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Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) is Interviewed about the Ukraine Call and Impeachment; The IG Issues A Statement Regarding the Whistleblower; Police Shoot Man during Hong Kong Clashes. Aired 9:30- 10a

Aired October 01, 2019 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:26]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So, this morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arriving in Rome, all while questions continue to swirl about his role, if any, in the alleged cover-up of the president's July 25th call with the president of Ukraine.

What we've learned in the last 24 hours is that Pompeo was actually on that call when President Trump pressured President Zelensky to enter -- to investigate the Bidens.

With me now is Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan. He sits on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Good morning to you, sir. Thank you for being with me.

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): Thank you.

HARLOW: I want you and everyone to just take a moment and listen to the most direct question that Mike Pompeo could have been asked about this. This was on September 22nd, ABC, Martha Raddatz. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: So, you just gave me a report about an IC (ph) whistleblower complaint, none of which I've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Except he was on the call that the complaint was all about.

So should Pompeo be subpoenaed?

KILDEE: Well, he may have to be. I mean this -- the president's duplicitous nature may be contagious because we're seeing it all around him. So he may need to be subpoenaed.

What I hope, though, is that while there are these other questions that continue to arise around who knew what and when, we have, in plain letters, the president's admission to what I think is sufficient for us to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. I mean right there by his own admission he say that he enlisted the Ukrainian president to investigate a political opponent. To me, that's full stop. We have enough to move forward. There are other areas that obviously need to be subject to investigation. We can't just ignore those other facts. But I think the American people find that objectionable. The people that I talk to back here find it unpatriotic. And I think it's enough for us to move forward.

HARLOW: And that's exactly what you guys are doing, led by the House Intel Committee.

I wonder if there is something, though, within the administration, Congressman, that gives you comfort, and that is that yesterday, in real-time, the inspector general of the IC, appointed by the president, came out and fact checked his administration because of this disinformation being spewed by the president and his allies, writing, quote, the whistleblower had direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct. And then he went on to say, other information obtained during the IGIC's preliminary review supported the complainant's allegations.

Does seeing that give you some comfort?

KILDEE: It gives me comfort. But, you know, we know that there are good people who are patriotic who enter public service for the right reasons and who are willing to speak up from time to time. But it's not often enough and it's not enough of them. And it's particularly the people most closely associated with the president that don't seem to have that characteristic. They seem so willing to go through whatever moral and political gymnastics they have to go through to try to pretend that this is somehow OK. And then to see my Republican colleagues in the House and many in the Senate do the very same thing, the American people are clear on this, this is not OK.

And, you know, there -- there's a lot of detail. The president will start these little brush fires here and there to try to detract attraction from what is essentially his original sin, and that is going to a foreign head of state, something he's denied doing forever and trying to get them to go after his political opponents. Shame on him.

HARLOW: So on the -- on the impeachment front, I want to ask you, there's still a dozen Democrats in the House who have not going as far as you and the others who are moving forward with impeachment. One of them is Congresswoman Kendra Horn. She's in the only blue district in Oklahoma. Our reporter, Kyung Lah, did a fascinating piece there and spoke to voters there. And I want you to listen to this from a registered Democrat in her district.

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KEVIN MOORE, REGISTERED DEMOCRAT: I would rather her go with the impeachment and lose her seat than worry about what happens to her position. And I think that at a certain point you have to stand up for what you believe in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Do you believe that is a real -- very real possibility for Democrats, that those in vulnerable district, some -- in some districts in Michigan also could lose their seats because of this and is it worth it?

KILDEE: Well, for -- to start off with, it's absolutely worth it. We all swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. We did not swear an oath to get re-elected in the next election. And so we have to do the right thing.

[09:35:05]

I mean at long last, thinking about it in this context, it's the president who puts his own political interest, his own narcissistic, self-centered political interest ahead of national security, ahead of his own oath. This branch of government that I'm a part of has to step up and do what the framers expected us to do, follow our conscious, follow the oath of office.

Now, each member is going to come to their own conclusions on their own timeline.

HARLOW: Right.

KILDEE: But what I've been telling my colleagues in all kinds of districts is, if you're thinking about the politics of this, you're thinking about the wrong thing.

