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The Lead with Jake Tapper

All the President's Men Caught Up in Ukraine Scandal; Secretary of State Blasts Congress Over Subpoenas. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired October 01, 2019 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: He's also going after Democrats, as well as the media and the whistle-blower.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While President Trump continues to attack the whistle-blower behind his impeachment inquiry, both on Twitter and on camera...

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a whistle- blower that reports things that were incorrect.

PHILLIP: ... his secretary of state today is pushing back on House Democrats looking to question some of his employees.

In a letter, Mike Pompeo saying: "Democrats are trying to intimidate, bullying and treat improperly the distinguished professionals at the Department of State."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not going to talk right now.

PHILLIP: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff refusing to answer questions about Pompeo's letter, instead issuing this statement late this afternoon, along with two other committee chairmen, saying: "Pompeo should immediately cease intimidating department witnesses in order to protect himself and the president."

TRUMP: Thank you very much

PHILLIP: Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelensky, whose phone call with President Trump triggered the investigation, now trying to distance himself from the controversy, insisting that he never met with Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and denying that he was pressured by Trump to investigate Biden.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Did you feel pressure from President Trump to investigate the Bidens in order to unfreeze military aid?

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I understood.

I'd like to tell you that I never feel pressure. PHILLIP: All of this as the president's defenders follow his lead in

trying to disparage the whistle-blower's credibility.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The thing is filled with, I don't know, I heard, I overheard. There is not a single time he says, I know.

PHILLIP: Trump's other personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, arguing the president didn't break the law.

JAY SEKULOW, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: What is the rule, regulation, statute that was violated in the conversation that the president had with the president of Ukraine? None. Nothing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: And, Jake, there are some Trump allies concerned that the White House was not adequately prepared for this fast-moving impeachment inquiry.

And while we have learned that there is not expected to be a war room, we have also learned that the president's aides are expected to present him with a response plan as soon as this week -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let's chew over all of this with our experts.

Dana, let plea start with you.

Can Secretary of State Pompeo just ignore these demands from House Democrats, and what recourse do the House Democrats have?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The courts, which, as we know from experience with the Democrats and this White House, that could take some time.

Can he do it? I think a lot of it depends on what legally -- and you can answer -- the administration exerts, whether they actually say, no, there is executive privilege and whether or not that can really past muster.

And the question is the lower-level employees. The most interesting thing is going to be former -- now former Ambassador Volker, because he resigned. He's not an employee.

We are told that he does still intend -- he was invited to come and talk to the House Democrats on Thursday. We're told that he does plan to attend still. I got a letter that he sent to the McCain Institute trustees. He's still the head of the McCain Institute, saying just, that he does plan on going.

And that could be very interesting. And it is also noteworthy that he's still saying that, even though Mike Pompeo clearly sent out a shot across the bow in that tweet today.

TAPPER: Yes.

And, Kim Wehle, you have a new book out or in paperback called "How to Read the Constitution and Why." The Constitution lays out impeachment for treason, bribery, other high crimes and misdemeanors.

We have seen obstruction of Congress as an article of impeachment in the past, I guess against Nixon. What do you think about the showdown going on right now between Pompeo and the House Democrats? Do House Democrats have an oversight role here and that enables them to call for employees of the State Department to testify?

KIM WEHLE, FORMER ASSOCIATE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Yes.

As part of their legislative authority, they have investigative authority, and they could move to compel compliance with these subpoenas, which would then take it to the courts. And the argument would be maybe executive privilege, although that's not a blanket privilege. That's not a reason to completely blow off and ignore the subpoenas.

The second argument might be, we have heard, oh, there's no legislative purpose. But now that there's an impeachment proceeding, I think that's really tough.

But as I talk about in the book, the whole issue here is, is there compliance? Is there enforcement of something like a subpoena request? If there's no enforcement, then the showdown will continue. The stonewalling will continue.

The Constitution only functions if there are consequences for violating its terms. It's like a job description. And that's what impeachment really is. It's a pink slip for people that aren't doing the job. It's not putting somebody in jail. It's really determining whether this person is proper for being in this office.

And it's set up so that the Congress is the body that oversees, on behalf of the people, the person who's in the Oval Office.

