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Ex-Pompeo Aide Michael McKinley Testifies In Impeachment Inquiry; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Says, I Blame Erdogan For This Catastrophe In Syria; State Department Official Testifies Mulvaney Had Central Role In Ukraine Decisions. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 16, 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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[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Top of the hour, good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Happening right now on Capitol Hill, a 37-year veteran at the State Department is telling lawmakers why he quit his job. Michael McKinley, until recently, adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, arrived just moments ago. He resigned a few days ago from that post. He is now testifying for the impeachment probe and is expected to layout his reasons for that resignation, specifically his concern that the department and its leadership was not backing up its career diplomats.

HARLOW: His testimony follows another former State Department official who reportedly testified that he was told to, quote, lay low after complaining about Rudy Giuliani's efforts seeming to undermine U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine. The official also said that acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney laid out who would oversee the Ukrainian relationship going forward.

SCIUTTO: As the White House struggles to push back on these headlines and developments, a new Gallup poll this morning shows that 52 percent of Americans surveyed now support, and this is crucial, not just the impeachment but the president's removal from office. That's quite a difference there and it's an important one. That is now the majority.

HARLOW: Significant, and it's now the only poll showing that.

Joining us from Capitol Hill, our Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju.

So we just saw Michael McKinley come up to the Hill. He is behind closed doors. And we've learned that his testimony is going to at least begin with him explaining why he resigned after 37 years.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. We are hearing that he raised concerns about sinking morale within the

State Department, detailed exactly why he left, detailed the State Department as he abruptly stepped aside from his post.

Members have a lot about everything that happened in the run-up to the phone call with President Trump or President Zelensky, which President Trump urged Zelensky to open up the investigation in Ukraine into the Bidens, but everything around the actions of Mike Pompeo as well, the current Secretary of State.

He was -- McKinley is a very close adviser to Pompeo. Pompeo is in the center of this investigation. His role, his handling of this investigation's effort by President Trump, as well as Rudy Giuliani, to push for this probe.

Now, we just also saw Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, appear also surprisingly to this House Intelligence Committee, this House impeachment probe. He had already previously been interviewed, of course, turned over text messages, reviewing some of the discussions that took place around that July phone call. But he also just appeared behind closed doors.

We are told by Republican sources, he is probably there to review his testimony, his transcript from last week. So we'll see if he has anything additional to reveal to this committee. But you mentioned it, this committee is now digging very deeply into exactly how that call took place --

SCIUTTO: Manu, sorry to interrupt you there. Sorry to interrupt -- listen to the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani -- rather Mike Pompeo speaking about Rudy Giuliani. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): -- to call witnesses and to subpoena people, then (INAUDIBLE) there is no impeachment inquiry been authorized by the House, so the minority is shut out.

I don't consider what she is doing legitimate. But the day they do pass an impeachment inquiry, if they do vote as a body to open up an inquiry, then the game would change.

REPORTER: Do you believe the president was fully aware of the ramifications of his actions before?

GRAHAM: Well, here's what I believe to be true. A week ago from Sunday, he got a call from Erdogan, I'm going in. For about two years, he's tried to keep Erdogan out of Syria, thus it's a nightmare for our Kurdish allies and it throws the whole region into chaos. The phone call came, President Trump wrote a letter that I hope was a good letter to Erdogan. I hope he'll release it, advising him not to do it.

Once Erdogan went in, we withdrew 28 to 50 soldiers. So I blame Erdogan for this catastrophe but I won't hold President Trump accountable. There is no substitute for American leadership. This idea, why don't we get out of the Mid East and we'll be safe here is folly. Have you learned nothing from 9/11, ignoring threats over there are much to our detriment here. Radical Islam is not tired of fighting you, you may be tired of fighting them.

[10:05:03]

And here's the shame of it all. About 27,000 troops were able to take the caliphate down working with Kurds and Arabs, about 60,000, those people deserve our support. ISIS will come back. They're not defeated. The caliphate is destroyed but there are thousands of fighters. And the best bet for the United States is to have a Kurdish-U.S. partnership to continue to keep ISIS at bay, keep a foot on their throat and to keep Iran out. If we force the Kurds to get with Assad, it would be a nightmare for us.

