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Explosive Testimony Paints Picture Of Rogue Operation; Hunter Biden Speaks To ABC News. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 15, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:12]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me. This is CNN. Today, new jaw dropping revelations in this whole Impeachment Inquiry. And it is all happening on a day that has plenty of potential for even more big headlines to drop.

Here's what we know right now up on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress returned to work after some of them face some pretty testy Town Halls back home during recess. You have Rudy Giuliani and Defense Secretary Mark Esper facing subpoena deadlines to produce documents, and most critically another career diplomat is going before the House committees conducting the Impeachment Inquiry.

It is Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, George Kent, oversees U.S. policy in multiple Eastern European nations including, you guessed it, Ukraine.

What's more, Kent is testifying despite a direct attempt by the White House to stop him from doing so. This is happening as we learn more about the explosive testimony from another key witness in the Impeachment Inquiry.

President Trump's former top adviser on Russia, Fiona Hill, detailed to lawmakers a shadow foreign policy for Ukraine, run by Rudy Giuliani and others - that is according to a source.

What is more here, a source says Hill described how President Trump's then National Security adviser, John Bolton was so alarmed by what was going on. Then he pushed for an attorney to get involved.

So let's start there with CNN Political Correspondent, Sara Murray, and so let's start with Fiona Hill and all of her testimony, the nine hours' worth, right, yesterday in Washington, D.C., what did she tell those House committees?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. She was the President's top adviser on Russia and she really laid out the concerns in the Trump administration about these various back channels of foreign policy including Rudy Giuliani.

She talked about how her boss, John Bolton referred to Giuliani as a hand grenade who was essentially going to get everyone blown up because of his efforts, you know, and she really laid out for lawmakers the concerns that she had and the concerns that John Bolton who was then the National Security adviser had about the way that U.S. policy with Ukraine was being conducted.

She said she believed that there was wrongdoing going on there. People were bringing up investigations, which she saw to mean, the Biden investigations and at one point, Bolton actually told her, you should go and report this to the National Security Council lawyer.

Now, so much of this work is, you know, drives back to Rudy Giuliani and his efforts and the way he really bought into this campaign against the Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, the way he went seeking this dirt on the Biden's and put this in the President's ear, all of this stuff that was in the run up to the President's call with the Ukrainian President on July 25th.

But Rudy Giuliani wasn't the only one who was essentially doing his own version of diplomacy. Hill also told lawmakers that Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House Chief of Staff, were essentially running a rogue operation when it came to us policy with Ukraine.

She told lawmakers according to sources that her boss, John Bolton said it was akin to a drug deal the way that they were operating this.

And she also was pointing out to lawmakers that Sondland was in direct communication with the President.

So again, just more details about the alarm bells that were going off inside the administration in the weeks leading up to this phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Got it. Sara, thank you. And like Fiona Hill, today's witness in this Impeachment Inquiry, George Kent arrive mid-morning to give his testimony. And we are certainly going to get a little bit of those details about what House committees are hearing from him.

So for that, let's go to CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju and Manu, what is -- what is Mr. Ken saying?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just spoke to a couple of Democrats who just left this hearing room and they're contending that what George Kent has been testifying to is essentially backing up what Fiona Hill said yesterday.

Fiona Hill, the former Russia adviser for President Trump, who raised concerns along with John Bolton about what was happening before that phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky and concerns about this apparent effort to urge investigations into the President's political rival, Joe Biden.

Now, I just asked a couple of members who didn't want to get into specifics given that this is behind closed doors, but claim that this backs up what they heard from Fiona Hill yesterday.

Also another member, Tom Malinowski asked he asked him about the whistleblower complaint, how much does this backup what they're hearing from the whistleblower? And he said, every witness has provided further backup for the initial story that was provided by the whistleblower.

Now, the Republicans so far have mostly declined to comment and said criticizing what they believe what they're calling a sham process, they want this they say to be an open, they are criticizing, there has not been a vote to formalize an Impeachment Inquiry.

