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Merits of Early Voting; FBI Director Under Fire. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 31, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton, she is campaigning right now in the battleground ground state of Ohio. She just addressed the controversy right off the bat with that crowd over the newly discovered e-mails belonging to her right-hand woman and colleague Huma Abedin.

You will hear that in just a moment. But, first, federal investigators, they are poring through what is believed to be thousands upon thousands of e-mails belonging to Abedin. They were found on a laptop belonging to her now estranged husband, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. That search was part of a separate investigation, that sexting investigation involving Weiner and an underage girl.

But it is the FBI director, James Comey, who is now under fire, critics accusing him of meddling -- you just heard that last conversation. Critics say he's meddling in the election by making this bombshell announcement really in the form of a letter to Congress that got leaked, you know, days before voters cast their ballot without knowing how significant these e-mails actually are.

So, let's begin the hour with Pamela Brown, our justice correspondent, on the e-mails, on the timetable.

Pamela, do we know when the review could be complete, when the conclusion could be out there?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I will tell you this, Brooke, it's unlikely that will happen before the election.

It's a multipronged process. And so we know right now FBI agents at FBI facilities in Quantico, Virginia, are using special software to catalog the e-mails and basically weed out the ones that aren't relevant and take the ones that are relevant and then go through them and see if there's classified information and see whether, if there is classified information, whether it's -- the person sending that knew that it was classified.

That takes time because you have to go to all these different agencies and consult with them to see if it is classified. So, we know the cataloging process takes a couple of days, but it's that other part that takes a while. So, that will likely wrap up after Election Day. The question is, Brooke, at what point when the FBI has a good sense

of the substance of these e-mails will it be addressed, if at all, before the election? As we know, Director James Comey has been silent ever since he set off that political firestorm by sending that letter to Congress on Friday saying that these new e-mails surfaced.

We know that Huma Abedin, the estranged wife of Anthony Weiner, has said she doesn't know how her e-mails ended up on this computer that was taken as part of that sexting investigation.

Officials we have been speaking with say they have no reason at this point in the investigation not to believe her. They don't believe at this point she was obstructing justice, but there's still a lot we don't know, and that's key.

There could be something in these e-mails. There could be nothing in these e-mails. We're still very early on in this process. And you don't know what you don't know, Brooke.

BALDWIN: But we're talking about it, and that's not necessarily what the Democrats want. They want the conversation turned to Trump. Pam, thank you very much.

Now, Donald Trump, on the other hand, he is seizing upon this new controversy in this final push right before Election Day.

Just a short time ago, he thanked Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner for Clinton's woes, all the while applauding the FBI director.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I have to give the FBI credit. That was so bad what happened originally. And it took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made, in light of the kind of opposition he had, where they're trying to protect her from criminal prosecution.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: You know that. It took a lot of guts. I really disagreed with him. I was not his fan, but I will tell you what. What he did, he brought back his reputation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, is at the Clinton rally there in Ohio.

So, especially what she's saying, there is no case here.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, that's what she did say, Brooke.

But it's interesting that she addressed this at all. We were told by her advisers earlier that she was trying to turn the page and move on to her closing argument against Donald Trump. But, of course, now that includes trying to explain and trying to raise some questions about this whole FBI situation.

Here at this rally on the campus of Kent State University, Hillary Clinton starting the week off addressed this head-on. Let's take a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm sure a lot of you may be asking what this new e-mail story is about and why in the world the FBI would decide to jump into an election with no evidence of any wrongdoing with just days to go.

(BOOING)

CLINTON: That's a good question.

And, first of all, for those of you who are concerned about my using personal e-mail, I understand. And, as I have said, I'm not making excuses. I have said it was a mistake and I regret it. And now they apparently want to look at e-mails of one of my staffers.

[15:05:05]

And, by all means, they should look at them. And I am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my e-mails for the last year. There is no case here.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, Brooke, a mix of defiance, I would think, in there, as well as trying not to be overly defensive, but also acknowledging the fact that this e-mail controversy, her decision to use a private e- mail server as secretary of state back in January of 2009, still is hanging over her to this day as we draw closer to the election.

She knows she still needs to apologize for this. Brooke, that is something we don't hear very often from the podium, from the campaign trail here. She's done it in interviews and things, but, saying, look, I made a mistake again.

