Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Trump Accuses Clinton Of Bribing A.G. In Email Probe; FBI: No "Clear Evidence" Clinton Intended To Break Law; Interview with Rep. Chris Collins; Trump Praises Saddam Hussein: "He Killed Terrorists"; Clinton's Judgment In Spotlight After Email Findings; Interview with Rep. Xavier Becerra. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired July 06, 2016 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Most people who were watching that press conference thought that charges would be filed. He was very clear and very concise about the fact that there was classified information on that server. There were multiple servers. That the email server was so insecure that Gmail was more secure and that it is possible that individuals who had bad intentions would have had access to her private email --
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But he felt that it wasn't intentional -- intentional spreading of classified information and that was the criminal --
LEWANDOWSKI: The law does not require intent and what we have seen in the past is that other individuals, whether they're U.S. Marines or Reserve officers who have shared classified information, whether it was intentional --
CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Knowingly shared.
LEWANDOWSKI: -- or not --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
LEWANDOWSKI: -- have been prosecuted for the same thing.
CAMEROTA: So, Corey, what do you want to see happen?
LEWANDOWSKI: Well, unfortunately, here's what has happened, right? Hillary Clinton is going to, once again, get away it because there's two separate sets of rules. There's a separate set of rules for the people who are the haves and there's a separate set of rules for the people that are have nots.
And if you are the active duty military person who by happenstance sent an email to someone to say I'm concerned about this and it was a classified document, that person would be prosecuted. And it has been done in the past, and that's shameful.
CAMEROTA: Well, I mean -- the last word to Christine, but that is what people are saying today that makes them uncomfortable about the finding. QUINN: But, in the FBI director's statements it's clear that intent was relevant to his decision, one. Two, what the Trump campaign is referring to, in some cases, is general -- the general's actions, right, around having an affair --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
QUINN: -- which is clear violation of military rules --
CAMEROTA: Petraeus, yes.
QUINN: Yes, Gen. Petraeus. A clear violation of military rules and knowingly giving the woman he was having an affair with, his biographer, classified information. That is not comparable to what we are talking about here at all.
CAMEROTA: Assertiveness. Corey, Christine, thank you very much for both sides of this. Let's get over to Chris.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Look, there's certainly the political aspect of this. That's what's being discussed right now. But this was a fundamentally legal decision. The FBI says it was extreme carelessness, but that's not gross negligence, and that's not criminal behavior. Now, did they make the right call legally? We have experts debating it, next.
[07:32:10]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:36:10] CUOMO: All right, there's no question of what just happened with this emails and the decision of the FBI not to prosecute is going to play huge in politics. But it all starts with whether or not, legally, it was the right determination. Was it right not to prosecute?
Let's debate with two people who know this game very, very well. CNN senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. You have both been all over the system here. You worked in the job at the U.S. Attorney's office figuring out these cases. So, let's play the disadvantage today. You do the defense, you do the prosecution.
He comes out, he says extreme carelessness. Sound like gross negligence to me. Was it a wink by the prosecutor that he could have made this case, but for some reason chose not to?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there's some bizarre things going on here because first of all, Director Comey is the cop on the beat. He's supposed to be out investigating the facts of the case, and only the facts. Then he's supposed to be referring that to the Justice Department in-house career unit. They're supposed to make the decision whether to prosecute or not.
But Comey's a former federal prosecutor. He goes off the reservation and instead of just saying I'm reporting the facts, he's saying we're not going to prosecute. Well, that's not his decision. Now, I --
CUOMO: You think they set him up to make that to give some cover to the attorney general after what happened with the Clinton plane incident?
CALLAN: I think that he's torn by being very -- this is a close case and any prosecutor who looks at this case is going to say there's enough here to support an indictment, but should we indict? Would it be won at trial? And I think you could make a good argument that it would be a hard case to win at trial.
And let me focus on one thing, the thing you've been talking all morning, extreme carelessness. Extreme carelessness and gross negligence, as a matter of law, are indistinguishable. They're virtually the same thing. Negligence is carelessness. An extreme form of carelessness is gross negligence. The statute here doesn't require intentional conduct, it requires gross negligence.
But, Comey, in this wandering press conference he gave, made out an intentional case, as well, because he said, remember, that there were 110 classified emails that any reasonable person would have known were classified. And he said some of them were, in fact, marked, and that Hillary Clinton transmitted those on an unsecure system. That's an intent to transfer classified information that is grossly negligent. I say you can make this case out as a prosecutor.
