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Giuliani Argues Trump Could Defy Subpoena from Mueller; Trump Tweets Support for CIA Director Nominee Gina Haspel; Trump Confidant Roger Stone Pens Book. Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired May 07, 2018 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- about this?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: I'm concerned that you're not listening.
[07:00:02] MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY FOR STORMY DANIELS: They're making it up as they go along. They've lost track of the truth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No president has ever asserted the Fifth Amendment. It's generally considered to be political suicide.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?
RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: I'm facing a situation with the president in which every lawyer in America thinks he'd be a fool to testify.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this administration loses its credibility on something like Stormy Daniels, it's throwing it away for really, really key issues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are much more concerned about the economy and job preparation.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm a little taken aback by Giuliani's strategy. He's going to need to comply with the subpoena.
GIULIANI: We don't have to. He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privilege as other presidents have.
RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Everyone on the Republican side of aisle would like to see this go away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is now panicking.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Just teeing up the president's Twitter feed, one of our main sources of coverage here in the morning.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It's a new one. CUOMO: And sure enough, we have a new offering six months ago. We'll get to it. But first, good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY.
Rudy Giuliani still trying to get straight on the facts as he himself keeps saying in an interview. The president's newest lawyer says President Trump could defy a special counsel subpoena and suggesting the president could invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in the Russia investigation.
CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, the president's CIA nominee could be in jeopardy. Sources tell CNN that Gina Haspel sought to withdraw her name from consideration late last week, but White House officials convinced her not to. Haspel is set to face tough questions by senators at her confirmation hearing this Wednesday.
But let's begin our coverage with CNN's Kaitlan Collins. She is live at the White House. What's the latest there, Kaitlan?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, this hush money just keeps getting louder and and louder. Though the president himself was relatively silent on Twitter over the weekend, his new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, certainly wasn't, doing several interviews in an attempt to clarify the bombshell remark that the president had reimbursed Michael Cohen for the money paid to Stormy Daniels.
But Giuliani may have just raised new questions instead of clearing thing up, make -- raising the question of if president paid hush money to other women and whether or not he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid testifying to the special counsel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GIULIANI: They don't have a case on collusion. They don't have a case on obstruction. I'm going to walk him into a prosecution for perjury like Martha Stewart did?
COLLINS (voice-over): Rudy Giuliani ratcheting up his defense of President Trump and his criticism of the Mueller probe, suggesting that Mr. Trump could defy a potential subpoena to testify before the special counsel.
GIULIANI: We don't have to. He's the president of the United States. We can assert the same privilege as other presidents have. President Clinton negotiated a deal.
COLLINS: Giuliani refusing to rule out the possibility that the president could ultimately invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.
GIULIANI: How can I ever be confident of that? When I'm -- when I'm facing a situation with the president, and all the other lawyers are, in which every lawyer in America thinks he'd be a fool to testify, I've got a client who wants to testify. Please, don't -- he said it yesterday. And you know, Jay and I said to ourselves, my goodness, you know, I hope we get a chance to tell him the risk that he's taking. COLLINS: This despite the president's repeated criticism of that
legal move.
TRUMP: The mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?
COLLINS: The former New York City mayor also doing damage control after admitting that Mr. Trump reimbursed his attorney for the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, contradicting what the president has said in the past.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?
TRUMP: No, I don't know.
COLLINS: "The New York Times" reports that the president knew about that payment when he made those remarks.
Kellyanne Conway attempting to clarify that remark while insisting that the White House doesn't have a credibility problem.
CONWAY: When the president said "no" on Air Force One, he was talking about he didn't know when the payment occurred. It was a very fast- moving exchange between him and Catherine Lucey of the A.P., I believe. And so he's saying he didn't know about it when the payment occurred. He found out about it after the fact.
COLLINS: Giuliani indicating it's possible Cohen may have paid off other women, as well.
GIULIANI: I'd have no knowledge of that. But I would think if it was necessary, yes. He made payments for the president.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Is Michael Cohen still the president's attorney?
GIULIANI: No, of course not. It would be a conflict right now for him to be the president's attorney. I am, in this respect -- I don't think it's a good idea for the two of them to talk right now. Eventually, they can.
