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Interview with Rand Paul; Comey asked for More Resources for Russia Probe; Sen. Mark Warner Invites Comey to Testify before Committee Next Week; White House Daily Briefing; Huckabee Sanders: Trump, DOJ, Congress, FBI Lost Confidence in Comey. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 10, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00] SEN. RAND PAUL, (R), KENTUCKY: I think most people have come to that consensus. And what is the reaction to that? We need to protect ourselves. We need to know that. We need to set up various cybersecurity walls to try to protect our secrets, our people, our institutions. So, yes, we know this happens all the time. And apparently, it happens on all sides. Every country that has the ability to commit cyberespionage, does. We collected all of the phone calls in Italy in one month. We collected Angela Merkel's phone calls, her personal phone calls. Everyone that can spy is spying and you've got to protect yourself. And so for national defense purposes, we should learn, absolutely, we should protect ourselves.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for joining us.

PAUL: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let me bring in our panel. We'll get reaction to that and all the other developments. Joining us, Gloria Borger, our chief political analyst; Pamela Brown, our CNN justice correspondent; David Gregory, CNN political analyst; Tom Fuentes, CNN senior law enforcement analyst; and Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Pamela, let's talk first of all about the latest developments that, only in recent days, we're now reporting -- and you're among our best reporters involved in covering the FBI and the Justice Department -- that Comey sought additional resources, more money, to accelerate this investigation. What are you hearing?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That is something that the Department of Justice is coming out and flatly denying, saying that he did not ask for additional resources, but our Sara Murray has heard from her sources that that did, in fact, happen in a meeting with Rod Rosenstein, in fact, a deputy attorney general, and the person who recommended to President Trump for James Comey to be fired. But what we do know, Wolf, is that this investigation is full-fledged. It's moving full steam ahead. And just in the last couple of weeks, the eastern district of Virginia U.S. attorney's office has issued subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, who, of course, was attached to the Trump campaign and was President Trump's former national security adviser. So that case indicates a significant escalation in this investigation. And it will continue. There's still that question of, what, now will happen to the Russia probe? Folks I've spoken to in the FBI will say, we're not going to blink, we'll continue to move forward. But there's a big question mark about who the new FBI director will be and what happens then?

BLITZER: And, Gloria, you've been doing a lot of reporting on this. What's the latest you're hearing?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF PIOLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think what we're getting is a lot of reporting and a lot of denying out of the White House. We reported, I reported earlier this morning that Roger Stone was among those who recommended to the president that he fire James Comey and both the president and Roger Stone today have denied that they have that conversation. So the White House has denied it, as well. The White House is denying this funding reporting that Sara Murray and "The New York Times" has. So it's up to us, Wolf, to try to get to the bottom of all of these issues, where we have clearly conflicting sources here and in my case, I stand by my reporting.

BLITZER: It's interesting, this briefing, David Gregory, we're about to see, the White House press briefing, it's a really important day for the White House. The deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will be doing the briefing. Sean Spicer is doing his Naval Reserve duty at the Pentagon, three days. He could have easily rescheduled that, but for some reason, he decided he wanted to go forward with that and let Sarah Huckabee Sanders do this briefing.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANAYST: I would do it, too, rather than face the questions. Because the White House has an enormous credibility problem, from its top officials and from the president. There is a rationale for why Comey should be fired, and I think Senator Paul is right, it's one shared by Democrats and Republicans, but you have to get to the what and the why and the when. The what is, the head of the FBI at the time of a major investigation by Russia was fired. During that time and the president, if he was so worried about what happened to Hillary Clinton and how Comey handled himself could have fired him right after the election. Is this a revelation that Comey overstepped his bounds? No, there's so much heat from this investigation, maybe not enough emphasis on investigating the leaks that the president acted now. It's not a credible explanation.

BLITZER: And you're a former White House correspondent, and so am I. I think it's pretty extraordinary, though, for Sean Spicer to decide he's going to go forward with his routine Naval Reserve duty over at the Pentagon, at a time like this, instead of stepping up and doing this major briefing.

