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Churches In Sri Lanka Bombed, Controlled Explosions Next To Another Church And Now A Vehicle Blew Up; The Washington Post Detailing The Nearly Two Year Long Investigation By Mueller's Prosecutors; The Mueller Report Shows Much Information In This Report That Is Damming Against President Trump; Democrats Are Going To Continue The Investigation But Will Not Call It An Impeachment Investigation. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 22, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: Other explosion on the streets, near one of the church's that was attacked. CNN's Ivan Watson is at the scene in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with the breaking details. Ivan?

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there John. Yes, we're all kind of coming down from that pretty massive controlled explosion, very close to a church that was so tragically targeted just yesterday.

And they blew up a suspicious vehicle around the corner from where I am. The police are keeping us back right now. It shattered a store front glass on the street and sent, understandably, very nervous residents of this neighborhood, that was so recently targeted, into a real panic here and sent bits of the van flying into the air. That's a piece of it that flew around.

So, that just shows you a little bit of a sense of the Sri Lankan capital on edge after this devastating series of terror attacks, hitting three Catholic churches across the country and then three luxury hotels here in Colombo.

The police telling us that they found 87 detonators in a bus station here in Colombo within the past couple of hours and when the police conducted a raid of a suspicious location yesterday, after the initial blast, there were more explosions on Sunday afternoon, killing three police officers. So, people are nervous.

A curfew will go into effect at 8:00 pm. Social media access has been shut down to prevent rumor mongering and unsubstantiated information from being cleared.

Now, you mentioned this memo, this controversial memo shared between heads of different security departments, warning from information received from a foreign intelligence service of the threat of terrorist attacks against Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission here, that's been confirmed to us by senior government officials here, who are calling for an investigation, saying that this is an example of negligence and incompetence, the fact that there was no beefed up security in the wake of that warning. Nothing that prevented the incredible carnage we've seen with at least 290 people killed, more than 500 wounded and a country and a city very much on edge right now. John.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We can -- yes, that makes perfect sense. Ivan, thank you very much. Joining us now for analysis is Bobby Ghosh, he's the Editor and Editorial Board Member at Bloomberg.

Bobby, you were just saying this in our last hour, that, of course, investigators there are looking into a broader, wider network that may be organized than this local terror group, and it sounds like now, that is what Sri Lanka's government believes, that an international network was behind Sunday's attack. And does that mean, to our ears, ISIS? Is that what we're talking about?

BOBBY GHOSH, EDITOR AND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER OF BLOOMBERG: Well, nobody has claimed, neither ISIS or Al Qaida, the two obvious suspects and maybe some groups in Pakistan, the fact that the Indian consulate had been one of the targets is quite indicative, but nobody has claimed credit, if you like. No one had claimed responsibility as yet.

The Sri Lankan government officials say they had a tip-off from international agencies. They had a tip-off on the fourth of April, they had a tip-off two days ago and they had a tip-off 10 minutes before the actual explosions went off on Easter Sunday.

This is an enormous failure on the part of the Sri Lankans. Which international group has been involved? We don't yet know. It's unusual for them not to take responsibly and not to take credit. We've seen the pattern in the past where sometimes they'll take credit for stuff they've not even been responsible.

AVLON: Sure.

GHOSH: Remember the Las Vegas shootings. So that is quite unusual. Why not take credit? It's been more than 24 hours now, that strikes me as odd. It's not surprising that the Sri Lankan officials believe international agencies were involved, because the small group that they have identified, the local group is so small and has no track record of being able to pull off such an ambitious terrorist attack.

AVLON: So, the idea of being that the only they could have is with outside assistance? Do we know anything about whether it's ISIS or Al Qaida involvement in the Sri Lankan region in the past?

GHOSH: Well, both ISIS and Al Qaida have been trying to expand all over South Asia. They see South Asia as a sort of fertile ground for recruitment. There's lots of different communities living there, there've been tensions between Muslims and other communities in other parts of South Asia, not so much in Sri Lanka, very little of that in Sri Lanka, but yes, both these large, international, multi-national terrorism groups have had their eye on the region.

Now, in January, there was a report out of Sri Lanka, this -- we mentioned this in the last hour, the Sri Lankan police stumbled upon, almost, a large cache of weapons and explosives that they though had been smuggled into Sri Lanka by ISIS. They thought it was meant to target Buddhist targets, but that's all they said at the time. We know nothing more about it, but it indicated that they felt ISIS was taking an interest in Sri Lanka.