They know that time is running short. The key question here is, they know Democrats aren't that concerned about it. Most of them have probably made their minds up about it. But, Brooke, it's the slice of independents and Republicans who were considering her.

And that's why her campaign aides believe these polls have gotten closer. The race is tightening here because people who had some questions and doubts about Hillary Clinton once upon a time have them again now. That's why she addressed it head-on.

But, Brooke, she devoted the majority of her speech to going after Donald Trump here. She just started it with that e-mail controversy that's playing out here in Ohio and in all of these battleground states across the country -- Brooke. BALDWIN: Got it. Got it. Jeff, thank you so much in Ohio.

We will continue on. We will talk about the FBI director.

But let's begin with the politics first. Gloria Borger is with us, CNN chief political analyst. And Ryan Lizza is back as well, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker."

And so interesting to listen to Jeff talk about how Hillary Clinton is just quickly addressing it at the top of the rally. We also heard from Josh Earnest today, Gloria, the press secretary over at the White House. Let me just quote him.

He said: "The president doesn't believe that he," he, James Comey, "is secretly strategizing to benefit one candidate or one political party. He's in a tough spot."

Talk to me about the tough spot that the president's in because we know he's stumping four different times this week for Hillary Clinton.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, as Josh Earnest pointed out, there's a separation of powers here. And the president cannot tell somebody in the FBI or the Justice Department what to do.

So, Josh Earnest was kind of trying to thread the needle there, because while he was saying that they can't comment on it one way or another, he also made the point very deftly that there are certain norms that they would hope are being adhered too.

And by certain norms, you know, reading into that, one of those norms would not be commenting on a political matter within 60 days before an election, which clearly occurred here with Mr. Comey's comments.

So, he took a step back and he took a step into it without involving the president at all.

BALDWIN: So, then, Ryan, just listening to Jeff, I'm thinking about in these final eight days, independents or even Republicans who maybe were thinking, I will be with her, but because of this news -- and, again, we don't know what's in these e-mails, that's the tricky part -- how will they potentially be influenced?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, the two polls that came out yesterday suggested that it's not really changing a whole lot of people's minds.

There was a battleground poll of 13 states that said that 71 percent of voters said this won't make any difference. And a lot of the voters who said it will make a difference are already voting for Trump. They're partisan Republicans.

A similar poll, I believe it was the ABC poll, had similar information, two-thirds of voters saying no difference. The truth is, a lot have already voted and the ones that haven't have already made up their minds, especially as it relates to Hillary Clinton and the e- mails.

I'm, frankly, a little bit surprised that the Clinton campaign is actually still talking about this.

BORGER: Right.

LIZZA: You would think that in the final days, they would want to move off this.

And just to follow up on one thing that Gloria said about the relationship between Comey and the White House and the president, I do think it's important to point out that the reason James Comey became the face of this investigation is two-fold.

One, go back to last year when Obama was asked about this investigation on "60 Minutes." He basically said -- he said something that a lot of people on the right interrupted as prejudging the outcome. He basically said he think that Hillary Clinton did anything wrong.

Then of course you had Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, who is in charge of the Justice Department, making herself compromised because she met with Bill Clinton, the subject of the investigation's husband.

So, you have the two -- Comey's two bosses kind of taking themselves off the playing field and in the eyes of some making this more political.

[15:10:04]

That's why Loretta Lynch the other day, what could she have done? She could have ordered her employee, James Comey, not to send that letter. But of course she felt like that would have made -- turned this into an even bigger scandal if she had.

That's sort of what's allowed Comey to sort of become super powered in this investigation. Frankly, it's my understanding if the president really thought that Comey messed up here, he could fire him. I doubt, obviously, that's not going to happen. But I do think that the president and the attorney general are -- there's some responsibility here on them.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I want to move off that, Gloria, actually, because I would love to talk about Huma Abedin. Right? She's been referred to as the surrogate daughter.

She's -- I think Dana Bash said it perfectly -- she's like Hillary Clinton's hand, right arm, brain, heart in so many ways.

BORGER: Sure.

BALDWIN: They go back. They bonded over things that are unique to both of them.

She hasn't been on the campaign plane for the last three days. Can you read anything into that? Tell me more about the two of them.

BORGER: Well, I think, first of all, they're incredibly close. A surrogate daughter has been used, right? Incredibly close. She's worked with her since she was an intern.

