Middle East Nations Cut Ties with Qatar Over Terrorism Fears
BERMAN: All right, we have live pictures from Orlando, Florida. We're expecting a press conference very shortly from the sheriff of Orange County there. There's been a shooting at a workplace. We are told there were multiple fatalities. That is all the information we have right now. We don't know the name of this office. We don't know how many people were killed. We are told the situation at this time is currently stable. And again we're minutes away from getting much more information from the sheriffs there. We'll bring you that news conference when it happens. In the meantime, a huge story coming out of the Middle East, a diplomatic crisis there, the likes of which we have not seen for some time. Six countries have cut off ties with the key U.S. ally of Qatar. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE, the Maldives and Yemen, all accuses Qatar of supporting terrorism. Now this morning Qatar is pushing back, calling the accusation unjustified and a fabrication. This move comes after the president was in Saudi Arabia speaking to leaders from all the Gulf nations, calling on all of them to crack down on terrorism, to work together to crack down on terrorism. That seems less likely this morning after this series of events. Joining me now, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. These countries are of huge significance, Barbara, to the United States.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: They are, John, and a huge significance to the United States military especially operating in the Middle East. This is posing a dilemma for the military to try and figure out very quickly what this all means for U.S. military operations, especially in the fight against ISIS because the U.S. bases a good deal of its capability in Qatar. They operate at that large air base known as Al Udeid. They run an operations center out of there that coordinates all the combat air operations across in the region in the fight against ISIS. None of this is being seen as anti-U.S., but still, you know, no one knows what the next steps may be here diplomatically that could make it more difficult for the U.S. to operate in Qatar. The secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, talking about the need for everybody to take a deep breath and sit down and talk about it a little earlier today. Here's what he had to say.</s>REX TILLERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think what we're witnessing is a growing list of some irritants in the region that have been there for some time. And obviously they have now bubbled up to a level that the countries decided they needed to take action in an effort to have those differences addressed. We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences.</s>STARR: But these differences, what are they? This is really the key to the whole thing. Many of these countries in the Gulf simply feel that Qatar, as much as it is a U.S. ally, is not doing enough in the fight against terrorism and is a little bit closer to Iran than these other Gulf countries want anybody in the region to be. There's a lot of anti-Iranian feeling across the Gulf allies. They are pressing Qatar very hard to distance itself from Iran, and that brings us back full circle, because of course President Trump, the secretary of state, and secretary of defense Jim Mattis have been very much in the region trying to press to get Iran to back off its terrorist agenda, to back off its support for terrorism, so it's going to be a bit difficult to criticize these nations when they are saying they're trying to make the effort to pressure Iran as well -- John.</s>BERMAN: And again, with the U.S. military assets in Qatar, you know, fascinating to see what will happen to the flight, the takeoff and the war on terror in Syria and Iraq from Qatar. Do we have any sense that U.S. operations will be at all affected there, Barbara?</s>STARR: Well, you know, it's very early on. And we spoke to military officials early this morning and they acknowledged, they're still trying to figure all of this out. It's not anti-U.S., so they don't feel like they're going to get booted out of anywhere, but this is a network of U.S. operations across the region that really are intertwined. So if you can't really readily operate out of one place, let's say one of these countries says, no, you cannot land a military flight in our country because it's coming from Qatar, then you have to begin to rearrange things. Could the U.S. rebase everything somewhere else? Yes, of course it could, but this is going to be a complication unless this all gets sorted out and everybody understands exactly what it all means for the U.S. military and by all accounts right now they are not there yet -- John.</s>BERMAN: All right, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us. Thanks so much. Want to bring CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano, and former CIA analyst Nada Bakos. You know, Nada, again, if people woke up this morning and saw that Gulf nations in the Middle East have broken ties with Qatar, I'm not sure necessarily it would have alarmed them right away but it should. I mean, this is an area of really intense and meaningful U.S. interests right now. How do you see it?