CUOMO: But there's a curve ball in it, right, Jeffrey, that gross negligence is the standard in the statute but that's not the standard that's usually employed when they prosecute under that.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Exactly. It's never been the standard that, as far I understand it and as far as Comey implied at the press conference -- is that every time there has been a prosecution for improper disclosure of classified information it has been against the defendant who the government could show knew the material was classified and intentionally disclosed it anyway. And there has never been any evidence that Hillary Clinton knew that this material was classified and disclosed it anyway.
The markings he referred to -- and he used a peculiar phrasing. It is not clear that there were marked classified documents and, in any case, there is no proof that in among the thousands of documents that she saw and the long email chains that she was forwarding and participating in, that she actually saw or understood there was classified information in there. So --
CUOMO: Two sets of rules. What do you make of that argument? It's a political argument, I know, but this is playing out in real time in politics.
TOOBIN: Sure.
CUOMO: People are going to ignore the legalities of it to the extent that they're inconvenient, but that's the big pushback. There's two sets of rules, the Nakamura (ph) case and if you were just an enlisted guy and you did what she did, you'd go to jail. Is that fair? [07:40:00] TOOBIN: Well, I don't think that's true. I mean, the fact is every time they have prosecuted someone, and Comey made a reference to this, itwas an intentional violation of the law and there was some element of cover-up involved. The Thalias (ph) case --
CUOMO: Had to lie in the FBI because people are going to say she lied plenty. They said the asked for permission, and they didn't. They said it was secure, and it wasn't. You know, they're listing these lies but not to the FBI.
TOOBIN: Not to the government. General Petraeus, when he was interviewed by the FBI, lied to the FBI. All these other cases -- and this is always done. I mean, Paul knows this -- is that when prosecutors look at whether they can make a fraud case -- any sort of, you know, white collar case -- they're always looking for indicia of guilt, like guilty conscience. Did you lie to the investigators? Did you destroy documents? Did you cover-up? And there is no evidence --
CUOMO: What about all the emails?
CALLAN: Here's the strongest argument against that, OK? Is there a double standard? There is a double standard. She's the Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Comey's looking at this case saying, you know something? We can't -- we're not going to win this case in the end, and is it right to take her out of the running for the presidency on a case that's a tough case to win, that's a very weak case?
But try to picture this. An assistant to, let's say, an Under Secretary of State who did this. Who had a home computer with classified information she was exchanging with non -- people without classified coverage.
CUOMO: Said she asked for permission to do it, and didn't.
CALLAN: Right. Had a press conference about it or told her friends lies. Said I only did it on one machine. Remember, Hillary said only one mobile device. He said there were multiple. He said there were multiple servers. She would be indicted and charged, OK? There's no indictment here.
TOOBIN: No.
CUOMO: Jeffrey says no.
TOOBIN: Not a chance. All right, but, I mean, I think the important thing here, too, is Hillary Clinton is and will pay a price for this. This is a political disaster for her. It should be, too. I mean, this shows terrible judgment but that's not why we bring criminal cases. The criminal cases are for about putting people in jail and I can certainly undersee why Jim Comey said we don't put people in jail for this.
CUOMO: Well-argued on both sides, gentlemen, thank you -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Will the FBI director have to explain to Congress why he thinks Hillary Clinton should not be charged over those emails? Well, next we're going to talk a congressman and a prominent Donald Trump supporter about why he thinks the FBI made the right call.
[07:42:30]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:45:55]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE: Today is the best evidence ever, that we've seen, that our system is absolutely, totally rigged. It's rigged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right, that's Donald Trump blasting the FBI's recommendation that Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges for her private email server. But one Trump supporter agrees with FBI Director James Comey's decision. He's New York Republican, Rep. Chris Collins, the co-chair of Trump's campaign, House Leadership Committee. Good morning, Congressman.
REP. CHRIS COLLINS (R), NEW YORK: Good morning, Alisyn. Good to be with you today.
CAMEROTA: OK, Donald Trump railed against Dir. Comey's decision that Hillary Clinton should not face charges. Why do you agree with Comey's decision?
