Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

In Court Filing, Mueller Says Michael Flynn Provided 'Substantial Assistance'; State Funeral for President George H.W. Bush to Begin Soon. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 5, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The filing shows he sat through 19 interviews with the special counsel's office.

[07:00:21] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this is the best we've got, it is time that he writes the report.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: He is saying senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards. I would be a little nervous if I were the president.

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I have zero question in my mind that the crown prince, MBS, ordered the killing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We expect that the Saudis are going to do everything they can to uncover who's responsible.

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: The United States should send a very strong message.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush will be honored with a state funeral.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Bush Sr. never let resentments bother him. I think that has set an example for President Trump.

JEB BUSH, SON OF FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: The guy was the most generous, kind person that you'd ever meet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. We join you from Washington this morning. Obviously, a lot going on here with the state funeral, but there is also breaking news.

The highly-anticipated court filing: Special Counsel Robert Mueller recommends that former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn get no prison time because of his cooperation in the Russia investigation.

The key words: "The defendant has provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation." Mueller says Flynn has helped with at least three investigations. The details of two of them are redacted.

We also learned that Flynn has met with the special counsel's investigators 19 times, Mueller adding Flynn's early cooperation was particularly valuable, giving prosecutors a road map for the Russia probe that may have prompted others to cooperate, as well.

CAMEROTA: We have yet to hear from President Trump about the Flynn revelations. You'll remember that the president tweeted on Monday that the judge should throw the book at Michael Cohen after Cohen struck a plea deal with the special counsel. So how does the president feel about Flynn's cooperation?

Meanwhile, it is a national day of mourning. The public viewing for President George H.W. Bush at the National Rotunda has just ended. His flag-draped casket will soon depart for the National Cathedral, and that's where his state funeral will get under way in just a few hours. So this is the last time you will see this image, this aerial view from the Rotunda.

All five living presidents and several world leaders will attend the memorial service at Washington's National Cathedral. Our Chris Cuomo is there for us to preview it all, and we will get to him momentarily.

Chris, we look forward to hearing about that. First, let's start this hour with discussing the breaking news. We have the Michael Flynn revelations.

Joining us now is former acting solicitor general under President Obama, Neal Katyal.

Mr. Katyal, thank you very much for joining us. We've -- I know that you have spent hours poring through this documents. I see a lot of redactions. What does your expert eye see in here?

NEAL KATYAL, FORMER ACTING SOLICITOR GENERAL: Yes, there are no doubt there are a lot of redactions. That's very common, because after all, you do have an ongoing criminal investigation. So I think I'd -- I'd focus on two different things.

One is that Flynn met with Mueller 19 separate times. That's a whopping number. That suggests that there's lots of information that is being provided by Flynn that Mueller is asking about. That's No. 1.

And No. 2, that several times in the document, Mueller takes pains to say there are ongoing investigations. So you know, there's been speculation in the news but in prior days that Mueller is wrapping up. There was even one report attributed to a leak or something like that from the Senate, this really says to me, unh-uh, there's a lot still left to be -- left to happen, a lot of investigation left to proceed.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's drill down on that. When Mueller refers to three ongoing criminal investigations, one of them is his own, I assume, the Mueller investigation. That one is not redacted. Is another one the Southern District of New York investigation? What are these two others?

KATYAL: We don't know, and again, we don't know for good reason. Mueller is being careful with peoples' constitutional rights. In general, prosecutors aren't allowed to kind of discuss ongoing investigations before there's an indictment.

Our whole point of the grand jury presentment clause in the Constitution is to make sure that people have rights before they're named as targets and the like. And so I think Mueller is just following the book. We don't really know. There's obviously, you know, any number of speculations as to what it could be, but -- but we don't know.

CAMEROTA: OK. So one of the big headlines from it was that Robert Mueller is requesting no prison time for Michael Flynn. That came as a surprise to many people.

Here's a little portion of that -- of the document in which he explains it's because of his early cooperation.

[07:00:04] Let me read it: "His early cooperation," meaning Michael Flynn's, "was particularly valuable, because he was one of the first people with long-term and firsthand insight regarding events and issues under investigation by the special counsel's office. Additionally, the defendant's decision to plead guilty and cooperate likely influenced the decisions of related first-hand witnesses to be forthcoming with the special counsel and to cooperate."

What did you see in the "no prison time" request?

KATYAL: I think two things I see. No. 1, the charge that Flynn is pleading to only carried zero to six months in prison. So ot's not that surprising that there's a recommendation at the low end in exchange for cooperation.

