[Camerota:] Well, the thought of Russia continues to grip the Trump administration. The White House failed to disclose a second meeting that President Trump had with Russian President Vladimir Putin without any U.S. aides or U.S. officials or any record of what these two men discussed. Joining us now is CNN national security commentator and former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. He was the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Good morning, Mike.
[Mike Rogers, Cnn National Security Commentator:] Good morning. How are you guys?
[Camerota:] We're doing well. Help us understand, should President Trump have had this meeting? It was in public at the G-20. It was a dinner hosted by Angela Merkel. But there was no U.S. translator. The Russian translator did it in between President Putin and Trump. So, therefore, no official document for the U.S. side of what they discussed in this reportedly hour meeting.
[Rogers:] Yes, well, it's certainly unconventional. Now, unconventional doesn't mean it's wrong or criminal or anything like that. The president can do this if he wants. I you know, my caution to the president would be, I wouldn't go into this meeting lightly. A, you've got a translator that is not American, doesn't have American loyalties or loyalties to the president, number one. And, number two, you want to have some record of any follow-up that may come out of this conversation or things that the, you know, President Putin might say that might be valuable to decisions that the United States, either government or maybe even intelligence services may want to look into later. All of that got it was a missed opportunity to me. And then to do it when with all of the scrutiny and all of this everybody running around looking for any Russian connection at all, just seems like a poor choice to me.
[Cuomo:] Well, you don't got to look too far, though, right? I mean in the context of the unknown and what's being learned about this Don Jr. meeting, which has just been, you know, a set of nondisclosure after nondisclosure. Now we learned that someone else who was at this Don Jr. meeting, which wasn't disclosed, is a guy that's known pretty well to you guys in the intel community. Former Senator Carl Levin says, oh, that eighth guy who was at that party, at that meeting, oh, we looked at him. He started like 2,000 shell corporations for Russians, moved over a billion dollars. Why were these people seeking out Donald Jr.? And why would so many top members of his campaign meet with those kinds of people, Mike?
[Rogers:] Yes, and I'm not sure that they properly vetted them before they walked in the meeting. But there should have been red flags. I think that's pretty well established. There should have been red flags even at the e-mail that said, hey, a foreign government wants to provide information. It didn't say foreign individual or foreign company, it said a foreign government. You know, that raises to a different standard. That should have been the first flag that went off and said, whoa, maybe that's that's probably not something we should engage in. But once it happened
[Cuomo:] The president says all you guys would have taken that meeting.
[Rogers:] Well, you can you should not normalize any notion that if any foreign government I don't care if it's an ally foreign government or an adversarial government wants to provide you information specifically to help you do x, it's it is it's time that you stop for a minute and let that flag go up and say, maybe I need to talk to the FBI and see if all this is copasetic. And so we should never normalize a foreign government engaging in providing information. And, you know, an allied government, maybe it could be OK. But I'm telling you, when you have an adversarial relationship with a nation that has a hostile intelligent service, which Russia does, then you need to be extremely cautious. And some of the folks had done business in Ukraine and other places should have known that before they walked into the meeting. I will tell you where investigators are going, though, in my estimation, as a former FBI guy. They're not necessarily saying it was criminal to do the meeting. It was not. They were certainly not out of bounds to take the meeting. But what happened next? That's going to be the next question. And I'm going to guess that that's where the special counsel is going to find out, did they suggest a follow-up meeting, the Russians who were in the room? Did they say, hey, you need to meet this other American that we know and he can have further discussions on certain activities? Because what this likely was is somebody in that room was spotting and assessing everybody in that room to see, is that somebody that we might be able to turn? Might be able to get information out of? Even unwittingly. You know, maybe I can snooker somebody into giving us information that might be valuable to Russian intelligence services. There's no when you look at this collection of individuals, all of their activities, I'm talking about the Russians now, I'm sure that's what the special counsel is looking at. Were the Russians making this kind of an active measure to spot and assess somebody to do something to recruit somebody later on. I imagine that they're all of that is fair game for the special counsel.
[Camerota:] Well, it will be very interesting to hear what Don Jr. and Paul Manafort have to say in an open hearing to Congress. We understand that Robert Mueller has given the green light or said that he's OK with it being an open hearing. So that will be fascinating. Let's talk about season two of "Declassified," your show on
[Cnn. Rogers:] Yes.
[Camerota:] The season premier is this Saturday. What do we need to know about it?
[Rogers:] It's going to be exciting. I'll tell you, the first episode I'd like to tell you I was precedent in all of this, is about Russian illegals coming who came to the United States, took on American sounding names and soul purpose was to recruit Americans, spy on the United States and infiltrate government agencies to steal secrets of the United States. And it's really a fascinating it's just like out of a thriller. You're going to love it. And here's the cool part, it could be a spy next door and you don't know it. And that's what's neat about this first episode. It kind of lays out the tactics and techniques of what the Russians are still up to and were up to when this big case broke by the
[Fbi. Cuomo:] Wow, so you checked three boxes there, American paranoia of the unknown in general, Russia, and fear of immigration.
[Camerota:] And it's timely.
[Rogers:] I'm not sure it's all of that, but it is a it's if you like a good spy story, this is a great spy story. You're going to love it. Even if you're saying, I don't know, I can't take any more Russia stuff, this is really about a
[Cuomo:] Never say that.
[Rogers:] Yes. It's well, this is really about Russian spy tactics and techniques and the agents that we're able to catch, a pretty sophisticated Russian operation happening on U.S. soil.
[Camerota:] Yes. Oh, can't wait to watch it.
[Rogers:] Yes, it's going to be great.
[Camerota:] Be sure to catch Mike Rogers, CNN series "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies," and it returns on Saturday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on
[Cnn. Cuomo:] All right, CNN "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and John Berman is going to pick up right after the break. Stay with CNN.