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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Nikki Haley Speaks at United Nations; Federal Agents Raid Offices of Trump Attorney; NYT: FBI Raids Office of Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired April 09, 2018 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:02]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a conflict that could put Trump and Putin on a collision course.

THE LEAD starts right now.

Breaking news. Just days after saying he wants the U.S. out Syria, President Trump is about to hear from his military leaders, weighing his options after an alleged chemical weapons massacre.

We're getting a clearer picture. Stormy Daniels' lawyer teases a sketch of the goon who allegedly threatened the adult film star and her baby over her willing to spill the beans about her alleged affair with Donald Trump.

Plus, questions about President Trump's response to a fire that killed a tenant in his flagship building. Where were the sprinklers and why did Donald Trump reportedly lobby against them years ago?

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

TAPPER: Thanks for joining us. We're at THE LEAD.

We're going to listen to United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley addressing the Security Council about the suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria.

Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: This time, I'm not going to hold up pictures of victims. I could.

There are many. And they are gruesome. Worse are the videos imprinted in our minds that no one should ever have to see.

I could hold up pictures of babies lying dead next to their mothers, brothers and sisters, toddlers and infants still in diapers, all lying together dead.

Their skin is ashen blue that is now tragically familiar from chemical weapons scenes. Their eyes are open and lifeless, white foam bubbles from their mouths and noses. Pictures of dead Syrians who are not soldiers, people who are not armed, people who are the very definition of innocent and nonthreatening, women and children hiding in basements from a renewed assault by Bashar al-Assad, families that were hiding underground to escape Assad's conventional bombs and artillery.

But the basements that Syrian families thought would shelter them from conventional bombs were the worst place to be when chemical weapons fell from the sky. And Saturday evening, the basements of Duma became their tombs.

It's impossible to know for certain how many have died because of access to Duma is cut off by Assad's forces. But dozens are dead that we know of and hundreds are wounded.

I could hold up pictures of survivors, children with burning eyes choking for breath. I could hold up pictures of first-responders washing the chemicals off of the victims, putting respirators on the children, first-responders walking through room after room of families lying motionless with babies still in the arms of their mothers and fathers.

I could show pictures of a hospital attacked by the chemical weapons. I could show pictures of hospitals struck by barrel bombs following the chemical attack. Ambulances and rescue vehicles have been repeatedly attacked, maximizing the number of dead civilians.

Civil defense centers have been attacked in order to paralyze the medical response, to increase the suffering of the survivors.

Who does this? Only a monster does this. Only a monster targets civilians and then ensures that there are no ambulances to transfer the wounded, no hospitals to save their lives, no doctors or medicine to ease their pain.

I could hold up pictures of all of this killing and suffering for the council to see. But what would be the point? The monster who is responsible for these attacks has no conscience, not even to be shocked by pictures of dead children. The

Russian regime, whose hands are all covered in the blood of Syrian children, cannot be ashamed by pictures of its victims. We have tried that before. We must not overlook Russia and Iran's roles in enabling the Assad regime's murderous destruction.

Russia and Iran have...

TAPPER: We're going to break away from Nikki Haley's testimony before the U.N. Security Council.

We have breaking news just in. "The New York Times" just reported that the FBI today raided the offices of President Trump's longtime attorney Michael Cohen, seizing records related to multiple topics, including on that payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, alleged hush money.

"The New York Times" also reporting that the FBI also seized e-mails, tax documents and business records, and that the records include communications between Michael Cohen, the president's attorney, and President Trump, which would likely require a special team of agents to review, because conversations with lawyers and clients are protected in most instances.

[16:05:10]

This is a breaking news story. My panel is here with me to discuss the breaking news and react.

And let me start with you, Bill Kristol.

The fact that the FBI, apparently with a referral from Bob Mueller, the special counsel, is reading Michael Cohen's offices, this seems rather significant.

BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": And I assume they would need a warrant to do that, which means a judge would have had to have found -- and I'm not a lawyer, so don't hold me to this -- but some reasonable reason to do this.

The FBI can't just go raid offices on its own. So that's interesting, what a judge found, that there was some reason to take a look at these records in Cohen's office.

