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U.S. Extracted Top Spy From Inside Russian 2017; Trump Under Fire For Inviting Taliban To U.S. Near 9/11 Anniversary; House Judiciary To Vote This Week On Impeachment Resolution. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 09, 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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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

We do begin with a CNN exclusive, and it is important, Jim, this is your reporting, and you have learned about a highly secretive intelligence operation by the United States.

SCIUTTO: That's right. And multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge tell me that in a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the U.S. successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest level covert sources inside the Russian government.

Knowledge of the Russian covert sources existence was highly restricted within the U.S. government. According to one source, there was, quote, no equal alternative inside the Russian government providing both insight and information on the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven in part by concerns that President Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence, which could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office, in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

The intelligence concerning ISIS and Syria have been provided by Israel. The disclosure to the Russians by the president, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.

At the time, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding this asset.

HARLOW: And this was not, Jim, the first time that they had these serious concerns about the asset being exposed.

SCIUTTO: That's right. my understanding is these concerns were building over time. At the end of the Obama administration, U.S. intelligence officials had already expressed concerns about the safety of this spy and other Russian assets given the length of their cooperation with the U.S., this, according to a former senior intelligence official.

Those concerns grew in early 2017 after the U.S. intelligence community released its public report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which said Putin himself ordered the operation. The intelligence community also shared a classified version of that report with the incoming Trump administration and it included highly protected details on the sources behind the intelligence.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials considered extracting at least one Russian asset at the time, but did not do so, according to the former senior intelligence official. And the meeting with the Russians happened in the Oval Office, that raised new talks, new concerns in the intel

community, and they continued to grow in the period after that Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov.

Weeks after the decision to extract the covert source, the president met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Hamburg. You may recall that at the meeting, he took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter's notes. Intelligence officials afterwards again expressed concern that the president may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, this according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community's response to that Trump/Putin meeting.

HARLOW: So what is the administration saying about this? Because I know you've been reaching out.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we've reached out to several officials in the administration, as well as in the CIA. A U.S. official tells me that before the secret operation, there was media speculation about the existence of such a covert source and such coverage, while public speculation poses risks to the safety of anyone a foreign government suspects may be involved.

However, this official did not identify any public reporting to that effect at the time of this decision and CNN could not itself find any related reference in the media.

As for comment, Brittany Bramell, the CIA Director of Public Affairs, told CNN, quote, CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life or death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the president's handling of our nation's most sensitive intelligence, which he has access to each and every day, drove an alleged ex-filtration operation, is inaccurate. A spokesperson for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to comment. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham told CNN, quote, CNN's reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.

I should note that this removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies, and Congress. I should also note that CNN is withholding several details about the Russian spy to reduce the risk of the person's identification.

HARLOW: So when you look at this holistically in big picture, what is the significance in terms of the cost to the United States and our intelligence operations of losing someone like this [10:05:00] so highly placed within the Russian government?

SCIUTTO: It's a big loss at an important time. It's left the U.S. without one of its key sources on the inner workings of the Kremlin and the plans of thinking and thinking of the Russian president, at a time when tensions between the two nations have been growing. The U.S. intelligence community considers Russia one of the two greatest threats to U.S. national security, along with China.

A former senior intelligence official tells me, quote, the impact would be huge, because it is so hard to develop sources like that in any denied area, particularly Russia, because the surveillance and security there is so stringent. Adding, you can't reacquire a capability like that overnight.

I'm joined now by CNN National Security Commentator Mike Rogers. He is, of course, a former Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Chairman Rogers, thanks so much for joining us. You, of course, dealt with classified intelligence repeatedly during your role in Congress here.

First, big picture, what is the damage of losing such a key asset inside the Russian government at a time of these tensions with Russia?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Yes. So the goal of the intelligence services at any time with our adversaries is how close can you get to plans and intentions by the government. And those are always the hardest sources to come by.

They tend to be closest to the decision-makers that are kind of remunerating about their options or Russian's options or Chinese options or North Korean options, always the hardest sources to get. And candidly, most of those sources don't just show up at your door and you get one.

