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Inside Politics

Trump Jr. Releases E-mail; Capitol Hill Reaction to E-mails; Legal Implications of Trump Jr.'s Meeting; Other Side of Trump Jr. E- mails. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 11, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Some of them had to have known that this meeting took place. Some of them had to have known that these e-mails existed of a confidant of the Trump's says -- I mean it's really -- if you would ask me the --

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE) --

TAPPER: You know, a week ago, do you think that we're going to have an example of an e-mail sent by a confidant of the Trump's, who has contacts with people who were supposedly close with the Kremlin saying --

BOLDUAN: Right.

TAPPER: Saying, "the crown (ph) prosecutor of Russia met with," this other intermediary, Aras (ph), "and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary in her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." I mean I would have said you were crazy, that nobody would put something like that in print and certainly nobody associated with this campaign would then respond, "I love it."

BOLDUAN: Well, and crazy to think, then, that Don Jr. would be forced to release it. I mean what -- the chain of events that have happened in the past hour have been truly, I think, amazing.

TAPPER: It's incredible. I mean it does get at what I think, you know, every White House contends is unfair leaking by investigators in the intelligence establishment. Although we should point out, the initial source of that "New York Times" scoop over the weekend were people with close contacts with the White House. So it is interesting where this information is coming from.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TAPPER: And I'm sure conservatives and the Trump White House and others will be very focused on who is leaking this information. But that's always what people who are caught in something they don't want to talk about focus on is, where did the leak come from? This leak -- this particular leak came, at least where I printed it out from, was Donald Trump Jr.'s Twitter account.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

TAPPER: And it's -- these e-mails are staggering. Again, this unquestionably depicts somebody saying the Russian government wants to help the Trump campaign with documents damping to Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump Jr. saying, "I love it," and setting up a meeting to do so.

BOLDUAN: And taking the meeting. And taking the meeting.

TAPPER: Taking the meeting. Now, what took place at that meeting, that's --

BOLDUAN: Well --

TAPPER: That's a whole other question and we have different versions of events, shifting versions in some cases. We still haven't heard from Paul Manafort, who was at the meeting. We still haven't heard from Jared Kushner, who was at the meeting. We heard from the Russian attorney in question who's depicting this all as the Trump people wanted damaging information on Hillary.

BOLDUAN: Right.

TAPPER: But she didn't want to talk about that. Again, grain of salt when it comes to -- to her story, as well as anybody else's who hasn't been up front about this.

BOLDUAN: So --

TAPPER: But it's -- it's a staggering turn of events, and it's rather momentous. This can't just be -- this can't be dismissed as people out to get Donald J. Trump Jr. or fake news. This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion.

BOLDUAN: This is --

TAPPER: That's what this is on its face. Now, maybe there's an explanation for it, and if that's true, we can talk about that. But --

BOLDUAN: And we'll report it.

TAPPER: We'll report it. But somebody saying, the Russian government wants to help your dad with damping information on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Jr. saying, "I love it," and then taking the meeting, that is a willingness to work with the Russian government to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton. And as has been pointed out by several campaign veterans, Republican campaign veterans, that is not normal. And no matter how much people say, oh, you always meet with people to get opposition research, you don't meet with antagonists of the United States. You don't meet with adversaries of the United States. You wouldn't meet with Mullah from Iran.

BOLDUAN: Sure. Yes.

TAPPER: You wouldn't meet with somebody associated with China for damaging information on the other candidate. BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Jake. I really appreciate you jumping

on.

Our special coverage is now going to continue right now with Dana Bash.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And I will pick up the breaking news from here. I am Dana Bash, in for John King, who is off.

As you've just heard on CNN, the very latest bombshell from the Russian lawyer's meeting last June with Donald Trump Jr. comes from Don Jr. himself. The eldest son of the 45th U.S. president has just released what he says is the entire e-mail chain between himself and the British publicist who set up the meeting on the promise of incriminating information on Hillary Clinton. And that chain begins with this, on June 3, 2016.

"Emin," who's a mutual Russian acquaintance, "just call and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with Emin's father this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information, but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

[12:05:12] Again, this was actually written in an e-mail to Don Jr. "I can also send this information to your father, but it is ultrasensitive so wanted to send to you first." And, also, check out what Don Jr., in part, replied. "Thanks, Rob. I appreciate that. If it's what you say, I love it."