I think one of the reasons she's off the plane is that they don't want her to be followed around by us and to be followed everywhere she is or to distract any attention from Hillary Clinton.

I think they did it as much for as for Hillary Clinton. John Podesta was asked whether Huma will remain with the campaign. And I believe he said that she will. But when you take a step back and you look at all of this, what Ryan was talking about with Bill Clinton meeting with the attorney general last summer, Huma Abedin getting involved in this, Anthony Weiner, it's Shakespearian.

All of these storylines are almost unbelievable. In other words, maybe none of this would have occurred if Bill Clinton hadn't hopped off his plane on the tarmac and had a little conversation with the attorney general, who then might have disposed of this in a different way.

And all of this provided for Comey to go rogue, if you will, if that's what he did. And the relationship between Huma and Mrs. Clinton is so close. And it must be so painful for both of them that these stories involve, in Huma's case, her estranged husband. And in Hillary's case, it's a husband who went and spoke with Lynch on an airplane. Right?

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. It's bizarro.

BORGER: Yes.

And final, final piece of this is, Ryan, let me just play some sound. I was talking to the man who would like to be president, Gary Johnson, former governor, on Friday on the Libertarian ticket. He was answering from me right when we were, right, sorting through all of the news coming in. And then we're also going to hear from the man on his ticket, Bill Weld, responding to the very same scandal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY JOHNSON, LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Obviously, the FBI didn't do this lightly. There has to be something there because you don't just do this 11 days before the election. This is a mess. It's a mess.

I do think there's an honorable alternative. It happens to be me and Bill Weld, two former governors that served in heavily Democrat states. Hey, maybe we will still occupy the White House. Maybe it's a possibility here. What do you think?

QUESTION: Do you think that it will help Donald Trump win the election?

BILL WELD, LIBERTARIAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I hope not. Mr. Trump braying about this latest development reminds me of the guy in "Monty Python," who says, she's a witch, burn her, burn her.

Has no more content than that.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We have found a witch. May we burn her?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!

WELD: And the point of that skit in "Monty Python" was that those townspeople were ignorant and stupid, not that they were great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, points for a "Monty Python" reference, but still what do you make of these two very different responses?

LIZZA: Oh, man, we're going to miss Bill Weld after this election.

BORGER: Yes.

LIZZA: But it's no secret that Weld and Johnson don't agree on everything.

Weld comes -- what we didn't see there is Weld's basically agreeing with a lot of other former Justice Department officials saying that Comey should not have sent this letter, which seems to be the consensus opinion of anyone that worked at the Justice Department or as a prosecutor.

But, yes, they don't agree on everything. They haven't agreed on anything from the beginning of this campaign. And who knows. You know, the polls right before this revelation had the third-party vote shrinking, which often happens as you get close to Election Day. Maybe they will see a little bit of a bump up as people are turned off by Trump or Hillary.

BALDWIN: Who knows. Ryan, Gloria, thank you on this Shakespearian election.

[15:15:00]

BORGER: Sure.

LIZZA: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: James Comey, from Democratic hero to villain, taking fire from all sides, is it warranted? Let's discuss that.

Also, is early voting a good thing? We will talk about the good and the bad of choosing early, eight days left. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And we're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Nearly 100 former Justice Department officials signed off on this letter critical of the FBI director, critical of James Comey, for releasing details about the new review of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

All share a respect for the FBI director, but they say his unprecedented move has fueled uninformed speculation just days before the election, and they are now demanding that Comey release more information that -- quote -- "provides a full and complete picture regarding the material at issue."

So, joining me now, Devlin Barrett, a reporter for "The Wall Street Journal," and also with us, Jeffrey Toobin, our CNN senior legal analyst.

So, Jeff Toobin, just to you first. I remember I think we talked Friday when all this was breaking.

[15:20:03]

You are saying that James Comey did the right thing. Tell me why.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No, actually, I wouldn't say that. I actually am with the 100...

BALDWIN: You're with the other camp?

TOOBIN: Yes.

No, I mean, I certainly understand what Comey was doing. But even I, as a lowly assistant U.S. attorney in the 1990s, knew there was a bedrock principle at the Justice Department. I investigated political corruption at a much lower level than we're talking about here, but is that you don't interfere in elections. Two months before, you go dark.