TAPPER: And also "The Times" is reporting that they seized documents related to a whole host of issues, not necessarily just relating to the underlying allegation or question about whether or not there's collusion, David Urban.

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

So, as we know, as everybody on this panel knows, as you know, Jake, that the special prosecutor's mandate here is very broad. And he can look into anything he would like. He's going to turn over every. Bob Mueller's incredibly thorough.

When he did the investigation of Ray Rice, when UPS packages arrived at the Raven facilities -- the guys is incredibly thorough. I think that'll help when he's done here and finds there's no collusion, there's no crime committed in the fall. That will make everybody rest that much easier.

TAPPER: Angela Rye, your reaction to the news Michael Cohen, the president's attorney, his offices being raided by the FBI as part of special counsel Bob Mueller's probe into a whole host of things, it looks like?

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And I don't know how to react to that or David's confidence in this.

It's astounding.

KRISTOL: It's fake. It's fake.

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

RYE: Turns out an apple is apple.

So, no, I think what is interesting -- I'm looking at this "New York Times" piece -- it says the search does appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller's investigation.

However, I think what is alarming and what should alarm the American people is that there are so many issues of ethics, or the lack thereof, crimes or potential crimes being committed, collusion or potential collusion.

There are so many issues surrounding this president, it's just phenomenal at this point that he's able to get anything done. There are issue after issue and they continue to skirt ethics guidelines that every other presidential administration has had to follow.

And this Cohen piece, I said on Don's show several weeks ago the dark and stormy night. And this is the longest dark and stormy night we have seen in some time.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Sorry to interrupt.

It's stunning, just the idea. Michael Cohen is his attorney. And usually I think would think prosecutors would be very reluctant to raid the offices of the attorney of an individual, even if he's not the target of the investigation.

He is in some sort of role in the investigation of President Trump. And that would seem to suggest that they have at least some suspicion, based on more than a hunch, that Michael Cohen has done something improper, because the client-lawyer relationship is generally considered fairly sacrosanct, unless there is an illegality.

URBAN: And as you noted, as Angela noted, this originated in the Southern District of New York, I believe, not out of Mueller's office.

This is not from the special prosecutor. I believe the search warrant originated from the Southern District is what is what the article said.

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: No. After receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert...

URBAN: I think they have to go to him since he's got broader...

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: Well, I'm not going to opine on that.

(CROSSTALK) TAPPER: We will bring in more lawyers to talk about this.

I want to read a statement right now from Stephen Ryan. He's the lawyer for Michael Cohen.

"Today, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seizes the privileged communications between my client Michael Cohen and his clients. I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is in part a referral by the office of special counsel, Robert Mueller."

I have Laura Coates on the phone, former federal prosecutor.

Laura, your reaction to this? I'm no lawyer, but it seems rather unusual for an attorney's office to be raided by the FBI.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It is normally very unusual for that to happen, because you have the attorney-client privilege. Normally, you would have to circumvent to get any information that's worthwhile.

But you have to understand this is yet again another instance of the special counsel's office, who by surprise attack, likely in an effort to ensure that nothing that may be fleeting will disposed of, any hard evidence or anything that would not fall under either attorney-client privilege or otherwise would be preserved in an effort to get it.

We saw the same thing happened almost a year ago now, when you have the no-knock-and-announce warrant executed on Paul Manafort, somebody else who has been very close to the president of the United States in a different capacity, as a way of trying to get information.

[16:10:01]

Normally, we have these what are called protocol and etiquette and rules of etiquette that suggest we can kind of negotiate the terms of having somebody information handed over through discovery.

But if the special counsel's office or another prosecutorial division understands or believes that the information they're seeking is going to be destroyed or not going to be given over voluntarily, they everywhere right to do in this fashion.

TAPPER: I want to read from "The New York Times"' story.

Again, if you're just tuning in, "The New York Times"' Matt Apuzzo reporting that Michael Cohen, President Trump's attorney, his offices have been raided. Documents have been taken, including documents that Michael Cohen attorney says are privileged communication.

Obviously, the FBI and the special counsel, Robert Mueller, will dispute that. Mr. Ryan said Mr. Cohen -- this is from "The New York Times" story -- "has cooperated with authorities and turned over thousands of documents to congressional investigators looking into Russian election meddling. The payments to Ms. Clifford" -- that is Stormy Daniels -- "are only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. "The FBI also seized e-mails, tax documents and business records, the

person said."