OK. I just want to stop there so we can digest this part of it and the magnitude of what this may or may not mean. I want to bring in Jim Sciutto and Jeff Zeleny.

Jim, we were talking as we were getting ready to go on, both just aghast that this is actually in an e-mail, never mind actually happened.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is momentous, right? We've been covering this story, this question of collusion, for months now, still a question, based on meetings, perhaps an unusual number of meetings, with unusual parties, Russian parties. To this point, that's what this question and the investigation has been based on, meetings, but we didn't know what the reason for those meetings was or what happened in those meetings. Now we have a meeting and electronic proof of exactly what the intention and the offer was, and it could not be more explicit. I'll quote again, "documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia."

BASH: Ys. SCIUTTO: "Very high level and sensitive information." And it goes on. And this is essential (ph), "part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump." So not just the -- that he was willing to take a meeting to get information about Hillary Clinton -- perhaps all candidates would do that -- but from a foreign country. It raises legal questions.

And explicit here that that foreign country expressing its interests in helping the candidate, Donald Trump. Now, keep in mind, whenever the issue, remember, the intelligence community has assessed that these releases were intended over time, not just to damage Hillary Clinton, but to help Donald Trump win the election. Whenever that part of the assessment has come up, it's been dismissed outright by members of Trump's camp as ridiculous and many Republicans, how do they know that. Here you have a Russian content (INAUDIBLE) the president's son offering just that based on that reasoning. It's remarkable in its explicitly.

BASH: And, OK, there's the offer, specifically saying it's from the Russian government. And then you have his response. "If it's what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer." So we've been talking about the "c" word, collusion. The question that the FBI, that the special council, is investigating whether there was collusion. And we don't know if there was collusion, but it certainly sounds like there was an attempt to -- to -- for the quid and there was a reception for the pro quo part.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Certainly a willingness to listen to what this offer was going to be. I mean that is the central question here. You know, the reason that this is different than everything else that's been reported so far, this happened during the campaign. And the moment of the campaign I think is also interesting. This is two days after the primaries ended. The California primaries ended on June 7th and the battle was joined at that moment between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. So that's what -- you know, it was all on their minds.

And I think it's also important to know, where was Donald Trump on that day of the meeting? He, in fact, was in Trump Tower. He was holding his first fundraiser for the Trump Victory Fund at the Four Seasons earlier that day. We do not know if he was at the meeting. We do not believe he was at the meeting. There's no reference in here that he would be at the meeting.

But interesting, and I think one question is here hanging over all of this, how is it possible that the president, at that point candidate Trump, did not know about this extraordinary offer here? Donald Trump Jr., as we've seen him in so many settings, he was so visible in the campaign. In many respects wants to please his father. Wants to show his father what he has. Hard to believe that he did not know this. But the White House said yesterday, the president only learned about this in "The New York Times" over the weekend. We'll see about that.

BASH: We'll see about that. Also, you know, again, in the initial e- mail offering this information, the -- Rob Goldstone, who was the intermediary, says, "I can also send this info to your father via Rana (ph)," knowing and understanding that -- you know, how to get information. Rana is -- was , Donald Trump's longtime assistant and she was the --

ZELENY: She's the gatekeeper.

BASH: The gatekeeper. And -- right. And still is. So, you know, that was obviously known there, so it opens a whole nother can of worms.

SCIUTTO: Right.

BASH: Whether or not they actually went directly to (INAUDIBLE).

SCIUTTO: And keep in mind, too, that Donald Trump and his son have repeatedly denied going back months any contacts. Remember, the initial denial started with, we didn't have any contacts. And this has been repeated by the vice president and others. You know, that most basic fact through time, multiple times, in evidence of multiple meetings has been shown to be not true. And then, just in the span of 72 hours, the reason for this meeting has gone through three or four iterations, right, because it started as a discussion of adoption, Donald Trump, and then that it moved to possible damaging information, then it moved even further.

