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Interview with Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney of New York; Congress to Call Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to Testify; Kellyanne Conway Says She was Assaulted at a Restaurant; Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Accuses Publisher of "National Enquirer" of Extortion. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 8, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Other major news, the explosive blog post from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos accusing the publisher of the "National Enquirer" of extortion and blackmail. This matters on many levels. One of them is that the head of this company, David Pecker, is a long-time friend of President Trump. The company has not yet commented on the allegations.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, a story you saw first on CNN. Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway says a woman assaulted her in a Maryland restaurant in front of her daughter and other children this past October. That woman has been charged but denies the allegations.

Also, in the next hour, acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker will appear before the House Judiciary Committee. Just how much will he say about his conversations with the president about the Russia investigation?

We have a lot to cover. Let's begin with Lauren Fox who is live on Capitol Hill ahead of this morning's hearing. Lauren, good morning.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica. Yesterday, it wasn't even clear if Whitaker would be coming to the Capitol. Here's what happened. Yesterday morning the House Judiciary Committee passed a preemptive subpoena. They basically said we're not going to use this unless Matthew Whitaker doesn't answer questions that we have for him.

Then in the afternoon, the Justice Department said this violates the agreement that we had with you. Matthew Whitaker was going to come willingly. If you don't promise that you won't use that subpoena, he won't be appearing at all. So yesterday afternoon we didn't know if he would be coming. Then last night, Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, tweeted we would see Matthew Whitaker today at 9:30. But that's setting the table for a very tension-filled hearing up here on Capitol Hill today.

We do know that Democrats have a few lines of questioning that they need from Matthew Whitaker. One of them, they want to know why he did not recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. The other question they have for him, what conversations have you had with the president about the Russia investigation. All of that things Democrats want to know, and adding tension to the hearing today is the fact that House Democrats sent a letter basically accusing Whitaker of not paying back money he owed from a business venture he was involved in at World Patent Marketing. All of that coming, all of that to be watching today in the House Judiciary Committee which, like you said, starts in just a little over an hour.

BERMAN: Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill, thank you very much.

Joining us now, Dana Bash, our chief political correspondent, Frank Bruni, "New York Times" op-ed columnist, and also with us, Chris Cillizza, politics reporter and editor at large. Dana, I want to start with you. I think this is must see TV next hour, because this is the first time we will have seen an administration official appear before this new Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and it's on, loosely speaking, will be the subject of Russia.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Look, as we have been gearing up for what does it mean to have a Democratic controlled Congress, you nailed it, John, as usual. This is going to be the first time we're going to see the ramifications for the Republicans of the elections in November.

There's going to be a lot of talk, a lot of discussions, a lot of questions about all things Russia. I think the theater of trying to get those answers might be more telling than the answers that we actually get, because in the letter that the House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler sent in order to get the testimony up and running today, he made pretty clear they are going to take the questions -- his words were a case-by-case basis. That's what made Whitaker feel comfortable to come up here, meaning, you're likely going to hear a lot of, I'm sorry, I can't discuss that. I can't discuss, for example, what Lauren was talking about, my conversations with the president. Still, it is going to be fascinating to see how he navigates through all those questions.

HILL: And what the reaction, too, Frank, will be ultimately if anything from the White House. The president saying yesterday when he was asked about it, I think he's going to do a great job, really not saying anything. But you know that they are for very good reason watching this very closely as well.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, and we should watch the president's Twitter account as a result of that. As you said and as Dana said, this is a game-on moment, right. Ever since the midterms, we've been wondering once Democrats have control of the House, once they are worn in and all that, what will they be doing? Will we be seeing more of these hearings, how aggressive will they be?

And then that all got put to the side during the long, long federal shutdown. We sort of forgot that this is exactly what we have been waiting for and girding for ever since Democrats did so well in the midterms.

But this could be a very frustrating and disappointing hearing. I think you're going to hear a lot of Matthew Whitaker saying I can't discuss that, that's covered by executive privilege for the president. I think there's going to be a lot of frustration. I think the waving around of the subpoena was a way for the Democrats on the committee to puff up their chest, flex their muscles, say we're here, game on. So it's hard to know whether we're going to be super frustrated or whether we're actually going to see anything substantive happen.

BERMAN: The one thing the Democrats agreed to was to not deliver that subpoena during the hearing itself or today. That doesn't mean that be tomorrow morning they can't be showing up at a doorstep with it. Chris Cillizza, what are you going to be watching for today?

[08:05:10] CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, talk about drama. That would be amazing if they handed him the subpoena during the hearing. But I think largely it is going to be political theatrics. I don't think Matthew Whitaker on his way out the door presumably with Bill Barr's confirmation potentially next week, I don't think he's going to answer the questions that Jerry Nadler wants answered.

