Mueller Indicts 13 Russians For Election Meddling; Trump Says "No Collusion" Despite Russian Indictments; Trump and Melania Visit Shooting Victims at Hospital
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The Russia story is a total fabrication. This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. The entire thing has been a witch hunt.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Thirteen Russians indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Russians also recruited and paid real Americans.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The goal here was simple -- damage Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We truly regret any additional pain that that has caused. The FBI has determined that protocol was not followed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In this situation, the system clearly failed us.</s>PRESIDENT TRUMP: The doctors did a great job.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sent her to school yesterday. She was supposed to be safe.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't really care what people who defend the Second Amendment have to say. Their arguments are invalid unless they've experienced this.</s>RENE MARSH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Rene Marsh in for Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. We are live in Washington this morning where we are following major developments on our top two stories. Up first, President Trump, you know, spent more than a year calling it a hoax and a witch hunt and a total scam, but now Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 election. Now in documents, the Department of Justice claims the Russian effort involved unwitting Americans, including Trump campaign officials, and despite any concrete proof, the president says these charges have vindicated him in the Russia investigation.</s>MARSH: Our other top story, a stunning admission from the FBI. The bureau says it failed to act on a tip about the Florida school shooter. Now some are asking could that tip have prevented the massacre that killed 17 students and teachers.</s>BLACKWELL: More on the latest in the Florida investigation in a moment. But we'll start with CNN's Jeff Zeleny and new details on how Russians allegedly worked to influence the 2016 election -- Jeff.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump spending the weekend at his presidential retreat in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Of course, in the wake of the indictments back in Washington, certainly hanging over the Trump administration once again. For more than a year, the president has been saying the Russia meddling investigation is a hoax, a witch hunt. That was proven to be not true, at least in the view of the Department of Justice. Handing down 13 indictments, the most sweeping case yet of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Of course, the president has said that simply nothing happened. He's recounted the fact that when he talked to Vladimir Putin last November in Vietnam during the APEC Summit that he believed Vladimir Putin's denials of any Russian meddling. The Department of Justice today said that was simply not the case. They went song and verse in a 37-page sweeping indictment about how the St. Petersburg internet factory simply meddled in the election, in this U.S. election here. The president, though, had this to say on Twitter in response. He said this, "Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong. No collusion." Certainly, President Trump seizing on the fact that he said there was no suggestion there was collusion. He did not talk about the fact that Russia, indeed, meddled in the election at least in the view of the Justice Department that follows in line with all of the thinking of the top U.S. intelligence chiefs here in the United States. So, as this goes forward, of course, this is the beginning, not the end of the findings of the Mueller investigation. Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist at the White House, spent more than 20 hours this week alone before Robert Mueller's team. What was he asked, what did he tell, that, of course, will come in the days, weeks, and months to come perhaps. The president for now spending the weekend here at his retreat in Florida. Perhaps playing some golf. But, clearly, the Russia investigation still weighing on the Trump presidency. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.</s>MARSH: Well, for more on how Russia is reacting to this latest news, we're going to go to CNN international correspondent, Matthew Chance, who is live for us this morning in Moscow. Matthew, what sort of reaction are you hearing from the kremlin this morning?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rene, as soon as any suggestion is made to Kremlin officials about these allegations of meddling in the U.S. election, the traditional response is being one of denial. It's been no different this time. As soon as these 13 indictments were put out there by the U.S. Justice Department, there were more denials coming from the Kremlin. The most recent one from the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. He said this, "If there was any fire there, the smoke would be immediately visible. We could not and did not interfere. They are still talking about state interference in the pre-election process, but I have not seen a single fact." He said that speaking at the Munich Security Conference just a few hours. There have been similar rejections as well from other Russian officials. Basically, we're seeing the Russians retreat back to their traditional position of denial, even confronted with these latest indictments by the U.S. Justice Department.</s>MARSH: All right. And Matthew, there is -- there was one Russian who was actually named in the indictment. Tell us a little bit more about him as well as this Internet Research Agency also named in the indictment.</s>CHANCE: Well, there were 13 Russians in that indictment, but you're right, there was one man there, a billionaire oligarch from Russia, known to be very close to Vladimir Putin, who was basically said to be the person who bankrolled this whole Internet Research Agency, the notorious kremlin troll farm, which originally had its offices in St. Petersburg, the Russian city there in the north of European Russia. This is an agency, which according to the indictment, had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system. For instance, they organized anti-Muslim rallies in various cities. One in particular, a rally took place in May 2016, in Houston, Texas. They intervened in blogs and chat rooms, trying to sort of turn opinion against Hillary Clinton and towards Donald Trump. It's this troll factory that set out basically to try and distort the process in the United States and of course, to sow discord. Yevgeny Prigozhin is the man who is indicted for bankrolling that organization. He's a deeply controversial figure in this country. He owns a network of businesses. He is a billionaire. Again, he's known locally as Putin's chef because one of his businesses has a catering contract for the kremlin.</s>MARSH: All right. Matthew Chance live for us this morning in Moscow. Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Let's bring in now Abby Phillip, CNN White House correspondent, Sarah Westwood, White House correspondent for "The Washington Examiner," Michael Moore, former U.S. attorney for the middle district of Georgia. Good morning, everyone. And Abby, I want to start with you with the list that we have collected from the president over the years -- a hoax, it's a witch hunt, it's fake, it's totally made up. I'd imagine that high note is harder to hit after we're getting the indictment from the Department of Justice?