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Trump Sought Justice Department Investigation of Hillary Clinton, James Comey; Ivanka Trump Uses Personal E-mail for Government Business; Trump Sides with Saudis Over Murder of Journalist. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired November 21, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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


ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Don McGahn, then-White House counsel, told him he had no authority to order a prosecution. Then Don McGahn, quote, "had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump, warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment."

[07:00:21] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our other top story: President Trump, he chose Saudi Arabia. He sided with the Saudis over the U.S. intelligence assessment that the Saudi crown prince ordered the murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a stunning statement filled with exclamation points, the president indicated he will not further punish Saudi Arabia for killing and dismembering Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The president thinks the crown prince's culpability may never be known.

In his words, "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't." That's not what the CIA says. And critics are blasting the president for putting economic interests above morals. Even some Republicans are slamming the president's inaction. Senator Bob Corker, who for now heads the Foreign Relations Committee, he wrote, "I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as the public relations firm for the Saudi crown prince."

We'll get back to Khashoggi in just a moment. First, the breaking news from overnight, that the president wanted to use the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey.

Joining us now is Alberto Gonzales, former attorney general under George W. Bush, former White House counsel under George W. Bush, now the dean of Belmont University's College of Law.

Mr. Gonzales, thank you so much for being with us right now. You have a unique perspective on this, having been inside the White House, as White House counsel and attorney general. Is asking the Justice Department to prosecute your political rivals, is that an appropriate use of DOJ?

ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, I mean, I think it's a technical matter. As a matter of constitutional authority, the president would have the authority to make that kind of request. But, you know, if the president had asked me to convey that order to

the attorney general, I would have had a very candid conversation with the president as to why that would be inappropriate and dangerous, politically. The consequences could be very, very serious.

Obviously, if there may be an indication of some kind of wrongdoing, I might have a quiet conversation with the attorney general or maybe the deputy attorney general to just simply say, you know, there are these stories out there. It's just something you ought to look at, and then leave it at that. But -- but to convey an order from the president to do an actual investigation, I think, is a very serious situation and one that I would have also pushed back.

BERMAN: Why is it a serious situation?

GONZALES: Well, because we live in a -- in a democracy, and you don't go after your political rivals. Now, obviously, political rivals sometimes do things that are criminal in nature, and when that occurs, then obviously, there should be an investigation and prosecution.

But even then, you do so very, very carefully because of possible allegations that you're doing something, you're going after your political rivals for no reason whatsoever.

So it's -- again, I think it's a very, very serious situation, one that requires a delicate touch because, you know, on the one hand, as White House counsel, your job is to represent the institution of the presidency. On the other hand, you know, you want to make sure that the president has a concern about actual wrongdoing or, if he -- if the president has a concern that the Department of Justice is not doing its job, then it is legitimate to have a conversation with the department to find out what's going on here and why hasn't something been done here when it looks like, in fact, there has been some kind of wrongdoing?

BERMAN: So you just told me we live in a democracy, and in a democracy you don't go after your political rivals. What does it tell you that the president of the United States doesn't appear to see it that way?

GONZALES: Well, again, I think the president is under -- every president is always under a great deal of stress and pressure and sometimes, you know, you make statements that you probably shouldn't make. You muse out loud and you may ask a staffer to do something --

BERMAN: Do you really think that's what happened here?

GONZALES: I don't know what happened here, John. You know, I don't know this president. I knew George W. Bush, and I would have a pretty good antenna about what he was going through and what he really intended. But I don't know Donald Trump so it's not really fair for me to speculate as to what was motivating him and what motivates him now going forward with respect to these kinds of reported requests.

BERMAN: Let me just tell you, the timeline here was that he was asking Don McGahn to tell DOJ to prosecute his political rivals as recently as the spring of 2018, so he'd been in the White House for a long time, long enough to know that presidents aren't supposed to do this type of thing.

And then CNN is also reporting that the president repeatedly talked to the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, and the now acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, wanting to know updates of what DOJ was doing in terms of prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

This doesn't seem like a one off, does it?

[07:05:04] GONZALES: No, and I -- one of the things we would have done differently, that conversation would not have occurred directly between the president and the deputy attorney general or the chief of staff. That conversation would have occurred through me or through Andy Card, the chief of staff. You want to protect the president from having those kind of conversations directly with the prosecutors.

And so if, in fact, those conversations occurred, I think it's one of the reasons why we're having this conversation today and why people are questioning the motive behind -- behind these conversations between the president and senior officials at the Department of Justice.

