Ex-FBI Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Lying
BALDWIN: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The U.S. Postal Service is warning that voters may not be able to deliver ballots to election offices in time to be counted because of the current state election laws. And that warning comes as members of the U.S. Postal Workers Union throw their support to former Vice President Joe Biden, saying that the pandemic threatens the very survival of the organization. And that endorsement in this 2020 campaign coming as President Trump continues to make fact-free claims about mail-in voting being fraudulent. And now his predecessor is voicing concerns about the impact of Trump's words and inaction when it comes to funding the Postal Service. Here is former President Barack Obama.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you ask me the single thing that I am most concerned about between now and November, it is that we do everything humanly possible to ensure that everybody who wants a change in administration actually registers that change at the ballot box, whether that is in person or by mail-in voting. Usually, the Republican Party, for quite some time, has actively tried to discourage people's votes from counting in all kinds of ways. What we have never seen before is a president say, I'm going to try to actively kneecap the Postal Service to encourage voting, and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it. That's sort of unheard of, right?</s>BALDWIN: Let's start there with CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger. And, Gloria, you know, he also -- former President Obama underscored that mail-in ballots aren't the only thing at risk, that the post office delivers benefits for Social Security and veterans, which is an alternative to those who can't quite afford, you know, FedEx or UPS. Do you think that message would resonate with just everyday Americans, and could Trump's targeting of the post office actually backfire?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it could mean. The Postal Service delivers medicine, for example, and other important things that people develop on every day. And when you look at the polling, Brooke, a healthy majority of the American public believes that mail-in voting is just fine and the every day and when you look at the polling, Brooke, a healthy majority of the American public believes that mail-in voting is just fine, and that the president may be appealing to his base. Republicans in his base may be with him. But independent voters are not with him. And about 58 percent of all Americans are not with him. And so the more he keeps pushing at this, the more you have to ask the question, why? Why is he doing this? Why is he trying to delegitimize an election before it even occurs? And the answer is, I think, that he's afraid he's behind.</s>BALDWIN: And to the former president's point -- and Chris Cillizza wrote about this -- it's like, it's one thing to think the thing. He's saying it. He's saying it out loud.</s>BORGER: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: And so to your to your point about Americans seeing right through it, we learned that, despite his attacks, Gloria, the president and first lady have requested mail-in ballots for Tuesday's primary election in Florida. And he has--</s>BORGER: Hmm. Yes. How about that?</s>BALDWIN: I know. I know. And he has previously said that mail-in voting should go forward in Florida due to its Republican governor, purely political. Will voters see that?</s>BORGER: It's pretty obvious. It's pretty obvious. Talk about a mixed message. The president comes out at first and says, all mail-in voting is wrong. Millions and millions of ballots are going to be foiled by foreigners because of mail-in voting. There is no proof. In Pennsylvania, the administration is going to be required to submit some proof, I mean, the campaign required to submit some proof by midnight tonight on that very issue. But here you have the president and his wife, saying, OK, we're going to submit mail-in ballots. There is no difference at all between a mail-in ballot and an absentee ballot. And the fact that the president is saying Florida is administered well, he didn't say that at the beginning of all of this. He only said it after Republicans whispered in his ear and said, Mr. President, you are discouraging our voters, Republican voters, from going to the polls in the state of Florida, which, as we all know, is an important battleground state. You cannot do that. And what did he do? He turned on a dime and said, OK, well, never mind, forget about it. Florida is fine. But everybody else is not fine. I think you can see right through that.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>BORGER: And it's so obvious what he is doing. And if you can't see through it, it's because you don't want to.</s>BALDWIN: Exactly right. Gloria Borger, thank you very much.</s>BORGER: Thanks, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Breaking news also this afternoon resulting from the Russia investigation. A former FBI attorney is expected to plead guilty to making a false statement in connection with the surveillance of the Trump adviser Carter Page. So let's go straight to our senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez. He's over at Department of Justice. And so, Evan, what is this lawyer accused of doing wrong?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, his name is Kevin Clinesmith, and he's a former FBI lawyer, Brooke. And he was working on the documents that were being prepared to be submitted to the FISA court, the surveillance court that approved those warrants to surveil Carter Page. And according to the documents filed in court today, he is pleading guilty to falsifying an e-mail, an e-mail that was sent from someone at the CIA saying that Carter Page at one point was a source. He changed that e-mail before he forwarded it to another FBI lawyer to indicate that Carter Page was not a source. So he changed the meaning of this -- of this e-mail. And that became a very key fact in why there was a fourth surveillance warrant that was requested by the FBI to target Carter Page. Now, the lawyer for Kevin Clinesmith says -- quote -- "Kevin deeply regrets having altered the e-mail. It was never his intent to mislead the court or his colleagues, as he believed the information he relayed was accurate. But Kevin understands what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility." Brooke, this is the first of any kind of action that we have seen come out of the John Durham investigation. Durham was appointed by Bill Barr to take a look at the origins of the Russia investigation. Of course, as you saw in the last hour, the president is very pleased that somebody at least has been charged with something from the Durham investigations. He promises that there's more to come. We don't know whether that's the case or not, Brooke. We have heard in the last few days from the attorney general that it's quite possible Durham's not going to finish his work before the election.</s>BALDWIN: Evan, thank you for that. And one of the greatest football coaches of all time says that there is no chance the games postponed for the spring will actually happen, Urban Meyer's new warning next. And the president returns to an ugly page in his political playbook, blatant racism.