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Biden And Zelenskyy Meet One-On-One At NATO Summit; FBI Director Wray Faces GOP Critics In Hearing Today; Wray: FBI Protects Americans From "Staggering Array Of Threat". Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 12, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:01:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Any moment now President Biden on a one-on- one with the Ukrainian president. They are supposed to meet in mere moments, a new pledge now of weapons and money to help Ukraine fight back against Russia for the long haul. The significant moves coming out of this NATO Summit ahead.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI director in the hot seat starting very soon on Capitol Hill. Chris Wray facing some of his harshest critics, Republicans on Capitol Hill. We're going to take you there live.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

All right, let's go live. Right now, we're looking at President Biden and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine and their one-on-one meeting, let's listen in.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- how much support you have. It's real. And I hope we finally have put to bed the notion about whether or not Ukraine is welcome in NATO. It's going to happen. We're moving -- you're all moving in the right direction. I think it's just a matter of getting by the next few months here.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

And, you know, it's hard to believe, 500 days. It's easy for me just mostly -- I've been in and out of Ukraine a lot before the war, and some since the war. But I'm going to say again what I've said to you many times, not only all of you, but your people -- your sons, your daughters, your husbands, your wives, your friends, you're incredible.

Ukraine -- the whole world has seen the courage -- I really -- I mean this from the bottom of my heart, the courage and commitment of the average Ukrainian. When you see a 65-year-old woman on television after her apartment has been bombed out, picking up the pieces, going to help the next-door neighbor. I mean, it's just astounding.

You set an example for the whole world of what constitutes genuine courage in my -- I mean, from the bottom of my heart, I mean that -- what courage means. And, you know, I think it's -- your resilience and your resolve has been a model for the whole world to see.

And the frustration, I can only imagine. I know you're many times frustrated about when things -- what things get to you quickly enough and what's getting to you and how we're getting there. But I promise you, the United States is doing everything we can to get you what you need as rapidly as we can get it to you.

And the Secretary of Defense has been a constant, constant -- how can I say it? The refrain -- from the Defense Department and everywhere else to -- and calling other secretaries of defense around the world to say, "Let's get some help."

So I just want you to know it's real. And, you know, if you're -- in Vilnius, we held the first, as you well know, NATO-Ukraine Council. But you and I talked about this beforehand, about the commitments -- the security commitments we were going to make while it becomes official -- until it becomes official. And I think that's important.

And I might -- I want to tell you, when I got here, Mr. President, and I started to sell that idea to other heads of state, there was no reluctance. There was no -- "Well, I don't want to -- it was -- everybody just said, "OK. Let's sign on."

So, it's real. You've done an enormous job. You have a lot more to do, I know. And I just think that, you know, we're going to make sure that you get what you need. And I look forward to the day when we're having the meeting celebrating your official, membership in NATO.

So, thank you for what you're doing. And the bad news for you is, we're not going anywhere.

(LAUGHTER)

You're stuck with us. Well, thank you.

[10:05:07]

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: Thank you very much, Mr. President. And I will start.

You said about 500 days. It's really a difficult job for our people -- soldiers and civilians, mothers, fathers, and children really to fight for their life and for these values. And thank you very much that all these days you are with us. I mean, you and Americans, all of America -- Americans and Congress. I mean, thank you, Mr. President, that you -- like we say, shoulder-to-shoulder with us from those days of full- scale war. We appreciate for this very much.

And really, you know, we understand you're leading support, because when you give such messages and when you gave sometimes some weapon -- I'm sorry that I'm -- but I want to say to journalists, like I said during our meeting, our council, that it's very simple, you know, to criticize, for example, clusters ammunition, which you made decision -- difficult political decision.

But it's -- but you have to know that Russia used such weapon from the first days, not only full-scale war -- from those days of occupation of Crimea, from 2014 and '15, in all our territories. In Donbas, they used it. And now they continuing doing. And that you gave us -- this decision will help us to save us.

