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Manafort Visited Mueller; Trump Talks About Khashoggi; Interview with Sen. Patrick Leahy; Tensions in West Wing. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired October 19, 2018 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. Hope to check -- you check out our podcast and also I hope to see you back here on Sunday morning, up early, 8:00. Please, don't go anywhere, "WOLF" starts right now. Have a great weekend.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Thanks very much for joining us.

Any moments now former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort will appear in court. You're looking at live pictures coming in from the federal court in northern Virginia. This time in his green detention uniform after a federal judge denied his request to simply wear a business suit. Manafort could learn when he'll be formally sentenced for his eight tax fraud and bank crime convictions. He's now a convicted felon.

This hearing comes as we're learning Manafort has spent a significant amount of time with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his team, indicating he has shared hours and hours of details with Mueller in the Russia probe.

CNN's Kara Scannell is joining us from outside the federal courthouse.

So what are we expecting, Kara?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: So, Wolf, when this hearing gets underway in the courthouse behind me in about a half an hour, we're expected to have Paul Manafort show up for the first time since he was conviction in August. He's going to be wearing that prison jumpsuit because Judge T.S. Ellis denied his request to wear a suit and tie.

Now, Manafort's attorneys have just arrived into the courthouse just a few moments ago. They will be convening and the judge likes up the issue at 1:30. He's expected to decide or to set a sentencing date for when Manafort will ultimately be sentenced. That could be as soon as by the end of the year. This judge likes to move thing along.

We also expect him to press the government, as he has since this investigation landed in his courtroom on exactly kind of the details of Manafort's cooperation. So we might learn some additional information. But CNN has been reporting that Manafort has been cooperating with the special counsel's office, has been in with them at least nine times in the past four weeks. We might learn a little bit more about that today. The other issue on the table is what happens to those ten counts that

the jury hung on, and the judge is pressing the prosecutors to decide to drop those charges or say that they might retry Manafort. Prosecutors have initially wanted to leave that on the table so that they could use that as leverages hanging over Manafort. They've kind of acquiesced to the judge and are saying that they would be OK dropping that as long as they are able to revive that. It's all part of an effort to keep pressure on Manafort so he continues to cooperate with the special counsel's investigation.

The judge is expected to take this up about 1:30. Now it's postponed about 15 minutes. And then we should learn Manafort's sentencing date, which, Wolf, could be by the end of the year.

BLITZER: All right, Kara, thanks very much. I know you're heading into that courthouse right now. We'll touch base with you once you get more information.

Kara Scannell on the scene for us.

And joining us now, Shawn Turner, the former communications director for the National Intelligence Office here in Washington, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Laura Coates, and CNN political correspondent Sara Murray.

Sara, CNN is reporting Manafort, as you just heard, has met multiple times now with Robert Mueller and his team over the last four weeks along, presumably providing something pretty useful information. This is a significant development.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a significant development. And I think one of the things that will be interesting to see today is whether the judge is able to sort of ferret out any kind of details about, you know, just how much cooperation Manafort has given, how useful he's been to prosecutors so far. You know, we really don't have a good sense right now of what kind of information Manafort is providing Mueller's team. Of course we know that he worked on the campaign during some key moments, and he also had his own private interactions with a number of Ukrainian officials and also ties to Russians that we know that Mueller is interested in. So it's -- so it's a big question what exactly Mueller could be providing. But as you pointed out, it is voluminous at least.

BLITZER: In the scheme of things, does it really make any difference, Laura, if they drop those ten charges that were filed earlier. The jury couldn't unanimously agree on them. Whether or not they decide to retry him at this stage or do they just simply drop them?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It largely won't move the needle for sentencing, because, remember, you also have the charges he pled guilty to in Washington, D.C., as well. He's looking at serving time in prison.

What will move the needle forward is whether or not the prosecutors will opt to have a lesser sentence for him and say, due to his cooperation, we'd like to have an allocution that's far more favorable than it would have been had we had a full 18 count conviction. Eight counts, still, though, is a significant number of counts to have been convicted of and the judge is going to look at this case and say to themselves, well, not about how you're cooperating over the overall collusion probe, but why do you want to delay your own representations to me about how much is sentencing with? Does it have anything to do with the former trail or is it more perspective? This is a judge who already told the prosecution he did not want the government to try to make a case related to Trump simply based on the non-election related charges that he was convicted of or even presented before.

