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CIA Has Putin's Orders; Repeal And Replace Obamacare; Interview with Rep. Eric Swalwell; CIA Captured Putin's Orders; Obama Knew of Hacking; Trump Should Take Stance. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 23, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We're following several major stories unfolding this hour, including a brand-new bombshell report in "The Washington Post." The paper detailing today how the CIA first learned of Russian President Vladimir Putin's direct and very personal involvement in the cyber campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.

The CIA's intelligence reportedly came from sources deep within the kremlin and even captured Putin's specific instructions. Defeat or damage Hillary Clinton and help, then candidate, Donald Trump win the White House.

The details once considered so sensitive they were delivered to President Obama in a sealed envelope are now being made public for the very first time.

Plus, we're closely following every move up on Capitol Hill right now as Republicans try desperately to make good on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Several in the Republican Party, however, already saying they'll vote no on the new health care bill, unless it is changed dramatically. Can they be persuaded or is the legislation as-is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate?

And we're also waiting for the White House to start answering questions on both of these developing stories. The press briefing with Sean Spicer today is expected to start in about 30 minutes. But once again, you won't be able to watch it live here on CNN or anywhere else for that matter.

The White House once again barring the news media from airing the briefing live, only after the briefing is completed will we be able to share the audio-only of the briefing, no video. Those were the same rules imposed by the White House yesterday as well.

Let's go to our White House Correspondent Athena Jones. She's already in the briefing room getting ready for the briefing. Athena, what, 24 hours ago, President Trump, once again, called the election hacking reports a big Dem hoax and a scam. What's the White House saying now following this bombshell report in "The Washington Post"?

ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. Well, what is so interesting about this Russian scandal, this Russian meddling in the 2016 election is that White House officials from the president on down just don't seem to want to talk about it.

What we hear repeatedly is that this is the Democrats excuse for losing an election they were expected to win.

Kellyanne Conway, the White House Counselor, was asked about this on "NEW DAY" this morning and she did respond to the Post report but she also repeatedly tried to change the subject when asked what the administration is doing to try to prevent any future incursions by Russia in future elections.

Here's some of what Conway had to say this morning and also what former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said about the topic on MSNBC. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Well, this report is new and we'll discuss it with him later. But he's been very clear, on the record, that he believes in any type of numbers of measures to make sure that democracy flourishes.

JEH JOHNSON, FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The current president, through his rhetoric, is, kind of, sending the signals that this is something that will be tolerated.

I have not heard from President Trump a strong statement of condemnation about the Russian behavior and about what all of his intelligence community is telling him happened last year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And Johnson is right. The president hasn't given a full- throated denunciation of Russia's meddling in last year's election.

And, as I said, asked repeatedly what the White House plans to do or what the administration is working on in order to prevent this sort of incursion in the future. You don't get a -- get a lot of answers.

Kellyanne Conway, this morning, talked about the president's voter integrity commission. We heard similar from Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, yesterday talking about the importance of voter I.D. laws.

Those, of course, are very different from this idea of blocking Russia from future meddling -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Athena, stand by. We're going to get back to you. Once again, the briefing scheduled to begin in about a half hour or so.

Let's talk a little more about this stunning new reporting in "The Washington Post" on Russian President Putin's meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California is joining us. He's a member of both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees which are leading investigations into Russian interference.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D), CALIFORNIA, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good afternoon, Wolf. Thanks for having me back.

BLITZER: So, this new report claims the CIA captured Putin's specific instructions on the cyber campaign's objectives to defeat or damage Hillary Clinton and her campaign and help elect, then candidate, Donald Trump.

First of all, were you aware of this specific intelligence?

SWALWELL: All right. I can't go into what we know on the classified, Wolf. But the public report that was released in January talks a lot about what's in "The Washington Post."

[13:05:00] It's unsettling to read it again. And, you know, the way I interpret it is that there was smoke coming out of the kitchen. The response was to open the windows when he needed them to really take a fire extinguisher to the problem.

And I believe they worked very hard to toil away and understand what Russia was doing, but it certainly was not enough. And not enough awareness was known by the American people when they went to the polls.

BLITZER: Yes. Obama administration officials had said, near the end of the campaign in early October, that this was being done at the orders of the highest levels of the Russian government. They didn't specifically say Putin personally.

They didn't say that after in that report you're referring to. This is the first time that there has now been released, according to "The Washington Post," intelligence specifically saying Putin ordered it. He wanted Trump elected. He wanted to damage Hillary Clinton whom he supposedly hated.

Do you want to just comment on that?

SWALWELL: Yes. I think that this demanded the president to deliver an evening address behind the resolute desk before the election to lay out what a foreign adversary was trying to do so that Americans could have gone to the polls understanding that the fake news that was being disseminated.

