Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Another, oh, 20 yards down field. Which, i dont even know if thats a crime, colluding about russians. Keeping them honest, its not. That much is true, and thats all. There is no anticolluding with russians act anywhere on the United States code. But there is plenty about Campaign Conspiracy and finance abuses not to mention obstruction of justice. Not to mention most would agree, its just wrong to be scheming with a hostile power. Its a touchy subject, as you might imagine. Because of that, its not the first time theyve felt compelled to describe their transgressions downward. Just after the election, Campaign Spokesperson hope hicks said, quote, there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign. It never happened, she said. Three months later, never became to the best of our knowledge. Sarah sanders saying that is a nonstory, because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place. A month later that gave way to meetings, yes, but no planned meetings. Donald trump jr. Telling the new york times, quote, did i
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Of the russians offer by trump jr. Now, but cohens account, he approved going ahead with the meeting with the russians, according to a source. Rudy giuliani had a lot to say today. That much is indisputable. Whether he actually cleared anything up, well, that is not. As for the president , he went before the cameras today and said nothing because this, because no one the president chose to ask questions asked him about it. Cnns jim acosta joins us with more from the white house. So, has the white house had any response to the Claims Giuliani was or wasnt making this morning on television . Ah, no, anderson. As a matter of fact, i just spoke with a white house official who said that the press team over here at the white house is not coordinating with Rudy Giuliani in terms of what he says on behalf of the president s legal team on these various talk show appearances, including on new day here on cnn, nor can they control what Rudy Giuliani says, according to this white house official. Now this official went on the say, anderson, that they cannot say that definitively about what giuliani does in coordination with the white house counsels office, and of course, anderson, we do know if past is prologue
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. There was no collusion, that at some point, i think the hope is inside the president s legal and and among his defenders that the public just gets bored with the whole thing and wants to move on. Interesting. Jim acosta, thanks very much. Joining us now, one person who can speak to whether the russia meeting was the sort of thing Candidate Trump would want to be told about, barbara res, a former longtime Senior Executive at the Trump Organization, author of the book all alone on the 68th floor how one woman changed the face of construction. Barbara, thank you so much for being with us. My pleasure. You worked for Trump Organization on and off for years. The thing i never understood about this meeting is that don jr. Would be told by someone allegedly representing the russian government that the russians were supporting his Fathers Campaign and would not tell his father, either about that major fact or the meeting taking place or the meeting had taken place. Given what you know about how the Trump Organization works, does it make sense to you donald trump would not have been informed about this . Impossible. Impossible. In my opinion, based on my
experience working with trump and everybody that worked for trump. Something major, something newsworthy, something pressworthy, would always go before trump. Always. Because he wanted to know. He wanted to be aware yes. He wanted to be on top of things. And, i mean, is it possible that donald trump jr. Might have, as a child of mr. Trump, would have more latitude than an employee . I dont think so, no. The reason trump jr. Is in the position hes in, ivanka is in the position, jared, is that trump has historically believed that he is better served by having family members, even if theyre not quite as qualified. But i think that perhaps he may even be harder on family members. I know he was harder on ivana when she worked for him. And i have a feeling that he probably might have been harder on donald when he donald jr. When he might not have done what he was supposed to. So, from my point of view, donald jr. Would definitely have gone to his father. I think he would have said in advance, look what i got, were going to get something on hillary. I think he would have been, you know, sort of bragging about it, look what i did, that kind of thing. Which makes sense why Candidate Trump made that speech in which he promoted an upcoming discussion about some big news on the russians and hillary clinton. Absolutely. There has been some discussion, though, that maybe donald trump jr. Wouldnt have wanted to alert his father in advance in case nothing came of the meeting, and therefore he would look bad in his fathers eyes . No, i dont think thats the case at all. I think that he would have told donald about the meeting. And if it didnt amount to anything, it would have been fine. It was something they attempted and it didnt work out. The i want to ask you about allen weisselberg, who is the chief financial officer. A lot of people have said, well, look, he knows far more than Michael Cohen would have possibly known about the Trump Organization, given the length of time he was there, allen was there when Donald Trumps father was running the company. Is he that important . Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. But thats not really the case of what actually happened. Is that the way the organization itself was run . To my experience, absolutely. It was always run in chaos. And there was a lot of splitting people up, and a lot of dividing and conquering. Trump liked to have controversy. He liked to be surrounded by controversy. He wanted his people, you know, competing with each other. He liked that environment . Absolutely. Did he think it was productive or just do you know why he liked it . Just part of his nature . I think he thought, at the time, and he says this, i have the best people. And he was always trying to make one better than the other. And you could see him when he brought in scaramucci and all that stuff, competing, competing, competing. You know, that was something he liked to do, yes. Fascinating. Barbara res, thank you so much. Always my pleasure. Nice to talk to you. More help on cutting through the confusing fog that the president s attorney left us with today. Joining us now, jeffrey toobin, dana bash and carrie cordero. So, jeff, solution is giuliani is saying collusion isnt a crime. It stands in contrast to what the president has been saying for months is that there is no collusion. Well, its sort of a contrast. The implication of what the president has been saying is that i didnt commit a crime. But he has never quite defined what collusion is. I mean, as you pointed out earlier at the beginning of the show, it is true that collusion itself is not defined in the United States code as a crime. But if you look at the Mueller Investigation, if you look at what mueller is authorized by the Department Of Justice to look into, one of the things specifically is collusion. If you look at the indictment of the social media case where there are 12 individuals and one company charged with illegally assisting the Trump Campaign from russia, the clear implication there is if the Trump Campaign worked with these russian entities, that would be