COLLINS: The president's lawyer also distancing himself from the Daniels case --
GIULIANI: You know, I'm not really involved in the Daniels thing.
COLLINS: -- after Mr. Trump publicly undermined his longtime friend last week.
TRUMP: Virtually everything said has been said incorrectly, and it's been said wrong, or it's been covered wrong by the press. He started yesterday. He'll get his facts straight.
COLLINS: Giuliani telling CNN that he's still getting up to speed, noting, "I haven't been able to read the 1.2 million documents. I am focused on the law more than the facts right now."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[07:05:07] COLLINS: Now Chris and Alisyn, the president is active on Twitter this morning. He just tweeted ahead of the Senate primary in West Virginia tomorrow, urging telling people not to vote for Don Blankenship, because he doesn't want a repeat of what happened during that Alabama Senate race. He says their problem is, "Don Blankenship, currently running, can't win the general election against Joe Manchin in the fall." He says, "No way. Remember Alabama. Vote Representative Jenkins or Attorney General Morrisey" -- Chris and Alisyn.
CUOMO: All right. So they have the primary coming up, Kaitlan. I know you don't have to be told to remember Alabama. That's your home state. But the -- the idea of, well, what lessons were learned, it's interesting that the only thing the president has to offer the voters in West Virginia was that he can't win in the general. Blankenship has got a lot bigger issues facing him than just whether or not he can win.
Let's bring in CNN political analyst David Gregory and CNN legal analyst and former special assistant to Robert Mueller at the DOJ, Michael Zeldin.
All right. Let's get back into what's in the primary focus. Rudy was out there again making the case, saying, "I don't know the facts that well," David Gregory, "but I'm here to worry about the law. And there is no case. There's no case on collusion. There's no case on obstruction. And that's what I'm worried about. And Stormy Daniels shouldn't have been on 'Saturday Night Live.'"
Did he move the needle in the right direction?
DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I just can't imagine that anybody thinks that this is effective. To, on the one hand, do what may be effective, which is to kind of work the process, to make the argument that the president wants to testify but he, Giuliani, his lawyer, doesn't want him to. He doesn't want to work him into a perjury trap. To just keep attacking the process and attacking the investigation.
But all of that gets undermined by the fact that he doesn't get his facts straight and that the president has to go out and tell the world that. It has just been so poorly done thus far. I can't imagine the president thinks that this is -- that he's been well-served so far in all of this.
But that's a lot of the noise right now. And where the action is, is still whether the president cooperates with the special counsel and how he might do so. I just don't think the president wants to be in a position where he's refusing a subpoena, refusing to talk. CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that, because that was one of the big
headlines, Michael, from the weekend when Rudy Giuliani went on the Sunday show and said the president doesn't have to comply with a subpoena. Doesn't the president have to comply with a subpoena? How does he get around that?
MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He doesn't get around that. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton can explain that to him. When you get a subpoena by a prosecutor in a legitimate grand jury investigation, more than not you have to comply with it. There may be some areas on the margins that you can negotiate with, but all the case law supports the notion that the grand jury has the right to receive that evidence.
I'm not sure what he was talking about. He was a confused lawyer over the course of the weekend.
The reality is that they will, in my estimation, reach some agreement by which the president will offer testimony. It may be testimony only during the period pre-inauguration, when he was private citizen Trump. It may include a small portion of the time when he was president, but I don't think it's going to be a flat-out denial.
CUOMO: All right. So another big moment from the weekend's offerings from Rudy Giuliani is around whether or not he would testify, the president, and why. Let's play some of the sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: The president has done nothing wrong, as you say again and again. And he tells the truth --
GIULIANI: He hasn't done anything wrong, Georgie.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And if he -- if he tells the truth, as you would advise him to do, what is the danger in answering Robert Mueller --
GIULIANI: Because they're trying to trap -- you can't -- you couldn't put a lawyer on this show who wants to keep his law license to tell you he should testify.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it's only a trap if the president doesn't tell the truth.
