House Intel Committee Wants Comey Tapes in Two Weeks
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington. This morning, President Trump is spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf club but the big fight, President Trump versus James Comey, goes on. The president is coming back swinging after the former FBI director's mother-of-all testimonies on Capitol Hill. Here's a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No collusion, no obstruction. He's a leaker but we want to get back to running our great country.</s>KEILAR: Well, now lawmakers are demanding the memos, tapes if there are any, and other records of President Trump's conversations with Comey by June 23rd they want those things, and that's not all. Senator Dianne Feinstein is asking the Judiciary Committee to investigate potential obstruction of justice. CNN Washington correspondent Ryan Nobles is following this story. Ryan, update us.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, it's pretty clear that the -- after the hearing of James Comey on Thursday that we are not in a position to either convict or vindicate President Trump as it relates to the investigation into Russia and this is going to be a long and complicated process that's going to be filled with accusations and innuendo. And we saw that in President Trump's press conference on Friday when he pushed back on many of the things that James Comey said but also embraced some of what he said, saying that it made him look much better in light of everything that's going on. But in particular, Trump said something that was very important. He said that he was willing to testify under oath about those conversations that he had with James Comey. Take a listen to what he said in that press conference yesterday.</s>JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: So he said those things under oath. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of events?</s>TRUMP: 100 percent. And did you say under oath? I hardly know the man. I'm not going to say, I want you to pledge allegiance, who would do that? Who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath? I mean, think of it. I hardly know the man. It doesn't make sense. No, I didn't say that and I didn't say the other.</s>KARL: So if Robert Mueller wanted to speak with you about that, you --</s>TRUMP: I would be glad to tell him exactly what I just told you.</s>NOBLES: This has been pretty quiet as to how they're handling this investigation, they have not said whether or not they plan to depose the president, and if he will in fact take part in an interview of that nature. But while the Mueller investigation continues, we have investigations on both the House and the Senate side, the House Intelligence Committee, now demanding to know whether or not tapes exist of these conversations between Donald Trump and James Comey. They've sent a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn, saying that if these tapes exist, we want them and they've set a deadline for a response by June 23rd. Brianna, it's less than two weeks away. Maybe we will finally know whether or not these tapes exist.</s>KEILAR: He said we'll be disappointed by the answer. We will see, Ryan Nobles. Thank you for that. And joining us, Laura Coates, she's a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Laura Jarrett, who is our CNN justice reporter, and Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor with the "Atlantic." I want to go to you first, Laura Jarrett. I'm fascinated by this addition to Robert Mueller's legal team, Michael Dreeben. A lot of people will have no idea who this is, but this is -- this is important and it signifies something.</s>LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Absolutely. Everyone I spoke with yesterday said look, this shows that Mueller is taking this really seriously. Michael Dreeben is the foremost criminal law expert in the country. He runs the criminal appellate docket. This is a man who's argued over 100 cases before the Supreme Court and he's actually going to stay on at the Justice Department, and kind of toggle back and forth with these two jobs. But this is a really serious addition to the team.</s>KEILAR: Yes. He's a top criminal law expert. This is someone who certainly knows about obstruction of justice. Having tried cases on obstruction of justice, does this tell us for sure Laura Coates, that this could head in that direction or just that if it does, Mueller is equipped for that?</s>LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It does both. It tells you -- it signals to you there is actually an allegation that's out there. We know that from Comey's testimony and we know that they're digging in their heels, and saying listen, obstruction of justice is what one particular facet, maybe an important one. It also happens to form Articles of Impeachment, that may be a coincidence or not, who knows there. But the real issue is they know this is going to the Supreme Court. There will be unprecedented legal issues that they have to navigate. To do that, they have somebody who's not only experienced but is able to navigate the criminality function of the law in this part. You have somebody who's digging in their heels because they know there's going to be a heck of a fight ahead of them and it will be resolved probably sooner than we thought.</s>KEILAR: But in this -- in this case, Ron.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.</s>KEILAR: And you talked about this, I find this very fascinating,</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yes,</s>KEILAR: This idea of the he said-he said, completely different things that we're hearing from President Trump and from Jim Comey.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Right.</s>KEILAR: I want to actually play this where a reporter asks if President Trump thinks that Jim Comey lied. Listen to this.</s>KARL: So he said those things under oath. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of these events?</s>TRUMP: 100 percent. And did you say under oath? I hardly know the man. I'm not going to say I want you to pledge allegiance. Who would do that? Who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath? I mean, think of it. I hardly know the man. It doesn't make sense. No, I didn't say that, and I didn't say the other.</s>KARL: So if Robert Mueller wanted to speak with you about that --</s>TRUMP: I would be glad to tell him exactly what I just told you.</s>KARL: You said you hoped the Flynn investigation you could let --</s>TRUMP: I didn't say that.</s>KARL: He can let go. So he lied about that.</s>TRUMP: Well, I didn't say that. I mean, I will tell you, I didn't say that. No collusion. No obstruction. He's a leaker. But we want to get back to running our great country.</s>KEILAR: OK, Ron Brownstein.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Subtle words. No collusion, no obstruction, he's a leaker. This is the whole --</s>KEILAR: Right? There you go. There's the message.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Yes.