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Ex-Trump Attorney Michael Cohen Raid Documents Released; Source: Rosenstein Staying A Little Longer Than Anticipated; Mueller Investigated Cohen For Breaking Foreign Lobbying Laws; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) Massachusetts Calls For End To Electoral College; Fmr. Sen. Joe Biden (D) Delaware Weighs Announcing A Running Mate Early; Firefighters Battling Massive Chemical Fire Near Houston. Aired 10- 10:30 ET

Aired March 19, 2019 - 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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[10:00:28] POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: All right. Good morning everyone. Top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. And our breaking news is a virtual

flood of never before seen details leading up to the FBI raids of President Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen. This morning, a federal judge in New York has released hundreds of partially blacked out documents related to the search warrant served on Cohen's office, home and hotel room almost a year ago. Among the revelations, many months before those raids stunned the nation, the Special Counsel was searching Cohen's emails.

Kara Scannell joins in Washington. As you have been trying to read through, I know these hundreds of pages of documents between coming on live with us to talk about them but that is what struck me too, that all the way back 2015, you had Mueller's team of prosecutors looking at these emails, emails rather that go back to 2015.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Poppy. I mean, what we've learned is just two months into the Special Counsel's investigation. They had already asked for their first warrant of Michael Cohen's email accounts. They, in total, had obtained four search warrants for three of Cohen's email accounts and one of his iCloud storage accounts. And these emails went back to June of 2015.

Now, that information was then provided to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan by February of 2018 when those investigations into campaign finance violations was referred to them. And since then, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan had also obtained its own search warrants covering the gap in a period that the Special Counsel's last warrant had. So they then got search warrants for all of Michael Cohen's current emails up until February of 2018. And that was just a few weeks

before the raid on Michael Cohen's hotel room, apartment and safety deposit box in early April when this investigation all of this broke into the public eye. But for months behind the scenes, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Special Counsel's office had been reading Michael Cohen's emails going back to June of 2015. They had also received a pen register warrant, which allows them to see who was calling Michael Cohen and who Michael Cohen was calling, which -- without revealing the contents of those communications. But they were able to then learn who he was in contact with over this time period.

So they were really almost a fly in the wall on Michael Cohen's life being able to see who he was communicating with, who he was in contact with. They did reveal in these filings that they did have a filter team in place to protect any potentially attorney/client privilege communications.

But, essentially, the government was, you know, following Michael Cohen along as they were investigating him for bank fraud, campaign finance fraud. What we don't learn in these documents is a lot of detail about why they believed he was committing campaign finance fraud. All of that is redacted, Poppy.

HARLOW: Right. But we'll see how long it stays redacted, right? Will they release that information once that investigation wraps up? People are going to want to know. Kara, thanks.

Let me bring in our Senior Justice Correspondent, Evan Perez. All right, Evan, you've got hundreds of pages. You've got a lot of redactions, including that entire campaign finance part here.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. There is almost 20 pages that are redacted from the release of these documents. And, Poppy, one of the most interesting things is it appears to relate a list of language that the prosecutors are using. It appears to relate specifically to Michael Cohen's relationship with President Trump, candidate Trump before the election, obviously. And so that's one of the most interesting things here. And I'll read just a part of it where the Manhattan U.S. Attorney and the FBI say that they're investigating a criminal violation of the campaign finance laws by Michael Cohen, a lawyer who holds himself out as the personal attorney for President Donald J. Trump.

As detail, there is probable cause to believe that and it is redacted. So the judge essentially approved this. We don't know exactly what's in these nearly 20 pages of redactions. But we do know there is an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan now that the Mueller investigation is coming to a close. If you talk to the President's attorneys, they expect that this an investigation that is going to continue through the end of Donald Trump's presidency.

HARLOW: Okay, many more questions on that, which I'll get to with our attorney in just a moment. But before you go, Evan, in just a few moments, we're learning that the acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein might actually not be leaving, the Justice Department mid- March, which would be right about now, like he was planning on. Why?

PEREZE: Right, exactly. This has been a big waiting game certainly for Rod Rosenstein. The expectation, generally, was that March 15th was going to be his last day.

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But now, Laura Jarrett or our reporter at the Justice Department was told by an official that he is staying a little longer. We don't know exactly how much longer. He hasn't given his notice yet to the White House of exactly his date of departure, Poppy.