So it's going to be a lot of insightful things here about why the judge wants to delay, if at all, and what they will ask for sentencing to be.

[13:05:01] BLITZER: How much pressure is Mueller under right now, Shawn, to wrap this up relatively quickly, either by the end of this year or early next year?

SHAWN TURNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, as we know, Rod Rosenstein has come out and said that has not given Mueller a deadline. But I do think that there are some indications that Mueller does feel some pressure. I don't think that that's necessarily going to impact the investigation in any way.

But, look, we're getting to a point where Mueller is spending a significant amount of time with certain witnesses, like Manafort and others. And what that tells us is that he's getting to a point in this investigation where he is checking and rechecking facts that he's already gathered. I can only guess that he's getting to a point where he's looking for inconsistencies and information that he's already pulled together.

So while I think that Mueller is taking his time, he's very methodical, he's very smart about this, I don't think that he feels as though he has to rush to get this report out. But I do think that there is a clear understanding that he's probably getting to the finish line here.

MURRAY: I also think there's sometimes maybe this misconception that Mueller would like to keep this thing going on forever and ever. I mean this is not a guy who really has any -- any life of his own at this point. He's constantly being criticized. He, you know, doesn't really speak publicly. He knows how important this investigation is. And as you pointed out, he is very methodical. But, you know, this is a person who's logging in really long hours right now on an investigation that he knows is very divisive. So it's not like, you know, he's going to the office every day thinking, how long can I possibly drag this out for? I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life.

COATES: And, by the way, he's done a great deal. I mean he had had indictments coming out. For many people looking at them, they think they're speaking indictments, as in you can't bring many of the Russian intelligence officers or any of them back here for trail. But he has talked about the Russian trolls as one category. Another category are the members of the Russian intelligence community. He also named Americans who may have been complicit in some way, although unidentified, in the last set of indictments.

So you do have the sense that although people are not very patient with him, he's not twiddling his thumbs wondering about how long to prolong it always getting things done. And this is part of it. And part of the delay, by the way, are the president's own comments that delay certain aspects of it, that invite more scrutiny, and also delay in cooperation.

BLITZER: He's been very impressive in keeping -- trying to keep as low a profile publicly as he possibly can during all of the tumult of the past year.

TURNER: Certainly. And his team has been phenomenal at making sure that that -- this information -- that information about the investigation is not leaking out.

I think it's going to be very interesting to see what happens here as we get through the election. It -- because it looks like he's wrapping up and there's this whole dynamic of whether or not Rod Rosenstein and the Justice Department will release this report to the public. But I think Mueller understands that this is an extremely important moment in our history. And I think that for him he's -- he's in that point where he's making absolutely sure that he's checking all the boxes and making sure that the work that his team does is absolutely unquestionable in terms of its professionalism.

BLITZER: Yes, it's interesting, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, is going to be meeting next week with some lawmakers up on Capitol Hill, but a lot of these, you know, sort of freedom caucus Republicans, they're really going after him. They want him out.

MURRAY: I know. And, you know, a lot of the rank and file are really upset because we're now finding out sort of how this meeting is going to go and it turns out it's just going to be Republican and Democratic leadership of the committees. So some of the fiercest critics of Rod Rosenstein on The Hill are not actually going to be in this closed- door session, but they are planning on, you know, releasing some kind of transcript, one that has been scrubbed, though, after the fact. And I think that's been a source of frustration.

And, you know, look, Rod Rosenstein knows that he is in a difficult position. On the one hand, he needs to stand out there and he needs to defend the integrity on his investigation. On the other hand, he does serve at the pleasure of the president and he knows that the president is as frustrated with the Russia investigation as these Capitol Hill Republicans are with Rod Rosenstein.

BLITZER: Everybody assumes, you know, Laura, that the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, immediately after the midterm elections, he's out of there. But what about Rod Rosenstein?

COATES: Well, the assumption is he will be. Remember, Rod Rosenstein may serve at the pleasure of the president, but he only oversees the collusion probe because Jeff Sessions has recused himself. And so if Jeff Sessions is no longer the attorney general, they need to have this interim person who's oversees the Russia probe in the stead of Jeff Sessions, also goes away. So in many ways you can kill two birds with one stone if you're the president of the United States who's saying, I already have some real reluctance to keep Jeff Sessions on board. I'm already angry about the way in which he recused himself, although he should have done so. And so say, I don't want to fire Rod Rosenstein, but I can make it that you are obsolete in your ownership of this and oversight.

