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Russia-Ukraine Tensions; Russia Disinformation Campaign Against Ukraine Intensifies; Ukraine Civilians Train, Prepare For Potential Russian Invasion; Helicopter Crashes Into Ocean Near Miami Beach, Two People Taken To Hospital; NYT Author Gives An Inside Look At Flynn's Attempt To Overturn The 2020 Election. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 19, 2022 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:20]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jim Acosta.

World leaders right now rushing to prevent potential war between Russia and Ukraine. The message from the U.S., crystal clear. At a global security conference in Munich today, Vice President Kamala Harris warned that if Russia invades Ukraine, the consequences will be swift, severe and united.

President Biden, he says he's now convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine, but he and other top officials insist that even in this 11th hour, diplomacy is still possible.

Now the Kremlin is once again denying Russia is planning its attack, but it's got Ukraine pretty much surrounded. U.S. officials estimate Russia has likely amassed up to 190,000 troops in and around Ukraine. And there have been new reports of shelling in the eastern part of the country.

CNN team on tour of the front lines with Ukraine's interior minister came under mortar fire today. No one was injured, but it was very, very real, very tense.

And in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour this morning, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is preparing for any developments, but is urging his nation to remain calm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We do not think that we need to panic. We think these risks are indeed very high because we have more troops -- 150,000 troops on our borders. Yes, indeed, that's a big risk, but a very big risk if we respond. If we do respond to one provocation or the other and although on the temporary occupied territories, we have a lot of provocations and we see them.

We see through the mass media, they're disseminating different provocative information. We need to preserve our stability. We need to keep calm and be adults. In this time, Ukraine's army is more adult than others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: I want to get right to CNN's Arlette Saenz at the White House. And Arlette, the president stayed in town this weekend. He's in the White House largely to keep an eye on what's going on right now. And he made very clear yesterday, he's convinced President Putin has decided to invade Ukraine. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is in Germany for the Munich security conference. Give us the very latest on what the administration is saying right now.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Phil, the Biden administration remains on high alert as U.S. officials continue to warn that Russia could invade Ukraine in the coming days. It was just yesterday President Biden first revealed that he believes Putin has made that final decision to move forward with an invasion. And sources say that that is in part based on intelligence assessment that half of the Russian troops on the border of Ukraine have moved into an attack position.

That is something that was reiterated by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who was traveling in Lithuania who said that they are preparing for the possibility of Russian forces having the ability to strike.

Now President Biden has remained here in Washington to monitor and talk with his national security team as this crisis between Russia and Ukraine continues.

But over in Europe, several top administration officials have been on hand to meet with allies including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The goal there is really trying to have this show of unity among the U.S. and its allies in expressing solidarity and support for Ukraine.

Vice President Harris was very forceful in remarks today when she warned of the dire circumstances that the Munich security conference was meeting under.

And she also had a warning about the swift and severe consequences that Russia would face if it moves forward with an invasion. She spoke about that a little bit as she met with Ukrainian President Zelensky earlier today. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Russia further invades your country as I mentioned earlier today, we will impose swift and severe economic sanctions. If Russia takes aggressive action against Ukraine, we are prepared to implement and to do that work in a unified way with our allies around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SAENZ: And even as the U.S. is warning an attack could come in the coming days, President Biden is still trying to keep that the door for diplomacy open. There's supposed to be a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, though President Biden said that if there is an attack, that door to diplomacy will be shut by Russia, Phil.

MATTINGLY: It's going to be a long five days waiting to see if that meeting actually happens.

Arlette Saenz, great reporting as always, my friend. Thanks so much.

[17:04:57] ] MATTINGLY: Now, as tensions continue to rise between Russia and Ukraine, so is the amount of disinformation being put out by Russia.

Here's CNN's Nick Paton Walsh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wars come with their own fog -- chaos, phone lines down, panic sowing confusion.

But in eastern Ukraine, that fog has long been fanned. Amplified with false narratives, critics say, part of Moscow's strategy.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have reason to believe that they are engaged in a false flag operation. They have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have is they're prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine.