[07:05:00]

CAMEROTA: OK, so back to these red flags.

GHOSH: Yes?

CAMEROTA: So, the idea that there were -- there was this confidential memo and that there were these warnings, as you say from 10 days ago, and two days ago and even 10 minutes, they now say, this cabinet official, before the attack and the quote is, "With all this information, why didn't our security act?" What would be the answer to that?

GHOSH: Well, I think complacency, because they have not had this sort of -- they hadn't had to deal with this kind of attack ever and they've not had to deal with any kind of terrorist attack for over a decade now. There used to be suicide bombings, used to be not uncommon in Sri Lanka.

In fact, that's the country where suicide bombings first became thing for terrorist groups to do and it became an international phenomenon starting in Sri Lanka, but it's been a long time since then.

And because these warnings were tied to the small group that had no record of any kind of serious activity, maybe that's what led to the authorities being complacent. We can only speculate about that. I suspect heads will roll, I suspect people will be held to account. This is an egregious failure on multiple counts.

CAMEROTA: Bobby Ghosh, thank you very much for giving all of this analysis. All right, turning to politics now, there are new revelations about just how far Robert Mueller's team went to find the truth about whether the Trump Campaign conspired with Russia or obstructed Justice.

The Washington Post detailing the nearly two-year long investigation by Mueller's prosecutors and the difficult roadblocks that were put up by some witnesses. So, joining us now is Rosalind Helderman, she's the "Washington Post" Political Investigative Reporter who wrote this piece. She is also the co-author of the "Washington Post's" Muller report, which includes an introduction and commentary.

Rosalind, thank you very much for being here. You looked at this, I mean, everybody wants to know what these two years were like inside. There was so little information about their process and about what Mueller's investigators were doing. So, what did you find out about how they spend these two years?

ROSALIND HELDERMAN, WASHINGTON POST POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, one thing we learned is there's been some speculation that they concluded very early that there was no case to be made about conspiracy with Russia, and our finding is, that is not at all true.

They were working on that case all the way, really, until just before the report was completed and submitted. They were looking to see whether there was a case, that there was some kind of criminal conspiracy with Russia or also through WikiLeaks.

We also found that this was really hard. There was sort of a culture clash between some of these witnesses who surround the Trump orbit. People like associates of Roger Stone and others, who they really had trouble kind of nailing down on a fact based analysis.

CAMEROTA: One of those examples that you found was Carter Page. So, they were quite interested in what Carter Page was doing and why he seemed to be meeting with these Russian Intel officials or he had some sort of contact with them. And he went to Russia and they had a hard time, I guess, retracing his steps.

HELDERMAN: Yes, that's right. They write in the report that they interviewed him five times, they had surveillance on him for a long period of time. They concluded that he had, prior to the campaign, developed a relationship with Russian intelligence. They said, that they thought it was possible the Russians targeted him and they also said they had, as you said, some trouble figuring out exactly everything he did in Moscow.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, they said that they did not find a criminal case involving Carter Page. And Carter Page said last week, that that didn't surprise him. He said his contacts with Russia were a big nothing burger.

CAMEROTA: Then there's Paul Manafort, who, of course, they also looked into and became annoyed with for his lack of cooperation, after promising to cooperate. And so, they were particularly interested in his dealings with Konstantine Kilimnik, who is this Kremlin linked operative, connected somehow to Russian Intel, and I guess they wanted to know why he was handing over polling data from the campaign. What did they find out about that?

HEDLERMAN: They said that they could not answer that question, why he was doing that. They had some evidence that it was an attempt to sort of impress business leaders in Ukraine and Russia, so that Paul Manafort could make money, but they had this sort of tortuous time period in September and October, where they were bringing Paul Manafort in from the jail, for session after session with investigators to brief him.

And ultimately they threw up their hands and told a judge they thought he was lying and they wrote in the report that they couldn't quite answer the question, why give the polling data to Mr. Kilimnik. And maybe more importantly, what did Mr. Kilimnik do with it afterwards?

CAMEROTA: Yes, those would be important details to know, but obviously, the can only go so far, particularly when people are using encrypted applications. Rosalind Helderman, thank you very much for sharing all of your reporting with us. Everybody should read it. It's a really interesting deep dive into what Mueller's investigators were doing.

HELDERMAN: Thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: John?