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Definitely. And as he's gone on, it shifted to no collusion, but you saw from the White House yesterday a shift in tone about this and also from Republicans more generally. Now they're acknowledging that Russia interfered and that is a serious problem --</s>BLACKWELL: Calling them a bad actor.</s>PHILLIP: Calling them a bad actor and now they're blaming the Obama administration, of course, for not acting sooner. But clearly, the White House understands that they can't go on repeating the president's comments that it's a hoax. We saw hints at this earlier this week when Mike Pence was speaking in an interview. He talked about it in a way that was far different from the way that the president did. But the White House and the president are also jumping to a certain conclusion here, which is that these particular indictments, these 13 Russians that were indicted, point to the fact that there is no collusion. I think that the indictments actually make no judgment on that at all. In these particular indictments, they say no one was wittingly involved, but we also know that the Mueller investigation is still ongoing. The conclusions haven't been fully reached, and there is a degree to which there are unanswered questions still out there. The White House wants to say this is case closed.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>MARSH: And you speak about the president saying that, look, this clears me, no collusion. We have that tweet. Let's put that up for a second there. This was the first reaction we got from the White House was the tweet from the president essentially saying, "All that you see in this indictment shows that we did not collude with the Russians." I want to ask you, Sarah, this very question. You know, we're not long away from the midterm elections. You have the president saying, look, this frees me, but we have not heard him say what he plans to do as far as actions to prevent this sort of thing from happening again as we approach the midterms. How prepared do you think that we are?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I think that because a lot of Democrats have conflated the certainty with which we know Russia interfered in the election with the certainty with which we know that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, we're not at all certain that that happened. And because of that, President Trump has tried to shy away from talking about Russian interference at all. We know that Russia interfered in the election. We knew that before the indictment. We knew that because of the report that the intelligence community put out under President Obama. And just from a strictly political standpoint, these indictments weren't really a clean development for either narrative because it did give Republicans, Trump's allies, the ammunition to say there was no collusion named in these indictments. That Russians organized against Trump as well as for him. For Democrats, this is more irrefutable proof that Russia did meddle in the election in a really significant way.</s>BLACKWELL: Michael, I want everybody to listen to Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, as the intelligence heads were on Capitol Hill at the Senate hearing this week. Here's what he said about direction from the president on what to do now.</s>CHRIS WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We're taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt Russian --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you been directed by the president?</s>WRAY: Not as specifically directed by the president.</s>BLACKWELL: No specific directions from the president. I'd imagine that's even more consequential in the context of what we've learned from this indictment.</s>MICHAEL MOORE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA: That's absolutely true, Victor. When the leader of the country has been so hesitant to actually acknowledge the fact that Russia meddled in the election despite the intelligence agencies for many months saying that that was a fact, I think that's put us behind the curve a little bit. Let me say this -- I think that for Trump to come out and say that there's no election meddling or collusion at this point is like the rooster crowing too early before dawn. I mean, there -- this is just an indictment. This is an indictment against 13 Russians. An indictment is just a document that lays out the facts relative and relevant to the accused defendants. So, the indictment is not intended to be a blanket document that tells everything the administration found out. In fact, I think it's interesting at this point when we're talking about some of the people charged here, we're not sure -- you know, Trump wants to say, look, I hadn't even announced that I was going to run for president back in 2014. That's what makes the financial documents, the tax returns, and the business transactions so important that we haven't seen yet. We don't know exactly what financial arrangements the Trump team or Trump himself had with Russia. So, those things may play in to why Russia got involved. They didn't do it for fun. There was a reason that they got involved and stayed involved and tried to get Donald Trump elected president. We may see that now that we don't have sanctions in place despite the fact that Congress passed them.</s>MARSH: To that point, Abby, I mean, last month the president kind of passed up an opportunity to add sanctions to Russia for their Russian meddling. What is your sense, you cover the White House, what's your sense as far as what is the administration doing to protect our elections from this point on?</s>PHILLIP: Well, I think the president is hesitant as you heard from Christopher Wray. The intelligence community is not getting their direction on this from the president and Mike Pence indicated when he was also talking about it this week. He said, he is helping to lead the call of government response to the threat of Russian meddling in the midterms. So, if this is going to happen, it's going to be because the president's deputy maybe empowered by him, is leading the response, is helping the Department of Justice work with states in order to prevent this kind of meddling from happening. I think it's been reluctant and perhaps a little bit slow. I mean, we are in 2018 right at this moment. Everybody has been saying in the intelligence community for months and months that this meddling is going to happen. It's already happening and needs to be acted on immediately. I also think it's interesting, you know, based on what Michael was just saying about the financial transactions here. What's interesting about these indictments is that they do kind of suggest that these Russians were trying to get Americans to work with them unwittingly. If in fact, the White House is happy with the indictments because they've shown no collusion, it would really make you wonders why did the president go to such great lengths to try to step in the street of this investigation. If the investigation was going in a direction that didn't lead to him, it probably would have been better for him to let it go.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, a lot to unpack in these 37 pages, including the persons known and unknown to the grand jury, which we want to talk about. We will have this conversation later this morning. Abby, Michael, and Sarah, thank you all.</s>MARSH: Coming up, a stunning admission from the FBI about a missed opportunity to prevent the Florida school massacre. The latest on that is coming up next.</s>BLACKWELL: Also, students from Marjory Stoneham Douglas High are grappling with how to deal with losing their friends in the school shooting. I sat down with five of them to get an idea of how they're coping. Where they are in their own words, that's coming up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can you not be scared after something like that happens? People I know, people I pass in the hall every day, just gone.