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Interview With Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ); President Biden Meets With Saudi Crown Prince; Secret Service Under Fire Over Deleted Text Messages. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 15, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

AARON DAVID MILLER, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: There's no satisfaction on those human rights issues. I hope there will be in the days to come.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Important questions raised.

Aaron David Miller, we will continue this conversation as we learn more about the meeting.

Appreciate your time today on INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you have an enjoyable and peaceful weekend.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Happy Friday.

We're covering a text mess. Today, the Secret Service is pushing back against an inspector general report about messages sent the day of and the day before the January 6 Capitol attack. The I.G. says messages were deleted. So then what happened?

We just found out the inspector general met with January 6 Committee members moments ago. We will bring you up to speed.

Plus, Cassidy Hutchinson just got backup. Remember this testimony on a heated January 6 exchange between then-President Trump and the Secret Service?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO MARK MEADOWS: The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said: "Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel."

Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: A Secret Service official who would only speak on background says the agents involved in this would deny it. But, today, a D.C. police officer says it did happen.

And members of the January 6 panel are working on the next steps in their investigation. Does it include calling former President Trump and Vice President Pence to testify? They're mulling it.

We're staying on top of all of this.

Let's get to CNN's Jessica Schneider now.

And Jessica, first, let's talk about these texts. Tell us what happened.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, a lot of lingering questions here.

So we have just learned that the inspector general who first brought to light that text messages from the Secret Service were erased, he just briefed all nine members of the committee. He was caught on Capitol Hill by our team there. This is all in the midst of what has really become a back-and-forth between the inspector general and the Secret Service.

So here's how it's been playing out. The I.G. sent this letter to lawmakers two days ago. And, in it, he said this. He said: "Many U.S. Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device replacement program. The U.S. Secret Service erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service as part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol on January 6."

But the Secret Service here, they're responding. And they said that this insinuation that they maliciously deleted these text messages is false, and that the texts were only lost during routine phone replacement for their agents and staff.

So the Secret Service then released this statement, saying: "DHS OIG requested electronic communications for the first time on February 26, 2021, after the migration was well under way. The Secret Service notified DHS OIG of the loss of certain phones' data, but confirmed to OIG that none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration."

And the Secret Service is also adding here they're disputing that they have been uncooperative. They say they have been very cooperative. They say they provided almost 800,000 redacted e-mails, nearly 8,000 teams chat messages.

So, Ana, there's a lot of back and forth here as to exactly what happened. Now we know that the inspector general actually on the Hill today talking to the committee. So it's for sure that a lot more info is going to come out about what exactly happened to these text messages, if there was anything relevant surrounding January 6 in them, and why exactly they were destroyed -- Ana.

CABRERA: Right. A lot right now just doesn't add up.

Jessica, I want to follow up here on the D.C. police officer now corroborating Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony. What do we know?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, the Secret Service here once again coming under a lot of scrutiny, all in the wake of Hutchinson's testimony late last month, because she described how she was supposedly told that Trump angrily demanded that Secret Service take him to the Capitol on January 6, and then that Trump even allegedly lunged at his driver.

So our team on Capitol Hill, they have uncovered that a Washington, D.C., police officer has in fact corroborated details of that heated exchange after Trump was told he could not go to the Capitol. And that's because that D.C. police officer was in the motorcade.

So now that we know that officer has talked to the committee corroborating some of those details about this exchange that's been in dispute by the Secret Service,so, again, there's a lot of tension here with the Secret Service. The committee now seems to be zeroing in on the Secret Service and what exactly happened, how Trump reacted, how the Secret Service reacted and responded.

And, again, we're expecting that final hearing next week, Ana. A lot of this would come out then too -- Ana.

[13:05:01]

CABRERA: Jessica Schneider, thank you for that reporting.

And now to the question about whether Mike Pence and potentially even former President Trump will be subpoenaed. The committee saying it may still seek interviews with both.

Katelyn Polantz has the details.

Katelyn, what can you share?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Ana, the committee is revisiting this week something that they have bantered about quite a lot over the past couple months. Do they want to get answers from Donald Trump or Mike Pence directly about January 6, about conversations they had and their thinking?

So, yesterday, it was representative Adam Kinzinger, speaking to "The Wall Street Journal," he broached the idea that the committee would be meeting again, talking about this, potentially subpoenaing Pence or asking him for written answers, a written interview, or potentially even subpoenaing Trump himself.

So one of the things that is curious about this, even though the committee has a lot of political momentum right now, they're trying to nail down all kinds of things, we already know a lot from their investigation about Mike Pence's thinking leading up to January 5.