But we do know this. We know that Rod Rosenstein, one of the things that's the sort of the guiding force behind his decision making here is that he wanted to make sure that he stayed until he was satisfied that the Mueller investigation was either complete or nearly enough to completion that he had protected -- helped protect the investigation. So that appears to be still the driving force.

Obviously, we had expected there had been expectation from the Justice Department officials that Mueller was going to hand him his report to the Attorney General Bill Barr certainly by now, certainly by the end of February. So that was all the timeline that we were working on. And it appears that Rod Rosenstein is staying just a little longer.

HARLOW: Okay. Evan, thanks for the reporting on both fronts.

Let's bring in former FBI Special Agent, Asha Rangappa, and former Federal Prosecutor, Jennifer Rodgers. Good morning you guys. Jennifer, let me just get your read on sort of the why here for Michael Cohen. This is prosecutors that didn't want this stuff out there. So they got these redactions but the judge still saw a public interest need to see these and a right to see them.

Michael Cohen's attorney, Lanny Davis, is supportive of this. I mean, he even goes so far as to say it will help Michael Cohen and his desire to continue to cooperate here. Why?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, it's really interesting, Poppy. I mean, they redacted everything. And surely there are some things that Michael Cohen has already testified about and that were contained in the sentencing documents for Michael Cohen that are already in the public realm and could have been left un-redacted. Prosecutors felt strongly that this is ongoing, that they still have work to do, that there are people and facts in there that they don't want out, which means that it looks like they are planning to charge more people. And Judge Polly [ph] is holding their feet to the fire. He told prosecutors they needed to come back in may to justify again why at that point these documents can't be more fully -- un-redacted than they are now.

So everyone seems to be on top of this and prosecutors must have convinced the judge that it would jeopardize their ongoing investigation to un-redact all of this material. So I think they are looking to charge some more folks in this.

HARLOW: Asha, when you look at some of the details that we are getting here, let's take the emails, the fact that the Special Counsel was looking at emails back to 2015 from Michael Cohen, from 2015 to 2017, those emails, and then in 2018 referred this over to the SDNY, the significance?

ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Yes. So, you know, what this reveals to me is the important information that this was initiated originally by the Special Counsel's office as part of its mandate to look at links in coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. So they had probable cause on their own to obtain emails going back to, as you mentioned, June 2015. Now, if they came across information that was evidence of a potential crime that was outside of that mandate, they then referred that to the Southern District of New York, which picked that up and carried it along.

But it's important to also note that this particular search warrant application notes that one of the things that Michael Cohen was doing was using his company essential consultants, the same company that was used to make the hush payments, to actually get money from foreign clients, including Russian-owned companies to basically give access to Trump while he was president. And this is kind of going to the heart of some of that foreign influence, whether there was any kind of, you know, quid pro quo or back channel access going on, which I think would be of interest to the Special Counsel.

HARLOW: Well, because of one of those companies, and we're learning more in this document, is Columbus Nova, which, of course, is owned by a Russian national that the FBI wanted to talk to when his private plane landed here in the U.S., Viktor Vekselberg, and that Cohen was paid over $500,000, Jennifer, from that individual. Significant?

RODGERS: I think so. I mean, clearly, Cohen had this consulting business going. He was taking in money hand over fist from all sorts of folks, including a bunch of American companies. Now, what came out when we first learned about this consulting business was that, supposedly, he didn't do much consulting at all at least with American companies who then had to kind of try to cover themselves with the American public after having paid him all of this money.

But it's unclear what actually he did with Viktor Vekselberg and his company. So, certainly, the Special Counsel and SDNY probably will have talked to him about that, so we should learn more about that in the months to come, hopefully.

HARLOW: And, Asha, what about the pen register in terms of the calls that were on two separate occasions?

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Mueller's team received a warrant to track numbers and the phone calls coming into Michael Cohen's phone and going out of Michael Cohen's phone. These were on these requests November 7th, 2017 and January 4th, 2018.

RANGAPPA: Yes. Well, pen registers are really useful for basically providing corroborating information to other kinds of communications that are going on. So they can help substantiate whether Cohen spoke with particular people on particular dates. Even if they don't have the contents of those communications they can corroborate other kinds of communications. So I do think that those are significant. HARLOW: Okay. Thank you both Asha Rangappa, Jennifer Rodgers, I appreciate it.

