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New Day

Unsealed Court Filing Suggests Assange Might Be Charged in U.S.; Death Toll in Wildfires Rises to 66; Florida Still Recounting in Senate and Governor's Races. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 16, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks.

[05:59:02] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An unsealed court filing raising questions about Julian Assange's fate.

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to manually recount all the votes. In Broward County, they submitted their results two minutes late.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: The odds that Nelson can make up this strikes me as close to zero.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, November 16, 6 a.m. here in New York. And we do begin with breaking news.

Possible charges against a key figure at the center of the Russia investigation. Is the Justice Department filing charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange? The reason we pose it as a question is because this came to light in a strange way: in a filing unsealed in an unrelated case. Prosecutors for the Eastern District of Virginia included what appears to be an inadvertent reference to charges against Assange.

A DOJ spokesman later said, "The court filing was made in error" and declined to comment whether there are existing charges against Julian Assange. U.S. prosecutors have been investigating Assange since 2010 when WikiLeaks began publishing stolen U.S. government documents. And an indictment from Special Counsel Robert Mueller portrayed WikiLeaks as a tool of Russian intelligence for releasing those thousands of hacked Democratic e-mails during the 2016 presidential campaign.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So speaking of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, CNN has learned that the president met with his attorneys to discuss written responses to the special counsel. The president met with his lawyers three times this week over three days. Rudy Giuliani, who attended the Wednesday meeting, tells "The Washington Post" that the president and his lawyers have not decided whether he will answer all of the questions, saying some create more legal issues than others.

Meanwhile, Florida is back on the clock. A hand recount is underway for two races, including the hotly-contested Senate race between incumbent Bill Nelson and Governor Rick Scott. A new deadline for counties for the hand recount is Sunday at noon.

We've got a lot to cover. Want to begin with CNN's Laura Jarrett live in Washington.

Laura, this WikiLeaks development, I woke up and saw that, and it was an "Oh, my" moment.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it was certainly an eye opener this morning. John, good morning.

This puzzling court filing raising new questions this morning after federal prosecutors appear to have inadvertently revealed the WikiLeaks might be criminally charged.

The references to Assange popped up in this completely, totally unrelated case that prosecutors were trying to keep under wraps until recently, where they wrote -- and I want to quote here -- "The complaint supporting affidavit and arrest warrant as well as the motion and proposed order would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter."

Now, when asked about why Assange's name appeared in this totally unrelated filing, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office there in Virginia told me the court filing was made in error, but he declined to comment any further about whether Assange is actually facing charges. And the precise charges, if there are, in fact, charges, still remain very unclear.

But if this has happened, it is an extraordinary development. In light of WikiLeaks's role in releasing thousands of hacked e-mails from the DNC, we all remember during the 2016 campaign, as well as a treasure trove of other defense material years before that.

And CNN has previously reported that prosecutors have really struggled with the First Amendment implications here, but they believed they have found a path forward to seek his arrest. Yet no announcement had ever been made, and Assange remained holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for years. But patients may have worn thin there, as well, John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Laura. Thank you very much. Stay with us if you would.

We want to bring in John Avlon and David Gregory. David Gregory, the idea that this came to light because of a cut-and- paste mistake is so head slapping. I mean, but the implications of what this means are huge.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they're significant on a couple of levels. I think the immediate question is to look at the special prosecutor's work. And we know that Robert Mueller has been probing the administration with regard to its pre-administration days and contacts, at some level, allies of the president, with WikiLeaks, related to their hacking of Democratic National Committee e-mails. John Podesta, who was running the campaign for Hillary Clinton, the publication of those e-mails, and whether there was coordination.

[06:03:37] I think that's always been a very big question, the idea of coordination, timing. Remember, the president talking about, "Hey, Russia, would you find those missing e-mails from Hillary Clinton from the server," talking about how much he liked WikiLeaks, on and on it goes. So there has been that probe but not necessarily a discussion of charges.

Meanwhile, on a separate track, given that WikiLeaks has been involved with the publication of classified information, going back some years now to the Chelsea Manning case. The Obama administration looked at bringing charges. The Trump administration has reviewed that. So it's a -- it's a real mix to try to understand. It is head slapping that it would come out this way.

The other reason why it's such a big deal is what it would represent. If they make an argument -- WikiLeaks says it does -- that this is public interest information that's being revealed. The implication for press freedoms is very big.

BERMAN: Let me try to put a point on why this is so important. In the charging documents over the summer, when Robert Mueller charged Russians with trying to attack the U.S. election, there was this graph inside: "The conspirators" -- he's talking about Russian intelligence -- "the conspirators also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release additional stolen documents through a website maintained by an organization ('Organization 1')." That's WikiLeaks.