HARLOW: All right, pretty clear how you feel on this.

Congressman, before you go, because you sit on the House Ways and Means Committee, I'd like your take on this. The question is about a court document from August that reveals that someone came to your committee in July of this year with their real concerns about how the presidential audit process was going along. The chairman of your committee, Richard Neal, wrote a letter about that detailing it to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Let me read you part of it. Quote, the committee received an unsolicited communication from a federal employee setting forth credible allegations of evidence of possible misconduct, specifically potentially inappropriate efforts to influence that mandatory audit program.

This is as your committee has been working to obtain the president's tax returns related to the audit process.

Anything you can tell me about that? And any update on whether that whistleblower complaint will be released while protecting their identity?

KILDEE: Well, I can't get into the specifics of the whistleblower because that's something Chairman Neal will have to address. But it is clear that the information that we are getting strengthens our concern and our argument that the president may not be subjected to the laws that the IRS is supposed to enforce. He may not be being audited, for example.

And we have had a concern ongoing that the president is not being subjected to the laws of the United States and that there may be undue influence. This just is another smoking gun that strengthens our argument that we need to have access to those -- those tax returns.

HARLOW: Congressman Dan Kildee, thanks for being with us.

KILDEE: Thank you.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Remarkable to hear that level of conviction from the a sitting congressman.

HARLOW: Sure. We didn't, you know, it's -- we didn't take an oath to get re-elected.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

HARLOW: There you go.

SCIUTTO: Nice to hear that definitively.

President Trump and his allies are trying to discredit the whistleblower, but the intelligence inspector is coming to the whistleblower's defense. And, by the way, an IG appointed by the president. How rare is it for the IG to speak out and to push back so strongly?

That's coming up.

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[09:42:32]

SCIUTTO: This morning, a remarkable moment. The intelligence community's watchdog, run by an appointee of this president, definitively fact-checking the president. The intelligence community inspector general firmly debunking one conspiracy theory put out there by President Trump. That is that the whistleblower only had second- hand information.

I'm going to read from a statement from the inspector general. He says he, in fact, or he or she, had direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct and that the complainant has subject matter expertise related to much of the material information provided in the complainant's letter.

That's one false claim debunked by the inspector general. A second false claim debunked that the form used by the whistleblower to submit this complaint was somehow changed last minute, just prior to the complaint. In fact, here's what the inspector general said. He said the Disclosure of Urgent Concern form the complainant submitted on August 12, 2019, is the same form the ICIG has had in place since May 24, 2018, which went into effect before Inspector General Atkinson entered duty as the inspector general.

Two fact checks there coming from a Trump appointee.

Joining me now, Elliott Williams, former federal prosecutor and former deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice.

You know, we've been in two and a half years of fact checking this president when he makes false or misleading claims. Usually that comes from the media or from others. This is a sitting official, appointed by this president. How remarkable is that?

ELLIOTT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's not just a sitting official, Jim. Look, you've done foreign policy for -- worked in foreign policy for a long time. The intelligence -- how many times have you heard a member of the intelligence community issue a statement of any kind? Like the head of the CIA or the head of the NSA? It just doesn't happen.

And then on top of that what you have is literally an independent inspector general. So it's the most independent employee of the most independent branch of government issuing a statement. This just does not happen. And it's a statement and a testament to how remarkable, number one, the underlying allegations here are and, number two, how important the inspector general felt it was to clarify this misinformation and dangerous misinformation coming from the president and his allies.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So another thing coming from this president are what some have perceived as threats or at least a demand to have the whistleblower's identity revealed. The president saying he deserves to face his accuser, although, this is, of course, not a criminal trial here.

Tell us about the dangers there because whistleblower legislation is built on anonymity because you want people to feel confident that they can come out and reveal these things without facing personal costs or damage.

[09:45:01]

WILLIAMS: That's exactly it. There's a process in place for how one brings a whistleblower complaint.