So the question will be, what information can they extract from him, if any? Because theoretically, he's in a position to shine a lot of light on his interactions with the president, status of the Mueller probe. I don't think he's going to do those things. But maybe there is a little bit there.

Also keep an eye on Republicans. We focused on Democrats. But remember, Republicans have their own issue with the Justice Department, too, particularly those on the conservative right related to Lisa Page, Peter Strzok. Obviously if you follow Donald Trump's Twitter feed you know all about that. The Clinton e-mail investigation, how that shook out Bob Mueller -- excuse me. Not Bob Mueller. James Comey. So there is a lot there.

Again, the problem is I think Whitaker has roughly zero incentive to be forthcoming and will likely claim executive privilege or conversations in that regard a lot. So I think we will get less than we hope for. But I still think in terms of Washington drama, this is sort of top shelf stuff.

HILL: We'll all be watching. Dana, I do want to get to some reporting you have. So you recently sat down with Kellyanne Conway for part of your Washington series, which I'm glad there's more coming, by the way. She revealed something to you we hadn't heard before about an assault. Walk us through what happened there.

BASH: That's right. This is something that she hadn't talked about before. It happened in November, so four months ago -- excuse me, October, about four months ago, around all of the tension surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, the hearings, the confirmation. She was in a restaurant in suburban D.C. with her middle school-aged daughter and her friends. And here's how she described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I was assaulted in a restaurant. That person has to go to court soon. BASH: Assaulted how?

CONWAY: I was standing next to my daughter and many of her friends at dinner. And she was right here next to me. And her friends were, too. And somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbed my arms and was shaking me to the point I thought maybe somebody was hugging me. One of the other parents coming to pick up his or her daughter. And that as I turned around it just felt weird. It felt like that's a little aggressive. And I turned around and the woman had grabbed my hand. She was just unhinged.

BASH: Just a stranger?

CONWAY: She was out of control. I don't even know how to explain her to you. Her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here. My daughter was right there. And she ought to pay for that. She ought to pay for that, because she has no right to touch anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Conway called 911. The police ended up coming, and Mary Elizabeth Inabinett was charged with second degree assault, disorderly conduct, and there's going to be a trial in March. Our colleague David Shortell reached out to get all this information and also to Inabinett's attorney who disputed Conway's account. And I want to read you a statement from the attorney.

"Ms. Inabinett saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions. She did not assault Ms. Conway. The facts at trial will show this to be true and show Ms. Conway's account to be false," and her attorney says that she will be pleading not guilty.

BERMAN: Really interesting. Again, no one, any party, any circumstance should be faced with any kind of physical assault in a restaurant, particularly not with your children there.

BASH: Exactly.

BERMAN: Another fascinating development over the last 24 hours has to do with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, the owner of "The Washington Post," and the "National Enquirer." And I'm going to try to shorthand this just for people who haven't been following it. The "Enquirer" basically published a story outing the fact that Jeff Bezos was having an affair. He is getting divorced. That was act one of all this. Act two, apparently Jeff Bezos was investigating the "Enquirer," how they got text messages, and people close to Bezos apparently had found information that they believe showed there were political motivations. The "Enquirer" went back to him and said you better come out with a statement saying it wasn't political or we are going to publish naked pictures of you. That's the shorthand here, Frank Bruni. I don't think I'm making any of this up. This was all in a letter Jeff Bezos wrote out yesterday on Medium.com. He didn't want to let himself and his words be extorted by the "Enquirer."

[08:10:09] BRUNI: He's getting ahead of the whole thing by that Medium post, and I would really urge viewers to go read the whole thing, because it is unbelievably fascinating and this whole this is just amazing. I just have big questions about this. Why is it so important to AMI that Jeff Bezos and "The Washington Post" say there are no political motivations here? Why are they so focused on that?

And the other really interesting thing here is we are getting a glimpse of how people with whom the president has been friendly and with whom the president has been allied behave. We're seeing the tactics and the lack of ethics, the lack of morals that they exhibit in terms of this extortion attempt, this blackmail attempt, to use those terms in a colloquial fashion. These are people with whom the president was close for a long time. And I think that's a larger context that we have to keep our eye on.

CILLIZZA: Just to quickly add to Frank's point, remember, and I heard Jeff Toobin make this argument early on our air, but it's really important to remember. AMI was paid off Karen McDougal to catch and kill a story in which she alleged that she had an affair with the then candidate for the president of the United States Donald Trump. We know through Michael Cohen at least, and, by the way, through the Southern District of New York, that these payments both to McDougal and Stormy Daniels were directed and coordinated, the words of the Southern District, directed and coordinated by -- they didn't name him, but by Donald Trump. So Frank is exactly right. Why is AMI so concerned about it being labeled politically motivated? But we know already AMI and Donald Trump in Donald Trump's world have worked together to help him politically speaking to keep this Karen McDougal situation, at a minimum, private.

