Julian Assange Named in Court Filing; President Trump's Comments Praising WikiLeaks While Campaigning for President Examined; Number of Missing Persons Due to Wildfires in California Increases; Discussion of President Trump's State of Mind.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is it connected to Russia? We don't know. Speaking of Mueller, CNN has learned that President Trump met with his attorneys to discuss written responses to the special counsel. He's had three meetings over three days. Rudy Giuliani tells the "Washington Post" that the president and his lawyers have not decided if he will answer all of the questions, saying some of those questions create more legal issues than others. We have a lot to cover. Let's begin with CNN's Laura Jarrett live in Washington. Trying to understand, Laura, exactly what happened with this revelation, possible revelation about Julian Assange.</s>LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Either way, John, it's actually truly remarkable. This development all coming overnight in court filing papers in a completely unrelated case that was only recently unsealed, but in an attempt to try to keep that case under wraps back in August, federal prosecutors in Virginia twice referenced charges against Julian Assange. And here is what they said "The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as the motion and proposed order would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and, therefore, no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter." When I asked about why his name appeared in this unrelated court filing in Virginia, he told me, quote, the court filing was made in error. But he did confirm that Assange was not intended to be there. But he wouldn't go any further. Now, the charges, the precise charges that he could be facing still remain very unclear, but seeking any criminal complaint would be an extraordinary development in light of WikiLeaks' role in releasing those thousands of hacked DNC e-mails during the campaign and the mounds of other defense materials from years from the State Department, the Pentagon, even before the DNC hack. As CNN had previously reported the prosecutors actually struggled with the First Amendment complications in all of this, and his lawyer has put out a statement just now hitting back, calling this haphazard release troubling and saying it's actually dangerous to prosecute someone for publishing truthful material. John, Alisyn?</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There are so many implications for us. Thank you very much for breaking that down for us. Joining us now to discuss it, we have CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, CNN contributor and "New York Times" op-ed columnist Frank Bruni, and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Alice Stewart. Great to have all of you here. Happy Friday. The idea that this was a cut and paste mistake and that's why we have learned about this overnight that Julian Assange may have been charged is remarkable, and why computers scare me, number one. But number two, let's start with forget about the First Amendment implications, of which there are many, the legal implications of what this might mean for the Mueller investigation.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, remember, the Mueller team has already charged that Russians facilitated the distribution of stolen e-mails to WikiLeaks.</s>CAMEROTA: So the 12 charges that had to come out in July that Robert Mueller issued, that's already happened.</s>TOOBIN: That's already out there. What they did not do is say that Assange and WikiLeaks committed a crime in then further distributing them. That question is unresolved and that may relate to the charges that are referred to here. The other issue is on the other side of the transaction. Mueller is obviously investigating Roger Stone and people around Roger Stone for getting documents from WikiLeaks and possibly engaging in some sort of illegal activity there. All of that is related to each other, but we don't know where, if anywhere, charges are going to be filed.</s>BERMAN: And of course, one person we do know who was a big fan of WikiLeaks for some time was then candidate Donald Trump. I think we have to hear this again.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It tells you the inner heart. You got to read it. Another one came in today. This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove. I was getting off the plane, they were just announcing new WikiLeaks, and I wanted to stay there, but I didn't want to keep you waiting. This came out. WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks!</s>CAMEROTA: It sounds like everybody gets a car!</s>ALICE STEWART: If you ask him today, he'll say WikiLeaks, what WikiLeaks? I don't know what you're talking about. But here's the question, and Jeffrey is spot-on with the legal aspect of this. These are all just different dots that Mueller is looking at, and how they connect is the big question. And as we said, Roger Stone, as we remember, touted about knowing that WikiLeaks was going to dump a bunch of Hillary Clinton e-mails six days before it happened. So he knew about some of the activity WikiLeaks was doing. And we also know, as we just heard, the president was a big fan of what WikiLeaks was doing, obviously putting out information about his opposition. Right now it is obviously premature to try and speculate how this all connects together and if this was an inadvertent putting of Julian Assange's name on this document. That still remains to be seen. But there just a little bit, too much cloud in here to not think that there might be smoke or fire at the end of it.