And that's why my appreciation for the -- and I didn't hear from all the, you know, parts of the world when Russia began to use it -- I didn't hear that some of, you know, countries criticized Russia, you know? But I think that it was very useful to put them.

So, thank you so much for this help. We really counted on it -- not only on this. I mean, this -- totally. And you gave us huge support.

I want to thank to all Americans. We understand that it's more than 43 billions for today. It's big support. And I understand that it's all your money, but we have to know that you spend this money for -- not just for fighting, you spend this money for our lives. And the -- I think that we save the lives for Europe and for all the world.

So, thank you very much for this also summit. At the end of the summit, we had -- I think this council had great success and security guarantees, as you said, that we began to speak it -- about it in Kyiv.

So, now we see that we had -- you had great idea, that G7 -- and now I know that last message (ph) that also there are countries which joined to G7 decisions, and I think it will help very much because it's real effect that -- it's very competitive (ph) things.

So, thank you.

BIDEN: Well, thank you. And thank you for acknowledging the American people. I think it's correct that we are a large country, but I think we've given more than every other nation combined in terms of assistance and cost.

And the American people are supportive, they're supportive because they know it's about you, but it's about more than you. It's about innocent people around the world and the absolute brutality with which Putin is acting and the Russians are moving on. It's just some -- like something out of the 14th century the way they're acting.

And so -- but I can't emphasize enough.

And, by the way, I know you thanked him, but I think we talked about it before. I went to Tokyo years -- more -- a couple years ago. The idea that Kishida is increasing their defense budget, having to lower their domestic budget, to aid directly and get directly involved in what's happening in Ukraine is remarkable.

[10:10:03]

The sad, sad news is you're in this situation. The incredible news is it's bringing the world together. It's bringing the world together in a way that -- it's a hell of a price to pay, but it's bringing the world together. And people are realizing that they just can't stand by and let this kind of aggression occur. Any rate, I thank you, and we got a lot to talk about. So, somebody is going to have to say, "The press has to leave."

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Zelenskyy, are you satisfied with what you got from NATO? You were so frustrated yesterday. Is this enough? Are you satisfied, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to leave. Thank you. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, everybody.

ZELENSKYY: I think, at the end of summit, we have great unity from our leaders and security guarantees, that the success for this summit. I think so, but it's my opinion. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Zelenskyy, how soon after the war would you like to be in NATO? How soon after the war would you like to join NATO?

BIDEN: An hour and 20 minutes. You guys ask really insightful questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, guys, you got to get up. Thank you. Let's go. Here we go. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: What we saw was -- just now is very important and really unique how long, we heard from President Biden and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine going back and forth about this moment, hearing from President Biden noting the frustration that President Zelenskyy has very publicly been discussing over their path to NATO. And also hearing President Biden say, we're talking about the resilience of Ukrainian people that they set an example for the world of what courage means.

And Zelenskyy speaking directly to the American people saying, "You have to know that what the money that you're spending is not just for fighting, you're spending this money for our lives". An important moment, a moment of that -- going -- could be an iconic image, an enduring image, at least as a show of support and solidarity with Ukraine as they continue to fight in this war.

Let me bring in Arlette Saenz, who's watching this as well, traveling with the President in Lithuania. That was pretty amazing what we saw in the extent with -- the extent of which the leaders let us hear the conversation.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it really was, Kate. And it just shows the type of unity that President Biden has wanted to project with this summit. Yes, there has been tensions and frustrations that have been voiced heading into the summit, as Zelenskyy had been eyeing that concrete time table for NATO membership, he did not get that. But what the President has been trying to stress here is that the U.S. and allies will be with Ukraine in the long term. That's it that we always hear from him. And over the course of this war, that they're in it to help Ukraine win its fight against Russia.

But these commitments that we are hearing from the United States today kind of take things to another level, saying that they will be there giving them those long term security commitments, even as they are still waiting for an accession to -- eventual accession to NATO, if they get through all of the reform processes.

