thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. how will democrats oppose the attorney general now that he's made it clear he will be no holds bar when it comes to protecting this president? what is the plan to get the report? the taxes, can they check the ag's efforts to go after spying, one of the top blood hounds is here. and during the election, this president was praising wikileaks. we all know it. well now julian assange is indicted and the president has amnesia. if assange can be extradited we'll have heavy allegations that matter to the freedom of the press here as well as to

assange's freedom. let's break down the case and then cocertains. big night. let's get after it. >> yes. i am. i think what he said was absolutely true. there was absolutely spying into my campaign. i'll go a step further with my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying. >> of course potus is happy. he finally has an attorney general that says what he wants him to say. bill barr accuses his own people of spying, admittedly without proof. democrats are demanding he retract and apologize. we have one of them. senator blumenthal joins us now. let's deal with this first. the ag says i think there was spying. do you believe he knows that and

does it matter? >> he knows it's explosive, incindiary. he knows it because he's been in the department of justice before now and his purpose had to be to give the president the ammunition that he used today to fuel this crack pot conspiracy theory that there was spying by the fbi on him. >> now explain why. people are watching this, surveillance, spying, what's the difference? people use the words interchangeably. why does it matter now? >> the surveillance that took place was authorized by a court warrant. it was not spying, which implies, secret, hostile, unauthorized and illegal surveillance. and there was spying here, chris. let's be very, very clear about the fact. the spies is were not the fbi. they were the russians. in fact, our intelligence community was so alarmed by that spying that they started a counter intelligence investigation which then lead to the court warrants from the

foreign intelligence surveillance court that that the president and his attorney general, his puppet, his pawn have mischaracterized. the russians are continuing their spying. >> your senate colleague lindsey graham says well they didn't do it to hillary clinton and her campaign and they did do it to the trump campaign so that requires looking. why? why is it relevant whether or not it was done to the clinton campaign in terms of whether or not it was right to do to the trump campaign? >> well, there was spying on the clinton campaign. we know from the indictment that the special counsel return. >> graham is saying you have to look at why you surveilled trump because you didn't surveil clinton. do you accept that? >> i don't accept that there was illegal surveillance of the trump campaign.

if there was spying it was by the russians. it will be used failing to protect the united states against continued spying and meddling by the russians and by the way, chris, if there is a shred of evidence and the attorney general of the united states william barr said he has no evidence, then we need to look to the mueller report for any of that evidence if it exists. >> you've been talking to people that launched the russia probe. i'm assuming you had no questions about why they surveilled. mr. baker obviously was involved with the surveillance efforts. mr. raskin asked does the fbi

place spies in the u.s. political campaigns. mr. baker, not to my knowledge. are you aware of any information that would corroborate or substantiate the president's claim that the doj is, quote, out to frame donald trump. mr. baker, no. now what happens in a conspiracy is of course baker says that. he's part of it and anyone that denies it is part of it. that will soon include you, i'm sure. where does this end? >> i think where it ends has to end really is our coming back to reality. i know lindsey graham very well. and at the end of the day, i think he believes in the rule of law and the president's contempt for the rule of law saying that democrats are treasonous somehow or that there was spying on his campaign which is totally from an alternate universe. >> do you think you have to put out the documents that allowed the surveillance in the first place? >> perfectly appropriate. i'm a great believer in

transparency. those were authorized by none other than rosenstein working down the hall from william barr and he relies on him from the credibility of his report or summary of the mueller report but let's be clear, the warrants here. this sounds like a lot but they reauthorized it based on that there had to have been more. this is the most serious point. the russians are continuing to interfere and mettle. they pose a danger in our next presidential election. a president that believes vladimir putin over our

intelligence community is failing to protect our nation. >> so the ag says you'll see what i want you to see when you get to see it. hopefully monday and tuesday there will be redactions. maybe i'll show you a less redacted version. acceptable? >> no, it has to be completely unredacted. we need to see the complete mueller report. >> who is we? the gang of 8? the senior ranking committee members? >> all of congress deserves to see the mueller report. we're all authorized to see top secret material. so if it's classified we should see it. the grand jury material should be authorized to be disclosed. so far william barr has been

failing to seek a court order to disclose it. >> what do you do if he says this is what you're going to get and maybe i'll give you something more. >> i have been joined by my colleague in iowa and also senator kennedy of louisiana as well as patrick leahy. the complete report, all the facts, all the evidence should be disclosed to congress. number two, subpoenas, they will take awhile to endorse but they should result in full disclosure. my hope is that the american people will begin to express their outrage and they should be angry about an administration concealing a report. the american people paid for it. they deserve to see it. >> same path on the taxes? he says he's following the rules when it comes to how this is

withdrawn. we see it's about interpretation. she said no, go right to the people. she wanted transparency. you can google it and see what all of that is about but the law is very plain. the argument now is we don't know that it was a legitimate oversight request. isn't that something for the president's council to go fight in court? where does it say that the treasury secretary gets to litigate the righteousness of your request? >> the letter is to the head of the irs. >> right. >> the head of the irs is the one that should be responding and the head of the irs has no discretion, no latitude, if there is a request from that.

