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Music Of The Seventies; Clinton Agrees To Turn Over Private Server; Classified Information E-Mails; Justice Department Will Investigate Clinton E-Mails; Gowdy Says Clinton Is Responsible For Controversy; Gowdy Just Wants To Know About Libya; Clinton Turns over Server; Wall Street Drop. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 12, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 1:00 a.m. Thursday in Beijing and 2:00 a.m. in Pyongyang. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks so much for joining us.

We start with some big news out of the Hillary Clinton camp. The former secretary of state has agreed to turn over her private e-mail server to the Justice Department, according to her campaign. Clinton's e-mails have been a major source of controversy, from political rivals, and the Congressional Committee investigating Benghazi.

CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny is here with me. This is a server, Jeff, that was in her home. Is she turning over anything else?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It was a server in her home in Chappaqua, New York that she established back in January of 2009 when she was first becoming secretary of state. The server (ph) advisor said she should have a private e-mail server, so it's from there. So, she is turning that over, at some point.

She also has already turned over a flash drive. And this flash drive has copies of all these other e-mails that she has. This is something that her attorney has been holding onto. So, it's something that have been so reluctant to surrender. You know, we saw her say, at the U.N. at that press conference in March 10th, we both were there, and she said, I am not turning over this private server. Well, a lot has happened since then which has led us to this point right now.

KEILAR: Do we know -- I'm just curious and we may not know the answer. Are these PDFs that are on these flash drives or are they the actual e-mails? We're not sure, right?

ZELENY: It sounds like they are copies of the e-mails.

KEILAR: OK.

ZELENY: I mean, we have both waded through all these copies that they've sort of released bit by bit. I assume that they're similar to those.

KEILAR: That they're PDFs.

So, you have this e-mail controversy that's really been following her throughout the campaign, especially when potential voters are asked about trust. We've seen that. Now, she's trailing Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. Sanders sits at 44 percent, Clinton at 37 percent in this Franklin Pierce University and "Boston Herald" poll. How much do you think politics is playing into this decision to turn over the server?

ZELENY: I think at least somewhat. There's no question that the Clinton campaign miscalculated how big of an issue this would be. Her trust and credibility, the numbers have fallen, really, ever since she got into the race. Of course, that's been helped along by so much criticism of this. Republicans have been piling on, you know, without a doubt. But their refusal to, sort of, cooperate with some of these things has definitely played a role in this.

So, the Clinton campaign says they are turning this over now because the Justice Department asked them to. And they're more comfortable giving it to the Justice Department and the FBI rather than one of these House committees controlled by Republicans.

And the thing at issue here is the feds want to look at this server to see how it was protected, how it was secured. If anyone could have, sort of, breached it, at any point. But more importantly as well, the inspector general of the intelligence community now says that two of these e-mails, at least, were top secret. They weren't at the time, necessarily.

KEILAR: The highest classification, right?

ZELENY: It is the highest classification of anything in the whole intelligence community. So, now they were labelled, top secret. Her defense is that it was -- it was not classified, at the time. It was just -- it became top secret after the fact. But that is one issue here that is going to stick with her and it going to ensure that this goes on and on and on, really throughout certainly the fall, and I would guess into next year.

KEILAR: Thanks for breaking that down, Jeff, very helpful. Jeff Zeleny for us.

ZELENY: Sure.

KEILAR: Let's take a look now at a new Monmouth University poll on the e-mail issues, 38 percent say Hillary Clinton has something to hide. But look at the breakdown by party affiliation. You have 68 percent are Republicans and 41 percent of independents but only eight percent of Democrats who think there is something to hide. That is a considerable difference. The e-mails are connected to the investigation into Benghazi. Earlier, I spoke with Congressman Trey Gowdy. He's the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Chairman Gowdy, I want to get your reaction to the decision by the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to turn over her private e-mail server to the Justice Department. What do you think about this?

REP. TREY GOWDY, CHAIRMAN (R), HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: About damn time was my initial reaction. We asked her in March to turn that server over to a neutral detached independent arbiter, like the inspector general. I can't help but smile at the notion that somebody is voluntarily turning something over to the FBI. They generally don't ask. They generally tell you to do so. And I doubt very seriously that they asked her to turn her server over. If they have jurisdiction, they don't need to ask. They just go get it.