GIULIANI: No, it isn't. It's only prosecutable if they have some built-up, manipulated evidence to prove the president didn't tell the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Now, he went on to say, David, that lying is a consideration in the analysis of whether he sits down. I don't know if you guys heard it differently than I did. He made a quick pivot to Jim Comey about Jim Comey being someone he believed is lying. But he seemed to put out there, "Hey, people lie when they sit down there. And that's something that we would have to deal with." But he was also doing something else again, whether it was the "storm trooper" thing or the echoes of "This is deep state." Rudy Giuliani, who held up being the Southern District United States attorney as such a proud moment in his life, keeps attacking those people. He said yesterday, "We're not talking about all the FBI. Just the people and their former leadership." No, he called the people who did the search "storm troopers." Seems to be as much a part of the strategy as any legalities, David.
GREGORY: Yes. And it's sad, especially for Rudy Giuliani, who has had the profile that he's had as America's mayor at one point after 9/11 and a law enforcement career that was both both controversial because of his tactics, the kind that he decries now, being tough in his investigations. And also quite successful. So it's sad to watch all of that.
[07:10:10] But the strategy at play is messy, because it's built on so much inaccuracy that he's having to clean up, that the president has to clean up. There's nobody who puts a lawyer in place to go out there and say things that aren't true, to not have command of the facts. It's just not helping the president's cause.
What he is doing is very sloppily attacking the process and the investigation, because this is a legal strategy. More than that, it's a P.R. strategy. It's out there hammering every day that this process is political, that the process is unfair, that you can't trust them, that they're looking for all kinds of people to manipulate and manufacture evidence to put the president in a trap. So that is the argument.
And I think it's going to work for a lot of people in terms of whether they'll be persuaded. But as a matter of law and for some of the things that the president himself may have to answer for, particularly with regard to obstruction. But also in areas that we don't know about in term of what the special prosecutor has with regard to the collusion question, to aiding any kind of interference by the Russians. That's what they have to be worried about.
CAMEROTA: The president has just tweeted. This is what's on his mind this morning. "My highly respected nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, has come under fire because she was too tough on terrorists. Think of that. In these very dangerous times, we have the most qualified person, a woman, who Democrats want out, because she is too tough on terror. Win, Gina!" exclamation point.
I mean, obviously, Michael, the question is did she use those so- called enhanced interrogation techniques? When she was at the helm, there were these black sites; there was waterboarding. And so all of that, I mean, you can speak to the legality of that. You know, should we be looking through a 2018 lens on what was happening during the height of the fight on terror? That's what the president -- well, that's what the president's alluding to.
ZELDIN: Right. And I think that she should go forward with her nomination. And she should answer the senators' questions. And if she has a good explanation for "That was then and this is now and this is my current thinking," and they accept her analysis of then and now, and now is what she will do on a going forward basis, then she'll get confirmed.
If they don't think that, if they think that she still favors the black sites and all that other stuff and that she is not coming clean with, you know, what happened then and why it happened then, she won't be confirmed. But I think she should go forward with her nomination and plead her case.
CUOMO: It could be something else, which is she may not want to defend the president's obvious preference for going back to some of those methods. It would be one thing to justify what was OK at the time the eyes of the law and the political leadership and the American people. It's a different thing to get back in bed with that kind of thinking right now.
Let me ask you a quick legal question, though, Michael, while we have you. So a federal judge, Ellis, comes out in the Manafort case and says, "I think you prosecutors are just out to get the president." How do you hear his remarks? Is this about a judge who is a little pissed off, because they're slow walking the case in his court? Or do you think that this raises legitimate issues of overreach by the special counsel?
ZELDIN: I thought the comments by Judge Ellis were editorial, gratuitous and not in support of the mandate that Mueller has. That is to say that Mueller went to Rosenstein, as far as we know from the public reporting, and said, "What do you want me to do with these tax and other unrelated to the Russia collusion case directly, bits of evidence."
Rosenstein went to the tax division of the Justice Department and the national security division of the Justice Department, and the three divisions, two divisions plus Rosenstein decided that Mueller should keep the investigation. They wrote an expanded mandate on August the 2nd. They gave it to him, and he is now pursuing the case.
