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Trump Criticizes Ex-Adviser; Russians had Clinton Information; White House Dismisses Papadopoulos; Kelly Calls Investigation a Distraction; Trump's Indictment Response. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 31, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 here in Washington, 5:00 p.m. in London and 8:00 in Moscow. Wherever you are watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We start with President Trump said to be seething right now over developments in the Russia investigation. A former campaign adviser is now helping the special prosecutor's office, but investigators say he's just a small part of the larger ongoing investigation.

And the White House now seemingly focused on trying to discredit this man, George Papadopoulos, who President Trump now calls, and I'm quoting him now, "a liar." The former campaign foreign policy adviser is working with federal investigators, after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

Another former Trump campaign advisor described Papadopoulos this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISOR: He was the coffee boy. I mean, you might have called him a foreign policy analyst. But, in fact, you know, if he was going to wear a wire, all we'd know now is whether he prefers a caramel macchiato over a regular American coffee in conversations with his barista. He had nothing to do with the campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The White House says the president didn't know Papadopoulos and may have only met him once at this national security meeting in March of 2016. But the president did know the name.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you want, I could give you some of the names. I wouldn't --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would be delighted.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: George Papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant. Excellent guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Excellent guy.

Let's tick through the timeline of what we know about George Papadopoulos. He's part of the campaign and the Russia investigation.

In March of last year, Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a special foreign policy adviser. That same month, Papadopoulos first met with the so-called professor in Italy who's promising dirt on Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Over the next two months, he made contacts with Russians, cultivated those contacts and informed Trump campaign officials, including then campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, about his efforts.

Fast forward to post election and the Russia investigation is in full swing. Under the direction of then FBI Director James Comey.

It was at this time in January that Papadopoulos was interviewed first by the FBI and made his false statements about those Russian contacts. The next month, another interview and a promise of cooperation and his -- he deactivates his Facebook account the next day.

In July, Papadopoulos was arrested at Dulles International Airport just outside Washington, D.C. Then, a few months later, in early October, October 5th to be precise, he enters his guilty plea for lying to the FBI.

We are now learning more about one originally unnamed person who figured prominently in the complaint. He's known as the professor.

Our International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is joining us now from London. Nic, you've been talking to a source who knows this so- called professor. What is your source saying?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, this source has known the professor for three or four years now. He describes him as a lecturer, a professor in diplomacy at a London academy. He believes his name is Joseph Mifsud.

One of the reasons that he believes that he is the professor is that Joseph Mifsud connected the source to George Papadopoulos for a meeting. Mifsud told my source, why don't you meet Papadopoulos to discuss, you know, President Trump's message to various world leaders? My source, within a day of that e-mail exchange, met with Papadopoulos.

His opinion about Papadopoulos was, this was a man who was a nice man is how he described him. But somebody that didn't really have an in- depth knowledge of the region and the issues that he was discussing.

Papadopoulos told my source that he wanted to explain what President Trump was saying about certain leaders in the Middle East, to some of those particular countries, to explain what President Trump meant, that what he was saying may have sounded bellicose. But that's not the way candidate Trump, at the time of course, was intending those things to be -- to be read.

The source also describes separate meetings that he had with the professor, this person he believes is Joseph Mifsud. Where Mifsud showed very pro-Russian ideals. Where he liked to brag about his connection to Russian officials. That he bragged about having met President Trump, had dinner with President Trump and others.

And also told my source, at that time, and this time is around the, sort of, second week early April last year, that they, meaning the Russians, had a lot of stuff on Hillary Clinton.

[13:05:12] So, this source is, sort of, helping us flush out details about the professor, but also something about how the strength of Papadopoulos, his ability to be a foreign policy adviser to then candidate Trump.

And my source's opinion was his knowledge really wasn't deep enough to be -- to be a strong foreign policy adviser, when he questions the -- questioned the wisdom of having somebody of that caliber.

BLITZER: Very interesting. All right, Nic, thanks very much. Nic Robertson in London.

President Trump was seething as he watched the news coverage following the indictment. That according to a Republican close to the president. Sources are telling CNN that while the president wasn't surprised by the Manafort-Gates' charges, the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos was unexpected.