KEILAR: Hillary Clinton, this week, certified under penalty of perjury, that she has turned over all of the e-mails related to her time at the State Department. Do you take her at that word?

GOWDY: Well, I read that statement and it's easier to read Egyptian hieroglyphics than it is to parse the words that her lawyer wrote in that statement. Whenever you see the phrase on information and belief, that should be a blinking red light for you to be suspicious of it. So, that's my first point.

[13:05:12] KEILAR: So, explain, what do you mean about --

GOWDY: My second point is this.

KEILAR: -- when it -- when it says that on information and belief, she believes this to be true.

GOWDY: Well, how --

KEILAR: Or this is true. So, explain to me --

GOWDY: Well, Brianna --

KEILAR: With the legal perspective here, --

GOWDY: I'd be happy to.

KEILAR: -- explain to me your concerns about that.

GOWDY: I'll be happy to. Did she go through the e-mails? Of the 60,000 e-mails, did she go through the e-mails and separate them, personal versus public record? No. Her attorney did it. Her attorney who has a fiduciary and ethical obligation to her, not to the tax payer, not to the public but to her. So, how in the world can she aver that the public record is complete when she, herself, did not go through and look at each one of those e-mails? We found 15 that she did not turn over to the State Department.

So, we know for a fact that that statement is not correct. Remember the 15, the nine in whole and the six in part that Sidney Blumenthal gave to us that the State Department never had? Where are those? How did her lawyer miss those 15? So, no I don't believe the statement. But statement wasn't to me. It was to a federal judge, and I'll let him or her handle that. KEILAR: But we've seen, certainly, some of the requests go from

Benghazi. There seems to be a concern, now, about Libya, really, in general, beginning with the invasion by the U.S. and its allies. Are -- is the committee expanding its purpose to include Clinton's e-mail practices or just as they pertain to these other issues that you're interested in?

GOWDY: Just as it pertains to making sure that the public record is complete with respect to Libya and Benghazi. I have no jurisdiction over Bolivia or Paraguay or what used to be Somalia. I'm not interested in bridesmaids' dresses or yoga routines. None of that is -- first of all, it's not my business.

Second of all, it's not my jurisdiction. But I am entitled to every document that relates to Libya and Benghazi and what our policy was in Libya and whether anti-western sentiment contributed to the attack or whether it was a spontaneous reaction to a video, as we were told at one point. I'm entitled to all of those records.

And how in the world we can be assured that the public record is complete given this e-mail arrangement that she had with herself, as curious as it was, that's going to be the challenge.

KEILAR: I asked you that because a lot of Democrats who support Hillary Clinton look at the committee and they say, there's been mission creep on the goal of your committee. What do you say to that?

GOWDY: I would say they need to look no further than their own putative 2016 candidate. I didn't advise her to have her own server. I didn't advise her to rely on Sidney Blumenthal as her primary adviser on Libya. I didn't advise her to keep her public records for 20 months after she separated from service and not turn them over to the Department of State. I didn't advise her to say the record is complete and then we find 15 e-mails where they weren't.

And God knows I didn't advise her to say there's no classified information on the server when we know now that there was classified information on the server. So, I get that they're frustrated. I get that they're disappointed that her polling numbers are almost as low as Congress's. But they need to look no further than her. They don't need to blame the Republicans in the House. We're doing what we were supposed to do.

And, Brianna, I hasten to add, all those other committees that looked at Benghazi, not a single damn one of them figured out that she had this e-mail arrangement with herself. So, those investigations must not have been as thorough as we were led to believe.

KEILAR: Are you casting doubt on the findings, then? Those other committees that found, really, no issue with Benghazi or no, certainly, -- a cover-up?

GOWDY: Give me a finding. Well, those are two separate things. Give me a finding that you think a previous committee found and then tell me whether or not they talked to every eyewitness who would have access to information because I can tell you, they didn't. We have talked to 34 witnesses who have firsthand knowledge that no other committee talked to.

