Mexican President Cancels Trump Meeting Over Border Wall; Democratic Memo Counters GOP Claims of Spying Abuse
WHITFIELD: Welcome back. I'm Fredericka Whitfield in New York. President Trump firing back a Democrat after the release of a new House Intelligence Committee memo over the Russia investigation. It refutes claims by the Republican Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, in his controversial memo released earlier in the month. The committee's ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff fought for weeks for his memo to be released. And now that it is out, President Trump not holding back about its contents or the author.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: Well, all you do is you see this Adam Schiff, he has a meeting, and he leaves the meeting, and he calls up reporters and then all of a sudden they have news, and you're not supposed to do that. It's probably illegal to do it. You know, he'll have a committee meeting and he'll leak all sorts of information. You know, he's a bad guy. But certainly the memo was nothing.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Here with me now, CNN White House correspondent, Boris Sanchez. So Boris, what exactly is in Adam Schiff's memo? What is detailed there?</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Fred. Yes, the Schiff memo in some parts directly contradicts its Republican counterpart, the Nunes memo. For one, it states that that siliceous Steele dossier was not the sole basis for the surveillance of Carter Page, that there was a lot more broad information that ultimately led to the full-blown Russia investigation. It also states that when the Steele dossier was mentioned in the application for a FISA warrant that the judge was made aware of its political nature, that it was opposition research gathered during the 2016 campaign. Now, the Republicans have argued that the judge wasn't aware that Hillary Clinton and Democrats funded that dossier, the collection of the information within that dossier, something that the President seized upon yesterday, not only on Fox News but also on Twitter. The President attacking Adam Schiff, at one point misquoting Fox News, before then saying that some of the actions taken by the intelligence community are illegal, and then attacking Former President Barack Obama allegedly for not doing anything on Russia. Now, some Republicans, including Devin Nunes and Peter King, would argue that some of the actions taken by the intelligence community may have been inappropriate, potentially illegal. But to say that President Obama didn't act on Russian meddling is simply inaccurate. President Obama expelled some 35 Russian diplomats after it was announced that Russian meddled in the election close to Russian compounds, and he did something that President Trump has not done which is confront Vladimir Putin face to face to tell him to stop meddling in future American elections. If you may recall, President Trump said that he believed Vladimir Putin, when the Russian leader denied Russia having anything to do with meddling when the two leaders met last year, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Boris Sanchez at the White House thank you so much. Congressman Adam Schiff coming to his own defense this morning, speaking to CNN Jake Tapper on "STATE OF THE UNION."</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, proud to be one of the bad hombres, I guess. What the President is referring to, I think what really aggravated him, is when his son came to testify before our committee, I asked him about conversations he had with the president where the president was on that aircraft and they concocted this false statement about that meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians. And he refused to answer the questions, claiming attorney-client privilege, which clearly doesn't apply to a situation where neither he nor his father are attorney nor client. Our position is, and the Republicans have adopted it as well, if witnesses refuse to answer questions and make bogus claims of privilege, as he did, as Steve Bannon did, we call them out on it. Well, the president doesn't like that. But that's not a leak. That's a fact. And it didn't disclose testimony he gave. It disclosed a privilege that he asserted that doesn't apply. So, I'm not surprised the president doesn't like it. I'm not surprised, frankly, that the White House tried to bury this memo response as long as they could. But it's important for the public to see the facts that the FBI acted appropriately in seeking a warrant on Carter Page. They're not part of some deep state, as the president apparently would like the public to believe.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Let's bring in our panel now. Tara Setmayer is a CNN Political Commentator and Board of Director for Stand Up Republic. Steve Lonegan is currently running as a Republican for New Jersey's 5th Congressional District, and Shimone Prokupez is a CNN Crime and Justice Reporter. And it's good to see all of you. All right. So, Tara, you first, you heard Adam Schiff there. This really tries to clear up any disputes about political motivation or bias, the democratic memo. Does it do that?</s>TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think so. It was pretty clear given what the Democrats used to substantiate their claims, they actually quoted from parts of the FISA application. And the idea that that FISA court was misled in some way, which is what the Republican memo tried to assert that they were mislead --</s>WHIFIELD: That information was withheld from the judge?</s>SETMAYER: That information was withheld from the judge and that they were unaware of political motivations behind the dossier, the Steele dossier. That's just not true. It's pretty clear that they mentioned that the source, the dossier source, came from someone that was paid for possibly by a campaign that wanted to undercut the credibility of the Trump campaign. I mean, anyone who worked there that reads these applications understands that they don't unmask people just to unmask them for no reason, you have to be under investigation. So, that's what they did here. They followed proper procedure, which is completely against what the Republican memo asserts here. So, it's absurd to say otherwise given they even cited what exactly in the FISA memo.</s>WHITFIELD: Steve.</s>STEVE LONEGAN (R), NEW JERSEY CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: They unmask people for political purposes and political purposes only. And there's no good drive -- motivation by that. I can't believe he just called himself a bad hombre. I mean, who's he's kidding? He's not a bad hombre. That Democrat memo is a weak and pathetic effort to cover up for the failures of the Democrat Party to come out honestly on this. That -- the Steele document was the driving force behind the FISA court awarding those warrants. And without that, without that, there wouldn't be any case or whatsoever.