And it didn't take very long to see how the White House was going to try to spin the guilty plea from Papadopoulos. President Trump tweeted out this, in part. Few people knew the young, low-level volunteer, named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the Dems.

Let's bring in CNN's White House Correspondent Sara Murray. She's over at the White House. Sara, Trump's former chief strategist, the Breitbart chairman, Steve Bannon, is said to be pushing for a full- court press against the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Is he behind the strategy also to minimize Papadopoulos' role?

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Wolf, these are both, kind of, two parts of the same strategy which is to be more aggressive. It doesn't mean it's necessary all driven by Steve Bannon.

Dana Bash, of course our colleague, has some excellent reporting on how Bannon does want to see a more aggressive strategy, when it comes to dealing with Mueller. That he feels like the president's lawyers have been too cooperative.

But that's separate from what we're seeing from Papadopoulos. We are seeing an effort from the president, as well as from some of his top allies from the campaign to go out there, to belittle this man, to discredit him and to try to minimize his role during the campaign. But, Wolf, it does make you wonder why such an aggressive strategy would be necessary, when the president, his aides have insisted that there was no collusion. That the president did nothing wrong. That would be the argument the president's lawyers might make for why they are being more inclined to share documents with Mueller, to be cooperative, as President Trump has insisted from day one there's no collusion.

Now, remember, the special counsel has not reached that decision yet. The carious committees on the Hill who are looking into this have not reached that conclusion yet. And these investigations continue.

But, of course, I'm sure Sarah Sanders will get many questions about the president's strategy and his Twitter habits in today's briefing.

BLITZER: Yes, we'll stand by for that briefing. That's coming up in a little while.

Sara, thank you very much. Sara Murray over at the White House.

The first dominos have now fallen and the man who is cooperating with federal investigators is being described as just a small part of this much wider probe.

Here with us, some of the CNN journalists who have been following the facts of the Russia investigation since day one. They've been breaking a lot of the news along the way. Our Crime and Justice Reporter Shimon Prokupecz, our Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider, our Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto and our Justice Correspondent Evan Perez.

Evan, What more have we learned about George Papadopoulos and his contacts, his relationships with the Russians?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it goes beyond the professor that Nic Robertson was just describing. According to the court documents that the FBI and the special counsel have prepared, it appears that he was in touch with someone who he thought, at least initially, was a niece of Vladimir Putin. That he was having communications and even setting up meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom.

So, the fact today is that the Russian government is, sort of, dismissing this and saying that there was nothing here. That there was actually nothing -- no meeting that could be set up between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But it appears that the special prosecutor, the special counsel and the FBI believe that not only did he have these connections, but that he actually had some kind of capabilities and certainly had the intention to try to set up these meetings with the Russians.

BLITZER: Yes, that's a good point.

And, Shimon, we also know that the federal investigators say that Papadopoulos was, really, only a small part of what is a much wider investigation into Russian meddling, collusion, if you will, into the U.S. presidential election. And, potentially, obstruction of justice.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, absolutely right. And, you know, the president and his people may call him a coffee boy or call him a liar. But the fact is that he -- the FBI believes that he is providing valuable information to them. So much so that they listed all of the information, in documents that were filed in federal court yesterday.

So, everyone can say, on the Trump side, that perhaps he's a liar or he's not to be believed or, you know, he was no one. The fact is he had eyes into this campaign, into the national security team of this campaign. And he has now provided that information to the FBI.

[13:10:04] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The whole coffee boy line does not stand up to the e-mail communications that Robert Mueller now has. Because if he was a coffee boy, you would not have had the senior campaign officials, Manafort and Gates, among them, as we've identified them, responding to his e-mails. Another campaign -- and forwarding them on. Another campaign supervisor encouraging him to take a meeting with Russian officials overseas.

So, those e-mails contradict that. But, also, I think we can't take it out of the timeline because, remember, these communications that Papadopoulos is having with the Russians in April and May proceed the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

And, remember, when we saw that meeting in isolation, it appeared to be one meeting and Don Jr. and Kushner can say, we had no idea that they were talking about bringing damaging information on Hilary Clinton.