BERMAN: You say you're concerned. Are you scared? Are you scared that this president sees it the way he does?

GONZALES: Am I scared? Again, I don't know -- my sense is this president often says things that reflects frustration and maybe a little bit of desperation, but nothing really comes of it. And fortunately, in this particular instance, it appears that the White House counsel did his job.

And again, even -- even if there had been some communication with the Department of Justice, I have confidence in Rod Rosenstein and other senior officials at the department they would have done what would have been -- what would have bene expected by all of us as American citizens.

BERMAN: Do you think Don McGahn, in a way, saved the presidency?

GONZALES: No. That's a very, very broad statement. I think Don McGahn did his job. I'd like to believe that all -- any White House counsel in that position would have done the very same thing. I mean, that's your job as White House counsel, to protect those kind of communications between the White House and the Department of Justice.

BERMAN: You said any White House counsel in that position would have done the same thing. Can you ever imagine you being in that position with George W. Bush?

GONZALES: Well, you know, George -- President Bush was sometimes frustrated with a -- the performance of a cabinet official, and he might have expressed that frustration privately. I think what we've seen differently from this president is that he appears to have no, you know, qualms whatsoever about expressing his frustrations, his criticism of the performance of cabinet officials. And you know, that makes him different from the previous presidents. And you know, from my perspective, it would make my job as White House counsel certainly a lot more challenging, certainly -- if not more interesting.

BERMAN: If not more interesting. That's one way to look at it.

Let me just read you the second article of impeachment for Richard Nixon. And Carl Bernstein brought this up to me overnight, and I'm not suggesting that President Trump should be impeached, but Carl was saying just think of the similarities between what was being discussed to impeach Richard Nixon and the similarities to now.

The second article of impeachment in there says, "In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the criminal decision and the Office of Watergate special prosecution force of the Department of Justice and of the Central Intelligence Agency in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Do you see any similarities with some of the questions being raised about what President Trump has asked and wondered about and, in some cases, done with what Article 2 and Richard Nixon's impeachment hearings asked?

GONZALES: Well, the difference, of course, is the fact that, in fact, those kinds of actions were ordered by the president, and that that did that happen here.

The other thing we also need to keep in mind, and we're talking about articles of impeachment. We're not talking about kind of criminal action, any kind of obstruction of justice of anything of that nature. Now we're talking about, really, a political process, and that is whether or not the president of the United States should be impeached by the House and subsequently removed by the Senate. But we're a long way from that.

But again, sometimes I think -- this president in particular, says things out of frustration, but nothing comes of it. And so long as we have good people serving in these senior positions, both within the White House and the Department of Justice, I have to remain confident that -- that the rule of law is going to be respected.

BERMAN: Is Matt Whitaker, now acting attorney general, one of these good people you are now trusting?

GONZALES: You know, I don't know Matt Whitaker that well. Obviously, he was appointed U.S. attorney when I worked in the White House, and so I was involved in his appointment as the U.S. attorney.

I think there are questions about whether or not his appointment is constitutional. OLC, Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice, has opined that it is lawful. I relied upon OLC when I was White House counsel and as the attorney general. Therefore, I'm going to rely on OLC in this particular case in their judgment.

But I will say OLC has been wrong in the past; and the courts may step in and say this is another instance where OLC is wrong, and the appointment is invalid.

But I understand -- the main concern I think most people have about Whitaker is the fact that he's now overseeing the Mueller investigation. I also have questions about whether or not it would be appropriate for him to recuse himself from that. And I'm hopeful that he's consulted with the career ethics officials in the Department of Justice, and they've informed him that he can't stay in overseeing the Mueller investigation, and that he's doing that job now.

[07:10:03] BERMAN: Alberto Gonzales, a lot of questions I think we all have. Thank you for coming and helping raise some of them with us. Appreciate it.

GONZALES: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Hey, John, great conversation. Let's talk about it.

Joining us now are Bakari Sellers, former Democratic South Carolina House member. We have Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush; and Josh Campbell, former FBI supervisory special agent and special assistant to James Comey. All are CNN contributors.

So Josh, let's just start there with James Comey. You were an assistant to him. You spoke to him, we understand, last night. What is his reaction to finding out that President Trump wanted him prosecuted?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, so I chatted with him after these reports came out and, you know, he said he's just shaking his head at the notion that the president would seek to, you know, order him prosecuted, a perceived political enemy.