COLLINS: Well, I think we have to be careful here. What I said was I respect Dir. Comey's decision. He made a very good argument that what Hillary did while she lied to the American public and why she didn't follow the rules, which is something the Clinton's just don't do, it just didn't cross the line, in his opinion, to taking criminal action, as he called it. It was "she was not intending to release this to our foreign enemies" which they may have done by hacking her system.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
COLLINS: But as one of the other viewers pointed out, really, this was the Department of Justice's call whether to take the information that Dir. Comey uncovered, which was over 100 classified emails, some of them top secret, on an unsecure server that was not even as secure as Gmail, it was really -- Dir. Comey pointed out his logic and Iaccept Dir. Comey's logic.
CAMEROTA: And you agree with his logic? I mean, you agree with his findings?
COLLINS: As he presented -- as he presented it, I can understand where he's coming from.
CAMEROTA: OK. COLLINS: But it was the Department of Justice's decision whether to prosecute or not. We have to remember Bill Clinton was on the airplane with the attorney general just a week ago.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
COLLINS: So I think we have to separate the FBI from the Department of Justice. Director Comey did an extraordinarily thorough job. He presented the facts very, very succinctly. He pointed out the 100 top secret or classified emails, the fact the server was not secure, and he doesn't know whether it was hacked or not. And he --
CAMEROTA: Right, but he says that ultimately none of those rose to the level of criminal charges. But I want to get to what Donald Trump has said since you have a difference of opinion with him. Donald Trump thinks that -- I mean, he has often said the system is rigged. He said that again last night, but he went further and he said that he feels that this rises to the level of bribery, so let me play that for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The attorney general is sitting there saying you know, if I get Hillary off the hook I'm going to have four more years, or eight more years, but if she loses, I'm out of a job. It's a bribe. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: So, Congressman, do you think Loretta Lynch was bribed?
COLLINS: I think Loretta Lynch was intimidated by Bill Clinton on the airplane. Loretta Lynch does know that she would be more secure in her job if Hillary Clinton was president, so there's a subtlety here, Alisyn, that you can't set aside when someone is looking at their career and they realize it was Bill Clinton that first appointed Loretta Lynch as a U.S. attorney. It's President Obama who is now campaigning for Hillary Clinton, who is Loretta Lynch's current judge -- or, boss.
CAMEROTA: So -- so --
COLLINS: You have to admit, this is an unprecedented -- unprecedented position --
CAMEROTA: Yes.
COLLINS: -- that Hillary Clinton has put all of these individuals in and none of them --
CAMEROTA: There's a lot of things that are unprecedented about this election, Congressman, but what's your evidence that there was intimidation?
COLLINS: Oh, it's not evidence. It's, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire and it just smells from the high heavens that there's just -- Bill Clinton going on the airplane and then the facts of, you know, Clinton and Obama campaigning together. It just -- it just reeks and I think the American public are going to see this for what it is. You know, again, I respect Dir. Comey. I respect his logic --
CAMEROTA: OK.
COLLINS: -- but, ultimately, it would have been Loretta Lynch to decide whether to prosecute or not. She's decided not to prosecute.
CAMEROTA: Right.
COLLINS: None of us expected that the Obama administration would ever indict Hillary Clinton. They haven't indicted her and she's going to have to answer to the American public --
CAMEROTA: OK.
COLLINS: -- for lying to them on hundreds of occasions.
[07:50:00] CAMEROTA: Congressman, I want to get into something else that Donald Trump said last night that had many people scratching their heads. He seemed to praise Saddam Hussein. Let me play this moment for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But do you know why he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Congressman, why heap any praise whatsoever on Saddam Hussein?
COLLINS: I don't believe Donald Trump was heaping praise. He was just stating the facts that, obviously, ISIS' stronghold between Syria and Iraq has come from countries where a void was left when Barack Obama just set a date certain to pull our troops out. We left the void, ISIS filled that void, and terrorism now is a worldwide problem and we can tie it back to those decisions by Barack Obama.
And the fact remains many of the Middle Eastern countries are not ready for American style democracy. We need stable leadership and I think all that Mr. Trump's pointing out were the facts that ISIS did not exist at a point in time when Saddam Hussein was running the country, and it came by virtue of President Obama and his incompetence setting this date certain to leave Iraq --
CAMEROTA: OK.