</s>FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: This is totally hazy. The Obama administration was as big a foe or anti-fan of WikiLeaks as Trump, as you just saw, was. They were trying to find ways to charge Assange for years.</s>BERMAN: They might have. General Michael Hayden was here before and said he always assumed that there was a sealed indictment for the last five years.</s>CAMEROTA: Back about Chelsea Manning.</s>BRUNI: But we never it. It never went forward, and my understanding -- Jeffrey, correct me if I'm wrong -- is that people in the Obama administration didn't think there was a way to bring an indictment, to pursue charges without getting into messy freedom of speech and freedom of the press areas. It's hard to believe that Donald Trump's Justice Department under Donald Trump, who is such a fan of WikiLeaks, is going to do something to its founder that the Obama administration never managed to.</s>BERMAN: I will say, playing that sound, though, it is extraordinary, and it does show what the problem is here for Donald Trump politically, is that whatever the charge might be against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, we have the video of Donald Trump loving them to death. It's weird for a president to love someone being charged for anything.</s>BRUNI: It's never weird for Donald Trump to love someone who is doing him good. That's Trump way of viewing the world.</s>TOOBIN: It's important to point out what the First Amendment issue is here, because it is difficult. What happened in just a general way is someone gave classified information to WikiLeaks, to Julian Assange, and he published it. Journalists do that all the time. Frank's colleagues at the "New York Times" do it. Bob Woodward has made a brilliant career of getting classified information and then publishing it. Is that a crime? Historically, the Justice Department has not --</s>CAMEROTA: But lots of people have stopped classifying Julian Assange as a journalist.</s>TOOBIN: But how do you -- how do you define what a journalist is if Julian Assange is not one?</s>CAMEROTA: I'll tell you how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defines it. Listen to this.</s>MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is -- a nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.</s>CAMEROTA: A nonstate hostile intelligence service is different than a journalism outfit.</s>TOOBIN: Well, I mean, so says Mike Pompeo, then I think at the</s>CIA. CAMEROTA: True.</s>TOOBIN: But Assange in court could say, but how do you define what I'm doing as different from what journalist do? I get classified information and I publish it. I have no doubt that WikiLeaks has done the work of Russia. That's part of the Mueller case. But journalists do the work of people with agendas all the time.</s>BERMAN: The issue is, or one of the issues could be, did the WikiLeaks, were they complicit and/or involved in the theft, in the stealing of it? The other thing, and the charges could be -- the charges coming the other way that have already been faced by people in the Russia investigation, is attempt to defraud the government of the United States. And was WikiLeaks timing the release of the information they had? Were they coordinating with people in the United States? That's could also put them in legal jeopardy. And that's not journalism. So that's where they could, I suppose, face some legal jeopardy. And it's all happening when we know, Alice, the president has been meeting with his lawyers all week.</s>STEWART: Sure. And he's not been happy about that based on what we heard. And as you mentioned yesterday, he's pissed at darn near everyone, pardon me. And the reality is, one of the things that Giuliani has said and he's concerned with is as he's answering these written questions, which I think that is the smart thing to do, but I don't think he needs to sit down and actually do this. As he's answering these written questions, Giuliani has express expressed concern about possible traps. In my view, the way I look at it, if there is no collusion, as he has said, there's no collusion and no coordination, and he's being truthful, there's no opportunity for him to get caught in a trap. So I think it's best if there has been nothing wrong and if he can be forthcoming and credible, answer the questions, answer them fully and truthfully, and let's get this behind us. However, Frank doesn't think that's possible.</s>BRUNI: No, no, no. I'm just laughing because you say answer the questions truthfully. I think the problem is they look at these questions is as they are determining how to answer them now, they have to go back and look at the eight different ways that Trump and the people that represented him answered in the past. And that's the trap. When you have given so many versions of the supposed truth which isn't the truth over time, and now you are committing one version to writing in response to these questions, how do you come up with an answer that's truthful and that doesn't contradict and put you in a lie before or put you in a lie now? I think it's interesting we now have an answer to, we've been talking about Trump's sour, angry mood this week. And we had that tweet storm on Thursday morning. We now learned that for 90 minutes Wednesday night he was huddling with his lawyers trying to figure out how to answer these questions. That may be why he had Mueller on the brain Thursday morning and went into such a --</s>TOOBIN: The one thing you do is you tell the truth in the one that's under oath.</s>BRUNI: Right.</s>TOOBIN: I mean, these answers will be under oath. As we all know as journalists, it's not illegal to lie to the press and people lie to us and people lie in speeches.</s>CAMEROTA: And to voters.</s>TOOBIN: They lie to voters. The remedy for that is political. It's not legal. If you lie in this submission, you have a world of trouble that is very different.