Firm Used By Trump Campaign Asked Wikileaks For Access To Clinton Emails; McConnell Allies Declare War On Steve Bannon.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.</s>BOLDUAN: Who could forget that moment from the campaign? July 2016, campaign -- campaign Trump -- also that, Candidate Trump during the Democratic convention actually asking Russia for help against his political opponent. A lot of people thinking back to that today with this news coming out, a data analytics company hired by the Trump campaign contacted Wikileaks about getting access to Hillary Clinton's e-mails. CNN crime and justice reporter, Shimon Prokupecz, is here with the details. Take us into the details. Lay it out.</s>SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Kate, this was Cambridge Analytica, a data firm hired by the campaign and what we've learned is that they contacted Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange to see if he had obtained any e-mails related to the Hillary Clinton and whether or not at some point, they would share those e-mails with the data analytics folks. Julian Assange yesterday, after this was revealed first by "The Daily Beast" tweeted out confirming that Cambridge Analytica reached out to them, asked for some information on e-mails but said he had rejected those claims, rejected the overture, did not agree to turn over any of the e-mails to them, and claimed he just did not want to work with them in his tweet.</s>BOLDUAN: But -- and also the Trump campaign is, I don't know, seemingly trying to distance themselves from this company at this point, but not so much.</s>PROKUPECZ: But not so much. They have certainly in a statement said that they relied on the RNC data for their campaign and have distanced themselves, but we went through some of FEC records, election records, and found that the Trump campaign paid Cambridge Analytica a substantial amount of money, some $5.9 million, in November, for some of their work. So, while they may be trying to distance themselves, there are these payments to the group.</s>BOLDUAN: All right. Let's see where this goes. Great to see you, Shimon. Thank you so much. All right. Joining me now, Bryan Lanza, CNN political commentator and former deputy communications director for Donald Trump campaign, and Paul Begala, CNN political commentator, former Bill Clinton White House adviser, of course. Great to see you both of you. Brian, welcome to the contributor team.</s>BRYAN LANZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: It doesn't mean I can be any nicer to you, I'm just saying. Just ask Paul.</s>LANZA: It is what it is.</s>BOLDUAN: What do you say to this, Paul?</s>LANZA: Yes. Listen, two things happened yesterday, you had the disclosure of Cambridge Analytica reaching out to Wikileaks and then saying we're not interested, and you also have the disclosure of Fusion GPS that has now been further tied to the Clinton campaign and the DNC and actually Fusion GPS does have some, you know, Kremlin clients. So, if we're looking for collusion, I think the dots got a little bit closer but not with the Trump campaign but specifically with the Clinton campaign.</s>BOLDUAN: Let's get to -- OK, I guess, let's just go there. Are --</s>LANZA: Please.</s>BOLDUAN: Are the -- Paul, are these two things the same? The Fusion GPS and the dossier, and what we're -- what we are hearing, what we're learning about with Cambridge Analytica?</s>PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. It's like saying that firefighters are the same as the arsonists. They both show up at the scene of the crime. Yes, but the Trump campaign -- now this is one more dot. If you --</s>BOLDUAN: You're saying is one was asking -- one was looking for help in doing something illegal taking someone's e-mails. The other one was investigating --</s>BEGALA: Opposition research to try to find out was Donald Trump compromised by the Russians. He is acting like he is.</s>BOLDUAN: How so wrong, Bryan?</s>LANZA: Well here, one was a simple question, like a vendor to the Trump campaign said hey, you know, Wikileaks, is there anything you can share. By the way, that's not a crime as I understand it. So, it's, you know, it's an optics problem for Cambridge Analytica, not necessarily an optics problem for the Trump campaign. But with the Clinton example is they actually hired, and they tried to hide the hiring of Fusion GPS. Now why do they try to hide that --</s>BOLDUAN: Well, wait, couldn't folks say the same, that the Trump campaign is trying to distance themselves from Cambridge Analytica is the same thing, like our hands aren't on this but they are.</s>LANZA: Not at all because I'll tell you what, the meetings never took place. Whereas with the Clinton campaigns, we know that direct payments went into, well -- went through a third-party vendor to hide the Fusion payment and Fusion itself has some Kremlin clients. I think that's been widely reported. The intelligence community sort of has an eye on this organization. So, I think you're looking at direct tie between the Kremlin --</s>BOLDUAN: A direct tie?