your point is right. they're doing it on the mueller report and taxes you have a prosecutor's background. several of you do. how seriously are you taking what seems to be a brewing legal and political two-front war against the administration. literally our resistance to the continued russia attack which again, not my saying it, the intelligence community unanimously saying that they're continuing that attack. there are serious challenges facing our nation but we can do both. we can insist on the rule of law

and transparency and it's about trying to maintain our democratic institute so i think this fight is deadly serious. >> good news is disaffection is so deep on either front people will be shocked. thank you for coming on to make the case. as always, appreciate it. >> thank you. >> in a spin off from the mueller probe, president obama's former white house council was working with paul manafort and is now in trouble with the law indicted for what? let's get into it. also, the biggie today julian assange finally under arrest indicted in the united states. did he help chelsea manning hack into the doj? that is a key question for prosecutors and for our freedom of the press. we'll get into that next. for another 150 years. ♪ to inspire confidence through style.

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like those from pollen, pets and dust. because new memories start with dusting off old ones. feel the clarity and live claritin clear. no holds barr. why the nickname? because that's how this ag has been in the past and when it comes to protecting the

president. now given what i've just said, let me flip it and ask you this, what's the big deal for the ag wanting to go and take a look at what was done in those fisa applications and whether or not they were warranted in going to look into carter page? >> no big deal. that started more than a year ago. the inspector general told us publicly going back about 13 months that the department of justice was looking into whether the investigation into the trump campaign was appropriate. nothing wrong with that. but the attorney general isn't talking to his staff. he's talking to the american people. he's dropping the word spy. i think my people spied on an american political campaign. every time i go into a bar and somebody walks up to me chris and they say you're a spy, they don't mean you conducted legal investigations into a political campaign. they mean you stole stuff from the russians. they mean stuff that's illegal.

that mean stuff that's shady and questionable. that word is inappropriate. should have said we already questioned this. we started before i came here i'll look at it and see if something wrong happened. that's fine. >> how weird or wrong or worthy of suspicion is it that the ag says he's looking into something at the same time the ig is and also that the ag gives you a conclusion on it when he's just formed it and doesn't have proof all of those are unusual. how big of a deal is each? >> it is unusual. it was surprising to a lot of us yesterday that he said, actually yesterday and the day before that he was forming a group to investigate or someone this effort during 2016 to open the russia investigation.

why was there the extra layer. the second thing of course is the use of the term spying. as i said yesterday, he was given a lot of different outs to sort of change his terms. change the words he used and even walk it back but he was very clear that he had concerns about what was done in 2015 and even invoked historical precedence of very dark eras of the fbi. his motivation was very clear about what he said yesterday. the intent is still unclear why he did it. >> do you think we're going to see more of the documents surrounding it than the mueller report? >> yeah. we're definitely seeing more of the underlying documents of carter page. this is not going away. after the mueller report we're going to see a lot more because

probably republicans in the house and the senate examining what were the underlying reasons for having this investigation. so this is something that will probably have legs in part because the attorney general brought it up yesterday. >> phil, offshoot of the mueller investigation, former council for the obama and people would be confused. he went on and into private practice and was working with ukraine and got jammed up for allegedly lying, misleading prosecutors. how do you see the claims? >> this was pretty straightforward. in this town, going back three, four, five years, if you were working for a foreign entity, in this case ukraine, a lot of people viewed that as 59 in a 55 zone. it might be illegal and might be speeding. but you're got going to get a ticket for it. if you look at what happened with paul manafort a republican, what's happening in this town is that everybody realizes if you're lobbying for a foreign government it's no longer 59 in a 55 zone, you better register with the government. that's what the law says and

we're not ignoring it anymore. i don't care where you come from, democrat or republican, you have to register if you're lobbying. >> how does he dove tail with manafort? >> both of them are charged not only with lying to federal officers but with representing foreign governments and not registering with those governments. traditionally people said i'm not going to register because maybe what i'm doing is not formally lobbying. that doesn't work anymore. the mueller team and the spin offs from the mueller team are cleaning up that kind of lobbying. >> is there any suggestion that greg craig in anyway was trying to help manafort? >> no and the cases were not directly linked.