GREGORY: But they don't have a real concern about being accountable and giving the press corps answers. They'll accepted out the vice president or Kellyanne Conway to just spin this pretext of what -- it's simply not credible that the president ever cared about how Jim Comey handled the Hillary Clinton investigation. There's nobody who's going to believe that and yet, there is still a basis and, apparently, there's enough Republican support for doing it, they think they can ride this out. And part of the rationale, whatever you think about the timing, we'll take our lumps, and the investigation will continue. But this notion that it doesn't matter who is head of the FBI and the investigation continues is so ridiculous.

Tom knows more about this than I do, of course.

But the head of the FBI directs what gets done, how it gets done, the timing, the decisions. Think about the Hillary Clinton investigation. Going public, what they did, reopening the investigation. That was all Jim Comey.

[13:35:53] BLITZER: You know, what -- and Tom Fuentes, you're a former FBI assistant director, so you spent a career inside the FBI. The last time a president fired a FBI director was back in 1993 when Bill Clinton fired the FBI director, William Sessions. But that followed a formal investigation and report of wrongdoing on the part of the FBI Director Sessions. In this particular case, the inspector general at the Justice department, they were investigating what Comey had done, all these allegations against him. Why not wait for the inspector general report to come out and then fire him, if, in fact, he did something wrong?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think if they did, Wolf, the question would be, if it's two months, six months, we don't know how long that investigation is going to take. And then when they come out with it, wait a minute, you've let him sit in this position the whole time and didn't do anything about it. I think to me the "X Factor" going on here and being understated is deputy attorney general Rosenstein. Because a year ago, when James Comey was basically usurping Department of Justice authority to decide if a case gets prosecuted or not, he was sitting as a U.S. attorney and as one of the 96 U.S. Attorneys around the country, they were mostly outraged that the FBI had taken that position, when it's a DOJ position. I was on the air at the time saying that the FBI should have sent that report across the street to the Department of Justice and I don't care if the janitor over there made the decision, it's still the responsibility of DOJ to decide whether or not to bring a prosecution.

BLITZER: Let me get your quick reaction, Noah Bookbinder. How do you see it?

NOAH BOOKBINDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON: Well, I think that while there certainly is a rationale case to be made that James Comey made mistakes, it seems like there's irrefutable, certainly smoke, and likely fire, that this was made for different reasons. That the reasons that the president is now relying were the opposite of what he's been saying for months. And even in his letter, in his letter, he referenced investigation into himself. And that's clearly what was on his mind. And that's what people are concerned about.

GREGORY: And the president, as a candidate, he praised the job that Jim --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Repeatedly.

GREGORY: So did the attorney general, say that Comey did the right thing. The idea -- Tom, you're exactly right about Rod Rosenstein. But the idea that they want to wrap themselves in the cloak of big justice here, is absolutely without merit and not credible. They didn't care. We had the candidate for president of the United States say that he wanted to put Hillary Clinton in jail, and that he would pursue that. That's what -- that's how tyrants talk. Now he bricks in Rosenstein.

By the way, why is Rosenstein tasked with doing this investigation while the I.G. at the Department of Justice is doing the very same thing? Could it be that they wanted to bring in this guy with a great reputation to reach this conclusion, knowing that's how career prosecutors felt, so then they could use that as a pretext?

BLITZER: All right. Everybody, stand by. There's a lot more coming up.

Rosenstein's only been on the job, by the way, for two weeks or so. That's another issue.

We're also learning, by the way, that the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner, has just invited Comey to come and testify up on Capitol Hill. We have new information. We'll share that with you, as we await the White House press briefing.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:43:12] BLITZER: Got some more breaking news. The top Democrat, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, says he was asked the former FBI director, James Comey, to come up to Capitol Hill and testify before his committee next week.

Let's go to our senior congressional reporter, Manu Raju.