COLLINS: -- and Syria. And so I think it's more that ilk than it is actually -- he's not going to praise Saddam Hussein, one of the most evil people that ever lived. CAMEROTA: I mean, agreed, but he did say he did some things really well, but we'll leave it at that. Congressman Chris Collins, thank you very much for being here on NEW DAY --
COLLINS: OK, Alisyn, good to be with you.
CAMEROTA: -- as always.
COLLINS: All right.
CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.
CUOMO: Trust -- trust is going to be the fallout issue for Hillary Clinton. Forget about the FBI. That part has finished, but the trust issue is just beginning. We're going to ask someone on Clinton's V.P. shortlist what this means for her trust factor going forward, next.
[07:52:15]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:55:50] CUOMO: So, Clinton will not be charged by the FBI in connection with the email scandal, so that's that, right? Wrong, because it's just starting to play out now with what it means in the election. What it means in terms of her trust factor.
Joining us now from Washington to discuss is Democratic congressman Xavier Becerra. He has endorsed Clinton. He is the head -- the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, so he matters. It is good to have you here to defend the proposition that Hillary Clinton can be trusted.
You just had the FBI director say she was extremely careless. It has come out in the process of this investigation that she said she asked for permission, she didn't ask. She said there was one device, there was more than one device. She said that she gave them all the emails, she didn't given them all the emails. Why should she be trusted? Forget about prosecution.
REP. XAVIER BECERRA (D), CALIFORNIA: Chris, first, thanks for having me --
CUOMO: Always.
BECERRA: -- and I would -- I would tell you that when you have someone who was there in the Situation Room telling the president greenlight the bin Laden raid, which was very dangerous, when you have someone who has a history of working with our most important allies, when you have someone who actually put together the coalition that's help stopped Iran's nuclear buildup, you have someone that America can trust.
Did she make some mistakes with those emails? She's already admitted that she did. She says she would never do that again. Did she do any violation of law that would cause her to be prosecuted? No. Did she do something that we all can learn from, and I mean you, and me, and every single one of us who has tried to figure out technology and be ahead of it?
She showed us that every one of us is human and we have to be very careful, especially if you're Secretary of State and expected to be president of the United States.
CUOMO: Right, but -- I respect your deflection on this issue to what you're saying is a bigger matter of judgment and trust, but these matter, too. I'll give you -- there's not illegality here according to the FBI. That will be chewed over the partisans from now until November. But, she lied about things there by dent of the investigation with the FBI and this goes to trust and what is seen as a pattern of Clinton behavior. Fair assessment?
BECERRA: No, no, Chris. You're using words that even FBI Director Comey did not use, that the FBI investigators did not use, so I don't think that's fair for you to say that.
CUOMO: Well, no, no, OK. No, OK, hold on a second. You're right, inasmuch as Hillary Clinton was not cited for lying to the FBI. Had she, in all likelihood, she probably would have been indicted because that's an indictable offense. You can't lie to the FBI.
But, I'm saying as a result of the investigation, did they ask for permission? They said yes, the Clinton people, and it came out no, you did not get permission to do this. Did you turn over the emails? Yes, we did. No, you deleted a lot of emails that nobody got to vet. Those would be seen as material inaccuracies. That would be seen as lying, not in the legal sense, but I'm saying in the political sense.
BECERRA: Chris, I disagree with you because --
CUOMO: How so?
BECERRA: -- the FBI would be, now, going to the Justice Department prosecutor saying you've got grounds to go ahead and move forward with a prosecution. Because they were material mistakes --
CUOMO: No, I'm not -- I don't know that she said to them. I'm not saying any of her people said that to them, whether they took the Fifth or they just didn't say it to the FBI. I'll grant you that. They probably didn't, otherwise they may have been indicted. I'm saying that's what was said to us, and trust is about us -- the voters, the media, the politicians. I'm absenting it from the legal process. This is something else.
BECERRA: Well remember, Chris, the Secretary has said throughout that she was handling her system of emails the way she thought it was OK to do. The way others, including previous Secretaries of State, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, had also handled it. Remember that things are changing rapidly with the use of technology. We now know we have to constantly change our passwords, et cetera.
And so what you find is that a person who made some really good calls to make sure that we went after Osama bin Laden, that we helped stop nuclear proliferation by Iran, who helped make sure that we're working with our allies probably did not keep pace with all the technology on emails. Did she try to lie about it? No, no, the FBI has told us that.
