Wolf Blitzer looks at politics, Breaking News and international stories. Night that he found out some Bad Information about the company. And then proceeded to tip off his son who also invested in the company. So take a look at this timeline. This was on june 22nd of 2017, summer of last year. At 6 55 p. M. , the indictment says he received an email from the ceo of the company saying that a drug trial had been a failure. Now 16 minutes later, at 7 11 p. M. , he starts calling his son. He tries to make that call four times before he is successful. And at 7 16, he speaks to his son and informs him about this information that he had learned. And it is the next day, 7 42 a. M. , in the morning, that his son starts putting in orders to sell off his shares of his stock in this company. N ultimately, the indictment says that he was able to avoid some 570,000 in losses. Now a lot of congressional reporters are actually already familiar with this company Innate ImmunotherapeuticsCongressman Collins will have morto s more to say on this issue later today. Well see whether he makes a direct statement about this, but, obviously, very stunning and serious news coming just three months before his reelection, wolf. Very stunning indeed. All right, m. J. , well have a lot more coming up on this story. A lot of legal analysis. Theres other Important News including this just coming in. The Trump Legal Team has delivered their answer on the Interview Request from the special counsel Robert Mueller. One of the president s personal attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, says they want to get this over before the midterms in november. Maybe by september 1st, around labor day. Our chief Political Correspondent dana bash has the Breaking News on all of this. What can you tell us about the response . Will there be any conditions, especially about questions pertaining to possible Obstruction Of Justice . Well, i spoke to Rudy Giuliani this morning. He wouldnt give any details on the nature of the response
like, what did you say to comey about flynn . Why did you fire comey . Answers to those questions, they say, and the president s legal team said mueller already knows the answer to. So to ask that question of the president would be simply trying to catch him in a lie. Thats the argument. Was there anything on those topics that could potentially be okay with you . Possibly but cant think of any. So that certainly seems to be, if Robert Mueller is still determined to ask the president questions releasing to potential Obstruction Of Justice. We dont know. But we dont know because theyre completely mum over in mueller land. That could be the deal breaker on this potential interview. It is very incremental. They are proposing, counterproposing and have been for months and months and months. But it is noteworthy. Giuliani talked about the september deadline and that is the traditional window in which the Justice Department doesnt
of the world if the president is still kind of facing this potential investigation or what have you during the election because they need the base to be energized and perhaps thats a way to energize the base. Well see, though. Its not up to them. Its up to Robert Mueller. It certainly is. He knows a lot more about any of this than any of us do. Thanks for that excellent reporting. Lets discuss all of this. Eliot williams, former Deputy Assistant attorney general. Molly ball, cnn political analyst, national Political Correspondent for time, also with us former federal prosecutor Glen Kershner and cnn legal analyst laura coats. Lets talk about this latest response from the giuliani Trump Legal Team to Robert Mueller. Wrap this up by september 1st. They dont want to talk about obstruction but theyre willing to answer other questions. Im shocked giuliani continues to believe he has so much leverage that he can
dictate the terms of a conversation with special counsel mueller. The only leverage they really do have is you have this election thats looming and this doj initiative that says you cannot have this in an election year. You want it wrapped up. Donald trumps not actually on the ballot. So theres an arguable claim to make that says that wouldnt actually impact the president of the United States. Hes not on the ballot. But im really shocked. Many of us are, that the two president s personal attorneys are conversing about a legal matter with a pending federal investigation on a radio show where theyre prepared to make comments about privilege im sure later on about executive privileges, certainly Attorney Client privilege and arguing as if the only way Robert Mueller will talk to them is if they dictate the terms. Its not going to happen that way. Ultimately, i think hell have to sit down and answer some questions. I want to say to glen, how do you see it . So, wolf, im not convinced that this is actually a twosided negotiation. I think Rudy Giuliani has been negotiating against himself in his zeal to get all this information out into the public square. I dont think theres ever been an intent on the defense teams part on President Trumps defense team to bring the client in, have him sit with Robert Mueller. I was surprised at the recent reporting that mueller was willing to put some questions in writing and submit those to the president. But the more i thought about it, it may very well be that some of the questions proposed in write, things like, mr. President , did you tell Director Comey to lay off mike flynn . There are only two answers to that question. If the answer is, yes, thats evidence of Obstruction Of Justice, arguably. If the answer is no, i am betting that Robert Muellers team can prove that to be a lie. So his latest terms which are basically the way it sounds to me is, well bring him in as long as you dont ask the president Anything Incriminating or relevant. I mean, that seems to be