Several of his top advisers have testified both publicly and behind closed doors, and they have spoken about Pence not being willing to do what Donald Trump wanted him to do on January 6, overturning the election result. One thing we don't know that the committee can't get is what Pence

said directly back to Trump in one-on-one calls they would have. But even if that is something that the committee wanted to pursue, it would not be a simple pursuit for them. It is the sort of thing that likely could get tied up in court, executive privilege claims.

And, of course, Ana, as you know, there have always been many, many challenges that Donald Trump has tried to make to all kinds of attempts to get information out of him directly. So that's what is possible to happen if he were to be subpoenaed as well -- Ana.

CABRERA: Yes, he's quick to sue, quick to try to go to the courts.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

Joining us now is former Deputy Director of the FBI and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. He's also the author of "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump."

Andrew, let's start with those deleted texts from the Secret Service. The agency says these messages were erased as part of a device replacement program. You hear that and, as an investigator, think what?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Boy, Ana, it raises all kinds of questions.

The Secret Service is obviously known for their work protecting the president, but they are a federal law enforcement agency. They come under the Federal Records Act. They're obligated to preserve records like e-mails and text messages as well that their agents and personnel are exchanging.

So it raises questions as to, what were they doing to comply with that act? How did they respond? Did they responsibly embark on a device replacement program that would not lose data? Sometimes, mistakes happen?. Sometimes, things are lost, despite best intentions.

But what was the plan, right, leading into this? And there's a great conflict now between what the service is saying in their responses to this and what the I.G. maintained to Congress in their letter yesterday. So they have said that they don't believe that any of the text messages that the I.G. is looking forward last, but, at the same time, they're saying, well, they started changing over these systems in January, and data resident on some of the phones was lost.

So, how would they even know if they have lost some relevant text messages? There's all kinds of questions here.

CABRERA: Yes, so many questions. I think the biggest one for a lot of us is, what was the intent? Was this really not malicious? The Secret Service says it wasn't malicious at all, but it is suspicious.

So how do you determine what the truth is?

MCCABE: Well, that's exactly the point, right? And it comes in the context of several other really questionable decisions by the Service around this investigation.

So, for instance, it's come to light that they allowed one of their senior executive service personnel, Mr. Ornato, to basically occupy a political position in the White House, which is really questionable judgment for the agency.

We also know that they have embarked upon a bit of a campaign to assassinate the truth and veracity of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, and, at the same time, they have still not presented their agents, Ornato and Engel, to answer questions under oath in front of the committee.

So when you put all these things together, there's a very reasonable question about whether or not the Service is resisting the efforts to investigate January 6. And that is a very corrosive thing, a very corrosive cloud to be hanging over the agency. They could fix this by sending the appropriate people to the Hill to answer questions transparently and just let the information come out.

CABRERA: I mean, help me understand, because, of course, presidents and their families pick who protects them to some degree, right?

[13:10:00]

But is the Secret Service a partisan organization of any sort? Our politics involved in this, possibly?

MCCABE: They shouldn't be, right? They're not a partisan organization. They are a law enforcement organization that serves the country and the American people.

Now, they have a unique and special relationship with the president and the president's family. And respecting that privacy is important. You need the president to be able to trust the Secret Service people who are around him.

But to think that that relationship with the president trumps these federal law enforcement officers' responsibility to come in and testify completely and truthfully to a congressional Oversight Committee is ridiculous. You can't have it both ways.

And I don't think anybody wants a politicized law enforcement agency, a law enforcement agency that's working on behalf of a party. That is not how our society is established and how we think about the rule of law and fairness and all those sorts of things.

CABRERA: Real quick, just since I have you, Congressman Adam Kinzinger says the committee is still considering whether to request a written interview with former Vice President Mike Pence or to issue a subpoena for him to testify.

Pence's team isn't necessarily closing the door on this. How likely and how critical is his testimony?

MCCABE: I think it would be critical to hear from the vice president. I think it's probably unlikely because you can imagine all sorts of legal wrangling that would take place before such a testimony would happen. And that could essentially expire. That could go on beyond the existence of the committee.

However, here's my point. If the president's counsel, the White House counsel thought it was important enough to come in under extraordinary circumstances and provide information, it's hard to see how the vice president couldn't also make that same determination.

We know that the vice president was concerned about what he saw and what people wanted him to do on January 6. It seems perfectly reasonable for him to come in and talk about it.

CABRERA: Andrew McCabe, as always, I appreciate you. Thank you for your time and your expertise.

MCCABE: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: I want to get to some more breaking news right now.

This happened moments ago. The president began this meeting with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now, ahead of this meeting, the president wouldn't say whether he planned to bring up the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and CNN senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly are live in Jeddah, where this meeting is under way right now.