They tend to grow into these kind of jobs, and are developed over a period -- a long period of time to be able to be recruited and asked to do something, to create an act of treason against their country, and certainly an act of patriotism toward the United States by giving us information that keeps us all safe.

SCIUTTO: In terms the folks would understand, and I know you can't get into things that you would know yourself from your time handling classified information, but big picture, how difficult would it be for the U.S. to develop a source like that given exactly the restrictions and difficulties you describe?

ROGERS: Very, very difficult. And the reason it's called a denied area is because the counter-surveillance activities in a place like Moscow are unbelievable. And I've been there many times to look at those kinds of operations.

And I will tell you that it is always the concern of the intelligence services, first andforemost, for the security of their asset, the person that's providing this information. So it doesn't surprise me that there were conversations in the Obama administration. Remember, the Soviet, old Soviet KGB, now turned into the FSB and SVR, are very good and are constant and just persistent about trying to find moles or sources of information leaking back to the United States or the Brits or others. And so the pressure on that is intense.

And so any little bit of information, and by the way, I doubt there was a direct link. What happens is, if the director of the CIA came out and said, hey, there is too much information coming out, all of these counterintelligence agents are looking at every little piece of information they can get. And what you do is you start putting that information together, and you, say, hey, wait a minute, only certain number of people could know that kind of information, and then it kind of intensifies the search for somebody like that. And that's probably what happened.

And that's why, you know, the Obama administration, they said, wow, there is a lot coming out that we use, for public discourse and diplomacy, and I'm sure that transferred into the Trump administration, and at some point somebody said, hey, for the safety and security of the source, we've got to get him out.

SCIUTTO: That's right. And it is our understanding that it was a combination of information over time that led to this decision but the timing is key here. Decision made after that May 2017 Oval Office meeting, in which the president discussed other classified intelligence with Russian officials, two months later, I'm told, as is in the story, that when the president met with Putin at Hamburg, there were -- I see concerns again about the possibility that the president improperly discussed intelligence with the Russian president at the time.

You're aware of the broad concerns in the intel community about the president's handling of classified intelligence. How serious are those concerns and how should people at home digest that?

ROGERS: I think the one comment was given to me is it was just -- it's a lack of discipline problem on the information provided. And you have to remember, it doesn't have to even be a direct thing that comes from a very sensitive source, it's context. And if you talk about that context in a place that you shouldn't, again, there are C.I. people, counterintelligence agents from SVR and FSB, who are looking at hanging on every word that the president might say.

And so, you know, my argument is better discipline on all of this information is critically important going forward. One slight slip, and you lose access, very key access to what the Russian's intentions and plans and thinking is.

SCIUTTO: Loose lips sink ships, as they used say. Mike Rogers, thanks, very much.

ROGERS: Thanks.

HARLOW: And thank you, Jim. I know, a lot of work and important reporting. [10:10:00] I think you can read a lot more of it on cnn.com.

SCIUTTO: That's right.

HARLOW: Okay. All right, so also there's new reporting this morning about those secret Taliban talks that were both announced and canceled by the president over Twitter this weekend. What we have now learned is that both the vice president, Mike Pence, and the national security adviser, John Bolton, were very against this idea of holding this at Camp David.

SCIUTTO: Deep internal division. They warned against bringing the Taliban to the U.S. for secret peace talks so close to the anniversary of 9/11. Of course, that's coming up on Wednesday. But the president overruled them, thinking that he could strike a deal.

HARLOW: Our CNN Senior Political Analyst Ryan Lizza, and you got a new job, Lizza, Chief Washington Correspondent for Politico, congratulations, is with us. Thank you for being here.

Let's talk specifically about how this translates to voters. You spent the weekend in New Hampshire. You guys, your colleagues have a great piece on Politico this morning about New Hampshire voters and what they're saying. How does this read to voters and what does this tell you, in your mind, Ryan, about the president's handling of foreign policy?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, Trump, you know, among Democratic voters, almost everything Trump does is seen as, you know, bad, crazy, so this just feeds into that. This isn't all that different than how most Democratic voters view his relationship with North Korea or Russia, right? So there is not a whole lot you can do to surprise most base Democratic voters about Trump.