this toothless law is being enforced and enforced with real penalties and that might change the lobbying culture in washington. >> when people heard about the stuff, they're like just a cover. nobody really cares. yeah, tell that to greg craig. >> yeah, i like it. >> i don't. >> you don't like it? >> no, it's 9:20 at night. i should be in my pootty p-- pajamas. what a sight to see julian assange being dragged out kicking and screaming. is he going to be extradited?

what happens? what does the government look at him for? what does it mean for assange and his long time adviser wikileaks founder. his lawyer here next. ♪ ♪ ♪

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you can see the video here. wikileaks founder forcibly removed. now he's facing legal problems including a warrant for his alleged role in conspiring with chelsea manning to hack the dod. that wording is very important to us here. i'll explain why later in the show. jeffrey robertson, a legal adviser to assange joins us on primetime on the weight of that alleged crime. thank you for taking the opportunity on primetime.

>> not at all. >> first, do you believe mr. assange has done anything illegal under the laws of the united states? >> i don't but i'm a british lawyer and not an american. it's for the american courts to decide if he's ever extradited. you have a first amendment i gather and that's going to be the key issue i think because trump argument is that britain, australian, people that aren't american, whether they're working for american newspapers or not don't benefit from the first amendment. >> one of the sticky parts is that there is no supreme court case that solidifies the protection that we get for receiving things that are classified or stolen.

that means he falls in the category of us in the news agency that someone that was merely in the receipt of. >> that's right. he's a publisher just like cnn is and he gets information from sources as all good journalists do. >> the material distinction would be that the government charges, we don't know if they can prove it let alone beyond a reasonable doubt but the indictment says and it's still early, we all would expect a superseding indictment. >> i think so. they started very low and i think this is for pr purposes. they have only charged him with an offense carrying five years imprisonment but we know from a mistake they made last year that the charges they are minded to bring add up to 45 years. >> if they can prove them. so the key distinction is whether or not he was just a publisher as you say or a procurer. if he helped chelsea manning get the illegal information. do you believe that mr. assange

did any of the things that are alleged by the u.s. government whether it was trying to help with a password or trying to give advice? trying to assist miss manning in getting the information? >> i don't believe that. i believe that he acted as -- just as a normal journalist would do. i mean, you can't -- he didn't bribe. he didn't brainwash. he didn't force bradley manning, chelsea manning as she now is, to give him any information. >> right. but if it is true as alleged in the indictment that miss manning reached out to or had an agreement with julian assange to help try to crack a password or at least part of a password so that she could sign in under a different user name and therefore more easily facilitate the procurement of this information, do you believe that would trigger criminality? >> certainly not.

because let's face it there's no suggestion that he provided any legal incentive. there's no evidence that he bribed. i guess any american journalist would give a source a cup of coffee or would help a source in one way or another. >> wouldn't help them break in to procure it. that's the material distinction. >> there is no duress. >> i don't think it has to be just duress. if you helped facilitate the hacking, i think you're in trouble under the law so that's why i'm asking you do you believe he did what is alleged? that he helped manning manipulate the password? >> i think manning was very keen to let him have the information. i don't see that in terms of obtaining information of public interest, receiving it and publishing it that that should be a crime. >> if it is to come up, russian interference at some point where

mr. assange loomed large in the american media dialogue and political dialogue, if not legally yet, to your knowledge was mr. assange away of who he was dealing with? >> he says not and indeed he set up this artificial box to ensure that he isn't aware of his source. but his principle is that he will publish anything of public interest. and if the cia were really intelligent i think they'd feed him some actual material on putin's involvement in the attempted assassinations in britain and see if he would publish it. i believe he would have the principle and would do so. so i don't think he's a russian agent. >> he says he didn't know he was

dealing with russia but he's also saying if he did know, he still would have published it. >> if he was provided with material that was anti-putin i think he would publish it. that's the way he operates. he added a great deal to our knowledge and while it has he vealed so -- revealed some war crime, it has on the whole shown that american diplomacy is quite principled. >> the test can't be whether or not the information published is popular or how it's published and obtained is going to be that. >> the british courts may have something to say about that. >> that's certainly the first step. but we do have an indictment out

here to process. >> this indictment wreaks of being an early step and they have 60 days. we'll see what they add to it. the big thing was the russian interference. this in the indictment now is from 2010. now the governments case makes some suggestions that worry me as a member of the free press. i'll show you the concerns in the closing. okay. but this is something that got overlooked. the ag is the big star this week because of what happened in those days of testimony but we have had a lot of wacky moments involving testimony before congress this week. many of them did not get the attention they deserve. so we have broken down the top five for you. they're going to be worth watching. julian castron is on the president yesterday. tonight, the 2020 presidential candidate takes on questions from voters at cnn's town hall.

