[Keilar:] Breaking news, the Trump administration striking out against so-called sanctuary cities and states. Moments ago, in a speech to California peace officers, Attorney General Jeff Sessions talked about the Justice Department's lawsuit against the state over its immigration policies.
[Jeff Sessions, U.s. Attorney General:] California, we have a problem. A series of actions and events has occurred here that directly and adversely impacts the work of our federal officers. For example, the mayor of Oakland has actively has been actively seeking to help illegal aliens avoid apprehension by ICE. Her actions support those who flout the law and boldly validates illegality. There's no other way to interpret those remarks. To make matters worse, the elected lieutenant governor of the state praised her for doing so, bragging about and encouraging the obstruction of our law enforcement and the law I'm afraid this is an embarrassment to the proud state of California.
[Keilar:] CNN justice reporter, Laura Jarrett, has more details on this. What do we know about this lawsuit, Laura?
[Laura Jarrett, Cnn Justice Reporter:] Hey, there, Brianna. The crux of this lawsuit is that the Justice Department is taking a pretty aggressive step, some might say the most significant step to date. In the midst of all of the lawsuits in this administration, this one is quite serious. What they are asking a federal judge to do is block a series of state laws passed last year in California that sought to try to limit the amount of information that local law enforcement would have to share with federal officials. They did that because they wanted to try to stem the tide of deportations under the Trump administration. But now the Justice Department is saying that that conflicts with federal law, federal law takes the day and, therefore, the federal judge should put them on hold. Now, the California officials have really slammed this lawsuit, calling it a political stunt. The governor, Jerry Brown, there, saying this is sad. But they will have their chance to fire back against it later today. The governor and the attorney general in the state are going to make a statement just shortly there in California Brianna?
[Keilar:] Laura Jarrett, thank you. I want to bring back former U.S. attorney, Michael Moore, to talk about this. Michael, how do you see this playing out?
[Michael Moore, Former U.s. Attorney:] You know, I don't know that the Justice Department bringing a lawsuit against a state is a particularly unusual thing. What's unusual is it's different from the past. That is that this administration seems so particularly interested in street crimes and immigration, they are not doing the historical things the Justice Department has done. Usually, you see the Justice Department come in and tell a state, you're not giving your citizens enough rights. Think about the Justice Department when they sued over civil rights, over voting rights. There were people rights of people with disabilities. These are things that expanded people's rights. Here you've got the Republicans coming in under the Trump administration essentially saying, we think the federal government has more authority and more wisdom about how to run things in the state. That's an unusual position for them. We've heard for years about states' rights, states' rights, states' rights. That's about all that the Republicans have talked about and local governance. Now, the federal government is telling California what laws they should and shouldn't pass.
[Keilar:] It's an interesting point there. How much leeway do the states have though?
[Moore:] Well, you know, there's a rule about the supremacy and having federal laws enforced within the state. The question will be here, are the California laws actually specifically opposed to the federal law? Do they cause it to not be enforced within the state or is it the state's efforts to deal with some of the immigration issues that they have internally? So I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, obviously, the judge will make that call, but historically, we do think that states have rights to pass laws affecting their local law enforcement. That's what it sounds like is happening here. Again, this administration has been fascinated with guns and gangs and immigration, and we're back to talking about street crimes, instead of things like Russia, voting rights, making sure people have a right to vote, and access to the polls.
[Keilar:] Michael Moore, thank you so much.
[Moore:] Thank you.
[Keilar:] Now, a man with ties to both Donald Trump's inner circle and the Middle East is reportedly now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. His name is George Nader. Sources say he attended secret meetings during the presidential transition between the United Arab Emirates and Trump associates. Nader was stopped and questioned at Dulles International Airport in January when he was on his way to Mar-a-Lago. And he has been talking to Mueller's investigators ever since. Joining me now, we have CNN justice reporter, Shimon Prokupecz. Shimon, what more can you tell us about Mueller's interest in Nader?
[Shimon Prokupecz, Cnn Crime & Justice Reporter:] Yes, Brianna, whatever it is that George Nader has to offer to investigators, it's important enough that investigators at the Mueller team and FBI agents and prosecutors there have deemed it important enough where they have put this information before a grand jury that is investigating this. As you say, George Nader was kind of this mysterious character associated with some of the Trump inner circle, with Steve Bannon, with Jared Kushner. He was at the meeting with them in December 2016 during a during the transition where the crown prince of Abu Dhabi was there. It was a secret meeting. The crown prince never notified the U.S. that he was coming to New York to meet with Trump people. George Nader was in that meeting. That was follow-up with a meeting in January in the Seychelles, also never told to anyone it was happening, and only learned of by U.S. intelligence officials and partners after they picked up some intelligence there was a meeting going on, that George Nader was there. We didn't learn that George Nader was at that meeting until he was questioned by the FBI when he returned in January of this year, where they searched his phones and he was given a search warrant and they imaged his phones. He was then given a grand jury subpoena. Ever since then, he's been cooperating with the special counsel. It's true that we don't know exactly what Mueller's interest in George Nader is but, again, whatever it is he's providing, it is evidence in this and that is now before a grand jury.
[Keilar:] Interesting. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you. Joining me to talk more about this is CNN legal and national security analyst and former FBI special agent, Asha Rangappa. Asha, when you look at this, how significant is it that George Nader is cooperating with the special counsel?
[Asha Rangappa, Cnn Legal & National Security Analyst:] To me, Brianna, this is significant because it's showing that Mueller is really expanding the scope of his investigation. It's looking internationally. And that there were potentially even more contacts and connections. We now have the UAE involved, in addition to Russia, and looking at how all of these things tie together with the Trump campaign. So Mueller's investigation is not ending any time soon, I can tell you that.
[Keilar:] I want to ask you about the president's long-time lawyer, Michael Cohen, because it's become clear that he's been involved in a series of pretty shady dealings recently. He paid the porn star, Stormy Daniels, to silence her, to basically keep her quiet ahead of the election. According to her lawyer, he was trying to keep her quiet through binding arbitration as recently as last week. Then you have the special counsel, of course, which is interested in Michael Cohen. He also, it turns out, got some what was supposed to be secret information about some testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, testimony from a staffer about the Christopher Steele dossier. It's a series of things, and it seems like one thing after the other. Could he be in trouble when you look at this pattern?
[Rangappa:] Well, right now, it doesn't look like he is directly a target of any investigation. Let's take each of these things separately. The Stormy Daniels lawsuit is a civil lawsuit. This has to do with potentially private conduct of the president before he entered office. Is not really clear it's going to be tied in in any way with Mueller's investigation or what's happening in these other arenas. With regard to Mueller's investigation, he's looking at two deals that Cohen was potentially involved with. One involved a deal to create a Trump Tower in Moscow. The negotiations, which began in September 2015, Cohen says those never went anywhere eventually. Another is a potential peace plan that was presented that Cohen was involved with that was presented by the Ukraine. And that was the timing of that is very up in the air, but that may have been in the works during the campaign as well. So it looks like Mueller is interested in that. With the House Intelligence Committee, what we have are again, potential leaks. You know, that committee is not functioning very smoothly. And so he's not necessarily in trouble, but it does raise questions about who on that committee is kind of leaking information about other witnesses' testimony to, you know, maybe shape future people who may come before it.
[Keilar:] All right, Asha Rangappa, thank you. Up next, nor'easter, round two. Heavy snow and high winds taking aim at more than 50 million people on parts of the east coast right now.