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Handwritten Note Shows How FBI Approached Key Michael Flynn Interview; 1 In 5 American Workers File For Unemployment In Last 6 Weeks; Many Stay-At-Home Orders Expiring At The End Of The Day. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 30, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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


[12:30:00]

DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER, PROVIDENCE: -- place. And so I think the governor did a great job talking about the rocks you have to cross as you play this three dimensional complex game.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Right. It's just it's to me it's fascinating and also can be frustrating and challenging every one of us from an individual standpoint, what group are you in, what agency, what business, what government, it's an union, or I guess it's the reverse of that as you try to build it out.

Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, really appreciate your insights and expertise to help us get through this. And if you want to understand more about this fascinating story, join CNN's Jake Tapper as he investigates what really happened at the White House as the U.S. started fighting COVID-19, CNN Special Report, The Pandemic and The President, this Sunday night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Up next for us, President Trump weighing in on the Michael Flynn case from the Oval Office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Attorneys for President Trump's first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn now going public with their quest to keep Flynn out of prison. They've released a note from the FBI that they claim, they claim, emphasis on they claim proves investigative misconduct and that federal prosecutors unfairly targeted General Flynn who was fired and charged with lying to federal investigators about his interactions with the former Russian ambassador. General Flynn pleaded guilty but has not yet been sentenced.

[12:35:17]

With me now Evan Perez, our senior justice correspondent with details. Evan, what was in the note? Why do Flynn's attorneys think it's a smoking gun that helps them?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, you know, this is one of the strangest behind the scenes legal dramas happening in Washington and nobody's really paying attention to. Quietly, the Justice Department Attorney General Bill Barr appeared to be tiptoeing away from supporting this prosecution of Mike Flynn.

And if you take a look at the note that they've turned over to Mike Flynn's attorneys, it appears that, you know, what the goal here is, is to undermine the prosecution that essentially, these notes should have been turned over earlier. But the issue is, if you look at this note, it's not really clear what it is about.

You see that Bill is pleased to have the counterintelligence chief at the FBI at the time, writes some notes about some musings, essentially, about what the goal here is, is it to get Flynn a lie and get him fired or to prosecute him. And that's what Flynn's attorneys are pointing to saying, see, we told you that the Justice Department, we can tell you the FBI at the time, was trying to entrap Flynn.

The bottom line here is this, John, Mike Flynn, even if the FBI lied to him or try to trap him in any way, Mike Flynn, all he had to do was tell the truth. And according to Mike Flynn, he lied at the time. He lied to the FBI. And he is twice by the way, pleaded guilty before two separate judges in this case.

So one of the questions that now I guess is burning here is whether the Justice Department is going to continue to support this prosecution, whether they're going to drop the charges. It's not clear what the judge in this case, Emmet Sullivan, here in Washington is going to end up doing with this.

We know that Mike Flynn is trying to essentially undo his guilty plea. We don't know whether the judge is going to allow that to happen. And if he doesn't, what is the Justice Department going to do? And of course, John, the bottom line here is that the President who has the power to pardon, can anytime say that he will pardon Mike Flynn. And this is going to be all over with.

KING: Evan, stay with us because to that point about the President to on this issue and many others sometimes tried to rewrite history. He discussed General Flynn just moments ago in the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's in the process of being exonerated. If you look at those notes from yesterday, that was total exoneration. These were dirty, filthy cops at the top of the FBI. And you know the names better than I do. And they were dishonest people.

Now we have to see what's going to happen. But General Flynn was treated like nobody should. And I'm not talking about generals, I'm saying like, nobody in this country should be treated. And they did it right at the beginning. They did it right, Jim, they did it right. Well, look at what they did to the guy.

I mean, he couldn't have known too much what was happening. They came at him with 15 buses. And he's standing in the middle of a highway. What they did to this man, they tormented him. They destroyed him. But he's going to come back. Like I say, he's going to come back bigger and better.

But what they did to him and I hear this, a lot of other stuff coming out, I believe everything I'm reading because I like to stay out of it. I don't have to stay out of it at all. But I like to stay out of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I want to bring in Greg Brower, a former FBI assistant director and the FBI's former chief congressional liaison, Evan Perez, still with us. Gentlemen, before you talk, I just want to do something that we have to do here. The President could stay out of it. But when he does leap into it, he should also acknowledge the facts or the context.

Senior Obama administration officials warned him about General Flynn. Chris Christie, who was President-elect Trump's transition chief early on before he was replaced, warned him not to bring General Flynn into the administration, and to Evan's point earlier, General Flynn twice, pleaded guilty.

Greg, I want you to come into the conversation because you know the inner workings. You've been involved in this, how this works. People write notes before they prepare an interview. When you look at these notes, and particularly the author of this note, does it jump out to you like Michael Flynn's lawyer says, aha, entrapment?