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that wasn't the only hearing

room with fire this week. big moments played out one after another after another. so to break out of the tunnel vision of all things potus, we're counting down the top five moments aside from the a.g. now no one knows how remarkable these exchanges were better than mike rogers. he was former house intel chairman. i hope you enjoy these as much as we do. we'll start going from 5 to 1. number 5 is representative al green asking a pointed question to major bank ceos. >> if you believe your likely successor will be a woman or a person of color will you kindly extend a hand into the air. i know it's difficult to go into the record sometimes but the record has to be made. all white men and none of you, not one appears to believe that your successor will be a female

or a person of color. >> not the best editing but not one why wouldn't you raise your hand just so you didn't get called out like that? >> first of all, can you imagine the politics in those shops for all the people that are vying to be the next ceo of those companies? if you raised your hand and it eliminated half the room or half the candidates. that's a no-win question for those ceos and they probably did the right thing by just keeping their hands down. >> but why couldn't you have raised your hand and said well yeah, it could be. i'm not exactly sure what the succession plan is. >> i think what they're thinking is this is a no-win question. this is part of the problem with all the clips we're going to watch tonight. all of them it is great to score

a few points. are we really talking about the issues that are going to impact people going forward? sometimes i don't think we ever get there in these five minutes i got to get my five minute youtube clip done in my questions. >> it does matter. we can't guarantee outcomes. >> you all happen to be white ceos, maybe there's a problem, maybe there is, maybe there isn't. i don't know. if you're already segregating people in the room before we have a dialogue, we're probably not going to solve the problem. that's my guess. >> i see where you're coming from. number four, representative ted lou and candice owens. >> of all the people the

republicans could have selected they pick candice owens. i don't know miss owens, i'm not going to characterize her, i'm going to let her own words do the talking. i'm going to play for you the first 30 seconds of the statement she made about adolph hitler. >> i agree. i don't have any problems at all with the word nationalism. the definition gets poisoned. globalism is what i don't want. the first thing we think about is hitler. he was a national socialist. but if he wanted to make germany great and have things run well, okay, fine. the problem is he had dreams outside of germany. he wanted to globalize. he wanted everybody to be german and everybody to be speaking german. >> would you like time to respond to that? >> i think it's pretty apparent that he believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in it's

entirety. he purposefully presented an extracted clip. >> the witness will suspend for a moment. >> it is not proper to refer disparagingly to a member of the committee. the witness will not do that again. the witness may continue. >> sure, even though i was called despicable. >> witness may not refer to a member of the committee as stupid. >> that's not what i said. that's not what i said at all. you didn't listen to what i said. may i continue? >> please. >> as i said he is assuming that black people will not go pursue the two hour clip and he purposefully extracted and cutoff and you didn't hear the question that was asked of me. he was trying to present that i was launching a defense of hitler in germany when the question asked to me was pertaining to whether or not i believed in nationalism and that nationalism was bad and what i responded to was that i do not believe that we should be

characterizing hitler as a nationalist. he was a maniac that killed his own people. a nationalist would not kill their own people. that is exactly what i was referring to in the clip and he purposefully wanted to give you a cut up him to what they do to donald trump to create a different narrative. >> what a -- first of all, look, i have to say, i think inviting someone who you know is going to be a fire breather into the hearing like that was tactical to begin with. but to your earlier point, what progress is going to come in that setting and that collection of players? >> honestly, i don't think it was. but it elicited the conversation that members wanted to have. again, it's unfortunate. every time you attack your witness it may be good for something but it is never going to solve a problem. congress has pretty big issues to solve bringing witnesses into you can attack them on something that they said five years, ten years, 18 years ago. whatever.