AVLON: All right, the Mueller report outlines at least 10 episodes of potential obstruction by President Trump. Democrats now grappling with how to tackle the impeachment question.

[07:10:00]

Joining us now, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Legal Analyst. Abby Phillip, White House Correspondent and David Gregory, CNN Political Analyst, welcome all.

A lot to analyze through beyond the top line immediate reaction. Jeff Toobin, I want to get your thoughts out of the gate based on what you saw over the weekend, digging into the guts of the report. The outrageous and open questions for you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think there is a very strong case that the president committed obstruction of justice. The fact that there are 10 separate episodes all pointing in the same direction are extremely probative, as the lawyers say.

The fact that it's not one incident, it's not two incidents, it's 10 incidents of the president trying to interfere with the Mueller investigation and before the Mueller investigation. That's a very separate question from whether there will be or should be an actual impeachment proceeding, which I think is not going to happen under any circumstance.

CAMEROTA: Well, I don't know about that, Jeffrey, I mean, it feels like that it's gaining a little bit of momentum. Some of the candidates, who are sitting Senators, are beginning to talk about it, and I think that the feeling is, today, David, I want your thought on this, is that other -- if you don't do something, if you're Congress and you don't do something, then you're saying the president is above the law. You're saying that all this wrongdoing that has been exposed, well, for political reasons, we just can't do anything.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So, I think you've got your finger on the tension, exactly, because there is -- there is so much information in this report that is damming against President Trump and his conduct in office, his effort to end this investigation, the excesses, the lies, the paranoia, behavior that should be deeply disturbing to any American by the President of the United States, whether there was a crime or not.

But that is a political process, that's a political question that can be answered in an election. But, I think what you're identifying are Democratic leaders who say, we can't just say that this is acceptable, that these are new norms. There has to be some remedy.

But, where I agree with Jeffrey, and what I believe is that impeachment cannot become a political weapon by one side against the other. Impeachment properly should be a bipartisan enterprise and if it's not, it's going to be viewed without credibility. I think that's what Democratic leaders know.

They may be upset that there's not more outrage among Republicans, but I think looking ahead to see whether or not you could get an actual conviction matters in this case. It matters politically, it matters as a matter ultimately of fairness and of the credibility of Congress.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does seem though that the real problem might actually be the Justice Department guidelines that prevented, it seems are weighed on the Mueller team's mind when they were trying to determine whether they could even make an obstruction case against the president.

That ultimately what this about is that if there is a guideline that says that the president can't be charged with a crime while in office, it makes impeachment the only option available and that is the crux of the issue that probably needs to be dealt with.

I mean I think David is right, that like the Democrats are faced with this problem where impeachment is inevitably going to be seen as political, whether or not it is justified by the facts or not, and given that they are kind of between a rock and a hard place, where they're forced to grapple with the issue of does -- is the president allowed to simply try to obstruct a case, an ongoing DOJ case, just because he doesn't like it, or is there a consequence to that.

It doesn't seem that there is any legal consequence to it, and so impeachment is really the only avenue available, but maybe there is a way for that guideline to be addressed. And I don't know if that's something that can be addressed through Congress of if the Attorney General is going to have to deal with that issue.

TOOBIN: But the Democrats have a solution to this problem in front of them, which is, continue the investigation, but don't call it an impeachment investigation. Do oversight, do your job, I mean, that seems to be what they're going to do.

I mean, Jerry Nadler, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has said they're going to call Don McGahn as a witness. That is an excellent idea, because McGahn is a witness to all these incredible acts of obstruction by the president.

Show the public what went on, do oversight, but don't do a formal impeachment proceeding. That seems to me a perfectly appropriate use of their power, which is politically more lies (ph).

GREGORY: Also, there may be different remedies here. I mean, they could censure the president potentially, maybe something short of impeachment. I mean, I do question how much more they're going to learn from moving forward with an investigation, but I still think Jeffrey's right, whether it's Don McGahn, whether it's ultimately Mueller or others who they question, specific about potential obstruction, there may be some utility there.

Again, I question how much light they're going to shed, but as a political matter they can certainly move this forward. And have no doubt, that all these 2020 candidates who are lining up will have a copy of the Mueller report and try to use it against the president. Whether that changes mind, how many people are persuadable about all of this, we'll find out over time.

AVLON: And I will say, it's a heavy document to wield against anybody.

CAMEROTA: John spent most of his Easter pouring through it.

