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U.S. Envoy Revises Testimony To Describe Quid Pro Quo; Nine Americans Killed Near U.S.-Mexico Border. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 05, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:30:21]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: We are back with our breaking news. One of the biggest headlines so far, the former ambassador to the E.U. changed his testimony to describe a quid pro quo involving the Trump administration and the aid to Ukraine for exchange for a public announcement into investigation on the Bidens.

In short, that vital military aid to Ukraine against Russia was actually held up until they investigated the Bidens.

David Sanger, is the national security correspondent for the "New York Times."

David, your reaction to that big, old piece of news first and foremost?

DAVID SANGER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It doesn't surprise me. I was coming awe an airplane at Dulles Airport Sunday and I ran into Ambassador Sondland, who was coming back to the U.S. And I asked him whether he was here to testify and he basically said, I just want all this to be over to get back to work.

Well, the big question that comes out of this testimony is, what kind of work was he doing? Because the ambassador to the European Union is not normally responsible for Ukraine.

So he was clearly put right in the middle of this task as a basically a political appointee of the president's, a big supporter during the campaign, to make this deal happen. He suddenly recalled that, yes, there was a quid pro quo.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SANGER: The real big question it raises is, since we have all of these State Department officials who now agree there was a quid pro quo, why doesn't their boss, Mike Pompeo, say that there was one?

BALDWIN: Note to self in the hot seat and run into David Sanger at the airport, you will, you will face questions. Love that about you.

Let me move on to, of course, I read your piece all about Secretary Mike Pompeo talking about his role and how aware he was. My question is, let's start on the revolutions that Pompeo had direct knowledge of, the favorite phrase, shadow foreign policy. How he appears to have enabled it?

SANGER: Well, it is sort of remarkable. If you asked anybody at the State Department, including Secretary of State Pompeo, about what our policy was towards Ukraine during this time period, Brooke, the answer would be, we're fully supporting them to help push off the Russians from their own interference.

And one of the things most striking to me and my colleague, Ed Long, as we were working on this profile on Secretary Pompeo was that, during the time he was CIA director, he fully endorsed the finding that the Russians had been behind --

BALDWIN: Right.

SANGER: -- the election.

BALDWIN: Interference.

SANGER: Yes. He did so in testimony. He did so in CIA statements.

Suddenly, last month, he was out there saying, well, it's perfectly reasonable to go examine the question of Ukraine's involvement, while there's no evidence of that involvement.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: What's that about?

SANGER: What that tells you is that throughout the State Department he was sort of the linchpin where he understood what Rudy Giuliani was doing.

He understood what the president wanted, which was a public statement from the Ukrainians they were reopening an investigation about election interference and were investigating Vice President Biden's son.

That's what this entire diplomatic effort and the quid pro quo were all about.

And now we have Ambassador Sondland basically concurring with what we heard from four or five of Mike Pompeo's other diplomatic appointees. They're all now in agreement there was a quid pro quo set up.

The only two people who said there were not at this point or would not acknowledge that there was Secretary Pompeo and President Trump.

BALDWIN: See how that could change over time.

David Sanger, appreciate you, as always, and your intrepid reporting here.

SANGER: Thank you.

[14:34:15]

BALDWIN: A quick break. More on breaking news coverage after this.

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BALDWIN: We are back with more breaking news on this Tuesday afternoon. The deal, we are getting a transcript from Congress, one of the key testimonies from the last couple of weeks, E.U. ambassador and Trump inaugural donor, Gordon Sondland.

So we know he has recently refreshed his testimony from initially when he was going into quid pro quo and how that only pertained to the president saying yes to the Zelensky meeting over the White House instead of saying, yes, why they withheld the military aid. Why did he refresh?

Go to Kylie Atwood, covering that piece's this.

Who did he talk to, Kylie?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: The night before his testimony, Ambassador Gordon Sondland told lawmakers he called secretary of energy, Rick Perry. The reason for making that phone call is he wanted to refresh his memory with regard to a July 10th meeting at the White House.

[14:40:02]

Fiona Hill, the former Russia top adviser to President Trump, described that meeting to lawmakers as a pretty tumultuous one in which the Ukrainians were having discussions and Bolton cut the decisions short. And that's because, during that discussion, there was a mention the investigations and Biden brought up during those meetings.

And Bolton, then after that meeting, told Fiona Hill he did not want to be a part of this drug deal that was going down and being orchestrated by chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, and by the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., Gordon Sondland.

Now, in his testimony, Sondland says he doesn't remember it that way. And tells lawmakers, quote, "He thought it was a great meeting and we all left happy."

Now, the bottom line here, Brooke, there's other elements of what went down in that July 10th meeting at the White House that are a little complicated.

We also heard from Alex Vindman, a White House official, tell lawmakers just last week he actually told Sondland it was inappropriate to mention these investigations into Biden in 2016 with the Ukrainians and that Fiona Hill backed up his allegations, his statements there, that it was inappropriate.

We do not see Ambassador Sondland get into any details as far as the testimony that we have been able to review, thus far, with regard to that conversation.

But, Brooke, bottom line here is that Ambassador Sondland had to refresh his memory the night before in calling Secretary Perry. And then he also refreshed his memory by adding this appendix, that was added to his testimony transcript after the fact, after he saw what had come out from other U.S. officials regarding this policy to Ukraine.

And at the crux of that is that he now has refreshed his memory that he did tell Ukrainian officials that it was likely that they would not be getting the security assistance unless they publicly announced there would be an investigation into Biden and 2016.

There are key elements what he initially said, changing here, as he's forced to look at what the other folks who were involved in these discussions were telling lawmakers -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Kylie, thank you.

