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U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Under Surveillance?; Interview With Former Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT); House Approves Sending Impeachment Articles to Senate. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 15, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: All right, we continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The House's role in the impeachment of President Donald Trump may be winding down this Wednesday afternoon, but, over in the Senate, it is just beginning.

After a House vote earlier today, Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans will finally take possession of the impeachment articles approved against President Trump, one for abuse of power, the other for obstruction, that as we're getting a look at the men and the women House speaker Nancy Pelosi has selected to argue the case before the U.S. Senate.

And Speaker Pelosi herself addressed the chamber from the House floor shortly before that vote to transmit the articles was held.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we are here today to cross a very important threshold in American history.

We don't want this president or any president to ever violate the Constitution. It is very, very important that we see that that Constitution is central to who we are as a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly is there for us on the Hill.

And, Phil, in announcing the seven impeachment managers, Speaker Pelosi mentioned several characteristics that were important to her in selecting them. What were they?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And I think it's important to point out what she said, because this is going to become so important. Yes, the House's role is essentially finished, certainly finished, in a couple of hours, when they send the articles of impeachment over. But the role of these seven individuals will become increasingly important and increasingly front and center in the days ahead. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: The emphasis is on litigators. The emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom. The emphasis is making the strongest possible case to protect and defend our Constitution, to seek the truth for the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, Brooke, that's the speaker walking through what she was looking for in these seven impeachment managers.

All seven of the managers are lawyers, Six of them are either on the House intelligence or Judiciary committees, the committees that were really kind of leading the charge in the impeachment investigation. The seventh, Jason Crow, is a freshman member from Colorado.

He's a lawyer, but was a former Army Ranger, served in Afghanistan and Iraq, takes lead a lot of national security issues for the House. Obviously, with the suspension of Ukraine aid or hold on Ukraine aid being front and center here, he has a role in that regard.

So that's where the House is. And why these managers are important is this. Starting early next week, likely on Tuesday, you're going to see the opening arguments.

The defense team, the president's defense team, will have 24 hours over the course of several days to make their arguments. These seven managers will all take individual roles in their 24 hours.

How they present the case, it's not just what we saw in the House and rehash on that front. How they present the case has huge ramifications for the future of the trial. Brooke, why that's important is because it's up to those seven managers to convince at least four Republicans that they need to hear more, that they need to sign onto subpoenaing witnesses, to sign on in subpoenaing documents.

That will be their role. That will be their focus, I'm told. And that's why those seven managers appointed this morning locked in on the vote just a couple of hours ago are so important going forward, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Phil, thank you.

I want to talk about those managers with Elie Honig. He's a CNN legal analyst and former U.S. attorney at the Southern District of New York.

And on these seven impeachment managers, Phil just hit on it, Speaker Pelosi's emphasis that they're litigators. What does that tell you?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, it tells me they're approaching this like a normal court case, like a criminal case, in fact, because there's people on that group that have law enforcement background as well.

So it tells me what they're looking at here is substance. They're serious. They're not looking for a political show.

BALDWIN: And on this new evidence, will they or won't they on witnesses, do you think?

HONIG: I -- if you had asked me a little bit ago, I would have said no. Today, I think they're going to.

I think the momentum has built day by day. Even just yesterday, we learned these new revelations from Lev Parnas. I think it's going to be really hard for every Republican to say no evidence.

BALDWIN: Let's dig into that now.

As the Senate waits for those impeachment articles to be passed along, new evidence is surfacing in the impeachment showdown. House Democrats just released text messages and these other documents the show even more of the work Rudy Giuliani and his indicted associate Lev Parnas conducted in Ukraine on behalf of President Trump.

Among them, there's this note -- here it is -- scribbled on a piece of hotel stationery from Austria that reads "Get Zelensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated."

And there were these messages exchanged, text messages, which suggest that the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was under surveillance before her controversial firing.

Kara Scannell is covering that for us.

And so texts, messages, Ritz-Carlton Hotel stationery, what's it all saying?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, a lot of information came out yesterday.

And it could just be the start of this, because the House has already indicated we might see more data come out tomorrow, some of this, the documents that have been turned over by Parnas.

And so what we learned yesterday was that there were a number of texts exchanges that were between a new person that we hadn't heard as part of this whole impeachment inquiry, this guy Robert Hyde. Now, he's running for a congressional seat in Connecticut.

[15:05:00]

He had exchanged a series of text messages with Lev Parnas, which has really caught a lot of people, I think, off-guard and raised some concern in the diplomatic community, because he was talking about or suggesting he had surveillance on the U.S. ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch.