TAPPER: Toluse, is there a strategy at the White House, other than having their most loyal supporters and aides go out and claim that this is a coup d'etat, and come up with all sorts of misleading lies?

[16:05:05]

Is there an actual strategy?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, "THE WASHINGTON POST": The challenge is that there are multiple strategies, and they're sort of conflicting, and they're all happening at once.

You have the president's personal lawyers. I spoke to Jay Sekulow yesterday, and he said they're going to follow the Mueller playbook. They have the outside lawyer running the show there. And they feel that they were able to win what he said was a war then.

And this is more of a skirmish, in his words, so they don't need an official war room. So they believe having the outside lawyers operating and handling a lot of the president's personal legal issues will sort of lead the charge.

But when you have the other Republicans sort of following other playbooks, you have some Republicans following the president, you have others saying the president is going too far in talking about civil war, so you do have multiple strategies. And it does seem that the president is running point, but you don't really have all of the Republicans, all of the conservatives, all of the people that the president needs to be on the same team, they are not all operating along the same playbook.

And that is why you do seem to have conflicting messages coming from different parts of effort.

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think we're starting to see a strategy just in the last day or two. That is, Nancy Pelosi has a strategy.

It's, let's not do Mueller all over again. Let's make this narrow and fast. Let's cauterize the wounds. And if we can't get anywhere, we better go back to guns and health care.

What do you see happening from the White House? Pompeo today, let's see if we can extend this. Longer is better. And let's see if we can make it beyond the narrow, it's about a presidential phone call, to include Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani, State Department officials. The longer they go, the better it is.

The White House wants to amputate with a butter knife, because if they go too fast, the risk is somebody going to show up at the Hill and say, yes, the president did that. And we're off to the races.

I'm starting to -- I'm not sure it's an orchestrated strategy. But longer and more complicated, I suspect, is better from the White House.

BASH: But when and if the White House continues to say, no, you're not going to talk to the people here at the White House who the whistle-blower named, Pompeo continues to say what he's saying about his employees at the State Department, the committee chairs are already saying in black and white, if you continue to say no, we are going to use that as another piece of evidence in our impeachment inquiry and holding you to account for obstructing, which is part of impeachment.

TAPPER: And one of the things that's interesting is how much this call and the transcript of it fits in with reporting previously and currently about the president on the phone with foreign heads of state.

A source telling CNN that President Trump was so often unprepared for calls with foreign leaders that during Chief of Staff John Kelly's tenure, he would be coached during the conversations. They would hit mute. He had to be reeled in by aides. And this is how we have seen the president talk in public. He's freewheeling. The source also saying -- quote -- "He would go on random tangents about the Mueller investigation with foreign leaders. It was unnecessary and unhelpful and sometimes he just wouldn't have his facts straight, and he would really rattle some of the foreign leaders with whom he spoke."

And this isn't -- this is squarely in the context of this call. That's what this call sounds like.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes.

And if you have listened -- if you read any of the books that have been written by White House insiders, people who have left the administration, they talk about these discussions they have with the president where he rambles, where he goes off topic, where he dominates the conversation by talking about things that were not part of the agenda going into these meetings.

This seems to be what he does with foreign leaders as well. Instead of talking about top foreign policy priorities, which we didn't see very many of them on this transcript with the Ukraine, he talks about his own personal grievances. He talks about what they can do for him and his own personal political interests.

TAPPER: Yes.

OLORUNNIPA: And that's what has gotten him into hot water. And that may be why people around him wanted to segregate these calls and put them on a separate server, because not only might they be embarrassing, but they may also include information with the president trying to pursue or talk about political issues, when he should be pursuing foreign policy.

TAPPER: And Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican in the Senate, gave a very strong statement today about the need to protect and respect whistle-blowers, clearly seemed to be aimed at President Trump.

Has President Trump come anywhere near the line in terms of actually intimidating or violating the Whistleblower Protection Act, do you think?

WEHLE: Well, again, it depends on what the consequences are for a violation.

But, clearly, the Whistleblower Protection Act is designed to keep this process anonymous. And all this talk about hearsay and things, it's completely irrelevant. It's like someone calls and tells a police officer, I heard where the body is buried . You go and check where the body is buried.