Not only did Sondland call Rick Perry, Sam and Elie, to refresh his memory, I guess, day before his deposition, this other key piece. Sondland told the committee he had a brief exchange with President Trump during a White House gathering where the president told him, quote, "Go tell the truth."

The man was under oath the first go-round. Correct?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I'm having a hard time understand Sondland's mindset. Goes in front of Congress under oath. Leaves out a very important detail. And only when Donald Trump tells him go tell the truth he adds in this detail that by the way Donald Trump will not like. The detail was that it was a quid pro quo.

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: We're rooting out corruption overseas, a sitting U.S. ambassador who has to be told to tell the truth.

Ostensibly, leave this up to the lawyers. He may have perjured himself in front of Congress, a federal crime punishable by jail and has to be remind not to lie by the president of the United States, who is the target of the investigation.

So many levels you have to wonder what this does for the president and the credibility of government officials just from a rule of law and enforcement standpoint?

Brooke, I was part of congressional investigations. No ambassador under the Obama administration had to be reminded to tell the truth in front of a congressional committee. It's expected.

And we don't know is other parts will be amended. There are serious gaps in Sondland the written -- this testimony about the July 10th meeting and the fact he said no concerns were ever expressed to him. We have Vindman, Fiona Hill, and others testifying quite the opposite.

We'll see if his selective memory gets refreshed on other points as well. There's a lot of discrepancies between what he told investigate is and others have said.

BALDWIN: Go tell the truth.

VINOGRAD: Don't lie to Congress.

BALDWIN: Let's hope everyone does that.

Guys, thank you very much.

[14:44:15]

More on this breaking news. First, nine members of an American family, mothers, their little children, killed in a horrific attack near the Mexican border. Was this a case of mistaken identity? A targeted attack? I'll talk live to a family member of the victims about what they know.

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BALDWIN: A brutal killing, unprovoked, claimed the lives of a family of nine innocent Americans living in Mexico. Three women, six children, two of whom were just babies, not even a year old, all murdered, some even burned alive, and from the same Mormon community.

Mexican authorities say the family was ambushed while traveling through the northern state of Sonora. They believe the attack was a possible pace of mistaken identity. The family was traveling in a three-car caravan. Other children in the car managed to escape and run for help.

But when the other bodies were discovered. all that was left was bullet-riddled cars and charred remains.

[14:50:03]

The FBI offered to help with this investigation and President Trump called on the country's president to let the U.S. help him, quote, "wipe cartels off the face of the earth."

The family's remains have been returned to the family ranch.

With me now on the phone is Trish Cloes, one of aunts of one of the victims who is a mother of 13.

Trish, thank you for joining me.

I am so sorry for your loss.

TRISH CLOES, FAMILY MEMBER OF VICTIMS (via telephone): Thank you. I appreciate that.

BALDWIN: If I may, I would like to begin with the children who did survive who ran. To my understanding, there are seven children in the hospital? How are they?

CLOES: There's five children in the hospital. BALDWIN: Five.

CLOES: There are -- they are -- there was two that are not wounded as far as bullets, and the other five have had bullet wounds. And so they were life-flighted to the nearest hospital.

BALDWIN: Got it. So five in the hospital, two others --

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CLOES: The baby of Christina was unharmed as well.

BALDWIN: Wow. Have you been in touch with them or anyone who has been? Are they -- how are they?

CLOES: I have. They're devastated. My oldest sister lost her oldest child and daughter. That is my niece, Donna Raye Langford, the mother of 13. It was a miracle she had seven of her children escape. That they all could escape.

BALDWIN: Oh, Trish.

CLOES: Yes. This is absolutely devastating. I mean and senseless act and something has to be done. And we are all coming together and praying and I am -- I'm very grateful that I could be that spokesperson for my entire family.

Family members of mine are incredible. I mean, beyond incredible, and they are of good faith. These women were great mothers. They gave their life for their children and it's unexplainable.

BALDWIN: I mean, Trish, I hear you on unexplainable, but how could this happen? What happened? Who did this?

CLOES: Yes. How could it happen? Yes. It needs to not happen. It's the lawless element that goes unchecked in Mexico. It's disgusting.

And what happened was these three women caravanning and do their thing, caravanning together knowing of the drug cartels in Mexico. They'd never had a run-in with them. The cartel did not have any problems with them.

I talked to a family member who has said that, you know, it's been, like, over 100 years, they've had no issues. So they are farmers down there. They are generous. They are kind. They love where they're at.

Two of the women were going out to the United States to their original homes, and the other woman, who is my niece, was going to a wedding. And they all lived together in the suburban area.

The family member who is the brother to my niece's husband had -- I talked with him on the phone. And he wants to believe, the family wants to believe, that they didn't know that these women were coming up around the corner, and they were just, they had attacked them, and they are hoping that they were thinking they were somebody else.

And they had had a war the night before, which the family did not know about. So it was -- in the morning time.

BALDWIN: Yes.

CLOES: And they were all hiding in bushes and were on foot.

BALDWIN: We are sending love and light to you and your family and, of course, to all the children who managed to survive. Many of whom won't have family members as they continue on.

But I appreciate you, and just thank you so much. And, again, I'm so sorry.

CLOES: Thank you. I appreciate that. And the whole family really does appreciate everybody who's reaching out. We actually feel really blessed.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

[14:55:03]

We'll be right back.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN on this Tuesday afternoon. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

Major breaking developments in the impeachment inquiry as the transcripts of two more pivotal witnesses are released.

[15:00:00]

First, you have special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, there on the left side of your screen, and Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, on the right.