</s>LANZA: Direct tie. Direct tie.</s>BOLDUAN: There you go.</s>LANZA: It's certainly closer than anything Democrats have been saying about the Trump campaign.</s>BEGALA: Our intelligence agencies, Bryan, as you know, have said that the kremlin, Mr. Putin, was trying to influence the election to favor Mr. Trump. What we don't know -- we know that. We know that to certainty according to our own national intelligence reports. What we don't know is whether the Trump campaign actively participated in that crime. That is the subject of a special prosecutor. So, you know, you can spin all you want and say this about Hillary, or that, that's not going to work in a grand jury.</s>LANZA: Absolutely it's going to work.</s>BEGALA: (Inaudible) the rest of these folks are all going to find themselves under oath and my free advice as a lawyer is they best not lie to the grand jury or they will go to prison. We will find out what happened and why the Trump campaign, Mr. Trump Jr. himself, Jared Kushner and the campaign chairman, were meeting on June 9th with people who they said were Russian agents bringing them dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Kremlin itself. Why were they doing that? Why was Donald Trump in that videotape that Kate showed us on July 27th, saying, hey, Russia please hack Hillary. Why now was Cambridge Analytica in touch --</s>BOLDUAN: One thing I think is important -- I'm cutting you off, Paul. One thing I do think is important is one person is a failed presidential candidate, the other one is the president right now. That is the difference in what we're discussing, and I think that's why there is maybe a difference in significance and important distinction as we have the conversation. But Brian, I want to talk about something else. Also happening right now, allies of Mitch McConnell are now talking -- taking on Steve Bannon. The Senate leadership fund has plans to fight back against Bannon in the primary battle and war against the establishment he said, that he has promised. I want to play for you Steven Law, the head of the McConnell-linked super PAC. Listen to this.</s>STEVEN LAW, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SENATE LEADERSHIP FUND: Our concern about Steve Bannon is really just limited to this, that is, that candidates who get wrapped around him will have to answer for his toxic views, things that he said, his associations with the Alt-Right when Democrats make him the star of their attack ads next fall.</s>BOLDUAN: So, buyer beware kind of a thing. Bryan, both sides of this are actually doing something interesting, which we are saying that other is not serving the best interest of the president as they look -- as we look towards these primaries, where do you land on this one?</s>LANZA: Well, I mean, I land with Steve Bannon and I find it actually disgusting to see that Republicans are picking up the Nancy Pelosi playbook of trying to demonize Steve Bannon. Why don't we have a debate about the free marketplace of ideas. I mean, that's where the direction this country lies. It doesn't lie on some third-party group attacking Steve Bannon. It lies on what the voters want and what they want at this current time, they want disruption, change, something coming out of Washington that's existed and that's the uphill battle. That Senator McConnell is he's been too much part of Washington and the Bannon's team have finally figured out how to neutralize the money advantage that McConnell had in the past in Alabama proved not to be an advantage. I'm running scared if I'm Mitch McConnell's team. I think the dynamics have changed on them significantly.</s>BOLDUAN: Paul, you know a thing or two about a super PAC. How do you think this plays out?</s>BEGALA: Well, I think it's amazing about this it's not about ideas. This is where Bryan is wrong. It's not that they have really different ideas. It's about character. If you look at what Jeff Flake said -- Senator Flake from Arizona, votes with the president 92 percent of the time. So, it's not actually about a policy change. They all agree that they want to screw the middle class and destroy Medicare -- but it's about character. That's really different. This could be a lot harder I think to fix. Democrats had a civil war 50 years ago about civil rights and the civil rights Democrats won, the racist Democrats were expelled from the party. That was about ideas and I think the good guys and gals won. This is not really about idea. This is about a president who many Republicans believe is dangerous to our democracy, those are Senator Flake's words not mine.</s>BOLDUAN: We will see where this goes. All right. Let's see. Bryan, great to see you. Paul, great to see you, kind of. Any moment now, House Speaker Paul Ryan will be answering reporters' questions on Capitol Hill. I think there's -- I think he might be taking a victory lap, but you don't want to speak too soon. They passed the budget by a slim margin. That's one step in the road to tax reform. It's all smooth sailing from here, right. We're going to bring you his comments live.