But that baton has been handed off by this whistle-blower to Congress, and then you have to follow the facts. But the things that the president are saying are deeply disturbing, because it not only, if this person is outed, puts this person and their family at some risk, but also it creates a chilling effect. Then the whistle-blower statute itself won't function. People won't tell because they're worried.

TAPPER: Everyone, stick around. We got much, much more to talk about.

They are two of President Trump's men, and now they are permanently tied to that phone call with the Ukrainian president. But they may not be on the same page.

Then: The president keeps tweeting falsehoods about the whistle- blower complaint. We have got the truth.

[16:10:01]

You're watching a special edition of THE LEAD: "The White House in Crisis."

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to a special edition of THE LEAD: "The White House in Crisis."

New questions today for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, now that we know he was also on that call on July 25 between President Trump and the president of Ukraine, according to a source, in which the president of the United States asked the president of Ukraine to investigate one of his political rivals, Joe Biden.

[16:15:04]

Pompeo conveniently never mentioned that when asked about the whistle- blower complaint about that call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC HOST: What do you know about those conversations?

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: So you just gave me a report about a -- I.C. whistleblower complaint, none of which I've seen.

RADDATZ: Do you think it's, quote, perfectly fine to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent?

POMPEO: I think I saw a statement from the Ukrainian foreign minister yesterday who said there was no pressure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Not exactly forthcoming.

I want to bring in CNN's Evan Perez and Kylie Atwood.

And, Kylie, let me start with you. Pompeo is now calling out Democrats set to begin interviews with State

Department officials. Is he just not going to cooperate? Is he going to block people from testifying and not supply documents?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Right now, he's not completely blocking people from not testifying. He's essentially not slamming the door shut but he's saying no in some sense. He is very frustrated here. He does say not right now.

Over the next two weeks when the House scheduled these depositions to take place, he said that those dates are not feasible and said it's because of legal and procedural reasons and lays that out in the long letter he sent to the Hill today. Some of the reasons he states is that the folks they want to talk to have to have time to get their own private attorneys if they choose to. They have to have time to meet with State Department lawyers if they want to and to go over all of the documents that have been requested alongside their deposition.

But clearly, Jake, the secretary is also making a political statement here.

TAPPER: Yes.

ATWOOD: He also said he's not going to tolerate the tactics of these House Democrats. And he charged them with bullying these State Department folks.

So he's making a political statement alongside a statement as the secretary of state who is the boss of these people that the House Democrats want to talk to.

TAPPER: And, Evan, you cover the Justice Department there may be signed that Bill Barr is trying to distance himself from Rudy Giuliani, who we know who was actively in Ukraine --

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

TAPPER: -- trying to pressure or convince Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens. That doesn't sit well with Barr apparently.

PEREZ: Right. It doesn't. I mean, you could add Bill Barr to the list of people running away from Rudy Giuliani since the scandal broke and with good reason. I think he's among the people close to the president who have been warning the president that Rudy's strategy that the Giuliani treat of being just out there and throwing everything they can -- he can at the television screen is not a very good way to go about this.

And so, I think that is one of the things that has been a big concern for Bill Barr and certainly doesn't want to be lumped in with Rudy Giuliani. Of course, the big problem with that is the president himself is the one that put Bill Barr's name, the attorney general's name, you know, alongside Rudy Giuliani when he said that I want to you work with these people to the Ukrainian president to try to get this information out there. TAPPER: And, Evan, at Barr's request, President Trump has been

pressing other countries to help Barr investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, according to a source. I guess the question is, is this investigation into the origin of the Russia investigation, is it legit or just an attempt to please President Trump by attacking the FBI?

I'm sorry, I should ask that to Evan.

PEREZ: Well, yes, I think, look, it is an ongoing investigation. They've been very public about it.

There's a couple of things that are different, Jake. The Justice Department said that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The president -- you know, his comments notwithstanding, the Justice Department is very clear on that. So, what Barr is doing is looking at the origins of the investigation, whether or not people did anything wrong, whether some people violated the law.

We don't know there is any proof of that, but he has had the suspicions since before he became attorney general and so, that's what he's sending John Durham, this prosecutor, to do. And one of the things he's done is taken him on these foreign trips and introduced him to foreign officials to get him -- to get them to know him and to make that easier for that information to be turned over.

