Trump Campaign Distances from Data Group, Executive Says Otherwise; Interview with Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Clinton Campaign Chief and then-DNC Chair Denied Knowing About Dossier
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Thanks. As you just heard, we have breaking news. The JFK assassination files are out. We have them. We're sifting through them as fast as we can with a team of experts and historians. We'll talk about everything that we're learning later on. Not all of them, we should point out, have been released and we'll talk about that as well and explain why. In the meantime, welcome back to the 2016 presidential election. At least it feels that way tonight with just a couple weeks to the anniversary of the most surprising election night in generations. Two campaign stories are dominating the headlines -- each an opportunity to refight the battle, each away for some to cast doubt on the outcome. All the familiar names are present with a single question hanging over all of them and all of it, who is not telling the truth here? Are players in the Trump campaign being less than honest about the role a campaign data outfit played in their effort to elect President Trump? Now it's been revealed it reached out to WikiLeaks in pursuit of Hillary Clinton's emails. And on the Democratic side, are former Clinton campaign chief John Podesta and former DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz being less than honest about their connection to the Russia dossier, each told Senate investigators they did not know who funded the opposition research that led to it, when in fact their respective organizations did. We have new reporting on this tonight and on the WikiLeaks outreach as well as a larger discussion of how both stories have given the two sides of campaign 2016 the fuel to drag it nearly to the end of 2017. William Faulkner was right. The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. It's where we begin tonight. We're going to take you through both stories, lay out the timelines and tees out any inconsistency so you can decide for yourselves what to make of them and who to believe. Now, you probably heard each story described using words and phrases like convoluted and tangled web. We're going to try to detangle them, starting with a beat by beat account of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the number crunching operation that would eventually ask WikiLeaks about Hillary Clinton's missing emails. Our justice correspondent Pamela Brown reports.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eleven days after Trump's GOP nomination on July 18th, 2016 --</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For the presidency of the United States.</s>BROWN: -- and two days after this now infamous moment.</s>TRUMP: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.</s>BROWN: Donald Trump's campaign made its first payment to controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica on July 29th. We're now learning that same month, according to "The Wall Street Journal" another infamous moment occurred. Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seeking access to Hillary Clinton related e-mails. Also that same month, WikiLeaks began releasing hacked e-mails from the</s>DNC. JULIAN ASSANGE, FOUNDER, WIKILEAKS: We have more material related to the Hillary Clinton campaign.</s>BROWN: Cambridge Analytica was founded by wealthy Republican donors Robert and Rebecca Mercer in 2014. They began backing Trump after the GOP primaries in June of 2016. That same month, Jared Kushner took over all data operations for the Trump campaign. Kushner said once his father-in-law won the GOP nomination, the campaign used both Cambridge Analytica and the RNC's voter data saying, quote: We kept both data operations going simultaneously and a lot shared between them. And by that, we could scale to a pretty good operation.</s>JOSHUA GREEN, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK: They had a team of Cambridge data scientists embedded in the Trump headquarters who were doing very sophisticated models work that helped to inform where the campaign was going to send Donald Trump.</s>BROWN: In August 2016, Steve Bannon became CEO of the Trump campaign. Before that, he was the vice president of Cambridge Analytica. While working for the firm, Bannon had urged the Trump campaign to hire them as far back as April, according to "The New Yorker". In September 2016, the Trump campaign made its biggest payment to Cambridge Analytica, $5 million, that's according to FEC filings. Those payments eventually totaled nearly $6 million. The payments listed by the FEC as being for data management services. (on camera): The firm has offices in London, New York and right here in Washington, D.C., just three blocks away from the White House. CNN has reached out to Cambridge Analytica for a response in the wake of the revelations about WikiLeaks, but despite our repeated attempts, we have not heard back. (voice-over): But in November, just before the election, Cambridge Analytica's CEO Alexander Nix did speak to CNN about his data operation and the newly reopened FBI investigation into, you guessed it, Hillary Clinton's e-mails.