Transcripts For CNNW Smerconish 20160130 : vimarsana.com

CNNW Smerconish January 30, 2016

Princeton election guru who back in 2012 beat all the socalled experts. And still more revelations about bill cosbys alleged deal with prosecutors in pennsylvania. Will other accusers be able to use the comedians testimony against him . First, the latest on those hillary emails. Now in this final weekend before the first actual voting in 2016 comes breaking news that seems not to be good news for clinton. Shes the candidate who most people considered a shooin for the nomination if not the president densecy and finds herself neck and neck with Bernie Sanders and trailing him in New Hampshire as the front page details, the state department finally released over 1,000 emails. But so far the focus has been on the 22 it refuses to release saying the contents are too classified. Her opponents say its a huge security problem to put those emails on a home computer vulnerable to a hacker. Her supporters say she did nothing wrong and this is just political mud slinging and maybe a politicallymotivated investigation. Joining me, former United States attorney general Michael Mukasey and former Clinton White house special counsel lanny davis. First, judge, of what significance these latest developments . Well, in a sense, its more of the same. But because these are not disclosed at all, it makes it obviously much more apparent somebody was moving the classified state department markings and getting them onto her home server. That is the significance here. How can she have culpability if nothing was so designated as classified at the time . It was designated classified and the classification was removed, according to a protocol that she knew about and wanted because that was the only way to get it onto her home server, then she is in it up to her eyeballs. Whats the basis of your suspicion that perhaps socalled classified markings would have been removed . Well, the documents originated from some place. They didnt drop in from mars. The person that originated them put classified markings on them because the state department has said they wont release any of them. So they were at one point marked. Now, how did the markings get off . I think if you turn to an email exchange between her and one of her staffers back in 2011, you find that shes waiting for a classified set of talking points and at one point says, if they cant get a secure fact, she says, turn it into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure. Now, that is very particular language relating to the fact that there are three Communication Systems within the government, nonsecure, sipr or secure and the highest, which is jaywiks. The information from sipper and from jay wicks cannot move on the low end system nipper and if you put anything on there thats those markings on it, it essential lly sets off an alarm with the people involved in security. So those markings have to be taken off. And when she said in june of 2011, take the markings off, it becomes apparent she knows how the system works. Assume for my question she had no role in removing the markings. Assuming she played no role in the removal of any designations, should she have otherwise known this is really Sensitive Information . This is at a certain level that of course it might not have the marking but must be classified. The information is classified not because its marked but because of what the information contains. The marking is put on because its classified. Its not classified because of the marking. For example, if she has signals intelligence or information from a human source that is obviously confidential and secret and relates to intelligence activities of the United States abroad, shed have to have been a lowgrade moron in order not to know its classified. Who ultimately decides where this goes . The fbi, the attorney general, lynch, is it the president ultimately whos consulted . Ultimately, its the president. How do you see this playing out . Its hard to predict, but the fbi is conducting the investigation. I believe it is working with people at the Justice Department now. At some point, all of this is going to be tied up in a package and put before the director of the fbi and then sent to the attorney general. If the package appears to contain a crime, then theres going to a recommendation a prosecution be brought. Judge, this is complicated stuff. Sum up, give me the 30second sound bite so that people who are paying attention at home understand what is at issue. The issue is, there will be a decision at some point whether a charge should be brought against Hillary Clinton. If the decision from the director of the fbi is that it should and the attorney general says no, there are going to be people resigning and going public the same way we saw in connection with the saturday night massacre. If the decision is made to go ahead with the charge, then were going to see some negotiation between Hillary Clinton and the white house as to how that proceeds. Former attorney general of the United Statess, Michael Mukasey, thank you for being here. I want to give equal time to former Clinton White House Counsel lanny davis headed to iowa this morning to support his Yale Law School classmate secretary clinton. Lanny, respond to the judge. Ive been a great fan of the judge, shared a platform with him. s a great lawyer, former attorney general. But it is shocking and almost unethical if you were actually a judge to pronounce the possibility of guilt without a trial or without an indictment and without a fact. All the caveats are speculative statements by my respect to the judge here somewhat diminish that he would speculate about