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H.R. McMaster is Interviewed about a Russian Invasion; Harry Litman is Interviewed about Trump White House Records; FedEx Driver Chased and Shot at in Mississippi. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 11, 2022 - 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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[09:30:05]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: This just in to CNN.

CNN has learned that the White House convened a meeting with several cabinet members and senior national security officials in the Situation Room on Thursday to discuss Russia's ongoing military buildup near Ukraine.

Today, President Biden is expected to speak with European and NATO leaders. This just hours after the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin at any time. Blinken also warning that more Russian forces are arriving at the Ukrainian border. New satellite images in to CNN show continuing Russian military buildup in Crimea, western Russia and Belarus, just to the north.

Joining me now to discuss, someone who knows this region well, the former national security adviser. retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

Sir, thanks for taking the time this morning.

LT. GEN. H.R. MCMASTER (RET.), FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Hey, Jim, good to be with you.

SCIUTTO: I should note you have the book as well, "Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World," relevant to the topic this morning.

There is increased urgency this morning, we see that in the secretary of state's comments, saying now that an invasion could happen at any time, even possibly during the Olympics. As you were aware, there was some talk that perhaps Putin might not want to upstage Xi Jinping by staging an invasion during the Olympics in Beijing. You've watched this region for a long time. You know Russia well. You know Putin and his strategy well. Do you see an invasion as inevitable and perhaps sooner than expected?

MCMASTER: Hey, Jim, I don't think it's inevitable. I mean I think the chances are, you know, like 80 percent, right. But I don't think Putin has pulled the trigger yet and made the final decision. He's keeping all options open.

And I think it's important to recognize, what is he really trying to do here? He's trying to -- he's trying to restore Russia to national greatness. And this is based in his, you know, his loss of honor, his sense of a loss of honor with the breakup of the Soviet Union 30 years ago. And the way he wants to restore Russian national greatness is to re-establish Russian influence over the former territories of the -- of the Soviet Union.

And we have to remember, he's already invaded Ukraine, right? Since 2014, 7,000 Ukrainians have died already.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: And so Putin will push until he meets strong resistance, and a clear indication is that we can impose -- we being the free world -- Ukrainians, can impose more costs on him than he factors into his decision-making.

SCIUTTO: You have seen, as you know, the U.S. and NATO move more forces to eastern European partners. There's an announcement this morning that even more will be going. You've seen lethal assistance to Ukraine and the talk at least of sanctions if he were to invade further.

Do you see that as sufficient deterrence?

MCMASTER: It may not be sufficient in terms of deterrence by denial, right, convincing Russia they don't have the capability to continue offensive or coercive operations beyond Ukraine to NATO allies. Russia's audience here is the Ukrainians. Hey, I've got you under my thumb. You're always going to be under my thumb. But the message is also to NATO, to show NATO as inept and weak and to send the messages to Romania and Bulgaria, the Black Sea region, hey, if you think NATO's got your back, they don't have your back.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: So these deployments are important. I think it's important also to deploy significant capabilities in the Black Sea region generally to say, hey, if what you're hoping for is less NATO forces on your, you know, on your periphery, Russia, if you continue this kind of aggression, you're going to get more forces on your periphery.

SCIUTTO: As you know, President Biden has tried to keep the alliance together on this. And, in general, they have said similar things about further Russian military action. As you know, President Trump often was at odds with the NATO alliance. I wonder -- and at times would repeat some of President Putin's talking points on Russia, which you have publicly criticized.

Do you believe that the Trump administration's handling of Putin emboldened him?

MCMASTER: Well, I think it goes way, way back. Remember when Putin came in, in 2000, he said, hey, listen, this is my agenda, restore Russia to national greatness. Then he got particularly active in 2007, massive cyberattacks against Estonia, invaded Georgia, as you mentioned, in 2008, during the Olympics. And then -- and then a sustained campaign of political subversion against NATO, the U.S. and the west. And this is -- you know, this is this Russian playbook.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: Putin's playbook of disruption, with cyberattacks, with massive troops, disinformation, cyber-enabled information warfare against us, polarize us, pit us against each other, reduce our confidence in our will, denial, deny it even when he -- it's very clear what he does.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: Shoot down an airliner. Oh, that wasn't me.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: Poison a political opponent. Oh, that wasn't -- that wasn't us.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: And then, of course, also, the other d is dependence.