</s>NADA BAKOS, FORMER CIA ANALYST: I agree with what Barbara was talking about with the U.S. base. I mean, this is a major base of operations for the United States. Yet to determine what that means as far as that asset, but at this point, I think Secretary Tillerson is on the right path, that he needs to encourage these countries to sit down and start talking this out. This is something that has been brewing, but this is something that needs a whole-of-region approach from the Trump administration. I think it could be perceived by Qatar that, you know, with Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia, that there was a signaling that this was OK for them to do. I think at this point, the Trump administration really does need to get involved in trying to broker some of these conversations so that we can secure our own assets, including the military base in Qatar.</s>BERMAN: James Gagliano, you know, you worked in the FBI obviously on the line here in the fight against terrorism. How key is it to have a unified front amongst these nations there?</s>JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Absolutely. I think from the diplomatic perspective, when you're in the business of building coalitions, and right now the coalition we're trying to build is the fight against ISIS, you need all those nations to line up. And any fracture or fissure in that is definitely, John, going to cause problems.</s>BERMAN: And this is a huge fissure. This is no minor fissure. This is cutting off relations. You know, it's really a big deal and very unknown territory where we're getting into here. James, if I can shift gears here to FBI director James Comey testifying on Thursday. Obviously, you worked in the FBI. You know, as a former FBI agent, what do you think it is that James Comey wants to clear up in this public testimony?</s>GAGLIANO: John, I think, first of all, this is going to be a week of high theater. We're three days out from his testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The last time we saw James Comey in front of Congress was the day before he was fired, May 8th. And in that testimony, I've gone back and listened to that and read the transcripts, he's kind of boxed himself in. He answered questions specifically about whether he felt that there were any pressure on -- put on by the Trump administration to stand down the Russian investigation, or any depletion of resources and he answered unequivocally no. The FBI director's got to deal with that. There are also some records that were kept, they've been referred to as memos. They're actually electronic communications. Those could be subpoenaed. It's going to be interesting to see how far this goes in a public forum because I believe much of this is going to happen behind closed doors in executive session.</s>BERMAN: Although you do get the sense he wants to get some things off his chest, he wants to go public with information in a way maybe not to defend his firing, but to defend himself against claims by the president himself about the nature of the conversations, where the president has tweeted that James Comey told him that the investigation -- he was not being investigated.</s>GAGLIANO: John, no doubt about it, this has become personal. Now I know from hearing James Comey over the almost four years that he was the FBI director constantly speak to this -- he has put the institution of the FBI up front and said he is looking to protect that. That means he will testify honestly and openly, and he's a private citizen, so it's going to be interesting to see how this invocation of executive privilege is going to work because he doesn't work for the government anymore.</s>BERMAN: Well, we don't know that the White House will try to go down the executive privilege route. "The New York Times" is reporting they're leaning against it. It would be surprising at this point if they try to do it. Nada, aside from James Comey, there is a lot of smoke or there's a lot of interest, I should say, concerning the meeting that Jared Kushner had with a Russian banker. Now I think people will say, hey, he was meeting with a banker, what's the big deal here? But we're talking about a Russian bank that's not just a bank. Explain.</s>BAKOS: Part of it is, is that he didn't have all the necessary disclosures when he went to apply for his security clearance, so it's not just that he was just meeting with a banker. And again, as you said, this isn't just a typical bank. I mean, this bank is also involved in a lot of Russian government operations, so they're working with, you know, quasi arm, or, you know, working with some funding mechanisms. But you know, at this point, when you're seeing national security disclosure forms when you're applying for a security clearance, you have to put down all of the foreign contacts that you've had, and that would be a significant one that I would think would be forefront in his mind. Russia is not one of our top five allies. This would be something that you would, you know, foresee as being a problem if you didn't disclose this. So I think that in and of itself is problematic.</s>BERMAN: You know, if you ever filled out a form and left that off, Nada, would you get in trouble?</s>BAKOS: Absolutely. I cannot imagine maintaining my clearance at that point.</s>BERMAN: James Gagliano, if you misreported on a form, would you get in trouble?</s>GAGLIANO: I think if it can be proven. Again, the issue here is going to be intent, and that's going to be difficult to discern. But I would say, yes, as a government employee, that would be something that would be fraught with peril.</s>BERMAN: All right, James Gagliano, Nada -- Nada Bakos, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it. Again, that testimony from James Comey scheduled for Thursday beginning at 10:00 a.m. CNN's special coverage begins at 9:00 a.m. All right, the NBA Finals heading back to Cleveland and Cleveland finds itself in a 2-0 hole. LeBron James not happy about it. We'll hear from him in the "Bleacher Report," next.