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tv   Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer  CNN  January 25, 2018 3:00pm-4:00pm PST

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and lady be gone. after skipping her trip with her husband, melania trump picks up and takes off for florida. was she sending a message to the president? we want to welcome our view ners the united states and around the world. i'm wolf wochl. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn break iing news. >> the russia investigation expanding and ensnaring more white house officials and aides. this as the special counsel negotiates for a sit-down q&a session with their boss. president trump says he's looking forward to answering robert mueller's questions under oath, but tonight, his lawyers say not so fast. this hour, i'll talk about the russia probe with senate intelligence committee member ron wyden and our analysts are standing by. first, to our chief national
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security correspondent, jim shuuto. he's reaching deep into the trump white house. >> it bears repeating every adviser as well as one cabinet secretary has been interviewed by the special counsel who we know wants to sit down with the president himself. also worth emphasizing that the focus of those questioning sessions has almost universally been on the question of obstruction of justice. tonight, the president's lawyers say 20 white house staffers have now sat for voluntary interviews with special counsel robert mueller, including don mcbegan, hope hick, steven miller and former chief of staff, reince priebus. they say they have turned over more than 20,000 pages of documents. now donald trump says he is willing in fact eager to be next. telling reporters -- >> i'm looking forward to it, actually. i would do it under oath, yeah. >> trump's lawyer quickly
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qualified the president's statement, telling gloria borger, quote, while mr. trump was speakinghurriedly, he's in complete cop ration. we have been learn nud details about how he wants to interview the president. that it be a sit-down meeting rather than written and that topics would include the president asking james comey to drop the investigation into michael flynn. mueller also wants to know about trump's reaction to comey's may 2017 on capitol hill. comey's comments reportedly angered trump. >> do you stand by your testimony that there is an active investigation counterintelligence investigation regarding trump campaign individuals and the russian government as to whether or not they collaborate? you said that in march. >> to see if there was any coordination between the russian effort. >> is that still going on? >> yes.
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>> in addition, they want to learn more about the president's outreach to intelligence leaders. the range of topics suggesting an interview would largely focus on obstruction of justice. something the president has repeatedly denied. >> there's been no collusion whatsoever. no obstruction whatsoever and i'm looking forward to it. >> speaking to recorders wednesday, trump argued that what some see as obstruction is really just mr. trump fighting back against false accusations. >> there's no collusion. now they're saying oh, did he fight back fikt back, oh, it's obstruction. >> today, chuck grassley said he wants to release a transcript of a closed door interview with donald trump jr. focusing on the 2016 trump tower meeting with a russia lawyer offering dirt on hillary clinton. >> i think there's a couple people still want to go through their transcript yet.
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and then i think there has to be experts go through it. that would be if there needs to be anything to be redacted. and then the next step is let the public have access to it. >> there is now a new and comprehensive account out in the dutch public broadcaster, a cnn affiliate that recounts going back to 2015, wolf, say iing th it was dutch intelligence that gave the u.s. one of the first warnings that russian hackers were infiltrating u.s. election systems including getting down to the moment where they could hack into cameras and observe those hackers as they were doing this work. just shows there were warnings about this interference long before many knew. >> interesting, indeed. thanks very much. also breaking in the russia investigati investigation, the senate panel is now preparing to release the transcript of its interview with donald trump jr. this as new information emerges about controversial fbi texts that is undermining republican
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conspiracy theorys. let' bring in manu. first, what's the latest on those fbi texts? >> well, republicans in congress have been forced to back off. concerns they raised earlier this week about one of these texts that occurred after the elections in 2016. in which these two agents are discussing a quote, secret society. well, republicans, some republicans earlier this week suggested this was all part of a plot within the fbi to undermine the trump presidency going lear information about the text exchange. it says are you even going give out your calendars. seems depressing. maybe it should be the first meeting of the secret society. that's from the fbi agent to peter. also an fbi agent. we learn more context from sources familiar. they're say iing the calendar i reference is a gag gift of
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vladimir putin themed calendar given out to people involved in the russia investigation and it was really an attempt at humor. now that some republicans who have been presented with this seem to be backing off this could be a real serious effort by the fbi to take down president trump. ron johnson in particular raised these serious concerns earlier this week. >> secret society, we have an informant talk iing about a gro who were holding secret "meet the press"ings off site. i have heard you know from somebody who's talked ee eed t committee, there's a group of individuals in the fbi, they were holding secret, off site meetings. >> i've heard from an individual that there were fbi agents or you know, management of the fbi, holding meetings off site. >> so when i asked senator johnson yesterday about those meetings, he said he didn't know what they were about. he wanted to dig further into it. today, i caught up with senator
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johnson in light of this new information and i asked him whether or not this exchange was simply a joke. this text message seems to be a comment about secret society was in jest. do you agree? >> it's a possibility. >> so even as johnson said it was a real possibility this is a joke, the fight over these text messages will only intensify. just momenting aes, senator chuck grassley issues a new statement about some of the new text messages that he has received raising concern about how these two agents approached the clinton veinvestigation, citing one text in particular, suggesting they're willing to back off the clinton e-mail investigation. saying he might be our next president, according to this next grassley released. the last thing you need is going in there, you think she's going to remember or care it was more doj than fbi?