I think if you take a step back, this is just another example of Trump's very haphazard way of operating on the world stage. And I think it's really tough to see a coherent strategy with respect to how he deals with all of the threats to the United States around the world. There's nothing that -- you know, he props up the leader of North Korea without getting anything in return, he props up Putin without getting much in return, you know, inviting him into the G7, trying to go back to the G8, without any concrete victory for the United States. With Iran, he goes the other way, you know, sanctions, pulling out of an agreement and isolating Iran.

And so now, with the Taliban, it seems he was really pushing this kind of platform of Camp David, which is this historic place for, you know, kings and presidents, and just not the kind of place, especially during the anniversary of 9/11, where you would want to host the Taliban leadership, and, of course, it all falls to pieces.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And it's interesting because it's a common approach, right? I can make this deal happen, whether it's with Kim of North Korea, even the prospect of sitting down now with the Iranian leader, and, of course, with the Taliban at Camp David.

It has been interesting, this is one of those weird times when you have public criticism of this president, in very strong terms from Republicans. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to one of those Republicans, Adam Kinzinger, who is actually going to be on our broadcast tomorrow, have a listen to his answer and then I want to get your response.

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MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: If you're going to negotiate peace, you often have to deal with some pretty bad actors. And I know the history too at Camp David. Indeed, President Trump reflected on that. We all considered it as we were debating on how to try and get to the right ultimate outcome. While there have often been discussions about war at Camp David, there have been discussions about peace there as well. And some pretty bad actors travel through that place throughout recorded history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: So that's clearly Mike Pompeo's response there. Is that going to hit pay dirt with Republicans who criticize?

LIZZA: He's got -- and he does have a point. Look, you know, you don't make peace with your allies. You make peace with your enemies, of course.

HARLOW: Sure.

LIZZA: So all of this is sort of, you know -- it's a matter of degree, and whether the Taliban are so beyond the pale and the history with them harboring Al Qaeda and being identified and as a terrorist organization by the United States puts them so behind -- beyond the pale that you, yes, negotiate, but don't bring them to Camp David. I think that's what a lot of people are surprised by.

And then the fact that he just -- impulsively, the entire thing is blown up by a tweet. And, you know, I think the fact that Pompeo and Bolton were so at odds over this, and that Bolton was sort of carved out of the process, shows a level of serious dysfunction on the national security team as well.

But at the same time, there is nothing wrong, of course, with trying to end that war and get a deal. It's the details here that are so puzzling [10:15:00] and that have backfired.

SCIUTTO: You know, one other comment I would raise, typically, you give that meeting after some sort of concession or project, or progress, like with Kim. Typically, you'd sit down with him after you have something else, or here, I don't know, a Taliban condemnation of Al Qaeda for 9/11, which they haven't done. But that's another change in strategy.

LIZZA: Yes. But Trump looks at these things as opportunities to showcase himself, unfortunately. And that's often what happens, is he wants these high profile meetings where he's at the center, without thinking through the details of what the negotiation should be.

HARLOW: We got to go. But our new reporting that just crossed is, from multiple sources, quote, simply put, he, the president, wanted the optics of selling a landmark peace agreement in one of the most presidential settings, right? I mean, things like this shouldn't be about optics.

Come back soon, Ryan. Congrats on the new gig. Thank you.

LIZZA: I'll see you guys soon. Thank you very much. See you guys soon.

HARLOW: As lawmakers head back to Washington today, all eyes are on the House Judiciary Committee. That's where Democrats are set to take a major step forward on impeachment. We'll talk to a member of that committee ahead.

Also, Silicon Valley under the Microsoft this morning, Google expected to be the latest tech giant along with Facebook to face a state-led anti-trust probe. We'll have the details of that.