somebody committing a crime before the investigation is complete before an indictment and trial. Let me state three facts that he cant dispute. Fact one, is there were no designations on those emails and they didnt originate from her. He speculates that she removed designations and the only example he gave which is a fact were talking points sent to her and she said, send it to me as a nonpaper because they are talking points i want to use and the fax machine isnt working. Nonpaper meaning unofficially they were talking points. The other one we know about is what is retroactively another fact, this is retroactive judgments two or three years later, that something at the time that wasnt designated classified should be designated. The only one that ive read about was a report in the New York Times on pakistan use of drones that you and i and the public read about and three years later the inspectorgeneral is asserting with the wisdom of whatever hindsight he has that a New York Times report should be designated classified. The other 22 we dont know, neither the judge nor i, whether its of the same nature of overclassification that weve seen through the years by a New York Times report that reports drones and is referenced in the email and three years later the inspectorgeneral says, that should be classified. And fact three, the New York Times withdrew any assertion that the criminal investigation was about Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department withdrew. For the judge to speculate there is a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton as opposed to an argument on mishandling between the state department and the intelligence community, which is what we now know this fbi investigation is about, and the New York Times specifically published the headline and withdrew the very charge with speculation that the judge made on the air, all speculation, all ifs, all necessarilys, all possiblies. Im surprised that the judge would speculate on television that someone might have committed a crime. Lanny, ive looked at the email that the judge has shown to me where secretary clinton says, turn it into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure. How do we know that this is the only time that she did that . Well, we dont know, and i wouldnt speculate that somebody has committed a crime on national television, which is why i consider the former attorney generals comments as unethical for a lawyer. You can speculate. Youre a pundit. You wouldnt speculate that Michael Smerconish may have committed a heinous crime because that would be irresponsible. So its all speculation. As far as that particular one, which im glad you mentioned again, we now know, even though Hillary Clinton asked all of these emails to be published and they havent been, that that one involved talking points that couldnt possibly have been considered classified. Her fax machine was not working. She and her campaign have explained that that one sent by Jake Sullivan was supposed to be sent to her. She couldnt get it. She said, put it on a fax. But didnt say remove classified designations. The judge is speculating. Lanny speculation is improper. Let me ask a basic question because i dont want to lose people in the weeds. Its against the law for officials to discuss classified information on unclassified networks. Correct. Its actually pretty straightforward. Isnt that what she did here . She categorically denies that. And the only basis for your asking the question is pure speculation and now we know politically motivated. Do you think its a coincidence michael were talking about it on the saturday morning before the Iowa Caucuses . Do you think its a coincidence that the letter was sent to senator grass ley after leaking this material shows up with donald trump in iowa . Do you think its a coincidence that the top officials of the igs office i get it. Prosecution of Hillary Clinton and denied lanny you should know better. Well, come on, its a legitimate inquiry. A legitimate inquiry for a journalist, but you should know this is about politics talking about the saturday morning before the iowa caulk iss. I want to be fair to everybody. Youve been sitting here shaking your head. Im way over time. They are telling me get out of the segment. What is it you want to say . All of this is based on facts that have emerged so far as her saying she wants this stuff published, she knows its not going to be published because its all top secret. Like a guy in a bar that gets in an argue the and waits until his friends grabbed him good and tight and says let me at them. Rebuttal, lanny. Quit. The attorney general hasnt named a single fact to lead to speculation that someone is in criminal trouble. Respectfully, i think the man is a great man. I respectfully suggest if you were a judge you would be conducting something unethical to offer an upon based upon no evidence, no fact that someone might have committed a crime. I really think you should rethink being willing to do that, your honor. The facts are there were literally thousands of classified emails on her server that werent put there the state department disagrees with that. They werent put there by the tooth fairy. Admit that the state department disagrees with what you just said. The fbi does not investigate a dispute between two departments. Your honor, im quite disappointed. Ive got no interest in having her indicted. I need to adjourn. It sounds like you do. Id like to see her as a candidate. Thank you, gentlemen. Wish i didnt have to. What do you think . Tweet me at smerconish. Ill read some of the best later in the program. Still to come, unbelievable that a gop frontrunner could refuse to participate in a fox news debate and still win it. Who has the momentum on this the final weekend before iowa . Ill talk to insiders from both trump and cruz camps. And tuesday, big day in the criminal case against bill cosby. I have new details on the latest legal wrangling over cosbys deposition and what it means for the criminal case against him. Eres no one road out there. No one surface. No one speed. No one way of driving on each and every road. But there is one car that can conquer them all. The mercedesbenz cclass. 