Manu, what are you learning?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRSEPONDENT: Well, Wolf, actually, this turns out to be a bipartisan invitation. Richard Burr, the Senate intelligence chairman, and the vice chairman, Mark Warner, asking Comey to testify in a Tuesday hearing next week. We do not know whether or not the former director will, in fact, testify, but we know that invite has been extended. And of course, this would be rather dramatic appearance. This would be the third time that he would appear before a congressional committee if it does occur. And if it does happen in an open session. And it comes as concerns have been raised by not just Mark Warner, but also Richard Burr, about the firing of James Comey, the timing, and the reasoning behind it, and as Richard Burr said last night, he -- he believes a firing raises more questions and confusion of an already-difficult investigation that they're launching into Russia and the Trump campaign, something that has actually been going a lot slower than a lot of the people on the committee would like. So we'll see if Comey actually agrees to do that.

But we do know that this invite has been extended to James Comey. The question is, does he agree? And if he does, buckle up. It could be a rather dramatic hearing, with a lot of questions from Senators, particularly that letter from President Trump saying that he was warned -- or he told President Trump that he was not a target of the investigation. We'll see what James Comey has to say about that -- Wolf?

BLITZER: It would be lively, to put it mildly.

Manu, thanks for the reporting.

I want to bring back our panel. Also joining us right now, our senior reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson.

In that letter, Nia, that the president wrote, firing Comey, he says, "While I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau."

There's a lot of questions that have been raised. Did Comey really tell the president he was not under investigation? Was that appropriate? Was that legal, if he did? Did the president ask him? Should he have responded? That's becoming a huge issue right now.

[13:45:32] NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And why did it end up in this letter? There have been so many comments from this White House saying this firing of James Comey wasn't about Russia and there you have the president in there, raising the specter of Russia. And I think because this president and this White House has a credibility problem, we've been on television shows before, talking about statements that have come out of this White House, that have ended up not being true. You imagine that this is another one that's going to get a lot of questions and scrutiny, if James Comey is in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, talking about this, you think that you mentioned that will come out. I also think, it's clear that this White House was unprepared for the blowback, that has ensued in these last hours since this firing. They were unprepared in terms of the messaging around it. It seems that they thought James Comey was going to go away, if they fired him. It's clear this firing raises more questions.

BLITZER: Gloria, you have been reporting that, what, the former Trump adviser, Roger Stone, told the president to fire James Comey. Tell us a little bit more about what you've learned?

BORGER: Well, what I've learned is that Roger Stone, and this is according to someone familiar with the conversation, that Roger Stone had spoken to the president and that he advised the president that he ought to fire James Comey. And the White House, as we were saying earlier, the White House has denied this, and the president has tweeted about him denying it, but I stand by my story. And I would also add, Wolf, that we -- if we were better readers of the tea leaves, in fact, and by that I mean, Donald Trump's tweets, we should have seen this coming, in a way. Because I'm looking at a tweet of Donald Trump's from May 2nd, which I believe was the day before Comey testified. So it was in the lead up to the Comey testimony, in which Donald Trump says, FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton, in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds. So the worm was already turning there. And then he watches, you know, you can think about this, and this now is speculation, but you think about this, and he watches the Comey testimony, where Comey had to dodge questions about collusion and what was directly under investigation by the FBI, because he can't answer those questions in an unclassified setting. And you can get this sense and then the president called the Russian investigation a hoax after that. So, in a way, we should have seen this building to what eventually occurred. Because it's clear to me, just watching all of this, that the president was watching the hearings, watching all of this, and he didn't like what he was seeing and he didn't like what he was hearing -- Wolf?

BLITZER: I'm sure he didn't like that, David Gregory -- and we're waiting for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to walk out -- the fact that Comey has now said repeatedly, there is now a criminal investigation underway into these allegations of collusion between Trump associates and the Russians, and that investigation was launched last July.

