Mueller Questions Russian Oligarch About Payments to Michael Cohen
BLITZER: More now on our CNN exclusive reporting on Robert Mueller's investigation, the special counsel. A source tells us that Mueller's team has questioned a Russian oligarch about hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to President Trump's personal lawyer, longtime friend and fixer, Michael Cohen. Let's get some more from our specialists and our analysts. And, Michael Zeldin, from a legal perspective, what was a Russian oligarch doing funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to Michael Cohen's account?</s>MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, that's the $64,000 question. It could well be legitimate, that is, that the Russian oligarch was investing with Cohen. Cohen's company, to which the money, I think, flowed was set up as a real estate investment company. So it could be perfectly legitimate. Or it could be completely illegitimate, but we just don't know yet what the facts are that underlie it, Wolf. And so we want to be careful not to reach conclusions about illegality.</s>BLITZER: Because the money was funneled after the election. How do you see it, Phil?</s>PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: It raises two questions. And I agree with Mike we don't have answers, but we have some pretty serious questions. That is a who and a why. Why, after an election, are you funneling money to the president's personal attorney? And a who. Who's involved with this oligarch, going back, for example, to the president's involvement with Russia and the beauty pageant? Are there people connected to the investigation who had previous connections with this individual going back years? I tell you, there's two angles of this I'm interested in. What did Gates say and what did Flynn say? Those are two of the people who have flipped during the Mueller investigation. Are they talking about any connections with this individual during the campaign? The second thing we're not talking about -- they're talking about interviews at the airport. There's also stories that their information, that is, their digital information, phones, for example, were mirrored. That to me says the feds have something, because that is pretty intrusive to do with somebody coming in from overseas.</s>ZELDIN: We do have to be careful about using words like funneled, because we don't know how the money was invested. If it was a one -- you know, completely controlled, $500,000 or any amount, wire transfer, then that may not implicate anything that is suspicious. If it was in smaller amounts, scheduled under some reporting threshold, it's a different matter. We have to look at how the money flowed before we reach that conclusion.</s>BLITZER: But it's serious enough, the fact that, here, this Russian oligarch, close to Putin, a billionaire, arrives in the United States on his private jet, and Mueller's FBI team shows up and they start questioning him, because they -- I guess they must have noticed some money going to Michael Cohen.</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN COMMENTATOR: Yes, they must have noticed. I agree with Michael, Wolf, that we have to be careful on a legal basis to decide whether or not anything illegal took place here. Politically, though, with each passing story, with each bit of information we get, the administration narrative that we have heard for the past year-and-a-half that, according to the president, people around him, there's nothing to see here, nothing to do with Russia, you know, the Russia investigation, a hoax, gets stretched thinner and thinner, Wolf. Because it's harder and harder to believe -- again, we don't know if anything was illegal -- that what we're seeing is just a series of coincidences in terms of the number of folks connected to the Russian government or with ties to the Russian government having an unusual interest in the Trump administration, the Trump transition, the Trump campaign.</s>ZELDIN: Well, it's the interest in Cohen. So, we haven't reached this back to Trump yet. This may be the information that Mueller received that he then gave to the Southern District of New York that opened up that investigation. We just don't know yet whether this conduct implicates the president's behavior or whether this is really at the heart of what Cohen did that has gotten himself searched and under -- serious investigation.</s>SWERDLICK: Well, Michael, I would say, right, we don't know if it implicates the president in anything that's a violation of the law. But the idea, you know, based on the reporting, that money was going to the president's lawyer, his personal lawyer, someone who worked for his business, on the one hand, and also, then, I guess, the oligarch's cousin, American cousin, giving an inordinate amount of money to the president's transition committee, or rather, the inauguration committee, again, it doesn't suggest yet anything illegal. We need to know more facts. But it does suggest that we're not just talking about a series of coincidences or that this investigation isn't on to anything.</s>BLITZER: And, Kaitlan, this money was put into this account, Michael Cohen's account, after, after the election, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you cover the White House. The president says every few hours, no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. How much of a concern, potentially, is this new information for the president?</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it could be a big concern, of course, because, so far, everything that has developed with the Mueller investigation has caught the White House off-guard. But also, separately, when the FBI raided Michael Cohen's home, office, and hotel, that also caught the White House and the president specifically off-guard. But these are two separate things, the investigation into Russian interference in the election and whether or not there was any coordination with the Trump officials and the Russians. But, of course, it was, in part, Mueller's investigation that those investigators in New York did raid Michael Cohen's office and hotel. So that kind of brings these -- Michael Cohen to the center of these two different investigations, the Mueller investigation and the investigation into Michael Cohen in New York. So that is the question here, the role that he plays in this. So the White House would likely have a healthy amount of concern, because, so far, they have been the last ones to find out everything. So why would we expect any differently this time? So a healthy amount of concern, because,as we know, the president has stayed in contact with Michael Cohen throughout his time in office. I have seen Michael Cohen at the White House. Just on April 13, one of the press secretaries said, Michael Cohen was still the president's attorney. Of course, Rudy Giuliani, his latest attorney, said on Sunday that he is no longer representing him. But it does raise a whole round of questions about whether or not -- what the president knew and what Michael Cohen was doing.