WALSH: Sometimes, it is easy to spot, a separatist leader Dennis Puchinin (ph) called on (INAUDIBLE) in the separatist Demet (ph) People's Republic to flee Friday's escalating violence into Russia.

But the video file of this speech, which mentioned Friday's date -- was in fact created on Wednesday according to its meta data. A similar speech from an neighboring separatist Lahansk (ph) had the same timing issue. So unless the same technical fault occurred both times, both leaders seemed to know midweek how bad things would get by Friday. Making the call for civilians to flee a lot less spontaneous.

Then an explosion hit the city of Donetsk, separatist media said. They showed this military jeep destroyed. Nobody was harmed, but the apparent blast fed a narrative of violence mounting around the separatists.

Then there is the mass exodus of civilians from separatist areas, planned for hundreds of thousands, but so far, a lot less. Pictures on Russian state Tv.

They get 10,000 rubles or $130 on rival in Russia and however many really arrive, it is the sort of pretext Russia used in the past to justify assisting separatist rebels. This video is quite dramatic and separatists said it was of clashes with Polish saboteurs trying to blow up an ammonia storage plant on Friday morning.

But the video's meta data shows it was created about ten days earlier, another technical fact that doesn't fit the separatist narrative.

A separatist news crew was at hand, too, to capture this -- another blast at a pipeline. The camera man could have miraculous timing or it could fit into the slow pattern of misinformation which grows often in advance of the violence in eastern Ukraine and provides a signal of what is to come. The direction in which the fog of war is being found.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN -- Poland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: I want to discuss that and more with former Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, William Cohen. Secretary, so much of what this administration has been doing the last couple of weeks has been trying to front run this information, to take away the opportunity for President Putin to have a pretext which he's utilized so often in the past.

Do you think that might actually work given how tense things seem to be right now?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I think it may. There is still a chance as President Biden said, there's an off ramp in this particular case. It was important I learned today through CNN that the Chinese foreign minister or ministry issued a statement saying that they did not support Russia attacking, moving in, trying to attack Ukraine.

That's very important because Putin has made it a point to try and show his new relationship, strong relationship, with the Chinese. For China to speak out at this time, if in fact that's true, they'll be sending a signal to Putin that we're not with you on this. This is something that violates our own statements about not intervening in foreign country's territory.

But secondly, if they're studying -- if Putin is studying Chinese, he should read Sun Tzu. And Sun Tzu said that the goal of the military is not to wage war, but to conquer the enemy without going to war. To conquer the mind.

And I think what Putin has done, he's concentrated the mind of Ukrainians and the west. So he's gotten his goal, his objective. You haven't been listening to me, now you're listening to me. So I think what China has said today may have some impact.

Also, we've been talking about false flags. And here, it's really curious that President Putin has said I don't intend to invade, even though everything is poised in attack mode. I don't intend to invade and so it may be he is, has a false flag operation by releasing disinformation to its military command in order to see whether or not he can trace, if there's a mole in his bureaucracy.

[17:09:59]

COHEN: So he could be sending out signals he's ready to attack when in fact, he's really trying to find out if we have access to his people on the ground.

And in that case, he could say -- he could back away saying that I made my point. I've shown you my military power. And now I can flex it at anytime in the future if I feel threatened. And now let's talk about how you can accommodate my interests.

So it may be kind of a false flag operation that he's put out there. I don't think so, but hypothetically, it's possible.

One other thing. President Zelensky was terrific today in Munich. And what he said was that I can't function much longer under these circumstances because Russia has basically conducted an operation python. It's wrapped itself around the country basically and is squeezing it economically, psychologically.

No country can stand that for any length of time. So I think he's correct to say I'm under attack now. How long are you going to wait before you at least have some of these actions that you're promising to take. Take some of them now to let the Russians know what is coming.

But I can't survive over the long-term if they're just sitting there, poised there, and suffocating me or squeezing me to the point where I can't maintain my government.