GREGORY: And it's quite possible, by the way, that Comey did, in fact, notify the president that he was not being investigated at this time, or that he was not a target at this time. My understanding of procedures is that that could have been, in fact, been said, and that could be true today and not true tomorrow. If you continue to investigate in talking to other people, then things might develop in such a way to make him a target at a later date.

BLITZER: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, walking up to the lectern.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Light crowd.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Slow news day.

HUCKABEE SANDERS: So I've heard.

Good afternoon, everybody.

As most of you, I think, know, Sean is on Reserve duty for the rest of this week, so I will be briefing you today and in the following days.

I've got a few announcements here at the top before I take your questions.

I have an update on the tunnel collapse at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site in Washington State. The incident is moving from the emergency phase toward the recovery phase. After extensive testing, we remain confident at this point that there has been no indication of worker exposure or an airborne radiological release. Personnel will begin taking steps to stabilize and fill the hole over the partially collapsed tunnel last night and we expect those efforts to be completed today. The site remains closed to non-essential personnel. Dedicated experts on the ground are looking closely at what next steps should be taken with respect to mitigating future tunnel breaches. [13:50:09] In Washington, D.C., today, as Sean mentioned yesterday,

the president is focused on preparations for his upcoming foreign trip. He met this morning with the Russian foreign minister following on the visit of Secretary of State Tillerson to Moscow last month. A readout of that meeting went out about an hour ago and I would refer to that on further questions on the meeting.

Outside of D.C., as part of the administration's ongoing effort to address the opioid crisis in American, Secretary Price continues his listening tour, learning from those on the frontlines battling the epidemic. Today he will meet with officials in Maine and New Hampshire to discuss how the administration can best support the local initiatives to combat this tragedy.

Secretary Zinke is in Utah today visiting national monument sites and meeting with local officials to comply with the president's executive order that ordered a review of national monument designations. The secretary also took another step to advance the president's America First offshore energy strategy by reversing an Obama administration action to halt scientific research in the outer continental shelf.

And Secretary DeVos is in Daytona Beach, Florida to deliver the commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University. The university is an example of the top-notch education HBCUs have historically provided and continue to provide to their students, and I know the secretary is honored to be there today.

There's also another nugget of big news, as you guys may have been paying attention, in regard to the termination of the former FBI Director Comey. The president, over the last several months, lost confidence in Director Comey. The DOJ lost confidence in Director Comey. Bipartisan members of Congress made it clear they had lost confidence in Director Comey. And most importantly, the rank-and-file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director. Accordingly, the president accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove James Comey from his position. Before the news broke, the president spoke to several members of Congress to inform them of his decision. Those members are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate Chuck Grassley, Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Feinstein, Senator Lindsey Graham, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Bob Goodlatte. Late in the evening, he also spoke to Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

In addition to all the big news happening at the White House today, it is also my daughter Scarlett's 5t h birthday. And since I'm here and you guys are, I get to wish Scarlett a happy birthday.

And with that, I think her first birthday wish would probably be that you guys are incredibly nice.

(LAUGHTER)

And now I will take your questions. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I have a couple of broader questions for you.

So, yes or no, did the president director Rod Rosenstein to write this on James Comey?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: No, the president had lost confidence in Director Comey. And frankly, he'd been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected. But he did have a conversation with the deputy attorney general on Monday where they had come to him to express their concerns. The president asked they put those concerns and their recommendation in writing, which is the letter you guys have received.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So did the White House and Rosenstein decide on his own to review Comey's performance?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: Absolutely. And believe most of America had decided on their own that Comey was the one who should be leading the FBI, as evidenced by the numerous comments that we've seen from Democrat members in the House and Senate, Republican members, members of the FBI and people across the board.

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Senator Feinstein said she was told something different directly by the president. The president --

(CROSSTAKL)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was she lying?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: He asked them to put that recommendation from Monday. He asked them to put that recommendation in writing. But they came to him on his own. And again, the president had lost confidence in Comey from the day he was elected.