But a lot of the questions today have had to do about some of the e- mails that have already been turned over to Congress, including e- mails that Mr. Kent wrote raising concerns about the role that Rudy Giuliani played in going after the then Ukrainian -- U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Kent apparently was concerned about those efforts, apparent smear campaign against her, raised concerns with senior State Department officials to not try to take her out of that post saying those allegations are not founded.

[14:05:31]

RAJU: So those are along the questions that they are certainly going over about Rudy Giuliani's real concerns that Mr. Kent may have had.

So we're learning some more details, but we're expecting this, Brooke, to go on for much of the day and we're expecting a very busy week as Democrats press ahead with this Impeachment probe -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: As you get more information, we'll pass it along. Manu, thank you so much on this ongoing testimony. A lot happening.

Let's take some time to pick it apart. Jamie Gangel is back with us today. She's our CNN Special Correspondent, Hagar Chemali is a former spokeswoman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

So ladies, thank you both for being with me, and Hagar, let's start with the Fiona Hill testimony from yesterday and the quotes, right, so this is what she says. The former National Security adviser, John Bolton had said quote, "Giuliani is a hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up." And this next one, presumably metaphorically speaking, he said, "I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up."

So Hagar, A, what do you think of this shadow foreign policy huddle between Giuliani, Sondland and Mulvaney and the fact that an Ambassador is even talking to the President like this and B, that it's John Bolton, who had a real problem with it.

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER SPOKESWOMAN, U.S. MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS: It's very interesting, actually. So it doesn't surprise me that somebody like John Bolton would see the problem in this type of behavior, right? At the end of the day, no matter what people think of his political beliefs or his foreign policy standing, he was a Career Service diplomat.

This is somebody who had a long, long experience in National Security. And so he was very easily able to identify when there were something right, right? Something that led to either corruption or something that smells fishy or, you know, unethical. And so that didn't surprise me. You know, the part that is so

concerning is the fact that you have political elites, political appointees, that are trying to take over a National Security process that up until really, I mean, this is -- at least certainly from my experience at the White House, up until this point, there was a sanctity about not abusing foreign policy processes or National Security efforts for political or personal gain.

BALDWIN: They are calling it a circus now. It's a circus.

CHEMALI: They have. Yes, it is absolutely a circus and the issue with that is that you have adversaries. They watch that. They see that divisiveness. They see when people aren't in line, and they're not unified at the National Security Council, and they take advantage of that.

BALDWIN: Jamie, just staying on John Bolton, what do you think of his role in all of this? And do you think he will end up on Capitol Hill and testifying?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: I would be surprised if he wasn't asked to testify and this has to be the worst nightmare for the White House because he did not leave on good terms, and he was a firsthand witness to a lot of this ...

BALDWIN: To a lot of this.

GANGEL: ... that was going on. When you hear words like rogue, grenade, this is not a good -- a good sign. So I am guessing the Democrats are going to want to call him.

The other thing we're seeing here is, I call it revenge of the deep state. We've heard Donald Trump talk about how he doesn't like the deep state, but what you're seeing with someone like George Kent today, Fiona Hill, other witnesses to come, are career, high level officials who have been watching all of this behind the scenes have not been able to speak, but are now defying the White House, defying the State Department and putting together a mosaic of what's been going on before that phone call ever happened.

BALDWIN: Yes. And they know a lot.

GANGEL: They know a lot.

BALDWIN: And they're talking.

GANGEL: Right.

BALDWIN: Hagar, in one part of Fiona Hill's testimony, she talked about how Bolton basically had her be his eyes and ears in one of these Ukraine meetings at the White House.

And then after she reported back, he actually had her call John Eisenberg, Deputy White House counsel and the Chief Legal Adviser for the National Security Council left me wondering, could Bolton have done more if he was that concerned? And is that not the same John Eisenberg, the same guy who instructed

lawyers to put those call readouts in that vault?

CHEMALI: Right. You know, I actually don't think -- I think it what Bolton did was fine. I mean, could he have done a bit more? Perhaps, but he actually pursued the right policy.

When I was at the National Security Council and certainly actually any of the agencies I worked for, if you saw any kind of problem telling the inside counsel was the way to go and having some kind of record, right, whether it was -- and for what they did, reaching out to counsel was the right maneuver, right?