He's shaking his head, because this is exactly what he was worried about when he was inside the FBI. You think about the instance where you had the president demanding loyalty of him, kind of in this mafia fashion, you know, from the FBI director. And then fast-forward: the president actually wanting to have him dispense with the Michael Flynn investigation, the investigation into the president's national security adviser.

So he was concerned then. It's what he's been speaking about now. And he also mentioned that he was pleased to see "The New York Times" mention that this notion that he somehow divulged classified information is simply a lie. That's something that the president and his allies have been talking about. So again, he's shaking his head. I don't think he's surprised by what is taking place.

And I have to say real quickly, too, I am also shaking my head at what I just heard from the former attorney general. I respect General Gonzales. I went to church with him. But he couldn't be more wrong in downplaying this as a possible, you know, musing of the president or, you know, he mentioned that sometimes a president just vents and nothing ever comes of it.

Just look at the firing of the FBI director. the president got rid of the person who was leading the investigation into his campaign, because he wouldn't make it go away. That should be cause for alarm. In that instance, you had, you know, three ingredients. You had a president who was predisposed to interfere with the Justice Department. You had someone who's increasingly lashing out and, you know, felt like he was in a corner. And he had witting participants at the Justice Department. Attorney General Sessions, Rod Rosenstein, who went along, you know, kind of with the charade to make him appear as though he was being fired because of the Hillary Clinton investigation.

We have those same ingredients right now. We have a president lashing out. Again, he still has that penchant. And now he has someone, an acting attorney general who is in place, who may be that witting partner.

BERMAN: Bakari, let me ask you, because among other things, you're also a lawyer here, as a matter of law about what was actually done. Let me read from "The New York Times" story very carefully here.

"President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries." He told McGahn that he wanted to, but Alberto Gonzales says, he didn't. So does that matter?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it does matter from a legal perspective, because you have somebody who has intent without any action. I think that if there is some action, as my colleague was just saying a moment ago, when you talk about Director Comey's firing; when you have that action and then you can back it up with the intent of the president to obstruct or obfuscate or try to derail any investigation, then that's where you get into trouble.

I think that what we see here is not necessarily a legal problem, per se, but we see a president, again, shattering all political norms. It's not just the fact that he's trying to prosecute a political rival. It's that I don't believe the president understands truly how government works. And I think that's an even sadder piece of commentary.

I don't think the president genuinely understands that he cannot control who gets prosecuted at the Department of Justice. He doesn't understand that independence. And I think that's the fundamental issue that we have here. It's a president who doesn't have the basic intellect and understanding of the fundamentals of government.

And while that happens, you have someone who may have a criminal intent, who may have an intent to -- to obstruct justice who is just ramshodding and running railroad through all of our political norms. And that's how you end up with Donald Trump in these articles that we have every other week.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Scott, we don't have to just rely on sources to "The New York Times" or CNN, high-level sources, to tell us the president's mindset about wanting to control the Justice Department. We have him in his own words. this is from a year ago, in 2017, on a radio show. Listen to what he said makes him very sad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The saddest thing is that, because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I'm not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated by it. I look at what's happening with the Justice Department: why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her e- mails and with her -- the dossier?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So we now know, Scott, that people around him were the guardrails to keep him from those impulses. What do you make of that?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'll take a silver- lining view of it. It is a terrible idea to try to prosecute your political enemies. But this is why the big structures exist around the office of the presidency. The president had a bad idea. The staff wrote memos, legal underpinnings, political underpinnings, to explain why this is a bad idea, and no action was taken.

[07:15:11] So I think that, in this case, the system, the staffing, the complex structure around the presidency, it worked.

CAMEROTA: Well, but I just want to say, just for one second --

JENNINGS: And the president should put this idea out of his mind.

CAMEROTA: Sorry to interrupt, but only just to get your reaction. No action was taken other than Attorney General Jeff Sessions was fired.

JENNINGS: Yes, it's the president's right to have anybody in the cabinet that he wants. And it's not true that the Justice Department exists as an independent agency apart from the rest of the executive branch. It is a cabinet under the presidency, under the unified, unitary executive structure that we had.

So the president is in charge of the Justice Department, and he's allowed to put in charge of these cabinet agencies whoever he wants. That doesn't mean he can go around prosecuting his political rivals. We have structures in place to prevent that. But it's not true to say the Justice Department is a freestanding entity over which the president has no influence.

BERMAN: And Scott, just to put a point on this conversation, when you said the president had a bad idea, just to be clear in your view of this, how bad of an idea was it to prosecute Hillary Clinton and his political rivals?