Then, of course, there's an e-mail that showed that Don Jr. knew that they were bringing damaging information on Hillary Clinton. And we know, then, that that's not the first that this campaign heard that Russians had and were offering damaging e-mails on Hillary Clinton.

So, the storyline is nice. It makes for a nice tweet and sound bite today from Trump and others, coffee boy, don't know who the heck he was. The e-mails contradict that storyline.

BLITZER: I suspect we'll hear more about that from Sarah Sanders at the White House briefing that's coming up.

I want to get back to Papadopoulos in a moment. But, Jessica, what are you hearing about Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, both of whom were indicted yesterday?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. And both pleaded guilty in those court proceedings yesterday. What's interesting -- I'm sorry, not guilty. What's interesting about the terms of their release is that they're extremely restrictive and quite extensive.

So, they are both under house arrest. They cannot leave the house, unless it's to meet with attorneys or court appearances or medical appointments. And the terms of their bond. It's a secured bond.

So, if they violate the terms of their home arrest, they'll have to pay it. Manafort's is $10 million. Gates is $5 million. These are extremely restrictive terms, very extensive, not usually the terms that you would see in a typical white-collar criminal crime as alleged here.

BLITZER: I want to go through, Evan, because you've been doing a lot of reporting on this, the transcript of a hearing that took place on October 5th when Papadopoulos pleaded guilty. He was arrested, actually, in July. Pleaded guilty October 5th.

At the time, and if you read all the transcript with this federal judge, Randolph Moss, very interesting because they told -- the judge told the prosecutors, basically, I want you to unseal this in 30 days. That was October 5th. It's now almost 30 days.

And since they didn't have to, they could have asked for an extension, but they were inclined to go with the judge's request. Thirty days is about now. That's why, all of a sudden, yesterday, we heard about this guilty plea.

PEREZ: Right. And I think there's no accident that it was unsealed the same time that we heard about these charges against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.

I think part of the story here is that the Robert Mueller and his investigators know that there's a lot of pushback from the White House and from the Trump administration, through saying there's nothing to see here. And also, frankly, from Manafort's own side.

So, look, I think what this does, these documents show is that they have a lot of leverage. And they believe they can bring to bear on Paul Manafort. Now, we don't know it's going to work but they certainly believe this. And I think that's -- you're beginning to see what that is.

And the ultimate goal here is to get people to flip. I mean, you obviously have Papadopoulos who has already flipped. And I don't know what proactive cooperation he's done with the government, but it's clear that Manafort is also -- the intention here is to get him to flip up. And then, the question is, who can he flip up against? Obviously, it's the president and people closest to him.

SCIUTTO: And it's interesting, in the sentencing agreement there, as you see it, you can see one incentive to get folks to flip because he's now had his sentence reduced from hard time years, I believe, in jail to zero to six months.

BLITZER: Right. Now, let me be precise. And I took some notes when I read the transcript. And this is the incentive he has, why he is pleading guilty. If he would have gone to trial and would have been convicted, he could have faced five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. By pleading guilty, under the sentencing guidelines, now he -- when they had the final sentencing at 190 to 120 days, according to the federal judge, he could get either zero time in jail up to six months, and have a fine of $500 or up to $9,500. That explains why you plead guilty and you cooperate.

SCIUTTO: That's a traffic fine now, right? I mean, you go from real, hard time. And if you look, and you're talking about flipping up, if you're looking at Manafort and Banks as targets. Their sentencing now is 12.5 to 15 years, I believe, minimum for each of them. And serious, serious fines. So, they also have an immense incentive to cooperate.

BLITZER: Yes, there's a felony. He's pleaded guilty to a felony, so he'll give up his right to vote, according to the federal judge, right to hold public office, right to serve on a jury, right to possess a firearm or ammunition. All of that spelled out in this hearing.

[13:15:00] But, you know, Shimon, what's also very interesting, as part of this guilty plea, he surrenders his passport. He can't leave three districts, D.C., northern Virginia or the northern district of Illinois. He's stuck in those three districts until sentencing, which is significant amid all these reports, the speculation, he may have showed up the other day in London. He wasn't in London. His passport has been surrendered.