GREG BROWER, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: No, john, it doesn't. There's nothing, to me, there's nothing interesting about these notes at all. And I do know Bill Priestap, it's been reported that Bill was the author of these notes. You could not find a more dedicated, smarter, more cautious, FBI agent than Bill Priestap.

And so the only thing I find interesting about this whole episode is that we have a defendant in Mr. Flynn, who has repeatedly admitted to his wrongdoing, who was fired by the President because of his wrongdoing, and then ultimately was charged by DOJ, President Trump's DOJ, for his wrongdoing.

And now he's trying to get out of this mess that he created by convincing, first DOJ that typically doesn't work and then next the judge, which almost never works that somehow he was lying about his lies. And so I can't believe the judge will actually buy any of this. But Flynn is clearly trying.

[12:40:19]

KING: He's clearly trying and he has the President's attention. Go ahead Evan, go ahead.

PEREZ: One thing I think it's important to also point out here is, it's a rather strange thing that the Justice Department is turning over this information to the Flynn attorneys. Normally, you would do this if you find -- if you go back and you look at the documents, and you say, oh, my God, you know, there's something exculpatory that we should have turned over earlier. And we didn't. The Justice Department is not saying that this is exculpatory. That this is material that they should have turned over that there's any wrongdoing in the way this case has been handled. So it's a rather interesting thing that is happening behind the scenes here. We don't know yet what exactly the Department is going to do. But under normal circumstances, you know, you would look at these notes and say, are -- do they show that this was some kind of exculpatory information that should have been turned over to the defense?

And if you look at it, it is not exculpatory. So it's not clear why they're turning this over other than the fact that, you know, if you look at this, it's going to serve to undermine this case. This is a case that emerged from the Mueller investigation. There's a lot of politics involved here. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're all watching this very, very closely.

KING: Right. And, Greg, I want to read a bit of the note, this is the part of the note that general Flynn's attorneys say, aha, they were trying to, you know, a little hanky-panky to entrap him here. This is from the Bill Priestap note.

What's our goal, truth admission, or to get them to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired? If we get them to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ and have them decide. Or if he initially lies, then we present him, he admits it, document for DOJ, and then let them decide how to address it.

So this is a strategy memo. What are we trying? But there's a little bit after this in which Mr. Priestap also says, a sentence -- these are my words, not his exactly, but this is incredibly sensitive. The White House is watching here. Let's make sure we do this right.

BROWER: Yes. And that's the way Bill Priestap and everybody that I was ever associated with the FBI and throughout my career at DOJ, ever did anything. They did it by the book, and they tried to do the right thing. And I see no exceptions here.

What this is really all about, I think, John, is trying to create a narrative on the part of Flynn's defense team, trying to create a narrative that will give the President cover in his mind to issue a pardon. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. The earlier clip of the President in the Oval Office seems to indicate that it's working, at least with respect to the President. I just don't think it's going to work with Judge Sullivan.

KING: Right. It is one of the grievances the President likes to air on a repeated basis. Greg Brower, Evan Perez, really appreciate your insights on this story. We'll watch as it goes forward.

When we come back, back to coronavirus and specifically the economic impact, nearly 4 million more Americans file for unemployment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:46] KING: One in five American workers have filed new unemployment claims in just the last six weeks. Let that sink in. Today, nearly 4 million more joined those ranks.

CNN business anchor, Julia Chatterley, joins us now from New York. 3.8 million people, Julia, filing for unemployment, last week, more than 30 million since the middle of March. I'm going to ask you to do the impossible put that in perspective.

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: And I can't give it to you. It's so tough as you said, you want it to sink in, and it can't. And it's heartbreaking for the families and the individuals involved.

We could be looking at a U.S. unemployment rate between 15 and 20 percent at this moment. I -- to give you perspective, I have to go right back to the Great Depression. And even that's not good because if you look at the speed at which this has happened, we've never seen anything like it. And it's in particular hitting states. I mean, it's all states, but it's states that have a lot of tourism, restaurants, bars, manufacturing industries as well, and products that we just aren't buying right now, like cars.

Take a look at some of the individual states that we're talking about here. Hawaii, Kentucky, we're talking around 30 percent of workers, of families, in the states impacted by the shutdown measures. If I look at Georgia as well, it's over a quarter of workers in that state. And of course, that in particular coming under the spotlight this week is the reopening measures take hold.

The economic pressures and the necessity to try and get workers back is very clear here. The big question now for me, John, is what next? I spoke to a small business today, Farmgirl Flowers, the CEO, Christina Stembel. She furloughed 200 workers almost immediately in San Francisco. She didn't get one of those coveted PPP loans.

She's fought back and she's hired 40 workers back, 200 down to 40. And this is the key now, how many of those workers do we bring back and how many workers still struggle as we move to the next few months, uncertainty?

KING: The numbers --

CHATTERLEY: Yes.

KING: Yes. The numbers are remarkable and they keep going up. It'll be nice to have you back when they start to go down. But we just don't know when that is. Julia Chatterley, very much appreciate the perspective.

