Michael Cohen Speaking Out After Being Sentenced To Three Years In Prison
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: And today, the secretary of the interior announces he is out. His replacement, nobody knows yet. Well, details in a live report from Washington in s a moment. Also, this weekend a federal a federal judge knocks down the healthcare act known as Obama care. Not part of it, all of it saying it is unconstitutional. President Trump obviously happy that something he has railed against for years is under attack. How this impacts your healthcare coverage in a few minutes. But first, a look at all the moving -- fast-moving developments from special counsel Robert Mueller. We have seen 12 shocking days of revelations since thanksgiving. The latest one, a rupture between Mueller and his star witness, Mike Flynn. The President's first national security advisor who lied about what he discussed with a high profile Russian ambassador close to Vladimir Putin. The special counsel's office ripping a suggestion by Flynn's lawyers that Flynn lied to the FBI because he was caught off guard when approached by FBI agents. Mueller makes it very clear that Flynn was committed to his false story because he had already lied repeatedly to high-ranking Trump administration members including vice president Mike Pence. It also goes against President Trump's recent assertion that the FBI said he didn't lied and that the agency was embarrassed by the way, Flynn, was treated. Also this week, the President's former fixer, Michael Cohen, speaking out after being sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen saying Trump absolutely directed him to pay off a porn star and a former playmate so they would keep quiet about their sexual history with then candidate Trump before he was elected.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP PERSONAL ATTORNEY: First, nothing at the Trump organization who has ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me, as I said as in my</s>CABRERA: Plus, we have a brand new investigation to add it this list. The Trump inauguration is now being looked at for what federal prosecutors describe as possible financial abuses. They are reportedly looking into whether the committee accepted donations from people in foreign countries looking to gain influence or access to the incoming administration. So here's where we are right now. If we take a step back, investigations linked to Trump world are really piling up fast. The President's administration, his business, the Trump organization, his transition team, his foundation, his campaign, and now Trump's inaugural committee spending all under investigation. With us to discuss Garrett Gratt, the author of the "Threat Matrix inside Mueller's FBI and the wrong global terror," former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa, CNN's legal and national security analyst, and former FBI supervisory special agent Josh Campbell. OK, Garrett, you have written about Robert Mueller. You have studied how he works. What stands out to you about this week, about where his investigations stands and where it is headed?</s>GARRETT GRATT, AUTHOR, THE THREAT MATRIX: INSIDE ROBERT MUELLER'S FBI: Well, I think - I mean, we have had three weeks now of pretty intense date to day revelations here. And I think what we are learning is that they are -- all of these revelations are pointing in the same direction. That Mueller's investigation is building towards a larger case. Something that we have not imaged the full scope of quite yet. Not glimpsed the full scope of quite yet. But then it's beginning to appear that these two conspiracies, one that the campaign finance violations and the other, the Russian attack on the 2016 election, are not necessarily two separate cases, but are, in fact, one big case that there is in fact no real difference between the business collusion and the election collusion.</s>CABRERA: Asha, I want you to give us your 30,000-foot view because there is so much there. But where does the Mueller investigation stand when it comes to whether Trump and the campaign colluded with Russia? What do we know now that we didn't know one month ago, for example?</s>ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. I agree with Garrett that you are going to see a few things start to merge in terms of business practices that were happening before Trump took office including not just these campaign finance payments but also the Trump Moscow tower deal that's kind of bleeding into his activities once he becomes President in terms of sanctions and our foreign policy stance towards Russia. I also just want to point out that there are now investigations coming from a lot of different fronts. It's not just the Mueller investigation. There is the southern district of New York. There is the New York attorney general looking at the Trump foundation. So there are investigations closing in on him from a number of different directions.</s>CABRERA: Josh, very interesting moment yesterday. We have a special counsel that has stayed largely silent amidst all the political noise, now slamming the narrative of Michael Flynn as a victim of over aggressive FBI agents. Special counsel prosecutors saying Mike Flynn is responsible for his false statements to the FBI, saying he made the decision to lie about his communications with the Russian ambassador two weeks before his interview with the FBI. Why do you think this was the moment for such a public rebuke like that?