So, how in the world could the previous investigations be complete when you're not talking to eyewitnesses? You're not accessing the documents and you haven't even bothered to talk to the secretary of state who was in charge at the time. How that is a complete, thorough investigation into Benghazi, it would be laughed out of court and it ought to be laughed out of the court of public opinion.

KEILAR: But you're raising questions about Republican findings, too, right?

GOWDY: So, that just proves how bi-partisan I am, Brianna. Yes, Republicans can run slip-shod investigations just like anyone else can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR (live): Trey Gowdy there. We talked to him earlier, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Coming up, we will get reaction to that from a Hillary Clinton supporter. Why did she choose to turn over her server now? And will voters be satisfied?

[13:10:07]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Back now to our top story, the decision by presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, to turn over her home-based private e-mail server. The one that she used while she was secretary of state. Her spokesman says that Clinton will cooperate with the Justice Department and will answer any new questions that come up.

Joining me now to talk about this is Democratic strategist, Matt Miller. And I think, probably, you don't work for the campaign, but I think it's best to describe you as a friend of the campaign, just putting that out there. So, you heard chairman Gowdy say that he has doubts that Hillary Clinton voluntarily turned over her server, as her campaign says. What can you say to that?

MATTHEW MILLER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think, first of all, you have to look at where chairman Gowdy is coming from. He's chair of a committee that is the seventh or eighth (INAUDIBLE.)

KEILAR: But did she turn it over voluntarily or was she compelled to?

MILLER: She did -- she did -- she did turn it over voluntarily. It's consistent --

KEILAR: So, she wasn't compelled to.

MILLER: No, she wasn't. It's consistent what she's done since this issue came to light when she went to the State Department and said -- and asked for all of her e-mails to be made public, something that is really unprecedented in the history of senior cabinet officials. [13:15:11]

KEILAR: Because she had said before, this server will remain private. Now she's turning over the server.

MILLER: She's turning over the server. I think what happened, when you look - when you've see this kind of bureaucratic wrangling between the State Department and the inspector general at the - at the - for the intelligence community who said that some of these e-mails might be classified, something which we don't know is actually true yet. The Justice Department had the responsibility, they were kind of, you know, jammed, I think, a little bit, if you -

KEILAR: But hasn't the inspector general for the intel community said that one of these e-mails - didn't he just tell Congress -

MILLER: They -

KEILAR: One of these e-mails was classified at the time, may have become declassified, but doesn't that run counter to what she said?

MILLER: It's run counter to what the State Department has said. I think anyone that's worked in government will tell you that the intelligence community, for all the good they do, have a long history of claiming that things are - things are classified that aren't necessarily classified. They take the most aggressive view of things. They'll often tell you the things that you've read in the paper a week ago are still classified. And so it's not unusual for them to be doing this. And you've seen the State Department says they still don't agree that the information in these e-mails was actually classified.

KEILAR: So I've heard this before, this argument about over classification for sure. This is something that is discussed. The issue of some of these e-mails being top secret, is the argument then that these were deemed top secret after they were sent or received?

MILLER: Well, what we know, Secretary Clinton has said that she never sent or received any e-mail - any information that was marked secret, top secret, confidential, any - classified in any way at the time. And there's been no information to the contrary. So now the - the inspector general has come back and said after the fact that the - this information was classified.

But, again, the State Department disagrees with that. And this is - you know, if you remember what happened when the inspector - or the Senate Intelligence Committee report on classified - on torture was released, it took a year to - for - of wrangling between the intelligence community and the committee over what ought to be classified. And so this is really - it kind of falls in line with what the intelligence community has long done.

KEILAR: We see a new Monmouth University poll that says 52 percent of American's think Hillary Clinton's e-mails should be the subject of a criminal investigation. This is a problem for the campaign and for people who support Hillary Clinton. MILLER: Well, first of all, you know, I worked at the Justice

Department. The Justice Department doesn't make investigative decisions based on polls or what partisan members of Congress ask.

KEILAR: No, but you have a political background as well.