But you have the two leaders there sitting side by side showing, one, the President that he supports fully Ukraine, that the allies fully support Ukraine, but also words of thanks from Zelenskyy, recognizing how big of an impact the U.S. and allies have been in helping him move forward in this war.

And the underlying message in theme throughout this week has been trying to send a direct message to Vladimir Putin that the U.S. and its allies will continue to stand behind Ukraine. And you've seen that even when you think of the fact that the NATO alliance is now expanding as Turkey lifted their objections to Sweden joining making NATO territory even more vast.

But today, that is quite the consequential historic moment, as those two men sitting together, voicing support for one another are really as the President is trying to stress to Ukraine that the U.S. and its allies are here for the long run.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And Biden even going as far as saying he's looking for to forge when they're sitting down meeting as an official member of NATO, an important -- one of many important moments that we're seeing. What this means on the battlefield and the -- in the most immediate is a question and what this means for the long term.

And a key question that we heard as we as we go, though, Arlette is that, what we heard from -- the question from the pool, which was important, which is, how soon after the war would end with Russia do you want to become a member of NATO? And Zelenskyy did not have the opportunity to respond, though, it did look like he was open to taking questions.

SAENZ: Yes, I had a little bit of a hard time hearing --

BOLDUAN: Yes, of course.

SAENZ: -- because we're outside at this event right now, but those are questions, you know, going forward is what that timeline might look like.

[10:15:05]

And I think one thing that was notable earlier today, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, so that they have not put a timeline in part because war is dynamic, things are constantly changing. And they're also not just the fact that they want to see the war against Russia end first, but there are still those reforms democratic and in the security sectors that the NATO alliance wants to see Ukraine make.

But Zelenskyy has said that he will work towards that as he is keeping his eye on that NATO membership. And as NATO allies here have been stressing that Ukraine's place is in NATO at some point down the road.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Thanks for walking through it with us, Arlette. Thanks for being there. Sara?

SIDNER: Incredible, those pictures, Kate, to see the closeness between the countries.

All right. Now to some contentious issues in this country, the FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifying on Capitol Hill now. These are live pictures that you're watching behind me. Wray will speak before the House Judiciary Committee that's taking questions from some of his harshest critics, namely Republicans.

Many Republicans on the panel have accused the FBI Director of unfairly targeting conservatives and, in particular, Donald Trump. You are looking now at Congressman Jerry Nadler, he is a ranking member on that committee. He is speaking. Let us listen in.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: -- classified documents to numerous individuals without proper security clearance. You will hear claims today that this indictment against Trump was unfair, maybe even that it was unlawful. You'll hear that the FBI should have just asked Trump a little more nicely, one more time, to hand over the documents.

You'll hear that the case was a political investigation from the start, orchestrated by a liberal loving FBI that ensured Trump would be wrongfully vilified at every turn. These claims of course are completely untethered from the evidence.

Even if you believe, as Chairman Jordan claims, that President Trump has committed no crime, surely we can agree that it is dangerous and profoundly irresponsible to have taken these documents from the White House and left them unsecured in Mar-a-Lago.

Again, don't take just my word for it. Trump's Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that the former president's handling of this information, but U.S. service members lives in the national security at risk.

And Trump's hand-picked Attorney General Bill Barr, with whom I agree on very little hit the nail on the head when he described the foreign president's legal troubles as, quote, "Entirely of his own making. He had no right to those documents. The government tried for over a year quietly and with respect to get them back, and he jerked them around. When he faced a subpoena, he didn't raise any legal arguments, he engaged in the course of deceitful conduct. There was a clear crime if those allegations are true," close quote.

The former president could have, at any time for months, simply returned the documents and avoided prosecution, but House Republicans do not want to talk about any of that. They seem incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald Trump for problems that are Trump's and Trump's alone.

You might hear today about a man named Steven D'Antuono, the former Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office during the investigation into the documents. Last month, Committee Republicans brought him in for an interview and shortly after that, Chairman Jordan released the letter purporting to describe Mr. D'Antuono's testimony.

