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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Trump vs. Clinton; Clinton's Damning E-mails. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 10, 2016 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[12:00:09] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

If we are not in the homestretch of this bizarre and exhausting race for president, at least we can see it from here. Election Day is now just a mere 90 days away, count them, and we're now in day two of the latest self-inflicted controversy enveloping the campaign of Donald Trump. The Republican nominee for president of the United States is denying that he tried to instigate armed violence against the democratic nominee. Our coverage begins with this report from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump on the defensive again.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There can be no other interpretation. I mean give me a break.

CARROLL: Blaming media bias for the firestorm over this quip at his campaign rally.

TRUMP: Hillary wants to abolish - essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick - if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know, but -

CARROLL: Trump doing damage control, claiming he was calling on the political powers of Second Amendment voters to make their voices heard, not advocating violence toward his rival.

TRUMP: This is a political movement. This is a strong, powerful movement, the Second Amendment. You know, Hillary wants to take your guns away. She wants to leave you unprotected in your home.

CARROLL: Clinton's campaign quickly denouncing Trump, saying he is "dangerous" and a presidential candidate "should not suggest violence in any way." Other Democrats echoing the same, sharp rebuke. Senator Chris Murphy calling it "an assassination threat." Elizabeth Warren slamming him as a "pathetic coward who can't handle losing to a girl," and Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot in the head, says, "Americans must draw a bright red line between political speech and suggestion of violence." Republicans blasting Trump as well. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: That's actually a very arresting comment. If someone else had said that outside the hall, he would be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him.

CARROLL: Trump blaming the desperate media from trying to distract from what he calls Clinton's anti-Second Amendment stance, even though Clinton has never called for abolishing gun rights. The NRA and running mate Mike Pence coming to Trump's defense.

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump is urging people around this country to act in a matter consistent with their convictions in the course of this election. And people who cherish the Second Amendment have a very clear choice in this election.

CARROLL: Trump has taken heat for violent rhetoric on the stump before.

TRUMP: I'd like to punch him in the face.

Knock the crap out of him.

CARROLL: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, once again, issuing a tepid defense of Trump.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: It sounds like just a joke gone back. I hope he clears it up very quickly. You should never joke about something like that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Well, Ashleigh, there's an expression that goes something like this. If you have to explain yourself for something that you said, perhaps you should not have said it quite that way. But having said that, there are a number of people who support Donald Trump, who come out to rallies like this one, who say they like the fact that he does not stick to the script. However, there are a number of people within the GOP who, at this point, say Donald Trump just needs to stick to the script.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Jason Carroll, thank you for that.

I now want to bring in Andre Bauer. He is a Donald Trump supporter and former lieutenant governor of South Carolina.

Thanks so much for being here. It's great to have you right at this moment. I know you don't love to be in the position of having to defend certain things when they become big, but it seems to be a bit patternistic in this campaign.

I wanted to bring up that the - the actual comments that Donald Trump made after the comments in question, when he went to Twitter, he said, "the media is desperate to distract from Clinton's anti-Second Amendment stance. I said pro-Second Amendment citizens must organize and get out vote to save our Constitution." And that seems to be now the narrative that he wants us to adopt. And yet if you look at the majority of people who have responded on the interweb, that's not how they took it, which means that clarification is important and having to reclarify all the time becomes problematic.

You heard Jason Carroll's report, knocking the crap out of protesters, wanting to hit some of the spears at the Democratic Convention, urging Russia to hack, you know, Hillary Clinton's e-mails. How much clarification latitude should a presidential candidate actually be able to get?

ANDRE BAUER, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, I'll give you a couple things. Number one, I wouldn't defend him if I thought he was encouraging violence. But it's very easy to be misconstrued. And if you look back, Hillary Clinton had this same issue. She didn't get as much press off of it, but when she was running for president against Barack Obama in the primary, she referenced back, hey, look, we haven't even made it through California yet. And you remember what happened to Bobby Kennedy in California. And so she alluded to the fact that possibly Barack Obama might not make it through the primary.

[12:05:10] BANFIELD: She got blasted.

BAUER: And so, you know, again - and I don't - I don't think she meant it either. They say so many things and immediately anything can be distracted. And I think she's done a great job, or her team has, of making this the message.

BANFIELD: You're - you're a - you know, you're a legislator. You've been a legislator. You know how important words are. If he were commander in chief and said something like this, there are other commanders out there like Kim Jong-un who behave in a ready, fire, aim mentality. And there isn't often the luxury of clarification with crazy leaders like those people.

BAUER: No question.

