Dems Blast WH for Failing to Release Nunes Memo Rebuttal Now
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: As many as 40 White House administration officials still do not have full security clearances including the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner. And indeed Rob Porter who resigned last week as White House staff secretary. Well today Sarah Sanders said in fact well don't blame us.</s>SARAH SANDERS, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE: This is a process that doesn't operate within the White House. It's handled by our law enforcement and intelligence community. And we support that process. It's the same process that has been used for decades for other and previous administrations. And we are relying on that process at this point. I do think that it's up to that same law enforcement and intelligence agencies to determine if changes need to be made to their process.</s>COOPER: Keeping them honest that's not true. Justice correspondent Evan Perez joins me now with the facts. So, where did Sarah Sanders mislead us today, I mean how is the process really work?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, I mean that was truly astounding. The way it works is that the FBI does the background investigation on people who are applying for security clearances and that's what happened with the Rob Porter investigation. The White House chose to basically tell the FBI keep digging, keep investigating and they came back again and presented their findings to the White House. That is how the process works. The White House decides who gets a security clearance and that's happened here with the Rob Porter investigation the FBI found this information very quickly. And so we're doing that investigation, they reported that to the White House as they were doing it. And the White House chose to basically tell the FBI keep digging, keep investigating, and then they came back again and presented their findings to the -- to the White House. That is how the process works. The White House decides who gets the security clearance base on the investigation that the FBI does, they provide the raw information but it's really up to the President to decide who he wants on his team at the White House Anderson. I mean the, you know, the President is frankly the ultimate classification authority, he is the ultimate authority on who gets security clearances. If he wants to have Rob Porter get a security clearance, he can do that. What's astounding today was simply that, you know, they were basically saying this is not us. You know, they were taking no ownership of what really is the function of the White House, the White House counsels office, the White House security office. These are the people who would decide based on what the FBI found whether or not Rob Porter or anybody else gets a security clearance. It's just not true the way she said it. The FBI addressed this last week by the way, they issued a statement on Thursday and I'll read part of it to you. Says the FBI, "does not grant deny or otherwise adjudicate security clearances for individuals on behalf of these agencies nor does it make any security clearance recommendations after the FBI has completed background information, it provides the information to the agency adjudicator authority who determines whether to grant or deny security clearance". That's plain simple the way the process works. This is a White House responsibility, Anderson.</s>COOPER: Amazing. Evan, thanks very much. California Democrat Jackie Speier is a member of the House Intelligence Community, I spoke to her earlier.</s>COOPER: Congresswoman, for Sarah Sanders to suggest that this investigation is ongoing, I mean that just defies how these FBI investigations work. The FBI passed along what they discovered about Rob Porter and it's left in the White House hands. When you heard her claim it is still a ongoing process, I mean does that make sense to you?</s>REP. JACKIE SPEIER, (D) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: No it makes no sense to me. When the FBI does a security clearance evaluation, it is completed and handed over to the agency and the individual either gets the security clearance or doesn't get the security clearance. They're tripping all over themselves because they had knowledge and chose not to act on it. And then because it came out in a news paper, they then had to scurry around and come up with some alibi.</s>COOPER: What do you think it says about this White House? A, that this happened initially, and kept this man on, but also now that they seem to target to covering it up.</s>SPEIER: It would suggest to me and I think to most Americans that this is a White House that doesn't believe the rules apply to them. They have another 30 or 40 persons in the White House right now who have not received security clearances and are operating on what is called the temporary security clearance. So they have access that some of the most highly classified information, are targets potentially for, you know, any number of blackmail and other circumstances.</s>COOPER: I mean, Jared Kushner being one of those people.</s>SPEIER: And I would say that has a lot to do with it. That's why they're not acting on the 30 or 40 other ones because Jared Kushner can't pass a security clearance and he's been operating on a temporary security clearance. I think what they're going to do is just have everyone continue to have access and have temporary security clearances. And at some point Congress is going to have to step in and say you are violating the law.</s>COOPER: I want to ask you about the tweet that the President send over the weekend, where he said, people lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accuse, life and career are gone, is there no such thing any longer as do you process. I wonder what your reaction to that? I mean is their a difference between due process and believing someone who says they've been abuse?</s>SPEIER: You know, I was furious by that tweet, Anderson, and I think that virtually anyone men or women who sees the testimony and the photographs of the former wives and the former live-in girlfriend of Mr. Porter, there is a pattern of behavior here that is frightening and yet the President doesn't say one word, not one word about the lives that have been scarred by the actions of Mr. Porter. And is totally focused on the abuser. One of his ex-wives got a restraining order against him. So there is plenty of evidence.</s>COOPER: Regarding the Democratic response memo, what is the status of it now, can you say?</s>SPEIER: So the status of the memo is that the FBI and the Department of Justice now are going to meet with the minority members of the committee and particularly Adam Schiff is the ranking member. And the chairman what if any has to be redacted. Ironically, the President issued the memo and redacted nothing and yet there were sources and methods that were actually made public.</s>COOPER: So you're saying in the Republican memo, there actually were sources and methods, so the White House was paying attention -- they say they're paying attention to, you know, the FBI when it comes to Democratic memo. You're saying they didn't pay attention the FBI on the Republican one.</s>SPEIER: On the Republican one, you know, the FBI and the Department of Justice both said they had grave concerns that this was reckless action to make this memo public and release what is and in fact classified information. The President before even reading it said that he was going to release it. So -- I mean this has been a political process from the very beginning. The President have been tweets I'm vindicated because he thought this was going to be his silver bullet. That somehow the investigation would come crumbling down because of this, you know, memo that everyone basically said after every</s>COOPER: Congresswoman Speier, I appreciate your time. Thank you.</s>SPEIER: Thank you.</s>COOPER: Just ahead, what some female supporters the President Trump, think about his comments defending Porter, Randi Kaye finds out. And as Republicans reveal their immigration plan. Will the President get his wall in exchange for deal in DACA? I'll talk to Univision's Jorge Ramos about that.