MILLER: Sure. Sure.

KEILAR: So I'm asking you more about the politics of this.

MILLER: I think as people look more at this and they see things like the interview you just had with Chairman Gowdy really going overboard, demanding - you know, going far beyond the scope of his original investigation, turning it into a full witch-hunt, I think they'll see this for what it is, which is something that's been completely blown out of proportion and pursued by Republicans as a partisan agenda.

KEILAR: So are there questions that are merited about the e-mail practice?

MILLER: Of course there are. And I think the press has been right to ask some of those questions. I think some of it's been blown out of proportion. But she's answered those questions and continues to answer that. And again, she is making voluntarily all of those e-mails public. Something that really is unprecedented. I don't think you could go back and find another cabinet secretary of either administration, either at state, at treasury, the attorneys general who have volunteered to release all of their e-mails. And I certainly doubt that any of the Republicans who hold office would voluntarily release any of their e-mails.

KEILAR: All right, Matt Miller, thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

Still ahead, world markets in turmoil. The shock move by China that has stocks in a triple digit tumble. Plus what it means for your bottom line. We have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:06] KEILAR: We are watching Wall Street right now. Stocks have been volatile. There's a - here's a live look, I should say, at the big board. You see the Dow Jones there down about 103/102 now. Huge slide coming after China cut the value of its currency, the yuan, for the second straight day, sent global markets into a tailspin. And here to break it all down for us is our own Richard Quest. He's the host of "Quest Means Business."

So explain this to us, Richard, why China's move is just roiling the markets.

RICHARD QUEST, ANCHOR, CNN'S "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Most obviously and the simple answer is the question of exports. Any company, particularly in the United States, whether it's a Boeing or a General Electric or any company that's doing business with China will now see its products as more expensive and that is going to reduce the opportunity for exports going to China. Of course it will greatly increase the opportunity in the opposite direction so Chinese imports - Chinese exports to the rest of the world look that much better.

But there's something else going on here, Brianna. It's too simplistic just simply to say this is all about trade imports and exports. What's behind it is the Chinese determination to get to grips, manipulate, whatever you want to call it, their economy to put it back on to a former footing. And they say to do this they need to make the yuan more realistically valued. And that's what this does.

KEILAR: What can you tell us about the U.S. companies that have been particularly hard hit by this?

QUEST: Well, it's fascinating because although you have the obvious candidates, you do have the Boeings of this world that sell huge amounts into China. The other side, let's taken an Apple. Now, Apple is a fascinating example. It goes both ways because obviously its sources in China, it exports from China, therefore it should benefit to some extent from this currency devaluation. But it also sends products back into China. So it's on both sides of the equation. And when you see that sort of scenario, you really are left with just simply saying, uncertainty.

[13:25:21] We know the stock market's in trouble. We know there's property problems in China. The banking community, the banks are a little bit dodgy. We're not entirely sure what's happening with economic growth. They say 5 percent - 7 percent, but who believes the real numbers.

Put all this together. With the moves we've just seen and you have investors saying we're not sure.

KEILAR: Well, some observers are talking about a currency war. Do you think that - that's real?

QUEST: Well, wherever a large trader devalues it's called a beggar thy neighbor policy and it works purely and simple. And that's why not many countries do it because it really is a race to the bottom. And what you may well see - and we're starting to see it with countries like Australia and New Zealand, Columbia, Brazil - you'll start to see all these other countries wondering whether they should let their currencies depreciate because they have such business with China. It's a very dangerous road a start down.

One final point to make here, though, is, whilst the dollar has devalued - remember, currency is a frighteningly complicated stuff when you do look at it at a global scale. While the dollar has devalued, the euro has gone up against the Chinese currency. So you have these two massive trading partners absolutely at loggerheads and that's where you start worrying about a currency war.

KEILAR: You're the best, Richard, thanks for breaking it down and being on with us.

And to keep up with the work markets, head to over to cnnmoney.com. Still ahead, Jeb Bush's speech on Iraq and ISIS. He took swings at

President Obama and Hillary Clinton and he barely mentioned his own brother. Is that strategy going to work?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)