BANFIELD: Which is why I ask you over and over, how much latitude should these wannabe leaders be given before we, as the public, think, I'm not so sure I'm ready to take that risk?

BAUER: We're down to two choices. So the latitude is one way or the other. And, again, it could very - when I looked at - when he said it, it didn't - didn't change me at all. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The political power, NRA, is probably the most powerful groups or one of the most powerful groups in get out the vote. Everybody wants their endorsement. They court them because those people, they get out. You don't have to call them to remind them to go out and vote. So he was trying to energize that crowd to say, look, the only opportunity we have to pump the brakes on this -

BANFIELD: Do you really - do you really believe that? Do you really believe that?

BAUER: Absolutely. BANFIELD: Because I'm - I'm going to give you this. I don't think for a minute that Donald Trump wants anyone to be violent. I don't think for a minute he wants someone to pick up a gun and shoot Hillary Clinton. But jokes are sometimes extremely inappropriate. I am not allowed through security at any airport in this nation or anywhere elsewhere where I say something about joking about security.

BAUER: Absolutely not.

BANFIELD: And we all know it. Us mere mortals, who actually travel commercial, we know we can't say those things because of the impact of our words. Why does Donald Trump not know that?

BAUER: Well, I can tell you this, Donald Trump probably regrets it more than anybody because today this story would be there was a known terrorist sitting on the stage with Hillary Clinton at a rally and this is trumping that story, which is terrible for his campaign.

BANFIELD: No, this is the - this is the father of a man who was -

BAUER: Yes, absolutely.

BANFIELD: Not the terrorist. This is the father of a terrorist.

BAUER: Well, he's - he's been known as a terrorist as well and has very radical views to what we believe in America. And so - but that story is getting stepped on because of not being quite as clear as he probably should have been.

BANFIELD: I think that Donald Trump wouldn't let that story to play out and -

BAUER: You would want that to be thee story today.

BANFIELD: You would think he'd want to - Michael Hayden, former CIA director and Republican, came out yesterday with some extraordinary strong rhetoric about what he took, how he interpreted what Donald Trump said. I want to just play his comment for a moment and then ask you about it. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: And it suggests either a very bad taste reference to political assassination at an attempt at humor or - or an incredible insensitivity. It may be the later. An incredible insensitivity to the prevalence of a political assassination inside of American history and how that is a topic that we don't ever come close to, even when we think we're trying to be lighthearted. Well, now, by the way, this might be really important. I used to tell my seniors at CIA, you get to a certain point in this business, you're not just responsible for what you say, you are responsible for what people hear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And, Andre Bauer, that is so critical, you're responsible for what people hear, which is why I think politicians tend to talk in platitudes and they're so measured, you being one of them, present company excluded.

BAUER: I'm a recovering politician.

BANFIELD: Recovering. Yes, you're a recovering journalist at some point.

I just have to ask you, as a supporter of Donald Trump, he doesn't seem to take the counsel at all about loose lip when it comes to these kind of jokes or claims or rhetoric. Is this the way he would governor as well, knowing full well the Kim Jong-uns are out there?

BAUER: I would think he would govern like he's run his business and trying to find - surround himself with the best CEOs, the best people, and make the best judgement for the American people, to try to really change Washington. And that's the reason why I got behind Donald Trump way back in February. I want someone to go in and absolutely change what we're doing in Washington. Would I like for him to be a little more cautious with his words? Well, yes, because I'd rather the story be about Hillary Clinton some - and some of her - the way she stubbed her toe, which the American people need to know about. So I don't want this to be the top story. I want them to know about his economic plan, that seems like it was two months ago and it was two days ago. I want us to be talking about that.

So I don't think he intended this. I think it has been spun very well and I think his intent was to say, NRA folks, get out and vote. That is the only way you can protect yourself, to have the justices you want in the next pick of the Supreme Court.

BANFIELD: Andre Bauer, nice to have you. Thank you so much.

BAUER: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it.

And, by the way, I just wanted to let you know as well that NASA astronaut Mark Kelly says that Mr. Trump should apologize for what he said. You will remember that Kelly is the co-founder of a gun violence prevention organization and he is the husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot while she was on a political appearance by someone who may have misconstrued any number of messages out there and clearly created a lot of havoc. Mark Kelly is going to join us a little bit later on in this hour.

[12:10:30] I want to turn to Jonathan Wackrow. He is a former Secret Service agent who served under President Obama.

Jonathan, thanks so much for joining me. I just want to remind any viewers who might be just tuning in, you know, what the critical comment here was with regard to Donald Trump at that rally yesterday. I'm going to replay it and I want to get your thoughts in a moment. Have a listen.