</s>JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: So that is a question, and that was obviously a dramatic development. And can I say at the outset, first of all, how much of a pleasure it is to be on this FBI power panel here. We have got Asha, counterintelligence expert. We have Garett Gratt who studied Bob Mueller so long. He knows that Mueller is going to do before he does. So it's a pleasure to be here. To your point, it really was a Mueller smack down to Michael Flynn. And I don't know how much general Flynn is paying his lawyers, but I think they really -- they -- they misstep whenever they decided that they were going to attack investigators. He was obviously on the road to possibly not getting a sentence. You know, the investigator said he had provided so much cooperation. But then they took that turn and said, no, we are going to actually take a page from President Trump's playbook and attack the investigators. Mueller came back and said, no, no, you are not going to do that. You know better. A 33-year veteran of the arm forces, a former intelligence chief. You don't have to have someone tell you that lying to the FBI is wrong. And you know, all of us here knowing Bob Mueller is a very impatient person, and I imagine when he saw that he said, no, that is not going to stand. I'm going to speak out through court filing to which he did telling Michael Flynn that you are out of line. You should have known better.</s>CABRERA: And Josh, as you know, the perception of the integrity of this investigation is so important. Garett, go ahead and I will let you jump in and then finish this question later.</s>GRATT: Yes. And I think that sort of one of the things that got overlooked in that smack down for Mueller, which is sort of as close to a Mueller exclusion of temper that we have seen in court documents yet, is the story that Mueller was telling, which I think is central and important to this investigation and where it's going which is what Mueller was saying that was that basically, no, no, no, it wasn't that he lied to FBI agents. It was that he was lying to everybody. That his lies were actually consistent over several weeks to different people in different forums, both public, private, to FBI agents, to vice president Pence, and that is actually a really interesting and important question about if Michael Flynn thought what he was doing was OK if it was above board, if it was something that was fully authorized by the President, that the President was happy with, why was Mike Flynn lying about it behind closed doors to everybody who asked him about it. That is actually a really interesting and important question that we haven't seen the answer to yet.</s>CABRERA: Asha, what does your Intel experience tell you?</s>RANGAPPA: My Intel experience tells me that when I have gone and interviewed people, usually, you know, people bend over backwards to try to be as honest as possible because they know that they are speaking with FBI agents. So I find it completely implausible that he didn't know that it was a crime to lie to the FBI. But I do think that it's interesting that these filing drops the names of Andrew McCabe and Peter Strock (ph) and attacks the FBI, these are trigger words for the President. And I almost can't help, even though he is going to do little to no time, likely, I wonder if there's, you know, sort of a bid here for the President to pardon him or exonerate him once this is all said and done and to be able to now have a narrative to use to justify doing that. Because I just can't see any other reason why his lawyers would throw this in after he has already pleaded guilty.</s>CABRERA: There is a transparency aspect to what we saw in Mueller's latest filing, Josh, and we talk about the perception of the integrity of this investigation. He really laid out what the process was early on when Flynn was interviewed. And I know you have some new reporting on something referenced in this new Flynn filing. You say that the FBI director at the time, James Comey, was really concerned over how Mike Flynn and him being interviewed by the FBI could be politicized. In fact, he was so worried about it, he took steps to try to hide the interview at the time from the justice department and then acting attorney general Sally Yates. Why is that significant?</s>CAMPBELL: Yes, it is very interesting. And part of the document that we saw that came out included that</s>CABRERA: Asha, there has been more fall-out this week also from Michael Cohen's case. AMI, we have learned now cooperating with investigators. We are learning Trump was in the room when they discussed the hush money payments to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. If the President did not tell the truth about knowledge of hush money payments ahead of the election, does it put him in any increase peril as it relates to whether he has told the truth about not having knowledge of Russian election interference?</s>RANGAPPA: You know, what matters is how much evidence that the southern district has. I mean, the President can lie to the public, though. All of these are public statements are helpful in terms of the investigation. But ultimately, this is a question of did he act with willfulness and knowledge? And I think if he is in the room, it becomes more and more implausible for him to suggest that he did not, a, know these payments or, b, was not making them with the intent of influencing the election. It's important to remember that that does not have to be the only motive that he had. It just needs to be a primary motive. And the timing of the payment, which was just, you know, a few weeks before the election really points in that direction and is putting him directly in the target of a criminal charge.</s>CABRERA: Thank you so much, Asha, Josh, Garrett. Great to have you with us. Really appreciate it on the weekend. Thank you. Did he resign, or was he asked to resign? Under investigation interior secretary Ryan Zinke is now leaving the President's cabinet. We will have a live report from the White House straight ahead. And Wisconsin's Republican governor may have lost the election, but he is leaving office with one last win for his party and it is infuriating Democrats. You are live from the CNN NEWSROOM.