Whistleblower Says White House Overturned about 25 Security Clearance Denials; Democrats to Authorize Subpoena Full Mueller Report; Interview with Rep. Jim Banks (R-IND.), Armed Services Committee, on Security Clearances; Second Woman Complains about Biden; The Democratic Apology Trail; Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) Maryland: Whistleblower Says White House Overturned About 25 Security Clearance Denials, Feds: Software Fix For Grounded Boeing Jets Delayed For Weeks
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Follow me on Facebook and Twitter @JakeTapper. You can tweet the show @TheLeadCNN. Our coverage on CNN continues right now. Thanks for watching.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, subpoena fight: House Democrats plan to issue a subpoena after a White House whistleblower says 2 dozen denials of security clearances were overturned by senior Trump officials. And Democrats will also authorize a subpoena to obtain the full Mueller report. How Republicans are fighting back. Not a bluff: a top White House official says the president isn't bluffing about closing the border with Mexico as early as this week. But others at the White House say it's anyone's guess if the president will follow through, warning of dire consequences if he does. Second accusation: a second woman alleges that former Vice President Joe Biden touched her inappropriately, complaining that he rubbed noses at a fundraiser a decade ago. Former female staffers are coming to Biden's defense after an ex- political candidate earlier complained she was bothered by what she described as inappropriate touching. And delayed for weeks: Boeing 737 MAX airliners will remain grounded for a while longer. The FAA says Boeing's software upgrade will be delayed for weeks to allow time for additional work and a rigorous safety review. I'm Wolf Blitzer, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.</s>BLITZER: Breaking news right now. A second woman comes forward, alleging that former Vice President Joe Biden touched her inappropriately, rubbing noses at a 2009 fundraiser. That comes as female supporters are stepping up their efforts to defend Biden's record. Also tonight, a White House whistleblower has told congressional investigators that senior officials pushed through security clearances for some 2 dozen people who were initially rejected for reasons such as potential conflicts of interest and foreign influence. A source says the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are on that list. House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings says he'll issue a subpoena to find out why those concerns were overruled. And House Judiciary Democrats, they will authorize a subpoena, they say, this week to obtain the full unscrubbed Mueller report along with underlying evidence. I'll speak with Republican congressman Jim banks of the Armed Services Committee. And our correspondents and analysts, they will have full coverage of the day's top stories. Let's begin with our senior congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, he is up on Capitol Hill. Manu, Democrats say the White House says the whistleblower came through as a last resort. What are you learning?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, this woman, Tricia Newbold, has worked for the White House in different administrations for the past 18 years. Now as part of the personal security office in the White House, she is alleging in a private interview to House and Republican and Democratic staff on the Oversight Committee that, since 2018, 25 individuals had their security clearances denied, only to be overruled by the White House. Now we are learning that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were on that list of 25 individuals. Newbold alleges to the committee that these individuals had their security clearances denied because of foreign influence, potential conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, even drug use. She alleges that lackluster safeguards are in place for security clearances and people had gotten interim security clearances who should not have gotten access to any classified data whatsoever. Now Elijah Cummings plans to subpoena an individual, Carl Kline, who served as a personal security director at the White House, who was overseeing this effort and who overruled this whistleblower on a number of occasions. But tonight, Wolf, Republicans are pushing back. They say that this White House official, her concerns are overblown. They call her an employee who was just not happy with her workplace environment. But nevertheless, Democrats plan to push forward subpoenas and plan to continue this as part of their investigation as the security clearance process -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: That's one fight. The other major fight playing out right now involves Democrats who say they will authorize a subpoena in an attempt to access the unredacted, nearly 400-page report from the special counsel, Robert Mueller. They want all the underlying information, as well. What are you hearing?</s>RAJU: Yes, ratcheting up the fight with the Justice Department, House Judiciary Committee Democrats plan to authorize a subpoena later this week for the full Mueller report and the underlying evidence. Their concern with Bill Barr, what the attorney general said in a Friday letter, that he would redact a number of areas of information, including grand jury information, including information, what Barr considers peripheral third parties, people who are not indicted but who may get their reputation --</s>RAJU: -- impugned by their name being included in this report. Now, Wolf, just moments ago, I had a chance to talk to Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who defended the Democrats' approach.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CALIF.), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We should get the entire report. And if the attorney general has any concern about grand jury material, he should seek the court's permission to disclose that. That's what's been done in the past. This needs to be made public, all of it. We're going to make sure that this doesn't get buried, so that the American people can form their own conclusions.