Theresa May Comments on Assange Arrest.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BERMAN: All right, the breaking news, you're looking at pictures from London from just moments ago. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested. Just arrived in court. He was arrested on behalf of the United States. An extradition order from the United States. And we learned just moments ago that very shortly the U.S. government will unseal its charges. We will learn what the charges are against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. CNN's Evan Perez live in Washington with much more on that. Evan.</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. We are expecting that the Justice Department is going to announce what exactly these charges are against Julian Assange, perhaps in the next hour or two. We expect that, again, these are the charges that are behind the U.S. extradition request that the U.K. police were able to arrest Julian Assange today at the Ecuadorian embassy. Now, we've seen some movement on this case recently. You heard earlier today from Julian Assange's lawyer in London that her understanding was that these charges relate to the 2010 WikiLeaks dump of documents that were stolen by Chelsea Manning. Just in the last few weeks, Chelsea Manning was brought before the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. She refused to testify as part of this case. And we now know -- and we now know that she is --</s>CAMEROTA: Hold that thought for one second because Prime Minister Theresa May -- that's Prime Minister Theresa May. She has just taken the podium to speak about this.</s>THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Thank the Metropolitan Police for carrying out their duties with great professionalism and to welcome the cooperation of the Ecuadorian government in bringing this matter to a resolution. Mr. Speaker, this goes to show that in the United Kingdom no one is above the law. Turning to the counsel, my priority is to deliver Brexit and to do so in an orderly way that does not disrupt people's lives. So I continue to believe we need to leave the European Union with a deal as soon as possible. And, of course, this house has voted --</s>CAMEROTA: Let's go back to Evan Perez, who is getting some fresh reporting on everything that has happened with Julian Assange and his arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Sorry to unceremoniously cut you off for the prime minister there, but, Evan, you were just telling us about what we're expecting in the next few minutes.</s>PEREZ: Right, it is question time, so I think it's -- it's perfectly appropriate. But Theresa May was just referring to the fact that the arrest was carried out and obviously the British had to arrest him under -- under U.S. -- under British law. But there was a U.S. extradition request as well, Alisyn. And part of this -- we've seen some of the movement on this case. We knew that Julian Assange had been charged back in November. The prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally posted publicly a document that said that there were those charges. We've heard now from one of the lawyers for Julian Assange in London who said that part of the charges relate to the 2010 dump of WikiLeaks documents. These are diplomatic documents that were stolen by Chelsea Manning. We saw recently also Chelsea Manning was brought before the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. She refused to testify and has remained detained because she refused to testify. So all of that it -- it shows us exactly what has been going on behind the scenes. We know that the Justice Department, lawyers and State Department lawyers have been working with the Ecuadorians and the British to try to get this done. And finally, today, you saw the arrest of Julian Assange.</s>CAMEROTA: Evan, thank you very much for all of that reporting. Obviously we'll come back to you as soon as those charges are listed and we can hear them.</s>PEREZ: Sure.</s>CAMEROTA: But joining us know is James Clapper. He served as the director of National Intelligence for seven years under President Obama and is now a CNN national security analyst. Director Clapper, it is so good to have you here during this breaking news because Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, some of their most active years were 2010 through 2017, when you were director of National Intelligence. What do you think as you watch the arrest today at the behest of the United States?</s>JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I was, of course, recalling the 2010 era, which was right as I had started as DNI and had to deal with the impact of the Chelsea Manning revelation, which were quite damaging and caused us all kinds of grief in the intelligence community. I do think that Jeffrey Toobin, I think, as always, articulated the complexities of this case. And there is the, you know, freedom of the press aspect. I personally -- and this is a legal -- a personal opinion, not a legal opinion, think -- I'm in the Mike Pompeo school that WikiLeaks is really a non-nation state hostile intelligence service. But I'm saying that as an intel guy and having lived through the grief that those revelations caused. There is the comparison between WikiLeaks and the likes of, say, "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post."</s>CAMEROTA: That's what WikiLeaks is making. I mean they -- they want to make that comparison.</s>CLAPPER: Well -- I -- I recognize that. I will just point out one subtle difference from a practical standpoint is that when "The New York Times" -- the likes of "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post" or any responsible media came into possession of classified material, typically, not always, but typically they would at least give us, the intelligence community, an opportunity to comment and make the case for not publishing something. Now, I will say also, though, that their definition of what is harmful to national security and my definition of what's harmful to national security --</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>CLAPPER: Were not exactly congruent. But the difference is --</s>CAMEROTA: Look, these are conversations --</s>CLAPPER: The important difference here --</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>CLAPPER: Alisyn, is that at least we have the opportunity to make our case. And if someone's life was potentially at risk, responsible media would not publish that.