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Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is Interviewed about Impeachment; Bannon and Gates Testify in Stone Case; Ex-Twitter Employees Accused of Spying. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 07, 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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[09:30:53]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, Jennifer Williams, senior adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, now testifying under oath on Capitol Hill. She was on that now-infamous July 25th call. This as House Democrats gear up for public impeachment hearings to begin next week. Three open hearings already on the schedule including top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor.

We're pleased to be joined now by House Judiciary Chairman and New York Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler.

Congressman, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Good morning.

SCIUTTO: Let me begin with a very basic question. Have you and the Democrats started drafting articles of impeachment against the president?

NADLER: No, we have not.

This whole thing is a -- in really a couple phases. Phase one, which we're in now, which the Intelligence Committee and some of the other committees are doing and will continue doing until they finish is the evidence-gathering, fact-finding phase. Then it will come to the Judiciary Committee and we'll -- our job is to consider the evidence, reach conclusions and draft and debate and perhaps vote on articles of impeachment.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe Jamey Raskin, one of your Democratic colleagues, he said earlier this week that he's already convinced that there is sufficient evidence for articles of impeachment against the president. Do you -- are you concerned that that undermines Democrats' argument that they are holding an open process with open minds as they gather evidence?

NADLER: No, I'm not because people can form their own conclusions and they can change their minds if more evidence should come forward.

And in the Judiciary Committee, we're going to have full due process for the president, and that means that if there's any exculpatory evidence, any evidence tending to show that he's innocent, whether it's witnesses or anything else, they'll be able to bring it forward. Maybe that will change people's minds.

SCIUTTO: I want to get -- I want to get to the details of what that due process will look like.

But you personally, have you seen enough evidence to be convinced that the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors?

NADLER: I've seen a lot of evidence of that. But maybe there will be evidence contradicting it, which I haven't seen yet.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

So you still have an open mind?

NADLER: I have to have an open mind, but certainly there's a very heavy case against him at the moment.

SCIUTTO: Public hearings begin next week. How many public hearings should the public expect? How many witnesses should we expect to see before you complete the public phase?

NADLER: I don't know. I don't know how many witnesses the president or his -- the minority, the Republicans or the president's counsel, want to call. I'm not --

SCIUTTO: How many do the Democrats want to call?

NADLER: I don't know that either yet. I assume we'll have to decide that after the fact-finding phase is complete, when the Intel Committee -- the Intelligence Committee, which is having these hearings now, along with two other committees, is going to write a report to the Judiciary Committee and, based on that, we may decide which witnesses, if any, we want to call.

SCIUTTO: There's been some speculation and among --

NADLER: Maybe they'll have done the job and we won't have to call any further witnesses.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

There's been some speculation that House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is a possible witness to be called. Would you support that?

NADLER: It's not a question of supporting it. If he wants to testify, he's entitled to testify. Actually, I think the procedures that were adopted -- let me take that back, I think the procedures that were adopted provide that the counsels for the committees can testify. I'm not sure the chairman can.

SCIUTTO: Well, there has been speculation, but I know that this may still be an open question. Do you still envision a vote on articles of impeachment against the president before Christmas as a timeline that has been proposed --

NADLER: I'm not going to speculate -- I'm not going to speculate on a timeline. We will -- we'll take we want to do it -- we want to finish the process as expeditiously as possible. We also want to do it thoroughly. And in a way that will convince the American people that the American people see what the evidence is, what the contradictory evidence is, if any. And if it's going to be done, it's got to be done right and whatever time it required it will take.

SCIUTTO: Can you complete that process? Can you complete evidence gathering if the White House continues to block the testimony of key administration officials? I know that's going to go to the courts, but the courts may not decide on the timeline that Democrats want.

NADLER: Well, it's certainly wrong for the White House to do that. It's, I think, contradicts law to defy subpoenas.

SCIUTTO: Do you think it's illegal?

NADLER: Yes, I do. I think it's -- it's -- you can't just defy subpoenas -- legitimate subpoenas. I think the courts, and so far they've been upholding the subpoenas once they've gotten there.

[09:35:04]

And I think the courts will continue to do that. But we can't wait for that process. And the question will be, do we have sufficient evidence to go forward? And I think we will. Without some of the evidence that would be nice to have.

SCIUTTO: So you believe you can get sufficient evidence without hearing directly from White House, administration officials who have refused to testify?