[14:10:13]

CHEMALI: So you've got the Council, you've got HR. There are many avenues that you could pursue. And so they did the right thing and they had it on the record. So, I do think that that was, you know, where it landed.

I wouldn't be surprised now, if given that Bolton is out, if he is not going to end up being a thorn in their side, because there's clearly a lot that he knows and there was a lot that he was aware of.

But I just don't think there was enough time there for him to have escalated it. He could have maybe escalated it further had he stayed there longer.

In terms of, of the Council, you know, they play a very important role in in any government agency and usually a role that serves as some kind of solace. I mean, if you have a problem to me, it really looked like Fiona Hill and John Bolton, by going to the lawyer. It was a little bit of a cry for help, right?

Like on one hand, they want to cover themselves and make it very clear that they had nothing to do with this. And that is very par for the course for a lot of government officials, if they see something awry, they want to make sure that people know they're not involved personally. And secondly was a little bit of a cry for help.

BALDWIN: What about Congress? What about Republicans, you have your finger on the pulse of so many of these, you know, GOP leaders, and with all of this testimony swirling, they're back in Washington. They've heard from their constituents at some of these pretty testy Town Halls, what are the congressional Republicans really feeling behind closed doors?

GANGEL: So they've come back now, and one very senior source said to me that the momentum really feels as if it's in the Democrats' court.

The testimony from Fiona Hill, the fact that that's leaked out, that more and more people are defining, that's a concern.

The other thing I think is interesting is this is being done behind closed doors. We don't know what -- unless lawyers or surrogates or someone is leaking, we don't know what's being said. One Republican said to me, you know, we're complaining about it not

being made public. But one of the problems may be that what we're hearing, about the members -- Republican members -- who are hearing in these meetings is not good news.

And so they are really concerned about what to do next. They are not getting guidance from the White House, and they don't know where this is leading.

BALDWIN: Stand by everyone. We've got more. Joe Biden's son is speaking out today in this new interview. Hunter Biden strongly denies that he has done anything wrong.

But he does admit to poor judgment and acknowledges that his last name has opened many doors.

Plus it keeps happening, Vice President Mike Pence says one thing, President Trump says another. This time on the crisis in Syria.

And we are just now hours away. The 2020 Presidential Candidates -- the Democratic candidates starting to arrive for tonight's big CNN New York Times debate.

Biden, Warren, Sanders all sharing the same stage -- what to expect ahead here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:04]

BALDWIN: We are back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The man at the center of President Trump's pressure campaign against Ukraine is speaking out.

Hunter Biden says he did nothing improper while serving on the Board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was Vice President. Here's more about of what he told ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF JOE BIDEN: You know what I am a human. And you know what? Did I make a mistake, well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yes.

But did I make a mistake based upon some unethical lapse? Absolutely not.

What I regret is not taking into account that there would be a Rudy Giuliani and a President of the United States that would be listening to this ridiculous conspiracy idea.

That part of it, that Barnum and Bailey, you know, say anything, do anything you want, you know, I mean, like you know, Donald Trump Prince Humperdinck Trump, Jr. is not somebody that I really care about. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jamie and Hagar are back with me. And Jamie, I mean, here he is. Nobody had heard from Hunter Biden. He does this huge interview on ABC this morning on the day of the big debate in Ohio. Why do you think they chose to do this? And will it help or hurt his dad tonight?

GANGEL: So I think Hunter Biden has become part of the story. Why they chose it today? I can't imagine there is a political adviser who thought it was a good idea to do it today on the day of the debate.

I do want to say something every time we talk about Hunter Biden.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GANGEL: And that is there is no evidence of wrong doing.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GANGEL: And also he is very honest in the interview. He is -- you know, he is, Amy asked, is it a benefit that your father is Joe Biden, and he acknowledges that.

But I think it's also important to remember, it's also a benefit for Ivanka Trump, for Don, Jr., for Eric. The family still has businesses all over the world in lots of countries.

But was today the right day to do that interview? I'm not sure it was.

[14:20:17]

BALDWIN: Hagar, just let me play a little bit more of the interview about the opportunity to serve on this Board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY ROBACH, ABC HOST: If your last name wasn't Biden, do you think you would have been asked to be on the Board of Burisma?