Laura Coates, that seems rather significant, that tax documents are also being seized.

COATES: Extremely significant, because, remember, we have always had these questions about what the president United States' tax documents would actually reveal or allude to.

And now you have somebody who -- just a few days after the president United States has confirmed in that off-the-cuff interview in the back of Air Force One that he was unaware of the nature of or the origin of a payment made by his attorney, you now see the special counsel's office going back to try to confirm or find out information about perhaps other payments not related to Stormy Daniels or unrelated to things we may know about.

But what you see here is a pattern by the special counsel of asking and then failing to trust, which is exactly what every prosecutor would do who has the discovery in front of them or behind them, would say, I would like you to give me everything you have, and then, except they didn't get everything over.

For example, the Trump Organization, they had the same thing happen a few weeks ago, when they said, I would like everything, and they have been cooperating over time. And then it turned out they had a subpoena and wanted to have more information.

So that skepticism is there, but it's a very significant, Jake, to think that someone who normally would have the protections of the attorney-client privilege a few days after having to confirm that he has gone rogue in other respects, would have the special counsel's office knocking at their door to ensure they actually they do have full compliance.

We're not in the game of voluntary cooperation anymore. We're in the game where a court has said that there is some reason to believe this person has not corroborated or cooperated in all respects.

TAPPER: Laura Coates, thanks so much. Stay with us.

I want to now to CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

And, Gloria, seizing information about Stormy Daniels, seizing tax documents, Bob Mueller signing a warrant for the FBI to raid the president's lawyer's offices, this is fairly stunning.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it is stunning.

Look, he's been his attorney, his personal attorney since 2006. And the money that was paid to Stormy Daniels was through an LLC. And I have to believe that what they are looking at is the way that Mr. Cohen has done other real estate deals potentially for Donald Trump over the years. And let's not forget that, during the campaign, when the president was saying I have no business dealings with Russia, it was Michael Cohen who was trying to set up a Trump Tower Moscow with a letter of intent, which, as we all know, went nowhere, but he was very involved in this.

And you also have to think that, in terms of perhaps helping shield Mr. Trump from taxes, et cetera, et cetera , that this was -- this was something that Michael Cohen did routinely.

In speaking to people who worked in the Trump Organization, they always said to me, we never quite knew what Michael Cohen did, but we knew that he did whatever Donald Trump needed him to do.

And I think that is the nature of their relationship. And what struck me recently, Jake, was that, when the president spoke for the first time about Stormy Daniels, he said, "Michael Cohen is my lawyer, period."

And so that made me think, OK, attorney-client privilege applies here and they wanted that known. But this raid, as Laura Coates was saying, is kind of stunning.

TAPPER: It is stunning.

Stormy Daniels, otherwise known as Stephanie Clifford, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, just tweeted -- quote -- "An enormous amount of misplaced faith has been on M.C." -- meaning Michael Cohen's -- "shoulders, in my opinion. If he does not hold up, this could end very, very badly for Donald J. Trump and others" -- unquote.

[16:15:03] I want to bring in Evan Perez.

Evan, clear something for me because I think there's some confusion here.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

TAPPER: The U.S. attorney's office for the southern district of New York, they execute this -- executed this series of warrants, this search of Michael Cohen's office but this action is in part a referral by the Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

PEREZ: Right.

TAPPER: So, is this part of the Mueller probe or is it separate from the Mueller probe? Or both?

PEREZ: All indications are this is not part of the Mueller investigation.

TAPPER: Then why does it say it is a referral -- in part a referral by the Office of Special Counsel?

PEREZ: Right, and I think that's the way it works, Jake. So, I think what -- there was information or at least according to Stephen Ryan, Michael Cohen's attorney, what he seems to be describing is that Robert Mueller's investigators came across information that they thought constituted reason for perhaps a possible crime, that constituted reasons for the southern district of New York to actually investigate this.

So, what Mueller is doing is saying, look, this is not my area, this is outside of what I'm supposed to be doing, but you guys should take a look at this because we think that there is something here. And so this is what has happened now.

