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Today: House Intel Committee Reviews Impeachment Report; White House Will Not Participate in First Judiciary Hearing. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired December 02, 2019 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: There is a lot of news today. Time for CNN NEWSROOM with my colleague Poppy Harlow, starting off with impeachment.
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[09:00:25]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Democrats ramp up the pace, Republicans rip the process and the White House this week not showing up.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow. Jim Sciutto will be back here tomorrow. You just saw him on "NEW DAY."
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Now, it is back to work, especially in Washington. So, get ready for the next phase of this fast-moving impeachment battle.
The House Judiciary Committee is set to hold the next public hearing on Wednesday. The White House is not going to send its lawyers.
The door is still open for the White House to take part this future hearings. The deadline for them to decide on that is this Friday.
Meantime, the House Intelligence Committee releasing its report to its members a little bit later today, a vote to approve that report set for tomorrow. That will officially pass all of this on to the Judiciary Committee. Democratic leaders want to wrap this thing up by Christmas and that's fueling Republican attacks leading into this high stakes week.
So, let's begin this hour with our CNN congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly on the Hill.
Good morning to you, Phil.
And let's just begin with this. The White House says no thanks for Wednesday. Do you have a sense of the president's mindset going into the future hearings and they have to make that decision by Friday?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think there may be a bit of a tell in the five-page letter the White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent to Capitol Hill last night where they called the impeachment inquiry partisan and baseless at various points that they may not want to participate.
But, look, there is an upside for the White House to play ball here to some degree. The rules of the House and based on this impeachment inquiry allow the White House counsel to ask questions of witnesses, to present -- to do a presentation both in the opening and in conclusion of this process and to submit prospective witnesses that they would like the committee to take up. If the White House chooses not to participate, they lose all of those rights.
But, probably, there's also a political calculation here, and that is the White House perspective from the president on down has long been that this is a sham process in their words. Why do you want to participate in something in a way as one Republican told me earlier today that would legitimize it, particularly when you know if the House votes to impeach the president, which looks likely at this point in time there will be an opportunity in the Senate where Republicans are in the majority and they may have some more control over what actually happens. So, that's the calculation that's playing out right now, but at least at the moment while we don't have a firm answer, the White House appears to be leaning towards not participating at all.
HARLOW: Kicking it to the Senate where Lindsey Graham, chair of the judiciary, says he wants the rules to completely change in terms of what is admissible and what is not.
Phil, before you go, the House Intelligence Committee is going to get that report to its members tonight. They're going to sort of vote on it tomorrow. Is your reporting that this once again is going to be a straight down party line vote?
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: OK.
MATTINGLY: Yes. I think that's the way it's going to be all the way through this process, including into the final vote on impeachment. One thing that has been abundantly clear through the public hearings, behind closed doors, Republicans are not breaking. Republicans are not jumping ship. Republicans are not worried about political implications of this.
They are sticking with the president. They will vote against it throughout. Democrats will stick together particularly in the committee process, and we'll have to wait and see how they are when it gets to the floor, Poppy.
HARLOW: I do think it's notable, because you've got Republicans who aren't running again, you know, running again. You've got a Will Hurd, you've got a Francis Rooney.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: So, for them to stick on party lines on this it is notable.
Phil, thanks very much for the reporting.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: I'm joined now by Kan Nawaday. He's a former corruption and fraud prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Thank you very much for being with me. I appreciate it.
KAN NAWADAY, FORMER CORRUPTION & FRAUD PROSECUTOR, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NY: Thanks for having me.
HARLOW: I want to you to listen to Republican Congressman Tom McClintock. He was on ABC over the weekend. Here's what he said about the president and his attorneys and Wednesday. Here he was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM MCCLINTOCK (R-CA): I think it would be to the president's advantage to have his attorneys there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So he says it would be to the president's advantage to have his attorneys there. Is he right?
NAWADAY: It's a strategy call.
HARLOW: Yes.