And eventually then, I talked to Mazloum last night, the leader of the Kurdish military. He said he does not want to align with Assad. He wants a working relationship with the United States to destroy ISIS. And the ISIS prisoners are still in jail. But if we continue to allow Turkey dismember Syria, the Kurds are going to have to make a choice between guarding the prisoners or defending their families. And I know the choice they will make in aligning Russia to get a foothold into Syria, Northeast Syria, is a complete catastrophe for our national security interests. It all can be reversed but it's going got take presidential leadership.

REPORTER: Senator, at what do you withdraw your support for the president if he doesn't comply?

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: I'm not sure if you hear that, but Senator Graham fairly blistering in his criticism of the president's decision to withdraw from Syria, talking about a resurgence of ISIS gains for Russia in Iran. This is space that one of the president's closest allies, really, here still are willing to go and criticized him publicly.

HARLOW: Manu, can you hear us?

RAJU: Guys, I didn't catch the last part of what you were saying.

SCIUTTO: I was asking you to comment on Lindsey Graham's very harsh criticism there of the president's decision to withdraw from Syria. What are the consequences of that? I know they are talking about moving a sanctions bill through Congress. But the Turkish president has already said he doesn't care about U.S. sanctions. And so what we're seeing on the ground there likely to continue.

RAJU: Yes, that's right. And we're just probably going to hear continued criticism from both Republicans and Democrats about the president's move, while Graham and Democrats are now talking about legislation to move forward. How this ultimately impacts what's happening now with Turkey and Syria is -- probably has very little impact, as you were saying, Jim. But what they're trying to do is essentially send a message both to the president and to Turkey that the actions are unacceptable.

The question is also will the president listen to some of his allies on the Hill. We have been hearing from Republican after Republican criticizing the president's decision, but right now, the president not listening to what his allies have been saying.

So Graham trying also to thread a needle criticizing the president but also saying what the president has been saying about sanctions, he's on the same page with him. So he is -- he realizes he can't go too far on this criticism of the president even as he raises some serious objections to what he has been doing, guys.

HARLOW: But he did just our Suzanne Malveaux he would blame the president if there is that resurgence of ISIS there. So threading the needle is exactly right, Manu. Thanks very much.

Let's talk about all of the developments ahead this morning with our panel. A.B. Stoddard is here, Associate Editor and Columnist for RealClearPolitics, Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent for Reuters, and CNN Legal Analyst Elliot William, he's a former federal prosecutor.

So let me begin with you, Jeff Mason. Michael McKinley is there, he's behind closed doors. He is explaining to lawmakers why after 37 years he left the State Department. This is someone so close to Mike Pompeo. Mike Pompeo brought him in. And, clearly, he was unhappy with how the administration was handling Ukraine how they unceremonious pulled the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, from her post early. How big is this?

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: I think it's really big. I mean, it seems like just one more sign of that the White House's strategy of not cooperating with this impeachment inquiry is crumbling.

You will recall that just last week, the White House Counsel's Office has sent -- I was about to say an email -- sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi saying that they did not consider the impeachment inquiry to be legitimate essentially and that people would not be testifying and documents would not be submitted. That was followed up yesterday by Mike Pence, Vice President Mike Pence, also saying the same thing, that he would not submit documents.

But you have, nonetheless, these people, this man today and the other testimony in the last several days of important officials who know things about this particular incident, who know about the relationship, who know about the Ukraine call testifying. And that has got to be a blow to this White House.

SCIUTTO: And based, A.B. Stoddard, on what we know about their testimony, they are backing up the central part of the whistleblower's complaint, are they not, of a shadow foreign policy run by the president's personal lawyer, a pressure, it seems, applied on the Ukrainian president tying a visit with the U.S. president to this help in digging up dirt on Joe Biden here.