The southern district of New York, the U.S. attorney's office there in Manhattan has executed this warrant and is apparently conducting an investigation into something that doesn't fall squarely in the four corners of what Robert Mueller is doing.

Now, I should say we've heard from people who have gone in to see Mueller recently that he was asked -- that people -- the Mueller team asked the witnesses whether they knew something about these payments to women, including Stormy Daniels.

TAPPER: Hush payments?

PEREZ: Hush payments, correct.

TAPPER: Yes.

PEREZ: So, the fact that those questions were coming from the Mueller team really aggravated people inside of the White House. People in the White House wanted to know, why is Mueller even getting to this question --

TAPPER: This has nothing to do with election interference.

PEREZ: This is nothing to do with election interference. And I think Mueller has arrived at same conclusion, that even if there is something here to be investigated, it is not for him to do and it is the jurisdiction of the Manhattan U.S. attorney. So that appears -- again, according to what Stephen Ryan has told "The New York Times," again, Michael Cohen's attorney, that the southern district of New York, the U.S. attorney there in Manhattan, is the one doing whatever investigation is into perhaps the hush payments, whether there is any other violations.

I mean, look, beyond the push payments, there could be some violation of election laws, if, for example, you did not declare these payments as a gift to the then candidate Donald Trump. Again, these payments were made just before the election and there is a way for you to registered gifts and if you don't do it properly, it is a violation of federal election law. So, again, we don't know exactly what the attorney's office in Manhattan is doing, but based on what Stephen Ryan, the attorney for Michael Cohen is describing, that appears to be what happened. Mueller has kicked this over to -- to the U.S. attorney's office.

TAPPER: Thanks for that clearing that up, Evan. Appreciate it.

Bill? BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD: I would say based on my --

just a little bit of knowledge of how these things work, if Robert Mueller asked the southern district of New York not to do this now, they would have held off. I mean, he has sort of precedence here.

So I'm a little doubtful this is not part of the investigation or in accord with his wishes. I mean, this is a huge escalation. They can't use privileged documents and they are set aside and they'd be reviewed by -- as I understand, a third party reviews them and they set aside what's privilege or not, but this is war. I mean, if you were -- I believe this shows that we're very close now to the end game. You do not go bust in with a -- to get a judge to give you a warrant to search the president's personal lawyer's office unless you think you are close to the end of this, you were getting important information.

The president is now -- the president is now going to go to war against him. If the president thought about firing Mueller, or pardon people, this is the moment where it goes to the front of his mind. I worry we might be under-interpreting this in the sense that I think this is a big -- Mueller could have put this off, could have tried to make more cooperation from Cohen. The idea that he signs off and goes to a judge to get a judge to sign off on a warrant to do this, I think that is a big deal.

PEREZ: I think, you know, look, again, part of what happens in these cases your concern is that there'd be destruction of evidence and documents, so often --

TAPPER: That is why they did the no-knock warrant search of Manafort.

PEREZ: Exactly. So, even though it's an extreme step to go raid the house of the former chairman of the Trump campaign, I think you do it because you are in fear that there will be evidence destroyed.

TAPPER: Gloria Borger?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: The relationship between the president and Michael Cohen has not gone away. If you recall, he invited Michael Cohen just I guess a week ago when he was in Mar-a- Largo to visit him and have dinner to show support for him. And shortly thereafter, he came out and said he is my lawyer.

And we also know from our reporting that witnesses have been asked about Michael Cohen, vis-a-vis Trump Tower Moscow and the whole question of his involvement in him and shortly there ever he came out and said he is my lawyer.

And we know from the reporting that witnesses have been asked about Michael Cohen, vis-a-vis Trump tower Moscow and the whole question of his involvement in trying to get -- to get that branding for the president during the campaign.

[16:20:16] And so the relationship between Michael Cohen and this president is like he's -- as he proudly calls himself, his Ray Donovan. And so, it does not surprise me that either Mueller found something in his interviews that he thought should be investigated by New York, or that he is also continuing to do so on his own. But there is some, as Evan rightly points out, that is completely outside his purview and he thinks that however it should not be left untouched or uninvestigated.

TAPPER: All right. That is interesting.