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and also suggestion that the fbi chief of staff wanted to see the deputy director of the fbi be recused because of his wife's campaign donations she received from the clinton ally. so expect this, wolf, to just feed the fight between the democrats and republicans going forward about these text messages as republicans say there's a lot of wrong doing here. democrats say it's an effort to distract from the russia investigation. >> that will continue. no doubt about that. thank you. joining us now, senator ron wyden, wyden, thanks for coming out. the president says he's anxious to speak with the special counsel under oath. what would stop him? >> he's been all over the map on this. initially for it, then wasn't. now he's back. i mean, the point is this is a dually appointed prosecutor we have. bob mueller. decorated war veteran.
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he's looking into potential criminality in the administration and with respect to the election. it just seems to me it's a pretty low ethical bar for the president to be available to answer questions and if he's not, the question will be what he hiding. >> he said he could do it within the next two or three weeks. does it concern you that the president says he's simply fighting back in the midst of these allegations from the special counsel's investigation. and he says that people consider his fighting back obstruction. >> well, the reality is he has calleded this a witch hunt from the beginning. the fact is people have pled guilty. i mean you've got a number of people who pled guilty, a number of people who have been indicted. we still have a long way to go on this. i'm focused on the follow the money issues. the fact is counterintelligence 101 is really looking at these
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follow the money issues because if you want to induce somebody, it's with laundering. is that at the heart of this? >> certainly, overseas accounts should be lookeded at. trump's soho. deutsche bank. these are all matters that certainly we ought to be looking at because this is right at the heart of counterintelligence. >> so you think the money laundering is more significant than obstruction of justice or collusion? >> i've always felt from the beginning this was a most important issue. by the way, the reality is, i think congressman schiff is doing a fine job. the republican leadership in the house and the republican leadership in the senate they have all been stone walling on this follow the money issue. they've just found one reason after another to not get into the serious questions. >> so your committee, the intelligence committee, senator burr, the chairman, he's stone
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walling on this issue? >> i would say it has been given short shrimp from the beginning. they have never seen this as a counterintelligence issue that i think the reality. we ought to hear from the treasury officials who have expertise on this. we ought to have open hearings on this and yes, in both the house and senate, the republican leadership is ducking what i think is right at the center of this and that's following the money. by the way, steve bannon, i don't quote him often, that's what he said in the wolff book. >> yeah, the book, fire and fury. said the money u laundering was at the heart of all of this. others have suggested that as well. but it sounds to me you're getting some information that you believe that is the major part of this investigation. do you believe robert mueller is looking into follow the money. >> if you look at the press accounts, the press accounts day after day are raising these questions that haven't been examine d by the intelligence
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committees. look at the people that bob mueller has hired. they're all people that have expertise in financial fraud and prosecuting those who try to exploit the law here. this is something that ought to be getting a lot more attention and in both the house and senate committee, the leadership's ducking it. >> if the robert mueller team interviews the president with within the next two r or three week, he's the one throughout the two or three week timetable, does that suggest to you mueller is nearing the end of his investigation? because you really want to wait until the end to interview what they call the big fish. >> i don't know exactly what he is look iing at. obviously, there are a whole host of questions. when lester holt interview ed te president, i thought the president basically said he fired comey to make this whole matter go away. that sure sounds like obstruction of justice. >> is there any chance when all is said and done, when robert mueller completes his investigation, there's nothing there? >> what i've always said is you