So he could accomplish two things with one things. And, of course, it wouldn't be shocking to anyone if Jeff Sessions was no longer the attorney general, which is why I think that Rod Rosenstein has been very deliberate in saying, listen, you will find the American public to be (INAUDIBLE) have a lot of faith in the outcome of the investigations and that our investigation was meritorious, because I think he sees the writing on the wall.

TURNER: Yes. And I think there's one other aspect of this that we're not talking about, and I -- it will be interesting to see what Laura thinks of this. You know, we've been talking for a long time about whether or not Rod Rosenstein was going to go, and we know the president wants Jeff Sessions gone. But I went back and looked at exactly what Jeff Sessions said in his recusal. He said that he had recused himself from any matters involving the investigation. But there's going to be a report that's going to be turned in. And DOJ has the responsibility to determine whether or not that report is ever released to the public. There is this question as to whether or not that recusal extends to the decision to release that report.

[13:10:11] BLITZER: Because the assumption is that Rosenstein would make that decision, what to submit to Congress, what to make public, and it wouldn't go to Sessions.

TURNER: That's been the assumption. But at that point the report is done, Mueller's done, Rosenstein is -- you know, the recusal may or may not continue at that point with regard to the decision to release the report.

BLITZER: Interesting point. All right, guys, thank you very, very much.

Just ahead, Turkish investigators now releasing new details on the alleged Saudi hit squad that they believe came into the country to kill the journalist of American resident Jamal Khashoggi. We'll have a live report.

Plus, President Trump praising a U.S. congressman for assaulting and body slamming a journalist, a reporter. You're going to hear what the president of the United States said this.

And U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, poking some fun at Elizabeth Warren's DNA test and breaking with President Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:22] BLITZER: We're learning important new details on the investigation into the disappearance and the apparent murder of "The Washington Post" contributor Jamal Khashoggi. But President Trump says he's withholding judgment while waiting for the results of three different investigation. One of those is being done by Turkish authorities.

Let's go to our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward, joining us from Ankara in Turkey.

So, Clarissa, what details are you hearing where you are on the investigation? Where does this -- where do things stand right now?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're learning some interesting new details, Wolf, and this is happening, I should say, as Turkish authorities are, for the first time, finally sitting down to take statements and interview some of the various employees who work at the Saudi consulate. They're expected to wrap up their investigation in the coming days. And they said that they will share the contents of that with the world.

But essential we're learning from several sources that Turkish intelligence officials knew within hours of Khashoggi's disappearance that he had likely been abducted, or as it turned out, likely murdered. We know this because we're hearing that after Khashoggi's fiance raised the alarm, she reached out to a presidential adviser who called intelligence official, who immediately rushed to the airport, disguised as airport workers, and got on that plane, the plane that was taking half of the Saudi contingency back to Riyadh to search the plane because they were already aware at that stage that something very serious had happened instead, to the point, Wolf, where they actually asked the man in charge of the x-ray machine at the airport if it would have been likely that human body parts would have shown up on the scan when those Saudi bags went through.

So becoming clear that they knew from the very get-go, within hours, arguably they had already heard that tape, that something desperately bad had happened to Khashoggi, and yet they did wait for five days, Wolf, before going public with this story. Our understanding is that they wanted to give the Saudis enough time to give their version of events to present the Turks with a clear and coherent narrative and cooperate with the investigation. It was only when that didn't happen that they decided to go with the more public option and start talking publicly about what had happened.

Meanwhile, of course, we are all still waiting to hear when the Saudis may offer their side of the story. So far no indication as to when that will happen, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll see when that does happen. All right, Clarissa, thanks for all the terrific reporting in Turkey. Appreciate it very much.

President Trump, meanwhile, has been cautioned to proceed slowly with regard to Saudi Arabia. That advice coming from his special adviser, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who's telling the president to ignore pressure from Capitol Hill.

Let's go to Capitol Hill right now. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy is joining us. He's the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: So, as you know, the president told reporters that he's waiting for the results from these three different investigations, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, both investigating. I assume the U.S. is doing some sort of investigation as well.

But do you know specifically if the FBI has been called in to investigate this apparent murder?

LEAHY: I don't know if the FBI has been called in. But it's very obvious that it was a murder. I think Ms. Ward, who just spoke from Turkey, laid it out pretty clearly.

