Chicago Police Investigating Jussie Smollett; Interview With Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD); Mueller Report Coming Soon?.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Reasons for firing. Former FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms the president wrote a long, rambling letter to justify ousting FBI Chief James Comey. Does the letter amount to evidence of obstruction? From victim to suspect. Empire actor Jussie Smollett is now officially a criminal suspect, as Chicago police believe he falsely claimed to have been the target of a racist and homophobic attack that he was involved in orchestrating. And terror hit list. A U.S. Coast Guardsman has now been arrested, accused of plotting a mass attack targeting Democrats and journalists, including CNN anchors. We're getting new details. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in</s>THE SITUATION ROOM. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BLITZER: We're following breaking news on the conclusion of Robert Mueller's historic Trump-Russia investigation. CNN has learned the Justice Department is preparing to receive Mueller's long-awaited final report and may announce as soon as next week that the special counsel's work is done. Tonight, President Trump says he will be -- it will be up to his new attorney general to decide if and when Mueller's findings are shared with the American people. The nation eager for answers after two years of questions about Russian interference, possible collusion and obstruction and whether any crimes were committed by the president. I will get reaction from Senator Ben Cardin. He's a top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. And our correspondents and analysts are also standing by. First, let's bring in our justice report, Laura Jarrett, and our crime and justice reporter, Shimon Prokupecz. Laura, first of all, tell us about the latest preparations we have learned that are now under way.</s>LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, after two years of work, the Justice Department now expected to receive special counsel Mueller's work, confidential report, in the next week, and Attorney General Bill Barr expected to review the findings and say to the public his work is over. Now, what exactly Bill Barr will say to Congress is the big question to come. We know that the expectation is that he will provide a summary of the findings, but he has said he will not turn over the full report. Obviously, the bigger question is, what does this mean for the Mueller investigation going forward? We know that Mueller has referred certain cases to the U.S. attorneys across the country -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: You know, Shimon, this seems to be the clearest indication yet that Mueller has basically wrapped up his work.</s>SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the fact that he's doing this report. It's complete. It's now pretty much on its way to the attorney general. Every indication that we do not expect any other kind of significant investigative steps, indictments from the Mueller team. The other thing, you know, our team that's been out at the Mueller office, Sam Fossum and Em Steck, they're like the unsung heroes of our team. They spend a lot of time outside that office. They have seen people leave that office with boxes recently. Just last week, staffers with the Mueller team leaving with carts of boxes. We have not seen any significant grand jury activity since the Roger Stone indictment. In fact, we haven't even seen the grand jurors at the courthouse since the Roger Stone indictment. And other things that have been going on here, like the fact that some of the parts of this investigation and these cases have now been handed over to the U.S. attorney here in Washington, D.C., another signal that the Mueller team does not expect to be around much longer. So, yes, all of this definitely pointing to the fact that Mueller is essentially done.</s>BLITZER: How long will it take, Laura, for the American public to know what Mueller knows?</s>JARRETT: It could take quite awhile. We expect this to be a battle royal. Under the regulation, Barr has wide discretion to figure out how much or how little to share with the Congress and by extension the public, of course. And this really came up as it came to a head in his Senate confirmation hearings, where lawmakers were pressing him for answers about, how much will you turn over? Take a listen for our viewers to remind them what he said on this.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: When his report comes to you, will you share it with us, as much as possible?</s>WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Consistent with regulations and the law, yes.</s>SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Will you provide Mueller's -- excuse me -- Mueller's report to Congress, not your rewrite or a summary?</s>BARR: All I can say at this stage, because I have no clue as to what's being planned, is that I am going to try to get the information out there consistent with these regulations. And to the extent I have discretion, I will exercise that discretion to do that.</s>JARRETT: As you heard there, senators not interested in his rewrite or his executive summary. So we expect subpoenas will fly on this to the Justice Department and they will try to haul up Robert Mueller up to the hill for testimony.</s>BLITZER: Once he does release the summary, as it's called, to Congress, what might he hold back?</s>PROKUPECZ: I think he's going to hold back a lot of information. Laura certainly is hearing the same thing. Look, I think the biggest concern is releasing any information about people who have not been charged, who have not been indicted, who are not before a court, and in some kind of a public record, a court record. And the Department of Justice and the FBI took a lot of the heat after what James Comey did in the Clinton investigation, standing, holding a press conference, releasing all sorts of information, taking issue with what she did in that case, in that investigation. So now the FBI and the Department of Justice are really worried about it. And this is something that Bill Barr even talked about when he was on the Hill. Take a listen.