So Judge Ellis, I think, may be, you know, upset about special prosecutors, generally speaking. But I don't think he has a legal leg on which to stand to deny Mueller the right to proceed with this case. If this case is dismissed by Judge Ellis, I think he'll be -- I think it will be appealed, and it will be reversed.
CAMEROTA: All right. Michael Zeldin, David Gregory, thank you both very much.
CUOMO: All right. You hear his name a lot. Trump confidant Roger Stone has got a new book out. He's in the mouths of a lot of politicians and people close to the prosecution. Is he worried? His case to you about the situation and his new book, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:18:30] CUOMO: All right. The man you're about to meet is a longtime political ally of Donald Trump. He's been in politics for a very long on -- in New York state, on the federal level. He's been all over the place. His tweets and communications through the 2016 campaign, predicting damaging information related to Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, have been the subject of discussions for months. So does Roger Stone believe he is a target of the Mueller investigation?
Let's ask former Trump political adviser Roger Stone. He's the author of a new book out tomorrow called "Stone's Rules: How to Win at Politics, Business and Style."
Thank you for taking the opportunity.
ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP POLITICAL ADVISOR: Great to be here.
CUOMO: We'll talk about the book. Although, you know, really, my whole discussion with you is woven in and out of what your different rules are.
STONE: There's a lot of books -- there's a lot of rules in there that the president ought to read right now, if you ask me.
CUOMO: Yes. Well, you know, we don't know that he's big on digesting information that way, but I'm sure you could pick up the phone and communicate some. Whether he will listen is a different one.
A hundred and forty rules. An obvious nod to the old number of characters that were allowed in Twitter. Now it's been extended.
Let me ask you something else, just to get some things on the record. The question they set up in the intro there was do you think you're a target? Have you been contacted, directly or through counsel, by anybody from the special counsel's team?
STONE: I have not. But for example, you read in the paper, and you reported at MSNBC and CNBC that Mr. Mueller is probing my dinners with Rick Gates and my meetings with him at Trump Tower. Wants to examine the period in which we worked together in the '80s.
[07:20:07] There's a couple problems here. First of all, based on my recollection, I had one dinner with him with other people to discuss the makeup of the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention. I had no meetings with him whatsoever in 2016 in -- at Trump Tower. I didn't know him until 2016. We -- he did not work at Black, Manafort and Stone in the '80s. He was evidently an intern at a successor firm. So I didn't --
CUOMO: You're saying the connection is not there.
What I don't get is this. How does the special counsel not reach out to you? Just your bizarre coincidences, I'll give you a generous read on that until we get into it, with what was going to happen with WikiLeaks and Guccifer and the e-mails. How have you not been called?
STONE: Well, first of all, the claim that I knew in advance about either of the -- the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Since the DNC never let FBI examine their server, we're not even certain they were hacked. But the idea that I had advanced knowledge is speculation. CUOMO: Speculation based on you, though, Roger.
STONE: Supposition.
CUOMO: You put it out.
STONE: Yes, and I'm a political animal. But Julian Assange came here at CNN in June of 2016 and said, "I've got a treasure trove of documents about Hillary Clinton."
CUOMO: But you said you were talking to him, meeting with him. You made this --
STONE: I actually never said that.
CUOMO: Well, you did say to Sam Nunberg, "I had dinner last night with Julian Assange."
STONE: Which I think I've explained adequately was a joke to get Sam Nunberg off the phone. And I have obviously produced my passport, airline records, customs records.
CUOMO: So that the meeting couldn't have been possible?
STONE: Well, it was in Los Angeles. And I think I proved that.
CUOMO: How about the -- look, the one that gets you the most in terms of -- and again, obviously, I'm out of my depth, because the special counsel hasn't called you in yet. And his would be a layup, I would think. At least to talk to you about it. Is "It's coming for Hillary. It's coming for Podesta." And then it came.
STONE: Well, first of all, Assange says --
CUOMO: Right after.
STONE: Assange says that he has a treasure trove of devastating documents. He says it in numerous interviews.
As far as John Podesta is concerned, my tweet says "the Podestas." "The Podestas." Not apostrophe "S." Meaning John and Tony, referring to the --
CUOMO: Is that true? I thought it was apostrophe "S."