</s>KEILAR: If this is as it appears right now, Comey's word against President Trump's word, what happens?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, first, the first important thing is, as Jon Karl pointed out in the question, James Comey has made his comments under oath, which his big difference between what he is saying and what the president has said in a press conference. And I thought it was significant that the president was going out preemptively and saying yes, I will testify. We had the two legal experts here. Ken Starr subpoenaed Bill Clinton to testify before the grand jury in August, 1998 when he was the independent counsel. The White House initially resisted the subpoena, questioned whether it was possible to subpoena a sitting president. Ultimately they agreed to testify. So as far as I know, the issue was never adjudicated about whether you can in fact force the president to testify. It's certainly going to be harder now politically for them -- for him not to testify, and ultimately whatever the president says now, what really counts is what he says under oath because if you go back again to the 1998 precedent, whatever people thought about the Ken Starr investigation, he accused President Clinton of three counts of perjury from testimony to the grand jury. He didn't indict him. He passed it to the House of Representatives who's ultimately used that -- those allegations as the basis for the Republican House voting to impeach him in 1998. And you could easily imagine if -- you know, if Mueller finds wrongdoing that that is the more likely path than testing the question of whether a sitting president can be indicted in a criminal -- you know, in a criminal manner, rather if he finds evidence of wrongdoing basically putting it on the lap of the House and saying, are you going to deal with it or not, which is not something that many Republicans are looking forward to right now.</s>KEILAR: I want to ask you about this because President Trump there accuses Jim Comey of perjury really. And so what would that mean exactly? What would have had to happen I think if President Trump is correct? I mean, he -- essentially Jim Comey would have had to leave this meeting or any of these interactions, meeting in the Oval Office, phone call, and drafted a memo that he was falsifying.</s>BROWNSTEIN: False reference.</s>KEILAR: And it's hard to imagine the FBI director doing that, right? Without tapes, it seems as if the recollection of Jim Comey should hold more weight.</s>COATES: Well, you're struggling to find a scenario that would actually make sense because it stretches the imagination, and what the president has done is put himself in a very precarious position. He has said, believe him, when it suits him, when it's the part that corroborates, I told you he told me on three different occasions that we had this conversation, believe him, period, he's a liar. When you do that, you set up a battle between credibility that frankly the president cannot win because for the very reasons you just said. The court of law and the court of public opinion, does give some weight to the idea of having contemporaneous drawings of what you've actually seen and heard. It's a very important thing.</s>JARRETT: So that's why once the president actually sits in a windowless conference room facing off against Robert Mueller --</s>KEILAR: Under oath.</s>JARRETT: Under oath, he may not be so unequivocal as he is in the Rose Garden. We may hear a lot more of I don't recall, I don't remember. You know, I'm not really sure exactly how that went, because he has to protect himself, right? And so obviously when he's out in front of the cameras it's one thing, but when you are in a room under oath with special counsel, you can't play around with that.</s>KEILAR: And in fairness, he should say I don't recall if he doesn't, and especially if this is a conversation months ago or conversations months ago and he doesn't have record of them. It seems like it would be smart for him to say I don't recall, and he really may not be able to verbatim, right?</s>JARRETT: Absolutely. And what is that, the first line that any lawyer tells you?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.</s>JARRETT: Just say I don't recall if you are at all unsure. Do not get into that gray zone because it's really dangerous.</s>BROWNSTEIN: And also, it's not simply a he said he said, right? Because as you point out there are several other pieces, you know, of what Jim Comey said. You had what he wrote contemporaneously at the time so you basically have the argument that he went -- left the White House, you know, went into a car, and immediately falsified a record, and you also what he told associates at a contemporaneous basis versus the other side. And, you know, people have argued -- supporters of the president have argued that if you end up with he said-he said, by definition there can't be any legal jeopardy for the president. I'm not a lawyer, but it's not just a he said-he said, there are other pieces there. And again, going back to the Clinton investigation, there was at least one count of perjury that was essentially a he said -she said, and Ken Starr said she was more credible, therefore I believe the president lied. So the idea that the president would be kind of free and clear to say whatever he wants under oath, you know, relative to what he said in the Rose Garden seems to me a little overly optimistic.</s>COATES: And there are things that attest Comey's credibility besides the memo. Remember, he then discusses with other FBI senior officials what he's actually heard.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.</s>COATES: He'd have to falsify that memo, then go back, hold these conversations that we know are credible, and tell them the wrong thing, they have to recall the wrong thing, and then prove him a liar as well. It's too</s>KEILAR: But quick final word to you, Laura Jarrett. He is the president. Does that give him any sort of benefit of the doubt here?</s>JARRETT: Well, certainly his lawyers have tried to create that atmosphere. If you think about the travel ban cases, right, they repeatedly say look, this is the president, this is the executive. You need to give him that benefit of the doubt. But the problem is one of credibility. And you can see in the Senate hearing on Thursday James Comey says, look, my mom told me not to do this, but I think my record speaks for itself.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Real quickly on the Republicans in the House are overwhelmingly hoping that Mueller in effect takes this off their plate. That he is the one who has to make the decision. I think the suggestion is eventually he will put it right back on their plate, and say, this is something that has to be decided by the political system, not by a court of law.</s>KEILAR: Ron Brownstein, Laura Jarrett, Laura Coates, thank you to all of you. So far -- so how far will investigators go to see if the supposed tapes actually exist? I'm going to discuss that with a former FBI operative next.