MATTINGLY: Yes. The economic repercussions are very real, very tangible. You know, the off-ramp here to the extent it still exists and U.S. officials have made clear, it does. Even if it seems to be narrowing.

We've seen the Russian 11-page proposal that was a response to U.S. security proposals. They don't overlap much. I understand that part of that is messaging, maybe a baseline starting point for actual talks.

But what is an off ramp? What's doable here from a diplomatic perspective should talks actually launch in a genuine manner?

COHEN: Well, there are talks that could include for example, what sort of weaponry can be posted in various NATO countries. Is there anything really offensive that we're worried about striking it?

Most of the NATO countries, what they're involved in is defense. NATO has been expanded in a sense that putting shields up to protect these countries against Russian and formerly Soviet Union attack. That's the purpose of NATO to defend the western countries from attack by the former Soviet Union.

Now Putin under the flag of Russia is doing the same thing. So we have erected shields against that kind of attack and what Putin wants is to take away the shields. Pull back the United States. Pull those troops out.

I want to be able to threaten those other countries like I'm threatening Ukraine now. And so what he has set forth is something impossible for the United States or the West to accept. It's a position, dramatic in the sense that he's set the tone, he's set the table. And he's asking us to respond to his excessive demands that cannot possibly be met.

But what we could need is say, yes, we'll be careful how we conduct our training mission in Europe. So you don't feel that we're launching a preemptive attack. We can do things like that.

But you can't insist that no country has the right to determine his future. You can't insist that those free countries and NATO should withdraw all of their capabilities so that you at a moment's notice or some future time could invade them like the Soviet Union threatened to invade them in the past.

MATTINGLY: You know, you hit on a key point there and I think the biggest red line for the Russians, at least as they've stated, is obviously NATO -- potential NATO expansion, the posture of NATO. You mentioned President Zelensky's interview with Christiane earlier where he had very strong statements as it related to NATO. That seems to be kind of the big issue to some degree, many of them.

You're talking that U.S. officials, they made clear, NATO membership for Ukraine is not a near term thing. It's years if not decades into the future.

Is there a way to thread that needle in terms of Ukrainian pursuit of NATO membership? Even though I know it's in their constitution?

COHEN: The reality is such that if you were to pull any of the NATO countries whose representatives defense ministers and others who were at the Munich conference, if they were to say are you prepared to vote to have Ukraine join NATO?

The answer would be a resounding no because Ukraine is not prepared. It doesn't qualify for NATO membership and they're going to think about this heavily in the future in terms of is it something they on a unanimous basis support entry into the E.U. -- into NATO.

Of equal concern would be can Ukraine qualify for E.U. membership. That is something that Putin is also opposed to. So he wants them under what I would call the roof or the jail of Russia. And the Ukrainians to say we want to be free, we want to be like the rest of the west. We want to be like America. We want to have democracy. We want to have -- try to clean out corruption in the country, which is endemic and has been. We want to live free and prosper.

[17:15:00]

COHEN: And what Putin is saying, no. We want you to be under our system, which is an oligarchy. It's an autocracy. It's all of the -- the things that we call them -- totalitarian, et cetera. So they want to control Ukraine and bring them back into Russian domination and then they want to put the west in a position -- don't pose any kind of a defensive or offensive threat to us or remove your troops.

It's simply not acceptable to us and I think what we have to do and I think it's great that we made such a strong presence in Munich. By the way, this is the first time in 42 years I haven't been at the Munich conference, but it's really important that we have solidarity with our NATO allies because they're on the front lines over there as well.

And if we have to take action, too, geographically (INAUDIBLE) that's going to affect them. It's going to affect us. It's going to affect every American. And this is something that the American people have to understand.

What happens in Ukraine, what happens in Europe, doesn't stay in Ukraine. Doesn't stay in Europe. It affects all of us. Price of gas, inflation, disruption of supplies. All of that is at risk here including the global economy. So it's really important that we send a strong message. And it was really important that China made that statement today.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Still I think one of the most underappreciated moments of the day. Former secretary of defense William Cohen thanks so much, sir. Really appreciate it.