David Urban, you want to weigh in.

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let's just dial it back for a second here. Remember, we do live in the United States of America where everybody starts out as a presumption of innocence. As I sat in your set many times, in this studio, when Senator Menendez was facing trial and some of the Democrats on the panel was saying, he's done, he's gone, he's baked, I said, there's a jury here, we're going to come to conclusion, let them make the case, let's them make the decision.

We're not even close to that here. There's -- the FBI and some folks have taken some documents, presumption of innocence. We're way far, far away from anything here yet.

TAPPER: Absolutely.

Let's go now to CNN legal analyst Michael Zeldin, He's on the phone. He is the former special assistant at the Department of Justice to Robert Mueller.

Mr. Zeldin, your interpretation of what just happened, this FBI raid, southern district of New York, U.S. attorney's office raiding the personal attorney, Michael Cohen, his offices. He's the attorney for President Trump.

MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (via telephone): Right. So it seems what you're seeing, Jake, is Mueller coming across in the course of his investigation evidence of criminal wrongdoing which is beyond the scope of his mandate, so most likely he went to Rod Rosenstein pursuant to the regulations that governs Mueller's conduct and said, what would you like me to do with this, and Rosenstein said -- or Mueller and Rosenstein agreed that this is best handled by the southern district of New York, U.S. attorney's office and probably a Manhattan financial crime or perhaps real estate related inquiry. They obtained a warrant to search which means they presented to a court evidence of probable cause to believe there was relevant evidence to a criminal investigation and the warrant was signed and off they went and seized the documents that they needed to seize.

We just can't tell, yet, what the scope of it is and why it is -- why Mueller and Rosenstein feel it is outside of his mandate when you look at Paul Manafort and Gates' indictments which seem untethered to the primary mandate of coordination and yet he pursued that. So, this must be something that is -- sort of ring fenced within Manhattan and relevant to financial dealings of Cohen, either as his -- as a lawyer in and of himself or as a lawyer for the Trump Organization. We just don't know because Cohen claims to make representations with respect to Stormy Daniels, said he is acting on his own and then he makes representations with respect to Donald Trump that he's helping build the Trump Tower in Moscow and other international properties.

So, we just don't know yet where it falls. But it's clear that Mueller found something that he thinks the U.S. attorney should investigate and the judge agreed.

TAPPER: But, Michael Zeldin, let me ask you, as somebody who used to work closely under Robert Mueller. Bill Kristol posited here as a theory that even though this was a referral from the special counsel office to the southern district of New York, U.S. attorney, meaning the southern district of New York was told about something that they should look into, that Bob Mueller and his team had found, but they are actually not -- not Mueller but the southern district of New York -- they are actually investigating this and they are raiding the office, et cetera. Bill Kristol interprets this as it's possible that Bob Mueller had to sign off on this search warrant anyway since the information started with him and that whether or not this is related to the election interference investigation, this is part of muscling and showing people like Michael Cohen and maybe even President Trump that they are going to be investigated, whether they like it or not and they need to be honest, whether they like it or not.

As somebody who worked with Robert Mueller, what do you think of that theory?

ZELDIN: Well, I'm not sure why he would need the southern district to do that. He could have done that on his own as he did in Gates where they investigated what was originally a Eastern District of Virginia tax case that the U.S. attorney there was looking at and Mueller took it over.

[16:25:06] So, I'm not sure he would need the southern district to do his work in Manhattan.

I think he has authority to do that under his current mandate, which is why I think that perhaps it is not directly connected to his mandate and he's trying to be true to the mandate which is to investigate and coordination of matters related to Russia and the 2016 presidential election. But, you know, Mueller works in mysterious ways as we've learned and he doesn't leak. So, we're all speculating. But my speculation would be that this is something that is I call it a ring fence, meaning it is unique to New York and not connected to Bob's investigation directly.

TAPPER: Let's bring in CNN's Josh Campbell, who's a former FBI supervisor special agent and he's a former special assistant to James Comey. He now works as a legal analyst for CNN.

