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Senate Trial to Begin as Rudy Giuliani Associate Directly Implicates Trump in Ukraine Scheme. Aired 9-9:30a ET
Aired January 16, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:03]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A stunning twist ahead of the president's impeachment trial. It is a big day. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. A stunning twist, new evidence. I'm Jim Sciutto.
As the Senate prepares for the third impeachment trial of a president in U.S. history, shocking revelations implicating the president, according to one person, in the Ukraine investigation. Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate Lev Parnas spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper. Parnas says he believed the president knew everything about the effort to get the Ukrainian president to announce investigations into Trump's political rivals. The reason?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEV PARNAS, INDICTED RUDY GIULIANI ASSOCIATE: That was the most important thing is for him to stay on for another four years and keep the fight going. I mean, there was no other reason for doing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That stunning interview follows the release of notes and a stream of text messages from Parnas that shed a lot more detail on the pressure campaign inside Ukraine, including the potentially illegal surveillance of former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Now the Ukrainian government says this morning they are opening a criminal investigation into her potential surveillance.
The State Department, the own U.S. State Department, has not replied to multiple inquiries from us at CNN about if it plans to cooperate with that investigation or, Jim, if it's going to open its own investigation.
SCIUTTO: A fair question. You would imagine that the U.S. State Department would --
HARLOW: Would want to.
SCIUTTO: -- be the most concerned about the safety of the ambassador.
HARLOW: Right. About their employee. All of this fueling the fight over whether the Senate should allow impeachment witnesses.
Let's begin there. Our Lauren Fox is back with us on Capitol Hill this morning.
So, I mean, do you know if Lev Parnas and all of this changes the equation on witnesses? And walk us through what happens today.
LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a huge ceremonial day in the Senate. This is really the moment where you're going to see the torch passed from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate.
If you saw that scene yesterday where the House managers walked over to the Senate with the impeachment articles, you're going to see that again. And there's a reason for it. Today is the day that the House managers around noon will walk over to the Senate and they will be invited to read the articles of impeachment in the well of the U.S. Senate. That of course will be a dramatic moment.
Then at 2:00 this afternoon, you will see the swearing in of Chief Justice John Roberts. Then he will swear in all 100 senators who will take an oath to do, quote, "impartial justice." Then they'll all walk up, one by one, and sign a book saying that they all took that oath. After that, that will be sort of the ending of this ceremonial piece of the Senate trial today. Now don't expect to see any kind of arguments in the well of the Senate. That will likely start again next week. So that lays out exactly what's going to be happening today on Capitol Hill.
And I will tell you that there is a question about how much of this drip, drip coming from the House Intelligence Committee, from Lev Parnas, the fact he's doing all these huge media interviews, how much of that weighs on members like Susan Collins, about whether or not she wants to hear from witnesses. That's a big question and a key one today. But likely, we won't know the answer to it until a couple of days or weeks into the Senate trial.
SCIUTTO: Well, we're going to ask a Republican senator later in this broadcast that very question.
Lauren Fox on the Hill. Thanks very much.
Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate Lev Parnas says that he wants to be a witness in the Senate trial. Here he is with Anderson last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC 360": You loved President Trump.
PARNAS: Loved him, I mean he -- I mean, when the FBI came to my house, my wife felt embarrassed because they said I had a shrine to him. And I had pictures all over. I mean, I idolized him. I mean, I thought he was the savior.
COOPER: Do you -- did you think you were friends? PARNAS: Absolutely. I mean, again, I went from being a top donor, from
being at all the events where we would just socialize, to becoming a close friend of Rudy Giuliani's, to eventually becoming his ally and his asset on the ground in Ukraine.
COOPER: The president has said, when you were arrested, the president of the United States said he didn't know you.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know those gentlemen. Now it's possible I have a picture with them because I have a picture with everybody. I don't know them.
PARNAS: The truth is out now, thank God. Yesterday was a big day for us. I thank God every day. I was worried that that day is not going to come. I thought they were going to shut me out and make me look like the scapegoat and try to blame me for stuff that I wasn't doing, but with God's help and the great legal team that I have beside me, we were able to get the information out, and now it's out there. So, I welcome him to say that even more. Every time he says that, I'll show them another picture.
COOPER: He's lying?
PARNAS: He's lying.
COOPER: Your attorney in a tweet had said that there were two times in which you gave the message of a quid pro quo to Ukrainian officials. What were those two times?
PARNAS: I think there were probably a little more than two times, but there were -- the first quid pro quo again was when we met with President Poroshenko. That was --
[09:05:06]
COOPER: The former president.
