CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Richard Blumenthal

Interview

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TAPPER: Hmm. So to sum up, in just the last 24 hours, President Trump attacked attorney general for trying to abide by appropriate protocols instead of running the Justice Department like his own private oppo research shop. His communications director has admitted that she has communicated falsehoods, and we have learned that one of the president's very top aides is potentially so compromised, it's unclear how he can function in his job without the White House seriously compromising top secret information.

Do you know what we call a day like that around here? Wednesday.

I want to turn now to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senator Blumenthal, thanks for being here. Is there any evidence that Jared Kushner's business interests have impacted policies in any way related to Mexico, China, the UAE or Israel?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: That is one of the key questions that is going to have to be determined in the debriefing and possible damage control that will follow his downgrading of his status and his denial of access to top secret information now.

But there's no question, Jake, that Jared Kushner simply cannot continue in his present role. He has been fatally compromised by these foreign entanglements. The pressure his family holdings have encountered. The need to rely potentially on foreign debt. His contacts with foreign leaders and the intercepts of those contacts, which may have in turn compromised him further.

So there needs to be some investigative work done here to determine whether or not secrets, our nation's highly classified information, has been compromised as a result of these foreign entanglements and his naivete and lack of experience.

TAPPER: You say he can't do his job. Do you think Kushner should resign?

BLUMENTHAL: The president has to in effect ask him to reconsider his role, if he moves to another position elsewhere in the administration, perhaps more ceremonial, than effective as a negotiator, that would be an alternative. But his present position is in effect untenable and unsustainable and so far he's been assigned to work with foreign leaders in the most sensitive kind of negotiations without access to that highly classified information, which includes the communications among foreign leaders. He simply cannot do the job that he has right now.

TAPPER: Does he need to give up the portfolio that includes relationships with Mexico and China, trying to create a Mideast peace deal? You heard the quote from someone who helped negotiate Mideast peace from a previous administration saying there's no way he could have done his job without top secret security clearance?

BLUMENTHAL: In any other administration, he would be fired from this job. In any other administration, he would have no role in those kinds of negotiations with Mexico, Qatar, China, or any other government where he had these kinds of (INAUDIBLE). Remember, Jared Kushner asked for a back channel, off-the-record communication with Russia in his meeting with the Russian ambassador. He met privately, off the record, with the head of the Russian bank. He had other contacts with the Russians. In no other administration would he still have his job.

TAPPER: Yesterday you demanded that the White House answer your question as to who currently has a temporary security clearance, how they were granted and renewed, and an explanation of what kind of classified information they would have had access to given the actions taken. Are you satisfied?

BLUMENTHAL: In no way am I satisfied. That letter was written with Chairman Grassley, a Republican colleague of the Judiciary Committee. We want information about who had these interim clearances, what was the protocol or procedure by which they were granted? What steps are being taken to make sure it never happens again.

We need to protect our national security. This administration has demonstrated an utter contempt for the protocols and practices that safeguarded our nation's secrets and allowed people like Rob Porter to have access to the most highly classified information, the president's daily brief. When they had secrets of their own, devastating secrets that could have subjected them to blackmail. And so those kinds of questions are ever as real and urgent now as they were yesterday or the day before.

[16:25:03] And these kinds of considerations are the reasons that I asked for Jared Kushner's security clearance to be reviewed nine months ago, along with Michael Flynn.

TAPPER: To your knowledge, does the president's daughter Ivanka Trump who also serves a top adviser, does she still have access to top secret information or classified information?

BLUMENTHAL: We have no reason to believe that Ivanka Trump is no longer privileged to have access to that information. She may still be seeing it. One of the questions we have, a very urgent, pressing question is whether she has been compromised in the way that Jared Kushner has been, and whether she continues to have access to that highly secret information.

Remember, the reason people ought to be concerned is this information concerns the lives of our sources and methods of intelligence abroad, lives are at stake, individuals in uniform who are abroad, in places where they may be in jeopardy. Compromising this information puts them at risk.

TAPPER: Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, thanks for your time, sir. Appreciate it.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

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