i don't think it's helpful. >> who you invite to come in there and speak also. she can say how long the clip was and what it was. she was real soft in the description of what hitler meant to that country and why it went too far. >> one thing i'll give her because i thought the same thing and i heard her response which i had not heard. she did a good job of saying this guy is a despicable homicidal maniac. she clarified it. >> wish she'd have got it right the first time. >> i wish i got everything right the first time. >> i went to monster.com and i found a job in my hometown of irvine that pays $16.50 an hour. so i wonder if you indulge me, when you do the math on this at 40 hour as a week it's an incom of 35,700. she has a cricuit cell phone for

$40. she's in the red $117 a month. she has after school child care because the bank is open during normal business hours. that's $450 a month. that takes her down to negative 567 dollars per month. my question for you is how should she manage this budget short fall while she is working full time at your bank? >> i don't know that all of your numbers are accurate. that number is generally a starter job. >> she is a starting employee. she has a 6-year-old child. this is her first job. >> she may have my job right now. >> she may but she doesn't have the ability right now to spend your $31 million. >> i'm fully sympathetic. >> she's short $567, what would you suggest she do. >> i don't know. >> take on this one? >> it's interesting. i just heard the whole clip. that was a hypothetical employee. first i thought it was a real

employee. it's a hypothetical employee. here's the point again, why don't we have a constructive dialogue, you have some pretty important financial leaders in the country sitting at that table. how do you take that $16 an hour employee and empower them to do better? to me that would be a much better conversation. is there something that we can do? i mean i find it odd that someone that would take a $16 an hour job, this is their first job and they have a 6-year-old child, there's a whole bunch there that we ought to be working through and then how do we empower people like that, that woman who is courageous enough to go to work after having a child and she is single, how do we empower that woman to do better? is there other things that we can do? none of that happens when you attack your witnesses because they happen to be successful. i don't think that's beneficial to getting to the place where i think the member wants to go other than it makes great tv. we wouldn't be talking about it if she had the other conversation. >> two things. shame on us by the way for not having those conversations more,

but two things, certainly buzzy buzzy. but also all of these clips and wait until you see the two after the break. it is a justifiable tease. >> you're full of fun tonight. >> i tell you why i think these are important for people. not because i think they're funny. i think they're worth watching because they're examples of how stuck in division we are and how if we were to do a poll after all of these five clips about how people feel about them, the split would echo the parties i would bet anything on it. >> i think you're exactly right. >> so do me a favor, my brother, stick around. we have two more of these and we rank them 5-1 for a reason. number one is one of the zanniest conversations. you have to see it. stay with us.

back to our countdown of the wildest moments on capitol hill. these clips are all really worth watching. here is number two. this is representative maxine waters and the treasury secretary. >> if you wish to keep me here so that i don't have my

important meeting and continue to grill me then we can do that. i will cancel my meeting and i will not be back here. i will be very clear. if that's the way you'd like to have this relationship. >> thank you. the gentleman, the secretary has agreed to stay to hear all the rest of the members. please cancel your meeting and respect our time. who is next on the list? >> you're instructing me to stay here -- >> no, you just made me an offer. >> you made me an offer that i accepted. >> i did not make you an offer. let's be clear. please dismiss everybody. i believe you're supposed to take the gavel and bang it. >> please do not instruct me as to how i am to conduct this committee. >> it's not even worth commenting on. it's just a division. >> but it was condescending. you don't have to like him. he don't have to be of your party but wi didn't think that was appropriate at all. >> we know where he was coming from and how this was broken down into teams it's worse than

just parties anymore but watch this one, because this one, no other comparison. watch this. >> secretary kerry, i want to read part of your statement back to you, instead of convening a kangaroo cord the president might want to talk with the educated adults he once trusted to fill his top national security positions. it sounds like your questions the president's advisers credentials. isn't it true you have a science degree from yale? >> bachelor of arts degree? >> is it a political science degree? >> yes, political science. >> how do you get a bachelor of arts in a science? >> it's liberal arts education and degree and it's a bachelor. >> okay. so it's not really science. so i think it's some what appropriate that somebody with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing pseudoscience in front

of our committee today. >> are you serious? this is really happening here? >> do you know what, it is serious you're calling the president's cabinet a kangaroo court. is that serious? >> i'm not calling them -- i'm calling this committee that he's putting together a kangaroo committee. >> . i don't know who it has yet because it's secret. >> you said in your testimony -- >> why would he have to have a secret analysis of climate change. >> let's get back to the science of it. >> but it's not science. you're not quoting science. >> well, you're the science expert. you've got the political science degree. i mean, we are not speaking the same language. forget about the fact people want to question the science, whether or not there's climate change. i don't know that there's any hope on that level. we're in the speaking the same language anymore. it's like they came from

