CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Chris Coons of Delaware

Interview

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COOPER: All right. Shimon Prokupecz, thanks very much.

To get a better sense of the significance of this, I spoke earlier with Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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COOPER: Senator, the fact that Russians are waging a disinformation campaign against the Mueller investigation with documents directly from Mueller's team, how much does that concern you?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: Well, Anderson, this is just another very disconcerting way in which President Trump's interests seem to be aligned with Russia's. That there is news today that a Russian entity is using information from the defense team on the opposite side of Robert Mueller's investigation to try and discredit that very investigation, and that lines up in which the ways in which President Trump has been attacking and criticizing the Mueller investigation. It's deeply troubling.

COOPER: I mean, according to our reporting, it's been a concern to Mueller's team all along, that if they shared documents with Russian defense attorneys, those documents could end up in the wrong hands, and it seems like that's exactly what happened.

COONS: That's right. That is what happened. Anderson, that's why it's more important than ever that we have voices here in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, speaking up in defense of Robert Mueller's investigation, and giving him the room, the resource us, the ability to make independent decisions that he needs to reach a conclusion to this investigation.

I am grateful that Senators Graham and Tillis have joined Senators Booker and me in reintroducing our bipartisan bill to protect the Mueller investigation to ensure that a report is given to Congress at the end, and to make sure that Robert Mueller isn't interfered with, as he tries to conclude the most important steps of his investigation.

COOPER: Your colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, he is now calling for the FBI to brief the committee on the tactics used to the arrest of Roger Stone, saying that the arrest, it appears to have only added to the spectacle surrounding the Mueller investigation, the way he was arrested. Do you agree with Senator Graham?

COONS: Well, look, it is Chairman Graham's prerogative to question the tactics. What I saw in the press was that they used a lot of agents for a predawn raid and there's an argument he could have simply surrendered during daylight hours through his attorney's offices. But, you know, the larger point here is that roger stone, his arrest included raids on offices not in Florida, where he was, but in New York, to try and get access to some of his electronic devices.

I'll remind you that executing a warrant like that meant that a federal judge signed off on the idea that there was a high probability that something would be recovered in that raid that would lead to evidence of a crime. So, to me, the Roger Stone arrest and the items likely seized in subsequent searches lends even more credibility to the idea the Mueller investigation has not yet concluded.

COOPER: I want to ask you about this new reporting that at the G20 in Buenos Aires, President Trump sat down with Putin for several minutes with no translator, and no taker from the U.S. side. I mean, yet again, is there any reasonable explanation, in your opinion, why this seems to happen over and over again whenever these two leaders come together?

COONS: No, there isn't, particularly given the timing there, Anderson. The G20 was not long after a very aggressive action by Russian naval forces against Ukrainian forces just off the black sea. I mean, I'll remind you, relations between the United States and Russia soured significantly after they took aggressive action to annex Crimea, to send forces into eastern Ukraine, and that president Trump chose to sit down in person for what was reportedly 10 or 15 minutes with no translator, with no aide, and then with no readout to senior levels of the American government.

It would be deeply concerning and in some ways, unprecedented. This would not be the first time President Trump would have taken the opportunity at an international meeting to have a side-by-side conversation with Vladimir Putin. Why he feels compelled to keep doing this, why he keeps doing this, I think just adds more concern to the nature of the relationship between the Trump administration and Vladimir Putin, and personally, between our president and the president of the Russian federation.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, we still really have no idea what they discussed in Helsinki behind closed doors. It's unprecedented in presidential history but not in the history of this president, it seems.

Senator Coons, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

COONS: Thank you, Anderson.

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