second major gift, right? The first was the March 24 letter in which he said, instead of just saying, "I'm going to release the Mueller report as soon as I can with appropriate redactions." You'll all have to wait for that.

He said, "No, no, I'm going to give the conclusion of Mueller on collusion, no collusion and my conclusion on obstruction, and let you all stew on that and let the president, you know, crow about that for a couple of weeks while we all wait for the report.

And now, it's gift No. 2, right, really giving credence to these conspiracy theories that the president likes to push forward.

So, you know, that's what's going on here. He ultimately, as you say, after kind of equivocating, said, "We have an I.G. report coming. Congress also has done some investigation. I'm going to look at the information and then decide what to do. But I am concerned."

And that's the part that everyone is fastening on, because there's no need for concern right now. You've got to wait and see what your I.G. does and then see if you think anything else needs to be done. So that's the real disappointment for those of us who used to be in the Department of Justice to see the attorney general politicize this process, to see him disregard the independence and integrity of the inspector general and, you know, really just to play politics. It's vastly disappointing.

BERMAN: I'm not so sure that those two gifts you talked about are disconnected. Right? Because they both serve a similar purpose, whether intentional or not, which is to mitigate or muddy the waters before Congress and the American people get to see more of the Mueller report or the redacted version. Because if it comes out and says there is damning information about the president on obstruction or it does raise some questions about conspiracy and coordination, now the attorney general said, "Well, wait a second. Maybe there was spying beforehand." It changes the whole lens.

The other side of that, Phil, though -- and you alluded to this and Jennifer did also -- there is an inspector general report looking into legitimate questions about the process by which the FBI and the upper echelons of the FBI does make decisions on surveillance. And there were always legitimate oversight questions. Everyone can always do a better job understanding how these processes are done. Correct?

MUDD: Sure. It's not what the attorney general said. It's how he said it. If he had just said, "Look, there's a process under way already by an independent inspector general to look at an extremely sensitive time in the FBI." That is an investigation into an American presidential campaign. I think everybody would have said, well, that's perfectly legitimate. It's the purposeful use of that word "spying."

By the way, to get to your point about the set-up here, by using that word, we should expect within the next couple of months for the inspector general to come out on his -- with his report -- that's Michael Horowitz -- about what happened with surveillance.

What did the attorney general just tell us? He just colored how that report comes out by suggesting that that report is going to talk about spying. How about just wait until the report comes out and then say to the American people, "This is what we found"? He -- it seems to me that he's already prejudiced the case.

CAMEROTA: So Joe, is it fair to say that Democrats this morning are feeling like Attorney General Bill Barr may not be as straight a shooter as he appeared in the Bush administration or as they had hoped that he was during his confirmation?

LOCKHART: Well, I think there's sort of a myth of tenure sometimes, that someone has been around for so long they must have integrity. I think we're finding out that Attorney General Barr doesn't have the integrity that a lot of people in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans.

Because this is -- you know, if it came from -- pretend it's Matt Whitaker who said these things. We'd all say it's outrageous, but we expected it. But this is someone who's taken his career and reputation and put it on the line for the audience of one, Donald Trump, is playing politics, trying to shape politically, rather than legally, where the case is going.

And like a lot of people, I mean, we don't have to look much further than the DHS secretary who's leaving. They come in with a reputation. They leave with it sullied. And the common denominator is Donald Trump.

[06:30:00]