</s>ALEXANDER NIX, CEO, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA: Clearly, there are unknown knowns, you know, such as what's recently happened in the case of the Democrat's candidate with the release of the -- or the reopening of the e-mail inquiry. We can't predict that.</s>BROWN: As far as the Trump campaign, it released a statement distancing itself from the firm saying, quote: We as a campaign made the choice to rely on the voter data of the Republican National Committee to help elect President Donald J. Trump. Any claims that voter data from any other source played a key role in the victory are false.</s>COOPER: Pam, would this be of interest to investigators for collusion?</s>BROWN: Sources I've spoken to say yes. They say that the idea that the data firm reached out to WikiLeaks alone does not mean a crime occurred at face value, but as one FBI official told me today, what it shows is an intent to go beyond normal proactive campaign tactics. And investigators would use this bit of information to see if there was any coordination, whether there was anyone from the Trump campaign who was intimately involved. As I said, the intent and mind-set and whether there was any sort of conspiracy. You include this piece of a puzzle to Roger Stone, an advisor to Trump during the campaign, telling the Hill he had an intermediary who connected him with Assange. He also was briefly in touch with the Russian intelligence offer online, social media, under the guise of Guccifer 2.0, and then according to "The Wall Street Journal", there was an effort by opposition research working for the -- with people on the Trump campaign searching on the dark web for Russians who may have had Clinton's missing e-mails. So, all of this would be taken into account. But we should note, there have been no accusations of wrongdoing, Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Pam Brown, thanks. Joining us now is Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the Judiciary Committee. To you, Senator, what if any is the significance of Cambridge Analytica reaching out to WikiLeaks.</s>SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: It is significant because it demonstrates evidence of potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian interference. There's no question according to the intelligence community, that there was Russian interference. The president has called the special counsel's investigation and the investigation of the Judiciary Committee into that meddling and Trump collusion, alleged collusion with it as a hoax. But here we have more evidence of a pattern that has been established of collusion and perhaps of obstruction of justice.</s>COOPER: The statement put out by the Trump campaign saying -- basically distancing themselves from Cambridge Analytica saying, look, any suggestion that it was anything about RNC data, that's what we relied on most heavily. They didn't even mention Cambridge Analytica. Does that pass the smell test given that they're spending nearly $6 million?</s>BLUMENTHAL: Not in the least because they have spent $6 million to hire Cambridge Analytica as a consultant, as an agent, in that capacity. It was reaching out to WikiLeaks. In fact, reaching down into the gutter because remember, WikiLeaks' business model is to take information, stolen often by foreign governments like the Russians, and then publicly size it without any regard to the harm done to men and women in uniform or others who are cooperating with us abroad. And Cambridge Analytica well knew that business model.</s>COOPER: It's very possible, though, that it was just coincidence. Just coincidence that candidate Trump, you know, said this that press conference, Russia, if you're listening, you know, if you got the 33,000 e-mails, we'd love to see them or release them or whatever the actual words he said. Two days later, they start paying Cambridge Analytica and later that much they make -- Analytica makes the outreach to WikiLeaks. That -- I mean, when you put out a timeline it looks like it's all one piece. It could be a coincidence. There's no evidence that President Trump or anyone else from the campaign said to Cambridge Analytica, reach out to WikiLeaks.</s>BLUMENTAL: Point number one, it could be all coincidence, but it has to be coupled with other circumstantial evidence. Like the Trump campaign welcoming the outreach from Rob Goldstone, saying he had Russian sources of dirt on Hillary Clinton. And Donald Trump --</s>COOPER: Government sources actually.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And Donald Trump Jr. saying I love it. The meeting on June 9th, the Air Force One statement doctored by -- and edited by the president of the United States. There is a series of circumstantial evidence. No conclusion reached yet, but certainly a basis to investigate.</s>COOPER: I want to turn to the Trump dossier story. The -- you know, I asked you if it passes the smell test, the statement made by the Trump campaign. Does it pass the smell test to you that the head of the DNC, the head of the Clinton campaign are now saying they had no idea money was going through this law firm to pay for this dossier? I mean, if they didn't know, who would have known?</s>BLUMENTHAL: Well, the lawyer working for them was the one who actually began paying for this opposition research.