During Friday’s edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports, the MSNBC host went after the President for praising Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and suggesting he would make a good Prime Minister. Johnson resigned earlier in the week due to his disapproval of May’s “Brexit” strategy. Johnson, unlike May, vocally supported the June 2016 referendum where voters ultimately chose to leave the European Union. Mitchell asked former US Ambassador Nicholas Burns “when have we last seen an American President interfere in a British election or any overseas election of an ally?”
Burns replied "We have not seen this kind of wrecking ball tour of Europe by any American President in the history of our country, to go after the Germans, to go after the British, to go after NATO and the EU. And now, the White House has a big problem with optics. They’ve had this disputatious tour of Europe, our best allies."
He proceeded to tie Rod Rosenstein’s press conference on new indictments in the Russia investigation to President Trump’s upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland, saying “The President is going to see Putin, if he doesn’t cancel the meeting....this cannot look like an embrace of Putin. It can’t look like two buddies getting together."
Burns added "The President needs to be tough on this issue of interference, on Crimea, on the nerve agent attack which cost a British woman her life last week. The President indicated at the press conference this morning at Checkers, he’s not prepared to do that. He wants to have a nice meeting with Putin. How can he do that following these indictments?"
Since Burns refused to answer Mitchell's question about election meddling, here is the correct answer: In 2015, President Obama meddled in the Israeli election by spending $350,000 in an effort to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in that year’s election. The efforts of the Obama Administration and other liberal groups to defeat Netanyahu ultimately failed, Netanyahu won re-election and still serves as Israel’s Prime Minister today. This might not necessarily count as interference but President Obama urged voters in the United Kingdom to vote “remain” on the “Brexit” referendum, telling them they would move to “the back of the queue” in any trade deal with the United States should they decide to leave the European Union.
Mitchell asked former Obama Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller “Does this in any way insulate Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein from the attacks?” The “attacks” Mitchell referred to are the repeated branding of the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt” by the President, his supporters, and his legal team.
Miller responded by saying “The best way to answer those attacks, because Bob Mueller can’t go out and do interviews… is to respond in Court with facts. And today, he put a lot of new facts on the record that show very convincingly this isn’t a witch hunt, this is a serious investigation and it’s producing fruit.” Miller also suggested that the timing of Rosenstein’s press conference just ahead of a planned summit with Putin was no accident: “I have to question whether the timing of this indictment was both a way for the Special Counsel and for Rod Rosenstein to push back against the really inappropriate attacks and also if it was a little bit of a way to force the President’s hand as he goes into this meeting on Monday.”
Andrea Mitchell Reports
07/13/18
12:37 PM
ANDREA MITCHELL: Michael, what we’re learning from this indictment is that on June 27th, excuse me, July 27th, the day that President Trump…I’m sorry, we’re going to get this straight. On June 27th, 2016, the day when President, then-candidate Trump, said “Russia, if you’re listening, you know, go after those Hillary Clinton e-mails, where are those other e-mails?” The e-mails that they claimed at the time were missing from her private server, which did not prove to be the case. On that very day, these Russian operatives started spear fishing. So there’s a direct connection to what the President as a candidate was saying publicly.
MICHAEL CARPENTER: This is a spectacular bit of cyber forensics that we’re learning about right now. And there’s a couple important things here to remember. What we’re seeing from this set of indictments is, we are tying both the hacking and doxing campaign of the DNC and the DCCC to the intrusions by Russian military intelligence into state election boards and into that private company that did voter registration efforts, which by the way is a potential avenue for influencing an election via voter suppression. If you can mess with the voter registration rolls, you can affect outcome on Election Day. And so we see that. We also know, by the way, that this GRU, Russian military intelligence persona, was talking to Americans, Roger Stone and a Florida GOP operative. So this sets the predicate then for being able to investigate exactly what the Russians were after in terms of Americans, who they were talking to, why they were talking to them, what they were trying to get from them. And so I think this is just the first shoe.
MITCHELL: And I just want to clarify, it was exactly a month later, July 27th, when the President said what he said about “Russia, if you’re listening,” and they already were doing their fishing operations. But clearly there is a nexus between what was happening that summer and the comments of the President. Nick, this is a critical moment. He comes out of NATO, he’s criticized Theresa May, who is politically vulnerable given what’s happened with Brexit and the resignation of her Foreign Minister, her Foreign Secretary, and he praises Boris Johnson, that Foreign Secretary, and a rival of Theresa May’s, and says that he would make a good Prime Minister. When have we last seen an American President interfere in a British election or any overseas election of an ally?
