President Trump And Putin Summit Now Underway; Robert Mueller Pushing To Finish Part of Probe By The End Of Summer; Senator Chris Coons Discusses The Trump-Putin Summit.
BERMAN: "The Washington Post" reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is pushing to wrap up much of the investigative work in the Russia probe by the end of summer. So what's next in that probe? Let's break it all down with CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. And, David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst and author of "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age." What a perfect book as a backdrop to what's happening at this moment. Obviously, in Helsinki in Finland, President Trump behind closed doors with Vladimir Putin three days, Jeffrey, after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announces this indictment from the Mueller probe against the Russian military intelligence wing that intervened and hacked into the election. It's hard to wrap your head around it.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, STAFF WRITER, "THE NEW YORKER": You know, the significance of this indictment is so enormous historically. I mean, we've only 45 presidents in this country and the idea that one of them was elected with the active help of a foreign power and that our president, the one who benefitted from it, continues to embrace that country and deny the evidence of it -- you know, historians are going to be looking at this subject for a long, long time.</s>CAMEROTA: But one more thing, Jeffrey.</s>TOOBIN: Yes, ma'am.</s>CAMEROTA: He's being closed doors right now with the president of that country and as far -- there's no transparency so we don't know who's in there but we know that he didn't want the -- President Trump didn't want his aides in there. So there may be one or two translators in there with them. And so, do you find it strange that the subject of an investigation -- of Robert Mueller's vast investigation -- we've been told that President Trump is a subject of it -- is meeting with the perpetrator of the crime?</s>TOOBIN: You know, it is -- you know, you're going to have to ask brother Sanger because he's foreign policy expert. But just from my perspective, I mean the idea of -- the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin defies understanding in conventional terms. It really does because he simply does not -- if you look at everything else Donald Trump has done in his political career, whether it's about immigration or whatever, it makes certain political sense. You can understand why he does it. His affection for Russia is hard to understand because it's not something that people want him to do. And the fact that they're meeting alone with no agenda, no reason for this summit -- David Sanger's a smarter guy than I am. He can explain what's going on.</s>BERMAN: Brother David or Uncle David --</s>CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh.</s>DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES", AUTHOR, "THE PERFECT WEAPON: WAR, SABOTAGE, AND FEAR IN THE CYBER AGE": Right. I'm not quite sure how to go take that. So, a few things. One, not only is this a historic indictment for legal purposes, if you are President Trump or any of the people around him and you read into that indictment and you read the conversations that are going on that could only have come out of British, American or Dutch intelligence being deep inside the Russian military system, you've got to think what else do they have? What else did they pull out of those systems? If there are --</s>CAMEROTA: But what are those conversations?</s>SANGER: If there were conversations between the GRU and any Americans -- and you saw a little bit of it. We wrote about some of this in the "Times" today about Guccifer 2.0, who was really just a committee of the GRU -- the Russian military intelligence. But the specificity of the conversations between WikiLeaks and the GRU makes you wonder what else do they have, including how deep were they inside WikiLeaks systems?</s>CAMEROTA: And yes, WikiLeaks hasn't been indicted or charged with anything.</s>SANGER: They have not. In fact, they weren't even named in this. They were just called organization one, but it was very clear who they were. So if you think that Mueller is moving up and putting all of this together, a few months ago he does the Internet Research Agency. Now, he does the GRU -- the Russian military intelligence. Next is what ties all of those together if he's got it, and we don't know that he's got it. On Jeff's point, it is remarkable that you have nobody sitting in the room because you're not going to get any real sense of what actually happened in this. You're going to get a Trump spin, you're going to get a Putin spin, and we're going to be sitting here wondering which one's right.</s>BERMAN: Jeffrey, I don't want to get too far away from Finland but I do want to ask you about "The Washington Post" reporting where they have sources saying that Mueller may want to wrap up some parts of this --</s>TOOBIN: Right.</s>BERMAN: -- investigation by the end of the summer. Part of this has to do with whether or not they'll speak with the president. They may give up on that according to some sources. Your take?</s>TOOBIN: Right. I mean, this is consistent with my reporting which has said Mueller is very close to wrapping up the investigation of obstruction of justice -- the firing of James Comey. Trump's effort, if any, to interfere with the FBI investigation of the Russia probe. The Russia probe, itself, is not finished. It's much more complicated. It's much more -- it involves getting access to intelligence agencies around the world. It's just very time-consuming and very difficult. But it is consistent with what I've heard that Mueller is trying to complete the investigation of obstruction of justice relatively soon, but not his entire investigation.</s>BERMAN: All right. Jeffrey Toobin and David Sanger, thanks so much. Just because he completes it, by the way, doesn't mean that the questions about it aren't over. He could write a report that raises more questions.</s>TOOBIN: Exactly. I mean, complete it means filing a report that Congress or whoever could have to do.</s>BERMAN: All right. Jeffrey, David, I really appreciate it -- Alisyn.