HILL: It's fascinating as we look at all of this. In part of that blog post, And Frank's right, for anyone who hasn't read it, I do encourage you to read the full thing. In that post, though, he puts in what he says are these e-mails that he received from the chief content office, Dylan Howard, who's name may sound familiar because he's been mentioned in other instances as well, especially including Harvey Weinstein, but also from the general counsel.

And I just want to lay those out, if we could, just to look at very specifically what's mentioned there through the pictures, which we referred to that are mentioned in one of the e-mails, and also the fact mentioned in there that these concerns about this appearing political. And Dana, to Chris's point and to Frank's point, as we look at that, we have not heard word one from AMI. They are not responding. We just took a look. Our executive producer is taking a look. They have not tweeted from the "National Enquirer" account in 15 hours. The only story up on the homepage right now related to Bezos is that initial one that came out a couple of days after his divorce was announced. And yet it's fascinating that we're seeing all of this out there. And it makes you wonder what the conversations are obviously behind the scenes if they are so concerned this might look political.

BASH: They are pulling in all of the hoses for the five-alarm fire that's going on. It's bad. It's very bad. It took obviously a lot of guts to do this scorched earth strategy from the perspective of Bezos.

With regard to David Pecker and AMI and real time what his relationship with Donald Trump is, I think that's still a big question, because, remember, they are not in the greatest situation right now because Pecker has, according to our reporting, been cooperating with federal prosecutors around and about these payments. So unclear if the two of them are still simpatico politically as we speak. There's no question they, as we know, we have many examples of it, they were during the president's campaign.

CILLIZZA: And we know, by the way, too, just to add to Dana's point, Donald Trump -- I remember I used to work at "The Washington Post." Donald Trump would take shots at "The Washington Post" because Jeff Bezos owned it, that it got, it was some sort of tax credit. None of that accurate. Referred to him as Jeff Bozo. We know Donald Trump's relationship with Jeff Bezos at least publicly is maybe a one-sided relationship but very not pleasant.

BRUNI: We are also forgetting to mention one important thing when we are talking about intimidating Bezos, is there a political motivation, there's the Saudi government here. So we don't know, when that comes up, when don't know whether the implication is that AMI is doing the bidding of the president or whether AMI is doing the bidding of the Saudi government.

HILL: That's such an important point.

BERMAN: It's an important point. Obviously Jamal Khashoggi was a columnist for the "Washington Post." Khashoggi was murdered. People think that the Saudi crown prince was behind it. Not coincidentally the White House has to come forward and tell Congress today whether or not they think the crown prince was behind it. My gosh, everything is connected. Unbelievable. Frank, Dana, Chris, thank you all very much.

HILL: The House Intelligence Committee ramping up its investigation into the president's ties to Russia. The president calling that unlimited presidential harassment. And new Democrat on that committee joins us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: The House Intelligence Committee wrapping up the investigation into the president's ties to Russia. The president calling that "unlimited presidential harassment".

[08:15:02] A new Democrat on that committee joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is going after the House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff for hiring a former National Security Council official to help with the investigation into the president's finances and Russia.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. He's a new member of the House Intelligence Committee.

I bet you are happy to be on the committee now. No action there at all, Congressman.

REP. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (D), NEW YORK: Look, it is important work. Looking forward to doing it.

BERMAN: So, look, the president is going after the committee chair as he has for some time. The new complaint is the committee hired someone who worked on the National Security Council. Is anything wrong with that?

MALONEY: Nothing.

BERMAN: Why would that person be useful for the committee's investigation?

MALONEY: Well, for one thing they would have a pre-existing security clearance so they can get started on day one.

BERMAN: Right.

MALONEY: They obviously have a lot of demanding experience. There's a bunch of reasons.

Look, it is a stupid, silly complaint from a man who claims to be innocent and acts very guilty. The fact is that thieves think all men steal. There is nothing wrong with serious congressional oversight involving foreign influence in our elections and money influencing foreign policy decisions. That's what this is about.

Judge us by our work. He thinks all investigations will be like the Republicans did with that kangaroo court of Benghazi, or some of the things they've done over the years that that were complete partisan exercises as Kevin McCarthy admitted I think on this network at one point.

[08:20:11] The fact of the matter is, that this is going to be a seriously look. Chairman Schiff is a serious man. We're going to do a good job.

BERMAN: It's going to be expansive based on what the chairman laid out the other day. My question is, why do you think it's necessary? How much of this will be overlap with what Robert Mueller is doing, in so far as anyone knows what Robert Mueller is doing, and how much of this is to go beyond the investigation?