[09:35:02]

Dependence on natural gas and oil. And this is what's pulling, I think, the alliance apart a little bit is the lack of resolve on the part of Germany, who's dependent on Russia.

So, I think what, you know, President Trump, you know, I -- it was really -- this is one of the issues I had with him all the time is undervaluing the importance of alliances, right? We're seeing the importance of it now.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: But the point that he made that was quite good, Jim, was, hey, our allies need to do more to strengthen the alliance and to strengthen their own defense. And this is to meet their -- you know, the pledge to spend at least 2 percent of the GDP on defense.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

OK, two more topics I want to hit. First on Afghanistan, because, of course, this is an issue close to your heart.

President Biden, in an interview last night, said that he rejects the findings of an army investigation into the final days in the war in Afghanistan that, in part, detailed warnings that the administration got. He says he didn't get those warnings.

Do you believe that? MCMASTER: I mean, I don't want to believe it. I mean how could it be

that he did not have access to that analysis, right? The job of the senior officials in that administration is to make sure the president gets best advice, best analysis, multiple options, and clearly that didn't happen.

You know, and anybody who had been in Afghanistan, Jim, knew this catastrophe was happening because we set the conditions for it. We delivered psychological blow after psychological blow to the Afghans, across two administrations, right, negotiating with the most heinous people on earth, the Taliban, a terrorist organization, without the Afghan government, you know, not insisting on a cease fire, forcing them to release the prisoners, withdrawing our active pursuit of the enemy, reducing our intelligence and our air support, and then saying, hey, we're leaving, we're out of here by this date.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: And then, of course, what did that do? It created a crisis of confidence in Afghanistan.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Understood.

OK, I want to move on to the former president's treatment of classified materials. "Washington Post" reporting that among the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago included classified documents. You have Maggie Haberman's new book saying that he regularly tore up White House documents and -- and I'm not making this up -- flushed them down the toilet.

I'm wondering, during your time there, did you witness the president or those around him mishandle classified information or the preservation of other White House documents?

MCMASTER: No, Jim. In fact, we put in a system that was, you know, that I think was kind of foolproof in that connection, at least with what came from the National Security Council staff.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: And, you know, in a well-run White House, you know, if the staff is running it well, everything that goes in to the Oval Office should -- is logged in. Everything the president sees should be logged in and then preserved under the Presidential Records Act, as you mentioned.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCMASTER: And, you know, Jim, I'm a historian, right, and I couldn't have written the book I did on how why Vietnam became an American war if I didn't have access to those -- to those documents.

And, of course, it's important to declassify those documents, have a system in place to get it out to the American people so they can get a first cut at history and we can learn from our most approximate experiences. And this is what the National Archives does. This is what the historian on the National Security staff does, the staff secretary, the executive secretary. So I can't speak about what happened after I left. You know, I left in March of 2018. And I was one of, you know, one of many national security advisers. So, I'm not sure what happened after that.

SCIUTTO: I understand.

Well, Stephanie Grisham had said on air this morning that this is another example of the White House, her words, an administration that had no rules. We followed no rules.

And I realize a lot of this happened after you left there. I'm just curious on the cell phone issue because there also are a lot of call logs missing that normally, if you were using that White House phone on the desk, would be in the call logs.

I mean did you see him regularly using a cell phone instead of the regular channels?

MCMASTER: Well, you know, for me, my job -- you know, my job as National Security advisor, one of the things you do is you staff the president, or you help the president prepare for any engagement on foreign policy and national security. So whenever -- you know, whenever I did that, I mean, it was a -- it was, you know, relatively -- it was informal in terms of the, you know, the president's demeanor and the way he did business, but it was formalized in terms of a process, notes taken and so forth.

