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Session Called to Recuse Himself; Sessions Under Fire; Calls For Session to Resign. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 2, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE (live): Not while the -- not in the summer, not in the fall and not even to this day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, to be clear. You've learned things today that you had not previously been aware of as a member of the gang of eight?

SCHIFF: Absolutely.

I'm going to leave it at that and thank you.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You just heard Adam Schiff. He's the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, saying the FBI, so far, not fully cooperating with the House Intelligence Committee, investigating contacts between Trump campaign officials, surrogates, associates and Russian officials, Russian operatives, if you will. That is an important headline.

Other headlines we're getting -- and we want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting here in Washington.

Susan Collins, an important Republican senator from the state of Maine just issued a statement, saying the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions, should recuse himself to ensure public confidence in the Justice Department's investigation. He should also clarify his statements to the -- to the Judiciary Committee with respect to his communications with the Russian ambassador.

There are important developments that we're following right now. Breaking news. A new Russia headache for the Trump administration. The attorney general is facing growing calls from Republicans to recuse himself from the Russian investigation and calls from Democrats for him to resign.

Jeff Sessions is under fire over his own contacts with Russia. He met twice last year with the top Russian diplomat here in the United States but he did not mention those meetings during his confirmation hearing. He testified that he knew of no contacts between Trump surrogates and Russia. Today, Sessions denied he did anything wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign and those remarks are unbelievable to me, and all false. And I don't have anything else to say about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: A senior administration official says the White House learned about Sessions' contacts with the Russian ambassador here in Washington from press reports.

We're going to have all the latest developments coming in from the White House.

Senator Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, is among those Republicans calling for Sessions to recuse himself. Graham also says he'll be meeting with the FBI director, James Comey, this hour to find out what's going on with the Russia investigation.

All of this comes, by the way, as President Trump gets ready to visit with the aircraft carrier to sell his military spending increase. Representatives on that aircraft in the -- from the aircraft "USS Gerald R. Ford." There, you see the president getting off Marine One on the -- this new $13 billion aircraft carrier, the "USS Gerald Ford."

He's there in the Newport News shipyard in Virginia. He'll be giving a speech there in the next hour. But he's got about 5,000 sailors, Marines, ship builders, others who have gathered to hear him.

This was supposed to be and probably will still be an important event for the president. He's upset that this aircraft carrier is way, way overbudget and way, way behind schedule.

They started building this aircraft carrier back in 2008. It was supposed to be ready in 2014. It's not ready yet. The president is upset about that.

He's also upset about all of the money that has been spent, about $13 billion, many billions of dollars more than were originally budgeted. And let's see if he gets into all those issues during his remarks.

Our correspondents are covering all these stories from every angle. We have our Senior Congressional Reporter Manu Raju up on Capitol Hill. Our Senior White House Correspondent Jeff Zeleny is with the president in Virginia. Our CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is in Moscow.

Manu, a lot of this stems from Jeff Sessions' own testimony at his January 10th confirmation hearing in the Senate, when he was questioned by Senator Al Franken. Listen to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), MINNESOTA: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provides documents to the president- elect last week that included information that, quote, "Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump." These documents also allegedly say, quote, "There was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government."

Now, again, I'm telling you this as it's coming out. So -- you know -- but if it's true, it's obviously extremely serious.

[13:05:07] And if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn't have -- not have communications with the Russian. And I'm unable to comment on it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: All this came up during Sessions' answers to a written questionnaire as well. So, Manu, talk about those two times that the now attorney general of the United States told the United States Senate that he did not have contacts with the Russian -- with Russian officials.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, some Democrats say that is perjury. He lied under oath. That is coming from Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who believes he should step aside and resign as well as, of course, if he doesn't resign, then step aside from this investigation.

Now, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, I asked him specifically, do you think that Sessions lied under oath? He would not go there.

But he does think that Sessions should step aside and they should name a special prosecutor. Either the administration should do it, if not, even if Congress should pass legislation ensuring that a special, independent investigation will actually happen.

Now, we're not really hearing much support from the Republican side on that issue. Only Darrell Issa, the California Republican, has come out in support of a special prosecutor.

But, Wolf, a growing number of Republicans are comfortable with the idea of Sessions' recusing himself, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who told me it would be a no-brainer earlier today for Sessions to recuse himself, as well as Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Raul Labrador, a top conservative in the House.

But one person who does -- who is not going that far is House Speaker Paul Ryan. Has not said that whether or not Sessions should recuse himself. Listen to how he responded to the question earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: If he, himself, is the subject of an investigation, of course, he would. But if he's not, I don't see any purpose or reason to doing this.