NAWADAY: You can, you know, start fronting your defense by having your attorneys there and getting that messaging out there. Or if you already know it's a foregone conclusion in some ways that you're going to end up in the Senate, then you hold your strategy back, you work through your surrogates and then you wait until the Senate.
HARLOW: So, here is what the White House -- Pat Cipollone, the president's lawyer there, saying, he wrote this letter to Chairman Nadler of the Judiciary Committee. Quote: We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witness right side yet to be named, more importantly an invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the president with a semblance of a fair process.
A, does he have a point that, you know, we are now 49 hours away from this hearing beginning on Wednesday and the public doesn't know, the White House doesn't know who the witnesses are going to be, and, B, how unusual is it to see it play out like this?
NAWADAY: Well, this is -- the whole thing is unusual.
HARLOW: Sure.
NAWADAY: Here we are, it's a unicorn situation. But he does have a point, right? He's saying, listen, how am I going to prepare when we don't even know what's going to happen?
[09:05:04] And, frankly, the first day of hearings when you are going to have law experts testifying about the law of impeachment, how does that really further their strategy, the president's strategy to mount a defense?
HARLOW: OK. So, Doug Collins, we know he is the top ranking Republican on House Judiciary, he's been very vocal, he is all over TV this weekend and today he's going to be more vocal in all of this.
Listen to what he said to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday". Here he was.
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REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): Why are they hiding this stuff from us? If they think they have such a case, give us all the materials and don't let Jerry Nadler write a crazy letter that says on the 6th let us know who your witnesses are. We don't even have the information from the Intel Committee yet.
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HARLOW: Something else that I thought was interesting that he said is that the first witness that he would call is House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. Now, it's not apples to apples at all because of his different scenario under President Clinton, but you did have David Kendall, the president -- President Clinton's lawyer cross- examine Ken Starr.
Is it totally out of the realm of -- of course, it's unprecedented as we have said but what do you make of this call to call Schiff?
NAWADAY: I see that as a bit of a red herring because, ultimately, there was a lot of fact-finding that the House Intelligence Committee did. They have all this evidence, they're going to have this report that's going to be given and the Republicans, the president knows what's going to be in that report, those hearings happened. So, going through Schiff while that may set the table for them, it doesn't really advance, I think, the strategy.
HARLOW: OK. You think it's muddying the waters here.
NAWADAY: Correct.
HARLOW: Not focusing on the fact witnesses.
NAWADAY: Correct.
HARLOW: Thank you very much.
NAWADAY: Thank you.
HARLOW: We appreciate it. Good to see you.
We are getting a clearer picture this morning of the Republican strategy heading into the next phase of the impeachment inquiry. Not just slamming the fast-paced process, but repeating debunked conspiracy theories to support the president's defense. Cue Republican Senator John Kennedy just yesterday.
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SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. Russia was very aggressive and they're much more sophisticated. But the fact that Russia was so aggressive does not exclude the fact that President Poroshenko actively worked for Secretary Clinton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: OK. Let's be clear, the idea that Ukraine meddled in the U.S. 2016 election or may have taken the DNC server has unequivocally been proven false by the U.S. intelligence community, the Senate Intel Committee and private investigators.
But what is telling here, Senator Kennedy first said and made this claim on Fox News a week ago, then walked it back that night on CNN before reverting to his original claim yesterday. Here is a reminder of what he said a week ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: Who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC and Clinton campaign computers, their emails? Was it Russia or Ukraine?
KENNEDY: I don't know, nor do you, nor do any of us.
WALLACE: The entire intelligence community says it was Russia.
KENNEDY: Right. But it could also be Ukraine.
Chris is right, I was wrong. The only evidence I have and I think it's overwhelming, is that it was Russia who tried to hack the DNC computer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: OK. But then he reversed again yesterday.
Let's talk about this and a lot more. With me now, is former Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, Bill McCollum. He served as one of the Republican managers during the Clinton impeachment trial in the late '90s.
Thank you for being with me. Your perspective and history with all of this stuff is invaluable. I appreciate it.
BILL MCCOLLUM (R), FORMER CLINTON IMPEACHMENT TRIAL MANAGER: You're welcome. Happy to be here.
