Transcripts For CNNW Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 201903

CNNW Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer March 21, 2019

Russias Vladimir Putin. Does the president have something to hide . And in the heights. President trump drops a twitter bombshell saying its time to recognize israels sovereignty over the golan heights, captured in 1967. Speaking of timing, is the president acting now because his support for Prime Minister netanyahu is in a very tough reelection fight . Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Breaking news as the white house braces for the Mueller Report, rejecting a request for documents on president Trumps Communications with Vladimir Putin. House Oversight Committee chairman says he has new information that senior white house officials, including ivanka trump, have used personal email accounts for government business and he claims president ial soninlaw Jared Kushner has used a messaging app to communicate with foreign leaders. Also breaking, the president moves to overturn a half century of u. S. Policy by saying its time to recognize israels sovereignty over the golan heights, captured in 1967. The president denies its a bid to support Benjamin Netanyahu in a closely contested election in less than three weeks. Im speak with steve cohn of the judicial committee. And our correspondents are standing by with full coverage. Chief White House Correspondent jim acosta. Jim, as the white house prepares for the Mueller Report, its digging in against the democrats. Reporter that is correct, wolf. White house officials like the rest of washington are on the edge of their seats, waiting for the Mueller Report to drop. While those expectations are building, democrats are complaining the white house, as you said, are stonewalling their investigations into the president s conversations with Russias Vladimir Putin as well as another probe into trump family members Jared Kushner and ivanka trump. As the white house is awaiting the arrival on campaign ties to russia, gearing up for battle for the 2020 election, firing up the conservative base. You have a president who is also fighting for you. Im with you all the way. Reporter tonight the president is facing new accusations ofstonewalling, as democrats complain theyre blocking documents. Democratic leaders release this had letter from white House Counsel stating while we respectfully support russian interference in the 2016 election. I have great confidence in my intelligence people but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. Reporter House Democrats are on the hunt for personal emails and encrypted Text Messages from ivanka trump and Jared Kushner, attorney for the president daughter and sornl soninlaw confirms that the president s soninlaw has been using whats app and confirmed that ms. Trump use tins to receive official emails on her personal email accounts and does not use a government account, something that the president slammed Hillary Clinton doing in 2016. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. Reporter the president is urging the Mueller Report release. Thats up to the attorney general. Hes a very highly respected man. Well see what happens. One reason why . Growing optimism inside trump world where advisers believe it will conclude the president did not commit any crimes. This clears the deck for us, one predicted. Working to shore up support heading into the 2020 campaign as he lends a hand to a key political ally. The president announced that the u. S. Will recognize control over the golan heights, an area hotly contested for decades tweeting after 52 years its time for the United States to recognize israels sovereignty over the golan heights. Its a gift to israeli prime  minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is facing reelection next month. The president denied he did it for any political reasons. No. I wouldnt even know about that. I wouldnt even know about that. I have no idea. I hear he is do iing okay. Reporter the president facing pushback that he approved the funeral for the late senator john mccain. I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president i had to approve. I dont care about this. I didnt get thank you. Thats okay. Reporter the National Cathedral released a statement, contradicting the president s comments saying, quote, only a state funeral for a former president involves consultation with government officials. No funeral at the cathedral requires the approval of the president or any other government official. Attorney for ivanka trump and Jared Kushner pushed back on claims saying they were not completely accurate but the prospect of the president s own family members were conducting government business over private communications raises questions whether the trump family learned any lessons from the 2016 campaign when they hammered Hillary Clinton over her email use. Wolf, getting back to this Mueller Report that everybody in washington is waiting for, i talked to an Administration Official a short while ago who said that the white house does expect to get some kind of heads up as to when the Mueller Report is come iing out but not a headp on the contents of that Mueller Report. Well see how all of that plays out. Well find out, it seems, as the white house is finding out as well. Everybody is waiting. Jim acrofta at the white house, thank