PARNAS: Former President Poroshenko.
COOPER: So what was your message to Poroshenko?
PARNAS: Poroshenko, if he would make the announcement that he would get -- Trump would either invite him to the White House or make a statement for him, but basically will start supporting him for, you know, president.
COOPER: So that was the first quid pro quo. Poroshenko can come to the White House or get a meeting with Trump if he announces an investigation.
PARNAS: Correct.
COOPER: What was the next one?
PARNAS: You have to understand because this was a transition time. He was -- Zelensky just won. He was president-elect. And he -- the most number one thing on their agenda was not even the transition. It was to get the inauguration because it was a big thing. He was a young --
COOPER: To show the American backing of the new administration?
PARNAS: Of course. Because he had no strength with Russia, I mean --
COOPER: So -- Giuliani cancels his visit because there's a lot of bad publicity about it in the United States. He cancels his visit. You go have the meeting with a high-level official in Zelensky's circle.
PARNAS: Correct.
COOPER: And what's the message you deliver?
PARNAS: I basically told him very strict and very stern that several things. A, that he needed to make an announcement. Zelensky needed to immediately make an announcement literally that night or tomorrow that within the next 24 hours, that they were opening up an investigation on Biden.
COOPER: Within 24 hours or so?
PARNAS: I mean, I don't remember 24 hours that same night, but I mean, literally because, I mean, Rudy was really pissed off that this was going to be --
COOPER: That this hasn't happened?
PARNAS: Well, he -- he said some very strong words. I mean, he -- on TV also, I mean, everybody in Ukraine was flipping out at that time because to hear Rudy Giuliani come out and say that there's -- that Zelensky, the president-elect, that all of a sudden he is surrounded by enemies and he named the names of the people.
COOPER: That can be -- that can destroy the new regime.
PARNAS: It was -- well, it was very -- I mean, it was some crazy times in Ukraine at that time because it became a power struggle, you know.
COOPER: So Rudy is pissed off, in your words. You go in. Your message is, announce the Biden investigation.
PARNAS: Announce the Biden investigation. Get rid of certain individuals in -- that are enemies of the president in his administration.
COOPER: At that point was there any mention of withholding of aid?
PARNAS: Yes, it was -- well, if they didn't make the announcement, basically, there would be no relationship, not just -- there was no specific military aid, there was no aid that was going to be assisted. There was going to be no inauguration. Pence wouldn't be at the inauguration. And there would be no visit to the White House. There would be -- basically, they would have no communication.
COOPER: So how -- you told the top official in the Zelensky inner circle that if they did not announce an investigation of the Bidens immediately and get rid of some folks around Zelensky who they believed were opposed to President Trump, that there wouldn't be any aid and Vice President Pence would not even come to the inauguration.
PARNAS: Correct.
COOPER: And what happened? What did they say?
PARNAS: I called Rudy, told him that I don't think there's going to be an announcement. And he said, OK, they'll see.
COOPER: They'll see?
PARNAS: They'll see.
COOPER: And what happened the next day?
PARNAS: I got called and said that they got a call from them. Basically they found out that Pence is not going to be there. He got canceled. They said that there was a scheduling problem or something.
COOPER: The day after you delivered that message?
PARNAS: Correct.
COOPER: Of a quid pro quo.
PARNAS: Right. On the -- Monday the 13th. And then after that, like I think on the 16th or the 15th. I don't remember the exact dates, they had -- because they were flipping out what to do. they didn't want to be embarrassed. They didn't know if anybody at all was going to show up, you know, but they knew Pence wasn't coming, Trump wasn't coming.
COOPER: How did you have the authority to say the vice president of the United States will not attend the inauguration if you don't do what I say?
PARNAS: I mean, that's what I was told to do.
COOPER: Who told you to do that?
PARNAS: Rudy Giuliani.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: OK. A lot there. We're going to unpack it. But just so you can understand how central Lev Parnas is to all of this. Here's who he is. He was born in Ukraine. He's an American citizen who was living in Florida. Last year, he and his business associates were indicted by a grand jury on several counts of campaign finance violation.
SCIUTTO: In 2018, Parnas introduced Rudy Giuliani to former and current Ukrainian officials. Giuliani told CNN those officials provided damaging information on some of Trump's political enemies. Note this. Parnas' company, which is named interestingly, Fraud Guarantee, paid Giuliani half a million dollars in the fall of 2018 for consulting. So Giuliani was working for Parnas. HARLOW: Yes, and working for the president. And as you heard in that
interview, President Trump says he doesn't know Parnas. But on at least seven occasions, he posed for photos. Not just one photo. On at least seven occasion he's posed for photos with Parnas and his business partner.