I mean, in one set of exchanges, he's saying things like, the guys over there asked me what I would like to do and what's in it for them. Her phone is off, her computer is off. They will let me know when she's on the move.

So that has raised this concern that he had either physical surveillance on her or was there some kind of electric surveillance -- electronic surveillance? Did they have someone inside the embassy helping him?

So this is something that we didn't even anticipate. I mean, Yovanovitch, when she testified, said that she was aware that there was some security concerns, but there wasn't much more to it. It was hard to know if that was real or not. And now this raises the question here of what was going on?

Now, Lev Parnas, for his part, his lawyer has categorically denied any knowledge of the surveillance. He responds to some of these texts, saying, perfect, LOL, but they're trying to distance themselves from him.

BALDWIN: So, when you read this, when you saw these text messages, and especially the part where it looks like they were surveilling her somehow, is any of that illegal?

HONIG: So, first of all, it's incredibly disturbing that people closely associated with the president or with the president's personal lawyer were engaged in this.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: Now, is it a crime is a complicated question. It's not illegal, per se, to surveil somebody. You can hire a private investigator to sit on a street corner and watch somebody. That's OK.

But the question really is, what were they planning to do here? They weren't surveilling her just for kicks. They had some plan here, and depending what that is, could be a crime.

And, as Kara alluded to, it is a crime if they wiretapped her phone without a judge's order -- and I guarantee you they did not have a judge's order.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: That's a crime too.

BALDWIN: So wiretapping would be the crime.

We also learned, Kara, about this letter from Giuliani. Tell me about that.

SCANNELL: Yes, I mean, so this is the first document that we have seen that links Giuliani's shadow campaign to Donald Trump, despite -- we have heard all this testimony. Now there's a document.

And in this document, Rudy Giuliani is writing to the president-elect of the Ukraine, Zelensky. And he says: "In my capacity as a personal counsel to President Trump" -- and this is the key line here -- "and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting."

So this is Giuliani saying he's acting squarely on behalf of the president of the United States, that he has knowledge of him in May of trying to get a meeting with the president. And this is the same time that Parnas has that note scribbled on the hotel stationery saying they want to get Zelensky to announce this meeting.

BALDWIN: And then there was the Val Demings tweet, Congresswoman Val Demings, who's now one of the House managers, House impeachment managers.

She tweeted: "Dear all of America's criminals, please continue to take note on your crimes."

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: We laugh, but her point is...

HONIG: It's good advice from a police chief.

And I think it really underscores the value of this evidence. I mean, these documents -- look, any witness can come forward and any decent lawyer can cross-examine them and cast some doubt on them.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: But when you have documents written by the people themselves at the time of the events, there's not a lot of room to hide.

BALDWIN: How much does this put -- as you point out, Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney of the president. The president is supposed to act with the best interests at heart of the country, and not himself.

Where does this put him in all of this?

HONIG: To me, it sort of tells the whole story. I mean, the piece of the letter that Kara just quoted where he says, I'm here in my private capacity representing the personal interests of the president, I mean, the fundamental question of this whole Ukraine issue is, was the president acting in the nation's best interests or his own political and personal interests?

Well, Rudy just answered that for us.

BALDWIN: OK.

And we're also getting this bit of news. Let me read this.

Just in, Republican Senator Susan Collins is throwing cold water on this new evidence to Manu Raju, our congressional correspondent, saying this means that the House inquiry was a -- quote, unquote -- "incomplete job."

HONIG: Well, Susan Collins is going to Susan Collins, I guess, right?

I mean, she had made suggestions over the past few weeks that she would be interested in calling witnesses, although I guess that quote cuts both ways. If it is an incomplete job, then let's finish the job. The Senate has every ability to do that. This is a trial. Let's get the facts.

And let's not just say, it's incomplete. What are we going to do about it?

BALDWIN: Right. So it could mean that she would want more evidence and would want more information, thus asking some of these folks to testify.

Anything, finally, from you? Any more on all the texts and the messages and your takeaway?

SCANNELL: I think, like, this was the first wave of this.

BALDWIN: There's more to come.

SCANNELL: The House is really under -- they got a big document dump, it seems like just the actual files.

So they have been working, it seems, double-time trying to go through them. We will see if there's more of these contemporaneous notes that you were talking about and the importance of these documents that will come out and if it sheds a new light. But we will probably learn a lot more about that tomorrow.

BALDWIN: OK.

Kara and Elie, thank you.

HONIG: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And so much more to discuss.