The reason why is the interesting point. It's because Mueller allowed Flynn to plead guilty to only one charge last year. So there was a sort of charge bargain that was struck then, because you know, it was zero to six months for what Flynn did is extraordinary low.

But it suggests to me that Flynn is providing serious information to someone higher -- about somebody higher up than Flynn, and there aren't very much possibilities, that -- in exchange for a lower sentence. That's No. 1.

No. 2, I think it's important to contrast what Mueller did yesterday with what the president did the day before in attacking Michael Cohen for cooperating and saying the book should be thrown at him in one tweet, and then in a subsequent tweet just a minute later, saying, you know, "Roger Stone, what a great guy. He's holding firm. He's not ratting; he's not flipping," and you know, effectively just saying, "Look, I'll pardon those who, you know, stay with me and don't tell the truth to Mueller." And that is an extraordinary thing for anyone, but particularly for

the president of the United States. And it does looks very much like you know, mob behavior, mafia behavior, something like that. That's the way we saw it at the Justice Department. You certainly didn't see it with any government official, let alone the top.

But I think when you contrast the two, Mueller is saying, "Look, Mr. President, you want to play that game of zero prison time, I've got that card, too. And I've got it for people telling the truth to federal law enforcement."

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting. Because in other words, you're saying that, without saying it, Robert Mueller is saying, "You think you have a get-out-of-free -- get-out-of-jail-free card? So all of you witnesses, you decide, if you want to bet on me, Robert Mueller, or bet on President Trump?"

KATYAL: Exactly. And when you look at how Michael Cohen, you know, just almost a sense of relief he had last week after telling the truth. There's a big difference between playing to Donald Trump and playing to Robert Mueller.

Those that play with Mueller do, effectively, play on team America, on team truth. They've -- you know, they've stopped the lying that, you know, is endemic to Trump and have said finally, "I'm just coming clean and telling you what I did." And you know, that's also -- so there's a psychological piece to this, too, and an important moral piece that, I think, Mueller is highlighting, too.

CAMEROTA: One of the revelations is that Michael Flynn met with Robert Mueller and his investigators 19 times. What do you think of that number?

KATYAL: Yes. I mean, it's a whopping, whopping number. It suggests there's a lot of stuff that Flynn knew about that they wanted to ask about. You know, past that we can't really tell. I mean, we're all in the realm of speculation. But at this point, I think it's fair to say, if I'm Donald Trump and I read what I read yesterday and last week read what I read by Michael Cohen, I think the technical legal term for where I'd be right now is freaking out.

CAMEROTA: I'm familiar with that technical legal term.

OK. So bottom line, as you know, there have been all sorts of pundits who have said, surely, Robert Mueller is wrapping this up soon. People have thought that it might even happen right before the midterms. From what you read yesterday in this sentencing memo, does it looks like it's wrapping up soon?

KATYAL: Not at all. It looks like there's a lot of ongoing stuff, stuff we don't know about. And then, of course, you have to add to that the fact that, even if Mueller thought some piece of -- pieces of this were going to wrap up, he was dealt a setback last week when he realized that Paul Manafort, who was supposedly cooperating with him, was, A, lying to him, and B, passing everything over to the Trump team in, you know, derogation of, you know, standard criminal practice. And so that's going to delay things, too. And so, you know, when the

president's defenders say, "Oh, Mueller is taking too long and so on."

But one of the reasons Mueller is taking so long is that everyone seems to be lying to him, who's in the Trump orbit. And so, you know, that's obviously going to delay the investigation further.

So I expect that this is going to continue for quite some time and for some pretty darn good reasons.

CAMEROTA: Neal Katyal, we appreciate your expertise in this. Thank you very much. Thank you.

KATYAL: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: President Trump and all living presidents will soon join the Bush family and world leaders to honor President George H.W. Bush at the state funeral at the Capitol Rotunda. These are still live pictures from inside the U.S. -- the state funeral, I should say, will be at the National Cathedral. These are live pictures from inside the Capitol Rotunda, where the president is still lying in state. The doors have been closed, but these are still people who have been brought in, and the viewing continues, as it has all night.

[07:10:15] Chris Cuomo, live at the National Cathedral, waiting, I think, for the arrivals. The guests will be incoming over the next few hours, Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, John, I mean, look, it's a national day of mourning. You're seeing that those are members of the public largely in there. The response to the passing of President George H.W. Bush has been big, in fact, bigger than expected. The people who had wanted to come through. They've been dealing with flow. They had to add to security for the viewing at the Capitol, and I'm sure that that's going to bring some consolation to the family.