HARLOW: So, let's just -- we're going to move on to the process in a moment, but what's your reaction to Republican Senator John Kennedy who sits on the Judiciary Committee making this claim that is completely known to be false over and over again? MCCOLLUM: Well, I think the question about hacking is definitely
Russia and I think most of us believe that's what the intelligence community determined and we can move on from that point. But the truth is that there is evidence that there was involvement of the Ukrainian government in our election in other ways, in ways such as, for example, when the Democrat National Committee went over to meet with somebody at the Ukrainian embassy, when the ambassador to the United States and Ukraine made statements supportive of Clinton and so on and so forth. That's part of the framework.
HARLOW: Congressman, just to stick to the point, because you heard the question that Chris Wallace asked him, which was specifically about the DNC server.
MCCOLLUM: Sure I did. So, I don't know --
HARLOW: And him repeating a claim that has been debunked over and over again. I'm just wondering what you think the strategy is here and if that's concerning to you as such a prominent member of the Republican Party in the Senate in the middle of all of this.
[09:10:08]
MCCOLLUM: Well, I think the bottom line of all of this is that there is some connection, not necessarily with the particulars of hacking but with the particulars of the election. And Republicans in the Intelligence Committee -- on the Intelligence Committee and others in the House would like to present witnesses to demonstrate this was the state of mind of the president. He was very hostile to Ukraine. Why was he hostile to Ukraine?
It wasn't just about Vice President Biden or his son, it's because of that fact and because of the fact that Burisma, which is the big corporation that Hunter Biden served on the board of, has an oligarch who still owns almost all of that company and that oligarch was associated with the Russians, he was a part of the previous administration when the president fled to Russia when there was, if you will, a revolt that gave Ukraine a bit of freedom and led to the war, the battle that went on and still going on over on the other side of Ukraine.
HARLOW: OK.
MCCOLLUM: They'd like to present witnesses about this to show that was his frame of mind.
Whereas the Democrats want to say, oh, everything was all about an effort to get dirt on Vice President Biden, which I don't think was true.
HARLOW: OK. The president directly asked for the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, but I don't have unlimited time with you so I'd like to move on to the process here.
MCCOLLUM: Sure. HARLOW: You believe that the president should have his attorneys
there beginning on Wednesday. Is it a mistake for the White House to opt out? And it seems like at this point just likely wait for a Senate trial.
MCCOLLUM: I would myself have my attorney there, but I don't think it's essential. This is a particular hearing going on Wednesday is going to be about what is an impeachable offense rather than anything to do with the facts. It's true as your other guest has said that we don't know the witnesses yet. They haven't named who is going to be there.
HARLOW: Right.
MCCOLLUM: They haven't named that they are going to have any fact witnesses. We don't know what the process is.
I think there's plenty of opportunity for the president to come forward and have his attorney make requests for witnesses and do this in rather an orderly fashion going forward. I do think he should have his attorney there ultimately.
HARLOW: OK. Who would you call? Because the top ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins, says that his first witness that he would like to call, of course, Nadler would have to approve of it and Schiff has said he won't testify, but is House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff.
Who would you call? Would that be your first witness?
MCCOLLUM: Well, the first witness because they're going to have the question what is impeachment probably Jonathan Turley. He's a law professor at George Washington University, just wrote a piece published in the "Wall Street Journal" where he debunks that this could be bribery. He tells the history of what that word meant at the time our Constitution was written with regard to Great Britain and gives a great background about how words were intentionally not put in, treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors, but we didn't put the word corruption, and we didn't put the word maladministration, we didn't put the word self-dealing or the word for dishonesty.
And those are the types of things that people are directing and Chairman Schiff particularly the question of what was an offense here. So, that's the first thing. If you're going to call fact witnesses, I believe you need to be able to call witnesses -- I don't know who all they are right now but I know there are some like Ms. Shalooba (ph) I think is her name, who was the Democrat National Committee person who went over to the Ukrainian embassy.
HARLOW: Alexandra Chalupa is her name.