NADLER: Well, we'll have to decide whether we have sufficient evidence, but it certainly looks like there's a lot of evidence. I mean the evidence produced in public -- so far by the intelligence -- in front of the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees, which we're going to see -- much of which we're going to see publicly, and we've seen opening statements, indicates almost unanimously every witness comes in and confirms the same story, namely that the president sought to extort a foreign country into intervening in an American election.

SCIUTTO: You'll --

NADLER: Eighty percent of the American people, according to the polls, know that that's wrong and it's clearly wrong.

SCIUTTO: Bill Taylor testified that he kept meticulous notes of his interactions, discussions, regarding this. Have Democrats -- do Democrats, have they seen these notes? Do they have possession of these notes for the investigation?

NADLER: I don't know. That's in the Intel Committee and I don't know whether they have them or not. It should certainly be made available to them. And if the -- if they're in the possession of the State Department and if the Intel Committee requests it and if the State Department says no, that would be another instance of obstruction, really.

SCIUTTO: Lindsey Graham has presented the latest line in what has been evolving, as I'm sure you noted in the GOP defense, of what happened here. This one basically alleging that the White House policy towards Ukraine was, in his words, incoherent. The argument being they were, in effect, too incompetent to carry out an effective quid pro quo. Is that a credible defense in your view?

NADLER: Well, first of all, I certainly -- it's a hell of a thing to say about the administration, especially the administration of their own party that they're incompetent in foreign affairs where life and death is at stake.

But, second of all, no, that's not a -- that's not a -- that's not a view -- that's not a defense. There's plenty of evidence of what they did. That evidence will establish they -- they -- I think it will establish very clearly that -- I think it does establish very clearly that the administration wanted to make -- that the president wanted to make a deal, that he wanted to condition American aid, the sending of American aid, which had been mandated -- when had been voted by Congress and the provision of a meeting with the president, which the president of the Ukraine desperately wanted, and he wanted to condition both of those things on the president of the Ukraine making various statements about a political opponent of the president in the United States. That seems -- a lot of people have said that. No one has contradicted it really.

SCIUTTO: Final question, just quickly, if you held a vote today in the House, would you vote to impeach this president?

NADLER: Well, that question I won't answer because I do have to keep an open mind and an appearance of an open mind. I have said that the evidence is pretty damning.

SCIUTTO: Congressman Nadler, we appreciate you taking time this morning and joining the broadcast.

NADLER: You're welcome.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, day two of the Roger Stone trial is underway right now as we learn Steve Bannon and Rick Gates both expected to testify. We're live outside the courthouse, next.

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[09:43:22]

SCIUTTO: There he is, Roger Stone arriving at court for day two of his trial as we learned that former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is expected to testify against Stone. That according to federal prosecutors.

HARLOW: That will be fascinating. Former top Trump campaign aide Rick Gates also expected to be called

to the witness stand.

Let's go to our colleague, Shimon Prokupecz. He's outside of the trial with all of the developments.

Any idea when Bannon may come to court?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: No idea yet when he's going to actually appear and testify, but certainly, as you said, it's going to be a big day. Prosecutors here yesterday, in their opening statement, and, really, in the direct examination, there's an FBI agent that has just taken the stand. She was laying out yesterday's -- Bannon's role in all of this. The president's role in all of this. And they are certainly billing him as a big witness.

And his whole involvement, and this really is communications, emails and text messages with Roger Stone about Roger Stone's efforts to get some of these emails, get information on exactly what WikiLeaks had. In one exchange, Roger Stone tells Steve Bannon that he knows how to win and that it isn't going to be pretty, but he knows how the president, then candidate Donald Trump, could win. And then Bannon says to him, well, let's talk ASAP.

And then there was another exchange between someone who works for Steve Bannon after that big dump in October from WikiLeaks where the person writes to Roger Stone, good work. So certainly, guys, he's going to be a big witness here.

[09:45:03]

SCIUTTO: So the key question here, right, are the calls between the president and Roger Stone, getting to this essential question about were they attempting to communicate with WikiLeaks to get access to these stolen Hillary Clinton emails.