We have seen no evidence from any of these ongoing investigations that anybody in the Trump campaign or the Trump team was involved in any of this. We have been presented with no evidence that an American was colluding with the Russians to meddle in the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Wolf, the House Intelligence Committee just broke up. It had a closed-door classified meeting where I am standing, just steps from where I'm standing right now, with the FBI director, James Comey.

And Democrats came out of that meeting expressing frustration that Comey was not -- in the words of Adam Schiff, the top Democrat, not forthright, not forthcoming. Did not answer the requests.

And Schiff, now for the first time, calling for an independent investigation and special prosecutor because he does not believe that the FBI has been direct enough about what they know about these contacts which allegedly have occurred between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

But Devin Nunes, the Republican Chairman of the committee, was standing right behind Adam Schiff. I said, do you agree with Adam Schiff's assessment? He shook his head and said, no.

So, the disagreement here on Capitol Hill remains -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, serious disagreement between the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member.

Jeff Zeleny, what about the reports that we did report that the White House actually learned about the attorney general's Russia contacts from news reports. They didn't know that he actually met with the Russian ambassador here in Washington.

What does that suggest?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Wolf. That is our understanding that President Trump and the rest of the White House learned about this contact, indeed, from that "Washington Post" report last evening. We are told by an administration official that was the first time they knew about it.

But, of course, that Senator Sessions is more than simply a senator who is supportive of this president, of this campaign. He was one of the earliest senators, in fact the earliest senator on board. He, in fact, was part of the fabric of this campaign, really from most all of 2016. Several of his staff members went on to work for the president in the campaign.

And so, Wolf, there is no closer person or no closer cabinet member than Jeff Sessions to this White House.

Now, we are not told, yet, if the president will address this here. He is in Newport News, Virginia. He intended to talk about his military budget. How he plans to increase the military budget by some $54 billion. That is still his message today, Wolf.

But I can tell you it is being overshadowed, somewhat, by another connection to Russia here. So, we will hear from the president in about an hour or so's time, when he talks about, you know, his original message. We will see if he addresses it.

Other administration officials, earlier, were calling this simply a partisan development. They were criticizing Senator Franken and others for this.

I am told they intend to dial that back a little bit and they are no longer calling it partisan, because, as Manu was just reporting, so many Republicans now are calling on Jeff Sessions to recuse himself.

[13:10:09] So, we will have to listen to see what the president says here in the next hour. But, again, as you said, Wolf, they say they did not know about it until last night.

BLITZER: Yes. Republicans, at least some of them, saying he should at least recuse himself from this specific issue. A lot of Democrats are saying he should simply resign and leave the Justice Department.

Jeff Zeleny, we'll get back to you. We'll have live coverage of the president's remarks there.

Let's go to Moscow. Nic Robertson is on the scene for us. What your hearing over there, Nic, from Russian officials about the attorney general's meetings with the Russian ambassador of the United States?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the position here is that the Russian ambassador isn't doing anything wrong. This is his job in Washington, to meet with -- meet with politicians and meet with other diplomats. That if he wasn't doing that, there would be something wrong.

The view from here is, and we heard this from the president's spokesman today, Dmitry Peskov, saying that there's a highly-charged emotional atmosphere in Washington right now. That the United States doesn't interfere in the business of other nations. That it isn't involved in this. But it needs to, sort of, wait until the situation calms down and normalizes before Moscow can make a judgment about what's really happening here.

However, we've also heard, from the spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry here, criticizing journalists reporting here, saying that it's misinformation. That it's media vandalism, even comparing the reporting of the CNN, in this particular case, to George Orwell's book in 1984, saying that the media -- the western media have become big brother in this.

So, there's, sort of, a pushback at two levels. There's a pushback against the accusations about the Russian ambassador in Washington and a pushback that he was doing anything remotely wrong. That Russia, in this case, they feel is unfairly being tarred by infighting in Washington. It's causing frustration. It's likely causing, behind the scenes, more anxiety than officials are letting on here. But the way that they're dealing with it is to heavily push back those providing the reporting about all of this -- Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, Nic, the ambassador that Jeff Sessions met with is the same ambassador whose interactions with the former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, led to Flynn's resignation. What do we know about Sergey Kislyak?

ROBERTSON: Yes. You know, a career diplomat, Wolf. Forty years working for the foreign ministry here in Russia. He started back in 1973, graduating from the Institute of Engineering Physics. Four years later, in 1977, he joins the foreign ministry.

Then 1981, when his -- this country is still the Soviet Union, he is assigned to New York to the U.N., to the United Nations there, as a second secretary representing the Soviet Union. A low position.

Four years later, 1985, he's promoted to first secretary. Sent to the Soviet Union's embassy in Washington. He leaves 1989. So, he has about 10 years in the United States.