MCCOLLUM: Chalupa, I'm sorry. Chalupa.
HARLOW: That's OK.
MCCOLLUM: And I think she would be a witness they'd like to see. I think she'd like to see Hunter Biden. I think they'd like to see others that would show the background of why the president was hostile to Ukraine at the time this all took place.
HARLOW: The first fact witness, the first witness you would call would not be Chairman Schiff, which is what Doug Collins is saying.
Finally, before you go, I'd like your take on this because it was an interesting interview that Martha Raddatz did yesterday on ABC with current Republican Congressman Tom McClintock. And he said that it would be useful and to the, quote, president's advantage to have John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney testify.
Do you agree that would be to the president's advantage given we know what Mick Mulvaney at least said at the lectern about a quid pro quo?
MCCOLLLUM: Well, I think that it could be, but I believe that the question there is on the privilege around the people in the White House that are that close to the president and the precedent it sets.
On the other hand, I don't know and a good lawyer would never say whether you're going to call a particular witness unless you knew what they were going to say in advance. I don't know what they're going to say, the president's attorneys presumably do know that.
What I do know is that this whole thing has been spun for weeks now to try to get a reason to remove the president. I'm very objective about this. If somebody produces stronger evidence than I have seen to date, then so be it. And I'm hoping that witnesses are going to come forward that either tell us yes or no about this more than we have today.
HARLOW: Yes. Well --
[09:15:00]
MCCOLLUM: Based on what we have now, they should go to an election question is all about politics. And I think that's what --
HARLOW: Yes --
MCCOLLUM: The Democrats are really --
HARLOW: You make --
MCCOLLUM: Focused on. Any way, they don't expect --
HARLOW: You make --
MCCOLLUM: To remove this president.
HARLOW: You make a salient point that more facts are good, more witnesses who can bring facts are important. John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney could testify at any point, and the White House could not block them as well from doing so. Congressman McCollum, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.
MCCOLLUM: You're welcome.
HARLOW: All right. So reports that world leaders are on edge ahead of the NATO Summit this week in London. The president is set to leave the White House to head there in just a few minutes. We're on top of that. Also, quote, "I am done being quiet." Words from a former FBI lawyer and a frequent target of the president, Lisa Page breaking her silence two years after her text messages sparked a political firestorm. Her stunning interview ahead.
And Democrats rushing forward without key witness testimony that could be crucial for their impeachment case. Is that a wise move? Next.
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[09:20:00]
HARLOW: Minutes from now, the president is set to leave the White House, the impeachment inquiry is going to stay here and go on whiles he's overseas for the NATO Summit in London. The two-day meeting is meant to be a celebration of the crucial 70-year-old alliance.
This meeting comes at a time when cracks are clearly forming. The president recently announced he will cut U.S. funding for NATO, offer members set to make up the difference. Also telling he is not scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson reportedly keeping his distance from the U.S. President so that he won't alienate voters ahead of the U.K. general election. Let's bring in CNN military analyst retired Major General Spider Marks. Good morning to you, thanks for being with me and happy Thanksgiving.
JAMES SPIDER MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Poppy, yes, you as well. Thanks, Poppy --
HARLOW: Right, of course. So, what's the president walking into this week knowing what he is walking away from at home?
MARKS: Well, I don't think the president is walking into an ambush or anybody within the NATO committees feel like there will be some surprises. Look, everybody knows that this president is -- can be in these meetings, can be belligerent. He at this point seems to be damaged as you go through or I would say, at least, there is some atrophy in terms of his positions based on the impeachment.
But if you can push that aside, what you got with the president is someone who has said emphatically, look, folks, I want you to carry a larger burden in NATO, we -- you, we, all of us who are members in NATO signed up for a certain contractual commitment, I'd like you to meet that commitment, I'm going to call you out. I think that makes sense, frankly. Let's be frank and honest with each other.
