Trump's Shifting Timeline on Comey Firing
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for being with me on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Let's get to it. The president has just left, Air Force One wheels up there at Joint Base Andrews on his way for this first overseas trip. But he is carrying some heavy baggage, his frustration over the appointment of a special counsel to investigate if his campaign had any ties to Russia, new revelations in the timeline and perhaps reasoning behind the president's decision to fire James Comey, the now former FBI director. Today, you had the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, telling House members he knew it was going to happen, it being the firing, a full day before he wrote that letter of recommendation. Remember, this letter was sent to the president to highlight James Comey's behavior and recommend new leadership. Today, Rosenstein refused to answer questions on who specifically asked him to write the letter. With me now, CNN political director David Chalian. David Chalian, if he knew that Comey was going to be fired before writing the memo, why write the memo?</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, remember, there was a meeting that we have previously reported on with Rosenstein and Sessions and the president before that final decision was made. And so it's not terribly surprising, I guess, that Rosenstein knew beforehand. Here's the discrepancy. This is what is so odd of where we are right now, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>CHALIAN: You will recall that, initially, after the firing, everything that the White House did was sort of hanging on this Rod Rosenstein memo. But then the president completely walked away from that, told NBC News, no, no, no, I was going to fire Comey regardless of the memo. That was after we had learned that Rosenstein, according to sources, was not very happy with the way that the rollout of the Comey firing went and that everything was sort of being hung on him. And so then all of a sudden the White House changed its tune and went to, you know, the president said he knew regardless of the memo that he was going to fire Comey, and, remember, said in that same interview that Russia was on his mind when thinking about it. Why are we now back, after the president's press conference yesterday...</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>CHALIAN: ... with Rosenstein on the Hill to the original explanation, which, by the way, nobody was buying, that this was all about Comey's poor treatment of the Hillary Clinton investigation?</s>BALDWIN: OK. With everything you have just said, and add on several layers of complications and stories swirling in Washington, you have now the president up in the air heading first to Saudi Arabia. David Chalian, is this trip coming at exactly the right moment for him or exactly the worst time?</s>CHALIAN: It depends on how the trip goes. If it goes well, it's at the right moment. If there are problems on this trip that expose either, you know, some lack of preparation or lack of competence or what have you, that could dangerously feed a narrative that's out there. But just watching the images, as you showed them, of Air Force One taking off, of him crossing the tarmac with the first lady to board the plane, it struck me watching that like, wow, we haven't seen President Trump be sort of operating in the traditional visuals of the presidency because of all of this controversy around the firing of Comey and the rationale and whether or not he shared intelligence and pictures with Russians in the Oval Office. And all of a sudden, you look at this, you're like, wow, this is an opportunity for him to try, at least from a day-to-day messaging perspective, to get the presidency back on course, because it clearly has left their control in terms of day-to-day messaging. And this does open that opportunity to try to put forth some proactive messaging that they want to get out there about their world agenda.</s>BALDWIN: Looking presidential, meeting with these foreign leaders overseas.</s>CHALIAN: Exactly.</s>BALDWIN: If it goes well, to your point. Mr. Chalian, thank you very much.</s>CHALIAN: Thanks, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Let me bring in -- thank you. Let me bring in a couple more voices, including someone who has worked alongside Robert Mueller at the FBI. Michael Zeldin is a former independent counsel and federal prosecutor. And also with me, CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. So, gentlemen, good to see both of you. And, Michael, let me just begin with you sort of on the same question I posed to David Chalian and his whole point about this like alternating narrative between the Comey firing was because of the Rosenstein memo and then not because of the Rosenstein memo and then back because of the Rosenstein memo. Let me read a piece of this. This is from the DOJ. This is part of Rosenstein's statement -- quote -- "My memorandum is not a statement of reasons to justify a for-cause termination. My memorandum is not a survey of FBI morale or performance." So, was it written to justify the president's actions, or what?</s>MICHAEL ZELDIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: So, exactly. My question to you, essentially, was, so then what is it?</s>BALDWIN: Right.</s>ZELDIN: If it's written just a chronology of things, complaints about the Comey press conferences and treatment of Hillary Clinton for the historical record of it, fine. But it was used to be the pretext for the firing. Then, as David said, it was not the pretext. And now it's really hard to understand, why would you write that memo knowing that the president is going to fire Director Comey? It seems like it gives cover to something that didn't really need to be part of Rosenstein's mandate. The thing also that you touched upon in the earlier segment when you were talking with the Ben Wittes interview...</s>BALDWIN: Right.</s>ZELDIN: ... remember, Comey says about Rosenstein, he was a survivor, meaning that he's been in the department a really long time under Republican and Democratic administrations. And in order to do that, Comey says...</s>BALDWIN: Compromising.</s>ZELDIN: ... or implies, you make compromises. And so you wonder whether this is the exact type of example that Comey was alluding to in his Wittes conversation, that this guy will do things that are compromising that he, Comey, might not do, which he, Comey, felt uncomfortable about.</s>BALDWIN: Point taken, as his point was Comey -- or Rosenstein has worked under the Bush administration, Obama and now confirmed for Trump. Paul Callan, you have an interesting theory, that simply the president is acting as he would in the private business sector.</s>PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. The more I have thought about this, in the private sector, if you don't like somebody and you want to fire them...</s>BALDWIN: You have made up your mind.</s>CALLAN: You're going to fire them, and now you have to have a reason to justify it so you don't get sued later on. So you call in the H.R. department and you say, take a look at his record. I want to know if I have got grounds to fire him, if there's something there that would justify it. You may call your lawyer in to say, would there be any danger in firing him? And the other example that I thought of, Trump is running the White House like he did with the set of the celebrity. Remember about people get fired...</s>BALDWIN: "The Apprentice"?</s>ZELDIN: "The Apprentice." Remember about people get fired on "The Apprentice"? He will go around the table asking one person to criticize another in how they sold the product or displayed the product, in much the same way he went to Rosenstein and said, I want you to give me reasons, problems that have to do with Comey. Maybe he doesn't tell him, I'm going to use those reasons to fire Comey. And like a good lawyer, Rosenstein goes back and he drafts a memo of the problems that he has seen. And all of that, then, is used by Trump to justify the firing.</s>BALDWIN: Sure. Maybe that is a piece of it. And I'm actually being told -- hold on just a second, Paul Callan. And, Michael, as well, stand by, because we are getting some breaking news here. Sorry to cut that conversation short. But now we have "The New York Times" reporting that President Trump told the Russians one day after firing James Comey that removing the FBI director would take the pressure off involving the investigation over possible campaign ties to Russia. He has also apparently, according to this paper, referred to Comey -- and I quote -- as a nut job. We're going to talk about that. We will be right back.