The social media trolls and the peddling of the hacked Democratic e- mails was done by a foreign adversary with a purpose in mind. To elect a preferred candidate and tear down someone they despised.

BLITZER: Why didn't President Obama do that? Why was he silent? "The Washington Post" is reporting that he just assumed Hillary Clinton, according to the polls, was going to be elected and he didn't want to give any ammunition to the arguments that Donald Trump and his campaign were making that the election would be rigged.

SWALWELL: I don't know why he didn't, Wolf. I greatly admire President Obama. I wish that he and the administration would have acted differently here.

But what's important now is we know what they did and have a president today who sits in the Oval Office who doesn't appreciate the attack that occurred, that doesn't acknowledge it.

And so, you have people around him who do. Like Dan Coats, and Mike Pompeo and Mike Rogers. But if everyone in the car sees there's a problem but the guy behind the steering wheel does not, that doesn't help any of us. And we're going to go into 2018 even more vulnerable.

BLITZER: Yesterday, President Trump tweeted that the Russian meddling in his words, quote, "A big Dem," Democratic, "hoax and a scam." Would President Trump have been aware of this intelligence that was reported today in "The Washington Post"?

I assume, as president of the United States, commander in chief, his intelligence community would have told him the same thing.

SWALWELL: We hope that President Trump, if confronted with evidence like this in the future, would act to secure our elections. But he has done nothing, making us more vulnerable to an attack going forward.

And, Wolf, also, the cost of this attack has not only been that the integrity of our democracy has been undermined, but our ability to work here on health care, on jobs, for the future for our kids. It's all been brought to a halt.

We need the president to understand we were attacked. We're going to something about it. Unite Republicans and Democrats and move this country forward.

We're not getting that right now.

BLITZER: I want to play for you what the president said in a Fox News interview this morning about Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, he's very, very good friends with Comey which is very bothersome. But he's also -- and we're going to have to see.

I mean, we're going to have to see, in terms -- look, there has been no obstruction. There has been no collusion. There has been leaking by Comey. But there's been no collusion, no obstruction, and virtually everybody agrees to that.

So, we'll have to see. I can say that the people that have been hired are all Hillary Clinton supporters. Some of them worked for Hillary Clinton. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous, if you want to know the truth from that standpoint.

But Robert Mueller is an honorable man and hopefully he'll come up with an honorable solution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I want your reaction. He specifically says the whole thing is ridiculous.

SWALWELL: It's not ridiculous, Wolf. It's a serious inquiry. One that he has continuously tried to disrupt, whether it's the congressional investigations or James Comey's investigation.

We need him to just get out of the way. He needs to be president and lead this country. We should all root for his success in doing that, and play our role to use the subpoena power in Congress, thoughtfully and aggressively, to get to the bottom of what happened and report back to the American people.

BLITZER: Have the Comey memos of his conversations with the president been turned over to the House Intelligence Committee? Today is the deadline for that.

Also the deadline for an official White House letter, not a presidential tweet. An official White House letter about the tapes or the recordings that may or may not have been made.

Have you have received both of those so far? And I assume you want them by the end of -- the close of business today?

[13:10:04] SWALWELL: Yes, there's still time today and I can report back to you, Wolf, when that closes.

But I will say this, Wolf. He tweeted out yesterday. It read more like a lawyer had written that tweet, that tapes do not exist. And then, that really raises the question, so why did you say it?

And if the reason he said it was to intimidate James Comey, it has ultimately backfired because James Comey, knowing that he may have been taped, came forward under oath and provided damaging testimony about what the president was trying to do.

So, now, we have -- that's the only version in the record under oath, and it's uncontradicted. And I think that tells us a lot about what this president was trying to do.

BLITZER: So, you're confident you'll get both the Comey memos and the letter from the White House about the tapes by the close of business today?

SWALWELL: Well, if we don't receive the memos, I hope that we receive an explanation as to why they're not being turned over. If it is involved in an ongoing criminal probe, that would be something for us to consider as to whether we still want to pursue it.

As to the tapes, I think we deserve more and the American people deserve more than just the president's lawyerly tweet.

BLITZER: Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, thanks for joining us.

SWALWELL: My pleasure.

BLITZER: All right, let's discuss all of this with our panel. Joining us now is CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash, our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, and from "The Washington Post" newsroom, one of the reporters break this huge story in "The Washington Post" today, Ellen Nakashima.

Ellen, thanks so much for joining us. Let me start with you. Explain for our viewers just how sensitive all this information was and why it was treated so secretly for so long.

ELLEN NAKASHIMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": The information John Brennan, the CIA Director, brought to the White House back in August was of the highest classification. This was intelligence that was obtained, you know, from the deepest reaches of the kremlin, of the Russian government. And so secret, in fact, that we were requested to keep secret or withhold some details, which we agreed to do, to protect sources and methods.