But for the United States to state emphatically, look, we're going to decrease our commitment and we're thinking primarily about making this more equitable, that's a fool's errand. Look, the president needs to step up and say, look, we, the United States took the lead on this 70 years ago, and think about it, 70 years this alliance has been in place, there have been fractures before, you know, Greece was in, then out, and then they yo-yoed back in.
We've got a challenge with Turkey. So, NATO has got some structural challenges, but it's resilient, and it's one of those --
HARLOW: Yes --
MARKS: Alliances --
HARLOW: Well --
MARKS: It's one of those arrangements that works. That can work --
HARLOW: I think there's also sort of nowhere to go, but up here for the president at NATO --
MARKS: Right.
HARLOW: If you look at the last two years, right, it was 2017, he refuses to reaffirm article 5 while he is there --
MARKS: Right --
HARLOW: And then last year, he threatened to walk away from NATO if the Europeans don't step up. The key you believe at this NATO Summit is going to be Russia.
MARKS: Oh, absolutely, I think that's the -- that's the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and it frankly always has been. You know, look, when the Soviet Union collapsed, both Bush 41 and then his successor President Clinton came forward and told Putin who happened to be in charge then, talk about longevity.
HARLOW: Sure.
MARKS: And he said, look, we're not going to expand NATO, we want you to get your act together and we're just going to do our thing, we're going to help where we can, and by the way, let's try to help you disarm, you know, had a bunch of nukes in what were then going to be independent nations.
So, we had to work our way through that, and we did a magnificent job helping Russia, this new Russia achieve that level of stability. But then, this notion of not expanding NATO, Putin said, look, folks, you went from what? Was it about 16 members then, you've got 26 members now, you lied to me, so guess what?
I'm going to take Crimea, what do you think about that? I'm going to push back on you in the Baltics, what do you think about that? We need to be very conscious of the fact that we -- Russia has chosen to contest where the United States wants to exert influence in NATO, wants to have a presence. We need to acknowledge that and say, look, we've got to find ways to turn the temperature down, and we can do that, we can do that through a strong NATO, but we can agree in certain areas. And there are a whole bunch of other economic and diplomatic ways to do that. HARLOW: Spider, just one final question on Turkey. It hasn't been
that long since the Turkish incursion into Northern Syria and the ramifications of that, and the lives lost --
MARKS: Right --
HARLOW: From that. A number of lawmakers in both parties who we've had on this program at that time, we asked them the question, should Turkey be a part of NATO at this point?
[09:25:00]
How will NATO members address the actions of Erdogan?
MARKS: Well, in a crowd like that, what you end up with is, as you well know, you end up with group think, everybody is going to be silent, nobody wants to be the individual who raises the hand and say, look, let's address this --
HARLOW: Yes --
MARKS: Problem. This is, you know, this is a form of alcoholism, we've got to call you out, you've got to raise your hand and say you can't do this. NATO is a better place with Turkey on that southern border. I mean, what a stroke of genius when NATO was formed and Turkey was included, and the whole went, what are you talking about? Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization?
Turkey is not there. But it worked --
HARLOW: Yes --
MARKS: Against the Soviet Union. We need to continue to work with Turkey, but they're giving us plenty of reason not to. So, that requires a lot of diplomatic effort on everybody's part, the U.S. should take the lead and say, look, this is untenable, you can't afford to do that, Russia wins, Iran wins, you know, Assad wins.
Look, this is a terrible mess, we've got to confront that as a coalition. Now, we hope that would be one of the topics the president brings forward, and calls out Erdogan and his -- and his delegation on the spot.
HARLOW: Well, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't hold your breath. He was invited to the White House after all that --
MARKS: Yes, true --
HARLOW: Major General Spider Marks, thank you, appreciate it.
MARKS: Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page silent for years until now. She is breaking her silence and says she didn't commit any crime. Plus, we are moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, stocks looking to rise when the market opens this Monday morning, thanks in part to a pretty strong manufacturing numbers out of China, showing activity at a pace not seen there in three years.
Trade talks may have hit a serious snag, though, after President Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law. It could stall any trade deal, and the next round of tariffs on Chinese- made products, those are set to go into effect in less than two weeks.
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