COHEN: Good to be with you, Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right. Coming up, Ukrainian civilians are now taking part in training to prepare for a possible Russian invasion. We'll take you inside that training coming up next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:16:37]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: As world leaders do their best to stop Russia from potentially moving in on its neighbor, some Ukrainian civilians are taking matters into their own hands.

Erin Burnett shows us our Ukrainians are preparing to fight in case all-out warfare erupts.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Phil, people we've talked to over the past several days now do say they feel more unsettled. After Biden's comments that Putin has decided to invade and also because of what they're seeing in the Donbas right now.

One young man told me Putin's not a balanced person. Now, another woman I've been speaking with all week says she's now scared. Before she was just worried. But -- and this is what's really important, it's a but. She and her f0riends are still going to work. They are going about their normal lives even in the face of that fear. And some people here are actually training to fight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: This weekend in Lviv, Ukraine a few hundred civilians gathering to prepare their defense training session.

People of all ages, but most of them young. The youngest, for us, the most jarring to see.

Natalya was here with here daughters, Kalina (ph) and Hefiya (ph). She tells me she talks to them all the time about possible war with Russia.

NATALYA, PREPARING FOR POSSIBLE WAR: Yes, we always talk about this. About war and we have a plan. That's why we are here.

Burnett: The training organized by a far right political party and overseen by the Ukrainian government's Territorial Defense Forces. People today here learning hand to hand knife fighting with sticks, using wooden guns to practice shooting around corners. Shooting rifles in group tactical target practice and listening to how to handle bazookas, detonators and mines.

Kalina, paying close attention. Her mother tells me she is most worried they won't leave in time if there's a full Russian invasion, but Natalya says she stays because she's a surgeon.

And I know you want to stay here. Why?

NATALYA: Because I'm doctor and I think I can help people when war will come to our home.

BURNETT: Natalya's patriotism, a powerful symbol to Putin. Up here on a windy hill above the city of Lviv, she and other Ukrainians taking this literally. "Don't panic. Prepare."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Natalya says if she left with her children, her husband would stay behind to fight.

And Phil, spending time at that practice was eye opening because on the one hand, it reflects what we've seen and heard from everyone we've spoken to, right. They're passionate and they're deeply patriotic.

But on the other, when you watch what you saw in that piece, you realize how a full invasion could be so painful and involve such incredible civilian suffering, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Erin Burnett, thanks so much.

Real people. Real implications.

All right. Coming up next, we are now hearing from people who were on the beach during this stunning helicopter crash off the coast of Miami Beach. That's coming up next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:23:52]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: We're following breaking news into CNN. I want you take a look at this video of a helicopter crashing into the ocean just feet away from people on the shore and in the water of Miami Beach in Florida.

Now, we're learning there were three people on board that helicopter. Two were transported to a hospital and incredibly, police tell CNN the third person was not injured.

And just moments ago, one witness described exactly what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were literally just sitting down over there and you know, we had seen that helicopter go back and forth over the deep water several times but then as it got closer -- you know, well you know I'm an aircraft mechanic so I noticed it didn't actually even have a chance to auto rotate when it came down.

It just -- whatever he did, he just lost it. Came down, smashed, blades went going that way, helicopter started tipping. Everybody, I mean the whole beach, ran to the scene. Probably ten guys, you know, pulling the skid down so it didn't collapse over because it was sitting on the blade.

When the blades snapped, helicopter started going over. So we're pulling the skid down, two guys were inside pulling the passengers out. It was a very, very quick reaction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Remarkable, quick reaction. Now, earlier, I spoke with CNN transportation analyst, Mary Schiavo. Here's what she says stood out to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: It appears they were losing power in the engine. And they were doing what's called auto-rotation to the ground. When a helicopter engine quits, it doesn't necessarily just fall from the sky.

[17:29:55]

SCHIAVO: So there were two important things at work here. One, the pilot was trained, knew how to do it. And, two, was able to maintain some control of the aircraft.

Because it appears that, once you lose your engines, you have nowhere to go but, hopefully, a controlled trajectory down.