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ought to follow the facts. look. number one in 2008 and 2009 when it was hard to get money, the trump folks said, the family said much of our portfolio involves russian money. this is the first president who in 40 years has been unwilling to disclose his tax returns. i think there are a lot of unanswered questions here. >> the transcript of donald trump jr.'s appearance before the senate judiciary committee is supposedly going to be released. the chairman said it will be released, made public. how important do i think that could be? >> i'm not familiar with exactly what they have been looking at on the other committee. i would say as a general proposition, i am fordisclosure. i fought very hard when we put together our agreement in the senate intelligence committee for more disclosure, more transparency, more open hearings, more declassifications. that's how i look at it. >> what does it say to you that
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a couple of these conspiracy theorys that have been forward by the president's supporters, republicans, some conservative news outlets, that have now been debunked. this and you've seen all the reports that the secret society that supposedly was being created. that was simply a joke. and now they're releasing the actual text messages that earli earlier, they couldn't find. apparently, there was some new technology, new samsung phones, to a whole bunch. thousands of smart phones they couldn't initially retrieve the text message, but now they have. >> well, the texts you were talking about on the show earlier, i think they are just irresponsible fantasies that have been spun by members of congress who are really use iint as a smoke screen to cover up the fact that there have been crimes committed. and then of course on the other side of the capitol, we have f devin nunez, who in my view, has just been stunningly irresponsible. sometimes, it's hard to see how you can be that great an
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embarrassment in an institution that already has done a lot of embarrassing stuff, but this is a stretch even by the house. >> even these jokes that now they've now been confirmed to have been joke, should an agent working on the russia investigation be joking about all of this with a friend? >> as you know, bob mueller has taken those people out of those assignments and as far as i'm concerned, bob mueller once again is showing that he isly ad prosecutorer. devin nunez put together apparently this four-page memo that has been widely criticized by the ranking democrat on that committee. adam schiff. that it's, and it hasn't been made public. justice department, led by a republican, jeff sessions, a former republican senator, says it would be really damaging to u.s. national security to release that memo. have you read that memo.
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>> no and i have made it a practice, i don't call for declassifying something that i haven't read. that's number one. number two, what i would say is if in fact this is made public, certainly adam schiff who are has also read this and made an analysis of what it means, that ought to come out. again, we shouldn't be just taking talking points and making them public! i int >> i interviewed the press s secretary earlier, he said the rank and file of the fbi, his words, serious questions of bias at the top of the fbi. you believe that? >> no. and i have disagree wd the fbi on plenty of issues. just today, i wrote a letter making it clear i don't agree with the fbi director who seems to want to weaken strong encryption, which i think would be bad for security and for american liberty. those are policy questions. it seems to me what is going on
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is there's an effort to undermine the integrity of the people in these key law enforcement agencies and overwhelmingly, they are people we should be proud of. >> the motive is? >> i guess they want to in some way, derail ann objected inquir. i think they're sending a message. we heard yesterday about mr. mccabe being questioned about how he voted. that's not a proper thing to ask for. it looks to me like they were just trying to cultivate loyalty. >> the president says he doesn't remember asking that question, but there were other reports to the contrary. senator widen, thanks very much. just ahead, will the president's lawyers allow him to speak with the essential counsel under oath? and a lot more on the russia investigation and a new int interview with stormy daniels. leaving out anything right now?