[12:10:12] So -- so, you know, we've moved so far forward from Trump world's initial denials of any contacts to where we are right now, to a very specific description of what this meeting was about and what the expectations were. Now, to be fair, Donald Trump Jr., in a statement attached to these e-mails, says, listen, by the time, you know, the entire meeting, in his words, "was the most inane nonsense I'd ever heard and I was actually agitated by it." So -- so he says that, well, there's really nothing there because I didn't get any of that information. And that may very well be true. But he went into the room expecting that information.

ZELENY: And we just know about this meeting. What has become a pattern over these last so many months, you know, there are no more meetings.

BASH: Yes.

ZELENY: Well, suddenly, there are more meetings. So was this the -- now that we know that they are willing to accept information, did they accept any other information in the preceding months? This was June. Of course, the election was not until November. So that is the question that this investigation may answer, were there other meetings.

BASH: Yes. That is so -- that is so true. On so many levels, they have denied meetings, you know, even just kind of, hi, how are you, shake hands and move on meetings and this is obviously the biggest.

I want to bring in our political director, David Chalian.

And, David, as I bring you in, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there watching this and saying, isn't this just politics as usual? It's dirty politics. You try to get dirt on your opponent and then you figure out how to use it. And the answer is, and see if you can -- I assume you'll back me up here -- no, it is not, when you're talking about a foreign national. I mean you talk to campaign operative after campaign operative, even those who were offered dirt on their opponent --

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right.

BASH: During presidential campaigns by a foreign national, they don't do it. And in some cases, like in 2000, they hand it over to the FBI because that's what you do.

CHALIAN: Not just a foreign national, Dana, though, it's a key foreign adversary.

BASH: Right.

CHALIAN: I mean, I -- so, yes, it's not even done usually with foreign nationals. Campaign operatives will tell you they don't really take information from foreign nationals. But coming from our key foreign adversary in Russia, or a key foreign adversary is a whole different ball game than just a foreign national. Yes, it is traditional campaign work and procedure to gather all the opposition research on your opponent so you can figure out their vulnerabilities and get your best hits all lined up for the campaign season. Yes, you're hungry to hear about things that people may have and every operative, Republican or Democrat, will tell you that like 95 percent of what comes over the transom and says, he, I've got something for you turns out not to be great stuff and they don't end up using it.

But the difference here, and why I think this is such a significant moment in time in this entire investigation, is because of how clear the source of the information and the intention behind it was in the e-mails setting up the meeting that Donald Trump Jr. accepted to have, and that is that it was information helpful to his dad's campaign as part of the Russian government's efforts to help his dad. That is not the norm in any campaign I've ever heard of.

BASH: It's true. I mean it's written here in black and white. You don't have to be much of an investigator to get to the bottom of it because it's right here as provided and we'll get to why by Don Jr. himself.

David, stand by. I want to go to Capitol Hill and bring in our senior congressional reporter, Manu Raju, who has been talking to key lawmakers about this bombshell and these e-mails.

Manu, what are you hearing?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Concern, not just from Democrats, which you'd expect to criticize the Trump administration and the White House for this meeting, but also from Republicans themselves who say that they want to get more facts out, concerns about the drip, drip, drip of information, as James Lankford said, undercutting the White House's agenda. Also John McCain saying, this is just another shoe that is dropping in this Russia controversy. And Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, said there's one thing you don't do as a member of a campaign, and that is meet with a foreign adversary. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Any time you're in a campaign and you get an offer from a foreign government to help your campaign, the answer is "no." So I don't know what Mr. Trump Jr.'s version of the facts are. I -- definitely he has to testify. That e-mail is disturbing. But what is equally odd to me is that the person they met with knew absolutely nothing. So I don't know why they would pick somebody for him to meet with that didn't have any information about the Clinton campaign. But on its face, this is very problematic. We cannot allow foreign governments to reach out to anybody's campaign and say, we'd like to help you. That is a non-starter. I know Donald Trump Jr. is new to politics, I know that Jared Kushner's new to politics, but this is going to require a lot of questions to be asked and answered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:03] RAJU: And some other strong words, Dana, from a top Democrat, Tim Kaine, the former running mate to Hillary Clinton, said that this investigation now can move into the issue of treason, saying this action could be, quote, "potentially treasonous." Now, we're not hearing that from other members yet. Republicans certainly not going that far. Even Democrats really not embracing that. But what we are hearing is a lot of demands to hear from Don Jr., Donald Trump Jr., in a classified setting at least before the Senate Intelligence Committee, before the House Intelligence Committee. That call coming from both sides of the aisle. And almost certainly Donald Trump Jr. has also said that he would cooperate. That invitation is coming. So a lot of questions, a lot of concerns. Republicans worried this is overshadowing the Trump agenda and it could be problematic. And as one Democrat said, potentially even criminal.