</s>BLITZER: Let's not forget, you know, Phil Mudd, Viktor Vekselberg, this billionaire, this Russian oligarch who transferred funds into Michael Cohen's account there, he's now on the Trump administration's sanctioned list. He's been sanctioned by the U.S. government.</s>MUDD: And you have got to ask a question, you know, when Mr. Cohen was talking about potential clients, I realize these are legal clients, but these names never came up. When you look at the judicial authorization to go into Michael Cohen's hotel room, office, and home, presumably, some of that was because people had suspicions about these contacts. A judge is not going to authorize those searches, nor is a judge going to authorize you mirroring somebody's phone, going into an airport in New York, unless there's some sort of probable cause. So, you're right, we don't know what's happened legally, but we know there's at least some smoke here to be these investigations into Michael Cohen's hotel, office, and home, and an invasion of a foreigner coming into the United States, saying, we're going to mirror your phone.</s>ZELDIN: I think it's more likely than not, Phil, that these were not his legal clients, that these were business relationships. And it's that business relationship that, as you say, is at the heart of the -- sort of the roads leading between the two investigations. And, Wolf, we have talked about if Michael Cohen were to flip, on what evidence might he be talking? And we may have a hint here, if there's something untoward, that it is something like this upon which he could provide Mueller and his team, or, rather, in this case, the Southern District of New York, that evidence that they're looking for.</s>COLLINS: And we know that Mueller questioned this Russian oligarch. So, the question is, what did he say to him? What was his account of his relationship with Michael Cohen and that U.S. affiliate and how that money got to Michael Cohen's account? So that is certainly a level of concern for Michael Cohen, especially, it could come back to be a concern for the White House, because it could relate to them in that manner, that Michael Cohen may -- the president may know nothing about this, but he may know other things about President Trump that he could then reveal to investigators.</s>ZELDIN: And that's right. And you have to look at, not only where did the money come into, where did it come from or where did it come into, but where did it go out to and how did it go out.</s>COLLINS: And what was the purpose?</s>ZELDIN: Exactly.</s>BLITZER: And what was the purpose of that hundreds of thousands of dollars going to Michael Cohen's account? Why was this guy, Viktor Vekselberg, sending all that money? And it does underscore to me, David, and I assume to you as well, that Robert Mueller and his team, they have so much more knowledge, so much more information than any of us have. They have got a ton of information, probably, about every little penny that anyone got involved with in this investigation.</s>SWERDLICK: Right. I mean, it's -- what seems clear from the outside looking in is that they are putting together a big puzzle, and they have got a lot of pieces, and they're slowly falling into place. Michael and I have talked about this many times over the course of the last month. That a good prosecutor -- correct me if I'm wrong -- will sort of know in advance where they're going before they start questioning people, before they start revealing information in indictment documents or in court-charging documents about what questions they want to ask or what pleadings they're going to file with the court. They've got more information than the subjects of the investigation.</s>MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right. And it will be interesting, Wolf, to see whether or not the banks involved in these transactions filed suspicious activity reports and what it was that gave rise to their suspicion. Mueller will likely get that. The Southern District will likely get that, and that will lead to further indications of criminal behavior or innocent behavior.</s>BLITZER: As we reported, Phil, the cousin of this oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, he used an American company that he had to donate large sums of money to President Trump. Those donations, we're told, were a sharp increase from his donations in previous election cycles. You know that Mueller and his team, they've got all that data.</s>PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: And this is why this takes so long. Let me give you a quick snapshot. Think of different timelines. One is a money timeline. And you're talking about different donations to the campaign or different financial transfers to Michael Cohen. Overlay that by years of text messages, years of e-mails. And then you've got dozens and dozens of interviews, some of which will be lies, as we know already. You've got four or five layers of data and interviews here. You can tell over the course of five, six, seven years, why it's so hard to determine what the truth is. Every time you swing a bat here, you hit a Russian, and you can't figure out what the end game is.</s>BLITZER: And once again, we're waiting for a response from Viktor Vekselberg and from Michael Cohen to get a statement. We've reached out to them. So far, no response. There's a lot more breaking news we're following. President Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal. How will the Iranians respond? And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a second mission right now to North Korea. Will he bring home three Americans being held by the Kim regime?