</s>RAJU: Now he also suggested that perhaps they will even take this up to the Supreme Court. He said there will be a leadership call to decide how far to take this but he said this is a fight worth having. At the same time, Wolf, the House Judiciary Committee does plan to issue subpoenas later this week to five former White House officials, as part of their efforts to get the Mueller report. Those five former officials include Hope Hicks, Reince Priebus, Don McGahn, Steve Bannon, Annie Donaldson, people who worked in the White House. What the Democrats are contending is that those individuals can no longer claim executive privilege about their communications with the White House because of the way they interacted with the special counsel. They say essentially that privilege has been waived and they want records pertaining to their interaction with the special counsel. So all of this escalating what could be a major fight with the Justice Department. It could lead to court battles. Today we still don't know how the Justice Department will respond. But Republicans are saying why ratchet this up now when the Justice Department has promised to give as much transparency as possible and provide this report by mid-April. But it's safe to say that Democrats are not buying what the Justice Department is saying and are willing to issue subpoenas later this week.</s>BLITZER: Yes, two big fights and they're about to escalate. Manu Raju, thank you very much. The Trump administration is focusing also right now on the southern border with Mexico and the president's threats to close it. The Homeland Security secretary today is stepping up a surge of officers to deal with an influx of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico. And a source says the White House is considering appointing a border or immigration czar. Let's go to our senior White House correspondent, Pamela Brown. Pamela, is the president serious about shutting down the entire border with Mexico?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, White House officials I've been speaking with today say it's anyone's guess what the president will do with this latest threat to close the border with Mexico. One administration official I spoke with today said such a move would be catastrophic. And, Wolf, tonight, administration officials involved in carrying out the policies are closing watching the president's tweets as cues as to what he might do.</s>BROWN (voice-over): President Trump tonight not backing away from threats to close the U.S. border with Mexico as soon as this week, tweeting, "We have a major National Emergency at our Border. GET IT DONE NOW." Administration officials warn that the ultimatum he launched last week..</s>TRUMP: We'll keep it closed for a long time. I'm not playing games.</s>BROWN (voice-over): -- is serious.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: It's certainly isn't a bluff. You can take the president seriously and here is why. You're giving those metrics but he's looking at is that 4,000 migrants apprehended in one day recently. We're on track this month for close to 100,000. We have never seen a surge like this.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney telling ABC News that something dramatic would need to happen to change the president's mind.</s>MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We need the people from the ports of entry to go out and patrol in the desert where we don't have any wall. We hate to say we told you so but we told you so. We need border security. And we're going to do the best we can with what we have.</s>BROWN (voice-over): The threats follow the highest month of undocumented migrant crossings in 11 years, according to Customs and Border Protection. Still, acting Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan said, as of late Monday morning, the Pentagon had not yet been asked to support closing the boater.</s>PATRICK SHANAHAN, ACTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It's a very dynamic and fluid situation. I'll be having conversations with secretary of state today and, most likely, Secretary Nielsen.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Aides also defending the president's decision to discontinue aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador for not doing more to help stem the flow of migrants.</s>MULVANEY: We need the Northern Triangle countries to do more about not allowing their people into Mexico. They could help us. We need them to do that. If not, it makes very little sense for us to continue to send them aid.</s>BROWN (voice-over): President Trump also keeping up pressure on House Democrats to end their investigations into Russia meddling, now that special counsel Robert Mueller declined to recommend criminal charges against the president, tweeting, quote, "No matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the no-collusion Mueller report, it will never be good enough. Behind closed doors, the Dems are laughing."</s>MULVANEY: We really do think enough is enough. And it's time to move on to other things.</s>BROWN (voice-over): Acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, defending Trump after Democratic congressman Adam Schiff said Trump campaign associates' interactions with Russians were unethical.</s>MULVANEY: I think --</s>MULVANEY: -- the voters are going to decide about the ethics and morality of the people they vote for on either side. People liked Bill Clinton, even though they may not think he was that ethical. That's not the job of the House Intelligence Committee. It's not the job of the House Judiciary Committee. It's not the job of the House Oversight Committee. They're supposed to review the functioning of government. Voters make decisions about the candidates.</s>BROWN: And we have learned that the White House is considering appointing a border czar to oversee the immigration efforts. Now this has been something that's been entertained by White House officials, administration officials over the past year. But it's more recently been under can consideration as the situation at the border has worsened in the administration's view -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Thanks very much, Pamela Brown at the White House. Joining us now, Republican congressman Jim Banks of Indiana. He's a member of the Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. Let's get your reaction to this top story we've been covering. Does it worry you that the White House apparently routinely pushed through security clearances despite objections from intelligence and national security professionals?</s>REP. JIM BANKS (R-IND.), MEMBER, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Wolf, good to be with you. At the end of the day, these are White House personnel decisions. Every president before President Trump has had the same privileges that he has to designate at the end of the day who can and should receive a security clearance on his staff. So I defer to the president of the United States, who was elected to this position on who he determines needs those clearances and I defer to that process.</s>BLITZER: There's this professional whistleblower who came before the House committee, says that some serious issues were, according to this whistleblower, totally ignored by the White House. Among some of these issues, disqualifying issues for normal security clearances, foreign influence, conflicts of interest, issues concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use, criminal conduct. Even if the president does have -- and he certainly does have the constitutional authority to give security clearances to anyone he wants -- is it a good idea for the White House to override these serious concerns from these intelligence and national security professionals?