But it does appear that the copter was able to steer away from the beachgoers.

Two important points. The pilot was able to maintain some semblance of control and get it out with an upset. In other words, they were still upright next to the water.

MATTINGLY: Thankful and lucky, they avoided beachgoers and, at this moment, no deaths have been reported.

In a case like this, does the water help to some degree in the sense, do you believe the pilot may have been -- I think he might, have been aiming for the water if he was in some semblance of control?

SCHIAVO: Yes, pilots often aim for the water for more than one reason. It doesn't usually provide much of a soft landing. It can help. It depends on the altitude from which you have descended.

I mean, If you're literally falling from a high altitude, hitting water is like hitting cement.

But here, because they maintained some level of control, yes, the water probably helped. But in so many accidents, pilots head towards the water to save the lives of people on the ground.

MATTINGLY: We have also just learned that the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating.

Walk us through what an investigation would look like in an accident like this.

SCHIAVO: Well, first and foremost, they're going to grab all of the records and interview people, first and foremost, eyewitnesses, ear witnesses.

In this case, since the occupant of the helicopter survived, they will be able to interview them.

Surprisingly, they go right to the hospital. The NTSB literally will -- a team will be headed to the hospital to interview the occupants and presumably the pilot and a passenger.

And they do take a statement from them right away, from the beach- goers, et cetera.

The second thing that's really important is they grab all the logbooks and maintenance records. Logbooks of the pilot, logbooks of the aircraft, has a logbook, too, logbooks of any recent maintenance, dispatch.

If this helicopter is part of a larger operation, they're going to be talking to dispatch as to what the helicopter had been doing all day.

If it's a privately owned helicopter, obviously, they will go to the maintenance facility that works on the helicopter. But interviews, eyewitness, ear witness interviews, and grabbing all

the records are the first two priorities.

Then of course, the helicopter itself. They cordon off the area. By law, the NTSB has primary jurisdiction.

Although, state and local authorities are very important, the sheriff's office, for example, the Coast Guard. They'll be hugely important. They're secure the aircraft.

Then the NTSB has the rights to do whatever it needs to do to investigate that aircraft.

They will -- they can take the helicopter apart if it's still intact. They can look at all the components. They can ask the manufacturer, for example, to help.

But right now, it's a big effort to gather all the evidence, interviews, and logbooks, and the aircraft itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: We'll keep you updated on that.

And a quick programming note. CNN is premiering a new original series focused on the life and presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson. See how his presidency was as complicated as the times he served.

Tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. on CNN.

Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: LBJ was intensely aware that he came into the office under the cloak of tragedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It drove him to try to do things no one else had ever achieved.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said to his aides, "What the hell is a presidency for? If you're not going to do something bold, why be here?"

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Lyndon Johnson would be seen today as one of our greatest presidents because of all that he did. But he made one bad mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vietnam really pulled him apart. He couldn't make a win out of it, no matter how hard he tried.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: LBJ said, I wish they knew that I want peace as much they do.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's important to reflect and look back and see what has been done because there's no better way to judge the future than by the past.

[17:34:20]

ANNOUNCER: "LBJ, TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY," premiers tomorrow night at 9:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: It's the story you may not know about the days after Trump pardoned his disgraced former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

According to a piece in "The New York Times Magazine," at the time Flynn received the pardon in November 2020, he was actually hunkered down at a secluded estate in South Carolina with right-wing lawyers, Sydney Powell, and others.

Consumed with trying to reverse the results of the election Trump had lost by seven million votes

There were computers, printer, white boards. The owner of "The State" magazine, quote, "It look liked election central."

Soon after, Flynn raised alarm bells with an interview taking about martial law, right here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: He could also order -- he could order the -- within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in those states.

It's not unprecedented. These people out there talking about martial law, like it's something we've never done. Martial law has been instituted, 64, 64 times, right?

[17:40:06]

So I'm not calling for that. We have a constitutional process. We clearly have a constitutional process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: On December 18th, just one day after that interview, the article details how Flynn, Powell, and former Overstock chief executive, Patrick Byrne, got an Oval Office meeting with Trump.