I will talk to a former ambassador on this disturbing surveillance of former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Has anything like this ever happened before?

Plus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi names the seven House members who will oversee this impeachment trial of President Trump. We will talk live with someone who has held this role in the past. Hear why he says this will be a miserable experience.

And somehow, in the year 2020, in the United States of America, we are still debating whether a woman can actually win the White House. Yes.

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We will discuss that. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Horrifying, alarming and incomprehensible, those are just some of the

reactions from retired U.S. ambassadors after shocking text messages between Lev Parnas, an indicted Rudy Giuliani associate, and Trump supporter Robert Hyde.

It appears to show the two men discussing surveillance of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch . And these texts were exchanged before she was recalled from her post in Ukraine.

You will remember during that -- quote, unquote -- "perfect call," as President Trump likes to characterize it, with Ukraine President Zelensky, President Trump made it clear that he wasn't just focused on getting dirt on Joe Biden.

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BALDWIN: He also had his sights on Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who President Trump told Zelensky was -- quote -- "bad news."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL GOLDMAN, DEMOCRATIC COUNSEL: What did you think when President Trump told President Zelensky and you read that you were going to go through some things?

MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: I didn't know what to think. But I was very concerned.

GOLDMAN: What were you concerned about?

YOVANOVITCH: "She's going to go through some things." It didn't sound good. It sounded like a threat.

GOLDMAN: Did you feel threatened?

YOVANOVITCH: I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And now Yovanovitch is calling for an investigation.

Robert Hyde, meantime, declined to comment to CNN. In a statement, Parnas' attorney categorically denied being involved in any action to surveil or harm Yovanovitch.

Dana Shell Smith is a former U.S. ambassador to Qatar.

Ms. Ambassador, welcome.

DANA SHELL SMITH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO QATAR: Thank you very much for having me, Brooke.

BALDWIN: When you first read those texts, what in the world went through your mind?

SHELL SMITH: I mean, there's only one way to read those texts, which is just that they are a menacing threat.

I'm considerably less understated than Ambassador Yovanovitch, and I was just filled with rage, to be honest, because ambassadors everywhere are used to being surveilled or having threat information against us. Normally, we would expect them to come from ISIS or Hezbollah or a terrorist organization.

BALDWIN: Right.

SHELL SMITH: But to see that from an American, just it's enraging.

BALDWIN: You know what it's like to feel threatened in your post.

Like, what does the State Department do for you?

SHELL SMITH: Well, so, my colleagues, my former colleagues at Diplomatic Security are some of the best in the business, so they're very good at protecting ambassadors in all kinds of situations, high threat and otherwise.

And they work really closely with our intelligence community, so that they have the best information and working closely with host governments to make sure that an ambassador can do her job and be safe.

But, of course, this is a threat that came from an American. So the intelligence community wouldn't have it. There is some sense that perhaps the State Department knew about it, since they pulled Ambassador Yovanovitch out of fear for her safety.

So, really, she's right in calling for an investigation because we need to know what they knew, when they knew it and what tools were given to her security detail to protect her.

BALDWIN: When you look at these texts, they show Robert Hyde and Lev Parnas. They're talking about her phone. They're talking about her computer, who she was talking to. And Hyde expressed surprise the President Trump had yet fire her later, saying that people in Ukraine -- quote -- "are willing to help, if we/you would like a price."

What do you think they were trying to get at? What do you think they wanted from her?

SHELL SMITH: I mean, well, they clearly wanted her out of the way, which I can only take as a compliment to her for doing her job so well, since she was actually fighting corruption.

They wanted her out of the way. And I think -- I mean, there's just only one way to read it. It may very well have been a threat of an assassination.

BALDWIN: Wow.

SHELL SMITH: And maybe it wasn't, in which case an investigation would bear that out. But the deafening silence coming from Secretary Pompeo and the FBI and

the Justice Department today, we don't even know if anyone's investigating it or paying any attention to it, to be honest.

BALDWIN: That's right. We haven't heard from Secretary Pompeo. And this is one of his own diplomats. And there were those two briefings that were supposed to happen today. They got canceled.

So I hear you on that. We don't know the extent of what at all they were trying to do. But why wouldn't -- if they wanted her out of the way, let's just say in terms of her post, why wouldn't the president just up and fire her?

Like, why say she has to go through things? What does that say?

SHELL SMITH: I mean, that's a question. I mean, I certainly would like to know, because ambassadors get pulled all the time.

I mean, Ambassador Yovanovitch had been ambassador multiple times, and always in highly distinguished service. So there was no reason to pull her on merit. So he would have had to probably admit what his real reasons were, or else gin up some sort of pretext.