NICHOLAS BURNS: We have not seen this kind of wrecking ball tour of Europe by any American President in the history of our country, to go after the Germans, to go after the British, to go after NATO and the EU. And now, the White House has a big problem with optics. They’ve had this disputatious tour of Europe, our best allies. The President is going to see Putin, if he doesn’t cancel the meeting…he, this cannot look like an embrace of Putin. It can’t look like two buddies getting together. Our President needs to be tough on this issue of interference, on Crimea, on the nerve agent attack which cost a British woman her life last week. The President indicated at the press conference this morning at Checkers, he’s not prepared to do that. He wants to have a nice meeting with Putin. How can he do that following these indictments?
MITCHELL: Former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts, an MSNBC National Security Analyst, joining us as well. Clint, the forensics here are pretty remarkable, as Pete has mentioned, Michael Carpenter, Nick Burns. As a former FBI official, tell us how hard this is, to have tracked these specific 12, according to the allegations in the indictment.
CLINT WATTS: Yeah, this is a multi-agency, probably, multiyear effort to try and track down these forensics. And we have heard conspiracies in the meantime. This is hard to prove, and you’ve seen it both from Russia and from even Congressmen at times, that there is no proof of this direct connection between Russia and the DNC breach and other hacks that went on. This is a very substantial document with lots of details, comparable to the internet research agency indictment that we saw back in February. And it puts names on personas. The other key thing that this indictment does is it links hacking and influence. This was always kind of something that was elusive, whenever you would go hear Putin say, oh, it was patriotic Russians that were involved. This is very clearly Russian GRU intelligence officers that were undertaking actions at the behest of the Russian government. And they were using those to influence the campaign. This is where social media and hacking have come together for this influence. And this is where that indictment fits really well with that February one, which was also of great detail. It shoot down, it shoots down alternative theories about the DNC breach; if you remember, the conspiracies about Seth Rich, maybe this came from alternative locations. And it pushes back on media personalities that have levered these conspiracies as well. So I think it’s important to note that Putin has consistently used the answer, it was not us, you have no proof of it, show us. Well, this is an indictment, and there’s a whole lot of proof in here. And so when we look to Monday, whenever President Trump is going in with President Putin, he cannot accept that answer anymore that it was patriotic Russians. It was very clearly Putin’s Russians that were doing his business.
MITCHELL: Matt Miller, you’re a former Chief Spokesman for the Justice Department as Clint has just pointed out, this is hard evidence, alleged. Does this in any way insulate Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein from the attacks or are those attacks in such a political arena that they will be, that this indictment will also be disputed?
MATT MILLER: It certainly helps. I mean, I think they can’t be unaware of the attacks that have been occurring against them and they can’t be unaware of the damage it’s done to Robert Mueller’s reputation, not with, you know members, the broad mainstream public, but if you look at the polls and look at how Republicans’ have changed in their opinions of him over time, the attacks that the President and his Counsel, Rudy Giuliani, have launched against Mueller have taken their toll. The best way to answer those attacks, because Bob Mueller can’t go out and do interviews, can’t go out and defend himself, is to respond in Court with facts. And today, he put a lot of new facts on the record that show very convincingly this isn’t a witch hunt, this is a serious investigation and it’s producing fruit. And you know, we, you have to ask about the timing of this. I mean, obviously, you know, we’ve talked about this, Ken, I think raised the important question of whether the President, when he was briefed earlier in this week, would have objected to the timing, whether the Department of Justice would have coordinated the timing with the President. It is such a hard question to answer because in a typical investigation, you know, we’ve talked for months about how the Justice Department and the White House don’t coordinate on criminal investigations. There’s a big exception to that, and that’s national security investigations. And with a typical President who is defending the country and who is responding to an attack on the country by trying to hold those responsible for the attack accountable, you might coordinate with the White House the announcement of this indictment so the President could go into this meeting with a new piece of ammunition in his pocket, that he could go in and say, you know, hold this indictment up to Vladimir Putin and say, look, this is the hard evidence that you attacked our elections. Of course, I don’t think anyone thinks that Donald Trump is going to do that in a meaningful way. And so I have to question whether the timing of this indictment was both a way for the Special Counsel and for Rod Rosenstein to push back against the really inappropriate attacks and also if it was a little bit of a way to force the President’s hand as he goes into this meeting on Monday.
