Mueller Investigating Kushner's Foreign Business Dealings.
CUOMO: A CNN exclusive. Special Counsel Bob Mueller investigating contacts between the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and foreign business investors during the presidential transition period. We've got Abby Phillip live at the White House with more. What do we know?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. Sources tell CNN that this new interest by Special Counsel Robert Mueller centers around Jared Kushner's activities during the presidential transition, when he was also apparently seeking financing for a troubled debt-ridden property in New York City, 666 Fifth Avenue. Now, these meetings include meetings with Chinese and Qatari investors, including one Chinese meeting that happened about a week after the election. Now, both deals apparently fell through, but this new interest indicates that the special counsel is veering beyond Kushner's potential interest in meetings with Russian investors during that time. And perhaps veering into President Trump's red line. Listen to what President Trump told "The New York Times" last year about whether he felt that the special counsel talking about his family's businesses or his businesses would cross he has red line. Listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mueller was looking at your finances and your family's finances, unrelated to Russia. Is that a red line?</s>MAGGIE HABERMAN, CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would say yes. I would say yes.</s>CAMEROTA: We will get into all of that, Abby, including what he is doing to stop Russian interference. Thank you very much for that reporting. Joining us now, our CNN political analyst, John Avlon, and CNN legal analyst, Carrie Cordero. So just on the politics of it we'll start, John. Jared Kushner, according to our reporting, tried to secure financing for his real- estate ventures from foreign investors during a presidential transition. Talk about drain the swamp. How is that working for the American people?</s>AVLON: Look, it's just your typical $1.8 billion mortgage with $1.4 in debt.</s>CAMEROTA: That's what he has.</s>AVLON: And look, to be fair, that's going to create a lot of pressure. But, yes, during the transition, apparently, Jared Kushner, who has now divested himself of this property, was meeting with high-level foreign business leaders, some of whom were connected to governments: Russia, China. And that's going to attract some attention. Now Abbe Lowell says, Kushner's lawyer says they've requested no documents. But that float, that anxiety, and meeting with high-level foreign officials connected to governments under the auspices of business. That's going to be a problem.</s>CUOMO: And the fact that there are no documents yet. Reviewing finances would be somewhat fundamental to this. No? What are we missing?</s>CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It could be -- I mean, Abbe Lowell's statement sort of is an invitation for subpoena in some respects to the special counsel's office. But they can -- at this stage, they can still obtain information through other sources. They can obtain information through witnesses. They can request documents from third parties. That is, other companies that might hold documents about the transaction or about his companies. And you know, in the Gates and Manafort case, the special counsel's office actually pierced some privilege issues with respect to accountants. So there are other avenues where they can get some of this information.</s>CAMEROTA: John, what does all of this mean for Jared Kushner's security clearance? He does not have a full security clearance. We stumbled upon this with the rob Porter case, with the domestic violence allegations. So he has an interim security clearance. So, how long can he handle classified information?</s>AVLON: Well, the interim -- you know, the utility of the interim clearance expires after a while. Allegedly John Kelly, in the wake of Porter is saying, look, we've got to reassess this. If you're still working at the White House over a year later and don't have a permanent security clearance, we've got a problem, people. The news that the Mueller investigation is looking at Kushner isn't going to help his case, because this is something that even nepotism can't solve. This is about national security...</s>CUOMO: Right.</s>CUOMO: ... on a deep level.</s>CUOMO: But at the end of the day, though, Carrie, I mean, you tell us. You're the expert on this stuff, but they may -- they may have questions with the process of how this got vetted and how it is ongoing, but if the White House wants him to see things. They're going to be able to make it happen, just through executive privilege, no?</s>CORDERO: Well, I wouldn't quite put it in the context of executive privilege, but basically, the revised rules that John Kelly announced last week included a caveat, which is that if he wants to extend somebody's temporary interim clearance, than he can go ahead and do so. But it really is counter to the way that the regulations are supposed to work. And what's interesting is, there's actually an existing executive order that says that a person cannot be granted a clearance solely based on their title or their affiliation or their rank. So -- so being the president -- by the president just saying, "Well, this is who I want to be my adviser." Or, "This is my family member, so I want them to have a security clearance." Under the way that things have normally worked, that's not the way it's supposed to happen.</s>CAMEROTA: Remember when Donald Trump really cared about classified information slipping into the wrong hands.</s>AVLON: Oh, that was then. This is now.</s>CAMEROTA: I mean, honestly, that's the explanation.</s>AVLON: Lock her up!</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. Though she was sending e-mails to people with security clearances.</s>AVLON: Yes. These are tsunamis of situational ethics. I mean, this is -- this is, unfortunately, the new normal in Washington. And sane is the new normal, people.</s>CUOMO: Well, look, it takes us back to that whole discussion, which begins with -- well, what did we know and when did we know when it came to this? And there's no question that the Obama administration had what they would call a tough choice. And you could argue, John, that they made the wrong choice. Their take is this. When we found out -- and we had the information, one, we didn't know what we know now. But when we knew...</s>CAMEROTA: About possible connections with Russia.</s>CUOMO: Right. We first of all put out notice. Now arguably...</s>AVLON: Belatedly.</s>CUOMO: They did it belatedly. They did it pretty quiet. They said that they then went to Mitch McConnell to do it in a big way. He didn't want to. He denies that. Now President Trump is saying, if you want to point the finger, point it at Obama. His problem is that he has been anything but out front in dealing with the Russian threat.</s>AVLON: Absolutely. But this is a new narrative you're seeing, coming from the White House and its surrogates. And I think, look, you can fault the Obama administration for being too passive on this issue. You know, the intelligence agencies put out a report in October, but you know, Obama met with Mitch McConnell, you know, and McConnell may dispute some details, but the reporting all says that McConnell said, "Look, let's not go public with Russians trying to interfere in the election on Trump's behalf." And the Obama people, I think naively, obviously, believing Hillary was going to win, said, "That may look like like we're trying to put our finger on the scales." So they backed off. And they therefore deprived the American people of a crucial bit of information. That may be a failure on Obama's part, but after the election, he did -- he yanked a couple of properties from the Russians.</s>CUOMO: Kicked out a bunch of Russian operatives.</s>AVLON: The sanctions that -- the context that we're discussing a lot right now get implemented. Allegedly, what led to Michael Flynn getting into trouble because he's back-channeling saying, "Don't worry about this." But so the attempt to deflect the issue doesn't quite fit the circumstance, at all.</s>CAMEROTA: Not only that, Carrie, I mean, the president, President Trump is not fully implementing the sanctions that Congress passed nearly unanimously. So if he -- how can he blame President Obama for not doing enough when those sanctions have not been implemented?</s>CORDERO: Well, beyond just the sanctions, I mean, this administration has no strategy, no policy that they have articulated the for countering what has been identified as this Russian intelligence operation, targeting the U.S. But I would break the criticism into the Obama administration into two parts. What did they do before the election and what do they do during the transition from November to January? And before the election, I understand why they were concerned about not politicizing intelligence information, although having worked on transparency issues for a long time, I think that they could have been more forward leaning in terms of the information that they released in the October 2016 statement was just too little, too late. On the other hand, from once he won the election, from November to January, I think they missed an opportunity there. Now, maybe they were just so busy with figuring out what to do and how to hand things off in a way that they didn't expect, but they could have done more during that period.</s>CUOMO: Fair criticism. Carrie, thank you very much. John, as well. Mitt Romney getting a surprise boost in his run for a Senate seat. Which former political foe is now giving his full support? Next.</s>CAMEROTA: I like a riddle.