you very much. Lets take a closer look at the president s call to fully recognize israel sovereignty over the golan heights. Oren lieberman is joining us from jerusalem. Its hugely significant, overturning more than 50 years of u. S. Policy when it comes to the golan heights. What fs behind this move . What are you hearing over there . Reporter no mention in the statements from secretary of state mike pompeo or Prime Minister benjamin net ana hoor hue or the president s tweets that this was about helping netanyahu win reelection. That is the proverbial elephant in the room. He is seeking a fifth term in office. It has not been a good week for him in that election. He was sliding in the polls and the press focused on the corruption investigations he faces and this changed all of that. Its difficult to believe trump when he says he wasnt aware that the elections were coming up, especially with pompeos visit here. When he vifed the western wall, the holiest site that jus can pray inside jerusalem, he went with netanyahu. Thats essentially unheard of. When President Trump and mike pence visited the wall they did so alone out of respect of the sensitivity between israelis and palestinians. Not so anymore. Pompeo with netanyahu and it certainly looked like the Trump Administration campaigning for netanyahu in his next term as does trumps declaration of the sovereignty in the golan heights, considered occupied territory. On top of all of that, netanyahu will head to apac where he will stay at the blair house as an official guest of the white house. Will he meet trump. That, for all intents and purposes, is a Campaign Stop for netanyahu and once again will look like trump is campaigning for netanyahu. Could there be more in store there . Before this Election Campaign . Thats certainly a possibility. As for reaction, one european diplomat tells cnn trump is essentially once again ignoring International Law and u. N. Security Council Resolutions and from that perspective, it doesnt seem theyre all that surprised. Were certain to hear consternation from lebanon, iran, iraq, no doubt. Whats the kind of reaction we get from the de facto antiiran states, sawed a arabia, are they legitimately angry about this one as they try to seek better relations with the u. S. . Well have more on this later in the situation room. A very Important Development today. Well stay on top of it. Meanwhile, a powerful congressional democrat says white house officials have used personal email. And in the case of Jared Kushner, private messaging app for government business. At the same time, democrats say the white house is rejecting request for information on the president S Communications with russian sprpresident Vladimir Putin. Manu raju, start with the emails. What are you learning . Reporter Elijah Cummings saying he has learned that former and Current White House officials have used their own personal emails to conduct government business. Namely Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw, Senior Adviser, ivanka trump, Senior Adviser and his daughter, of course, as well as steve bannon and kt mcfarland. He says that he had a meeting with Jared Kushner and ivanka trumps lawyer, abby lowell, and he confirmed that Jared Kushner used whats app to conduct official business with foreign leaders. He said his staff had asked abby lowell at that meeting whether or not classified information had been passed along through the whats app application by kushner. He said lowell could not rule that out. Ivanka trump in that december meeting, that lowell acknowledged that she perhaps may not have been following the president ial records app because, according to cummings, lowell revealed she continues to not forward emails that are received through her personal account, government emails, to her official account, which is required by federal law. Now lowell pushed back, the attorney for trump and kushner sent a letter back to cummings today and said he never acknowledged that kushner talked to foreign leaders through the whats app application and that after september 2017, ivanka trump never excuse me, always forwarded emails that went from her personal account to her official account, saying they are both in compliance with federal law. Nevertheless, wolf, cummings asking a range of questions to the white house tonight, demanding answers. The ultimate question is will the white house respond to those questions . No word yet as the white house says it is reviewing this letter. Wolf . The white house is also stalling on request for information about the president s often secretive communications with russias president putin. What are you hearing about that . The white house rejected the demand from three powerful democratic chairmen to provide any information about those trump putin meetings. They wanted tribed interviews with the translators. They wanted notes that may reveal exactly what happened and they wanted the white house to disclose whether or not the president took action to conceal those notes, destroy those notes and what happened in those interactions with putin. Today the white House Counsel sent a letter to these democr democratic chairmen and said they would not give that information over to congress, specifically the president must be free to engage in discussion with foreign leaders without fear that those communications will be disclosed and used as fodder