Interview With Florida Congressman Ted Deutch; Former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen Set to Testify Before Congress; Trump Visits Border on Day 20 of Shutdown Over Wall.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Trump's former fixer and lawyer agrees to appear before Congress and publicly give answers to the American people. How damaging could Michael Cohen's testimony be to the president he turned against? Keeping it secret. The White House's lawyering up before the release of Robert Mueller's report, exploring claims of executive privilege to try to hide big chunks of the special counsel's finding. Would the strategy work? And basis for obstruction. We're also learning that Mueller's team is focusing in on Mr. Trump's conflicting public statements, including his tweets that could be seen as part of an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice. Stand by for the exclusive details. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in</s>THE SITUATION ROOM. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BLITZER: We're following a lot of breaking news right now. President Trump is on his way back to Washington from the southern border, a trip that did nothing to end the 20-day-old government shutdown. He now seems poised to declare a national emergency to get the wall funding he's been demanding. The White House already is prepping a legal defense of the move, as we have learned that Mr. Trump rejected a compromise proposal by a small group of Republicans. Also breaking, the former fixer who knows many of Mr. Trump's secrets is now set to testify in public. Michael Cohen has agreed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on February 7, this as we're told the White House is gearing up for a fight to block the release of some or all of Robert Mueller's final report, hiring 17 new lawyers to help pursue potential claims of executive privilege. This hour, I will talk with the new House Ethics Committee chairman, Ted Deutch, and our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. First, let's go to our chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. He is in Texas. He's at the border with Mexico, where Mr. Trump visited today. Jim, there's no movement apparently on the shutdown. But we heard all sorts of wild statements from the president.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. No movement on the shutdown and no movement where we are on the border. It's almost tranquil and quiet where we're standing right here on the border with Mexico. The president went down to the border earlier today to get a look at the situation down here. He declared that the nation is under attack on the border. But that is only one of many misleading statements he's made throughout the day, as he's in hot pursuit of that wall.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): With an end to the government shutdown nowhere in sight, President Trump took his quest for a wall down to the Texas border, where he claimed the nation is under attack.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we had a barrier of any kind, a powerful barrier, whether it's steel or concrete, we would stop that cold. We're certainly under attack by criminal gangs, by criminals themselves, by the human traffickers and by drugs of all kinds. Much of it comes through the southern border.</s>ACOSTA: But during a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials, Mr. Trump was told some border crossers have been digging tunnels under areas where walls are already in place.</s>MELISSA LUCIO, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: Here, this is just a couple of miles from here, from where we're standing. This is a tunnel. This is the second tunnel that -- recently that we have located. This is an area that we actually have wall.</s>ACOSTA: The president is also trying to rewrite history, clarifying what he meant during the campaign.</s>TRUMP: I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Who's going to pay for the wall?</s>AUDIENCE: Mexico!</s>TRUMP: Who's going to pay for the wall?</s>AUDIENCE: Mexico!</s>TRUMP: When I say Mexico is going to pay for the wall, that's what I mean. Mexico's paying for the wall. And I didn't mean, please write me a check. I mean, very simply, they're paying for it in the trade deal.</s>ACOSTA: But that's not true. Before the election, his campaign released various proposals to force Mexico to fund the wall, stating: "It's an easy decision for Mexico. Make a one-time payment of $5 billion to $10 billion." As he was leaving for the border, the president revealed that White House lawyers have told him he could declare a state of emergency to have the military build his wall, an action that would likely be challenged in the courts.</s>TRUMP: I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency. The lawyers have so advised me. I'm not prepared to do that yet. But if I have to, I will. I have no doubt about it. I will.</s>ACOSTA: The president is trying to have it both ways, insisting the situation at the border is an emergency, while also claiming it's a crisis that started before he came into office.</s>TRUMP: Oh, it began a long time. Ask President Obama. Obama used to call it a crisis at the border too. I think he said it in 2014. Look, look, you can all play cute.</s>ACOSTA: Part of the reason for the president's frustration is that he can't seem to convince Democrats to agree to a wall. But reflecting on his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the president argued he wasn't losing his cool.</s>TRUMP: I very calmly said, "If you're not going to give us strong borders, bye-bye," and I left. I didn't rant. I didn't rave, like you reported, like some of the newspapers. And then Schumer always has his standard line, he had a separate dead. I don't have temper tantrums. I really don't.</s>ACOSTA: Still, he said he would rather deal with China than with the Democrats.</s>TRUMP: I find China, frankly, in many ways to be far more honorable than crying Chuck and Nancy Pelosi. I really do. I think that China is actually much easier to deal with than the opposition party.</s>ACOSTA: Even though it's the president who once said he would be proud to own the shutdown, he is now offering his own take on Harry Truman's famous catchphrase, "The buck stops here."</s>TRUMP: The buck stops with everybody. They could solve this problem in literally 15 minutes.