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, these are conversations -- hard conversations that are had in newsrooms around the country and the world all the time. But I'm curious -- obviously all of us are curious to see what -- when this is unsealed, and we expect it to happen moments from now, what the charges are against Julian Assange. And it sounds like, if you believe his editor, we spoke to the WikiLeaks editor a few minutes ago, that it's about the 2010 publication and revelations, that it's not about 2016.</s>CLAPPER: Right.</s>CAMEROTA: But, of course, so much has changed since 2010 here in this country and you will remember that President Trump said, I love WikiLeaks. He encouraged WikiLeaks. He hoped that WikiLeaks would publish more from the DNC hack. He was quite sympathetic to WikiLeaks and a fan of WikiLeaks. And so what does that mean now for the court case back here at home now that President Trump is sympathetic to them?</s>CLAPPER: Well, you're right to point out what's changed since 2010. And I don't know. And, in fact, it makes the arrest at our behest apparently even more curious. And, obviously, if there's a court proceeding here undoubtedly Assange's attorneys are going to point that out, that, you know, the president of the United States, as a candidate, he praised on WikiLeaks. So I -- again, I'm not an attorney, I don't know how that's going to complicate the legal case that the United States government would now make against Assange.</s>CAMEROTA: All right, we need you on standby because obviously we are waiting for those charges to be unsealed. We believe at any moment now. And so, obviously, I'll go back to that when that happens. In the meantime, I wanted to ask you about what we saw yesterday from the attorney general, Bill Barr, in front of the Senate. You called it stunning and scary, those are your words, that Barr would raise -- would use the word "spying." So can you tell me what was scary about that to you?</s>CLAPPER: Well, spying has -- a term I have never. I never liked that term being applied to me, even though I spent 50 years in the intelligence business. It has a bad connotation. It's a pejorative term. It smacks of illegality, a lack of oversight, all those kind of things. And that wasn't the case here. I -- my concern in all of this, as it was when I served as DNI, was the Russians and what the Russians were doing. And to the extent that there was surveillance of anyone, it had -- it was occasioned by contacts with Russians who were targets, validated foreign intelligence targets. And we sort of lost sight of that. And the threat that the Russians pose, because that's how this all started, is the Russian meddling. So when the attorney general -- and I believe he used that term deliberately. You know, he's been the attorney general before, so he's not unfamiliar with all this, I thought it was quite stunning.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>CLAPPER: And apparently he's -- his concern is more broadly to the intelligence community at large, not just the FBI. So I'm very interested in what it is that gives him concern.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, he was unclear. He did not expound on what gave him concern. It sounded like he was open to being concerned and he was going to wait to hear what the inspector general had to say. But I want to talk about how the -- what you hear Republicans saying and the president is that they should have alerted -- if there was an investigation, a counterintelligence investigation that involved the Trump campaign, they should have alerted the Trump campaign. Now, you were the person who, in January of 2017, one of the people, went to tell the then president-elect that all of this was swirling around and he had already been alerted that Russians were trying to interfere in the campaign. And so should the campaign have known before that date that you went over there that there was an investigation -- possibly a counterintelligence investigation involving some people connected to the campaign?</s>CLAPPER: Well, the -- I can't speak specifically, Alisyn, to what the FBI did. I believe, but I don't know for sure, but I believe they did give kind of standard defensive briefings after the candidates were designated after their respective conventions. When the two candidates emerged, we started, as is customary, intelligence briefings for both candidates. And those -- those intelligence briefings include --</s>CAMEROTA: But should it have gone -- I mean should it have gone deeper?</s>CLAPPER: Those intelligence briefings included reporting on the Russian meddling that was ongoing.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. So when you hear different Republican lawmakers say, how dare they not alert the campaign that there was this counterintelligence investigation, are they right or wrong?</s>CLAPPER: Well, I don't know what the decision calculus here was by the FBI contemporaneously. But I do know, as a general rule, with -- particularly with respect to a counterintelligence investigation, that when you start it, you want to be sure your -- who is potentially complicit and who isn't. and there is a -- as a general rule of thumb, you try to be as cloistered and compartmented about such investigations for all kinds of good reasons. So, again, I don't know what the decision calculus was at the time, contemporaneously the FBI used. It's my understanding they did give general counterintelligence briefings specifically focused, I believe, on the Russians.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. It's good to get that context. Director James Clapper, keep your phone handy. We'll have you on speed dial as all of this unfolds. Thank you very much.</s>CLAPPER: Thanks, Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: John.</s>BERMAN: All right, CNN has learned that the Justice Department will announce the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange very shortly. This, of course, after his arrest in the United Kingdom. Our breaking news coverage continues right after this.