for partisan political purposes. And foreign leaders must be assured of this as well. It appears the white house may be gearing up to fight this if democrats are trying to issue subpoenas. He cites in the letter that he believes theyre on firm ground. Democrats have yet to respond to this but expect potential subpoenas in yet another ratcheting up of the fight between the white house and House Democrats over their investigations here on capitol hill. Not only continues, it intensifies. Manu raju on capitol hill. Thank you. As the white house brace for the Mueller Report to drop, the question Everyone Wants to know, what happens next . Lets bring in evan perez. When mueller is finished with his investigation how do you expect all of this to unfold . Wolf, we expect that once the report is delivered to the attorney general, bill barr, the attorney general, will notify congress, especially the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, that they have received the report, that essentially the Mueller Investigation is over, is closed and there will be a period in which he will be reviewing those findings before he will formally send what will essentially be the barr report, essentially his summary of what he sees in the mueller findings, what he thinks is releasable as a result of his own review of the mueller findings. Youve been covering the Mueller Investigation for, what, two years, almost on a daily, sometimes hourly basis . Who is counting, wolf . Theres still Unanswered Questions whachlt do you anticipate . Wolf, given the fact that this has gone on for 674 days now, i think theres still big overarching questions, collusion, whether or not there was obstruction, whether or not mueller found any proof of russian collusion or conspiracy by people either close to the president , the president himself, to collude with the russians with regard to the 2016 election. Another question, obviously, that we expect bill barr will have to answer to congress is whether or not mueller asked to subpoena the president. We know that the president never gave a sitdown interview with mueller. The question is, did mueller ask for a subpoena, to subpoena the president and what happened to that . Thats going to be a big question. Again, bill barr is required to Tell Congress if he rejected any request requests from bob mueller and how detailed is this report . It makes it more difficult. The more detail in this report, the more difficult it is for bill barr and what he produces to congress. Critically important questions. Were bracing for the release and word of the investigation has been completed. Evan perez, thank you very much. Joining us now, democratic congressman steve cohn of tennessee. Congressman, thank you for joining us. I want to quickly get to the breaking news. According to the chairman of the house Oversight Committee, elien Elijah Cummings, senior white house officials used personal emails to conduct official government business. In particular, Jared Kushner used a private messaging app to communicate with foreign leaders. What concerns does all that raise for you . Well one of the first things that Jared Kushner did was see if they could get a back channel between the white house and russia. There are communications that this administration or jared kushn kushner, particularly, and hes trumps guy, didnt wanto able to access or even the cia and the security departments to be able to access between the white house and russia. Theres an issue about kusner and ivanka not being cleared and having the president have to get involved to give them those security clearances. They still dont have the top security clearances because of concerns at the cia, and that related to private business they could have with countries that were involved, israel and the middle east. The concern obviously is that Jimmy Breslin is writing this administrations handbook. They cant get, in their minds, what the law is and comply with it. They want to do everything off channel, away from the publics eye and it makes you wonder what are they hiding . It raises lots of issues. Do you agree that Congress Needs to see these documents . To protect the United States against enemies foreign and domestic. One of our duties in oversight is to see to it that for the protection of our country and betterment of american society. We cant have anybody using Foreign Policy for their personal benefits. With this administration theres lots of issues that have been raised concerning involvement with russia, business practices, at 666 fifth avenue, who financed that, deutsch bank, who financed trump to legitimate concern of congress. Let me interrupt. So we need to see what they talked about. Lets talk about the white house response. In a formal letter to congress, Legal Counsel says that u. S. Constitution assigns responsibility for dealing with Foreign Affairs to the president and that all president s over the years have a right have a right to keep their communications with foreign leaders confidential. So why should lawmakers have the right to review these communications between the president and putin . I dont know that they have a right to keep them confidential. If subpoenas are issued well let a court decide that. In particular in these circumstances where they tried to hide so much from the American Public in the

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