STONE: No. But it still says "The Podestas."
CUOMO: Hold on. You read it for me.
STONE: But the "the" gets removed, even in the House Intelligence Committee.
CUOMO: But there's -- there is an apostrophe "S."
STONE: But it refers to multiple people.
CUOMO: You didn't write it that way.
STONE: No. But the House Intelligence Committee drops the "the" entirely, as have numerous media organizations.
The point being that in April of 2016, the Panama Papers exposed the shady business dealings of John and Tony Podesta. And that is my reference. Nowhere do I predict that John Podesta's e-mails would be hacked, because I had no advanced notice.
CUOMO: But you did say his time is coming.
STONE: Well, because Paul Manafort --
CUOMO: And it came, by the way. That's the part.
STONE: Yes --
CUOMO: Is that the truth winds up being a foil for you.
STONE: All public information. Look, this is an effort to distract from the content of the WikiLeaks disclosures; were incredibly embarrassing to the Clinton campaign.
CUOMO: But it's also about tracking who knew what and when and may have been coordinating or encouraging what would be illegal activities.
STONE: There is no -- there is no evidence whatsoever that I had advanced knowledge of the source.
CUOMO: Well, you called it on -- two days before.
STONE: Speculation, supposition, conjecture. But no proof. Where's the proof? There no proof. Yes, I followed Assange's Twitter feed very assiduously. I had a Google Alert for him. I read every interview he gave. You could foreshadow what he's doing just ready by what he says.
CUOMO: Direct messaging Guccifer? How about that?
STONE: Which I -- well, which I made available to the House Intelligence Committee. Six weeks after the hacking. So they're ex post facto. You went to law school. How can I have been -- be involved in collusion in hacking material after the fact? You'd need a time machine. It's chronologically impossible. The content --
CUOMO: Well, you're assuming that the --
STONE: -- of those emails are banal, at least.
CUOMO: Well, banality aside, the -- you're assuming that the timing of it is a full appreciation of what the full context of the relationship was. That would be a case for you to make, if ever asked. Again, the special counsel --
STONE: Twenty-four words in exchange on Twitter direct messages. CUOMO: right.
STONE: Which is innocuous and happens after the fact. So on the basis of the content, the timing and the context, there's no evidence.
CUOMO: Why even reach out to somebody like that, who was connected --
STONE: Thousands of journalists did so. I was covering this. I have to do five shows a day for -- five shows a week for --
CUOMO: So it was journalistic curiosity?
STONE: You didn't want to know? Of course I wanted to know. I'm a political animal.
CUOMO: Right. But it seemed like, if I were to call a guy and find out what he did, and you know, what he wanted to cop to, that's one thing. You seeming to want to encourage and develop some relationship with him is different. Fair point?
STONE: I wanted to find out what he knew.
It's ironic that we have a movie right now, "The Post," praising the "Washington Post" for publishing the Pentagon Papers, classified information, at the same time we're criticizing Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing classified information, calling it a crime. You can't have it both ways. Which is it?
[07:25:17] CUOMO: I think that's a conversation to be had. I think --
STONE: This is what journalists --
CUOMO: I think that's a conversation to be had. The WikiLeaks folk get sideways with me from time to time. I'm not exactly sure why. When they made the first dump, my caution to people was, hey, if this has classified information, Pentagon Papers case, Blackman's decision aside, we don't know what the Espionage Act means in this new era of caching documents and downloading things that may be classified. There haven't been any cases about it. But as we're seeing right now, you never know what the prosecution is going to do, what the government will go after.
Yes, journalists feed off leaked information.
STONE: That's what they do.
CUOMO: And I say thank God for that.
STONE: A legitimate rule -- role.
CUOMO: But it takes us to the same point, truth. What is the truth? Is the truth that you knew what was happening? Is the truth that you were encouraging what was happening because exactly what you say, you are a political animal and you wanted to help your friend? You don't believe those are legitimate questions? STONE: They're legitimate questions, but I've answered them ad nauseam again and again and again --
CUOMO: Except from the special counsel.
