Flynn Flipped; Kushner's Role; Russia Contact's.
ANNOUNCER: This is "CNN breaking news."</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN SPECIAL REPORT RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: This is a CNN special report, the Russia investigation. We are following breaking news this evening on the most consequential move yet by the special counsel, reaching for the first time into President Trump's inner circle. I'm Pamela Brown.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN SPECIAL REPORT RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION: I'm Jim Sciutto. Tonight fired national security adviser Michael Flynn is cooperating with investigators after striking a deal and pleading guilty to repeatedly lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. We are putting all the pieces together this hour with our correspondents and analysts who have been leading the way on this story. Michael Flynn is the first senior White House official to be charged, to be flipped apparently, and now poised to be a star witness in the Russia probe. Among the big questions tonight, what is Flynn telling Robert Mueller's team and how damaging could all of this be for the President and those closest to him, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner? Sources tell CNN that Kushner directed Flynn to reach out to the Russian ambassador last September in one of several conversations that Flynn lied about. Court document showed that prosecutors are making a case that Flynn and other Trump advisers coordinated contacts with Russian officials, contacts aimed at influencing international policy before the President took office. Tonight a senior White House official tells CNN a Presidential pardon for Flynn is quote, absolutely not under consideration. A source close to the administration is warning that the President and his aides are in denial about the severity of the Russia probe and that the Flynn deal should be a red alert for them. We're joined with our panel of reporters here who have been covering this story very closely from the beginning. Pam, you've been covering this story from the beginning as well. Really a momentous day in this investigation and for this administration as well.</s>BROWN: That is right, because Michael Flynn is the first official that was in the White House to be charged in the investigation, until what happened today really brings the focus on the others in the White House, too, how this might impact them. Gloria Borger, the big question, how does this deal threaten President Trump?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don't know the answer to that yet, but what I can say is, first of all, we know that Flynn has flipped. So this takes Mueller into the oval office, into somebody who was in the west wing, and he has cooperation from somebody in the west wing. The White House has always said that it was misled by Flynn about his Russian contacts. So now we have to ask the question, is that true? Were they misled? Of course it gives us a whole new view of the time the President went up to Comey, pulled him aside, told other people to leave the room and said, "You know, why don't you let this thing go." And now you have to ask the question, why did the President do that? Was it just because he thought Flynn was a good guy and had been an early supporter, or was there something else there?</s>SCIUTTO: You look at the statement of offense here. It is very detailed about these conversations.</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.</s>SCIUTTO: The White House position has been from the very beginning, the President didn't know about this, Flynn was freelancing, et cetera. In fact, you look at the statement of offense and it describes Flynn not only keeping the Trump transition informed, but senior persons in the Trump transition directing him what to do with these conversations.</s>PEREZ: Right. And we know from our own reporting back in December when some of the stuff was happening, Jim, we know that senior people inside the administration, inside the transition were managing not only this issue with the U.N. Security council and the Israeli settlements which was a big deal for the transition, but also the contact with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. What are things people ask is it possible the President did not know this, which is what he said? We know he took the initiative to make phone calls on the Israeli settlement situation. That doesn't really tell us this is a President that is sort of out of touch with what was happening with his transition, with what was happening with his incoming national security adviser. From everything we know the President was very much involved in all of this, and we know from his public statements that he doesn't think it was a big deal. So, you know, I don't think that we can say that he was completely unaware.</s>BROWN: Yes, you bring up his public statements. Of course it brings to mind twitter and some of the tweets in the same time frame. For example, when Flynn spoke with Kislyak, the day after that he tweeted, great move on delay by V. Putin, of course Vladimir Putin of Russia. I always knew he was very smart. In March the President tweeted, Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch-hunt, excuse for big election loss by media and Dems of historic proportion. What does it tell you about President Trump and what he may have known?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It raises the question of what he did know. One of the things I want to know is did the President continue to have communication for Michael Flynn, for how long, and how recently has he actually spoken to the former national security adviser? We know the President for one has kept in contact with a lot of these deposed -- these officials who are no longer part of the administration, part of the campaign. He continued to talk to Paul Manafort afterwards, he continue to talk to Corey Lewandowsky. Did he talk to Michael Flynn afterwards? That tweet about praising Vladimir Putin after Putin did not retaliate of sorts after the sanctions were imposed has to beg the question, someone must have told him about these conversations right beforehand, otherwise, you know, it really defies logic.</s>SCIUTTO: This is a very small transition.</s>RAJU: And it was a small group of people meeting in Mar-a-Lago at that time of the phone call.</s>BORGER: Lying is not a crime. You can lie to the press and it is not a crime.</s>SCIUTTO: Part of the administration's defense, you know, during -- both during the campaign and during the transition was, listen, we were a small team, we didn't -- you know, we weren't Washington insiders, we didn't know how all of this kind of stuff worked.</s>RAJU: But we were all the best.