JENNINGS: Well, if the president had -- let's play it out. If the president had gotten this advice and disregarded it, and called up the Justice Department and started asking people to do it until he found someone to say yes, I think it would have immediately triggered impeachment, just like Don McGahn said, according to the reporting. So, you know, the legal issues aside, the political structure then in

Washington is you restrain the presidency via impeachment, which clearly would have happened here if a president, any president, starts going around prosecuting their political enemies, like we live in some third-world banana republic.

So I think that there are multiple structures in place here to restrain bad ideas. It worked here, and we've got no indication that the president has come back to this idea beyond setting it aside after he was told not to do it by his staff.

BERMAN: I'll just say, McGahn is gone.

CAMPBELL: Can I --

BERMAN: Go ahead.

CAMPBELL: One point. I just want to say to this point about the president, I mean, yes, it may be a bad idea, but the thing that should be alarming for us -- and I'm not an alarmist -- but you know, the president was emboldened after removing the person that was responsible for investigating him.

Now, most of it, think about it. You go on a road trip somewhere. Maybe you're driving a little too fast. At the end of the -- you know, the trip, you think, "Wow, I can't believe I got away with that without, you know, getting pulled over." That's luck.

President Trump looks at that and says, "I'm better than the police. I'm smarter than them." It emboldens him.

And so now, to fast forward to the spring of this year, and that conversation you just played from November '17, this was after he had fired the FBI director. He's still having these, quote unquote, "bad ideas" and thinking that he can possibly influence the Justice Department. That's something that should alarm all of us.

CAMEROTA: Bakari, on the topic of bad ideas, I want to ask you about Ivanka Trump's e-mails. She did not use the government system that is set up that we all learned about in 2016. Much like Hillary Clinton, she used her own personal e-mail for government business.

I mean, will the crowds chant "Lock her up" at the next rallies? Where -- what is going to happen to Ivanka?

SELLERS: You don't think -- you don't think "Crooked Ivanka" is going to stick? So I don't know.

I had a huge problem with the crowds chanting "Lock her up." I hated this, this "Crooked Hillary" name that stuck, as well, throughout the campaign trail. I thought the Republicans were attempting to find an issue that really wasn't there with Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

I don't -- you know, I really don't care about Ivanka Trump's e-mails. I do care about the fact that this is blatant hypocrisy. I do care about the fact that she is a senior official and there's nepotism running wild. And I do care about the fact that, if you are not -- if you do not care -- here we go again talking about these norms, about the norms and the standards and the protocols that are in place.

It's not as if Ivanka Trump did not know that you should not use personal e-mails, because her father ran a campaign for two years about someone using personal e-mails. And so I just think that we're at this height of hypocrisy right now in this administration.

And this cast of characters, I mean, to be completely honest, we -- Director Comey is not a sympathetic figure either. I mean, if we want to talk about bad decisions, we can put Ivanka Trump's bad decisions in the same category as Director Comey reopening an investigation 11 days before an election. Bad decision.

So this is a whole cast of characters who don't deserve any sympathy, but our country deserves a little bit better and a higher standard in our White House currently.

BERMAN: Scott, you worked inside a White House. Should she have known better after watching the campaign?

JENNINGS: Yes, not only did I work inside the White House, I worked inside one that was investigated for having an -- e-mail practice issues by the House Democrats, which this White House is about to experience.

Look, they should have known based on the way they ran the campaign. Headline to headline, people are going to say it looks hypocritical. If you look under the hood of this story, there's not many similarities between what Ivanka did and what Hillary did. I mean, nobody deleted 30,000 e-mails here. Nobody was hitting their phone with a hammer, trying to get rid of it.

Ivanka Trump How do we know? I mean, this has just come to light.

[17:20:01] JENNINGS: Here's what's true. Here's what's true. The House Democrats are clearly going to use this little thread to pull on this and see what they can unravel. And having gone through this once, they use e-mail investigations to find anything and everything else they can find.

And so what I would just caution the White House here is, now that they have, like, a little daylight on an e-mail issue, they will try to, you know, run a Mack truck through a tiny hole. And that is -- that is what, I think, is most concerning about this moving forward as the White House deals with the response here.

CAMEROTA: All right. Gentlemen, happy Thanksgiving.

SELLERS: Happy Thanksgiving.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much for being with us.