STONE: Well, but under oath in front of the House Intelligence Committee, where my testimony is both complete and entirely --
CUOMO: But they don't have -- they don't have the teeth that the special counsel does. That's why I think it's odd.
And Michael Caputo, who obviously you know very well. He says he sits down with them -- I'm sure you've heard this from him directly. The -- that they have collusion, coordination on their mind. They know a lot about it. Does that make you nervous?
STONE: No. Because I'm not involved in any collusion, coordination or conspiracy with the Russians or anyone else. And there's no evidence to the contrary.
CUOMO: So the book, 140 rules. Some of them in there are just, you know, chapter and verse of what we see from the president and I would argue, using to his media advantage. Deny, deny, deny. Attack the people asking you questions.
It's one thing for a consultant to give that kind of advice. And you were sought by left and right alike to figure out how to deal with a sticky mess. Is that the right way for a president to act? That when you're asked legitimate questions, attack the media? You say that they're the enemy of the people?
You say in one of your rules, the media is not your enemy. You know, to deny everything, to never admit a lie. Never clean anything up.
STONE: This president has undergone the most vicious fake news assault that I've seen in --
CUOMO: What's fake?
STONE: -- politics. What's fake? Well, we can argue with it. For example, Stone is -- Mueller is looking at Stone's dinners with -- with Rick Gates. That's fake. There's one dinner.
CUOMO: Well, it doesn't mean -- hold on, hold on. Roger, the truth of your relationship with Gates may be nothing. All right. That's your supposition. It doesn't mean that the question is fake. It doesn't mean that they're not looking at it.
STONE: No, no, no. Let's take MSNBC.
CUOMO: Very mean --
STONE: "Stone worked with Gates at Black, Manafort and Stone." No, I didn't, because he never worked there. That's fake news.
CUOMO: All right. But that would be -- first of all, Ari Malburg (ph) can speak for himself. He's a talented attorney. But Ari's point could be wrong, right? You can be wrong.
STONE: No, no.
CUOMO: And it's not a deception and a lie.
STONE: He's not a talented attorney.
CUOMO: NBC got a report wrong last week about wiretapping. They corrected it. They were wrong. It's not a lie. It's when you don't correct, when you enforce a deception. That's a lie.
STONE: It's a smear. And it begins with the premise, the Russians hacked the DNC. Unproven at best. Guccifer 2.0 is a Russian asset.
CUOMO: The intel community doesn't believe that. You pointed to the fact that they haven't looked at the server. They believe that they were part of the crime of interference.
STONE: Our intelligence agencies have been politicized. Who says that Guccifer is a Russian? John Brennan, the guy they got caught spying on a Senate committee, looking into torture by the CIA? James Clapper, who lied under oath about whether we had a metadata collection program? And Edward --
CUOMO: So you believe these men are completely incredible?
STONE: I believe that they are politicized, and I believe they are --
CUOMO: You don't think that's dangerous -- it's one thing for you to do it, as a proxy. I'll give you that. That's the role of a surrogate. But when the president does the same thing, Roger, it doesn't give you a little bit of pause that he attacks the entire FBI, the Justice Department? It's all deep state?
STONE: Not at all. Not at all.
CUOMO: -- these Info Wars friends that you have. Not of a president.
STONE: In view of the fact that the president cannot be charged with a crime, according to both Republican and Democrat Departments of Justice under both Clinton and Nixon, what's the purpose of this investigation?
CUOMO: Truth.
STONE: No. To undo the results of the last election.
CUOMO: Truth is the point.
STONE: We have not found any evidence of a crime.
CUOMO: Who interfered -- well, we don't know that. And the investigation is not over. Twenty-three people have been indicted. There's plenty of proof of crimes, Roger.
STONE: Thirteen of them are Russians who will never -- who will never come here for trial, including a caterer which means Mr. Mueller has, indeed, indicted a ham sandwich.
CUOMO: No. Well, the rule for an indictment is a low level of legal threshold. We know that. But there's much more "there" there than we've seen in other what is described as political prosecutions.
Let me give you a last blow on this. What do you say is the best reason to read Roger Stone's book?
STONE: Well, what's interesting to me when I post the link to buy this book on Google --