</s>BANKS: Well, the buck -- Wolf, the buck stops with the president. And if the president made that decision, then the people can judge whether or not he granted those security clearances to the right people. At the end of the day, it's his prerogative. Every president before him has done the same. The chairman of the Oversight Committee will bring in these players to question them. And if that chairman wants to spend valuable time in his committee to dig into security clearances in White House, then that's his decision to do so. We'll see what that -- what that hearing brings to light. I'm sure that we'll learn a lot more at that point.</s>BLITZER: But you agree, it's part of a congressional oversight responsibility to look into these kinds of matters, to make sure that the right thing was done. If you want to give someone top secret security clearances and that person has a background, where that individual potentially could be compromised, either personally or by a foreign government, that's potentially a very serious problem.</s>BANKS: There's no question about it. It's important who receives a security clearance, especially at that high level. And you're right, the oversight function of the House Oversight Committee has that jurisdiction and the chairman is determined that he wants to spend his valuable time digging into these issues. He can do that. And we'll learn a lot more after that committee hearing commences and digs into those issues. But once again, just to be clear, these are White House personnel decisions that every president has had that same prerogative before. And this president has exercised it the same.</s>BLITZER: I suspect if Hillary Clinton has been elected president and she were overriding what career professionals were saying about giving out security clearances, Republicans wouldn't be happy about that, either. But let's move on and talk about another sensitive issue involving the Mueller report. Democrats are pushing for the full Mueller report to be released by Wednesday. The House Judiciary Committee is planning to subpoena Mueller's findings as well as subpoenas for five senior White House staffers. You were one of 420 lawmakers who voted unanimously last month to make sure the full Mueller report is released. Do you support this effort by the Judiciary Committee?</s>BANKS: Look, Wolf, I've said all along, let's make this public, completely transparent. Republicans want that as well. But the fact that Democrats can't take a two-week break from their mission to overturn the election in 2016 and wait for attorney general Barr to go through the process to make this report completely transparent says a lot more about the state of the Democrat Party today than anything else. I think we can afford to wait a couple of weeks to the point that the attorney general goes through, whether it's the grand jury testimony or some of the classified parts of it, to go through that legal process, to make it -- to make it unclassified and available to the public. I think we can afford to wait. But the Democrats aren't willing to do that and that says a more about the disarray of their party than anything else.</s>BLITZER: Let's get your thoughts, Congressman, about the president's threat -- and it's a serious threat to completely shut down the U.S. border with Mexico as early as this week. He's getting pushback not only from a bunch of Democrats but also from some fellow Republicans. I want you to listen to the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Mike McCaul of Texas.</s>REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R-TEXAS), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: You seal the border, you're going to cut off significant trade and it will have a significant impact on the economy. And I think the president made that statement out of frustration and I don't think he's going to actually, you know, completely shut off the border.</s>BLITZER: How do you see it, Congressman?</s>BANKS: Well, you heard Kellyanne Conway say a little bit ago that the president is not bluffing. And I take him at his word as well. But there's no question about it. Whether it's Ranking Member McCaul or the president of the United States himself, nobody wants to shut down the border. That's not the point, Wolf. But the president has made it very clear that his priority is to address the crisis at the border. This week you had Secretary Jeh Johnson, the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security secretary, say himself that there is a crisis at the border. It needs to be addressed and this president is serious about doing that.</s>BLITZER: He said it was a humanitarian crisis, in his words. You're on the Armed Services Committee. Is it logistically possible, though, for the United States military to deploy thousands if not tens of thousands of troops to shut down the entire border with Mexico?</s>BANKS: Well, logistically possible? Of course it is with the United States military --</s>BLITZER: This week?</s>BLITZER: Are they ready to move in thousands of troops, to completely shut down the border? Because the president says this week, it could happen.</s>BANKS: Yes, at this point, Wolf, this is all hypothetical. What does the president mean by shutting down the border? None of us know at this point. But what we do know is that the president is absolutely 100 percent serious about addressing the crisis at the border. There's no question about it. He's not bluffing about what it's going to take to do that. He doesn't want to shut down the border, neither does any other Republican that I know of in the Capitol or at the White House and his administration. But the president is serious about addressing a true crisis, a record-breaking level of illegals who are crossing the border. Something has to be done and this president is serious about doing it.</s>BLITZER: Yes, he's serious. He also says he's ready to shut down that border unless Mexico takes direct action, the countries from Central America take direct action to prevent all of those thousands of migrants trying cross into the United States to seek political asylum. Congressman Jim Banks, thanks, as usual, for joining us.</s>BANKS: Good to be with you.</s>BLITZER: Up next, female supporters step up efforts to defend Joe Biden's record as a second woman alleges he touched her inappropriately. Is this the latest stop on a political apology tour for Democratic candidates? And Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliners will remain grounded a while longer. The FAA says the software upgrade will be delayed for weeks to allow time for additional work and a, quote, "rigorous safety review."