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When he bailed on fox news this week, everybody instead piled on his biggest rival ted cruz, and trump got two previous gop victors, santorum and huckabee, to show up at his counter programming event. Here to discuss the implications two perfect insiders, cruzs National Spokesman rick tyler and roger stone, former trump adviser as well as to the nixon and reagan campaign, wrote a book the clintons war on women. It is amazing to me that the gop frontrunner is at odds with the oracle of the Republican Party fox news, whats that calculous . There is no calculus. I think people need to understand that donald trump is situational. In this case, this turned out to be a master stroke. First of all, any stage trump is on is the main stage xgts hes the front returunner and not b little. Secondly, by doing this the firepower want against ted cruz, his closest rival. Cruz is bleeding over his canadian birth, over his secret sweetheart loans from wall street, goldman, citibank. Tough to make a case that will clean up wall street when youre beholden to wall street. Those are beginning to hurt him. Rubio nailed him for his Previous Service to george w. Bush. This is turned out, i think, to be a major plus for trump across the board. Okay. But is it a play for independents . Is what is really going on here, that donald trump is taking on fox news, hes taking on megyn kelly because he knows people can walk in on monday who are independent, register as republicans and vote in that iowa caucus . Never mind independents. Democrats can actually vote. Does he have support there . No question he does. If you look at the people attending rallies, they collect the data. They were surprised how many of those people were workingclass democrats. 1,000 democrats were called out of des moines through a phone bank. 300 of them said they would be willing to switch parties on the night of the caucus to vote for donald trump. This demonstrates the potential crossover appeal for the general election ive been talking about. Does he have any ground game in iowa . Does he need any ground game in iowa . I mean, everything about this race is unconventional. I cant imagine there is a ward or precinct apparatus out there for the donald but maybe there is. Does he need it . Does he have it . Hes a very good organizer who handled the caucuses for rick santorum, chuck laudner. They do have a ground game. I dont know how good it is because i havent been to iowa but i think it is competitive. S you know, michael, a caucus is a different animal. Its not like a primary where you just go into the booth and you push a button. Youve got to go to a meeting. Youve got to listen to some speeches. You vote by show of hands. It takes a more dedicated voter, and im not sure polling is that accurate when it comes to a caucus. If he wins monday night in iowa, i think people we will look back and say as youve said, what a master stroke to have skipped the debate. If he loses on monday, i imagine the postmortem would be be that that was a lethal error on his part. Maybe not lethal. As you know, Ronald Reagan skipped the final debate, lost iowa, came roaring back in New Hampshire and ran the tables. I want to show you a possible miscalculation on trumps part. Here is what cnn was showing the night of the fox debate. It was a fourscreen. Can we put that up . Look at the upper left corner. Its not as if he had unadulterated coverage. He was competing with bill, with hillary, and with bernie. They went in. They came out. There was equal treatment afforded to all the candidates. Ill bet your old boss thought he was going to get coasttocoast coverage. Well, first of all, they did have a massive audience, i think both sinclair and cnn cut to it. It wasnt just a speech. It was almost like a variety show. I do think its significant that huckabee and santorum who have pockets of support in iowa, those voters may begin to realize their first choice cant win and donald trump may be their second choice. I think it was very calculated. Final question. What is your deal . You dont sound to me like a guy who either quit or put up those headlines because this is funny to me, you know, did stone quit . Did stone get fired . We still dont know. Look at all the headlines. You say you quit. He says you were fired. Youre sitting here today shilling is an unkind word but being an advocate for donald trump. Are you in the tent or out of the tent . I am a strong supporter of donald trump. Donald trump is his own political strategist. Thats what i do. He has the right to do that. Its his name. Its his campaign. Hes his own strategist and message maven. Hes his own tactician and hes darn good at it. Thats why hes leading the race. It would have been duplicative if i had stayed. Give me the result in iowa monday night. What happens . I think it will be very close but i think trump will win. Okay. Roger stone, good to have you back. Thanks for being here. To the ted cruz campaign, spokesman rick tyler. Rick, respond to what you just heard from roger stone. Youve probably got 20 things you want to say. Oh

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