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find clear skin that lasts. and sometimes, i don't eat the way i should. so, i drink boost. boost high protein nutritional drink has 15 grams of protein to help maintain muscle and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. boost high protein be up for it we're following breaking news on the russia investigation widening inside the white house with 20 staffers being interviewed. a bigger number than we've heard before. president trump suggesting to reporters that he could be next if his lawyers give the green light. we're joined now by our correspondents and analysts. jeffrey toobin, his lawyer
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seemed to walk back the enthusiastic decision within the two few weeks he's eager, anxious to answer questions. what does that say to you? >> it say that is the terms of this interview, if it takes place at all, are not settled. the question of you know, is it under oath. who's president. how long will it take place. how long will the interview be. what subjects will be covered, how much advanced notice will be given. will there be written questions, oral questions, all of that it seems is unresolve and ty cobb, who is doing a good job here, is simply saying yes, the president wants to cooperate, but the terms of that cooperation are not settled at all. >> you know, david axelrod, we heard a new line from the president on the whole issue of obstruction of justice. listen to this. >> do you think robert mueller will be b fair to you in this larger investigation? >> we're going to find out.
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because here's what we'll say. and everybody says. no collusion. there's no collusion. now they're saying, oh, well did he fight back? fik fight back, oh k it's obstruction. here's the thing. i hope so. >> is he worried that fighting back could be seen as obstruction? >> well, look, i think that's good spin. the pugnacious president fighting back. the thing is, there's this thing called the law and if he tried to impede an ongoing criminal investigation, that is obstruction of justice. so he's going to have to answer for bob mueller and that team exactly why he asked jim comey to drop the investigation of general flynn who has since pled golt of lying to the fbi. he's going to have to explain why he dismissed director comey
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in the midst of this. that may be the line of demarcation, wolf, between fighting back and obstruction of justice. >> you know, phil mudd, the president ran as a counterpuncher. he always has been. he fighting back, as they say, so is the special counsel going to be able to take that into consideration? >> i think we're radically misplaying this on our conversations. jeff toobin is going to kill me for playing lawyer, but let me try it after four and a half years. i don't think the word collusion or obstruction will come up during the interview. if you're an analyst or agent going into this, you ask questions like mr. president, talk to me about the circumstances before, during, and after the removal of james comey. about conversations with your advisers. about what you told your advisers about the reasons for your removal of mr. comey. say four people said well the president said beforehand he's got to solve the russia investigation and i've got to get rid of james comey and the president says i never talked to
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anybody about why i remooued him. the president's in trouble. my point is investigators are going to ask about facts. not confirm or deny whether you obstructed or colluded. >> on that note, one of the facts, set of facts that there's no question that robert mueller's team is looking into is is beyond the firing of james comey and whether that constitutes obstruction, which is a legal debate wae've had is also what happened on air force one on the way back from europe when i know the whole story of don jr. and the meeting that he had in june of 2016 with the russian lawyer and the e-mails about that broke and the, mentioned air force one, it's the involvement that the president had in putting out a statement that was false. and whether or not that was
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intended to obstruct the investigation going on. that speaks to what you're saying, which is fact. >> you know, go ahead. jeffrey. >> i was just going to say, i don't disagree with phil. the distinction here is that obstruction of justice, collusion or related crimes, those are legal conclusions that you can draw from the evidence or not draw. what mueller has been doing and certainly will be doing in interviewing donald trump is getting facts from which to reach those legal conclusions, but it is of no consequence that you asked a suspect in the case do you commit a crime. that's not his, that's not his judgment to make. that's the prosecutor and ultimately a grand jury or jury to make. the issue here and phil's right. is mueller will ask factual questions about what happened and then using his judgment will decide if any crimes took place.