different krcountries, those tw people. >> i never think insulting the witness is a good idea. i just never think that's a great way to be productive. it tells me you don't want to be productive. candidly i thought it made the member look like an ass. he was just degrading. i worked with john kerry, and i didn't agree with him all the time but i found him being very credible. we always were able to sit down in congress. worked through our issues and some issues we worked together on because it was important for the country and so why not take that advantage of if your point is, and i think his point was, later in the hearing, that some of the decisions on climate change have consequences that you're not talking about. okay, that's a fair, honest debate, yeah, that's great. why don't you talk about that? this personal animous attack is only going to get back that kind of attack. i thought the whole episode was

embarrassing for congress as a whole. >> but also very instructive. this is where we are. this is the gotcha game, toxic politics, this is what sells in sound bites but now it's what passes for government. and i bring you here because people didn't always agree with you, but there was disagreement with decency, respect for what you did and how you did it. we've gotten too far away from that. what we just showed you, those are the problems we're facing rite now. mike, you're the man. thank you very much, as always. >> thanks, chris. let's hurl insults later. >> never, they don't work. you don't deserve them. me, i'm easy. it's like -- i'm easy, you, you don't deserve it. so there's no person on the planet who gave wikileaks better pr than this president did. now that julian assange is under arrest the president's trying to

erase history again. it's going to be hard to wiggle himself out of this. but you know what? he's not really the issue. there are big ones, and they're the closing next. ♪ ♪

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julian assange indicted let's be cheer what this is about and what it's not about. wikileaks was relevant during the election, calling on them to release more, which was foolish. >> wikileaks, i love wick wee declines. the sad part is we don't talk about wikileaks, it's incredible. this wikileaks is fascinating. >> it was foolic because he seemed to be encouraging someone who the government believes helped procure the information illegally and published it illegally. now it is the trump administration going after assange, something the obama administration decided not to do. however the president now has a very different tune. >> i know nothing about wikileaks. it's not my thing. >> not your thing. obviously the president is not being honest. but this indictment is not about what he said or even the election. yet.

it is about what happened in 2010 with chelsea manning taking classified information and giving it to assange who may have helped her get it and then released it. what the government indictment argues to punish is distributing information that was not allowed to be possessed by assange, was illegally obtained by someone else and that they think he conspired to help manning break into the computer and then hid manning's identity after, four things, three of those four aspects are what a lot of news organizations and certainly publishers do all the time, even with classified information. see the pentagon papers case on "new york times" versus the united states. but that's about the government's ability to stop us before we publish something, what they call a prior restraint. now, what they have to show to

punish you after you have already published something is less clear. i can't quote you a case on that that renders it moot as an issue. that's why we have to watch. the government's indictment is probably just a first step, referring only to the 2010 chelsea manning incident. we should assume there could be more about the 2016 election and wiki and assange's role in russian interference. but already here, graph five if you're looking, assange didn't have clearance to see the information that manning gave him. now, i see that as a shot across the bow that the government is considering action because -- not supposed to see certain information, problematic for us. prosecutors don't go after assange for receiving it. that's an important distinction. not yet anyway u but for conspiring to illegally access the information. helping manning steal it, that's the key. we don't break in and steal what we then report, or at least we

shouldn't. what is the lion though? what if you encouraged someone to get the information? what if you tell them, you know where you should go and who you should talk to to get that or what place you would be able to find it? prosecutors say assange helped manning figure out a password and sign in under a different user name and make stealing easier. assange couldn't figure out the password, he tried, but didn't succeed. what's the line? journalists work with sources how to get more information and get at the truth all the time. here's what we're thinking comes next, the government and many of our elected leaders believe assange coordinated with russia to interfere. if the government can show that assange coordinated with the russians, was working as their agent, one thing, assange didn't know ambiguoguccifer was interf. reportedly assange doesn't like clinton, does that matter? should it matter legally?

what if assange didn't know where the information came from? if answers to these questions matter to the u.s. media freedoms as much as they do to assange potentially. that's why we have to watch the case. all right, don't go anywhere. we're going to be back with a special bonus edition of prime time right after a cnn presidential town hall with julian castro starts right now. ♪ good evening, everyone, and welcome to a cnn democratic presidential town hall with former housing secretary julian castro of texas. we've got a rowdy crowd here tonight and a lot of great questions to ask. i'm don lemon, julian castro made his name in politics as the mayor of san antonio and secretary of urban and