And you might remember it was, you know, the leaks of some of these -- some of these phone calls, for example, very early in the administration, before I joined, actually, in late February, you know, of 2017, quite unexpectedly, it was some of the initial phone calls were leaked, which is a real travesty, right? So it's important for the staff to help the president, by staffing the president, but it's also important to do your duty, not leak documents, protect them, because you want the president to be able to have frank, candid discussions without reading about it the next day, you know, in one of our newspapers.

SCIUTTO: Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, we do appreciate your coming on and taking the hard questions.

MCMASTER: Hey, thanks, Jim. Good to be with you.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be right back.

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[09:44:24]

GOLODRYGA: So far, the White House call logs handed over to the January 6th committee show no record of calls to and from former President Trump during the Capitol attack. That's what sources tell CNN. And that's leading to some gaps in the committee's understanding of what happened during the insurrection. Trump was known to make calls using personal cell phones, which could

account for those gaps, particularly of those phone calls we know happened that day between Trump and lawmakers, because they've been widely reported.

I'm joined now by former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, Harry Litman.

Harry, great to have you on.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Likewise.

GOLODRYGA: So there had been concern and warnings given how unorthodox the former president's behavior was and that he didn't stick to protocol and regularly used his cell phone or other people's cell phones that this could -- this scenario could very well play out.

[09:45:12]

And here we are.

So, what are the openings for the committee members in terms of trying to get access to phone records? Will they opt for subpoenaing some of these people whose phones the president may have used?

LITMAN: Yes, it's a great question. And you say unorthodox, and that's certainly true. But, you know, cavalier and contemptuous of the American people would be another way to put it. And also maniacal about trying to keep any record being created.

We know at this period in particular he's insisting on meetings in the residence, with only a small circle. What can they do now and, as you say, we know these calls were made. Well, they can subpoena the records of close associates for the cell -- you know, it would be the same kind of thing and it would show if they went to his phone. Of course, he's also known sometimes to use aides' personal cell phones. And they could. There's no reason not. There's no special doctrine that would keep them from subpoenaing his actual personal cell phone records. It would just be a little bit more of a fight. He would push back on some, you know, presidential basis. But absolutely fair game.

KEILAR: We heard from the former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham on "NEW DAY" this morning, and she said that she thought these gaps were, quote, odd, and that he regularly used staffers' phones, like Dan Scavino and Ivanka Trump.

I mean could we see them subpoena Ivanka Trump's phone records?

LITMAN: And -- for -- actually, for all we know they have been. And, again, odd is a nice way to put it, and an official way to put it. What it really is, is more than cavalier, it's attempting. It's a theme. It's a calling card of the whole Trump presidency. He also doesn't use email. It's an attempt to allude the creation of a historical record and just -- these are records that belong to the people. That's the heart and soul of the Presidential Records Act. And he went to great lengths to make sure that the people's records were in fact either not created or destroyed after they were.

GOLODRYGA: Well, let's talk about some records that may have been destroyed, and that is confidential records, right, the president now -- we now know had been made aware of that he took the boxes and the papers themselves had been marked as confidential and he had been told that he needed to preserve them, taking them with him to Mar-a-Lago. This happened in the investigation, some 15 boxes of records taken out of the White House.

My first question before we get to the legal implications this may have for the president is, how on earth is that even possible and why are we just learning about this now?

LITMAN: Yes. You know, when you leave a White House, you have some personal effects. It's actually not the first time it can happen by mistake. This isn't by mistake. We have items such as the initial letter Barack Obama left for him, the kind of, you know -- his -- remember when he changes the map to make it look like he was right about the hurricane's path. We have that sort of stuff.

GOLODRYGA: Kim Jong-un exchanges.

LITMAN: Stuff can happen inadvertently. Yes. It can happen intentionally. It can happen intentionally. All indications are it happened intentionally. And the 15 boxes he's been fighting to keep tooth and nail.

But one other point about them that comes out just this morning from "The Washington Post," many of them are marked top secret. And that -- that is a level -- I had very high clearance in the government. I wasn't even allowed to know if something was top secret. That's how top secret it was. So, you see that that is kryptonite.