As I say to other people, I'm a former prosecutor. I handled -- I handled a lot of murder cases. This is pretty cut-and-dry. We know Mr. Khashoggi walked into the consulate, the Saudi consulate, and never came out. And yet these two airplanes full of people who had come in just before him suddenly fly out of there.

It doesn't take a genius to know that he met a very bad end in that consulate. And I think to sit around and wait for the Saudis to try to find -- come up with some kind of story, I mean that's "Alice in Wonderland." He was murdered in the Saudi consulate. We know that. And under things like the Magnisky Act, we ought to -- we ought to take steps against the Saudis.

I mean they lied to us about Yemen. They lied to us about the civilian casualties. And anything that we have heard so far has not been the truth from the Saudis. They just lie.

BLITZER: Well, let me read to you the last line of an open letter you've written, senator. And I'm quoting you know, if Mr. Khashoggi was tortured and murdered by or with the knowledge of the Saudi government, it will be long pastime to treat the Saudi royal family as the criminal enterprise that it is. Your words, criminal enterprise. So what would -- what would you want the U.S. to do?

[13:20:22] LEAHY: I don't use words like that easily. I really think them through. And it is a criminal enterprise.

We have -- we can cut back on some of their banking, their visas. Certainly we have the ability to block arms sales. We should have done that after they lied to us about the civilian casualties in Yemen.

I think the Saudis feel that they have friends in the Trump administration and they can do whatever they want and the United States will give in. And I mean when -- can you imagine how -- how Donald Trump would act if they had had a picture of Barack Obama bowing to them as they put a gold necklace around his neck, or dancing with a sword in his hand for the Saudis? That's what Donald Trump did. Barack Obama never would have done that.

BLITZER: Let me get your thoughts on something that happened last night out in Montana in his campaign stop. The president praised Congressman Greg Gianforte for body slamming a journalist, an American journalist, works for "The Guardian," right before the 2016 election. I want you to listen to this clip, and then we'll get your reaction. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Greg is smart. And, by the way, never wrestle him. You understand that? Never. Any guy that can do a body slam, he's my candidate.

I had heard that he body slammed a reporter. And he was way up. And he was way up. And I said, oh, this was like the day of the election or just before. And I said, oh, this is terrible, he's going to lose the election. Then I said, well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him, and it did. No, he's a great guy. A tough cookie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, so with the Khashoggi killing fresh in the minds of all of us, what do you think of the president celebrating an attack on a journalist?

LEAHY: I think it's terrible. I cannot imagine any president -- and I've been here since President Ford. I've been with Republicans and Democrats. I cannot imagine any president of the United States saying anything so irresponsible. The First Amendment is one of the great protections that we have in this country, the freedom of speech. In dictatorships, they don't have freedom of speech. They do attack reporters. They do body slam reporters. We should not be encouraging that in the United States. We should be the beacon of freedom. It demeans the United States. It demons or Constitution, and it's wrong.

We are -- we are different than dictatorships and totalitarian governments because we have a free press. And every president, Republican or Democrat, should be defending and supporting our free press, even when it criticizes him.

BLITZER: Yes, this -- talk like that clearly sends an awful message to bad people around the world.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

LEAHY: Thank you.

BLITZER: All right, coming up, two of the president's top advisers caught in an explosive shouting match in the West Wing of the White House, sparking resignation fears. We have new details.

Plus, President Trump unveils his new midterm campaign themes. Will it get voters to the polls?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:28:41] BLITZER: Tensions are high and patience is low with only 18 days until the midterm elections. President Trump on the road taking aim at Democrats with a new rallying cry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense. That's what it's going to be. It's going to be an election of those things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Meanwhile, tempers flared over at the White House over how to stop the surge of southern border crossings. Two sources tell CNN that the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, and the president's national security adviser, John Bolton, had a shouting match that was so loud it could be heard through the West Wing.

Joining us now, our White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, do we know what the mood is like today in the White House, in the aftermath of that shouting match?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, publically the White House is trying to downplay this fight, saying simply that there are passionate people who work in this administration. And while that is definitely true, behind the scenes of the West Wings, people are talking openly about this fight because it was heard by a great number of staffers in the West Wing and they say it's not your average fight, even for a West Wing like this one, which is divisive and bitter, and at times people do argue. They say this fight between John Bolton and John Kelly was different than they'd ever seen, especially because they say the national security adviser challenging the chief of staff, someone who has been pretty embattled and weakened in his position for a few months now because of his relationship with President Trump.

[13:30:11]