He comes back to Russia. He's serving here -- he's serving in Russia in various capacities in the foreign ministry. 2000 -- or 1998, rather, he's assigned to become the Russian ambassador to Brussels.

He was also Russia's representative to NATO as well. 2008, he becomes the deputy foreign minister -- rather between 2003 and 2008, he's the deputy foreign minister here in Russia. Before then, being assigned back to Washington as ambassador.

So, this is a long diplomatic career. And this is what Russian officials are pointing to here. That he is a professional and they consider that he's done nothing outside the bounds of what a normal professional diplomat would do -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Nic Robertson in Moscow for us. Nic, thanks for that report.

Coming up, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee says the FBI is not answering important questions on the Russia investigation. We're going to have more details. We're following the breaking news. We'll be right back.

[13:14:11]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:16] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Take a look at live pictures coming in from the USS Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, Virginia. The president, President Trump, he'll be speaking there just about an hour or so from now. He's meeting with sailors, Marines, ship builders, others. We'll have live coverage of that once it begins.

In the meantime, there's a huge question in Washington today. Did President Trump's attorney general mislead the United States Congress about talks with the Russians during the presidential campaign? We now know that the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, met twice with the Russian ambassador last year. Something he did not disclose during his confirmation hearings, even under questioning.

I want to bring in our panel. Our chief political analyst Gloria Borger is with us, our CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, Laura Coates, and our CNN global affairs analyst, senior national security correspondent for "The Daily Beast," Kimberly Dozier.

Gloria, it's an issue of not disclosing right now that's causing a lot of anguish, not just for Democrats, but for plenty of Republicans as well. Listen to some Republicans now suggesting the attorney general should at least recuse himself from this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: I think the attorney general should further clarify his testimony. And I do think he should recuse himself.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: What about recusing himself?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Absolutely. If, if, if, if there's ever credible evidence of inappropriate campaign contacts between Trump officials and Russia, Jeff Sessions cannot, in my view, make the decision to go forward or not go forward because of his ties to the campaign. That's a no-brainer for me.

[13:20:03] REP. RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: He's going to have to answer questions as a witness. So if there's going to be investigations about Russia that he may actually become a witness and I don't think he should be leading the investigation.

JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, I've said that whenever it's appropriate, I will recuse myself. There's no doubt about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So the issue is not whether or not it was appropriate or authorized for him to meet with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

BLITZER: The issue is whether, allegedly, did he commit perjury when he didn't - wasn't forthcoming in response to questions during his Senate confirmation hearing.

BORGER: You remember the old Watergate saw that it's the cover-up, not the crime. And his crime here was, of course, that he didn't disclose to the - to the committee. And, look, I think that he has a way out of this. And the way - the obvious way out is to hold a press conference, which I think he's got to do, answer questions and then recuse himself. And, don't forget, this is somebody who during the whole Hillary

Clinton e-mail brouhaha said that Lynch, then the Attorney General Lynch, ought to recuse herself because she met on an airplane with Bill Clinton and that a special prosecutor ought to be appointed. So what goes around comes around.

This was - this was his solution for that problem. And maybe it should be a solution for his own problem. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it evolves. It seems to me that the easy solution for him at the very least is to recuse himself. And I don't think that would be particularly difficult for him to do.

BLITZER: You know the - a couple of times when he didn't notify the Senate that he did in fact met with the Russian ambassador to the United States, we played the exchange he had with Senator Al Franken in which he said he didn't meet with Russians. There was a written question that Senator Leahy sent to him that was this. And I'll put it up on the screen. Question, "several of the president-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after Election Day?" Sessions reply, in one word, "no." So the question is, and you've studied this, Laura, you're a legal analyst, some are already saying he committed perjury. This was sworn testimony under oath.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, and the reason they're saying that is because it walks and smells like perjury at this point. I mean you have a statement - not only what he said, but what he actually wrote. And the reason this is so important, really, Gloria's right about the way optics look and how you could kind of get out of it if you were an everyday person or a congressman perhaps.

The problem is, semantics is why everyone hates lawyers. You cannot get into the game with semantics about whether or not it was perjury or a misstatement when the fact is you run the Department of Justice. And when you run the Department of Justice, you have an obligation to insure that people believe in the possibility of objective justice. If you have the leader of the Department of Justice saying that, well, let's play the game of, I didn't really remember. I may have had amnesia. Prosecutors pounce on this for good reason.

And, realistically, the reason that recusal would be important here is not only the credibility of the Department of Justice is, because, listen, I was a career prosecutor. The line attorneys do the bulk of the work and he would be a figure head in large (INAUDIBLE) this. It would be easy to recuse himself. What's not easy to do is to preserve and maintain the credibility if you have the fox guarding the hen house.