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: He wasn't sure that he shouldn't fire him.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On May 3rd, Sean Spicer said the president had full confidence in the FBI director. Why did he say that?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: Look, I think -- again, he's questioned Director Comey's reason for needing to stay at the FBI. He had countless conversations with members from within the FBI. I think one of the big catalysts we saw was last week, on Wednesday, Director Comey made a pretty startling revelation that he had essentially taken a stick of dynamite and thrown it into the Department of Justice by going around the chain of command when he decided to take steps without talking to the attorney general or the deputy attorney general when holding a press conference and telling them he would not let them know what he was going to say.

(CROSSTALK) HUCKABEE SANDERS: And that is simply not allowed. And somebody like the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who everybody across the board has unequivocally said this man is a man of upstanding character and essentially the gold standard at the Department of Justice, when you take an action like that, when you go around the chain of command in the Department of Justice, then you have to make steps and take action to make a recommendation to the president and that's exactly what he did.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:55:48] HUCKABEE SANDERS: John?

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: John, go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: We'll get back to that, I'm sure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You said about Comey, the president lost confidence with him over the last weeks and months, we thought this was all Rosenstein's doing, when was it the president lost confidence in James Comey? What was the --

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think it's been an erosion of confidence. I think Director Comey has shown over the last several months and, frankly, the last year a lot of missteps and mistake. And I think certainly, as you've seen from many of the comments from Democrat members and including Senator Schumer, they didn't think she should be there. They thought he should be gone. Frankly, it's startling Democrats aren't celebrating this.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Another one I want to ask you, too.

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think there's a two question limit around here.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Following on that, you said he made a lot of missteps and mistakes. Back at the end of October, this president was applauding the FBI director when he reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail. So he seemed quite happy with him at that point. What changed?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I think the president's position. One, he was a candidate for president, not the president. Those are two very different things. Once you take over leading the Department of Justice, that's very different from being a candidate in a campaign. As you guys all known, there's a clear distinction between those two things. I think also having a letter like the one he received and having that conversation that outlined the basic, just, atrocities in circumventing the chain of command in the Department of Justice. Any person of legal mind and authority knows what a big deal that is, particularly in the Department of Justice, particularly for somebody like the deputy attorney general, who has been part of the Justice Department for 30 years and is such a respected person. When he saw that, he had to speak up on that action, and I think that was the final catalyst.

(CROSSTAKL)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just a real quick question on the meetings this morning. The president was accused by Democrats trying to circumvent the Russia investigation by firing Comey. He meets with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States. He's accused of being Nixonian. He meets with Richard Nixon's secretary of state. The timing of all of this, is it just ironic or is it the president poking a finger in his critic's eye?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: These are meetings that have been on the books for a while. They didn't just happen this morning. There's not a strategy to go after the Democrats on this. I think, frankly, the saddest thing is the Democrats are trying to politicize and take away from something the president should be doing. He should be meeting with the foreign minister and he should be meeting with people like Kissinger. And for them to try to attack him for doing his job? Maybe they should spend a little more time doing their jobs, and maybe we wouldn't have the problems we do.

John?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Isn't it true the president had already decided to fire James Comey and he asked the Justice Department to put together the rationale for that firing?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: No.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When did he make the decision?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: He made the final decision to move forward with it was yesterday. But I know he's been contemplating with it for a while.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How do you explain what Dianne Feinstein says, that the president told her that he was concerned with the mess at the FBI and asked the Justice Department to --

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I can't speak for Senator Feinstein, but I did speak to the president and heard directly from him that, again, he'd been considering letting Director Comey go pretty much since the day he took office. But that there was no request by him to have a review at the Department of Justice.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, was the reason for the firing what was written by the deputy attorney general, is that why he did it?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: That was I think the final piece that moved the president to make that quick and decisive action yesterday.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What did he mean in the letter that he wrote informing Comey that he was being fired. He said, on three separate occasions Comey had told --