Now, we don't know all of the countries but he went to Italy last week. We know other countries have provided information to this investigation, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands. So you can bet those are the places that John Durham is going to go.

TAPPER: And, Kylie, let me ask you, do you have any sense from State Department officials that they understand how bad it looks that the secretary of state was on this call on July 25th, according to a source, and yet when Martha Raddatz of ABC asked him about it a couple of Sundays ago about it, he was pretty evasive and looking back on it knowing he was on the call, pretty -- he wasn't honest, let's put it that way.

Do they have -- do they understand that?

ATWOOD: He was not forthcoming and he didn't get ahead of the story. He let it -- he let it get away from him before he could say, I was on the call and make any statement --

PEREZ: Right.

ATWOOD: -- before it was reported that he was on the call, saying, you know, I thought it was appropriate or what-have-you, just -- you know, based on any conversations that he had with the president.

The other thing, however, that the State Department officials are talking about a lot right now is the fear of getting involved in this investigation.

[16:20:15] TAPPER: Yes.

ATWOOD: Sources that I have at the State Department will no longer talk to me because they are going to be subpoenaed. They are fearful of being subpoenaed.

And so, they don't want to be the ones who get in trouble with the Trump administration and get caught in some political -- politically motivated investigations here and then are no longer able to, you know, go forth with their own job as career foreign service officers for the State Department.

TAPPER: Kylie Atwood and Evan Perez, thank you so much for your expertise. Appreciate it.

It's second-hand information, it's hearsay -- there are some of the narratives being pushed by President Trump and his supporters. We're going to break down the myths versus the facts when it comes to whistle-blowing. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:25:39]

TAPPER: Welcome back to a special edition of THE LEAD: The White House in Crisis.

President Trump today is pushing a lie about the whistleblower who came forward with concerns about the president's conduct, claiming all of the allegations made in his or her report are only, quote, hearsay. But that's not true. The intelligence community inspector general who handled the whistleblower's complaint is forcefully pushing back against that lie and against some others, as CNN's Jessica Schneider now reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much, everybody.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president setting off alarms by seeming to make the whistle-blower a target.

TRUMP: We're trying to find out about a whistleblower --

SCHNEIDER: The president publicly declaring he wants to uncover the whistle-blower's identity on camera and several times on Twitter.

Why aren't we entitled to interview and learn everything about the whistleblower and also the person who gave all of the false information to him. Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser.

But long-established law dating back 30 years protects any whistleblower's anonymity and shields them from retaliation. (on camera): Can the president demand to know the whistleblower's ID?

JOHN KOSTYACK, EXECUTIVE DIRECOTR, NATIONAL WHISTLEBLOWER CENTER: No. We have strong protections of whistleblowers in this country, developed over many years with a bipartisan consensus.

SCHNEIDER: The president's allies are also pushing his conspiracy theory, falsely alleging changes were made to the whistleblower laws soon before this complaint was filed to allow secondhand information to be considered. Trump tweeting: Who changed the long-standing whistleblower rules just before submittal of the fake whistleblower report.

But a CNN fact check found the rules did not change, with even the inspector general of the intelligence community saying in a statement that the whistleblower used the appropriate forum and that it is the same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24th, 2018. And the ICIG went on to state that firsthand information has never been required for whistleblowers to launch a complaint, saying, by law, the complainant need not possess firsthand information in order to file a complaint.

KOSTYACK: Protect this whistleblower. This whistleblower complied with the law. First and secondhand knowledge are both welcome.

SCHNEIDER: Trump complained over Twitter that the complaint was based solely on secondhand information. But that's also not accurate. As the ICIG statement says, the whistleblower stated on the form that he or she possessed both firsthand and other information.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And even top Republican Senator Chuck Grassley seems to be taking issue with the president's persistent attacks on the whistleblower. In a statement, Senator Grassley said the whistleblower's request for confidentiality should be respected and that he or she ought to be heard out before people make judgments and also, Jake, that he or she should be protected -- Jake.

TAPPER: Principles.

Jessica Schneider, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani is in a showdown right now with House Democrats over a subpoena. Our next guest is on the House committee leading the impeachment inquiry.

You're watching a special edition of THE LEAD: The White House in Crisis.

Stay with us.

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