</s>ACOSTA: And, Wolf, oddly enough, the president chose one of the most secure communities in the country to make his pitch for the border wall. Here we are in McAllen, Texas, which has been consistently ranked one of the safest cities in the country. And it's one of the safest cities in the country and the people feel safe here, despite the fact that they have kind of a hodgepodge of barriers between the U.S. and Mexico. Yes, you can see some of these steel slats behind me, the kind that the president likes to talk about from time to time, but that's right next to a chain-link fence. And if you go to other portions of the border here between McAllen and Mexico, there is almost no fencing or levees or a variety of different types of fencing. And yet the people have been telling us all day long here, Wolf, they feel very secure in this community. And, by the way, they have also told us they'd like to see the federal government get back to work -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, Jim Acosta in McAllen, Texas, for us, thank you. Now let's get the latest on the shutdown standoff. Our congressional correspondent, Phil Mattingly, he's up on Capitol Hill. Phil, a Republican compromise proposal appears now dead. You have some new information. What are you learning?</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. And the lead senator behind that compromise with that now having imploded is now calling on the president to invoke emergency powers. He says, Lindsey Graham, the senator who is leading these negotiations, it is time for President Trump to use emergency powers to fund construction of a border wall. The reason that those deals or that negotiation fell apart was actually, according to two individuals close to the process, the president. I'm told that the skeleton deal that had been put together by a small group of Republican senators -- they started meeting last night and continued meeting today -- they met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- they presented to Vice President Mike Pence -- was rejected by the president because that deal would have in the near term reopened the government, as congressional committees worked through a deal that would have provided the president money for the border wall in exchange for temporary protections for DACA recipients. The president decided, according to these sources, that that would not work, given the fact that reopening the government immediately might mean he might not get a deal in the end. How did Graham respond to that a few hours ago? Take a listen.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I have never been more depressed about moving forward than I am right now. I just don't see a pathway forward. Somebody has got to, like, get some energy to fix this.</s>MATTINGLY: And with that in mind, Graham coming out later tonight with a statement saying that the president needs to act unilaterally, act on his own. And I can tell you, Wolf, from talking to Republican aides up here, that is the expectation that that is eventually coming. And the reason why is, there simply nothing else on the table. There are no negotiations. There are no proposals being traded. There are no new meetings scheduled. The Senate is not expected to have any more votes for the rest of this week. Most senators already on airplanes home to their home states. The reality on Capitol Hill is the impasse is real. The impasse at this point seems borderline permanent and there is no clear legislative way out. Now, Wolf, House Democrats have continued to pass individual appropriations bills, trying to amp up pressure on Senate Republicans and House Republicans to try and reopen the government. Senate Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to make clear, if President Trump does not sign off on a proposal, he is not willing to bring it to the Senate floor. President Trump has very clearly rejected where Democrats stand on this, both their individual proposals and their broader proposal to reopen the government and continue negotiations on border security in the days and weeks ahead. And because of that, the stalemate continues. Because of that, one of the president's top allies, one of the senators who was trying to figure out a last-gasp Hail Mary-ish deal to save and reopen the government, he has now decided the president needs to act unilaterally, there's nothing else that will -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes. And let's not forget 800,000 federal employees won't be getting a paycheck tomorrow; 800,000 individuals and their families will suffer. Phil Mattingly up on Capitol Hill, thanks very much. Let's turn to multiple breaking stories in the Russia investigation right now, including what's likely to be bombshell public testimony by the president's longtime lawyer and fix, Michael Cohen. I want to bring in our senior White House correspondent, Pamela Brown, and our CNN crime and justice reporter, Shimon Prokupecz. Shimon, as we know Cohen, he will testify next month before the House Oversight Committee. He has flipped on the president. He's already pleaded guilty to various charges, going to begin a three-year prison sentence in March. How damaging could this public testimony be for the president?</s>SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I think, given everything that we already know about what Michael Cohen has said in court, has told the Department of Justice about the president's involvement in the payments of the hush money, how he was directed by the president, how the president was part of the decision-making in how the money was going to be paid, it's going to be a big problem for the president. And they for certain know this. They knew that he would be a problem going along. So this is going to be a monumental day, I think, for this White House, for this investigation in terms of what Michael Cohen is going to say. But it's not going to be limited, as we now know, by just what his involvement in the hush payment, Michael Cohen's involvement. We just learned that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has cleared him to testify. So that means that opens the door to all sorts of questions about Russia, the Moscow project, whether or not anyone in the White House directed Michael Cohen to lie to members of Congress. There's been some indications that people at the White House knew what Michael Cohen was going to tell members of Congress. Did anyone at the White House approve of this? Did they say, yes, go ahead, go ahead, it's OK? That's going to be a big part of this here and now as well. So it seems like nothing's off the table and that the Department of Justice and that Robert Mueller have cleared Michael Cohen to go ahead and say whatever it is that he's going to say. The other thing to keep in mind is that Michael Cohen can use this testimony to try and get more leniency for his jail sentence. He could go to a judge and say, I have cooperated with members of Congress, I have given them credible information, I'm hoping that you can give me less than three years. There is a chance that that can happen. This hearing is -- takes place about a month before he is set to report to prison. So he will have a month to work with the judge in New York to try and get his sentence even further...