JONATHAN WACKROW, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Great. Thank you. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hillary wants to abolish - essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick - if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Jonathan -

WACKROW: Yes.

BANFIELD: Those are the - those are the kinds of comments that if you're traveling, I just mentioned it, the TSA would haul you out of line, probably take you to a back office, and I'm not exactly sure what would happen after that because I've never said it. I'm too afraid. I have an internal edit and I'm no different than most mere mortals. What do you think when you hear that and saw the way it was delivered?

WACKROW: Well, you know, it's - it - it's damaging statements. And now we're - time has passed and we're starting to really see what Donald Trump's, you know, messaging was intended to be. You know, his campaign and surrogates have tried to clarify. He's come out and tried to clarify his statements.

But at that moment in time, when a statement like that is made, you know, any type of threat or threatening language needs to be looked at in three parts. The means, opportunity and intent to cause harm. And the intent part is really what the Secret Service focuses on. And how is that intent interpreted by, you know, his constituents? You know, is someone going to go out and take that - his statements as a call to arms? And I think that's where the Secret Service really needs to be vigilant and really needs to dig in and understand the implications of his comments.

BANFIELD: And we have seen over and over again extraordinarily troubled individuals in America behave in terrible ways under whatever influence they may or may claim to, you know, to have been affected by. But your own agency, the Secret Service, actually tweeted out pretty quickly after this happened, "the Secret Service is aware of the comments made earlier this afternoon," end. I mean this was a very brief, you know, comment. But I wondered what "aware" means. Do you have insight of what that means when they say "aware"?

WACKROW: Well - well, "aware" means that the Secret Service is caught in the middle of two presidential candidates that are under our protection where there's a potential conflict here that has greater ramifications where one candidate could potentially be - have insightful language that could affect the other. So, yes, of course the Secret Service is aware.

The Secret Service will take the position as follows. What they will do is they will look at this. They understand what, you know, Donald Trump was saying. But they want to advise the campaign. They'll advise both campaigns that, you know, words do matter. And, you know, it's not just the words at the moment -

BANFIELD: And, would it end there? Just quickly, Jonathan, would it end there? I mean when I say they're aware, you know, Michael Hayden said that any other guy who said this in a hall would be, you know, yanked into a police cruiser and be questioned. I don't suspect for a moment the Secret Service is going to haul Donald Trump in and question him.

WACKROW: No.

BANFIELD: I think most people know it was a joke. But, again, it's the implications of those who can't handle a joke, like the Jared Loughner of the world. That's the sort - are they going out and looking at these people just to make sure that their lids are on?

WACKROW: Well, listen, when the Secret Service is looking at something, we're looking at, did Donald Trump make a direct threat against Hillary Clinton? The answer is no. You know, under the statute, 18USC - I believe it's 879, did he willfully and knowingly, you know, make a threat or - to cause bodily harm against Hillary Clinton? No, he did not do that. So, you know, I - you know, respectfully to, you know, General Hayden, no, we're not hauling Donald Trump into the back of a police car to question him.

BANFIELD: Right.

WACKROW: But what we are going to do is try to get some clarifying language. We're going to - the Secret Service will encourage the Trump campaign to clarify and lower the rhetoric around this. I mean I think it's best for Donald Trump to get ahead of this even further, completely end this issue so that his words are not interpreted by his constituency in the wrong way.

BANFIELD: Right.

All right, well, Jonathan Wackrow, I knew we booked the right guest when you can cite the actual code on the air live. Thank you. It's good to have you. Appreciate it.

WACKROW: Thank you very much.

[12:15:01] BANFIELD: Coming up next, not to be overshadowed by Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton also taking heat today over a new batch of old e-mails and raising questions about ties between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton State Department. We're going to dig into that in just a moment.

And a reminder, you can watch LEGAL VIEW anytime at cnn.com/go. You can also find me on Twitter, cnnashleigh, or FaceBook. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The Hillary Clinton campaign today pushing back against accusations that the charity that bears her name got lots of benefits that other groups didn't when she was the secretary of state. Here's where that idea comes from, a batch of e-mails that just went public. They show conversations that critics of the Democratic candidate say actually prove that the Clinton Foundation and the State Department scratched each other's backs during President Obama's first term. Favors like jobs and influence and access and money.

CNN's Drew Griffin, our senior investigative correspondent, is digging through the e-mails. And also here, Pamela Brown, CNN justice correspondent.