GOLODRYGA: So given that -- given that -- so given that and they're marked top secret, do you think that now this gives an opportunity for the DOJ to act, and will they? Will they open an investigation, in your view?

LITMAN: OK. The big question, my best guess would be, no. But let me say there are two different things going on here. There are these 15 boxes, and they are serious, but you can argue inadvertent. Then there's the whole shredding and flushing and everything and there that's where the real opening for criminal stuff is. It sounds kind of regulatory, Bianna, but it isn't. It's a high criminal threshold, as people noted, but it's easy to meet here.

What you have to show is he did it willfully, which means he wanted to destroy them. It wasn't like, you know, a fit of pique. That's really -- you have 12 witnesses and none of them is like Mark Meadows. You have people in the White House having to put on rubber gloves and go down the toilet. Those are going to be very strong witnesses to all that activity.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Harry Litman, we will continue to follow this very interesting developing story. Thank you.

LITMAN: Thank you, Bianna.

SCIUTTO: That poor White House plumber.

Still ahead, two white men face criminal charges after being accused of chasing down and shooting at a black FedEx driver who was just doing his job.

[09:50:03]

We're going to hear that driver's story, next.

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GOLODRYGA: Two white men are now facing criminal charges in Mississippi, accused of chasing down and shooting at a black FedEx driver who was simply doing his job. The driver was not wounded, fortunately, but his lawyer is now questioning law enforcement's response and calling for the charges to be upgraded to attempted murder.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Nick Valencia has been following this story. He joins us now from Jackson, Mississippi.

Nick, tell us the circumstances of this.

[09:55:00]

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Bianna and Jim.

D'Montarrio Gibson, we spoke to him yesterday, and he says there's no doubt in his mind that he was targeted by these two white men because he's black.

It all happened about two weeks ago when he was delivering packages for FedEx on a dirt road just outside of Jackson, in Brookhaven, Mississippi. It was about 7:00 p.m. at night when he says out of nowhere a white pickup truck tried to run him off the road. He narrowly avoided hitting that car, only to be confronted by another man standing in the road mouthing for him to stop. He swerved around that man. And when he did, he says five shots, at least five shots, were fired into the Hertz rental van that he was driving.

Now, he wasn't in an official FedEx truck, but he says the van he was in had two huge Hertz insignias on it and he was also in full uniform.

We talked to him yesterday and he was noticeably upset, mostly because he knows that he's lucky to be alive and just how eerily similar this incident is to what happened to Ahmaud Arbery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: You're convinced that this was racism?

D'MONTERRIO GIBSON, FEDEX DRIVER: Yes, sir.

VALENCIA: Why? GIBSON: I mean, what other reason would -- would there be shooting at

me at nighttime? I haven't said nothing to them. I have no word. We had no type of interaction at all. All they seen was me at work. And I had -- like I said, I did have on a full uniform.

VALENCIA: So this is about being black in America, just doing your job while black?

GIBSON: Yes, sir.

VALENCIA: You could have been another name, like Ahmaud Arbery.

GIBSON: Yes, sir.

VALENCIA: Did you think about that?

GIBSON: I did think about that. And that's why it's very important for me to speak out currently because, like I said, they're not here to speak for themselves, so I'm going to speak for them, as well as myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: Gibson is also upset at the local police department who he says was skeptical about his story. They went so far as to play devil's advocate with him, asking him if he had done anything suspicious.

Now, Brandon and Gregory Case have been charged with aggravated assault and conspiracy to assault, but that's not enough for Gibson and his attorneys. They believe that hate crime charges should be levelled in this instance. The police chief here says that the FBI visited him yesterday. He's handed over the case files. They didn't comment, as is their policy. But we do know that the Department of Justice has received a request to review this. There's no doubt in their mind that they were targeted -- or Gibson was targeted because he's black.

Jim. Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: My goodness, what a disturbing story.

Nick Valencia, keep us posted on all the developments there. Thank you.

VALENCIA: You bet.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the stakes are high as President Biden speaks with NATO and European leaders today. We are live at the White House coming up.

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