And they had quote, "lined up a series of options for the president to consider, including using uniformed officials to confiscate voting machines and ballots in six states."

"Flynn being of the belief that the National Guard and U.S. Marshalls in combination would be the most suited for the job."

Joining me now, the author of that piece, Robert Draper.

Robert, I was going to read the piece because I'm an avid consumer of your work and pieces.

But I was stunned how quickly I was surprised by the detail of everything you were reporting.

The idea of using martial law was rejected. But Flynn wasn't willing to let it go. He even tried to encourage then-Congressman Devin Nunez to push a wild conspiracy theory that involved an Italian defense contractor.

Tell me about that.

ROBERT DRAPER, WRITER, "NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE": Ye, sure. As you're saying, Phil, I mean, he didn't want to go after -- on December the 18th, he made his pitch in the White House to President Trump and President Trump's legal team basically shot it down.

So he then went to Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and proposed to him that he perhaps do something, find within his means to use military intervention, essentially to go into six contested states and seize voting machines.

As you mentioned, reached out to Congressman Devin Nunez. Nunes knew a guy, Derrick Harvey, who was working for him, who had been a old Flynn cohort and tried to get Nunez to do something about it.

He also reach out to -- or attempted to reach out to the director of National Intelligence, John Radcliffe, to see what he could do.

Flynn was really kind of a one-man all-hands-on-deck in his efforts to use military means to overturn the election results.

MATTINGLY: Yes. The stuff from EZra Cohen-Watnick that you got, his responses were telling, I would say at the least.

Flynn has been subpoenaed by the January 6th committee. You write that their interest in him makes him more than a MAGA circus writer. What do you mean by that?

DRAPER: It remains to be seen, just weather or not - I mean, it's still a very, very opaque situation, Phil, as to just how much planning was involved in what became an insurrection on January 6th at the capital.

And whether or not that was President Trump's intention. Whether or not people around him, including General Flynn, were interested in that scenario as well.

And the very fact that Flynn is talking about these -- speaking in that interview, that cites with such casualness about the notion of sending the military into six swing states, suggests that they were ready to go to extraordinary lengths to do that. Flynn has been subpoenaed, as you mentioned. He has defied that

subpoena. He's trying to block their ability to get his phone records. So this has yet to play out.

And Flynn, like a lot of people are, is trying to run out the clock on this investigation of the January 6th committee.

MATTINGLY: Yes, the election is coming.

Again, there's so many pieces. This great color that I had no concept of.

Flynn wanted to continue to spread the conspiracies of the 2020 election at the January 6th rally. But that didn't happen. You paint this picture of him bummed out sitting there watching.

Why didn't it happen?

DRAPER: Weirdly, what Michael Flynn wanted was this sober, exhaustive recitation on January 6th of all of this supposed election fraud that had taken place.

So that people on national television, people in the audience, would be convinced that, wow, something really catastrophic happened with our 2020 election.

That obviously is not what Trump ever had in mind. In fact, I'm a little surprised that Flynn, ever having some proximity to the president, thought that the president would spend that time of his trotting out evidence.

Yes, as you say, he was bummed out. He thought it was theatrical. He thought it was essentially Trump being all about Trump.

And so he was very desultory. He and Pat Byrne left. And if you believe them, packed their bags at the Trump Hotel and left shortly thereafter.

MATTINGLY: It's a great piece. You're got to read it.

Robert Draper, I was thinking about you a lot this week when secretary of state was speaking at the U.N. Security Council.

You have an excellent book. Very different circumstances but it came to mind. Read that book, "To Start a War," as well.

Great piece in "The New York Times Magazine."

Robert Draper, really appreciate your time.

DRAPER: Thanks for having me, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Coming up next, you may think you know the story of Watergate, but a brand-new book is shedding light on the origin of the scheme. Author Garrett Graff joins me next.

[17:44:58]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: It was the crisis that brought down a president and changed U.S. politics. Nearly 50 years later, Watergate, in many ways, remains one of the nation's biggest unsolved mysteries.