PROKUPECZ: Yes. And certainly if he did try to leave, it would violate the conditions of his release right now. And what the government has agreed to do, according to this plea agreement. So there's no way that he would be able to leave. He -- if he did try to leave, he -- they probably would arrest him and he'd probably be in jail.

So the other thing I want to say is the -- on the Clinton dirt here. This is a second instance where we've learned that Papadopoulos was trying to meet with someone about -- who claimed -- the Russians, who claimed to have dirt on Clinton. We know about the Trump Jr. meeting at Trump Tower.

This is all part of --

PEREZ: (INAUDIBLE) asking for --

PROKUPECZ: Right, that's another instance.

What this all shows and what intelligence officials have been screaming about for months and over a year now is that the Russians were making every attempt to infiltrate this campaign. And they did. And their playbook worked because now it has just sort of sew this -- there's this doubt throughout the campaign. They have been able to build doubt within this -- perhaps even folks at the White House and this presidency. And it shows what the Russians did here was a success. They did exactly what they wanted to do and they have succeeded.

BLITZER: And in this hearing they make it clear that the prosecutors, the attorneys representing Robert Mueller, this is an investigation involving Russian tampering potentially in the U.S. presidential election.

PEREZ: And it says collusion by --

BLITZER: That is correct.

PEREZ: Possible collusion by U.S. --

BLITZER: Possible collusion.

PEREZ: By U.S. citizens.

BLITZER: I'll get you the exact quote if you want it.

SCIUTTO: No matter how many times the president says collusion is off the table, read the court documents. It says the opposite.

BLITZER: Yes.

PEREZ: Right. Right.

BLITZER: I'll read it later. You get the point.

PEREZ: We take your word for it.

BLITZER: All right, guys, the president said to be seething behind the scenes and his fired adviser, Steve Bannon, apparently telling him to fight Robert Mueller hard. We have new details on the president's mindset.

Plus, could the president's tweets on the indictments be used against him? And is the criticism of a cooperating witness putting him in legal jeopardy?

And his chief of staff under fire after he praised Robert E. Lee and said lack of compromise led to the Civil War. John Kelly's explosive remarks. We'll assess.

Much more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:42] BLITZER: CNN is learning that president Trump is getting advice from his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who's urging the president to aggressively go after the special counsel, Robert Mueller, as this Russia investigation produces its first charge, as the White House is also spinning, that the former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, that his role is -- was minimal. Have a listen to the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This individual was the member of a volunteer advisory council that met one time over the course of a year. It was a volunteer position.

Again, somebody on a volunteer committee --

Again, he was a volunteer. He was not paid by the campaign.

He was a volunteer on a, again, a council that met once.

He was a volunteer on the campaign and a volunteer member of an advisory council.

I'm telling you he was a volunteer member of an advisory council that literally met one time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Let's bring in Julie Davis. She's a CNN political analyst, a White House reporter for "The New York Times." Also joining us, Carrie Cordero, a former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general for national security.

Thanks to both of you very much for joining us.

And the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, was on Fox last night and he confirmed what a lot of people suspected, although the White House has basically pushed away from it, that the presidency is being investigated right now. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KELLY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I don't know how much longer it could possibly go on, but we're in great hope that it wraps up.

It is very distracting to the president, as it would be to any citizen, to be investigated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I don't know if they inadvertently confirmed that, but that's serious that he is suggesting that the president himself is being investigated by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and his team.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, absolutely. And he just acknowledged something that it has been apparent for a while now is within the scope of Bob Mueller's investigation. But we do know that the president was very keen to get Jim Comey, the former FBI director, to state publically that he wasn't under investigation. So the fact that his chief of staff has now come out and said this is significant and I'm sure was something of a -- of a -- of a shame for the president to hear.

But the -- the point that he makes that we -- you know, we hope he wraps this up because the Mueller investigation is very distracting to the president, I think that's an important point. We know that he is very distracted by this. He's about to embark on a 12-day-trip to Asia. Lots of stops and important places talking about North Korea, talking about the relationship with China. This is not something that is helpful to the president. It's very distracting to him and it undercuts his leadership on a whole host of other issues, including tax reform, that he would rather be talking about right now.

