Trump Unleashes on Special Counsel
BLITZER: We've got a live picture coming in from Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington D.C., in suburban Maryland right now. There you see the aircraft, the plane bringing in the French president, Macron, to the United States, Emmanuel Macron. He has -- had just arrived. He'll be walking down those stairs momentarily getting ready to meet with the president and the first lady. Later today they'll be going over to Mt. Vernon for dinner outside of Washington, in suburban Virginia, Alexandria, Virginia, a little bit more precise. There will be a state dinner tomorrow night, a joint news conference. He'll address on Wednesday, Macron, a joint session of the U.S. Congress, a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress as well. A very, very warm welcome for the French leader here in Washington. We're going to have a lot more on that coming up. In the meantime, let's continue the conversation as we await the start of the White House press briefing. Sarah Sanders getting ready to brief reporters momentarily. Among the president's numerous tweets over the weekend was another shot at the former FBI director, James Comey. Quote, James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a special counsel. Counsel misspelled, by the way. Therefore the special counsel once again, counsel misspelled -- was established based on an illegal act. Really, does everybody know what that means?, closed quote. Let's bring in CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero. Also our CNN political analysts are Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian. Carrie, what does that mean, basically, from your perspective, when he says here -- what the president says about that, that perhaps this whole special counsel investigation is illegal?</s>CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: OK. Well, first of all, this is really just an effort -- another effort on the president's part to try to cast doubt about the legitimacy of the special counsel investigation. I have not yet seen a credible allegation that the former FBI director leaked classified information. In Jim Comey's book, he says that he provided one unclassified memo to his associate that then relayed some information in it to a reporter after he was fired. Now that some of these memos have been released after the Department of Justice provided them to Congress, we have learned that some information in some of the memos, and it's not yet clear which -- whether those were actually ones provided, one of the ones provided to his associate, some information has been retroactively classified. This does not mean that the former FBI director, quote, unquote, leaked classified information and committed a crime, and it also does not mean that the special counsel's investigation, which was commissioned by the deputy attorney general after the FBI director was fired, in order to provide a neutral continuation of that investigation, it doesn't mean that the special counsel's investigation is no longer legitimate, in my assessment.</s>BLITZER: No. The president says it was based on an illegal act. Karoun, how do you see it?</s>KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean certainly that's the argument that he's -- he's trying to make. But as Carrie just laid out, you know, it depends on what was classified when and -- with the understanding of, you know, what the information was that actually was put out there, versus the -- what we're looking at right now. I mean the president is trying to spin this to various extents. I think the first time that, you know, when we first saw these -- the content of these memos, it was a, look, this proves that there's no collusion. Now it's, no, OK, well, this is -- this is illegally done and it was a setup to be able to create the special counsel, which is actually returning to an earlier argument that he's made, which is that this entire probe is completely illegitimate. So it's -- it's the president's concerns, basically, about the -- which have been long term about the actual Russia investigation against him that questions the legitimacy -- he fees that that questions the legitimacy of his presidency as well and he's lashing out now and it's easy to do that with Comey because there are these questions right now about what -- who had what when. And, you know, also because Comey's out there on the circuit right now promoting his book. So this is a fixation point.</s>RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But let's also remember, it wasn't just the Comey memos that, you know, triggered this special counsel. President Trump himself went on TV and said point blank that one of the reasons he got rid of and fired Comey was because he didn't like the Russia investigation and he wanted it to go away. You can't do that no matter if you're president of the United States. And so that's like the main reason for the creation of the special counsel. I do think this whole question about whether any of the documents that Comey leaked or, you know, gave to an associate who then gave them to the press to sort of trigger this conversation, if any of that was classified. I think that this, you know, really does hurt him and it gives Republicans a line of attack that I think even -- not only allies of President Trump are going to use, but also we're seeing some Republicans who are moderates who are supporters of the special counsel. They are sort of chastising Comey right now over this. Or, why did he do this now? He should have been more careful. Wait until the investigation is over. I don't think you're going to see any Republicans go from supporting the special counsel to not supporting the special counsel because of this question, but it certainly gives the president a dig that he's going to keep going after.</s>BLITZER: Maybe he's tweeting almost nonstop. Let's take a quick break. We're standing by for the White House press briefing. Sarah Sanders getting ready to brief reporters. Also standing by to see the visiting French president, Macron. His plane has just landed at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington. Lots more right after this.