[12:50:00]

Coming up for us, the health secretary in Arkansas on how people can safely go back to work as businesses begin to reopen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Today marks the last day of the Federal Government social distancing guidelines, which means, despite in some states, case numbers turning in the wrong direction, some states are going to reopen, 20 of them actually getting back to business.

Take a look at where restrictions will begin to be lifted tomorrow. Some states will reopen state parks others like Arkansas began reopening restaurants for some dine in service in the coming days. Arkansas Governor describing this as phase one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): So if we can have this limited opening of dine in services for our restaurants on May 11th, and we're successful in making sure we follow the guidelines and we protect safety, then we're going to be able to go and go on to more normal operations.

[12:55:15]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Dr. Nate Smith is the Arkansas health secretary. He joins us now. Dr. Smith, it's good to see you again. So 81 new confirmed cases yesterday in your state. I assume though that's a trend down and you're comfortable with reopening?

DR. NATE SMITH, ARKANSAS HEALTH SECRETARY: That is a slight trend down. We are comfortable with reopening. We are doing it incrementally step by step. Since we never did have a stay at home order, we're a little bit ahead of some other states. But we're opening up carefully, cautiously, but we're going to make good progress.

KING: And so what are you watching? What are the one or two data points that are critical to you to know if you have to go to see the governor and say, you know, sir, we have a circuit breaker here? Is it rate of transmission? Is it case count? Is it hospitalizations? What are you going to watch as this experiment begins to say, it's working or hope not, but maybe it's not?

SMITH: Well, the two main things that that I'm looking at, and the governor is as well, is our new cases per day. But also looking for clusters that could be related to some of the new businesses we open. If we see a cluster related to something that we've changed or restriction that we've removed, then we'll go in and see if we can adjust it or if we have to rethink it in some way.

KING: We've talked about this before and I appreciate your coming back. Your status, the headquarters in Tyson's food, you have some of these processing plants around the country. These have been, you mentioned clusters and hotspots, these have been a major public health crisis and then also a major question about the food supply chain. What's the situation in Arkansas? And what are you learning about trying to keep these essential workers on the job but making sure that they are safe?

SMITH: Well, so far we've not had any plants that have had to close in Arkansas. And we've been communicating closely with that industry. They have obviously a high level of motivation to keep their workers safe, to keep their workers healthy so that they don't have to shut down. And we're have been working with them to try and make sure the messaging is getting out, especially when there are language barriers or cultural barriers that need to be overcome.

KING: CNN reported a bit earlier this hour about a new draft CDC document, Centers for Disease Control that's now being reviewed here in Washington, came up from Atlanta. Just offering you some guidelines, we talked a couple weeks back about a cluster you had after a faith gathering in your state.

Among the recommendations would be, you know, if you can keep doing virtual surfaces, if there's any way to do them outside, if you want to bring people together, do them outside and space them out. There are recommendations for restaurants, recommendations for other gatherings. Do you want that? Do you want the Federal Government to give you a blueprint to use or do you think each state should just do it their own way?

SMITH: Well, I always welcome input from our federal partners, especially from CDC. They have a high level of technical expertise. And they've been very helpful to us. The dialogue that we've had with them and with their leadership from the beginning, has allowed them to understand our situation and give us very useful, not only the guidelines, but the science behind those guidelines.

Of course, we've gone ahead and develop some of our own guidance. But it's always good to have the CDC guidance to compare it to, and then we can tailor it to our situation.

KING: What is your sense? We've been talking to our correspondents, some business people on the ground and states, I know you're a public health professional, but as you're trying to tell people, the governor telling people, we think it is safe to do this in a limited way. What is your sense? Are the people of Arkansas ready to do this? Are they hesitant? Do they need assurances that it's going to be safe?

SMITH: I think both. I think people are quite ready. Again, many people have continued working but those who have not been working I think they're quite ready at the same time. People need to know that we're doing it safely, that we're doing taking all the precautions we need to minimize the spread of COVID-19, just as we've been doing since the beginning of this epidemic.

KING: Dr. Nate Smith, appreciate your time. Best of luck in the days ahead in Arkansas, and we'll come back again and we'll keep in touch as we go through this, compare notes, to see how you're doing and we wish you the best obviously, as you go through this experiment. Thank you, Sir.

SMITH: Thank you.

KING: In an effort to help states expand their testing capabilities, the Pentagon now says it will spend about $75 million, that money to ramp up production of those critical testing swabs. Official say, the funding will come under the Federal Defense Production Act. The goal is to increase swab production by 20 million per month starting next month.

Back on Sunday, President Trump announced he would compel a U.S. company to make swabs, that company receiving federal funds is Maine's Puritan Medical Products.

Thanks for joining us today, a very important day obviously. Our coverage continues with Brooke Baldwin right now. Have a good afternoon. Please stay safe.

[13:00:04]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Thank you. And hello, I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN Special Coverage of this coronavirus pandemic. And I've got some breaking --