And this was information that was restricted to only four officials. President Obama, his national security adviser, and deputy national security advisor and chief of staff. No one else was told about it for a while.

BLITZER: And how good was the information that Putin, personally, ordered the hacking, ordered the intervention in the U.S. presidential election in order to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton?

NAKASHIMA: This was information that was very, very well corroborated, and the CIA, Brennan, was convinced of it. And we can't explain exactly why and how he knows that we knew that or they knew it. But it was, in fact, very well corroborated.

And, eventually, it was shared with other members of the -- of the cabinet. But it was so exclusive, in a way, that the other intelligence agencies didn't have the same stream of intelligence, let's say, to be able to corroborate it which is why it took a little while to all, kind of, get on the same page and get to a consensus on this.

BLITZER: You mentioned in the article, Ellen, that a third country was also spying, helping the U.S. gather information on Russian intentions. Was that third country, and you don't name that third country, specifically responsible for the Putin personally ordering all of this part of the story? NAKASHIMA: We can't get into any of that, sort of, detail about the

sources. But that was actually one of the reasons why the NSA came up with a moderate confidence, a medium confidence level in their assessment back in January.

BLITZER: You know, Gloria, there's a lot of looking back, 20-20 hindsight now, and a lot of criticism of President Obama. Why didn't he do more? He heard about this in the summer, last summer, a year ago, and really not much was done?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's right. And you heard Jeh Johnson, the former head of Homeland Security, testify the other day that there was a sense that they were in the middle of this election. They became paralyzed, it seems to me.

And he said, in his testimony, one of the candidates was openly charging that this election was rigged. So, you can imagine the problem they had with figuring out the timing about when they should say something, or if they should say something.

And that's why this great "Washington Post" piece has a -- has a quote from a former senior Obama administration official who was involved in the deliberations, saying it was the hardest thing about -- he's ever had to do in his time in government. To defend he said, quote, "I feel like we sort of choked."

BLITZER: Strong words. Go ahead, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And the other thing that was fascinating to me, one of the many things fascinating to me about this story, is the fact it wasn't just the White House sitting on this, you know, kind of paralyzed with indecision.

[13:15:10] They went to the Congress and gave a briefing in September, I believe it was, to Congress and it turned into a partisan fight behind closed doors. Republicans saying they didn't believe it. Democrats saying, wait a second, we've got to figure out a way to get it out there, which was very much an indicator of what would happen if and when the White House did bring this out into the public.

Having said that and understanding that it is completely easy to say in retrospect that they should have come out and said it, but the fact that this is, as the story says, an open and case shut vis-a-vis the intelligence, open and shut case, I should say, vis-a-vis the intelligence. Forget about politics. Forget about the campaign. The president of the United States had this information. And the fact that it wasn't made public, given how intense and how involved the Russians were, it's really - it's really a shame. And the worst part about it is that it's still the case. The current president is also not doing anything about it, but for the opposite reason, because he will not and cannot fathom the notion of the election results being anything but completely pure and not tainted at all in a way that shows that maybe there were some problems with the electoral process that ended up with him winning.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And if you were someone who worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign and you're reading this piece today, I bet you're very upset about it because you believe that perhaps it would have made a difference. But there's an open question here, would it have made any difference in the outcome of this election if the president had said, in August, or in September, that we know the Russians are trying to do this? I mean, we - we just don't know the answer to those questions.

BASH: Yes, it would have been seen through a partisan lens, there's no question about it -

BORGER: Exactly. Exactly. Right.

BASH: Because he was out on the campaign trail.

BLITZER: The president would have been -

BASH: And that was the reasons -

BLITZER: President Obama would have been accused by the Trump campaign of intervening.

BORGER: Exactly.

BASH: No question.

BORGER: Yes, so why was he so worried about it. I mean he did support Hillary Clinton, so everybody knew where he stood.

BASH: Yes.

BORGER: So -

BLITZER: You know, Ellen, one other intriguing element - there were many intriguing elements in your article in "The Washington Post," was that President Obama and the U.S. intelligence community ordered what are called cyber bombs to penetrate Russian infrastructure and just be there in case the U.S. wanted to retaliate. Tell us about that.

ELLEN NAKASHIMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Yes, as you'll recall, on December 29th, when the administration announced its package of sanctions, economic sanctions, closing two Russian compounds and kicking out 35 Russian operatives, they also mentioned that there would be some responses that would not be public. Well, this was one of them. It was essentially first set up by a covert - it's a covert action program that was authorized by a finding signed by President Obama that set in motion basically a program to install implants or computer code of sorts in sensitive Russian systems that the Russians would consider valuable. And if at some later date, let's say Russia tries again to meddle in the 2018 elections or maybe disrupt the power grid, then President Trump would be able to detonate - authorize the detonation of the implants and disrupt their systems.