[10:10:05]

I mean, I think it's important to place that marker, is it not, because the news moves quickly but so does the gas lighting. Because until a week ago, all the attacks were on the whistleblower, those have quieted down, because, lo and behold, people are backing up what the whistleblower said.

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Yes, but they would still like the out the whistleblower because killing the messenger is what you do when you can't really fight on the substance. And it's true, Jim, the testimony day after day has continued to confirm the whistleblower's complaint and obviously broadened and deepened the narrative of this what you call shadow foreign policy that was really like a political campaign being run by foreign policy and national security officials shaped not in our national security interests but in the interests of the president's political campaign.

And what's stunning is to just learn how broad the cast of characters is and continues to grow. I mean, the NSC lawyer that we learned about from Fiona Hill, Mr. Eisenberg, he is the one that took it upon himself to place his Lindsey (ph) call in a special server that's reserved for military secrets. We have the involvement of Mike -- if not the involvement, the awareness of Rick Perry, Mike Pence, Bill Barr, Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo, certainly, and this testimony just continues to reveal that many, many people knew what Rudy Giuliani was up to on behalf of the president and they were told to take it and be quiet.

SCIUTTO: And were alarmed about it. Listen, John Bolton, the president's national security adviser, felt the need to report it to White House lawyers, this idea it was some crazy liberal wackadoodles who were behind this plot, it just does not stand up to the facts.

HARLOW: Elliot, so the White House opinion in this is that they're flying blind in the impeachment process, juggling to build a response because they don't have White House lawyers in the room for these depositions, for this testimony. They think that's unfair. The president says on Twitter this morning, that's unfair. Is this a fair process?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's absolutely a fair process. And remember, all these talks about process are noting that Republicans are given equal time to question every witness. It's a congressional proceeding and the Democrats and Republicans are able to do so.

One of the things they are also challenging, and Lindsey Graham said this just before the segment, is that there hasn't been an official vote on an impeachment proceeding.

And I guess part of the apprehension and the part of the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi is that that puts some Democratic members in a position of having to take a tough vote.

But perhaps you call their bluff and make folks like Lindsey Graham, who are saying, until there is an official vote, we can't comply with this lawless process. But, again, because they're not winning on the facts on the law, and they don't have the facts on the law, so they're just talking about process.

HARLOW: And that's the excuse that Pence's lawyer at the White House gave yesterday for not turning over the documents. This is not a real investigation. There has been no vote, et cetera. So we'll ask a Democratic lawmaker in the House coming up if they should have that vote. Thank you, one and all, Jeff Mason, Elliot Williams, A.B. Stoddard. We appreciate it.

We have a lot ahead this hour. Still come, the president is expected to speak from the White House very, very soon, this as impeachment inquiry deepens. What is the strategy to fight it off?

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at least right now, holding firm not having a vote to formalize an impeachment probe. As the White House continues to stonewall, is she being backed into a corner?

SCIUTTO: Plus two frontrunners go toe-to-toe for a chance to take on President Trump. Should Joe Biden be worried about Elizabeth Warren? The other candidates are. It showed in last night's debate.

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[10:15:00]

HARLOW: All right. A senior diplomat who was once in charge of Ukraine policy told lawmakers that he was told to lay low after he raised complaints about Rudy Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine to seemingly undermine U.S. foreign policy there, that diplomat, George Kent.

Also according to Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, the (INAUDIBLE), George Kent, also testified that acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting in May at the White House and told officials that three people that would be in charge of Ukraine policy going forward would be then U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and they were dubbed, quote, the three amigos.

Congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia joins me now.

You sure made a lot of news yesterday on all of those fronts from the testimony that you heard behind closed doors. So let me ask you this. Hearing what you heard from George Kent, this reporting, what is your next move?

REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): Well, we will be hearing from a lot of other people involved in Ukraine policy, but from the State Department and hopefully former White House officials and we'll see where that goes. But everything we have been hearing in depositions has corroborated the evidence we have in front of us that there was a concerted effort by this president and his White House to essentially extort the new president of Ukraine to get political dirt on a perspective political opponent.