You don't start making public disclosures. You don't issue subpoenas. You don't issue indictments on the eve of election. And I don't see what possible justification James Comey had to violate that principle.

And I think that's why you're seeing so many Justice Department officials, Republicans, as well as Democrats, really disappointed in someone, James Comey, who was very well-respected in that world.

BALDWIN: Well, there has been, according to Devlin's piece today in "The Wall Street Journal," I mean, just in terms of the inner workings of the FBI and Justice, and frustration among investigators.

Devlin, tell me about what you found.

DEVLIN BARRETT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Right.

So what we're told is that for a period of months, there's been tension and distrust building among the folks doing the investigations related to the Clinton -- the folks overseeing those investigations.

And that's both internal to the FBI and between the FBI and the Justice Department. Look, there are -- it is pretty typical to have conflicts between agents and prosecutors. That's normal. That's basically the plot of every cop show ever made. But I think what's different about this is that the stakes are so high

when it comes to investigating Hillary Clinton that when those conflicts come up, everyone feels like their career and potentially their reputation is on the line, so everyone gets a little more worked up about being told no or being told wait or being told slow down.

BALDWIN: Isn't a piece of this, though, Toobin...

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

BALDWIN: I want to hear your response, but isn't a piece of this, you know, the chat on the tarmac between the attorney general and Bill Clinton and how, perhaps -- this is what the other side would say -- how James Comey felt boxed in because of maybe the optics of that and, therefore, that led to decisions? Go ahead.

TOOBIN: No, there is no question that that tarmac conversation has had much bigger repercussions than anyone realized at the time, because it really shifted decision-making power away from Loretta Lynch to the FBI.

But, I mean, Devlin has done brilliant reporting here. And I'm full of admiration for him and for "The Wall Street Journal" here. But it is also worth noting that we have an FBI now that is leaking like crazy.

You know, telling -- remember, it wasn't even disclosed that this came out of the Weiner investigation in Comey's original letter. And the idea that Comey set this ball in motion and seemingly has no problem with all these leaks going on just illustrates why you don't do this on the eve of an election, because it is not supposed to be in front of the voters at this point.

BALDWIN: But, then again, let me just -- I'm trying to be fair.

And, Devlin, you can answer this with your sources. You know, if we're talking about a leaky FBI and Comey wouldn't have -- this letter, this wouldn't have been public, but there would have been a leak potentially within the FBI investigators saying, hey, we're looking into Hillary Clinton's e-mails again, and that comes out and that then just looks bad, right?

BARRETT: Right, right.

BALDWIN: Then they're withholding.

BARRETT: One of the major justifications for the Comey letter on Friday was that he was concerned this would leak out anyway.

Look, there is clearly a big difference of opinion inside the FBI about a lot of this stuff. And there's been a growing distrust, I have been told, between the rank-and-file and the bosses overseeing the FBI and between the FBI and the U.S. attorneys and the senior main Justice officials overseeing those folks. So, that is the context in which Comey decides to do this. And I

fully understand why lots of people think that was the wrong call, ultimately. But if you want to know what the motivations were, I think actually getting out in front of the leaks is part of the motivation. That may be wrong-headed, but I think that's part of the motivation.

TOOBIN: And I think that that's exactly right.

But the problem is when Comey has an announcement to make, he should announce something meaningful to the public. Instead, he made this announcement that, well, there's something out there and it may or may not be important.

BALDWIN: Ambiguous.

TOOBIN: If he had evidence that Hillary Clinton committed a crime, that was worth announcing on the eve of the election.

But if you just have information that, well, we're continuing our investigation, why throw that stink bomb in the middle of this -- at the very end of the campaign? I think that's -- that's a real big problem.

[15:25:07]

BALDWIN: You would have agreed with Charles Kaiser, who was part of a very animated conversation we just had on our show a couple of minutes ago.

TOOBIN: So I hear. You're the talk of CNN, Brooke. It was a high- decibel confrontation.

BALDWIN: It was indeed. You could have heard a pin drop in the newsroom.

Jeffrey Toobin, Devlin Barrett, thank you both so much.

Coming up next: Hillary Clinton takes a page from one of the most influential political ads in history. We will discuss whether her reboot of the 1964 Daisy ad is a smart play.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

Looking to change the subject from e-mails, the Clinton campaign is going nuclear, putting a fresh focus on the little girl