</s>BORGER: I don't know if Mueller could use that as --</s>SCIUTTO: No, Gloria, it goes to the point, if they were so small, as we know they were, how is it possible that the President, who is very involved and very much a micromanager would not know?</s>BORGER: Right, I don't think you could say it is a disengaged President, which is what -- during Iran contra what the Reagan administration said about Ronald Reagan, disengaged. This is a President who is very engaged, and I think the question here is why. Why so much emphasis on Russia and why so much lying about this? Why if you have nothing to hide, if the President has said, well, there's nothing wrong with it, then fine. Then why, you know, why not tell the truth?</s>BROWN: Let me just -- why in terms of just for context, what is the implication? Why does it matter if the President did know about all of this, Evan?</s>PEREZ: One of the things that the President has been very out there about is sort of saying that this is a witch-hunt. So the question that I think we know that as part of this investigation Mueller has been looking at is the question of obstruction and whether or not there was an attempt by the President, by anybody around him to sort of obstruct the FBI's investigation into trying to get to the bottom of what happened in the 2016 election, whether or not there was any coordination, illegal coordination between the Russians and the campaign. So, look, I think that is a big open question here, and that is why it is important to know what the President knew and when did he know it.</s>SCIUTTO: We do know that is a focus of Robert Mueller's investigation, do we not?</s>PEREZ: Yes, we know there's a group inside the special counsel's office that is dedicated to answering that question, of whether or not -- what has happened. Some of it in plain sight, right? I mean the firing of James Comey, some of the public statements, whether any of that constitutes obstruction of justice.</s>BREWER: And how does what happened today perhaps fit into that? I mean does it?</s>PEREZ: Look, I think -- I think you can make the case that some of what is said here today tells you that at least some of the statements we've seen are not true. For instance, the fact that the President and the White House has been out there sort of portraying Mike Flynn as being on his own, as being some kind of free agent, that is not true according to these statements because according to the version of events that have been presented in court and accepted by a Judge now, Robert Mueller is saying that Flynn was reporting back and getting direction from people, a small circle of people.</s>SCIUTTO: It is key, panel, and I was going to ask you about this, Manu, is the timeline is very relevant here. Flynn is interviewed on January 24, 2016 by the FBI. Two days later, Sally Yates, then acting FBI Director -- Attorney General, raises a red flag, because he was apparent he had lied in that interview. And then, Manu, it is a couple of weeks later when the President has a famous sit-down with James Comey and says, "hey, layoff my pal Michael Flynn."</s>RAJU: Yeah, and keeping him on staff, Flynn, for a couple of weeks afterwards.</s>BORGER: Exactly.</s>RAJU: Despite having that warning, very blatant warning from Sally Yates.</s>BROWN: And only fired him because it became public in "the Washington Post."</s>RAJU: Exactly. I think it is also because of what he told the ice President. I think the Vice President is also someone that Mueller undoubtedly will be looking at, people on Capitol Hill will be looking at. He was head of the transition. He perhaps may have had some sense of these discussions that were going on. Even if he was not named in that court document today, it does not mean he may not have been aware of some of the things that were happening here. That is one of the key questions that I think Mueller is going to have to explore.</s>BORGER: You know, what this document today does is it sort of lets you know where the tentacles go. It is the connective tissue. It says, ok, Flynn whom is our guy now, Flynn says he was not a rogue operator.</s>RAJU: Right.</s>BORGER: And he did this either with the knowledge of or at the direction of people who were going into this administration, and that sort of opens a window on to what Mueller might know. But there's so much more that he knows that we don't know.</s>SCIUTTO: There's a lot of signaling, is there not --</s>BORGER: Yes.</s>SCIUTTO: -- when you look at the statement of offense as to what issues Mueller is pressing on here.</s>BROWN: But it is not just related to Flynn, it is related to others. As you pointed out, we learned Kushner was one of the people who, according to court documents was directing Flynn to call Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. We know we reported earlier this week that Kushner met with special counsel earlier in the month. Looking back on it, it was initially portrayed as a way to button up the case against Flynn. But knowing what we now know, Gloria, do you think they could have been laying a trap for the President's son-in-law? In a sense?</s>BORGER: They could have. I mean I think Jared Kushner is well- represented, but I think that -- I talked to one attorney today who is familiar with the way these things work and said, "look, they could have been playing them a little bit and laying a little bit of a trap."</s>PEREZ: We just have to look at the statements that have been issued by people, you know, close to the White House who are trying to say that, look, Kushner did not direct, and, look, that is the version of events that Kushner gave when he met with the special counsel in early November, then that is a problem because that is not exactly -- that is not the version that Robert Mueller says he believes happened.</s>SCIUTTO: Contradicts it, yes. Contradicts it.</s>RAJU: Presumably he has intercepts too that prove exactly what was said.</s>PEREZ: He has evidence, he has e-mails, and he has reams of documents. So he has a lot more information, and he had this at the time that he brought Kushner in for the interview.</s>BROWN: Clearly they wanted to interview Kushner before this happened today.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>BROWN: You know, they already had the case essentially.</s>PEREZ: They already had it.</s>BROWN: They had spoken to Flynn and other witnesses.</s>SCIUTTO: You already have two Trump advisers caught in lies, lies to FBI investigators, pleading out, George Papadopoulos, but much lower ranking, but still, he was cooperating for weeks and months and that could very (inaudible). And the second one and clearly Mueller looking at the possibility that others might give inaccurate accounts to the FBI as well. It raises a lot of question, and one of them of course is the Flynn guilty plea a first step toward building an obstruction of justice case against the President. We're going to talk to a Democrats involved in the Russian investigation in the house after a quick break.