</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you, guys. OK. So there's so many questions going into today's meeting in Helsinki. Will President Trump confront Vladimir Putin about Russian interference? Twelve Russian military intelligence officers were indicted, as we've been saying, on Friday over their hack of the DNC and being -- attempting to penetrate all of America's election infrastructure. So joining us now, we have Democratic Sen. Chris Coons. He serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and the Judiciary Committees. Senator, thanks so much for being with us.</s>SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE), MEMBER, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you, Alisyn. Great to be with you again.</s>CAMEROTA: So, Senator, how will you be able to trust what comes out of this meeting today when transparency has already been an issue and we know that the president doesn't have any of his top aides or any State Department officials with him? He may, at best, have an interpreter with him.</s>COONS: Well, Alisyn, that's one of my main concerns. Exactly what is said today in Helsinki between President Trump and President Putin, exactly what happens at this important meeting may, like Russia itself, remain a great mystery. And I think it's risky, even dangerous, for our president to go there without being clear-eyed about who's sitting on the other side of the table from him. It's not necessarily a bad idea to talk to the leader of Russia. We've got lots of things we can and should work together on from nonproliferation to fighting terrorism to the future of the Arctic, but we can't do that without first being clear about why our relations are so bad. What it is that Russia has done in attacking our democracy, invading Crimea, supporting the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. A wide range of things to get our relationship to the low point it's currently at.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, that's not how President Trump sees it. He doesn't see it as that our relationship --</s>COONS: That's right.</s>CAMEROTA: -- is frayed because of what Russia has done. He thinks it's what the U.S. has done. Let me read his tweet from this morning. He says, "Our relationship with Russia has never been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity. And now, the rigged witch hunt." Senator, what are to you make of a president being that critical of the U.S. over Russia?</s>COONS: Well, that's just striking. In fact, I think I read a retweet from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying "we agree."</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, that's right.</s>COONS: It is striking how much President Trump stands out from his own party -- members of his own party in the Senate and from senior officials in his own administration. His own director of national intelligence, my former colleague Dan Coats, just this past week said that Russia is our most aggressive foreign adversary and continued cyberattacks on the United States and will threaten our 2018 elections. It is striking that President Trump continues to disregard the actions of our own Department of Justice, the public statements of his own director of National Intelligence and instead, suggests that somehow the E.U. is our foe and doesn't correctly identify Russia as our adversary.</s>CAMEROTA: Senator, you're on the Judiciary Committee and maybe you can help me understand this meeting through a different lens. You know, I was a crime reporter for many years and I can't imagine the subject of an investigation ever meeting with the perpetrator of that crime. I can't imagine the state police, the local police ever letting the subject of an investigation sit down behind closed doors without witnesses with the perpetrator of the crime. And so just on a purely a sort of law and order question, does this strike you as strange that with -- given the Mueller investigation that these two will be meeting behind closed doors and we won't necessarily know what's said about that investigation?</s>COONS: That is, Alisyn, both striking and concerning and one of the challenges we face in crafting a successful bipartisan strategy to confront and contain Russia is that how folks view our relationship with Russia really is determined by how they view President Trump. There's millions of Americans who increasingly, according to recent polls, don't think that Putin or Putin's Russia a real threat to the United States, and they tend to be Trump supporters. And there's an all-time high number of Democrats who seem to think that Putin and Putin's Russia are a great threat to the United States. In fact, I'm here at the historic Chautauqua Institution in Upstate New York to deliver a speech on exactly that topic today. Given how unprecedented this is, given the threat to the rule of law presented by this closed-door meeting between Trump and Putin, how do we move forward in a way that rebuilds a bipartisan approach to Russia that's clear-eyed and hopefully, someday effective?</s>CAMEROTA: So, Senator, what is the endgame here, do you think? Beyond being pals with Putin, and President Trump has talked a lot about wanting a personal relationship -- a warm relationship with him -- what is the president's endgame here?</s>COONS: Well, we don't yet know and to be hopeful, if you look at his whiplash performances at the G7 and more recently the NATO summit, one of the challenges with our president is that he tends to come into big meetings full of bluster and approach that is in one direction, and within a matter of 24 or 48 hours he's leaving, characterizing a relationship in a different direction. Given the warmth and optimism with which he's approached Vladimir Putin incorrectly, given his actions, one can remain hopeful that somehow not much comes out of this summit. And that if anything, it is merely the reestablishment of a relationship between the United States and Russia where very few commitments are made. But frankly, in some ways, Putin has already succeeded by being at the same table at the same level on the world stage as the President of the United States. He was thrown out of the G8 by President Obama. He's the subject of sanctions led by the United States -- by most of the Western world. For Vladimir Putin to begin to reenter global leadership is the beginning, I'm afraid, of his exit of the box he was put in for invading Crimea. The endgame, I'm afraid, is one in which the United States is weakened by our president not having a clear-eyed approach to the very real threat that Russia poses to our alliances and our democracy.</s>CAMEROTA: All right. Senator Chris Coons, we appreciate you taking time away from your duties in Chautauqua to talk with us. Thank you very much.