laughable. Elliott, go ahead. The other point is its not a perjury trap if youre telling the truth. And if you arent trying to conceal or change facts or mislead the people. And i think its unfortunate theyre using perjury, trap and trying to convince the public that somehow Robert Mueller is the one at fault here and rob mueller isnt the one under investigation. We should be careful when hearing perjury, trap or am i going to be trapped into incriminating myself when you might have done something wrong. A lot of people, molly, believe the president is never going to sit down with Robert Mueller and do a q a. Maybe in written form,ing . Along those lines but not in a facetoface interview with mueller and his team. That all of this is just politics right now. Setting the stage, we tried our best, wanted to do it. The president certainly wanted to do it but these guys have 13 angry democrats. They are just engaged in a witch hunt and its not going to happen. Theres a couple of aspects to that. Giuliani may be negotiating with himself but he also seems to be negotiating with his client because trump, number one, reveals so much about this in public, insists on tweeting about it, making his case in public when any lawyer would probably prefor that he did not do that. And second, when trump has repeatedly said publicly and privately that hed like to do this whether or not his counsel thinks its a good idea, and he continues to say theyre trying to talk me out of it, but i think i can do it and it may be partly plu partly bluster. But what hes doing is running interference between trump and mueller trying to satisfy trumps wish to do the interview while also protecting him in some way from himself. And then the third point is that he may not have a choice. Part of what he may be doing is trying to run out the clock without saying no because the minute they say no, that sets up a potential subpoena fight. I think neither side wants that,
but it is something that can happen when and if they do shut off the possibility. Stay with me. A lot more thats developing right now. Theres more on the other Breaking News were following. Republican congressman Chris Collins of new york, one of the president s first big supporters, hes now been arrested and indicted on Insider Trading charges. Also lying to the fbi. Well talk about his fate. Plus, the president declaring victory in ohio despite the special election there still too close to call. Does the cliffhanger spell trouble, though, for the gop ahead of the midterm elections . And senator rand paul delivering a letter from President Trump to Vladimir Putin. We have details. Lots of news. Well be right back. Hey allergy muddlers. Are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool . Try zyrtec®. Its starts working hard at hour one. And works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. Its so hard to believe but its all coming back me. Baby, baby, baby. All you can eat is back, baby. Applebees. No matter how much you clean, does your house still smell stuffy . Thats because your home is filled with soft surfaces that trap odors and release them back into the room. So, try febreze fabric refresher. Febreze finds odors trapped in fabrics and cleans them away as it dries. Use febreze every time you tidy up to keep your whole house smelling fresh air clean. Fabric refresher even works for clothes you want to wear another day. Make febreze part of your clean routine for whole home freshness. Back now to one of our top stories this hour. Republican congressman Chris Collins of new york arrested on charges of Insider Trading. Prosecutors say collins tipped off his son about negative information regarding a biotech firm. Collins was on the board of. His son was able to then sell off shares avoiding more than half a million in losses. Collins was already, by the way, under scrutiny for his role on the board, as well as recruiting several lawmakers to invest in the firm, including the former health and Human Services secretary tom price when he was a member of congress. Prices investment, by the way, came up during his confirmation hearing last year. I asked Congressman Collins about it at the time. Heres what he told me. This is in january of 2017. Did you encourage him to buy stock in this Company CalledInnate Immunotherapeutics . No, absolutely not. There was nothing done that was Insider Trading or unethical. Ive been involved with Innate Therapeutics for almost 15 years. Im the largest shareholder and i talk about it all the time, just like youd talk about your children. Were your telling other constituents and friends of yours to go ahead. This is a great stock. Go ahead to buy it. I talked to them about the great work this company is doing. The market for secondary progressive m. S. And there are many hundreds, 50, 100 people from western new york, friends, family and so forth who decided on their own, this was a pretty darn good investment and it certainly turned out to be so. You understand why to the average person