And it is a big Bush family. You literally have dozens here in their contingency, and that meant so much to the president, that they had such a big and productive family, loved the grandkids, the great- grandkids. And today will largely be about them.

And speaking with family members last night. You know, the rest of us see this as a political moment, and what will it mean and is there intrigue, and that's not how it is for the family. This is the loss of a father, grandfather, great-grandfather. For us, of course, a president. And the family will come together there at the U.S. Capitol a little bit later this morning. Then they'll make their way over here to the natural -- the National Cathedral.

The president has got a long way to go, though, in terms of celebrating his life and having his funeral. There will be one here. He's then going to be flown to Texas. There will be a private family funeral there. Again, the emphasis on family. They want to have their own time there. And then the president's body will be sent by train to Texas A&M.

They're going to put him in his presidential library here, bury him next to his beloved wife and their daughter that they lost at just three years of age to leukemia.

And, you know, one of the things here, in talking to the family about how they wanted to celebrate this, what matters, it was really interesting to me, John, how much emphasis was put on the values that he put in the family. Not so much his service. Of course, they know that he was president and that means so much to have a family of not one, but two with his son. Not since the Adams family have we seen that type of prestige in one family. But who he was as a man.

And I think that we've seen that celebrated. In the ultimate moment of it, John, I believe, was what we saw with Senator Dole. You really got to see the greatest part of the greatest generation on display with these two men.

The senator there still being able to rise to the occasion, getting up there with some help, of course, saluting with his left arm because his right is now too far gone.

And just a little bit of history about what these two men have done in service of this country. Bob Dole has a bad right arm, because he was hit with shrapnel by the Nazis. He dragged his radio man to safety. He lied almost completely paralyzed on the battlefield for hours. They couldn't get to him. And yet he went on to such a full life and a life of service. And he's saluting there.

You know, George H.W. Bush, after high school, he volunteered during the deadliest time in our history, to be an aviator. At 19, he was in the war theater. They were hit in battle. He was the only one to survive, and then he went on to have this life of service. And that salute, I think, really told us everything about him in this moment, what these men are about and what we need to remember on this day.

CAMEROTA: Yes, that was a really stunning moment to be able to watch. So private and yet what the symbolism of it meant, as you say, Chris. And again, the symbolism of today of watching five presidents, U.S. presidents all in one room. Of course, it is about the family, as Chris points out, but for us, that will be a fascinating moment.

BERMAN: I've got to say, you know, one of the presidents, George W. Bush, will be delivering the eulogy. I think Chris is onto something when he says it's not about the politics with W. It will be about the relationship. He's going to be standing up there, I think, more than anything, as a son.

And I know, because I've seen it in his face over the last few days, and we heard from George P. here yesterday that this is going to be tough for him to stand up in front of that country and his family and talk about how much he loves his father, Chris.

CUOMO: Yes, it's very tough stuff. You know, I've lived it in my own family. It's never easy to see the center of your family to be put to rest. But I do think that it's going to be really important for the rest of

the country to see how real and raw and relatable this experience is, that you're going to see a president up there; and he's going to come across in a way that he probably never has before.

I also think you're going to see an unusual dose of humor. The Bush family had a lot of fun with one another, and it was really important in celebrating the spirit of George H.W. Bush, that you recognize that. And that I think that's the tall task for the president today, is to be able to couch his own pain in a little bit of humor and affection for what his father meant to the family. We'll all be looking forward to it.

Let's be honest: the country could use it right now to remember things that are right and not just dwell on what's wrong.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris, thank you very much for the preview. Obviously, we'll be checking back with you throughout the morning and the day.

So up next, after a briefing from the CIA, senators say the Saudi crown prince ordered the journalist's murder. Why do President Trump and his top officials still not believe that assessment? We look at that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Special Counsel Robert Mueller says former Trump national security adviser, Michael Flynn, should not go to prison for lying about his contacts with Russia's ambassador in a heavily, heavily redacted letter ahead of his sentencing. Mueller has revealed that Flynn substantial information about three investigations, two of which we know, frankly, nothing about.

[07:20:00] Let's discuss. CNN political analyst David Gregory; CNN White House correspondent Abby Phillip; and former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Laura Coates.

And Laura, we heard --

CAMEROTA: And one more person.

BERMAN: Also, Phil Mudd. Phil Mudd is joining us.

Phil Mudd is just not here. Thank you for reminding me.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Where?