Dana.

BASH: Manu, thank you so much for that report.

It is a big deal that Tim Kaine used the word "treason." And let's talk to our legal experts about the implications of that or anything else. I want to bring in CNN legal analyst Paul Callan and Jeffrey Toobin is with us as well.

I want to start with you, Paul.

What's your league read on what this e-mail and what the offer for and the actual meeting that happened took place -- that took place, what it means?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think this is really going to be one of the most important documents that Mueller looks at, who's doing this investigation, because it's the first time we see a clear link to the Russian government at -- in that the e-mail suggests that this lawyer, who's going to have the meeting, has been designated by the Russian government and that there are official Russian documents linked to the crown prosecutor of Russia that may incriminate Hillary Clinton. So all of that is suggestive of now a direct link to the Russians.

But, I think we have to hesitate before we jump to the conclusion that this is criminal as opposed to political stupidity because there's nothing in American law that I'm aware of that would prohibit a candidate from accepting damaging information, even from an enemy foreign government, to use against a political opponent. And I think it's -- I really think it's absurd to say this could be treason. It doesn't -- it just doesn't rise to that level.

Now, will it in the future? Yes, that's a possibility. If the Trump campaign was aware that stolen material was being used, if they assisted in some way in helping hacking to be done to get material, yes, that could be criminal. But I'm not seeing criminality yet. I'm seeing us getting closer to it, but I'm not seeing a case being made yet.

BASH: Well, that's interesting.

Jeff, I want to bring you in on the phone. You know, other people have a different read of the law, that an offer to help is effectively an in-kind contribution, which is not allowed from a foreign government. That's one part of this. But, of course, the bigger is, Jeffrey Toobin, is whether or not we are one step closer to potential collusion, or at least intent to collude?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST (via telephone): Well, you know, collusion is not a crime.

BASH: Right.

TOOBIN: Collusion is potentially an impeachable offense, but it is not -- it is not a crime. However, it is a crime for anyone, any campaign, to accept a thing of value from a foreign government. And I think this is very seriously close to the line and maybe even over the line of a criminal campaign finance violation. I think that is certainly something Mueller will want to look at.

But I think just in -- and I also agree with Paul, I think treason is ridiculous and I don't think there is any possibility that this is treason. But I think, you know, the focus on Donald Trump Jr. is perhaps somewhat misguided because he's the only person who's e-mails we have. What about Jared Kushner's e-mails? What about Paul Manafort's e-mails? You know, one thing about e-mails, it's very easy to copy people, and it's very easy to have e-mail chains that involve lots of people. So I don't think we should think that we have seen all of the relevant e-mails here just because we've seen Donald Trump Jr.'s e-mails.

What did everything else think this meeting was about? That is going to be extremely important. And, you know, this is grounds for further criminal investigation, but it's imprudent and unfair to start convicting people based on just, you know, an initial evaluation of one piece of evidence.

BASH: That's a very, very fair point. A very fair pound when it comes to the legal implications or the questions about this. The other question is, what about the e-mails after the meeting? Maybe

that's more relevant. What they actually did think that they learned or didn't learn from this meeting.

[12:19:59] OK, stand by, everybody. We are going to continue to stay on this story. More on these revelations about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with the Russian lawyer coming up from Trump Jr. himself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Obviously the fallout from these momentous Trump Jr. e-mails extend to Russia, and there we have CNN's Ivan Watson, who's joining me now from Moscow.

Ivan, I want you to help put into context who these people are that Goldstone, who was kind of the intermediary between the Russian figures and Donald Trump Jr., and why and how they could even have information about potentially damaging, you know, dirt on Hillary Clinton.