BLITZER: It's among the most sensitive things a special counsel could be doing, investigating the president of the United States, Carrie.

CARRIE CORDERO, FORMER DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICIAL: It is. And although the focus so much, you know, from the president wanting to be assures that he personally wasn't the subject of an investigation. The charge that the special counsel was given from the deputy attorney general to conduct this investigation is focused on the Trump campaign. So the idea I think from the beginning of -- that the fact that this investigation wasn't touching the president in some way was just sort of not an accurate read of the charge that special counsel was given because the special counsel was directed to look into any potential Russian interference in the election as it related to the Trump campaign and anything else that was turned up in the source of that investigation.

[13:25:00] BLITZER: What do you think of this argument that Sarah Sanders is making that, you know, that Papadopoulos was just this low level volunteer, may have met with the president once, but was really not involved?

DAVIS: Well, it was striking I mean for her to say that, you know, this had nothing to do with the White House or the president. This person may very well have been a low level person on the campaign, but as we could see from the plea agreement, he had contact with some very senior people in the campaign who were engaging with him on this notion of potentially setting up meetings with the Russians, potentially having a discussion about incriminating e-mails about Hillary Clinton. So whether or not he had a high ranking position on the way in, we do know that he -- from this plea, if you believe what's written in the plea, that he has now said that he had conversations with senior people in the campaign and was encouraged by them to pursue these outreach efforts by Moscow. So it's almost irrelevant how high or low he was in the campaign. And it is just an effort, I think, to sort of keep this at an arm's length.

BLITZER: The president keeps tweet about all of this. This morning he tweeted, the fake news is working overtime. As Paul Manafort's lawyer said, there was no collusion and events mentioned took place long before he came to the campaign. Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the Dems.

Is that smart for the president, who his White House chief of staff is being investigated, to be tweeting about all of this?

CORDERO: Well, it's not only not smart, but really the president shouldn't be tweeting, Sarah Sanders shouldn't be talking -- she shouldn't be commenting or sort of giving an opinion or a political interpretation of what's going on in the special counsel investigation. The White House shouldn't, if this was sort of a normal White House that was following norms and rules and regulations of the Justice Department and what typically an attorney general would require would be that a White House would not comment on this investigation. So it's really wildly inappropriate of course for the president to be tweeting about it, but also for Sarah Sanders to be talking about it.

BLITZER: Could the special counsel, Robert Mueller, actually use those tweets from the president down the road as part of his investigation?

CORDERO: Well, certainly there were tweets that the president gave around the time of Director Comey's firing that did look like potentially trying to intimidate Director Comey, who now down the road may turn out to be some sort of witness in this investigation. And so certainly the president's tweets, anything he says, things that he does, can be used potentially in an obstruction manner.

DAVIS: Well, and we do know that the president's lawyers have, in the past, tried to advise him not to tweet about these sorts of things. I think it's been a few months since they've attempted to actually influence him on that because it's clear that they can't.

But when he tweeted over the weekend about this, amid the news that Mueller was about to come forward with one of these -- with an indictment or more than an indictment, his lawyer, Ty Cobb, did come out and make a statement just saying, just so everyone knows, these tweets are completely unrelated to the special counsel with whom we're cooperating. So it's clearly on their minds that these tweets could become a problem for him down the road.

BLITZER: I don't expect the president to take your advice, Carrie, and stop tweeting about all of this. Although you're probably right, if he were simply saying -- his spokespeople were simply to say, there's an ongoing investigation, we're not going to comment, goodbye, that would be probably legally, politically intelligent to do that, but I suspect he's not going to be doing that.

CORDERO: Not his style.

BLITZER: Not his style.

OK, guys, thanks very much.

The FBI says Paul Manafort spent nearly $2 million on rugs and landscaping. We have new details about his lavish lifestyle and new clues about his ties to foreign agents.

Plus, the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, under fire after praising Robert E. Lee and saying a lack of compromise led to the Civil War. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus standing by to join us.

Stay with us.