No Holidays for Mueller's Russia Probe
LEMON: So, the government is in a shutdown right now, but someone in Washington is still working. And that man is special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller and his team are still chugging along in their investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia and any other possible crimes that have come up along the way. Here's a recap of where we are right now. OK? Here you go. Four people have been sentenced to prison. One person, Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, was convicted at trial. Seven people had pleaded guilty including Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, and 36 people and entities have been charged, including a criminally linked social media troll farm, the Internet Research Agency. This year Mueller's investigation and the investigations he's referred out to other prosecutors around the country have seen results. And we have learned a ton. We now know how the hush money payments were made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. And prosecutors in New York say that individual one, AKA, Donald Trump, directed his fixer Michael Cohen to take care of those payments. We now know that conversations about developing a Trump tower in Moscow continued much later into the 2016 election and that Trump signed a letter of intent for the project. We learned that Michael Flynn was cooperating substantially with the special counsel including on investigations still unknown to the public. Remember all these redactions from his sentencing memo? And we know that Paul Manafort continued to lie to Mueller even after agreeing to cooperate. Trump also turned in his take-home test, giving written answers to questions from the special counsel. And by CNN's count we know at least 16 Trump associates and contacts had contacts with Russians during the campaign or transition. Sixteen. What we don't know is if there was direct coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. And maybe we will find out if there was or not next year. But still the walls are closing in on the president on many fronts. His campaign, transition, inaugural committee, foundation, business, and presidency are all under investigation. Once Democrats take control of the House next week the scrutiny is sure to heat up. Joining me now is Jack Quinn, the former White House counsel to President Clinton. Garrett Graff is here as well. Author of "The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror." Good evening to both of you gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. Jack, I'm going to start with you. You just heard me lay it out. All of it, right? Mueller has indicted multiple members of the Trump's inner circle. Democrats take control of Congress in a matter of days. How bad could this get?</s>JACK QUINN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is bad. So, it's going to only get worse from here. You know, so many of the areas on which you touch are unresolved. We don't know yet the most critical question. Namely, was there, you know, per the mandate to Robert Mueller, a link, any kind of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government? But, you know, remarkably enough, when you look back on all the things you ticked off, the year started with Michael Flynn talking to the Russian ambassador. Michael Flynn of course at the end of that year being indicted. The year also ended with Michael Cohen admitting in court that he had perjured himself when he suggested that the Trump tower deal in Moscow had ended much earlier than in fact it did. You know, the one constant, Don, throughout this year is that people very close to Donald Trump lied. And what did they lie about? They lied about Russia. Paul Manafort. Rick Gates. Michael Flynn. Michael Cohen--</s>LEMON: We only have so much show, Jack.</s>QUINN: Yes. So, there's a theme here is the point.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>QUINN: And I know there are a lot of predictions about Mueller wrapping this up, getting ready to write his report. I--</s>LEMON: Well, that's my question to Garrett.</s>QUINN: OK.</s>LEMON: Don't read ahead in the textbook, if you will.</s>QUINN: OK.</s>LEMON: So, let me ask you -- because I want to ask Garrett this. Because Garrett, you know Robert Mueller. Do you get the sense as Jack says that things are wrapping up or is it possible that this is on the beginning?</s>GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think both can be true. Right? You know, I think Robert Mueller has known where this has been going for quite some time. You can sort of see the building blocks of a pretty methodical investigation coming together. Both with what we've been shown publicly and then what we haven't been shown. You know, he's laid out sort of the four corners of this conspiracy with Internet Research Agency, the military intelligence -- GRU attacks and active cyber penetrations, Paul Manafort and the money laundering. And then Michael Flynn and the sketchy campaign transition contacts. And so what we're beginning to see now is Mueller painting and connecting those dots in between. And sort of showing the Americans who participated, what role some of these things played in. And then, you know, the other thing is that you that mentioned is that we have these -- you know, and I have counted them up. And you and I have talked about this before, 17 total different distinct investigative avenues pursuing the President right now, by seven different sets of prosecutors, both looking at the campaign, the transition, the inaugural committee, the Trump organization, the Trump Foundation. And that really what we're beginning to see is how these lines blur and that how Donald Trump sort of moved money from one place to another, and how money flowed into and out of his various entities involved and surrounding him in 2016. And that this is in some ways I think where we could begin to see pretty rapid movement, we saw very rapid movement in the month since Thanksgiving. But at the same time remember this could stretch on for years. I mean people really forget how big Watergate got.</s>LEMON: Yeah, Watergate went on for -- I forget how long it went on.</s>GRAFF: Some of those cases stretched on for the better part of a decade. And ultimately we saw 69 people charged, 48 of them pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial.</s>LEMON: Yeah. Hey, Jack, can we talk about Rudy Giuliani?</s>QUINN: Do we have to? Yes.</s>LEMON: That was good. That was good. He was asked by the Hill today, thehill.com today, if Trump is going to answer more Mueller questions in writing. This is how he responded.</s>RUDY GIULIANI, LAWYER, PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think I announced about 10 days ago over my dead body. And I am not dead yet. He's not answering any more questions from these people. Their outrageous activity, you know, we did enough. We did everything.</s>LEMON: OK, so -- but then, Jack, he told the Daily Beast that those talks are still open. I mean this has been going on for well over a year. Do you really believe they're still in negotiations?</s>QUINN: Well, obviously, I don't know. I believe there's a line of communication between them. I also think that every time Rudy says something intemperate like that, that there's something else going on. And he's really trying to, you know, say don't look over there, look over here. So the question every time Rudy does this is what's he trying to distract us from? You know, and I am not sure what it is here. And by the way, I don't -- I am not one who thinks that Robert Mueller is close to finishing his work. I think it's going to stretch out for some period of time. And I also think that a really important recent development and we've talked about it a little before. But the more I think about it, the more I focus on how angry Judge Sullivan was. And I think he was not just angry at Michael Flynn. I think he was also angry at Robert Mueller. And the reason may be that he's seen those redacted documents, and he's furious, I think, in part over the leniency that he thinks Michael Flynn was given. And that's why he's saying to Robert Mueller you better squeeze this orange till we get more juice out of him.</s>LEMON: Interesting. Sometimes I think the distraction could be maybe he's not trying to distract to something else. It's just a distraction just because -- just to confuse people. I have got to run, though, thank you, gentlemen, if I don't see you, Happy New Year.</s>QUINN: Happy New Year.</s>GRAFF: Happy New Year.</s>LEMON: Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, is America's most admired woman. That's according to a new poll. And you've got to see who she knocked off the top spot after a 17-year winning streak.