[09:10:01]
CNN has also learned that both of those men had a private meeting with the president and with Rudy Giuliani. This happened at a White House party in December of 2018, and Parnas says during that meeting the president talked about tasking him and his business partner with what he describes as a secret mission. A mission in order to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate, who? Joe Biden.
SCIUTTO: Listen. There are a lot of questions about this. Of course we should note Lev Parnas has been indicted.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: There are questions about credibility here. But a big question of course is how his story matches up with other sworn testimony we've heard from others. And there are things that -- things that match.
Let's discuss now with our legal panel. CNN legal analyst Michael Gerhardt and Elie Honig.
Listen, there's a lot to unpack here. In terms of the impeachment trial, which is about to begin, Michael Gerhardt. You have a good amount of experience with this. This is at least new evidence, right? And a new potential witness, right, if there's a majority of senators willing to call them. Should Parnas be a witness now in the Senate trial or Rudy Giuliani? After all, Rudy Giuliani is the president's attorney and he was working for the president and Parnas, as it happens.
MICHAEL GERHARDT, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes to everything you've just said. Yes, it's new evidence but it's permissible to consider. There's nothing that prevents that in the Senate and yes, he seems to -- he, Parnas, seems to be quite a relevant witness. Somebody should talk to him. Maybe somebody in the House. They may try and interview him or depose him. The same can be true in the Senate. There actually is no good reason not to talk with him and he's got lots of documents that support everything he's just said.
HARLOW: But, Michael, if the House were to depose him, what does that mean for a Senate impeachment trial? Right? Would they have to use that to introduce another article of impeachment, that the Senate then use that? What would that help?
GERHARDT: It's a fair question. In the House, if it -- if the House were to interview Parnas, then that could be done in support of another article of impeachment. It could be done as part of an oversight of the president. It could also send over that deposition to the Senate. That could become evidence in the Senate. In any event, if the House does it, it puts some pressure on the Senate to do something similar and take that information into account.
HARLOW: OK.
SCIUTTO: Elie, again, let's analyze this and take advantage of you being a prosecutor. You know how to analyze evidence, et cetera. One thing that struck me is if Parnas is correct here, the demand for a quid pro quo from Ukraine goes back to the previous president before Zelensky, Petro Poroshenko.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: Which then undermines the GOP defense that listen, all President Trump was doing here was ensuring that the new Ukrainian president was into fighting corruption. I mean, the demand, it seems, goes back to the prior administration.
ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jim, that's a remarkable revelation and it's one that rings true to me. And if any of our viewers are wondering what it's like to be a prosecutor day-to-day, this is it. You have a guy like Lev Parnas. As you said in the beginning, he's under indictment. He's facing likely jailtime. He's trying to help himself here. He's not doing this out of some great spirit of patriotism.
So what you have to do is look at his testimony and ask, does it ring true? Does it make sense? And is it backed up by other evidence we've seen? And I think what you just pointed out is a good example of something that is heavily backed up. That the real goal here had nothing to do with corruption and everything to do with 2020.
HARLOW: Yes.
HONIG: There are other pieces of his testimony where I think he's a little more out there, where we need to see more backup, more corroboration.
SCIUTTO: Listen, Fiona Hill testified under oath, the President Trump's appointee, that this was about a political errand, right? Not about, you know, the other interesting investigative -- corruption.
HARLOW: And then someone, Lev Parnas, you know, who's admitted to Anderson he had a, quote, "shrine" to the president in his house is also saying similarly now.
So, Michael, "The New York Times" has an important nugget of reporting here because they're saying that the president and Rudy Giuliani apparently tried to conceal the Ukraine efforts in a few ways. First that Parnas suggested the president designate he and his partner as special envoys and then, quote, "Mr. Parnas said Mr. Giuliani walked away to call Mr. Trump, returned with a new plan. He would represent Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman as well as the president. Why? A move that might afford their shared mission the confidential of attorney-client privilege. Mr. Giuliani has denied that account."
Michael, if that's true, is it legal? GERHARDT: It's not legal at all. It's actually part of a conspiracy. A
conspiracy essentially to obstruct, to obstruct any investigation, as well as to hide from Congress and others the information about what Giuliani and his associates are doing. Keep in mind that Giuliani also wrote a document saying he represented the president personally. Not as president, but personally. So what that tells us is everything Giuliani is doing, and everything that Parnas and others are doing are to help the president personally.