</s>COOPER: But isn't that a little too cute? I mean, isn't -- I mean, if you're paying millions of dollars to a law firm, you probably want to know examine will know what the law firm -- the reason you do it through a law firm is to have deniability, I assume.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Regardless of whether that claim passes the smell test or not, remember what the key distinction is. Here, the money was coming from the DNC and it was going to opposition research. It was not supported by a foreign government, not by the Russians. That's the key distinction.</s>COOPER: Isn't it possible, though, that Christopher Steele, who was getting information, possibly buying information from Russian sources who may have been duped by the Russian government or in collusion with the Russian government to give this -- I mean, that's the argument a lot of Republicans are making. The Russian government may have given disinformation about candidate Trump through Christopher Steele that was essentially being paid for ultimately by the Clinton campaign.</s>BLUMENTHAL: And it never had an impact on the campaign, another key distinction. But if it doesn't pass the smell test and it's worthy of investigation, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, will look into it. And bottom line, the collusion alleged between the Trump campaign and Russian interference, as well as obstruction of justice is under investigation and if there are other similar actions, they should be investigated as well.</s>COOPER: Senator Blumenthal, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.</s>COOPER: Staying on the subject of the dossier that we just spoke about, CNN's Manu Raju joins us now with more details on that. What are you learning about what Clinton's former campaign chief John Podesta told the Senate Intelligence Committee?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes. That's right. Anderson, in September, behind closed doors, John Podesta actually met with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigators and towards the end of an interview that focused a lot on his hacked e-mails, a question was posed to him whether or not the Clinton campaign had any sort of contractual relationship with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that did produce the Trump Russia dossier, and he said he had no knowledge of it. Podesta saying, you know, I didn't know. I don't know if we have any relationship, nothing like that at all. And this is significant, Anderson, because this is the first time that we have learned someone this high up in the Clinton universe sitting down behind closed doors with investigators on Capitol Hill discussing their knowledge about the ties with Fusion GPS, ties with that dossier. And even though he was not sworn in to formally go under oath, you cannot lie to Congress in an investigation. So, his testimony or his interview had to be truthful because otherwise, Congress will look into this further.</s>COOPER: Manu, I understand the one person who claims to know about this research is the attorney, Marc Elias, and he actually was at this hearing as John Podesta's lawyer. Is that right?</s>RAJU: Yes, that's right. In fact, he was sitting right next to him. He was representing John Podesta. Even though he knew at the time that his firm had retained Fusion GPS as its client to research these allegations and Podesta said he had no knowledge of it, Elias did not offer any information there at that interview that he was aware of this. But he was there, just to be clear. He was not a witness during this interview. He was just there serving his client. But he very well could come back as a witness now that we do know that the Clinton campaign and the DNC were helping fund this research. But, Anderson, in the aftermath of us learning about this, Elias's firm put out a letter saying that their clients only knew that they had this arrangement with Fusion GPS only recently, suggesting last month, John Podesta did not know at that time.</s>COOPER: What about former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz? What did she tell the Senate Intelligence Committee?</s>RAJU: Yes, Anderson, we're learning for the first time she did meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month and she made a similar case. She was asked directly about whether or not the DNC had these similar ties to Fusion GPS. She said she had no knowledge of that either. She said pretty clearly that she did not. First time we're learning that she even met with the investigators, let alone saying that there was no DNC connection. But I can tell you, Anderson, now that we do there is some, there's a very good chance that she could come back for further questions because at that point, that was not a big bulk of the interview but it could be if investigators want to call her back for further questioning, Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Manu Raju, appreciate that. Coming up next, we'll hear directly from a former senior member of the Clinton campaign. Brian Fallon joins us the panel. And later, the breaking news that's a quarter century in the making, with a big catch. As we reported at the top of the broadcast, the government releasing documents from the Kennedy assassination files. The president holding back some of them. The question is why? And will that fuel conspiracy theories that have been out there for decades? More on that, ahead.