[12:20:01] So, Drew, I'm going to turn to you first so that you can try to work me through the nearly 300 pages and help me understand if there is definitely a conflict of interest or does this just sort of add all that fuel to the corruption fire that the Clinton opponents have been talking about?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, this new batch of e-mails being released shows what we've been seeing over and over again, and it's this intermingling of interests and donations and favors being done between the Hillary Clinton State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the donors who apparently have very easy access to both when they need help.

Case in point, a guy named Gilbert Chagoury. He's the guy in the blue baseball cap. He's a Nigerian Lebanese billionaire and his brother, on the other side, are deeply involved in a Clinton Global Initiative real estate project in Nigeria, for which you're seeing here Bill Clinton took part in the opening ceremonies. Gilbert is also listed as giving between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation. Now we have this e-mail from Doug Band, he's the guy who essentially was running the Clinton Foundation at the time, now runs another Clinton connected firm called Teneo Consulting. Band in the e-mail is telling two of Hillary Clinton's closest aides at the State Department, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, that they need to put Clinton donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department's substance person in Lebanon. Band reminds both Mills and Abedin that Chagoury is a key guy there and to us and he is asking that Abedin call the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, so they can connect with each other.

Other e-mails released show cozy relationships between Morgan Stanley executives and Hillary Clinton. Morgan Stanley, a big donor both to Hillary Clinton's campaigns and the Clinton Foundation. And those requests for favors, finding people jobs, intermingling of e-mails between State, the Clinton Foundation and others. And the overall effect, Ashleigh, is that, as one congressional investigator told us, it's hard to tell where any lines are drawn between the Clinton State Department, the Clinton Foundation and later this Teneo Consulting company.

The Clinton campaign, as you've said, has tried to explain e-mails like this in the past, saying there's no direct evidence any favors were done because of direct donations are payments. But, you know, to watchdog groups, they say it's just not good enough an answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Government employees have rules that apply. They're supposed to avoid actual conflicts of interest, but they're also supposed to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest. And here you have some companies and some lobbying shops that are very close to the Clinton administration. And at that point Hillary Clinton was working in the State Department. And so you do wonder if there were some kind of impartiality or preferential treatment given to these companies and these lobbyists that didn't go to everyone. And that's not the way our government is supposed to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: Ashleigh, it's the kind of wink and nod approach to government we've seen in other cases that it's really, really difficult to prove a quid pro quo, but, boy, there's a lot of smoke.

BANFIELD: All right, so, Drew, that's the reporting. Now I want to dig into the law. And if I can, I'm going to scoot over to Pamela Brown for that.

Pamela, with your background in Justice, what exactly are the rules when it comes to a charity and cabinet office and if there's anything going on in terms of conflict of interest, what happens?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, for there to be a criminal conflict of interest, there would have to be evidence proving someone in the State Department was personally benefiting from something from this charity, such as someone in the charity promising a job post employment or something else of value given to the government employee. So far these e-mails aren't showing that specifically, and - but we've - there could be more e-mails out there that show other evidence. These e-mails were heavily redacted as well.

But these e-mails do raise questions about whether the relationship between the State Department and Clinton Foundation was simply too cozy, as we just heard Drew say, particularly after Clinton made that pledge when she became secretary of state that she would not be involved in the foundation as a way to make sure there wasn't an inappropriate relationship.

Now, in a case where there could be a conflict of interest that's not criminal, the inspector general could look into it, take administrative remedy if it's found that a charity is having an influence on the government employee. The Clinton campaign says there is no foul play indicated in these e-mails and that these e-mails had nothing to do with Clinton herself.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Pamela Brown, thank you for that. Drew Griffin, thank you as well for your reporting.

The secretary's e-mails and Donald Trump's Second Amendment comment definitely dominating the discussion today. But the bigger question is, will either of these two controversies make any difference 90 days from now? That would be November. Or will they be forgotten by, I don't know, Friday or Saturday? Our political experts are going to put it all in perspective, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:29:12] BANFIELD: Today we're talking about newly released e-mails, a stack of them, dating back to the years when Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state. The group that made those e-mails public, a conservative group, a watchdog group, opponents of Hillary Clinton, say that they show a cozy relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department at the time.

Donald Trump, in the meantime, has a festering controversy of his own. His murky, jokey suggestion that the Second Amendment people may be able to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing liberal judges, by voting or by shooting? Nobody's really clear, it seems. It's murky.

Politics reporter Eugene Scott back here, and political analyst Josh Rogin here as well.

All right, Eugene, I'm going to start with you, and let's go to the e- mails first.

[12:30:00] They're - they sound pretty damning.

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Right.

BANFIELD: They look pretty damning. And there has been a big echo chamber saying corruption from the get-go. So is this a smoking gun that there's corruption or is there something more that say officials need to see?