Mueller Indicts 13 Russian Nationals for Election Meddling
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Back to our breaking news in the Russian investigation. A huge development unfolding as we speak. Thirteen Russian nationals indicted a short time ago by the U.S. Justice Department. Three Russian companies also under indictment. The charges? Meddling in the 2016 U.S. election to, quote, "help Donald Trump and harm Hillary Clinton." Here is deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, as he laid out part of what the DOJ believes happened.</s>ROD ROSENSTEIN, U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Russians also recruited and paid real Americans to engage in political activities, promote political campaigns, and stage political rallies. The defendants and co-conspirators pretended to be grassroots activists. According to the indictment, Americans did not know they were communicating with Russians.</s>SCIUTTO: Joining us is journalist, Carl Bernstein, who is, of course, part of "The Washington Post" team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate coverage, and he's also a CNN political analyst and author. Carl, how big a deal is this news?</s>CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is huge in several ways. First of all, the substance of the indictment, sweeping and goes to the case of what the Russians did. It's very specific, very granular and very convincing, in a way that Donald Trump cannot dismiss this, nor can his acolytes. Trump has been looking, even in the past week, I'm told by people in the White House, for ways to fire Mueller, bury this investigation and certainly as a first act to get rid of Rosenstein, which he has been complaining about for months and months. Here we have Rod Rosenstein going on national TV with perhaps the most significant announcement of the investigation yet. And being a very responsible, convincing face, he's just himself an insurance policy in that job, one would think, as has the continuation of the Mueller investigation. It is very hard for these Republicans who have gone along with this business of witch hunt to continue to do so after this.</s>SCIUTTO: You say witch hunt. The Russian government used exactly that phrase as well, responding to this. That's been a consistent response. Can the president, still, I'm going to say not credibly dismiss this as a hoax, but can he walk out there, tweet and say to his supporters and others that the whole Russian investigation is an excuse by Democrats to make up for their loss?</s>BERNSTEIN: He probably will. He has done in consistently. Remember, he is also playing to his base. His base is his insurance against something awful happening to him in the way of impeachment. Let's be clear about this. Republicans who have gone along with him on the Hill are afraid of that base. They now have to start rethinking as a result of this, how long can they go along blindly with Donald Trump saying, oh, this is all a rouse? This is not important. Denying the Russians really did anything. The indictment is very specific in its language to the instant case. It does not preclude more indictments. It talks about, yes, unwitting association in this instance. It does not preclude anything further. And what we are seeing, as Mueller continues to build cases, is that, incrementally, he is making a picture that we can see suggests an awful lot of interface between people in the Trump campaign and Russians beginning with the Trump Tower meeting that his son is at.</s>SCIUTTO: Right. And that was a witting --</s>BERNSTEIN: That was witting.</s>SCIUTTO: It strikes me as you read this indictment and listen to Rod Rosenstein, just the political savvy that these Russian operatives showed. They turned up and focused their efforts on purple states, on Colorado, Virginia, Florida, swing states. They used issues which they knew, it seems, and we know, had political effect, depressed minority voting, alleged voter fraud by the Democratic Party.</s>BERNSTEIN: There's a long history with this type of activity, including what the United States did in the Cold War. During the Cold War, both the United States and Russia became adept at throwing elections in foreign countries. In Italy, we propped up the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats for years and years against the Communists. This is an old Cold War technique. And, indeed, the same old Cold Warriors, Putin and company, are in charge in Russia today. It's not surprising they're so good at this. We would be good at this, too, if we still did it. I'm convinced, and I think most people who cover the national security bureaucracies, think we went out of this business a number of years ago.</s>SCIUTTO: Let me ask you, because there have been other developments in this Russian investigation. CNN reported yesterday that Rick Gates, former deputy campaign manager, no coffee boy for the Trump campaign, appears to be moving toward a plea deal, which would mean pleading guilty to a crime and cooperating with investigators. There is a narrative, perhaps live for by the president and his allies, that this Russia probe is coming to an end, petering out, going nowhere. Yet, in the last two days, you have a third Trump adviser, in effect, giving states evidence and you have these indictments now.</s>BERNSTEIN: I don't think petering out is at all the situation. It might be hurdling down the tracks in a way that it could conclude with a date final perhaps that's in sight down the road, after trials.</s>SCIUTTO: Do you sense that from any of your reporting?</s>BERNSTEIN: No, no. No, no.</s>SCIUTTO: Do you see light at the end of the tunnel?</s>BERNSTEIN: No, I don't. But in terms of, will Mueller bring a series of more indictments that are somewhat inconclusive? We don't know. Mueller's shop is so tight. They're not leaking. Most of what we know are from lawyers, among those who are possibly facing Mueller's guns. But you also can't underestimate the importance of Rick Gates, and the fact that if he pleads -- Gates was with Donald Trump through much of the campaign. He and Trump spoke consistently, frequently. He was Paul Manafort's partner, both in what the special prosecutor says is a long time of crime, as well as his partner in the campaign. So his degree of knowledge -- incidentally, Mueller is a straight shooter. If -- I think we see from what Rosenstein said today. If there is exculpatory evidence about the president of the United States, and he did not collude, I think Mueller is going to give it to us straight up and say it up front, and so will Rosenstein. But the way this investigation is going, the idea of saying, quote, "There is no collusion here" -- look, we are seeing evidence of a conspiracy. Who was witting, unwitting in that conspiracy, we don't know yet. But Mueller's indictments are pointing in a certain direction around people in the Trump orbit and family.</s>SCIUTTO: Carl Bernstein, thank you very much. We've been covering this story, really, since it started.</s>BERNSTEIN: Indeed.</s>SCIUTTO: Imagine we have some more work to do. Another major breaking news story right now, of course, the school massacre in Florida. We're now learning that the FBI failed to act on a recent tip that warned of this shooter's threats in advance.