Wolf, let's start here. What do you think these two leaders are likely discussing right now?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I assume they're discussing substantive issues like oil, the price of oil. For example, the U.S. would like to see Saudi Arabia increase oil production if they can, in order to bring down the price per gallon in the United States, a really important issue for the president of the United States.

I assume they're also discussing other strategic issues in the region. The question is, are they actually discussing Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was a columnist for "The New York" -- for "The Washington Post," who was murdered a few years ago?

The CIA, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, authorized, ordered, approved of the attack and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

As a result, during the presidential campaign, then-candidate Biden, presidential candidate Biden, said that Saudi Arabia was a pariah state, would continue to treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah state. But, clearly, today, on this visit here in Jeddah, a meeting with the Saudi leadership, including Mohammed bin Salman, they're not treating Saudi Arabia like a pariah state.

And for the Saudis, I think it's really significant that they're getting this kind of attention. This is what they want, the leader of the free world, the president, United States to come here, and, for all practical purposes, to be showing his respect to the Saudi leadership.

Phil, I know you have been covering the White House for a while. This is an important development.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's critical in every sense of the word.

And I also think it underscores, both Ana and Wolf, the reality of this moment, right? This was a relationship that the president had no desire to see track -- it was obviously going to be different than -- from his predecessor. I don't think there's any question about that.

President Trump's and Jared Kushner's proximity to Mohammed bin Salman, their proximity to the kingdom was unparalleled, to some degree. But I think President Biden came into office and certainly pledged coming into office taking a very different approach than the predecessors prior to that, including perhaps the president in which he was vice president to.

And yet, as we have seen over the course of the last six or seven months in particular, the invasion of Ukraine has obviously led to skyrocketing energy prices. Gas prices are a major political issue, obviously a huge domestic people -- issue for Americans trying to fill up their cars right now. And Saudi Arabia happens to be, A, a long term, 70-, 80-year ally of the United States, but also the biggest player in the global oil markets.

[13:15:02]

And when you talk to U.S. officials, Wolf, one thing they have made clear -- and they use this word a lot -- this is a recalibration, trying to ensure that there isn't a rupture. But there's also a broader context here of this region. And you can see it just driving in from the airport in Jeddah to this hotel. This region is growing. It is very dynamic, not just here in Saudi Arabia, but also in the United Arab Emirates, other countries in the region.

And the U.S. has very clearly concluded that they have to play a role here, despite the fact the president seemed to want to move away from the Middle East. And so you put all of those issues together, whether it's security, whether it's climate, whether its energy, and there's been a very clear recognition in the United States, at least inside the White House, that they have to engage right now, no matter how much that makes the president look like he's flip-flopping, no matter how much it makes it look like human rights is not on the key list of strategic issues here.

They have to engage. And that's exactly why he's here.

BLITZER: It's certainly awkward, given what the president, as a presidential candidate, said about Saudi Arabia being a pariah state. And now we're seeing all the great respect they're showing to Saudi Arabia by coming here and going into this meeting with a nice little fist bump at the beginning, which is going to get a lot of attention.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

And I will say that felt very choreographed. They were being very ambiguous about when the president or would the president shake the hand or give the fist bump or have any personal greeting with the crown prince. And the fact that the crown -- there was no public schedule that the crown prince was supposed to meet President Biden when he arrived at the palace here in Jeddah.

And as he pulled up, he saw the crown prince come out to meet him. And that's a pretty quick and handy way to have that first interaction, check the box and kind of move forward with what are expected to be some very intensive discussions, whether or not anybody thinks checking the box is the right thing here, given the human rights context.

BLITZER: And, Ana, I just want to point out, I think it's really significant -- I'm sure Phil will agree with me -- that these pictures, the video we're getting from Saudi television, the pictures we're getting from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, they want to show the president of the United States meeting with the crown prince, as if things are back to normal in U.S.-Saudi relations, all this released by the Saudi government.

Later today, in "THE SITUATION ROOM" -- and we're going to be anchoring -- I'm going to be anchoring from here in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I will be speaking with one of the Saudi ministers who was in this meeting, Adel Al-Jubeir, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States, now the minister of state for foreign affairs.

He's going to be joining me in the Situation Room, try to get a sense of, did the name Jamal Khashoggi come up during this meeting? What else did they talk about? Did the U.S. get a commitment from Saudi Arabia to increase oil production? A lot of substantive questions. We will see if we get the answers.

CABRERA: That will be an interesting interview.

And I should note, as you were discussing, we got some reports from this meeting. And it turns out a reporter right at the start of this meeting asked MBS, the crown prince, whether he would apologize or would in this moment apologize to the family of Jamal Khashoggi. And he just didn't even answer. So, that name did come up at the start of this meeting, as it turns out.