a crime, as well. But there is no crime specifically called collusion. So, if you want to take but there is conspiracy. There is conspiracy. And clearly, assisting the russian government to intervene illegally in the Trump Campaign would be a crime. So, you know, i think Rudy Giuliani is playing word games there to a certain extent, but if you want to be technical, hes right that there is no crime called collusion. Dana, you spoke to giuliani earlier today after the interview on new day. He tried to clarify some of his comments, right . Yes. Okay. Im going try to explain this so people dont get even more confused. But at the end of the day good luck. Exactly. It is as clear as mud, and i dont think thats an accident. What giuliani talked about, one of the things he talked about with Alisyn Camerota this morning was the idea that there was this alleged second meeting or, excuse me, a meeting that happened a couple of days before
the notorious Trump Tower Meeting with don jr. And the russian attorney and so on and so fort wheh where they talked t what they would discuss, like a premeeting, basically. So giuliani brought it up as if the meeting happened, with Alisyn Camerota. It was not clear. I talked to him afterwards, and he said no, the reason i brought it up is because reporters came to me, meaning giuliani and to jay sekulow, another member of the trump legal team, saying that this is being floated to them, meaning to the reporters, that there was an additional meeting where they were going through the russia situation, that cohen was apart of it. And what giuliani said that he and sekulow found out in doing their own Inn Vevestigating Unty is oh, that meeting never happened. So he said, if youre still with me, that the reason he brought it up to alisyn, he has talked about a meeting and said the meeting didnt happen. So, to me are you still with me, anderson . Yeah, i went to a special place in my head for awhile, but im back. Its not back to those goalposts, though. To me, he said that theres a meeting that never happened, but theres no question that this is his way of, he says, trying to get out ahead of stories, but its also very much to throw a whole bunch of smoke at the screen and make it hard to see through it. Yeah, carrie, giuliani seemed very careful to say that the president wasnt at that meeting at trump tower, he didnt say the president didnt know about the meeting in advance, which is the whole point, there was never any belief that the president himself was actually at that meeting, again, its a shift in what the line is from the Trump Campaign. From the trump camp. Right. So, well, Rudy Giuliani keeps trying to, as you outlined, he keeps trying to change the story and change peoples attention towards what may or may not have occurred. What we know is that there is an
investigation focused on conspiracy to defraud the United States. Thats really the Special Counsels theory of the case. And Everything Else falls under that, whether its the unauthorized access to the computer system, what we call the hacking, or whether its potential violations of campaign finance. Any of those fall into the ru rubric of conspiracy. And these meetings regarding whether or not individuals, senior officials trump and his inner circle on the campaign knew in advance about any of those activities that the russian government, russian Intelligence Officers were doing goes to whether or not they were part of that conspiracy. And so, when Rudy Giuliani says there was no collusion, the question really is, did they have advanced knowledge . And were they in some way working together . That would be another way to describe what the law calls conspiracy. Jeff, the whole notion from the president this weekend that mueller has conflicts of interest, giuliani wouldnt explain what those alleged
conflicts are when pressed today. I mean, from all the what we know so far, it doesnt seem like there is much there there. There was that report about the president had claimed the conflict over a Golf Membership in a golf club. It wasnt clear if thats what giuliani was referencing. It seems probably that is what it is. Well, it was funny. I was actually in the studio when alisyn was doing that interview, and i almost started laughing, because giuliani said, i dont know what the conflict is, but i would have recused myself if i was mueller. And i was like what . It was sort of peculiar. But look, i think whats important to remember about what Rudy Giuliani says and about you know, all what the president says, especially on twitter, is that its designed to go into the conservative ecosphere. Its designed to get into fox news, breitbart, various websites that are supportive so that people can start saying the
same thing. No such thing there was no collusion, and even if there was collusion, its not a crime. You will certainly start to hear you will certainly start to hear that more often in the conservative media world. Im sorry, go ahead, dana. No, no, it is. Youre exactly right, it is designed to do that. I was talking to some people in the trump orbit today, particularly the political orbit tod today, who were noting that he is pretty comfortable with where the base is right now. And he should be. According to almost all the polls, he has skyhigh Approval Rating among republicans. And in this particular case, it might be less strategic and more kneejerk personal. Hes upset about Michael Cohen. Hes upset about the fact that the Special Counsel is talking to somebody who, anderson, as you were just discussing with the former trump org executive, who is very much in the inner circle. Right. And hes lashing out. In addition to the fact that they are desperately trying to,
and at least in the last few months, successfully so, chip away at the credibility and the integrity of this investigation. Dana, thank you. Jeff toobin, carrie cordero, as well. Ahead, a debate on the president and russia, specifically their summit. The question two weeks later, why dont we know more about what actually went on Behind Closed Doors . Why dont we know actually anything that went on Behind Closed Doors between the president and putin . Next, Breaking News about what might be a slap in the face about President Trumps meeting with kim jongun. A place with all day arts and crafts it even has a day spa a place thats so much like home, because well. It is home home instead senior care
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and Decision Making by some of the leaders. What we see here is weapons that are being constructed at a