Josh, how do you interpret what happened just now?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I think we've heard some of the political commentators say we need to dial this down. I think the opposite. The Department of Justice has showed they are ready to dial this up because in a situation like this, and, obviously, there's a lot that we don't know about the specifics, the underlying potential crime, but any time you're dealing with an elected official, it falls under the category what the Department of Justice, what the FBI call a SIM, a sensitive investigative matter, and that means if you have someone who's a politician, a member of the media, maybe a member of the clergy, those types of legal action or any type of enforcement is going to be signed off on at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. So, that's number one.

The second part is because -- in this case, with Robert Mueller, he's not simply going to task out to the southern district some work or some allegation for them to do with on their own. Again, that's going to be feud right at main justice and again will be signed off at the highest level before it goes over to another district to start an investigation. I think that this shows that, you know -- and folks can be warned that if during the course of investigating a crime, if investigators unearth some other type of crime, they don't simply turn a blind eye.

TAPPER: David Urban, I want to give you a chance to weigh in.

URBAN: Yes. So, as we've heard -- you know, in the Gates and Manafort case, Bob Mueller had no problem, no knock, guns pulled raid which I've talked to folks in law enforcement, say they reserve those kind of raids for bad guys with guns who are going to put up a fight. It is very rare for folks to do no-knock raids on that case. And in that case --

TAPPER: All right. Josh, we'll come back in a second.

URBAN: Josh, you had your chance. And in this case as well, you had -- you had Gates and Manafort on things happening in 2013, completely unrelated to this election. You know, if this were the case that you're talking about here, you could have the same kind of thing. Like, if it were that -- would that tightly tied to this president, Mueller could easily have done it.

KRISTOL: The president of the United States had dinner with Michael Cohen one week ago --

(CROSSTALK)

KRISTOL: -- said Michael Cohen is my lawyer. The highest level of justice, as Josh just said, has just signed off on an FBI unannounced raid on the president's personal lawyer --

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: -- we don't know everything.

TAPPER: We don't know.

URBAN: But it doesn't stop from opining in the thousands --

(CROSSTALK)

KRISTOL: I'm saying that I suspect -- to say this is not a big deal strikes me --

TAPPER: I do want Josh as a former special agent, you are saying it is not true that the no-knock midnight raids are only done on bad guy drug dealers with guns. Go ahead.

CAMPBELL: That's right. And this isn't any disrespect for Mr. Urban. I mean, points for creativity. I understand the position he's in.

I'm just saying that as a law enforcement officer and you were focusing on a crime, it doesn't just involve those who are dangerous, involves those who maybe destroying evidence, but the fact is the point that was made has nothing to do with what I just said a moment ago.

URBAN: Josh, it's normal for the FBI --

(CROSTALK)

CAMPBELL: -- and the Department of Justice.

URBAN: So, Josh, it's normal for the FBI to knock -- no knock and guns drawn on a matter like Mr. Manafort? That is a normal procedure.

CAMPBELL: I didn't say normal, you just said it's not case.

URBAN: So, I'm just asking, is it normal?

(CROSSTALK)

CAMPBELL: I'm saying that in order to preserve evidence, the FBI will approach the situation in that manner.

URBAN: Josh, answer my last question, is it normal or not normal for the FBI to no-knock and guns drawn in a Manafort type of raid? Yes or no.

CAMPBELL: I'm saying it requires a judge to sign off on it.

URBAN: I'm just asking, Josh.

CAMPBELL: In this case, the FBI agents convinced the judge that it was warranted in this case. So, the argument really is superfluous and I guess --

URBAN: I guess that's a no. It's not normal.

CAMPBELL: This is separate than what Mueller is doing.

TAPPER: But I guess we could all agree that Mueller and now the southern district of New York are using rather aggressive tactics.

URBAN: Yes, absolutely.

KRISTOL: And the judge signed off on it.

TAPPER: And the judge signed off and --

KRISTOL: And the reason -- it is not whether the guns are drawn. The fact is there was reasonable suspicion if they didn't go in in this unannounced ways, documents would be destroyed and a judge, not Mueller, a judge must have convinced that was a reasonable thing to worry about. So, this is a big deal --

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The question, is not is this normal? There is nothing normal about this administration, about anything that is an outgrowth of said administration or any investigation whether we're talking about the Senate, the House or the special counsel -- there is nothing normal about this. So, let's not normalize any of this. It's crazy.