We are following our breaking news with Michael Cohen. A judge unsealed documents connected to last year's FBI raid of Cohen's home, offices, hotel room, 200 pages. Back with me for more on this is Kara Scannell. Kara?

SCANNELL: That's right, Poppy. I mean, we're still combing through these documents. And what we're seeing here is the probable cause that the U.S. Attorney's Office had for their search warrants here, where they're looking a lot of these financial crimes and also the campaign finance violations. But there's a lot of detail on the aspects of it that relate to Cohen's financial crimes. We are not learning a lot of new information at all as it relates to the campaign finance violations because that's redacted. That's about 20 pages in this whole packet of information that is now redacted. So -- and that's because the judge had agreed that there is an ongoing investigation, they need to keep that private for now. But it's something that I would expect we will be revisiting at some point down the road. Poppy.

HARLOW: Okay. Kara, thank you for the update. Coming up, scrap the Electoral College. That is what White House hopeful Elizabeth Warren is pushing for. Also my exclusive sit down with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, his take on the 2020 race so far in the growing field of democrats.

JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JP MORGAN CHASE: There's a lot of it at a local level. Some are completely inexperienced by the way, which I find shocking.

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[10:16:32] HARLOW: This morning, democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren is calling for the electoral college to be eliminated and former Vice President Joe Biden is not officially running yet but advisers are already discussing potential running mates. Let's talk 2020.

With me now, Paul Begala, former counselor to the president in the Clinton White House. Good to have you, Paul, good morning.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, Poppy, good morning.

HARLOW: Let's listen to a moment that just got a raucous round of applause for Elizabeth Warren last night at the CNN Town Hall. Listen.

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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), M.A.: I would support removing confederate celebrations from federal lands and putting them in museums where they belong. That's right. JAKE TAPPER, CNN THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER: Mississippi is the only state in the country that still has the confederate battle emblem on the state flag. Do you think Mississippi should adopt a new flag?

WARREN: Yes.

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HARLOW: Well, that was one moment of applause but that's not the moment I was talking about. Let's listen to the moment, which is the Electoral College statement.

We don't have it. Let me read it to you. Quote, Elizabeth Warren, my view is every vote matters. That means get rid of the Electoral College and every vote counts. You have called the electoral college, quote, one of few bone headed moves by the founding fathers, your words, but you also know why it exists in terms of the whole representation, et cetera. You may support what Elizabeth Warren is saying but do you think it will happen and do you think fellow democrats running will follow her lead?

BEGALA: I think democrats will love this, and here's why. The democrats have won the vote of the people in six out of the last seven presidential elections. In all of American history, no party has had that kind of run of dominance, never, not even the republicans after the civil war. They've won six out of seven presidential elections in the popular vote but they've only taken office in four of those seven. So it's a radical notion that the people of the United States should pick the President of the United States.

And the Electoral College is a vestige. The founders, if you read the federal newspapers, they were terribly worried about a charismatic populist backed and influenced by foreign power somehow taking office even though he is a demagogue, and the Electoral College can be a check against that. Democrats think, well, if it was ever going to work, it would work against Donald Trump who lost a popular vote and who many democrats believe is a demagogue backed by foreign powers and it didn't work nor by the way should it. I think we should have popular -- I think and many democrats think, that it should be a popular vote. I think Elizabeth warren is on to something.

HARLOW: Okay. Biden, So CNN's reporting is that Joe Biden, who is not officially, in case you need to know this, running for president quite yet. We are hearing that he is mulling over, when he does announce, picking a running mate early. Good strategy or a little presumptuous?

BEGALA: Well, I think it's both presumptuous and unwise. It's precipitous. Joe has been Vice President. He knows this better than anyone. This is the first presidential decision that a candidate makes, right, who should step in if, God forbid, something happens to the President. It ought to be done in a deliberate way, it ought to be vetted for weeks and months. He was a hero, but the late John McCain, many democrats believe, he made a mistake when he very quickly, precipitously picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Democrats didn't like that choice. And they felt like he didn't vet her as carefully perhaps as he might have.

I wouldn't council Joe to make that same move now.

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If he want to run, and I think he should, get in the race and run. But I think at the beginning of an election to pick a running mate, it's almost a submission to weakness.