Wolf, Phil, thank you both for your hard work and reporting there.

Much more on this breaking news. Right after this, I'm going to be speaking with a Democratic lawmaker and get his take.

We're back in just a moment.

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[13:22:29] CABRERA: We're back with the breaking news out of Saudi Arabia, President Biden right now meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Let's bring in a Democratic congressman on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Malinowski of New Jersey.

Congressman, thanks for your time.

You have been consistent about the need for people at the top in Saudi Arabia to be held accountable for that 2018 murder of "Washington Post" columnist Jamal Khashoggi. And, as a candidate, as we discussed, Biden vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah over that killing. That was a campaign promise. And, today, he's fist-bumping MBS.

So what do you think changed?

REP. TOM MALINOWSKI (D-NJ): President Biden has been completely honest, unlike his predecessor, about Saudi Arabia's responsibility and the responsibility of MBS for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

President Biden will cut off the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. He got a cease-fire in Yemen, hopefully the beginning of an end to that horrible, bloody war.

But I'm still not entirely comfortable with the image of this meeting. Look, I think the most important issue right now in the world is the war between Russia and Ukraine, the battle between democracy and authoritarianism. Saudi Arabia has not been acting like our ally in that conflict.

In fact, in every important way, they have aligned themselves with Russia by artificially keeping the price of oil high, hurting us, hurting American consumers, and profiting themselves off of this terrible war. And I think it's a time for the United States to show a little bit more strength in our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

We are the superpower, not the supplicant, in this relationship, and I want to make sure that whatever they're discussing right now, we come out of this with the concessions that Saudi Arabia needs to make to right their relationship with us.

CABRERA: Obviously, the optics of that photo of the president fist- bumping MBS, it does send a message that Saudi Arabia likely wants to see out there that there is sort of a friendly relationship here, that it's all good.

And the White House is acknowledging that, yes, this comes with controversy. Yes, the human rights record is not good in Saudi Arabia. Those are issues they do disagree upon.

But the White House argues it's easier to work with the Saudis than without them in the bigger picture globally and for national interests. Do you agree with that?

[13:25:07] MALINOWSKI: There are some things we need from Saudi Arabia.

Number one, they have got to do their part to stabilize the energy markets. They have refused to do so to this point. And I'm looking for some results out of this meeting. On human rights, it doesn't matter if it's discussed in the meeting. What matters, again, are the results. Will the president be able to secure the release of Americans who are still prohibited from leaving Saudi Arabia?

Will he actually get the Saudis to institute real reforms to advance the rights of women and minorities in that country? And let's remember that Saudi Arabia probably would not exist as a country without its defense relationship with the United States.

We have done arguably more for Saudi Arabia and its neighbor the United Arab Emirates to help them defend themselves than we have done for Ukraine. And we have done a lot for Ukraine. And I think there's a time when we need to say, look, if you're not willing to help us cut oil, gas prices, if you're not willing to make concessions on human rights and other things that are important to the United States, then those Patriot missile batteries that we have delivered to you, we kind of need them in Eastern Europe.

Ukraine needs them. And you're not entitled to that kind of protection from the United States indefinitely.

CABRERA: So we know oil is an issue top of mind for President Biden, supply, demand, the inflation of gas prices, as you acknowledge.

And, of course, you're up for reelection coming up in the midterms. And the economy, voters tell us, is their top priority. In the case of Saudi Arabia and the card it holds when it comes to oil, what incentive do they have to help the U.S. out on the oil front?

MALINOWSKI: Again, I think the main incentive is that we guarantee Saudi Arabia's security. And no other country can.

There are -- there's sometimes talk about how the Saudis might go to Russia or go to China to help them with their defense. Well, good luck. Russia is not going to help Saudi Arabia. China's not going to patrol the Persian Gulf or have troops deployed to defend Saudi oil fields. Only the United States is going to do that for them.

And I think that's a card that we need to play. We should be willing to -- look, the key question for me here is, does the United States jump through hoops to repair our relationship with Saudi Arabia, or should it be on Saudi Arabia to jump through some hoops to repair their relationship with the United States?

I think it should be the latter. We have a lot of cards. We should play them. And I hope -- in a way, I hope I'm wrong. I hope the president gets these results from this trip. If so, I will give him full credit. But it has to be about results, not about meetings.

CABRERA: Congressman Tom Malinowski, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. MALINOWSKI: Thank you.

CABRERA: We will continue to watch the meeting, any new developments that come from that meeting with the president and MBS.

Meantime, a member of the president's own party back here in Washington just dealt a serious blow to the Biden agenda, or did he? We're on the Hill next.

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