</s>SETMAYER: That's not what it said.</s>LONEGAN: That was -- there would be none. And they did not tell the judge it was funded by the clean administration. It was buried in the footnote, heat with in the back of the thing, it was hard to even understand.</s>SETMAYER: I would assume that the FISA judge reads the footnotes. That's the point of the FISA application. I assume that the</s>FISA -- LONEGAN: Well, like I say, I may not be a judge, but I read that memo five times, and try to understand what it says. It's nothing but a suspend document maybe cover up for the clean --</s>WHITFIELD: It's pretty clear what the document says.</s>WHITFIELD: You mean that these memos, ultimately, really have no impact on the Mueller investigation. That it really could be just a side show about how Republicans want people to see or dispute the FBI or the findings or the purpose of the FISA warrant? How Democrats want to dispute any findings. What's the route here, Shimon?</s>SHIMON PROKUPEZ, CNN CRIME  AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, really, this has no impact on the Mueller investigation. I think what this does is it helps, perhaps, maybe the FBI. Because when you think about the first memo that went out, and this is what the FBI complained about, that it would omit key facts that do not give people a full picture. Well, now with the Democratic memo, we have a full picture. We have a full picture knowing full well now that the FBI's investigation into Carter Page started well before Christopher Steele came to them. Other issues concerning Carter Page started well before the dossier came to the FBI. And this was the complaint that the FBI had initially in the Republican memo that it would just not paint a full picture of their information and now what they were dealing with.</s>SETMAYER: It also mentions that there were other members of the Trump campaign affiliated link -- Trump-linked folks that were under investigation as well at the time, which I think is new information. That part the number was redacted but it says individuals. So, I mean, it's disingenuous to say that this is some kind of hoax, someone made this up, this the deal we're trying to undermine the election results. That's not what's going on here.</s>SETMAYER: The Russians meddled in our election. There are separate investigations going on here. This is about Russian meddling.</s>WHITFIELD: It was already established already, Steve, that FBI had been looking at Carter Page for a very long time. And the dossier was just another layer that came much later. So in terms of the sequence of events in which to present the case to the FISA court, it had to show the whole picture.</s>LOMEGAN: They looked at Carter Page and found what? Nothing. No evidence whatsoever of collusion with the Trump administration in any way shape or form.</s>WHITFIELD: That he had meetings with people that --</s>SETMAYER: Except, that wasn't the original reason why.</s>LONEGAN: They voted Hillary Clinton and so did Willy Bill Clinton go to Russia and make a speech in the wake of deal over uranium. I mean, come on. This is just -- the American people don't care about this anymore. They want to get past this nonsense because it's going no where and focus on jobs and the economy.</s>WHITFIELD: OK. Sorry. Are you saying the memos you're saying are immaterial, but the overall investigation, because it is still ongoing --</s>LOMEGAN: Is going nowhere.</s>SETMAYER: So, you think that there is no reason for our intelligence committee to be investigating Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and others for their inappropriate interaction with the process.</s>LONEGAN: The reason is, the reason is that --</s>SETMAYER: I'm asking if that -- You think that that -- Go ahead.</s>LONEGAN: I'm going to answer you question. Look, under the Obama administration, both the FBI and the DOJ were weaponized against conservative groups like tea parties, why not weaponized them against the Trump administration? That's the driving force.</s>SETMAYER: So, you just didn't answer my question. So, you think there was no -- so, you think that there was absolute no faces --</s>LONEGAN: I think there is no collusion or whatsoever.</s>SETMAYER: That's not I asked you. I asked you, do you think the intelligence community had a basis to be concern about the fact that Carter Page was involved with Russian operatives who's trying to recruit as a foreign agent and George Papadapalous running around bragging about colluding with Russians to get information on Hillary Clinton. And Michael Flynn and his involvement with overseas folks and taking Russian money. And Manafort engaged all of that -- none of that or should have been something that --</s>LONEGAN: (Inaudible) leaked in this nonsense, the (inaudible) news eight weeks before election --</s>SETMAYER: -- that does not mean that the information was not credible.</s>LONEGAN: This is an effort prior to the election, to undermine election by Clinton people. Like I said, because that is what it was. It's just phony allegations about Russian collusion, which does not exist.</s>WHITFIELD: We don't know that yet, so we'll leave it there.</s>LONEGAN: Oh, I think we pretty much know it.</s>WHITFIELD: So, you don't think -- was that your -- your answer was you don't think those things were alarm bells. And so, they should not be investigated, Steve.</s>LONEGAN: They were alarm bells manufacture to be a phony alarm bells by the Clinton's, is that what they were? False and phony alarm bells because some guy went to Russia and made a speech to some commitments of a school, big deal.</s>WHITFIELD: Right.</s>SETMAYER: OK.</s>LOMEGAN: Big deal.</s>SETMAYED: When you have people like this that are dismissing the importance of. Russian agents trying to recruit American that were involved with the Clinton or the Trump campaign --</s>LONEGAN: You know, you can say that all you want. History will look back on this as the biggest political scam in American history. And that's what you're witnessing right now.</s>SETMAYER: I would suggest history is going to judge this entire thing completely different.</s>WHITMAYER: We'll leave it right there. We will see. Investigations still on going, it's not over yet.</s>SETMAYER: All right.</s>WHITFIELD: Steve Lonegan, Shimon Prokupez, Tara Setmayer, thanks to all of you. Appreciate it.</s>SETMAYER: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. We'll be right back.