AVLON: As I assume everybody here did. But Abby, to David's point, the White House is spinning that none of this matters, but there are a couple of absent issues from the report, but I wonder if they're causing any concern about whether they're -- therefore open issues for investigation and other venues.

Very little on the money trail with Trump Organization, with the exception of Trump Tower Moscow, no mention, for example, of Cambridge Analytica. Are there missing things in this report that the White House is concerned could come back to haunt them?

PHILLIP: Yes, there are any number of ongoing investigations. I mean, the bulk of the redactions in the Mueller report were on ongoing investigations that are -- have been farmed out elsewhere, that we don't know a whole lot about, and I think that is a source of concern for the White House, because they've always been concerned that this investigation would spin off a number of other problems for the president, whether it's in his personal life or in his business life, or problems for his associates as well, and that remains -- that remains an issue for him.

I think that they are now hoping to use the Mueller report because it's -- that's the specific thing that has been hanging over him is now, in many ways, a closed case. They can use it in a political fashion, but there is real legal -- potential legal liability out there, not just for the president, but for the enterprises around him. That remains, clearly, a big issue for him.

And it's, I think, one of the reason why the president is still very much unsettled by all of this. He's not, I mean, you would think that he would be a little bit more calm now after two and a half years, but he's actually pretty -- still pretty unsettled by this and I think that he believes that it has already opened a Pandora's box and that was his concern from the very beginning, which is why he told aids that he though it was the beginning of the end of his presidency when the Special Counsel was appointed.

CAMEROTA: No, you're right, and he continues to tweet about it. I mean, he could just go sailing off into what he considered good news, but he continues to tweet about it and bring it up, to you point, that he's still agitated. Jeffrey, help us understand Rudy Giuliani, if you will. Here's what he told -- here's what he told Jake Tapper about the law yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, LAWYER FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's nothing wrong with taking information ...

GIULIANI: It depends on where it came from. It depends on where it came from. You're assuming that the giving of information is a campaign contribution. Read the report carefully. The report says, we can't conclude that because the law is pretty much against that. Do you -- people get information for this person, that person ...

TAPPER: So, you would have accepted information from Russians against a client -- against a candidate if you we're running the presidential election?

GIULIANI: I probably wouldn't. I wasn't asked. I would have advised, just out of excessive caution, don't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The law's explicit, that you can't take information or a thing of value ...

TOOBIN: Or a thing of value.

[07:15:00]

CAMEROTA: ... from a foreign national.

TOOBIN: Right. And there is a certain moral blindness in what he's saying. I'm not sure he's wrong on the law.

CAMEROTA: Really? You don't think ...

TOOBIN: Yes, that's significant ...

CAMEROTA: ... now, hold on. So, you don't think that them coming with some sort of important information that is dirt on your opponent is a thing of value?

TOOBIN: I'm not sure, to be honest. I really don't know. I mean, if a newspaper article comes from Russia and it has bad things about your opponent, that's certainly not a campaign contribution. If someone comes to you and says, I have some bad information, I mean, it's wrong to do.

I think, as Jake asked exactly the right question, would you do that? And of course, he says, well probably not. But is it an actual crime. I'm not sure. In fact, I mean, Mueller concluded that he couldn't make a case based on the June 9 meeting.

CAMEROTA: But, that's different. That's different. Mueller concluded that he can't do it because of the DOJ rules. We saw lots of different evidence of wrong doing.

TOOBIN: No, no. But, particularly the Trump Tower meeting, the dirt from Russia, he said that wasn't a crime. And I think that is consistent with what Giuliani was saying about the law.

AVLON: Well, Toobin and Rudy together for the defense.

TOOBIN: No, I mean, look ...

CAMEROTA: Yes, David, go ahead, 10 seconds.

GREGORY: Well, I think what's dangerous is the prospect of having a foreign country influence in a United States election. That is what is dangerous, that's what happened in 2016. Any candidate who doesn't completely foreclose, that because you can't always tell that's it's happening, is inviting danger. Giuliani knows that. If he were in that position, he wouldn't allow that information. He didn't hesitate on that. He's just doing his thing now to try to muck up these conclusions about obstruction. [07:20:05]

CAMEROTA: All right, David, Jeffrey, Abby, thank you all very much. So, what will Congress do? We're going to ask a member of the House Judiciary Committee next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hold a conference call with her caucus tonight to try to get Democrats on the same page after the Mueller report. The big question, of course, will they push for impeachment.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman, Lou Correa, he's a member of the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings. Good morning Congressman.