BERMAN: So Phil, let's go to you first, since frankly, you scare me on a good day and now I've offended you. When you see the redactions in this memo -- and you worked for Robert Mueller; you know how he works -- what do you see here?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I'm putting a bunch of pieces together that aren't evident but look pretty clear to me. No. 1, you've got to combine what the document says with the information, for example, about the extent of interviews like Don McGahn with other people from the White House. You've got to look at the number of times that this individual, General Flynn, met with the special counsel.

Look at another thing. There's specific reference, not to investigating lies by other individuals or money trails, which is what got Paul Manafort. The specific reference is to cooperation on Russia. So if you put the quantity of information together, the fact that there's specific reference to Russia, three ongoing investigations mentioned in that document, I'm going to tell you one thing I take away.

There's about a size 16 shoe going to drop here, and that shoe is not going to be related to lying, or to just financial irregularities, which we've seen in the past. I think they're centering in on the core of the investigation, which is what Flynn and others are saying about cooperation with Russia. I think it's going to happen.

CAMEROTA: Do you see a size 16 shoe about to drop, Laura?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Is that Shaquille O'Neal's? I was wondering what that looks like. Maybe he has it. You know what I see here? A complete and total gut punch the president of the United States. And here's why.

No. 1, you've got the president of the United States dangling pardons for quite some time. The prospect, although speculative, has been out there. Look, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. I've got this absolute power. Now you have the equivalent of a pardon essentially handed down to somebody who once called for Hillary Clinton to be locked up, and that's Michael Flynn.

And so it's almost the notion of Bob Mueller sees this and says, "I've got a great deal of power, as well, and prosecutorial discretion."

Also, remember, the person who would have had to clear this particular sentencing memo and the actual sentencing dangling, et cetera, is Matthew Whitaker. I mean, no one's talked about this issue. But the person that was installed just as of late, who would have had to get the authority and the ultimate clearance by -- from Mueller to him to say, "Can we go forward with this?" now has essentially signed off on this.

And everything's already been in motion. All of the plans that have been laid by Mueller's team over the past year, at least since Michael Flynn testified -- was plead guilty. It's all too late, perhaps, to stop this train. And it looked like the president is maybe going to get pulled over -- ran over by it.

BERMAN: We were like on metaphor overload here, but we talked about size 16 shoe, a punch in the gut and some kind of roadside issue. But Abby, I want to play you what the president has said out loud about Michael Flynn. Because I think it is interesting over time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel badly for General Flynn. He's lost his house. He's lost his life. And some people say he lied, and some people say he didn't lie.

I feel badly. He's led a very strong life, and I feel very badly, John.

Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts. When I looked at the information, I said, "I don't think he did anything wrong." If anything, he did something right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Well, special counsel says he did something wrong. Also, Michael Flynn has admitted he pleaded guilty to doing something wrong.

Abby, though, you listen to all of that, the string of what the president says there, Abby. No cruel words from President Trump about Michael Flynn. And now that he's substantially cooperating, or we know, we're told he's substantially cooperating, I wonder if that message will change.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It could. And I think the president was sending a message in all of those clips to Michael Flynn to say, essentially, stay strong, just like he did this week with Paul Manafort, saying, "You've got guts," but -- and saying to Roger Stone, "You've got guts if you don't want to testify here."

I think the president may have made a miscalculation, miscalculating the degree to which cooperation would be the best thing for Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn did, for him, the right thing. I might end up getting the lightest sentence that Special Counsel Mueller is asking for him, to basically get a lot of leniency for -- for the crimes that he's admitted to.

So President Trump is in a bind, because the people who he thought would stay strong for him, in his words, are not doing that. They are testifying. They are cooperating extensively.

And I'm not sure that the president understands quite the scope of what's going on here. Often I think he thinks that it's very much about -- it's just about the narrow band of things that he hears talked about on FOX News, but there's a lot more out there, as we can see in these documents, a lot more that the special counsel still is not revealing.

CAMEROTA: David, how do you see it?

GREGORY: Well I think the wow factor here is that you have a document with, you know, related to Michael Flynn, who's been so important and been in the shadows now for months and months, coming out and saying now we have some nexus between the Trump orbit and these contacts with Russia. I think that's potentially very significant.

[07:25:12] In the space of a week you have someone who was so close to the president, Michael Cohen, now flipping, telling all, and Michael Flynn who was close and there in a critical time in the campaign time and the first couple weeks of the presidency who can speak to potential coordination.