[10:20:12]

And they were willing to hold up a promised meeting with Trump here in Washington from the new president, Zelensky, and 400 million of badly needed military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves from Russians.

HARLOW: So, Congressman Connolly, to your point here, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said late yesterday that Democrats have made, and I quote, dramatic progress in answering some of the questions about the call with Zelensky, some of the holes that you guys were trying to fill, he calls it dramatic progress.

But with all of this happening, pretty much all of it behind closed doors, no transcripts released, at least not yet, do you fear that the American public is not seeing that progress and it makes your case more vulnerable to attacks of the lack of transparency?

CONNOLLOY: I believe that Chairman Schiff is conducting this inquiry in a professional, methodical, serious manner and I believe the gravity of an impeachment inquiry demands that. Adam Schiff has made it very clear that at an appropriate point, we will go to public hearings. And I assume many of the transcripts would be made public.

I think to avoid the circus atmosphere that we've seen in some exercises here, we need to do it that way. And I support Adam Schiff in his desire to, you know, keep this as professional and as somber as possible.

HARLOW: It sound like you would like the transcripts released though for transparency at the appropriate time.

A few points, you talk about the gravity of an impeachment inquiry. News overnight that Nancy Pelosi, at this point, is not going to move to hold a formal vote on this. You know that the White House is using that as an excuse not to hand over documents, like Mike Pence's lawyer did last night. Your Republican colleagues are calling you out on that. Some of your Democratic colleagues on this broadcast, whether it's Congressman Quigley or Garamendi, have said, yes, let's have a vote because this is so consequential. Do you believe the House should vote on this?

HARLOW: I'm agnostic on the question whether we should or shouldn't. But I'm going to make the argument for why we don't need to. Constitutionally, it couldn't be clearer that the House is entirely empowered by itself to decide on how to approve or proceed on impeachment. And it's not for the White House and their lawyers to circumscribe our process. They don't get to decide on the legitimacy of an impeachment inquiry. That's entirely the prerogative of the House constitutionally. It spells out in the Constitution, itself. And so they're way off base, they're way off base in questioning the legitimacy.

HARLOW: I'd like to spend some time with you talking about the situation in Northern Syria, Turkey's invasion there, because not only are you a senior member on the Foreign Relations Committee, you're also co-chair of the congressional caucus on U.S.-Turkey relations. You've called this a chapter of shame in U.S. foreign policy. Do you support the bipartisan sanction legislation coming today from Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Chris Van Hollen that goes much, much further than the administration's sanctions on Turkey this week? CONNOLLY: I do. I believe that we have to send the strongest possible message to the Turkish government that, you know, killing of incident Kurds is not something we are going to tolerate. They have used the pretext of terrorism, frankly, to make political scores and payback with the Kurds who, of course, had the most signal success on the ground against ISIS and the caliphate in Syria of any fighting force.

HARLOW: Given all of that, as we sit here this morning, do you still consider Turkey to be a true U.S. ally?

CONNOLLY: It's a complex relationship. This part of the relationship is not good. On the other hand, Turkey has been a partner in NATO for almost all of its 78 years. We maintain a huge base in Turkey. And they have been loyal partners throughout the Cold War. So we can't just junk the relationship, but we have to call out misdeeds and wrongdoing when we see it. And in this particular case, what the Turks are doing in Northern Syria is, I think, reprehensible and needs to be called as such.

HARLOW: Congressman Gerry Connolly, thank you for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

CONNOLLY: My pleasure. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, important questions there for Democrats as well.

A new target on the Democratic debate stage, candidates shifting their focus to a surging Senator Elizabeth Warren. But did they do enough to slow down her rise?

[10:25:01]

We'll discuss.

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SCIUTTO: This is video from just moments ago, President Trump greeting the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, who is here for an official visit. He got the full pomp and circumstance on his arrival here. There will be a meeting in the Oval Office shortly where President Trump has been known to take reporters' questions. When we have that, we will bring you that footage right away.

HARLOW: Yes. One interesting note, Italy just banned the sale of weapons to Turkey because of this -

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