And that reinforces and supports the claim made by the House that the president was trying to get a favor personally for himself that would benefit him in the next election.
[09:15:00]
He was not acting on behalf of the United States government, he was acting to do something that would help himself personally. And last but not least, the effort to hide all this is part of the cover-up that Congress is trying to really dig into or pierce.
JIM SCIUTTO, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Yes --
GERHARDT: And that the president has tried to hide from Congress and others.
POPPY HARLOW, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: There's a lot here, guys. Stick around. Michael Gerhardt, Elie Honig, thank you very much. There's a lot more of this interview, too. In his interview, Lev Parnas claims the Vice President Mike Pence also completely knew what was going on in Ukraine. This morning, the Vice President is responding to those allegations. That's next. Also this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think you called me a liar on national TV?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: The tense exchange between Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren right after the CNN debate. Now, we can hear it, we're going to play it for you. Plus, the Senate set to pass a major priority for this administration, one that has agreement with Democrats. A new trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. We're going to speak to the president's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: So Giuliani knew everything you were doing?
LEV PARNAS, RUDY GIULIANI'S INDICTED ASSOCIATE: Everything he was doing.
COOPER: You're saying Vice President knew.
PARNAS: Well, Vice President know everything we were doing, I'm sure that he --
COOPER: But he knew about the quid pro quo.
PARNAS: Of course, he knew everybody that -- everybody that thought was close to Trump knew that this was a thorn in the side, and that this was a serious situation.
COOPER: Bolton?
PARNAS: Bolton --
COOPER: Mulvaney?
PARNAS: Mulvaney. Bolton, I don't think agreed with it. I think there are certain people that agreed with it and didn't agree with it.
COOPER: He called it a drug deal according to Fiona Hill.
PARNAS: I think Bolton is a very important witness because I think between me and Bolton, we could fill in all the dots. I think because I was on the ground there, and he was over here --
COOPER: And you'd be willing to testify?
PARNAS: I would be very willing to testify.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Will the Senate take him up on his offer? We should not Vice President Mike Pence is denying claims made by the indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, the VP's chief of staff. Just released a statement saying in part, quote, "this is very simple. Lev Parnas is under a multi-count indictment and will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison."
HARLOW: It's not a direct denial. Let's talk about that --
SCIUTTO: No --
HARLOW: With Laura Jarrett, our --
SCIUTTO: And it's similar to the response to Michael Cohen, remember, you know, who was --
HARLOW: Yes, that's a good point --
SCIUTTO: The president's personal attorney for 10 years and said he's under indictment, don't believe anything he says.
HARLOW: That's a good point. All right, so, Laura Jarrett is here, anchor of EARLY START and our justice correspondent. Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and "You Decide" podcast. Let's start there, if Mark Short; the Chief of Staff to the Vice President wanted to say, this is blatantly false like Barr's team is saying this morning, he would have. He's a very smart guy, we know him, he didn't say that. What do you make of this --
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right --
HARLOW: Statement?
LOUIS: Exactly, the silence is deafening. And look, the reality is prosecutors know, journalists know. I think the public knows, everything that he said could be true, and he could still be in a lot of trouble. Meaning, yes, Lev Parnas is not an upstanding citizen. He's under indictment. He's trying to save his neck. We know that. It doesn't mean that what he said isn't true.
HARLOW: All right --
LOUIS: And if what he said is not true, the Vice President could and should have said so. My guess is that throughout Pence's staff, they're all checking their e-mails, they're all checking their records, they might be calling up lawyers. They're going -- there's going to be some very close questioning day-by-day about who knew what and whether or not this very explosive charge by Lev Parnas is true or could be true.
And again, you know, there's -- we all want to know, did Mike Pence himself personally know? Yes. That's an interesting question. But she's got a lot of staff members. She's got a lot of people who are in touch with a lot of other people including Lev Parnas. So, when he says, there's no way Pence couldn't have known, I interpret that as him meaning in a broad sense --
SCIUTTO: Right --
LOUIS: That the vice president's staff, the vice president's political advisors, perhaps the vice president himself personally were all connected to what they were doing.
SCIUTTO: Well, Jarrett, there's another possibility, right, that some of what he's saying is accurate and some isn't, right? Now, you've been listening closely. Some lines up with other statements before. I mean, for instance, the quid pro quo line is something that several former Trump administration officials testified under oath. That was their belief. What have you noticed does not line up even with his own past statements?
LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I think this is where it becomes risky for Democrats to engage this person as a witness, right? He's making some really provocative claims that are worth investigating, but the question is, does he have the receipts to back them up?
So, for instance, on the Pence issue, in one interview, he says he must have known, and then he says in another interview, he definitely was -- he was in the loop. He knew everything. SCIUTTO: And that's different.
JARRETT: And that's a nuanced difference in this case actually, it makes a huge difference, right?
SCIUTTO: Exactly --
JARRETT: And he says he has a meeting with the president. We've seen the calendar records now to back that up. But then he also tells "The New York Times", I never had a direct conversation with the president about these efforts while at the same time, implicating the president --
SCIUTTO: Right --
JARRETT: Clearly, in multiple TV interviews. And so I think it becomes a question for Democrats. Is this a gamble that you would want to take? Is this a reliable man(ph) here?
HARLOW: All right, so I do want to put in there, I brought up Attorney General Bill Barr and the Justice Department responding to all of this morning. They denied the claim, Errol, from Lev Parnas that Barr was, quote, "basically on the team in terms of trying to pressure Ukraine." Apparently, Poroshenko and Zelensky administrations, if you believe Parnas, to investigate the Bidens.
Spokeswoman at DOJ, 100 percent false. Your reporting in terms of politically, what does this do to those Republican senators who we know are on the fence about calling witnesses. Is this enough to tip the balance in terms of them saying, fine, we've got to hear from folks or not.
LOUIS: My guess is that almost nothing will take them off whatever stance they've arrived at. And mistakes that many of them have arrived at, including the ones who were up for re-election who seem to be making statements, suggesting they want a little bit more information, is that they're trying to walk a sort of fine line between enraging the White House and being seen as disloyal to President Trump's defense.
[09:25:00]
And the real election needs that they have back home to be seen as even-handed, curious at least about what actually happened, willing to sort of press a little bit. But they don't necessarily want to go out there and you know, throw in with the Democrats or start calling in witnesses or try to upend the strategy that Mitch McConnell has clearly outlined for his conference.
So I think what we're going to see is, they're going to continue to try and waffle a little bit. We also have to keep in mind, Poppy, a lot of this process happens behind closed doors. They're going to slam the doors, and they're going to have a lot of their debate without any cameras --
SCIUTTO: Yes -- LOUIS: No electronics --
HARLOW: Yes --
LOUIS: Hard to get any leaks. We're all going to be outside, you know, waiting and wondering, but the reality is, how they play this out is going to be in this very measured kind of a way, saying, well, Gee, we want to get all of the facts --
SCIUTTO: Right --
LOUIS: And we're going to take care of this behind closed doors. Trust us.
SCIUTTO: OK, the other news we had this morning is that Ukraine is now launching a formal investigation of potential surveillance of a U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch here. Notable, CNN has asked the State Department whether they're investigating this and hasn't gotten --
LOUIS: Yes --
SCIUTTO: An answer either way. And of course, there's been no public statement from Mike Pompeo in her support. Parnas denied playing any part in a spying operation, which is interesting because of all those text messages and so on. But well, could he be putting himself in legal jeopardy by speaking out now on that question?
JARRETT: Well, both -- Parnas is saying it wasn't me -- you know, we were just having these loose conversations.
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JARRETT: Robert Hyde, this congressional candidate who has really some disturbing messages back-and-forth with Parnas --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JARRETT: About this, says it's all just a joke, nothing to see here. I mean, you know, for Parnas to speak out while under indictment is always risky. The Southern District of New York prosecutors are paying attention to every single word that comes out of his mouth. So, I think he needs to be careful here whether or not it bears on the current indictment --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JARRETT: Is definitely an issue, yes --
HARLOW: Yes --
JARRETT: Understood.
HARLOW: Thank you both very much.
SCIUTTO: Thanks, guys -- HARLOW: Good to have you --
SCIUTTO: Very much. Coming up at this hour, just hours from now, senators will be sworn in for the impeachment trial of President Trump. But will the latest revelations from Lev Parnas be included, other witness testimony? We're going to ask a Senate Democrat.
HARLOW: We're also moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street this morning. Of course, we had that record high close yesterday for the Dow. Over 29,000 for the first time ever. That is remarkable. It was due to the -- that bumped into the signing of the phase one trade agreement, sort of truce between the U.S. and China. We'll see what reaction is from investors today because they don't love uncertainty, and there's a lot of it right now as the Senate heads in to vote on final approval for the new trade agreement, the USMCA. Peter Navarro is with us on that.
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