out there, there is something sort of smelly in all of this. You understand why people are complaining and why it seems a little sloppy, if you will, why the democrats, a lot of democrats are going after Congressman Price and threatening his confirmation over this one issue. Its just so absurd. Lets discuss this and more. Elliott, what do you make of what we just heard from him knowing the allegation against him is that when the stock was about to collapse, he gave advance word to his son to sell and in the process save a half a million dollars. Hell have plenty of time to get his story straight from behind bars at some point. And frankly, looking at the fact he was a top supporter of the president , the president is making the washington, d. C. , swamp look like lake tahoe in upstate new york. Or lake placid in upstate new york. What we keep hearing from him is and his lawyer said, i never bauought, he never bautou any stock. He was unlawfully providing information to members of his family. He broke the law. Trying to make it about democrats going after representative price or whatever, its misleading like we were talking about earlier. I want to be fair to the president. Theres nothing in this indictment that involves him at all. Collins is one of the first supporters in the house of representatives. He endorsed him very early on. But the president , donald trump was never involved in this Company Biotech firm. Thats perfectly fine but how many times are we going to hear about corruption from the president , a top supporter, a lawyer, a Campaign Chairman before we start to really recognize how much this corruption is running through everything the president touches. Its like king midus was the president turned everything that turned to gold. The president seems to Touch Everything that turns to corruption and everywhere it seems to be following him. The indictment and ive read it and youve read it. It doesnt say he did anything wrong when suggesting to other family members, friends, hey, this is a great stock, a great company. They could come up with a cure for some form of m. S. He didnt tell them to buy but clearly that was the implication. The charges that when the Clinical Trial was about to fail, he got advance word and then tipped off his son. Who then tipped off others. They wound up Saving Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars. Its not about the innocent conversation and encouraging who would not want to have a cure
from m. S. And if theres a lead to it, youd talk about it, of course. The real criminal behavior is that you were in a unique position to get information that was not disclosed to the public. Nobody else had the advantage to have the information but suddenly you got it and within minutes you tried to call people while you were still on the white house grounds to tell someone to sell off their stock or coordinate some plan that not more than 12 hours later suddenly actually went by. So thats the crux of Insider Trading and what you saw from the graphic that m. J. Lee played was that you have the Documentary Evidence very early on. The phone call, the email that said the drug test has failed. Thats why most of the time Insider Trading cases are very document heavy. Either you have the information in advance and you acted on it or you did not. And what youre seeing here is somebody who wants to deflect, possibly, on the discussion of, i was just innocently telling you about a drug to actually that turned into Insider Trading and suddenly they saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. Glenn, his lawyer, the
congressmans lawyer says theres no charge in this indictment that he personally sold when he got the advance word. He had a lot of money invested in that stock as well. His son sold. Others sold. But he personally didnt call up his broker and sell off this stock. Is that a strong argument he has on his behalf . So its not a strong argument. Heres how. And we have heard similar refrains regarding the trump tower meeting. They never got any information so it must not have ripened into a crime. Let me break down the law of conspiracy. The law of conspiracy says if two or more people get together and agree to commit a crime and then take one step, what we call an overt act toward committing that crime, that in and of itself is a crime. Its the crime of conspiracy. They dont have to commit the underlying offense and i use as an example all the time a conspiracy to commit a murder. Two people get together and decide to murder a third person
and they rent a car to use in the murder and buy a gun and they map out the victims route but they never do pull the trig eso to speak, they have committed the crime of conspiracy to kill. The District Attorney says collins placed his friends and family above the public good. Whats going to be the political fall out of this . I think it is one more headache that republicans dont need after last nights Election Results also buoyed democrats and discouraged republicans, this is yet another blow. Congressman collins is in a heavily republican district. Its hard to imagine him being vulnerable even in the face of Something Like this, but he may come under pressure to resign. He does have a democratic opponent. But the more political impact is along the lines of what elliott was saying. It contributes to a narrative that democrats have been trying to build. Pointing to the Trump Administration, pointing to wha