MALONEY: Well, if you look at what the chairman had said publicly, what we are going to do is fill in the holes that should have been addressed when the Republicans issued the report prematurely. By the way, if you go back and read it, it's not worth the paper it's on. It's embarrassing.

So, we're going to, first of all, finish that work. We just voted this week to release all the transcripts. That's very important so the public can see what's been going on. In addition to that, we're going to make sure they are available to the special counsel for use in possible perjury persecutions, because there's going to be accountability if you lie before the intelligence committee.

And, yes, we're going to look at the influence of foreign money, not just Russian money, by the way, but also money from countries like Saudi Arabia that may be influencing our foreign policy decisions. And, of course, we saw it at work with the death of Khashoggi at the hands of the Saudis. It is important to see what the business and financial relationships are between those foreign actors and U.S. policy makers.

BERMAN: One of the things that allies of the administration say is that for all the convictions or charges or indictments involved with the Mueller investigation, none are for the underlying crime, they say, of collusion. Take Roger Stone, for instance. That's about lying to investigators, obstruction, and witness tampering.

Is there merit in that?

MALONEY: Well, you have three dozen indictments. A hundred pages in one case. You've got five guilty pleas or arrangements with senior advisers of the Trump team. If you read the stone indictment it's like a novel detailing step by step coordination with maligned foreign actors. WikiLeaks which we know is a conduit for Russian intelligence services dumping stolen material.

That's criminal conspiracy. The question is whether there were Americans involved in it. I'm pretty proud of the work Robert Mueller has done. I think we should let him finish and then we'll make our judgments about it. I think he's not done yet.

BERMAN: In terms of witnesses, I talked to Jackie Speier who's on your committee yesterday. She has said for some time she wants to see Donald Trump, Jr., appear before your committee.

Do you have in your mind specific witnesses you feel like you need to hear more from?

MALONEY: What I want is I want to find out the facts and I want it to be fair. Whatever witness is required to provide material information about the matters we are charged with overseeing should appear and should be held accountable for truthful testimony. I think that's obviously going to include members of the president's family like Don, Jr., who was involved centrally in critical meetings. There is no one person in particular we are after. I want the facts and I want it to be fair.

BERMAN: Again, you are a new member to the committee. I'm curious since you joined, which will happen just in the last few weeks, is there anything you have had access to that's surprised you in terms of the investigations?

MALONEY: No, I'm not prepared to comment on that. I think we're just getting into it. We just began the investigation this week. I'm not coming into it with prejudgments. I'm reading all the material with fresh eyes. I can tell you, there

is a lot of troubling material in the public domain that is in the work of the independent special counsel.

We have a job to do in congress. It's not the same job as the special counsel, by the way. We have a constitutional oversight obligation in this committee and all committees. This administration has been getting away with murder for two years and it's about time there were adults in the room looking over their shoulder.

BERMAN: One of the things is a bipartisan group of members of congress, bicameral, Senate and members of the House looking to reach an agreement on border security funding. We're hearing they are trying to hammer out a deal. Are you optimistic that they could come up with something that the president would sign that you would also vote to support in terms of funding for border barriers?

MALONEY: Well, it's the last part of the question that's the tricky one. I'm absolutely confident that the members of the conference committee are going to come up with a good deal. The question is whether the president will go along with it. We know that there is no support in his own party for shutting down the government again. It was a disaster and a disgrace. We never should have done that.

By the way, I'm chairing the Coast Guard subcommittee. We lost a member in Alaska in an accident. He's from my district. He wasn't paid during that time. That's disgraceful.

So, let me tell you what, there is real work to do. I hope we can focus on it. But I think the president has nowhere to move on this. I don't think the president will see support in his party for an emergency declaration. I represent West Point, by the way, and there are a couple hundred million dollars at work in military construction at West Point.

[08:25:05] So, you're literally going to be robbing the next generation of military leaders to pay for a fantasy construction on the border. What we should do is have a good bipartisan agreement on what really works, with real metric, with evidence leading our decisions. And the president should go along with it. I can't tell you if he will or not though.

BERMAN: Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, Westchester and beyond, thank you so much for being with us this morning. I appreciate it.

MALONEY: My pleasure.

BERMAN: Erica?

HILL: The U.S. Supreme Court blocking a Louisiana law that would have restricted abortion clinics. Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the liberal justices. Before you read too much into it, let's discuss it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: The Supreme Court blocked an abortion access law from going into effect at least for now. Opponents of the law argued it could decimate safe and legal abortions in the state.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's four liberals who are voting for the stay.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue, and CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

So, Ariane, before we dig into what we saw in terms of the decision and try to read the tea leaves, just walk us through what this actually means and why this stays in place. Why is it important in terms of this law?

END