BORGER: So should he resign then?

COATES: Well, I don't think we're in resignation territory yet. I think we're - we don't know what's - we don't fully know the full story. And I do believe that due process is deserved and warranted for even the head of the Department of Justice.

BORGER: Right. Right.

COATES: Particularly for the Department of Justice. But here we have very clear indication that somebody has made a misstatement verbally and in writing and, frankly, this is going to be a domino effect. What else is he not going to be able to oversee for the DOJ? He was a very big part of the campaign. Akin to a surrogate and named a surrogate. Will this have a domino effect on anything else coming up in the future? And if that is the case, we've got a very lame duck for a DOJ head.

BLITZER: Kimberly, we're learning a lot more about Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He's been here in Washington for a while. You're doing some reporting on him. What else do we know?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I have to say, when you meet Ambassador Kislyak, you don't forget it. He's an imposing man. He's kind of straight out of central casting. Has, you know, excellent English. Heavy Russian accent. And his public appearances are few and far between.

He's held several different posts in the foreign ministry. And as we all know about how the Russian intelligence world works, their diplomats and their intelligence community work very closely together. That's why we had two diplomatic compounds shut down by the Obama administration as a way to punish Russia for interfering with the U.S. election. They are deeply linked. So to meet with one is to have contact with the other. And that's why this is so concerning for lawmakers on The Hill.

[13:25:10] BLITZER: Yes, and U.S. intelligence believes he's - he's potentially a top Russian spy and a spy recruiter, in addition to being the top diplomat here in Washington for the government in Moscow.

You know, Gloria, people are going back and looking at Sessions' record. He's been at the Senate for a while. He, of course, wanted Loretta Lynch to recuse herself -

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: On the investigation - after she met with President Clinton on that, you know, plane - after she had that meet with President Clinton on that plane during the investigations of Hillary Clinton that were ongoing and her e-mail server and all of that.

But listen to what he said back in 1999 during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the impeachment allegations that were going against then President Bill Clinton. Listen to what he said about the president, President Clinton, lying under oath. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The president, under oath, being alleged to have committed perjury. But there are serious allegations that that occurred. And in America and Supreme Court and the American people believe no one is above the law. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So those words are now being replayed, as we just did, involving, you know, his testimony under oath before the Senate.

BORGER: Right, as it should be. He is the attorney general of the United States. And if you take a step back, what we are doing now is parsing the words of the attorney general, to your point. And it's very - it's a very difficult situation for him. And he would have been able to - I mean it's not as if when you testify before Congress, by the way, and you make a mistake, that you can't go back and correct the record afterwards. You take a look at your written testimony, and you are able to amend your written testimony and say, oops, I made a mistake. I actually did have these contacts. That was not done. I mean that might have caused an uproar, but you want to have everything 100 percent right so this kind of thing doesn't happen.

The question that has to be answered is, why did you not remember this? As you say, this is a man who's kind of hard to forget. Why did you not remember this? If you did remember this, why didn't you tell us? And why not correct the record?

BLITZER: Yes.

COATES: But -

BLITZER: Very quickly.

COATES: But the statue gives a lifeline to Jeff Sessions, and that is the word intentionally or willfully or voluntarily. Whatever word you want to choose to say that he did it on purpose. And really you kind of implied some kind of malicious and nefarious intent behind choosing not to say that. So that's a lifeline he may have (INAUDIBLE) said.

BLITZER: Yes, if he would have said to Senator Franken, Senator Leahy, you know what, I did meet with the Russian ambassador in my capacity as a senator, a member of the Armed Services Committee. I have that responsibility. But there was no discussion of any campaign related information. That would have been a more forthcoming, honest explanation. But from his perspective, let's say, it probably wouldn't have derailed potentially his confirmation as the attorney general.

BORGER: Because this is what we talked about.

BLITZER: And senators meet with ambassadors all of the time. It was nothing to do with the campaign. It was strictly armed services related business. He didn't say that. That's why he's in deep trouble right now.

All right, Gloria, Laura, Kimberly, guys, thanks very much.

Coming up -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We couldn't hear it, but President Trump ignoring reporters' questions about the attorney general when departing the White House earlier today. He'll speak next hour in Newport News, Virginia. Will he address the big story of the day? We'll go there live. You're looking at live pictures right now. A lot of sailors, Marines, others, ship builders, have gathered to hear the president.

Plus, a growing number of Democrats now calling for the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to resign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: The fact that the attorney general, the top cop in our country, lied under oath to the American people is grounds for him to resign.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), MINORITY LEADER: His integrity and independence has been questioned. It would be better for the country if he'd resign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he's standing by. He'll join us live. We'll discuss this and more when we come back.

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