</s>BARR: If you're not going to indict someone, then you don't stand up there and unload negative information about the person. That's not the way the Department of Justice does business.</s>PROKUPECZ: But that doesn't mean that people aren't going to try. Certainly, we expect people, members of Congress, the public, the media to file all sorts of legal challenges to this to try and obtain as much information as we can.</s>BLITZER: There will be other investigations, even if the Mueller investigation is over. The president's got to worry about other investigations that are ongoing.</s>JARRETT: Absolutely. You have that handy graphic that shows sort of the litany, everything from the Trump Foundation, the Trump inaugural, Southern District. They're all over it. And part of the issue here is that Mueller recognized I think early on to have U.S. attorneys, federal prosecutors across the country to be on the cases, people even outside of the team to insulate it, and because he knows the investigation won't go on forever. So after he's done, those cases will continue, cases here in D.C. being handled by the D.C.'s U.S. attorney's office, for instance, Roger Stone, the president's longtime confidant, those will continue on, as well as other ones, things we've been following, the mystery grand jury. We still don't know much about what's happened there. That went to the Supreme Court. That will continue on. Those can be litigated by Justice Department lawyers.</s>BLITZER: And we have also now heard from Andrew McCabe, the fired former acting director of the FBI. He's been out and about. He says he actually saw a letter that the president wrote personally, four- page letter, a draft letter, outlining why he wanted to fire James Comey. And, among other things, one of the reasons was because Comey didn't fire McCabe.</s>PROKUPECZ: Yes, this is really revealing and this is really the first time we're hearing what this letter was really about. McCabe described it as rambling, several pages long and how the president was rambling in this letter. And for the first time, he revealed that one of the reasons that the president was trying to give for why he wanted Comey fired was because he wouldn't fire -- because Comey wouldn't fire McCabe. And here's how he described it.</s>ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER ACTING FBI DIRECTOR: I have to be careful in the way that I talk about this. I have seen the letter that the president wrote, purportedly himself, justifying the firing of Jim Comey.</s>QUESTION: What does it say?</s>MCCABE: In a rambling four-plus pages, it goes through all the different reasons why he is firing the director of the FBI. Now, I'm not going to go through all of those with you, but I will tell you that one of them is, he claims to want to fire the director of the FBI because of his failure to fire me.</s>PROKUPECZ: And obviously the issues that the president has had with McCabe and his wife, you know, a lot of that's been out there already, but, you know, this letter is something that Mueller has certainly had and it's something that he's reviewed as well.</s>JARRETT: And, to be clear, what he's doing here is trying to set the groundwork to say I wasn't fired because the inspector general found that I misled investigators. I was fired for political reasons. So he's trying to show even way, way before that investigation the president wanted him out.</s>BLITZER: Yes. All right, guys, thanks very much. We're going to stay on top of this story. There's other important news we're following involving the president and his reaction to CNN's reporting that Robert Mueller's final report may be imminent. Let's go to our White House correspondent, Abby Phillip. Abby, Mueller's report could be explosive. What are we hearing from the president tonight?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, after months of attack on Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation, President Trump gave reporters today in the Oval Office a pretty muted response to the prospect that this probe could be ending soon. But he saved his attacks for the former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose book tour this week seems to have struck a nerve with the president.</s>PHILLIP (voice-over): Tonight, President Trump leaving the Mueller report in the hands of his new attorney general, Bill Barr.</s>QUESTION: Should the Mueller report be released when you are abroad next week?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That will be totally up to the new attorney general. He's a tremendous man, a tremendous person who really respects this country and respects the Justice Department, so that will be totally up to him.</s>PHILLIP: Trump offering a muted response to what would be the end of an investigation that he's railed against for two years. Instead, Trump lashing out at the former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who played a role in starting the probe. I think Andrew McCabe has made a fool out of himself over the last couple of days, and he really looks to me as a poor man's J. Edgar Hoover.</s>PHILLIP: The president's comments coming in the midst of McCabe's bombshell media tour that has raised questions about whether Trump might have been acting on behalf of the Russian government.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you still believe the president could be a Russian asset?</s>MCCABE: I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation. And I'm really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.</s>PHILLIP: McCabe even hinting that ongoing investigations could involve the president's children.</s>COOPER: Was the president's family being looked into either before the appointment of Mueller or after?</s>MCCABE: That's something I don't feel comfortable talking about as it goes to kind of -- could go to ongoing investigative matters.