Now, look, this individual didn't go to "The New York Times" or MSNBC. This individual went through these processes designed to protect individuals from exactly the kind of thing we're seeing right now from the president of the United States, which is almost like a mob style hit on an individual. I mean he doesn't, to be clear, the president hasn't ordered a hit. But when you're talking about, we need to unmask the person who brought this, you're providing an enormous disincentive to people to come forward with important national security information.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that's a point that Congressman Eric Swalwell made.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: He equated it to intimidation of future witnesses. I want to ask you about Attorney General Bill Barr and his involvement in an investigation, it appears requested by this president, to investigate the investigators from the 2016 election. Which is fine. You can investigate behavior. The government does that all the time. And we've covered those investigations.

But how unusual is it for a sitting attorney general to go to, as he did, meet with British intelligence officials, Italian officials, Australian. And, of course, the president pushing the Australian prime minister to cooperate. What does that mean exactly? How should people at home take that?

WILLIAMS: I -- look, I worked, I think, under four attorneys general, I think five if you count Sally Yates, and this is just remarkable.

And to some extent, William Barr is becoming the Forrest Gump of the president's wrongdoing. Like where -- and it's every single instance of the president misunderstanding the role of the attorney general.

Look, we saw it multiple times with Jeff Sessions, who got fired over not being sufficiently loyal to the president of the United States. And so what you're seeing is pretty remarkable conduct.

Now, to be clear, Jim, there is a process for international involvement in U.S. investigations, right, but it's a detailed mutual legal assistance treaty process. It's complicated. It's not the president of the United States picking up the phone and calling a world leader and deputizing the attorney general to get involved. This is far outside of -- and process matters. You know this. We all know this. And it's a remarkable thing when we start seeing the attorney general literally showing up in these instances of wrongdoing by the president.

SCIUTTO: Elliott Williams, thanks so much.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right. So if you missed what happened in Hong Kong overnight, wait for this, Beijing is celebrating 70 years of communist rule, but this is what is breaking out in the streets of Hong Kong. These pro-democracy protests. Police going as far as shooting a protester at one point at point-blank range. We'll have a live report from there ahead.

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[09:52:17]

HARLOW: All right, we're following breaking news out of Hong Kong today. The same day that Beijing is celebrating 70 years of communist party rule, riot police clash with pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets of Hong Kong.

SCIUTTO: Brace yourself for this, because during one of those clashes, a protester was shot at point-blank range. See, we're going to slow it down here for you. There's the gun. HARLOW: Look at that.

SCIUTTO: There's the protester. Right in his chest. Police have now confirmed that an officer fired a live round at an 18-year-old man, saying the protester had attacked the officer. We do not know the man's condition at this hour.

Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson joins us now live from Hong Kong.

Ivan, you've been covering this since the beginning. The protests have gotten increasingly tense, at times violent, as has the police response. And I just wonder, describe for folks here what a sea change this is to have an officer should a protester with a live round.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, frankly, given the levels of violence -- intensifying violence we've seen over now almost four months of protests and clashes here in Hong Kong, it's almost a miracle that this hasn't happened yet because we've seen pitched battles in the streets between the security forces and the demonstrators.

This is kind of the aftermath in what's normally one of the busiest shopping districts in town. And some protestors set fire to the entrance of a subway here. Some of the protestors accuse the main transit company of collaborating with the city authorities against the protesters and (INAUDIBLE).

But when it comes to the violence, it's also a miracle that nobody's been killed yet in these protests and in these clashes that have gotten just so out of control, week after week after week here in Hong Kong.

You know, Beijing had this incredible military parade. And here in Hong Kong, on the same patriotic Chinese holiday, something akin to the Fourth of July in China, instead you had a mass protest, unauthorized by the police, denouncing the communist party and the central government in Beijing, where people called this a day of mourning and reiterated their belief that Hong Kong is not part of China, even though it officially is an autonomous part of China.

And all these scenes of chaos and anarchy, clearly an embarrassment to the communist party and Xi Jinping in mainland China, who tolerate no public shows up dissent in the areas that are under their direct rule.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Ivan Watson, it's amazing to see that image over and over again.

[09:55:02]

I mean you think bay to the Tiananmen Square and that image that is -- that no one will ever forget, and I think this is a key image of this struggle for sure.

Thank you very much, Ivan.

SCIUTTO: And we're going to stay on top of that story.

Twenty-four hours of stunning headlines really here in the U.S., as House Democrats ramp up their impeachment inquiry. We will bring you all the very latest. It's a lot to swallow.

We'll be right back.

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