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>> going into a question and answer session, "washington post" you probably say the report. mueller's team has collected an enormous amount of information, very detailed information, documenting down to the minute timelines and they've used this in questioning others and presumingably will use this in questioning the president of the united states. >> absolutely. i think there are many people within the white house who might seem like they're on the periphery here, but at a minimum, they may be witness to conversations between people within the trump white house and the russians who are copied on e-mail changes that we're discussing, for example, michael flynn's meeting with the russian ambassad ambassador. the scheduler maybe able to speak to whether such a meeting would have been typical. i think they're trying to do a thorough investigation. also, that gives them more facts they could take to the table and see if there is a consistency in everyone's story or if they are
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contradicting one another, which leads to deeper questions as to why. >> on that note, i have heard that some of the people who have gone into these q&a sessions have been floored by how much robert mueller and his people knew. things that people, the witnesses who were coming in completely forgot about and in fact, the mueller team had detailed stories about what exactly happened at x, y and z event or conversation. >> if you're about to be interviewed, let me ask jeffrey first. if you're about to be interviewed fwhi team that has this enormous amount of information, that's a pretty scary thought. >> it is and there's sort of a mythology about criminal investigations. that what really matters is how tough you are and how well you ask questions. what matters most of all is preparation. is assembling documents, e-mails, tape recordings, that
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you can confront a witness with. it's about knowing more about the fact that is the witness thinks you know. that's what's really going to matter here. it's not about you know, donald trump saying 16 times or 20 times there was no collusion. it's presenting him with actual evidence of what he said and what other people said about what he said. that's what's going to make a successful interrogation of him or anyone else. >> you know, david axelrod, you would assume and correct me if i'm wrong, that before the president would sit down with mueller and his team, he would do a basic rehearsal with his own legal team to go through potential questions and they would help him prepare, but also determine how good he is. >> yeah. well that is true, wolf, but i don't know if you've noticed this. he tends to go off script. if you're an attorney for donald trump, this has to be an enormously anxiety producing
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prospect because he believes that he can persuade anybody in front of him of his version of the truth. and as jeffrey said, these prosecut prosecutors are going to have a version of the truth rooted in extraordinary research and extraordinary amount of preparation. so this is a very hazardous prospect for the president, which is why they're still negotiating the terms of how this encounter is going to happen. >> i think there's a misunderstanding here about how this plays out. robert mueller and i'm going to pick up on what both have said. that mueller is going to sit there and play tough guy. it's going to be experts whon things like financial transactions related to russians. some of the lawyers on the mueller team participate nd the enron investigation. that's white collar crime. so if the president thinks he's going to get out here and bluff, august 25th of 2014, you had this financial transaction. what did that mean? one example. i used to work at the bureau
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with one of these lawyers. we went across the street to a real staff meeting, the bagel shop. i would never want to sit in front of this guy. he was brilliant. if this is i'm going to dance in front of the special counsel, they're not going to do the investigation. it will be somebody who knows every transaction and they'll trap you if you make a mistake. >> i think you're right in normal circumstances, but remember who we're talking about. we're talk iing about donald trp who is the president of the united states. and he is going to sit there and he is going to filibuster. he is going to talk and talk and talk. and there's no judge in the room so who's going to tell him to stop? i think trump has a lot more advantages going into this than an ordinary witness does. so you're right that the confrontation with the facting will be very important, but he has advantages. >> the more he talks, the more he has the potential to get himself in trouble. that is, that is what so many people who i talk to who know
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him, like him, want him to succeed, say they're extremely concerned about. >> everybody, quickly. go ahead. >> dana's right in normal circumstances with normal witnesses. i just think his ability to filibuster is unusual and valuable. >> we're getting more breaking news. we're going to take a quick break. we'll update you on what we're now hearing from the president's lawyer about his willingness to testify. why make something this intelligent... (engine starting up) ...when it can get by on looks alone? why create something that stands out, when everyone expects you to fit in? it's simple. you can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac cts. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac cts from around $469 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer.
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we're just getting this in from gloria borger, that the president's personal, private attorney has told cnn he is the one to decide if the president will sit down for an interview with the special counsel. dowd says no decision has been made as you remember yesterday, the president said he wants to talk to the special counsel. i have to say subject to my lawyers and all that, but i would love to do it. what do you think of the statement from john dowd? >> it shows that you know this is a pretty much a complete 180. this is an invitation not to do an interview at all. and you know, we know that donald trump is very capable of make iing a complete turn aroun. look, think about the tax returns. he said he release d the tax returns now he didn't do it.