In fact, Chairman Jordan, in summary of Mr. D'Antuono's words are a vast mischaracterization of what he actually said. Here's just one example. Chairman Jordan has claimed that Mr. D'Antuono said he had, quote, "No idea", unquote, why the Mar-a-Lago investigation was run out of the FBI's Washington Field Office, instead of the Miami field office.

What the chairman hides is that a seconds later, Mr. D'Antuono explained that, quote, "The venue was here", meaning Washington, D.C., for the classified documents that it was, quote, "not out of the ordinary for Washington to be lead office running the investigation", and said that Washington has, quote, "Most experience and knowledge in working public corruption cases" and are, quote, "the experts in classified document investigations".

Mr. Jordan did not share the full record with the American public because it does not fit his chosen narrative. My staff has worked to have a minimally redacted version of Mr. D'Antuono's full testimony released that urge you to read the words for yourself in their entirety.

When you compare his actual words to Mr. Jordan's characterization, you'll understand why I feel like this hearing room has become a theater. And, frankly, it goes through many things that we will hear from the Republicans today. You can expect to hear that the FBI is retaliating against his conservative employees and has a deep-seated conspiracy to candidates and ideology.

[10:20:03]

These claims are based in the words of several individuals -- people Republicans are somewhat laughably calling whistleblowers. In fact, evidence shows that these individuals were suspended for violating serious FBI policies. One provided an unauthorized interview to Russian state-owned media.

Another leak information about an ongoing investigation, placing FBI agents and witnesses at risk. And another said that he wanted to use a senior FBI official as, quote, "target practice".

Chairman Jordan invited some of the so-called whistleblowers to testify before the weaponization subcommittee in May. As it turns out, two of the witnesses were ultimately paid $250,000 each for that testimony. Money raised in part by former Trump aide Kash Patel and paid via check with memo line reads, quote, "for holding the line".

And yet Republicans today will try to claim that it is the FBI, not these witnesses who are somehow corrupt. Republicans today will also attack President Biden starting with the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden. They will ignore the fact that U.S. Attorney David Weiss had the authority to bring charges in any district he sought fit and was able to operate fully free of interference.

They do not want to acknowledge that despite years of investigations, President Biden has not been found to have engaged in any wrongdoing. Instead, they'll try to convince you that Hunter Biden would have been charged with far more serious crimes, had it not been for U.S. Attorney Weiss being blocked by the Biden political machine.

Once again when they do not like the outcome, they investigate the investigators and work to discredit the outcome. And Republicans will make false claims about the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, claiming that it is somehow censoring conservatives.

In fact, the task force plays a key role in making sure that Russia, China, Iran and other foreign entities cannot again interfere in our elections. According to Committee Republicans, the task force's efforts to track and prevent foreign influence operations mount to attacks on conservative speech, a nonsensical claim considering that the Foreign Influence Task Force has nothing to do with censoring American free speech, and in fact, helps to ensure that American voices are heard by stopping Russian troll farms.

Make no mistake, in making these claims Republicans have all but rolled out the red carpet and begged Russia to once again interfere in our elections, because they believe that doing so will get get Trump reelected in 2024. And that is the goal of Republicans today.

Republican claims that the FBI has been weaponized. Their personal attacks on Director Wray, their repeated calls to, quote, "defund the FBI", these are not victimless acts. They are a clarion call to anti- government extremists. And that call is being heard.

Last year, Director Wray faced multiple credible death threats. FBI employees face more threats in the months after the Mar-a-Lago search than they had in the entire prior year. The problem has gotten so bad that FBI has had to stand up an entire new unit dedicated to combating threats to FBI agents and staff.

It is far past time that Republicans realize the consequences of their actions. Republicans may want to downplay Trump's behavior and blame the FBI for his downfall. But no matter what they say, Trump risks the safety and security of the United States to remove those documents from the White House, then lie to the government instead of returning them.