BLITZER: Yes, with cyber bombs and -

NAKASHIMA: What's interesting about that -

BLITZER: Go ahead, finish.

NAKASHIMA: Yes, they're sort of a code that would , at a future date could be - could be triggered. But, right know, it's not like they're on some, you know, fuse that will automatically go off next week.

BLITZER: Ellen Nakashiam of "The Washington Post." You and your colleagues have done excellent reporting. Thanks so much for joining us. Dana Bash and Gloria Borger, always do excellent reporting for us as well.

Up next, Senator Ron Johnson, one of four Republican senators opposing the new health care bill, he tells me what needs to happen to win his support.

And later, Putin's orders and Russia's interference. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, he's here with us. He's standing by to discuss what these unprecedented breaches could mean for national security and what could still be done about it.

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[13:23:19] BLITZER: Welcome back.

Let's get back to our top story. Stunning new revelations about Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election. "The Washington Post" now reporting that former President Barack Obama received highly classified intelligence that said that Russian President Putin was directly and personally behind the election meddling. For more perspective, let's bring in former Defense Secretary William Cohen, who joins us.

Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us.

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Good to be with you.

BLITZER: So what's your reaction to this bombshell report in "The Washington Post"?

COHEN: Well, two things. Number one, I understand why the president may have withheld this information.

BLITZER: Why?

COHEN: Well, the source and method of acquiring this information. By making it public in any way, he would have compromised those assets, which would have giving us perhaps even more insight what terms of what Putin and the Russians were doing. So I've been very careful on that.

Secondly, you may recall that candidate Trump was demeaning and basically dismissing the U.S. intelligence system, saying that he had no confidence in the U.S. intelligence community. He had more confidence in Wikipedia - not Wikipedia but WikiLeaks.

BLITZER: WikiLeaks. COHEN: And also he's already diminished and denigrated the U.S. intelligence community. He would have said the thing is rigged. This is another attempt by the Democrats working with this discredited intelligence community we have to try and switch the election in her favor. So I understood why the president was reluctant to do that. I think it's proved -

BLITZER: But in early October they finally did issue a joint statement. Jeh Johnson was then the secretary of Homeland Security and William Clapper - James Clapper, the head of - director of National Intelligence. They just - they issued a statement saying the Russians did it at the highest levels. They didn't name Putin personally. Was that a mistake?

COHEN: I don't think so. I think they withheld it because, again, you need to protect that source and method of, how did you get the information? Do we want to continue to get this kind of information? If you compromise that, then you've locked the door on it.

[13:25:12] Secondly, I want to praise the intelligence committees because they didn't leak this information. This information was given to the intelligence community and shows -

BLITZER: It was given to the so-called gang of eight.

COHEN: Right.

BLITZER: Which are the top two intelligent - Democrat and Republican in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, plus the leadership.

COHEN: Exactly. But they kept is quiet, as they should have, without compromising this very sensitive information.

I think what we need to have is the president of the United States say, look, the Russians have fired electronic bullets at the heart of our democracy. I want to get to the bottom of this. I think this is unacceptable. I want - if any of my team had anything to do with this, I want to see them investigated and prosecuted. Now, let me get back to running the country. I have complete confidence in Mr. Mueller. And he'll do a good job and bring out the evidence out. If I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear. That's the kind of statement I want to see come out of the president of the United States.

BLITZER: And you speak as someone who was a member of the House of Representatives many years ago during Watergate.

COHEN: Yes.

BLITZER: And you eventually concluded that then President Nixon should be impeached.

COHEN: Right.

BLITZER: You voted in committee for impeachment.

COHEN: Right. BLITZER: You see similarities now?

COHEN: I see some similarities, but I - what I see is an attempt to obscure and to cover up and to suppress. Let's see what the evidence is. Let's not rush to judgment on this. But the president is acting as if he has something to hide. No president should be in that position. He's early in his administration. The country need to have him succeed in the various programs he campaigned on. But right now we're just dealing with tweets and twitters and we're being distracted every other day on some rabbit hole that he's forcing the media to chase while we have people dying over in Iraq and in Syria. We need to focus on the big issues.

So I want the president to say, this is serious. It came from Russia. I accept my intelligence community's investigation on this. I want to get to the bottom of it. Now, let me do my business and let the investigation go forward. No more dangling, oh, maybe the special investigators should resign. That's another rabbit hole we have to go down for the next week or two months. It's not one we should be following.

BLITZER: Well, we don't hear any of those kinds of comments from the president, at least not yet. But you're encouraging to do so.

I should point out, you were a Republican congressman from the state of Maine and he was a Republican president. So it was not an easy decision for you at that time.

William Cohen, thanks so much for joining us.

COHEN: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Up next, the health care debate. I'll speak with Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin about what could change this current no vote. He's not a yes, not yet. We'll see if he can be. Stay with us.

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