The scandal, uncovered ab intricate trail of wrongdoing that led all the way to the White House and Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency.

But what remains unclear today is who officially ordered that break in of the Democratic National Committee offices at the complex in D.C.? And what exactly was the aim? What were they going for?

Joining me now, Garrett Graff, the author of the brand-new book titles "Watergate and Its History," which tries to answer those very questions. He's also a CNN contributor.

[17:50:03]

Garrett, honestly, I plan to read this book the beginning of this week. My day job at the White House got busy. It's also a long book.

Not saying that to dissuade people from getting it. I'm excited to read it.

But I'm also excited to get your insight on this. It looks at the full scope of Watergate, from start to finish.

What are today's leading conjectures about the motives behind the geniuses of the scandal?

GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Obviously, Watergate is something that has been sliced and diced a thousand different ways over the last 50 years.

What is fascinating to me is after I started to write a finished history of those events, that hinge upon so much of the 20th century, is realizing how much of it still remain a mystery.

As you said, this is a scandal where no one has ever been prosecuted for actually giving the order for the burglars to break into the Democratic National Convention June 17th.

Even what they were doing there remains relatively the subject of a different competing theories.

We normally shorthand it as a bugging operation. But it seems just as possible that they were in there trying to uncover blackmail material either on the Democrats or to figure out what the Democrats had on Richard Nixon.

MATTINGLY: It's so interesting you say that. If you were to ask 30 people in Washington what the genesis of it was, they would tell you an answer and that it was done. It's agreed upon this is what happened. But it has no answer.

My question is, do you think there will ever be one? You've written this comprehensive extraordinary work. Do you think anybody will be able to figure out what it was?

GRAFF: Yes. This is part what makes Watergate still so fascinating 50 years later is this idea that this is a scandal that I think we know.

We all grew up at this point with the Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman version of "All the President's Men." But this is a much bigger, much weirder scandal than any of us remember.

A total of 69 different people were indicted and charged with crimes stemming from Watergate. Including New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

And what we shorthanded Watergate is really an interrelated umbrella of about 12 distinct scandals, some of which would be monumental in their own right.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. And as you say, in a couple of cases, I think there's too much time has passed and too many of the players have died for us to get definitive answers.

MATTINGLY: One of the things -- and I'm not saying there is apples to apples parallels.

But one of the interesting elements over the course of the last six to eight months, a lot of new elements have come out about January 6th that led up to January 6th.

There's a misconception that the kind of Robert Redford, the movie, this all happened in six months, it was done. It was a lengthy period of time where a lot of people thought it was done.

Do you see any parallels in term of that crisis or crises and what we have been working through on the last year?

GRAFF: Over the last five years. That led me to want to do this project in first place.

Look at this modern lens where we have been struggling to hold the president to account for crimes, corruption and abuses of power and go back to a moment when Washington worked.

I think that makes the Watergate story so sticky to us. In many ways, the best and most interesting story of how power actually flows in Washington.

The executive branch, the FBI, the House and the Senate each playing their own role in this intricate set of checks and balances all coming together to force a corrupt and criminal president from office.

That, to me, is an important lesson in how we look at today and why Washington worked then and how it's not now.

MATTINGLY: We got about 25 seconds left. What was the one thing that you learned that you didn't know that really was kind of most jarring to you?

GRAFF: I think the full scope and scale of just how big this is. The lesson that Washington always learned from Watergate is that the crime is always -- the cover up is worse than the crime.

When you go back and look at Watergate, the crimes were numerous and pretty terrible.

[17:55:01]

MATTINGLY: You got to pick up the book. It's comprehensive. Pick up Watergate, new history.

Garrett Graff, new book, "Watergate and New History. Came out earlier this week.

Thanks so much for taking the time. I can't wait to dig in in the next couple of days. I appreciate it, Garrett.

GRAFF: Thanks, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Thank you for joining me. I'll be back here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.

In the meantime, Pamela Brown takes over the CNN NEWSROOM, life, after a quick break.

Have a great Saturday night.

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