What Did They Learn about Bruce Ohr?; Bruce Ohr Was Interviewed by Republican Lawmakers
LEMON: Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, was grilled by Republican lawmakers for eight hours today. The closed door session believed to focus on Ohr's relationship with Christopher Steele, that's the British spy behind the dossier that included salacious and unverified intelligence on Trump and Russia. So let's discuss now with CNN National Security Analysts, Steve Hall and Juliette Kayyem, also CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Susan Glasser. Good evening to all of you, never a dull moment in this news business and in America lately. So thank you all for coming on and talking about this. So Susan, take us through this. What does Bruce Ohr have to do with former FBI Attorney Lisa Page and Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson? And what information led him to testify today?</s>SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it's interesting. First of all, he has become the increasing focus both of the sort of very active group of Trump defenders up on Capitol Hill. President Trump himself has also started getting in on the action. His wife worked for the firm Fusion GPS that commissioned the Steele dossier. He also worked at the FBI and was the liaison with Christopher Steele in relaying his information. This was closed door testimony. We don't know what happened behind the scenes, obviously. What you have is all Republican members of Congress who were present apparently at this hours long interrogation today. There was Democratic staff there but no Democratic members of Congress. You know you basically have sort of this whole parallel inquiry that's been launched on Capitol Hill. That is about the Republican conspiracy theory version of the case, which involves the Steele dossier as being, as I understand, sort of the deep state plot to spy on and to sabotage the Trump campaign, as opposed to the actual investigation by Bob Mueller that involves the actual Russian hacking and the actual interference in the U.S. election.</s>LEMON: Let's take a look at Ohr now and his career. Because Juliette, despite a decades long career of public service, including 10 plus years (Inaudible) organized crime in Russia, Ohr has become a top target of the President. Do you think the President's fixation on Ohr is warranted?</s>JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I guess -- the short answer is no, except for he's an expert. I mean what is he an expert in? He is an expert in the Russian mafia and the ties, the financial ties between the Russians and entities in the United States, in which they are either laundering money or trying to get around the sanction to be able to exchange money. This is his expertise. And so to the extent that the Trump White House (Inaudible) across the board challenges the expertise of career civil servants, I do think that Bruce is sort of, you know an obvious target. I will say something that Susan mentioned about his wife. This is the second time of which Donald Trump has specifically targeted the husband of a wife who has had a separate career that the President views as either unbecoming or maybe to, you know, to women's empowerment. Remember McCabe's wife had ran for office. That became the spin up conspiracy theory to which why she was so tied to Democrats and therefore he was not independent. In this case, Bruce Ohr's wife had worked for Fusion GPS. It is consistent, as I said before in this show, with an idea about the wives of or how women should be appendages of these men, as if you couldn't have two separate careers. My husband and I both had separate security clearances. You learn not to talk about them. But I don't think it is a coincidence that of Trump's tweets about Bruce Ohr...</s>LEMON: He would say they both work for Hillary Clinton, though.</s>KAYYEM: Yeah. I mean it's just -- the focus on the wife is I think consistent with a larger theory.</s>LEMON: So you don't think there is credence that the women worked for Hillary Clinton?</s>KAYYEM: No. I also think -- look -- I mean Bruce Ohr is -- no, Bruce Ohr documented his contacts with Steele. Like it wasn't like he was hiding them. They are actually -- you know, whenever you meet with someone in terms of whether it is intelligence gathering, law enforcement gathering, whatever, you have to document them. He documented them. It is why they know they met. It's not like he was hiding it. It was part of his job.</s>LEMON: Well, it is interesting because, you know, as I was saying, it is the same argument that Kellyanne Conway uses when people ask her questions about her husband and when he says something negative or refutes something about the administration. Listen, Steve. You know we know that Ohr and Steele first began working with each other in the mid 2000s, taking on Russian organized crime in the U.S. and the U.K. Tell us more about the type of work that Ohr did combating the Russian mafia.</s>STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know the Russian mafia, the oligarchs, Russian organized crime, the Russian government, it is all pretty much the same thing. It's really not that hard to understand. It is all one big thing. And there has been a considerable amount of time and effort put in largely from the Department of Justice and I think law enforcement to try to figure out what these oligarchs are doing, specifically what they're doing that might violate U.S. law. And of course, none of these oligarchs -- and it is very interesting by the way that some of the oligarchs that are most closely associated with Bruce Ohr or that he focused mostly on, guys like (Inaudible) are guys that playing prominent roles now or going to play prominent roles apparently in Paul Manafort's upcoming case, and have constant ties back to the Trump organization. So there was a long, hard look by the U.S. government. There continues to be against these oligarchs. And its part of it is law enforcement. Part of it is policy, of course. Sanctions impact these oligarchs quite a bit. So there is a lot of interest in U.S. government as to who these guys are, what they are up to, and what they're doing. I would argue that there is also now an inordinate interest on the part of President Trump in Bruce Ohr, because he is an expert about, you know, precisely this group of people who has really I think been in contact with and perhaps helped this President throughout his career, as you look back, you know, at his business dealings with Russia. So it is a really big tangled kind of knot that the Department of Justice does a really good job of trying to get to the bottom of.</s>LEMON: All right. Thank you all. I appreciate your time. When we come back more on our breaking news tonight, a huge upset in Florida where CNN is projecting Andrew Gillum has won Democratic primary for Governor. Plus, (Inaudible) counted in Arizona's primary are three Trump supporting Republicans are battling for Jeff Flake's Senate seat.