What more are we learning regarding that key question?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, certainly Roger Stone, when you listen to the way this case is unfolding and what prosecutors believe is that Roger Stone was acting like the guy who can get this information to the campaign. He was kind of going to be this hero. They were very eager. The campaign, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates. And the prosecutors have even inferred that the president, then-candidate Donald Trump, was eager to get and learn this information. They were talking about yesterday about how they saw phone calls. There were phone calls between candidate Donald Trump and Roger Stone in the height of this, when WikiLeaks was still out there saying they were going to put out these emails. There were phone calls on his cell phone at his home between Donald Trump and Roger Stone.

We're going to learn more about that. The prosecutors are just setting up the timeline. But certainly when Steve Bannon comes in, when Rick Gates comes in, we're going to hear more about these conversations and exactly what did Donald Trump know.

SCIUTTO: Shimon Prokupecz outside the courthouse, thanks very much.

Two former employees of Twitter now accused of using their access to users sensitive information to spy for Saudi Arabia on dissidents. Who they were targeting, coming up.

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[09:51:13]

HARLOW: Two former Twitter employees accused of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia. According to the Justice Department, the two men, one a Saudi national, one a U.S. citizen, allegedly used their access to target known critics of the Saudi royal family.

SCIUTTO: We remember the events surrounding the death of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi, of course lived here in the U.S. The Saudi government still denies the crown prince was involved in his killing, but there are chilling questions here about targeting dissidents.

Joining me now, national security reporter for "The Washington Post," Ellen Nakashima, who broke the story.

Do we believe this was a Saudi government operation, in effect, to targets and out dissidents? I mean was that the intention here?

ELLEN NAKASHIMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That's the allegation and complaint, yes. And, in fact, it's the first time that the public -- the Justice Department is actually publicly accusing the kingdom of Saudi Arabia of basically running agents in the United States, on their behalf.

HARLOW: What can you --

SCIUTTO: That's remarkable.

HARLOW: What do we know about the two men, Twitters employees, that are alleged to have been behind this? Do you know much about their background?

NAKASHIMA: So one of them is a U.S. citizen named --

HARLOW: Yes.

NAKASHIMA: Yes, Ahmed Abouammo, who -- both of them started working for Twitter in 2013 and their jobs had nothing to do -- really didn't -- give them access to personal data of users on the platform. Abouammo was a global media partnerships manager for the Middle East, and the other guy, Ali Alzabarah, was a site reliability engineer in, you know, and responsible for making sure the platform was up and running. Their jobs really had nothing to do with accessing personal information of users.

HARLOW: If I -- if I could just follow up on that because Twitter is explaining this in your reporting by say that they, the company, limit access to sensitive account information to a limited group of trained and vetted employees. The jobs you just described don't seem like jobs that would need this access, a, and, b, it seems like the vetting clearly failed bigtime here.

NAKASHIMA: Yes, that's absolutely right. I mean the complaint makes clear that these two employees were in violation of internal Twitter guidelines and policies, which they had actually signed -- agreed to. And no one caught that? Certainly not in time. By the time Twitter caught on to what Alzabarah was doing in late 2015, he had already accessed more than 6,000 user accounts in Twitter. And some of these were very sensitive, you know, people who wanted to be anonymous, people who were critical of the kingdom, dissidents, and these were people that the kingdom, the government of Saudi Arabia wanted to target and was interested in silencing.

SCIUTTO: Well, the Twitter vetting clearly failed here then did it not, if they were allowed. And such access for such a length of time, right, because -- I mean we imagine these high-tech companies have so many tools to follow everything here.

NAKASHIMA: Right.

SCIUTTO: But they were inside a system for ages.

NAKASHIMA: Yes. Well, you know, to be clear, the complaint alleges that, for instance, Abouammo was active accessing accounts and allegedly passing information on for a few months from late 2014 through about May 2015. And Alzabarah was active doing the same thing from about May 2015 to December 2015. So about a year time period for the two of them. But, still, it was enough time to gain access to just immense amounts of information that the government of Saudi Arabia would not have had or ordinary had access to even under emergency request authority.

HARLOW: Wow.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and put -- seems to have put these dissidents in danger.

[09:55:01]

Ellen Nakashima, thanks very much.

NAKASHIMA: Thank you.

HARLOW: Moments ago, a top aide for Vice President Mike Pence arrived on Capitol Hill. She is a person who was one that July 25th call between the president of the U.S. and the president of Ukraine. Stay with us for more on this.

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[10:00:06]

HARLOW: All right. Top of the hour. 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.