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now he said you know, he said yesterday that he wants to talk, but now the lawyer's deciding he can overrule the president. so you know, it seems to me that this is very much an undecided question of whether or when the president will talk to the mueller investigation and the lawyers who are no dumb mys know what it was much safer at least legally not the talk to him. politically, it may be a problem not to talk to mueller, but legally, clearly, the safest course is to have the client say no. >> it's a pretty blunt, bold statement from john dowd, david axelrod, saying i will be the one to make this decision. not the president of the united states. >> yeah, it is. but you know, what i wonder and i guess i would ask this question of jeffrey. it seems to, that kind of posture seems to set up a potential titanic legal struggle and i don't know how that would come out. but i'm not sure that that's,
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they must think there's an awful lot of risk putting the president in front of these prosecutors to take the other risk, the political risk of a protracted legal battle that may or may not go their way. >> and generally -- >> sorry. you go. >> well there is one way to make this legal issue go away completely. which is if the president simply says through his lawyer, i'm taking the fifth. then there's no subpoena, nothing. he has every right to take the fifth. that's a political problem, but this president has taken the fifth before. during depositions in other lawsuits. and you know, the rules have been different for donald trump. you might think that the president of the united states couldn't take the fifth. it would be too politically damaging, but you know, the rules have been different here and that would certainly make the legal issue disappear overnight. >> you know, generally when somebody b who works for donald trump puts out statement saying
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i'm in charge, it's a one way ticket to bye bye land in trump's mind. in this case, i'm not sure if that is the case, but in the case because this is so unique that this is the president's lawyer. that this might be trying to give, appears to be trying give the president political and legal cover if he goes back on his word saying i wanted to do it, but you know, my lawyer said not to. it would just be so unusual and uncharacteristic of the president to not bristobristol. >> one of the major decisions. sabrina, john dowd is the private, personal attorney. not a government attorney. ty cobb works in the white house in the office of the counsel. so this is his private attorney making that very blunt tame. statement. >> it dove till tas with president's comments yesterday where he had that very important caveat that i would gladly sit
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down with the special counsel, but i have to consult my legal team first. my sense is is that they want to try and limit in so far as they can his exposure to the essential counsel and really try and control this parameters of this interview or have as much of it as they can be in written format and not have too much face-to-face time, but they probably can't have him get away with not sitting down with the special counsel at all. >> wrap this up. hold on. >> can i throw a shoe at the camera? you think the president didn't discuss with his lawyers beforehand whether they thought it was a good idea to go before this group? he knew going into that conversation his lawyers would say no because now he's going to say i said yes, they said no. >> jeffrey. >> well, i just think you know, the ground work is here. if he wants to take the fifth. he can say this investigation has been a witch hunt from day one. it's unfair. it's stacked against me. i want nothing to do with it. i want no part of it. this is a way of shutting it
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down. at least as far as i'm concerned. so i don't think taking the fifth is out of the question here at all. >> but politically, david axelrod, the president of the united states takes the fifth, how would that look? >> well, obviously, it would be quite controversial, but there is we should point out that even as we speak, there's this parallel campaign going on to tarnish the investigation. tarnish the fbi. tarnish mueller. tarnish everything about this. and so that would fit into the scenario that jeffrey describe, which is for him to say everyone knows that this whole thing has been rigg erigged. supporters would say i'm all for that. and everybody else would be appalled by it. >> everybody stand by. more breaking news we're following. very different new involving the porn star who reportedly was paid to stay quiet about an alleged affair with donald trump
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years ago. she is now speaking about. we're going to hear from stormy daniels and from her friend, who's sharing some eye popping stories with cnn. we took legendary and made it liberating. we took safe
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new tonight, former porn star sto star stormy daniels asked the question did she have a sexual relationship with donald trump. she sat down for an interview despite the alleged pay off she
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received from mr. trump's lawyer to stay silent. tell us what she said about your own interview with one of her friends. >> so initially, we heard from her. she talked a lot about a lot of different things, saying she was afraid to be in her home. she was a little bit afraid for her safety after this story broke. but what storm where daniels did not talk about was anything to do with the alleged affair between her and trump or the alleged hush money but her friend here as plenty to say about it. storm y daniels breaks her silence. but so far, she's not talking about her alleged sexual relationship with donald trump and whether she was paid $130,000 in hush money a month before the 2016 election to keep quiet about it. >> did you have a sexual relationship with donald trump? >> she may not be talking, but a long time friend and fellow