SCIUTTO: And the agency leading U.S. relief efforts in the Bahamas, describing the scene on the ground is looking like nuclear bombs have been dropped. Again, we're going to be live from there. It's a harrowing scene.

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HARLOW: All right. This morning, Congress returns to work after a month-long recess. A big vote and a major step toward impeachment could happen in just the next few days. CNN has learned the House Judiciary Committee plans to vote this weekend a resolution that would lay out official procedures, grant an official authority to conduct that full investigation into the president and determine whether or not to actually vote on articles of impeachment.

Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He sits both on the Judiciary and the Oversight. And, sir, I know this would just be officially implementing what you guys are already doing through your work on looking into an impeachment and impeachment inquiry. But you say this, sir. The central sin, the original sin of the Trump administration is the decision to convert the presidency into a money- making operation for the president, and his business, and his family. Explain what you are going after most right now.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, the framers of the Constitution saw the conversion of government into a for-profit enterprise as the essential offense against the Constitution. They wanted the president to be focused in an undivided way, and in a loyal way, on the interests of the American people, not on the private business interests of the president, and his family, and his friends. And so this is in the Constitution, in the emoluments clauses.

I think that the Mueller report and the Mueller investigation were very limited in their scope, and remember, that President Trump said, if Mueller looked at his finances, he would blow up the entire investigation, which tells us precisely where we need to go. We've got to follow the money.

And every day now, we are confronted with news about how the president has indeed converted the government of the United States into an instrument of self enrichment. He has been mixing the public interest with the private interest of the Trump organization.

HARLOW: And, Congressman, you have been saying for the last few weeks that you think this is a story that is more compelling, perhaps, to voters. You said, I think we'll be able to sell a story that leads naturally to this Constitutional remedy. I just wonder what you would say to those Americans who feel like, perhaps, Democrats, or, you know, kitchen sink strategy now, for you guys, right, and that you're moving the goal posts.

You've got this new polling, a few weeks' old out of Monmouth University that shows 59 percent of the American people don't think the president should be impeached, 35 percent do, but at the same time, it also shows only a ten-point divide in those that think it is a bad idea versus a good idea to at least conduct an impeachment inquiry.

RASKIN: Well, we have to conduct Constitutional oversight. That's our job. And, of course, when the Nixon impeachment inquiry began, only 19 percent of the people favored impeachment of the president. Today, I think it's 42 or 44 percent, depending on which poll you look at.

But I'm not so much interested in the polls as in what is actually going on in the administration. I mean, what we've learned over the last two weeks is the president ordered or suggested to the vice president that he go and stay at the Trump resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, 180 miles away from Dublin, where his meetings were taking place, so he could stay at the Trump Hotel and bring attention to the Trump Hotel and put taxpayer money into it. Now, we've learned about how special stops are being made in Scotland, of the U.S. Air Force and other military air flights, so they can fuel up near the hotel, and have people stay there. The Constitution says the president is limited to his salary in office and Congress can't increase it or decrease it, and the president cannot receive any other payments from the United States government, and yet, we now know of hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of dollars that Trump has been directing into the Trump enterprises.

Now, he is starting to say, oh, it wasn't his idea, it was the vice president's idea and so on. It is irrelevant. He can't be taking that money from the U.S. government. [10:25:00] And we will get to the bottom of why it happened.

HARLOW: And I want to move on to Camp David. It's in your district, and the Taliban meeting set up and then canceled over the weekend. But just quickly, Congressman, do you believe that if the president has been enriching himself purposefully in those ways, the Air Force stays in Scotland, et cetera, are those impeachable offenses?

RASKIN: Well, you just have to ask the founders of the Constitution. It's written right there in the federalist papers. Edmund Randolph talked about it. It's absolutely impeachable for the president to be violating the emoluments clauses.

No other president has even come close. Abraham Lincoln, when he got some elephant tusks that he really liked turned them over to the Congress and said can I keep them and they said, no, you give it to the Department of the Interior. Andrew Jackson, who's Trump's hero, got a gold medallion from Simon Bolivar. He said, can I keep it? They said, no, you give it to the Department of State.