All right. So will Congress take action if the president tries to use the Justice Department to prosecute his political rivals? We talk to a member of the House Intelligence Committee, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: CNN has learned President Trump wanted the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute his political rival, Hillary Clinton. "The New York Times" also reports the president repeatedly requested they prosecute fired FBI director, James Comey.

[07:25:00] Joining us now to talk about this and more, we have Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. He serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

Good morning, Congressman.

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Your reaction to these revelations that the president repeatedly pressed his White House counsel, his deputy A.G. about prosecuting his political adversaries?

HIMES: Well, it's been said already on the show. I mean, this is a president who doesn't understand that the government, that foreign countries, that everybody doesn't exist to serve him like some kind of Medieval king. And, you know, it's a deeply concerning thing. You know, I think I heard the phrase "banana republic." This is the kind of thing that we used to criticize other countries for doing.

And, you know, Alisyn, when -- what the ultimate irony here, and we forget this, the president is outraged at Jim Comey, because Jim Comey didn't promise to be loyal to him, again, like some kind of Medieval king. But remember, there is a strong argument to be made that Jim Comey's decisions, his decisions to go public with the Hillary Clinton investigation, but not to go public with the Donald Trump investigation, quite possibly made Donald Trump president of the United States. So this is just one of those things where your head just can't spin fast enough.

CAMEROTA: So this isn't just in the past. I mean, I think that the concern for many people is what will the president do now?

According to "The New York Times," and I'll just read a portion of it, this is about Matt Whitaker: "Anticipating the question about Clinton would be raised, Matt Whitaker came prepared to answer with what Justice was doing on Clinton-related matters, including the Clinton Foundation, the Uranium One investigation, the source said. The source added that Matt Whitaker was trying to appease the president but did not seem to cross any lines."

So now Matt Whitaker is in a different role. And the question is how will he appease the president? Will he still act as a guardrail? What will Congress do about any of these concerns?

HIMES: Well, you've got three protections, at least, against an acting attorney general who wasn't on anybody's top 50 list of people who should be attorney general, who is acting attorney general, because the president wants him to protect him. So what are the guardrails? As you point out, Alisyn, Congress. The

Democrats now have the majority in the House. They have subpoena power. If there is untoward or suspicious activity at the Department of Justice, the House of Representatives will make that obvious to the American people through oversight and investigation.

Of course, you've got very good people, career people at the Department of Justice, who will stand up for what is right, who will go public, who will resign if the acting attorney general helps the president obstruct justice. And of course, you've got the media, which will be watching this very closely.

Again, Whitaker, when you read this guy's history, when you look at the, you know, five amendments in a period of one week to his financial history, this is -- this is not the A-team at the top of the Department of Justice. This is an individual who is there to protect the president. The good news is many, many people will be watching and will highlight activity that is designed just to support the president.

CAMEROTA: OK, next question about what Congress will do. As you know, the president has decided to side with Mohammed bin Salman's story, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, about what happened in the gruesome murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. So as you know, President Trump says, "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't." But in other words, there won't be any more retribution against Saudi Arabia. What will Congress do?

HIMES: Well, I think Congress is going to highlight the costs associated with the position that the -- that the American president has taken. I mean, you know, each American should consider what happens when our moral standing -- and we're an exceptional country because of our moral standing. We don't always live up to our ideals, but we really are a moral country. And the president just traded that for 30 pieces of silver. And Americans need to ask themselves, how do I feel about that?

But Congress can really highlight, Alisyn, for example, the impact on the very competent men and women of the CIA, who go to work every single day in anonymity. They don't get to go to Thanksgiving dinner and brag about what they do. They did a lot of work to determine that, in fact, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, in all likelihood, ordered this thing. And their boss, the president of the United States, just said, "No, I don't believe him, and I don't care." That has a huge impact on this institution that is about keeping us safe from terrorism, from -- from threats around the world.

And that's a real -- if you sit on the Intelligence Committee like I do, that is a huge blow to our intelligence community, which at the end of the day is what keeps us safe.

So there's all kinds of problems associated with the president just deciding that, "Hey, so long as you're good to me and nice to me and show me a good time and send me a whole bunch of money, anything goes." That's a -- that's a very, very tough world to be in. That's a very ugly place for America to be. CAMEROTA: Before I let you go, do you support Nancy Pelosi as the

next speaker of the House?

HIMES: There just can't be an interview where that question doesn't get asked, can there?

CAMEROTA: Well, it does seem to be the $64,000 question of the day, particularly since, as you know, 16 of your Democratic colleagues have signed this letter saying that they don't support her.