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adult entertainment actress, alanna evans, is. we met up with her in las vegas at the adult entertainment expo where stormy daniels is expected to attend an awards show. >> because i did not sign a nondisclosure, i can any a fair took place. but evans says the alleged a fair happened in 2006, just four months after his wife gave birth to their son. questions about the affair resurfaced when the wall street journal raising questions where the money came from. the president's attorney saying
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daniels signed a letter my involvement with donald trump was personal appearances and nothing more. but she detailed alleged a fair with donald trump. this says this was taken after she was invited up to the hotel by donald trump. >> are you certain there was a relationship? >> i knew she had met donald trump and expressed to me what had happened in the golf tournament. and when they made it was made clear to me it was all about stormy. that night when i received the phone calls, after i had dinner with stormy, and already received my first invitation. so i new early on in the night they wanted moo he to hang out
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with them. and towards the end when he was calling stormy, to going from inviting my girlfriend to hang out, to now hearing donald trump on the phone telling me, come on, let's hang out, come party. >> what do you think he meant by come party? was it come play games or have sex? >> i'm going to be totally straight with you. if someone calls me to invite me because they are hanging out with someone famous and wealthy like him, it's not just to have a glass of wine or just hang out. i'm pretty sure i was invited pm for sexual fun to be add today t added to the equation. but enough to intimidate with the situation. >> so she told us that she decided not to go. but she says she did talk to stormy daniels the next morning
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apologizing for not showing up for her friend and she says daniels then detailed what happened that night, including the now infamous comment about mr. trump chasing daniels around the home in his tidy whities. >> all right. sa sa sara sider from las vegas. we'll go live to davos next. jimmy (shouting): james! he's survived record rain and a supplier that went belly up. so while he's proud to have helped put a roof over the heads of hundreds of families, he's most proud of the one he's kept over his own. brand vo: get the most out of your money, whether you're using quickbooks smart invoicing to get paid twice as fast or automatically tracking your mileage. smarter business tools for the world's hardest workers. quickbooks. backing you.
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well, i just want to thank everybody. >> more breaking news as immigration talks heat up, nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants. in switzerland. just a costas is in davos for us. jim, president is calling this a concession. what does he want? >> this is not what democrats are calling it. the question is whether this is going anywhere. let's layout some of the proposal coming from the white house. the president is now open to according to go the white house a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants including the so-called undocumented dreamers in exchange for that the white house wants $25 billion to build a wall on the border with mexico. and for other border security measures.
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in addition to that, wolf, this might be contentious part of th this, and that's crack down of chain migration. they would start preventing u.s. citizens from bringing in parents from the u.s. you can bring in spouses and young children but not parents. that's is why they are telling me this is dead on arrival. one immigration advocate referred to it as legislative burning cross. so this is going to be very contentious incoming days. >> we'll see how the negotiations go. the president also in davos stirring up fresh controversy over jerusalem. tell us about that. >> reporter: that's right the president doubled down on his belief that the u.s. should move lt embassy in israel to jerusalem from tel aviv. the president said today with
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noil netanya netanyahu that a small facility could open next year. he also warned the palestines that even though they are upset, he said they should get to the negotiating table, if they don't get there, he can shut off aide. here's what the president said about that. >> we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, tremendous support, numbers that people don't understand. that money issen 0 the table and not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace. we took jerusalem off the table. so we don't have to talk about it anymore. >> and the palestine response to that if jerusalem is off the table then america is off the table. they don't want to go back to the table when it comes to that peace. that is tough situation for the united states to be in.
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this could come back to haunt any u.s. president. >> abbas refused to meet with mike pence the other day and the president says that shows lack of respect. that's it for me. erin burnett outfront start right now. the so-called secret society in the fbi. gop conspiracy theory meant to discredit the russia probe s the story unraveling tonight. plus trump's attorney is the one who decides if trump talks to mueller and no decision has been made. what happened when the president said, hey, he wants to testify under oath with mueller in a sit do down. and making history, first seating senator

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