[12:25:00] IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, at first glance these individuals are not likely to be really plugged in with the Russian government or security services. We're talking about a father and son who are real estate developers and the son is a Russian pop music star who just goes by his first name, Emin, when he's on stage. But they're very familiar to the Trump family because the father and son, together with Donald Trump Sr., put on the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant here in Moscow. And they've exchanged an awful lot of public pleasantries on social media and Donald Trump has even recorded happy birthday wishes to the pop star, Emin, and appeared in one of his music videos even.

Now, why are they coming up? It's because this British P.R. executive, Rob Goldstone, who, according to these e-mails and to his own statement to CNN, he wrote Donald Trump Jr. offering information that he thought would hurt the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton. And he said that he was writing on behalf of the father and son and he would be sending a Russian government lawyer to meet with Donald Trump Jr. The Kremlin has denied any links to this lawyer. And in an interview earlier this morning, the lawyer herself denied working with the Russian government. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: hey had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that you had about the DNC. How did they get that impression?

NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA: (through translator): It's quite possible that maybe they were looking for such information. They wanted it so badly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever worked for the Russian government? Do you have connections to the Russian government?

VESELNITSKAYA (through translator): No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: So according to Rob Goldstone, this British P.R. guy from Oui 2 Entertainment, that's his company, he said that he was sending this Russian attorney on behalf of this father and son. The father's a billionaire who goes by the name Aras Agalarov, and his son again is this pop star who goes by the first name Emin. And, again, they were close business partners with Donald Trump during the Miss Universe contest here in Moscow in 2013. And in interviews on Russian state TV just last year the son, Emin, said that he's still in very close contact with Donald Trump Jr. That they text message each other all the time. That he had had Ivanka Trump in his office here in Moscow. And according to one of President Trump's tweets dating back to 2013, he had been in talks with the father to build a Trump Tower here in Moscow. That's a project that was never completely fulfilled.

Dana.

BASH: Thank you so much for that -- for that report.

I want to bring back Jim Sciutto and Jeff Zeleny.

Jim Sciutto, you cover national security, the intelligence world. Have you found anybody who thinks that it's plausible that this Russian lawyer was not connected to the Kremlin? I haven't.

SCIUTTO: Well, here's the thing. The way the Kremlin operates, and this has been with a lot of the meetings the Trump world had with Russians, is that you have many non-official spies who report back to the spy services.

BASH: Right.

SCIUTTO: Businessmen, et cetera. It doesn't mean that every Russian businessman or every Russian lawyer is reporting back. But this is the way Russian intelligence services operate. They keep, you know, call them freelancers, right?

BASH: Right.

SCIUTTO: And that's why when someone like this, who has more than one connection, let's be frank, who is at least offering information based on -- said that it was coming from the government, it is certainly plausible that that's exactly the role that this person was playing. That's one thing.

Keep this in mind as well. So comes to the table offering this damaging information. This other issue, which this lawyer talked about, adoption and the Magnitsky Act, this is not some red herring issue, oh, it's just adoption. This is central to Russia's interests with regards to the U.S. because they stopped allowing U.S. adoption of Russian babies as retaliation for the Magnitsky Act. If viewers haven't heard of it, this is an act that was enacted after the death of a Russian dissident which punishes, to great economic effect, senior Russian official. Russia wants this ended.

BASH: Yes. SCIUTTO: So this is a central issue. So if this -- if this Russian lawyer has no connection to the Kremlin, she was at least coming with information, she said, came from a Kremlin operation to support Trump and, two, pushing a number one Kremlin issue, which is adoption as it relates to these sanctions.

BASH: Paul, on the -- at a meeting with the prime minister of which was set on -- oh, we have something for you, wink, wink --

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

BASH: Actually, it was not a wink, it was -- it was -- it was right --

SCIUTTO: With the son of a -- with the son of the Republican nominee.

BASH: Right. Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Not just anybody.

[12:29:59] BASH: And I just want to say, because you -- before I ask you, Jeff, about those e-mails, because there's an important question there, the whole question of adoption, that was the explanation from Don Jr. at the beginning when this first broke --

SCIUTTO: Right, on Saturday.