</s>BLITZER: February 7, he testifies. March 6, he's supposed to begin his three-year prison sentence. A lot of people have said potentially -- and I'm anxious to get your thoughts, Shimon -- this could be like when John Dean testified before Congress. We know how that -- the fallout from that, what happened to the then president of the United States, Richard Nixon.</s>PROKUPECZ: It's certainly the first thing that came to my mind. We have not had a time like this really since then, probably. The last time someone so significant in this investigation testified was James Comey. And you remember all the attention that he received. But this is so much bigger, because this -- what Michael Cohen represents goes back years, his relationship with the president, the president's business dealings, the family's business dealings. He knows a lot about Russia. He knows a lot about payments, other payments perhaps. But the key thing here is the cover-up, in terms of the cover-up of the payments, the cover-up of the contacts with Russia, the cover-up of the Moscow project. That is central to this entire investigation and what members of Congress are going to want to know about it, because that goes to the obstruction issue. And that is where the members of Congress can be key in perhaps impeachment hearings.</s>BLITZER: Pamela, you have some new reporting on the White House legal team gearing up potentially for this Mueller report and the ramifications that could bring.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Wolf. All indications are pointing to the special counsel nearing the end in the next few months. This is setting the stage for a new political and legal fight over the findings and who gets to see them.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Tonight, President Trump won't say whether he wants Robert Mueller's report on the Russia probe to be made public.</s>QUESTION: The special counsel's final report, do you want that to be made public?</s>TRUMP: We will have to see. There's been no collusion whatsoever. We will have to see.</s>BROWN: The president's remarks come after CNN has learned that the White House Counsel Office, under the new direction of Pat Cipollone, is gearing up for a fight to keep the report private by adding 17 more lawyers to its team. Trump's legal team is preparing to argue that a large portion of the information in Mueller's investigation should be protected by executive privilege, leaving only a heavily redacted version of the report to be released to the public. But Democrats are vowing to use their new power in the House to release it.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm prepared to make sure we do everything possible so that the public has the advantage of as much of the information as it can.</s>BROWN: And as we await the release of the Mueller report, today, CNN has learned that Mueller interviewed Trump's campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio. The revelation comes after it was revealed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared polling data with Russian national Konstantin Kilimnik, who prosecutors say has ties to the same Russian military intelligence unit that hacked the Democratic Party during the 2016 campaign. It's coordination between the campaign and the Russians that the Mueller team has been looking for. Today, the president said he had no knowledge of the information-sharing.</s>QUESTION: Did you know that Paul Manafort was sharing polling data from your campaign with the Russians?</s>TRUMP: No, I didn't know anything about it. Nothing about it.</s>BROWN: With Kilimnik as the go-between, Manafort's spokesman claims the data was ultimately intended for two powerful pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs who owed Manafort millions. And, tonight, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Capitol Hill facing tough questions from House lawmakers on the department's decision to ease sanctions on companies tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It was one of the worst classified briefings we have received from the Trump administration. The secretary barely testified.</s>BROWN: In a statement, Mnuchin defended his decision, stating that these companies were -- quote -- "undergoing significant restructuring and governance changes that sever Deripaska's control and significantly diminish his ownership." Democrats are now mulling over whether to formally push back against the sanctions relief for the Russian companies that was announced last month.</s>BROWN: And one of those oligarchs denies requesting or receiving polling data from Manafort. But the revelations raise questions about why Manafort shared that sensitive internal data from the campaign with pro-Russian Ukrainians -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: You're also getting some significant information, Pamela, that the president's lawyers are concerned that his public statements over the past year or two, his tweets, his various lies could be used by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his team potentially as evidence of obstruction of justice or witness tampering.</s>BROWN: Yes, that's right, Wolf. We have learned investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by President Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice, according to multiple people familiar with this investigation. And the line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice. And that could set up a potential flash point with the White House and the Trump legal team, should that become part of any final report from the Mueller investigation. Now, Mueller's team has provided hints that it's interested in public statements as part of the obstruction probe. You may recall court filings from the plea of Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer, included allegations related to false public statements. That's not usually considered illegal, since they aren't made directly to investigators. But what's clear is that Robert Mueller's interested in it as part of the obstruction probe.