And the last point is the power of narrative. You know, I think -- and people around him have been in control of kind of slicing and dicing Mueller, and the investigation, and the witch hunt, and all of these bit players. What does it add up to? Mueller is perhaps putting together a very powerful narrative, putting it together in a way that is stronger than maybe we didn't anticipate, because we don't know and have not known for months what it all adds up to.

He will. And that could be the gut punch that people are describing.

PHILLIP: And to that point, I think that the White House and his -- the president's aides have felt pretty comfortable with how they tried to break down Mueller in the eyes -- in the court of public opinion, but that's because we haven't really known anything about what Mueller has been up to really.

So now that we are getting into that place where we're getting a lot more information, they're going to find it more difficult. I think we've seen Rudy Giuliani trying to make a political argument that this is -- means nothing, but I think the documents really speak for themselves.

It means there are at least two major chunks of this investigation that we know nothing about. And Rudy Giuliani's argument doesn't really hold water when you put that up against that.

BERMAN: It's behind there in back, in those documents. And David, you bring up one thing. I just pointed out, because sometimes we forget at this point, Michael Flynn was the president's national security adviser inside the White House, albeit for only a few days, but there's not small potatoes.

You know, Paul Manafort was the campaign chair. That's not small potatoes. Rick Gates was the deputy chair. Michael Cohen was his personal lawyer. The list of people now who have either pleaded guilty or are involved, in some way, directly with this, you can't lose sight of that at this point; and to be reminded of that in that document with Michael Flynn yesterday is extraordinary.

COATES: And remember why Michael Flynn is so important. I mean, the transition period -- and remember, he's the person who has the common link between Sally Yates running to the White House to remind -- tell the president, "Your national security adviser, the man who is no small potatoes, may be compromised by the Russians, susceptible to, in many ways, blackmail or other things."

And he's the person whose name was mentioned to James Comey to "Please, see it fit to let this thing go." You've got somebody linking the presidential administration to potential obstruction charges with the firing of James Comey to what happened on the transition team.

And let's not forget: he's in with Turkey, with the Israeli settlement. I mean, the list goes on and on. And that's the sweetest of this deal that this man has gotten. All these -- all information, he may walk away, and he will if the judge says no jail time and agrees with Mueller. He may walk away, which tells me, who is the big fish? I cannot imagine a prosecutorial team saying, "You know what? I'm going to let the national security advisor go with no sentence, because I don't have anyone else that I'd like to prosecute." And that's going to be the biggest sentence out there.

CAMEROTA: Well, Phil, that gets to your point. He alluded to these three investigations. So one of them is the Mueller investigation. Is the other one the Southern District of New York? Or what -- what are the other two investigations?

MUDD: I can only -- I mean, I'm going to guess here, as Neal Katyal was talking about a few minutes ago on the show. There's a couple of things that I was thinking about when I was reading the document.

You look at categories of investigation, categories related to Russia, related to money and related to lying. I could see more information coming out related to financial information, like what Paul Manafort did. That's one element of the investigation.

Clearly, as I mentioned earlier, there's still the question of whether there was cooperation with the Russians. That's a Roger Stone kind of an investigation. That's different than the money investigation.

In parallel to that, everybody here seems to lie like a rug, so there's got to be investigations related to who else is lying and whether you want to indict him. I was one of the many who thought this was shut down.

But when I look at the extent of investigation, which is bigger than I thought -- the number of people involved, the number of them who are lying -- and the amount of documentation of financial records, et cetera, this one could go on for a while.

BERMAN: Phil, hang on one second. I just want to, while we have Phil here. And again, out of respect for the fact that I almost cut him out of the segment altogether, I want to ask you about Roger Stone, because you brought Roger Stone up. And Roger Stone has suggested that he will assert his Fifth Amendment rights; did not hand over documents to a Senate committee that's been seeking them.

It's pretty interesting, given that it happens in the same week where the president is praising him for not cooperating. Now, Stone's attorney says it happened before the president's praise there, but what do you see there in the Fifth?

MUDD: John, I'm not answering, because you dissed me, OK? So we're going to -- no, let me give you a perspective on this. I'm watching Roger Stone, and if I'm sitting in there in his shoes there, if I'm his lawyer, he darn well better hope a few things.

No. 1, the feds don't have documents related to what he did and what he said. No. 2, they don't have communications, for example, e-mail and phone

records about cooperation or contacts with people like WikiLeaks. And finally, with these people cooperating, including Michael Flynn, he darn well hoped that the cooperators, including Flynn, aren't talking about him.

So he can play tough. But if they've got all that evidence in the Mueller team, I've got to believe that Roger Stone is going down.

CAMEROTA: David, your thoughts?