HARLOW: All right. Before you go, the Trump economy, it's really good. And it is the Trump economy now. And our new CNN poll this morning shows that not only does more than half of the country approve of the way the President is handling the economy, the highest part of his approval rating at 71 percent, Paul. And this is democrats, republicans, independent. 71 percent feel their current economic situation is good. It's the best number since 2001. How do you run against that as a democrat?

BEGAL: Yes, that's a great question. And the democrats -- I saw your interview, by the way, with Jamie Dimon. He seemed to be sort of pointing the way, which is we're still not doing enough for a lot of people who are left behind. And when a titan [ph] of business like that, hardly an Elizabeth Warren democrat, is saying that I think democrats ought to listen and pay attention. I do think democrats can say there's a lot more you can do.

I think the fact that 71 percent think it's a strong economy but only 42 percent approve of the job overall of what our president is doing, that 29 point margin is a problem for President Trump. But the democrats are going to have to not only run against Trump, they have to run for something. They have to say what they're for to make the economy better for everybody.

HARLOW: The issues, the issues they matter. We'll keep covering them. Paul Begala, it's nice to have you, my friend. Thank you.

And tomorrow, democratic presidential candidate, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper takes part in a CNN Town Hall moderated by our very own Dana Bash. That is 10:00 P.M. Eastern only right here on CNN.

More breaking news, hundreds of pages of documents from the FBI raid on Michael Cohen released. We're learning the Special Counsel investigated Cohen for money laundering and breaking foreign lobbying laws, neither of which he was charged with, but they were looking into that. What is the significance? We'll talk about that.

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[10:26:34] HARLOW: All right. We're following breaking news on Michael Cohen. A judge unsealed documents connected to last year's FBI raid of his home, office and hotel. Our Kara Scannell has been pouring through these documents.

So the latest we are hearing is that federal prosecutors seized two DVDs as part of this raid. Do we know why those might be significant? SCANNELL: It's not in the documents of why these DVDs might be significant, but we did learn through the course of the litigation over the raid materials that Michael Cohen had a number of audio recordings. CNN has obtained one of those and played them of a conversation with Cohen discussing with President Trump potential payment to American Media, the parent company of the National Enquirer relating to the payment of Karen McDougal.

Now, the documents don't reveal what is in this and that that time. This document is filed to obtain search warrants. So they don't know at the moment what's exactly going to be in these materials. But it comes up in the filings that that is something that they did obtain, a USB drive and two DVDs. So it's possible that these audio recordings were on the DVDs.

Now, also in the documents, it looks like Michael Cohen had labeled them potentially as dates from March 7th, 2018 and February 28th, 2018. So it could provide a clue as to what he had put on these DVDs. But all we know from this is that the two DVDs and a USB drive were obtained.

HARLOW: Okay. Kara, thank you for the update. Let us know when you have more.

I also want to get to breaking news in Texas. This huge chemical fire that is still burning tanks fuel of gas, oil and other chemicals. This is happening outside of Houston, Texas. Firefighters say it may be another day before they can get it under control. This fire started on Sunday at a petrochemical storage facility.

Our National Correspondent Dianne Gallagher is live with the latest. So, I mean, the pictures are remarkable. The concern is the toxicity, right, in the air. But the schools are saying the kids can come back today?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: School went back into session today, Poppy. And you can imagine the parents not exactly thrilled about that. The kids were off yesterday because of these fires and the smoke that is coming from them. But the district said that things were safe as long as they didn't send the kids outside to play or have recess or anything today.

Part of that comes from testing that was done by the company itself, ITC and the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health. They say that when they tested the air immediately around the plant that the levels were below hazardous levels. And what has scientists a little dodgy about that is that they're worried about the long-term effects. Yes, no hospitals have reported anybody coming in with any sort of respiratory illness associated with this. Nobody was injured. Everybody has been accounted for at the plant.

But they say that these particular chemicals and the ones that were inside these barrels, eight of them burning at this time, xylene, toluene and naphtha. And naphtha is the one that scientists are concerned about because there are theories from some of them who say that there are no safe levels of naphtha to be exposed to. So firefighters continuing to try and get these flames out. They actually intensified overnight due to a water pressure issue that has since been remedied. But those firefighters working as hard as they can, hoping it will be out by tomorrow. The community, of course, though, Poppy, concerned about what the long-term effects of this could be.

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HARLOW: Of course. All right, keep us posted. Those pictures are just stunning. Dianne, Thank you.