</s>BLITZER: Could be used potentially as evidence if they go forward in that area. Pamela, Shimon, guys, thanks very, very much. Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch. He's the chairman of the -- the new chairman of the House Ethics Committee. He also serves on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. He's a very busy guy. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.</s>REP. TED DEUTCH (D), FLORIDA: Good to be with you, Wolf. Thanks.</s>BLITZER: Let's begin with latest news in the Russia probe. And you have been hearing our reporters tell us about that. The president and his attorneys might be preparing to assert executive privilege, in an attempt to block Mueller's report. If the White House were to do so, were to pursue that kind of a strategy, how should your party, the Democratic majority in the House, respond?</s>DEUTCH: Well, first of all, Wolf, there is -- there are safeguards in place to make sure that the president can't cover up this entire report. But think about what he's suggesting. There's no executive privilege over presidential deliberations with respect to possible obstruction of justice, no executive privilege to hide potential witness tampering or the potential cover-up of the commission of a federal crime in order to get elected president of the United States. So what we're going to do is to make sure that the president and his lawyers, however many lawyers there are, can't be allowed to proceed with arguments that aren't permitted by law, and we will continue to stand by that.</s>BLITZER: The president's former personal attorney Michael Cohen will be testifying in public up on Capitol Hill next month. Cohen is scheduled to report to federal prison on March 7, after pleading guilty to multiple federal crimes, including lying to Congress. Do you think his testimony will be credible, given his criminal history?</s>DEUTCH: Well, I think it's a really important moment to have Michael Cohen come to testify, after we have seen the past -- over the past two years the Republican leadership, when they were in charge of the House committees, refusing to hold oversight hearings. We now have the opportunity. We will have the opportunity to question Michael Cohen, who is the president's cover-up lawyer. That's the role that he has played for Donald Trump. Remember, Wolf, Michael Cohen is the person that worked with the president, who potentially is an unindicted co-conspirator, in a case to commit a felony violation of campaign law in order to be elected president of the United States. There is an awful lot that Michael Cohen will have to tell us. Obviously ,you always judge the credibility of witnesses. I'm glad that we're going to have the opportunity to ask him some very pointed questions about what the president did right before the election, covering -- potentially covering up a felony in order to be elected, and all of the ways that Michael Cohen might have been involved in the more than 100 connections that exist between the president and Russia. There's a lot for us to learn.</s>BLITZER: When you say 100, 100 connections, elaborate. What do you mean?</s>DEUTCH: Well, if you look -- remember, you go back to the discussion that the president -- the statements that the president made at the very beginning, that there were no contacts between anyone having to do with him and Russia, and you now go through what we have already learned. You look at the little that we do know from Mueller, you look at Manafort, and you look at the meeting that took place in Trump Tower, and on and on. And what's clear is that there have been meetings. What's unclear to us is how much the president may have known about, for example, Paul Manafort trying to get sensitive campaign data to someone who can transmit it to Russian officials. We don't know that. Those are the kinds of questions that we are going to ask Michael Cohen. Those are the kinds of questions, frankly, that the Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, the Intel Committee, all of us, working side by side, will finally try to get to ask the questions to get to the truth, even as we wait for Mueller to complete his investigation as well.</s>BLITZER: Let's turn to the government shutdown. Congressman, the Trump administration is exploring declaring a national emergency, using billions of dollars in what they describe as unspent Defense Department disaster recovery funding to construct a border wall. How should Democrats respond?</s>DEUTCH: Well, let's start with this, Wolf. Unspent -- they use these bureaucratic terms. The president wants to take billions of dollars earmarked for recovery from storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. He wants to take that money and use it to fulfill a campaign promise that has nothing to do with national security. There is something serious that's happening in our country right now. As you pointed out earlier, 800,000 federal workers will not be paid, many of them in the national security area. They work for the DEA. They work for CBP. They work for Secret Service. They work for TSA. These are people who keep us safe. And because the president shut down the government in order to fulfill a campaign promise, which he's not going to be able to do -- he's already failed on the first part, when he told us Mexico was going to pay for a wall. When he shut that down, he's wreaking havoc on the lives, not just of those 800,000, Wolf, but the contractors whose pay will never be made up, and for all of the loved ones of those 800,000, and ultimately so many others, whether it's -- whether it's people who will suffer because the FDA can't conduct food inspections, or the tens of millions of Americans who are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits if this goes on much longer. The president likes to talk about how he's done more in all these areas, he's been the best president, he's accomplished things that no other president has accomplished. He lies about that all the time. In this instance, he will take credit, he has taken credit, and will have to own the longest shutdown in federal government -- in the history of the federal government that he proudly announced he wanted to achieve.</s>BLITZER: Congressman Ted Deutch, thanks so much for joining us.</s>DEUTCH: Thanks for having me, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, just ahead, we're going to break down all the risks to President Trump right now, as Michael Cohen is set to testify before Congress and Robert Mueller prepares to release his final report. Our senior legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, he is standing by live.