</s>PHILLIP: And making it clear that a bipartisan group of congressional leaders were in the loop as the Department of Justice opened obstruction of justice and collusion investigations into the president.</s>MCCABE: At the conclusion of my remarks, there were no objections. There were no protests. There was no -- you know, there was a clear sense in the room that people were resigned to the fact that we had taken a necessary step. That was my impression.</s>PHILLIP: Trump dodging a question about that revelation, focusing instead on attacking McCabe.</s>TRUMP: I think he's a disaster. And what he was trying to do was terrible, and he was caught. I'm very proud to say we caught him. So we will see what happens, but he -- he is a disgraced man. He was terminated, not by me. He was terminated by others.</s>PHILLIP: And despite publicly supporting the director of national intelligence today...</s>QUESTION: Are you considering replacing Dan Coats as your director of national intelligence?</s>TRUMP: I haven't even thought about it.</s>PHILLIP: CNN has learned that Trump is privately telling associates Dan Coats may soon be out of a job.</s>DAN COATS, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons.</s>PHILLIP: Sources tell CNN Trump is still angry about Coats' congressional testimony that he believes undercuts his own rosy portrayal of the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.</s>PHILLIP: And President Trump also told reporters today that this summit with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, is unlikely to be his last. And he expressed some optimism that the North Korean leader would choose to follow through with total denuclearization, but he did add that he would not lift sanctions until there were more meaningful steps taken towards that goal -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. Abby, thank you, Abby Phillip at the White House. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, thanks so much for joining us. Let's get right to this latest development. There is no requirement for the attorney general to actually submit a formal report to Congress on the Mueller investigation. But Bill Barr, the new attorney general, has said he will provide as much transparency as he can. How will you judge the information he provides to Congress?</s>SEN. BEN CARDIN (D), MARYLAND: Wolf, first, it's good to be with you. It's absolutely essential that there be transparency in this report. Congress must see the sourced information, not how it is presented to it by Mr. Barr. It's got to be the information that Mr. Mueller provided to the attorney general. We need to review that. We obviously have important constitutional responsibilities. So I think Congress is going to insist upon seeing the basic report. We also believe there has to be as much transparency with the public. As much information as possible needs to be released to the public. They have a right to know.</s>BLITZER: If you determine that Barr's report is not sufficient, what he delivers to Congress, will you go ahead and subpoena Robert Mueller? Will you subpoena Mueller's confidential report as well?</s>CARDIN: I think the Congress has a really critical constitutional responsibility here. We need to get the Mueller report. We need to know what that investigation showed. So hopefully that will be made available through the attorney general, but we will use every means we need to in order to get access to the report.</s>BLITZER: You heard President Trump say today that it's totally up to the new attorney general to decide whether the report should become public. Do you believe him, or do you expect him to invoke what's called executive privilege or take other steps to conceal the results of this nearly two-year investigation?</s>CARDIN: Well, President Trump is totally unpredictable. We know that he's tried to compromise this investigation. He discredited it from the beginning. We expect that he will continue those efforts. So, yes, we are concerned as to how much the president himself will get involved in trying to cover up as much of this information from becoming public as possible.</s>BLITZER: But you understand the rules at the Justice Department. Comey, the fired FBI director, didn't obey those rules. But if you don't charge someone with a crime, you shouldn't go ahead and make public all sorts of other, you know, negative features or dirt about that individual. I assume you agree with that longstanding Justice Department regulation?</s>CARDIN: I do. And I think the report needs to be redacted in order to protect people, innocent people. It also needs to be redacted from the point of view of protecting sensitive sources. So there is a reason why a part of this report needs to be kept confidential. But, clearly, there has been a lot of information that Mr. Mueller has been investigating concerning the president, concerning his campaign. There's also ongoing investigations. We need to let them be completed, regardless of the timing of the Mueller investigation. There are still going to be ongoing investigations. So there are sensitivities here that we have to adhere to. But the big news what we need to know is, what did Mr. Mueller find? What is the involvement of the president? What is the involvement of people close to the president, the campaign, et cetera? We need to have that information. The public needs to have that information.</s>BLITZER: Just a little while ago, the former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, he was fired, as you know, he confirmed the existence of what he described as a rambling four-page letter that the president wrote just before firing FBI Director Comey. This letter was not the one used to fire Comey, but it does contain the real reasons behind the president's decision. How important is it, is that letter to the Mueller investigation?