</s>CAMEROTA: As you and John have been pointing out all morning, this one should be the easy part because it's the written questions. And it sounds like from what Josh Dawsey was told by Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani tells me this afternoon that Trump and his lawyers haven't decided whether they will answer all of Mueller's questions. So even the written questions, which, by the way, are exclusively about events pre-election. This is a good multiple choice for them.</s>TOOBIN: Right, as we have described it, this is the open book take- home exam, which should be somewhat easier. Remember, the whole issue of whether or if the president answers questions about obstruction of justice, the firing of James Comey, while he was president is unresolved. The president's lawyers have said answering questions about that violates Article Two of the Constitution. Whether Mueller issues a subpoena about that, we don't know. So again, even with these written answers, it doesn't end this whole controversy.</s>BERMAN: And one of the things we've been dancing around, Frank, is there is mild speculation going on, and it is just speculation, that there could be something happening soon. Could be today. It's Friday. Everyone's like, could there be a Friday news dump from the Mueller team?</s>BRUNI: And the speculation, a lot of it has been about is Donald Trump Jr. going to be indicted? And again, when you talk about how the president is feeling right now and why he feels so under siege and scared and freaked out, if his son is going to be indicted, which he has told some people he is worried will happen, that's a very dark day for this man.</s>CAMEROTA: For anybody.</s>STEWART: Roger Stone, I think he is probably one of the first to face the next axe with regarding to this. I don't think Mueller -- I think Friday news dumps are classic for political administrations and campaigns. Robert Mueller is going to indict people when it is ready, when the ink is dry and he's ready to pull the trigger. It's going to happen.</s>TOOBIN: And when the grand jury is sitting. Just as a legal matter, you can only indict someone when there is a grand jury.</s>CAMEROTA: So when's that?</s>TOOBIN: It's not clear, but it is usually one day a week, and the day usually moves. But grand juries don't sit -- it's not like a trial jury where they sit every day. They come in usually one day a week and Mueller has a grand jury that he's working with. And there has been indictments in his case on Friday, but not always on Friday.</s>BERMAN: Friends, fascinating. It's Friday, 8:12 a.m. right now. Let's talk again when we get tonight.</s>BERMAN: The death toll in those devastating California wildfires is now at 66. That number is up. And while the number of people still unaccounted for and the Camp Fire has soared to 600, now 600 people missing or unaccounted for. CNN's Scott McLean is live in Paradise, California. And, Scott, that's the number that jumps out this morning, 600 people unaccounted for?</s>SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. These are pretty terrifying numbers for the people who live here, John, not only because the death toll from the campfires has now reached 63, but because there are 631 people who have been reported missing. The reason why, though, is because authorities say they have gone back through their 911 call logs and their police reports that were filed in the frantic early hours of this fire and may have been simply set aside. So they're going back and mining those for names and adding those to the list. The good news is the expectation is that many people on that list will be found safe and sound. Probably most of them don't even know that they have been reported missing at all. The main thing for a lot of people, though, who have been displaced, and we're talking about well over 20,000, is just getting by, just finding a place to stay. Hotel rooms are nearly impossible to find within an hour radius of here. The shelters, many of them are also full, and at least one of them is dealing with a norovirus outbreak. So that is not an appealing option for many people. And so some people have opted to have their own space. So they have gone to a Walmart parking lot. They are sleeping in their cars or they're sleeping in tents that have been set up there. And it's not just adults. It's families as well. And keep in mind, the temperatures overnight here are frigid. We're talking about low 40s. This is not comfortable. And a mom with her seven-year-old daughter yesterday, they were sleeping in the car. They said, hey, it could be worse. We could be out in a tent. I met a grandmother staying in a tent. She said you could not put enough blankets on to keep her and her nine-year-old grandson warm. That grandson told us what he missed most about his house, which has been destroyed. Listen.</s>ELI KINGERY, LOST HOME IN CAMP FIRE: Just being in a bed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just miss your bed? It's warm.</s>KINGERY: Being under a ceiling and actually having a real bathroom. It's just hard.</s>MCLEAN: That's pretty heartbreaking to hear. And President Trump will actually be here in California tomorrow, and he will not have to look hard to find people just like that family there. Alisyn?</s>CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Scott, thank you very much. We have sons that same age. Can you imagine?</s>BERMAN: That poor kid. You just want him to get home at some point soon.</s>CAMEROTA: And it's not going to be soon.</s>BERMAN: No.</s>CAMEROTA: Now to this. First lady Melania Trump flexing her muscles, going after that member of the administration. A presidential historian tells us why the first lady's actions were, quote, "jarring."