REP. JOSE LUIS CORREA (D-CA): Hello, how you doing?

CAMEROTA: I'm doing well. What do you think about impeachment? Should lawmakers move in that direction?

CORREA: Well, first of all, our job in Congress Judiciary Committee is overstayed (ph). As you know, the Mueller report took about two years, totally in secret. Now what I want to do, as a member of the committee is, I want to talk to Mr. Mueller, Mr. Barr, I want to go through that report line by line, I want to see what other investigations are going on.

[07:25:00]

I want to get the truth out there in front of the public. I want to do in front of the cameras and I want to make a good decision.

CAMEROTA: As you know, there are already a couple of 2020 Democratic candidates, namely Senator Elizabeth Warren and Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, who have said that they do believe it is important for Democrats to move towards impeachment, because otherwise, if you just investigate, as you're suggesting, you might get answers, but you also, unless you do something, suggest to Americans that they president is above the law. CORREA: Nobody is above the law. This is about the law -- is about the law and what we want to do is full investigation. It's not about believing, it's about getting the facts out ahead and then making a decision based on the facts.

Remember, California, we have a primary in about 10 months, we have election in this country in 18 months. We want to make sure we know what happened. We want to make sure that if there's Russian influence, any kind of foreign influence, we put a stop to it immediately.

CAMEROTA: Listen, from what you've already seen in the Mueller report, I mean he outlines there are 10 dubious moments that for a regular person, our legal analysts have told us, would amount to obstruction of justice. Do you see that same thing?

CORREA: These are serious allegations. The president came out and said that this Mueller report was a total exoneration of him and his presidency. Then he came back and he said, my words, a bunch of lies.

We need to sit down and go through this report, not only with Judiciary, but with the public, because this country is very divided over this presidency, over the Mueller report, and in my opinion, Mueller did a great job. Now we have to make sure, maybe we also do a good job, which is oversight.

CAMEROTA: You were talking about that a foreign advisory should not have influence over our elections. Let me play for you what the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Jake Tapper about that this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIULIANI: Any candidate in the whole world, in America, would take information ...

TAPPER: From a foreign source? From a hostile foreign source?

GIULIANI: Who says it's even illegal. There's nothing -- there's nothing wrong from taking information from Russians.

TAPPER: There's nothing wrong with taking information ...

GIULIANI: Depends on where it came from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Is there anything wrong with taking information from Russians, Congressman?

CORREA: I totally disagree with Mr. Giuliani. There is a lot wrong with taking information from an advisory, foreign advisory, foreign government, and we as Americans should never, ever tolerate a foreign nation having influence over our democracy.

Having the influence over the way we make our decisions, deciding who become president of the United States. We should not tolerate it, if it's not legal, we should make it illegal and definitely this is where we need to go when it comes to oversight. CAMEROTA: Congressman, how about something less than impeachment? Do

you -- are you and your colleagues considering, say, a formal censure? Something like that? That sends a message to Americans that you won't stand for what you've seen in the Mueller report, but doesn't go as far as the all-consuming impeachment might?

CORREA: To me, all the options are on the table and at the end of the day, I'm going to make my decision as to how I vote based on the facts. Based on the facts that I will see, based on the facts that the American public are going to see on television, as we address these issues in committee.

CAMEROTA: Congressman, while we have you, because you're on Homeland Security Committee, I do want to ask you about what's happened in Sri Lanka, the terror attack there.

This morning, while we've been on the air, the government says that they believe this was not just a local Jihadi group, as they first thought, they believe that it does have ties to a larger terrorist organization. Do you see ISIS here? What -- who do you think is behind this?

CORREA: We can't get ahead of the facts, but the fact of the matter is, that terrorism is real, it's an international challenge and this is we, in Homeland Security, and we in this nation, in this country, in this world, have to make sure that we coordinate our resources, we coordinate with intelligence, with all our allies and make sure that we stop these kinds of terrorists attacks from happening.

Sri Lanka, my prayers go out to all those people in Sri Lanka as well as for all those Americans that perished in this terrible, terrible attack. We always have to be vigilant. And remember, Homeland Security, not only these violent attacks, but also cyber attacks.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CORREA: and that's what we talking about here in this presidency as well. Cyber attacks, not only on our nation, but in our democracy, we have to stop all of these kinds of attacks.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Lou Correa, thank you very much for being on NEW DAY.

CORREA: Thank you very much.

[07:30:00]

END