</s>CARDIN: Well, we want the Mueller investigation to be completed without any intimidation or outside influence. I will be interested to see Mr. Mueller's findings as it relates to some of the things that Mr. McCabe has been talking about. I think that's going to be critically important. Mr. Mueller has a great deal of credibility. He is a professional investigator. He's had access to all different types of information, not just one source, so it will be important to see the background as to how Mr. Comey was fired and what impact that had on any investigations.</s>BLITZER: Even when Mueller concludes his work, and it might be as early as next week, other investigations into President Trump will continue. "The New York Times," as you know, is reporting that the president asked if the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York could unrecuse himself to take control of the investigation into Michael Cohen, the president's longtime personal lawyer. Do you view that potentially as obstruction of justice?</s>CARDIN: Wolf, the investigation in the Southern District of New York, there's already mention of Mr. Trump, not by direct name, but it's clear that they're very interested in his involvement in regards to criminal cases involving other people. So, yes, we want to make sure that those investigations go unimpeded by the president or anyone else, and that whatever the conclusions there are also made available, certainly to Congress, but also to the American people.</s>BLITZER: On a different subject, Senator, CNN has learned that the White House has now begun preliminary talks on replacing the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats. This comes after President Trump was angered by Coats' public testimony before Congress that North Korea's unlikely to completely denuclearize. What's your reaction to this late-breaking development?</s>CARDIN: The director of national intelligence needs to be -- has the credibility. He needs to tell it the way it is. There is a very careful process they go through before making an assessment. They tell you the guardrails that are used on that national assessment. And, clearly, to no one's surprise, that North Korea does not intend to give up their nuclear weapons. President Trump's highly visible summit meeting with Kim Jong-un did not produce a pathway to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Now he's talking about having a second meeting. It's critically important that we get direct information, national intelligence, as to where North Korea is. So the president trying to say, look, he didn't like what Mr. Coats said because it didn't jibe with what he was saying about Kim Jong-un, that's just too bad. The national intelligence assessment is critically important for this country and it's critically important that Congress get that information, unimpeded by the president of the United States.</s>BLITZER: Senator Cardin, thanks so much for joining us.</s>CARDIN: Thank you, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: There's more breaking news we're following right now. Chicago police have just officially classified "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett as a suspect in a criminal investigation in what they now believe was a false report of a hate crime. Let's go to our national correspondent, Ryan Young. He's working the story for us in Chicago. What's the latest, Ryan? What are you picking up?</s>RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, right now, there's a grand jury going on upstairs. There are at least seven detectives up there telling them exactly what they believe happened in this case. But also at the center of this is two men who they now classify now as witnesses to this. We believe they're going to get immunity today after all this is said and done. These are the two men who were seen as persons of interest, who were then arrested after this incident. What we're told is, they're telling police a whole sordid bit of story. But to take our viewers back to this, January 29, there came in a report that Jussie Smollett was attacked. He told police that men jumped him, yelled racial epithets at him, and put a noose around his neck while pouring a chemical on him. Well, detectives were sort of wary about that for the entire time, because they started checking surveillance video and they started going back through logs to try to see exactly what happened. And they will be able to break this case down in the coming days, because what we know is 12 detectives worked this overtime. They were able to figure out who the two men were, they were able to bring them in and start getting information. They also started dumping the information from their cell phone and they all started pointing back the finger to Jussie Smollett. This morning, they believed, investigators, that the actor was going to come in and talk to them, but that did not happen. And when that didn't happen, they decided to come down here to the grand jury and start sharing the information. We do believe there could be more charges at some point because they're obviously discussing the variety of parts of this case and how it all broke down. And let's not forget there was a letter sent to the "Empire" set a week before this happened, and there was a white powder in there. A hazmat team had to show up. They figured out that was aspirin. So, there's a sordid piece of the here, as the grand jury still meets here. There could be more charges. And, of course, detectives will be looking into this. They still want to talk to the actor. Wolf, this is a case that has captivated the country. They have been people on both sides who have been calling out the actor and asking for him to step in. But that hasn't happened just yet.</s>BLITZER: We're going to keep following these late-breaking developments. We're going to get back to you. I know you're working the story for us, Ryan Young in Chicago. Thank you. Just ahead, we're going to have more on the finale of the Mueller investigation, as the special counsel prepares to deliver his final report as soon as next week. The former U.S. attorney, Preet Bharara, he's standing by live. He will share his insights into what happens next. And a stunning terror plot revealed, as a U.S. Coast Guardsman is arrested, accused of planning attacks on political and media figures.