Donald Trump must be held accountable, and attempts to shield him from the consequences of his own actions are both transparent and despicable. Ultimately, no matter how many times Republicans attack Director Wray or the FBI, or the investigation at Mar-a-Lago, I trust in the rule of law.

Mr. Trump will have his day in court. I believe the system will hold him accountable. And I thank the men and women of the FBI who helped bring the classified information to safety and protect the national security of our nation.

Thank you for being here today, Director Wray. I hope your agents will not be disheartened by what they hear today and will continue this kind of work essential to the safety of our nation. I thank the chairman, and I yield back.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Gentleman yields back. Just for the record, the pronunciation of the former Assistant Director in charge of the Washington Field Office is D'Antuono, something that ranking member might have known if he'd actually shown up at the deposition, like I did.

With that, we -- without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. The Honorable Christopher Wray has been the Director of the FBI since 2017. He previously served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. The Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and Associate Deputy Attorney General and as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

[10:25:01]

Director Wray has also worked in private practice at King and Spalding LLP. We welcome our witness and thank him for appearing today. We will begin by swearing you in. Director, would you please rise? Raise your right hand. You've done this before.

Do you swear affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, so help you God?

Let the record show the witness answer in the affirmative.

Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. We'll give you a few extra minutes if you like, Director, and then you know how this works, will be five minutes of questioning. And my guess is every single member is going to have questions for you.

So again, thank you for being here. Director Wray, you are recognized for your opening statement.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Nadler, members of the committee.

In the time that I have before we get to your questions, I want to talk about the sheer breadth and impact of the work the FBI's 38,000 employees are doing each and every day. Because the work the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines, take violent crime.

Last year alone, working shoulder to shoulder with our partners in state and local law enforcement, the FBI arrested more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators. That's an average of almost 60 bad guys taken off the streets per day, every day.

Or our work going after the cartels, exploiting our southwest border to traffic fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into communities nationwide. The FBI is running well over 300 investigations targeting the leadership of those cartels and working with our partners, we've already seized hundreds of kilograms of fentanyl this year alone, stopping deadly drugs from reaching their intended destinations in states all over -- and saving countless American lives.

Or the thousands of active investigations we now have into the Chinese government's efforts to steal our most precious secrets, rob our businesses of their ideas and innovation, and repress freedom of speech right here in the United States. And that is just scratching the surface.

The men and women of the FBI work tirelessly every day to protect the American people from what is really a staggering array of threats. And we don't do that work alone. The FBI now leads more than 750 task forces nationwide, made up of more than 6,000 state and local taskforce officers, or TFOs as we call them, from more than 1,800 different state and local agencies.

Each of those TFOs represents an officer, a deputy, or an investigator that a local police chief, sheriff or state superintendent was willing to send our way. Certainly not because they didn't have enough work to do in their own department, but because they saw the tremendous value that our FBI led task forces bring.

And we are honored and humbled by their trust in us and grateful for their partnership. But the numbers don't tell the whole story. To truly appreciate the impact the FBI and our partners are having, you got to look at the cases. Just last month, for instance, the FBI charged 31 members of two drug trafficking organizations responsible for distributing dangerous drugs like fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine throughout the area around Marion, Ohio.

In that one investigation, run out of the FBI's two man office in Mansfield, we worked with partners from multiple local police departments and sheriff's offices to take kilos of fentanyl off Marion streets. Enough lethal doses, I should add, to kill the entire population of Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati combined.

It's a great example of how even a small office with a small personnel footprint, the FBI is working big cases hand in hand with our state and local partners to have an outsized impact in our communities. The FBI has got thousands of employees working scores of investigations like that all over the country to protect the American people.

Those men and women who choose to dedicate their careers, their lives, really, to this kind of work and fulfilling the FBI mission are inspiring. At a time when so many other law enforcement agencies have had a difficult time with recruiting and retention, the bureau continues to attract applicants in near record numbers.

In fact, after the first couple of years of my tenure, the number of Americans applying to be special agents tripled the pace from when I started reaching the highest levels in about a decade.