BIDEN: I don't know. I don't know. Probably not. I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life that if my last name wasn't Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I know this is exactly to Jamie's point, you know, fair to say that for any child of a person who wins the presidency, you know, he says he will not serve on any foreign boards if his dad wins. Why isn't that already policy on the books?

CHEMALI: Right, I actually -- first, I want to say that I agree with everything that Jamie just said.

BALDWIN: Don't we always. CHEMALI: Yes. You know, when I was in government and I believe that

this is still the case, though it could have changed, political appointees, number one could not have -- could not take jobs with entities that they worked with or had special information on for at least a year after they left government.

And then if they took that job or, frankly, any job that they took afterward, they weren't allowed to contact their home agencies for one to two years, depending on your level after you left, right?

So the reason for that is to limit corruption. My point in stating this fact that existed for government officials is that it was largely specifically for government officials because their spouses and children didn't really have the same type of clout or the same type of network connections and so on.

So the idea that Hunter Biden is accused of improperly benefiting is a little bit of a stretch here. Now, should there -- should maybe he had -- if he wanted to be cautious or conservative, regardless of what the law says, and regardless of what ethics rule says, he could have said, you know what, maybe it doesn't look so good. Maybe it undermines my father or the Obama administration, and therefore, maybe I won't.

You know, the prudent thing would be not to take that position because it doesn't -- the perception isn't great.

But that being said, it would be unrealistic to expect that the relatives of government officials or former government officials, to not work with foreign entities, the issue that you have to make sure is that number one, that it is according to the book of the law, and secondly, that it's not with a shady character or with an adversary.

I mean, I think that's the number one goal here and that's where, as Jamie noted, there was no wrongdoing found.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

GANGEL: And just let's remember, Joe Biden is not Vice President right now. And Donald Trump is President and his children are benefiting from businesses that are all over the world.

BALDWIN: Sure.

GANGEL: Donald Trump did this for one reason. He saw Joe Biden as a serious competition, and so this was a way to go after him.

BALDWIN: All right. Jamie and Hagar, ladies, thank you both so much for all of that.

Again, the debate coming up at eight o'clock tonight. We'll talk more about that. Ahead here though, the President and the Vice President should probably speak with one voice on most major issues, especially when it comes to the deepening crisis in Syria, but they're not.

Plus Rudy Giuliani admits it. The President's personal lawyer says he did take $500,000.00 from a Ukrainian-American businessman who was just arrested on campaign finance charges and now the Feds are closing in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:18]

BALDWIN: The White House is scrambling to do damage control on Northern Syria after all kinds of criticism for removing U.S. troops and allowing a U.S. ally, the Syrian Kurds to face the Turkish military onslaught alone.

President Trump is announcing sanctions saying Turkey is endangering civilians and threatening peace, security and stability. He is also dispatching Vice President Mike Pence to the Middle East to try to stop the violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States of America wants Turkey to stop the invasion, to implement an immediate ceasefire and to begin to negotiate with Kurdish forces in Syria to bring an end to the violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But less than two hours before the Vice President stood before the cameras and said that, this is what the President tweeted. "I would much rather focus on our southern border which abuts and is part of the United States of America. And by the way, numbers are way down and the wall is being built."

So what is the message from the White House? CNN Politics Reporter and Editor-at-Large, Chris Cillizza is with me, and Chris, this seems like -- this is the right hand not talking to the left hand here?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Oh, my gosh, big time, especially -- but it's odd hard because the right hand is the President and the left hand is the Vice President, you would think that they would be in some kind of coordination.

Okay, so let's first -- I've got a bunch of these. Let's first run through what Mike Pence had to say about whether or not there was a green light given to the Turkish to invade Syria or not, and then we'll get to Trump. Let's play Pence first.

BALDWIN: Okay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: Well, the United States of America did not give a green light to Turkey to invade Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CILLIZZA: Okay. Did not give a green light. Let's go to the official White House statement, which I believe -- okay, here we go. Statement from the Press Secretary, October 6.

[14:30:10]