This president has gone so far beyond at what any other president has done, that it is unbelievable. In any event, it's up to Congress to decide whether or not he gets to keep that stuff.

HARLOW: I appreciate the history lesson there for everyone. And I think what I'm asking and I should have raised it better is, to the American people, do you believe that that will sell to them so you get the majority and the will of the American people behind you as impeachable offenses?

RASKIN: I think every American, regardless of political party, wherever they live, understands that the president of the United States should not be using the White House in order to get rich. And in fact, Alexander Hamilton warned about this in Federalist 72. He said, one day, we might get an avaricious president who essentially uses the government as a series of get rich quick schemes and I'm afraid that's where we are right now.

HARLOW: So, Congressman, turning to your district, turning to Camp David, the president told everyone that he had planned and has now canceled the meeting with Taliban leaders just a few days before the 18th anniversary of 9/11. You heard your Republican counterparts, a few of them in the Congress, like Adam Kinzinger calling out the president on this, Liz Cheney doing the same. And just in July, there was a report from the U.N. Security Council that just reminded everyone how much support the Taliban still gives to Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. The administration has not taken this meeting off the table. I mean, Mike Pompeo made very clear on interviews yesterday, it is still on the table to happen if they can get certain guarantees from the Taliban. Should it happen at all?

RASKIN: Well, let's start with this. I favor meetings at Camp David, which is in beautiful Vermont, in Frederick County, Maryland, and everybody should go there. I wish the president had been using Camp David instead of Mar-a-Lago where it's unconstitutional for him to be sending all of this federal government money.

Secondly, I favor peacemaking. And I am dismayed that the president has dismantled the peacemaking operations of the United States, and the State Department and the U.S. Institute of Peace and so on, so all of this is just coming out of the president's head.

And that goes to the essential randomness and incompetence of foreign policy under Donald Trump. All of it is sort of jagging this way, zigzagging that way, there is no rhyme or reason to it, there is no real coherence. So, of course, everything falls apart. The president blew up his secret meeting that none of us knew about because the Taliban committed murders against people in Afghanistan.

Did he not know that the Taliban had been committing killings in Afghanistan before? I mean, it's as if he just woke up and realized who he had invited to come to Camp David.

So it would be good if there were real foreign policy expertise and there were some real logic and coherence to Trump foreign policy but it is almost too late to wish for at this point.

HARLOW: And we've learned this morning that not only did Bolton oppose it but the vice president, Mike Pence, opposed this happening as well.

Before you go, let's switch gears, and talk a little 2020, right? Elizabeth Warren, you said on a radio interview over the weekend, quote, I love Elizabeth Warren, and I think she would make an extraordinary president. Is that a formal endorsement of her? And do you believe she is more representative of your party at this point, sir, than the frontrunner, at least in the polling, former Vice President Joe Biden?

RASKIN: Well, I've not made an endorsement yet. We've got sensational candidates out there, including Vice President Biden.

HARLOW: It sounded pretty close to one.

RASKIN: Including -- well, I think that Elizabeth Warren really is a remarkable figure. You know, she spent most of her life as a Republican, she grew up wanting to be a teacher, which speaks to millions of people across the country. And like our last Democratic president, she is a law professor and someone who understands the Constitution, and the law, and obviously that tugs at my heart a lot because we're in a period of intense lawlessness and corruption, we've got to get back to the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights for the people.

HARLOW: But to the question, more representative of the party now, do you believe, than Joe Biden?

RASKIN: You know, I mean, that's what primaries are about. And I think that Joe Biden speaks to a lot of people in our party. He speaks to me, and he has had a great career. But I do think that Elizabeth Warren has set out a series of policy trajectories that forecast where we need to be going, as a people. We need to make sure that the government is a instrument of the common good and the public interest [10:30:00] of the economy is working for everybody, not just for people at the top.

And that's really what Donald Trump has done. I mean, he said he wanted to drain the swamp, he moved into the -

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