And she is one of those ambassadors who has served with such distinction that there wouldn't be much of a pretext to gin up.

BALDWIN: My last question is this. Congressman Adam Schiff said today that witnesses may or may not tell the truth, but documents don't lie.

For Senate Republicans who may dismiss these texts, these documents, what's your response?

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SHELL SMITH: I mean, we would like to dismiss them.

I think everybody would like to find out that they were just drunken texts from a crazy person. But you don't know until you investigate it. If those came in from an ISIS member sitting somewhere in Raqqa, my team would have not rested until they understood what it was.

BALDWIN: They got to the bottom of it.

SHELL SMITH: So, yes, I mean, maybe at some point, they can be dismissed, but they have to be investigated.

BALDWIN: Ambassador Dana Shell Smith, you have been excellent. Thank you.

SHELL SMITH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: These impeachment managers have been named, and the articles will soon be on the way to the Senate.

Coming up next, I'll talk to a former congressman who has been here before and says the job is kind of miserable. Plus, President Trump signs phase one of a trade deal with China

today, but at what cost? Those details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:46]

BALDWIN: A former police chief, an ex-judge and an impeachment veteran are some of the Democrats who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just designated as the impeachment managers for President Trump's Senate trial.

And my next guest has an intimate knowledge of what they're about to face. That is because he served as an impeachment manager during President Clinton's 1999 trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1999)

FMR. REP. CHRIS CANNON (R-UT): I would implore you, Senators, both Republican and Democrat, to set aside partisanship, politics, polls and personalities.

Senators, we, as Americans and legislators, have never supported a legal system which has one set of laws for the ruler and another for the ruled. If we intend to live up to our oaths and pledges we take, then our very own president must be subject to the precedents in our national judicial system and this Senate body have heretofore set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Went into the archives for that one.

With me now, former Utah Congressman Chris Cannon is with me now.

Congressman, a pleasure.

CANNON: My pleasure.

A blast from the past.

BALDWIN: A blast from the past.

CANNON: I had to think to see if that was actually me.

BALDWIN: That was you. That was you.

And, I mean, I want to ask all about what that was like. We will get your take on these seven managers that Speaker Pelosi just named.

But, first of all, just for people who don't understand what an impeachment manager does, explain, please.

CANNON: So, an impeachment manager does what the Senate decides they can do.

And that means they're going to what I would maybe call prosecute the case. But, in the case of Bill Clinton, the Senate rules really didn't mean a trial.

And I think you're going to use the same rules here, which leaves the managers sort of in limbo and struggling with what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. And that's not going to be clear for a few days.

So, preparing is going to be hard for them.

BALDWIN: Talk about some of the challenges.

And, by the way, just for context for everyone, there were 13 impeachment managers for Clinton. There are these seven for President Trump. And we note that Speaker Pelosi chose more litigators over career politicians.

Why would that be to their advantage, especially given the complications to come?

CANNON: So, you -- this -- an impeachment trial is not the sort of thing, especially with the rules that we had under the Clinton impeachment, which will be similar under this impeachment process, we think, although there may be witness differences,.

And you have some Republicans, some Democrats who would like to see witnesses called. And so there may be a dramatic difference in the way this case actually is presented.

But the problem for the manager is that it's his whole lifetime of experience that brings him to that position. And then he's got to act pretty much on his experience and his articulateness and his understanding of the facts, so that he can deal with the issues as they arise, because I suspect that what will happen is that he will be answering questions posed by members of the Senate and asked through the chief justice.

BALDWIN: What's the biggest thing you remember from this massive job of yours some years ago?

CANNON: You know, it was before the trial.

And I had made a point that -- in a national press conference that I would make the Starr report public when it came out. And I, frankly, expected that they would focus on the crimes for which Bill Clinton was debarred later -- disbarred later, but -- and not on the sex.

And as the report came out, it was just -- it was all about the predicate facts, instead of the crimes. And that meant a really ugly process from there on out.

BALDWIN: Do you think this one will...

CANNON: I hated that part.

BALDWIN: I bet you did.

Do you think this will be equally ugly in a different way? I mean, there's all this talk of, will there be witnesses, won't there be? Mitch McConnell says, let's figure it out as we go. All this new evidence has been introduced. Put yourself in the shoes of these House managers.

You know, what happens?

CANNON: Well, if I was a House manager, I would be frustrated that in -- in the case of Clinton, we knew long before who the managers were going to be.

They haven't had the opportunity to shape the case. And they get now

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