He's saying Russian intelligence used WikiLeaks. That is in a charging document from this summer. We have seen that for months. One of the questions then was why wasn't Robert Mueller charging WikiLeaks? Well, maybe he was and maybe it was sealed.

No. 2, the other reason this is so important this morning is whether it's about Russia or whether it's about Chelsea Manning and the initial dump from 2010-2011. The president of the United States has gushed -- gushed -- over WikiLeaks. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It tells you the inner heart. You've got to read it.

Another one came in today. This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove. As I was getting off the plane, they were just announcing new

WikiLeaks. And I wanted to stay there, but I didn't want to keep you waiting.

This just came out. WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He says, "I love WikiLeaks." He either loves someone being charged, apparently, or maybe for being connected to the Russia investigation, or for passing on a ton of information.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, he's a fanboy. Let me quantify his love for WikiLeaks. A hundred and thirty-seven times, that's how many times candidate Trump mentioned WikiLeaks in the last month of the 2016 campaign. This is not your normal admiration. this it is something more directed and decidedly overheated.

So yes, the president is onboard with somebody who's got a sealed indictment against him who's been a rogue player on the international stage for a long time, who's been associated with Russia. And it's not just, you know, the reference to organization there. Go back and look at the U.S. intelligence committee's (ph) assessment of what Russia did to interfere with our elections. And they're very clear that WikiLeaks was used as a conduit for hacked information.

CAMEROTA: I mean, when you put it all together like that, that is really striking if you're the president. Because that's more than fanboydom, I think. Yes, and that is a P.R. -- I mean, that's his messaging, right? So that was intentional P.R. messaging. To what end, who knows?

And Laura, one person who did not love WikiLeaks was then CIA director, now secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. So let's remember what he said a year ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POMPEO: It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non- state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: I mean, what a direct contrast. Right? And even Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, I can remember being at a press conference early on in the administration. We asked him about WikiLeaks when we thought Julian Assange might be charged, and he didn't directly answer it, but he said it was a priority for the administration. He said going after leaks was going to be a priority for this administration, despite everything the president had said in praise of Assange.

And so obviously, if in fact, these charges will go through, I mean, the White House is going to have to answer for what their current position is on him. BERMAN: And David is right. David is right. There are First

Amendment issues with this, which will be explored legally. What does it mean for the newspapers and organizations that published whatever WikiLeaks released. These are open questions. We have to see. We have to see if and what exactly WikiLeaks and Assange is charged with.

David, I want to shift gears if I can. But only a little bit, maybe. Because we've been watching the president's mood all week. And we know he's been grumpy, the president. And one of the reasons might be because the Mueller investigation is looming.

And we learned that he spent three days, parts of three days behind closed doors with his lawyers, answering questions as Jeffrey Toobin says, the take-home exam part of the Russia investigation, about possible collusion before he was president.

Josh Dawsey at "The Washington Post" talked to Rudy Giuliani and says, "'There are some issues, some questions that create more issues for us legally than others,' Giuliani said. He said some were unnecessary, some were 'possible traps.'"

Back to that idea that -- that things are perjury traps, David.

GREGORY: Right. And I think that's what we're talking about, first of all, the pre-period that we're talking about, the presidential period that we're talking about has to do with the meeting with Russians at Trump Tower, what the president knew about it, what he told his son, what he said publicly about it," which are perjury traps. It could be about this potential relationship with WikiLeaks and the dumping of the documents and what was known and what the president's involvement may and may not have been. So I think all of that becomes important.

We know the -- the period after he becomes president that have to do with potential -- that period having to do with potential obstruction of justice, and a report. Again, very little expectation that the president will be charged criminally. But this is all part of a report that might detail perjury, that might detail obstruction of justice, even if the president would not be criminally charged for that, to be detailed in a report would obviously be damaging.

And I think there's no question the president is lashing out now among other reasons, because as they get to a fine point of conclusion on answering these questions, you have to believe this is very close to the end where the special prosecutor has done the work he's needed to do and wants to button that up by challenging the president on some of these areas.

[06:10:09] AVLON: Yes, look, I mean, three days with lawyers would make anyone grumpy. But I think more specifically, that Rudy's complaints that he expressed to Josh Dawsey really translate to, "The truth could get us in trouble."

BERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: And that's not actually a legal argument. BERMAN: "There are some that create more issues for us, legally, than

others." Why do they create issues for you legally?

AVLON: Oh, yes, because the truth could get us in trouble.

CAMEROTA: But hold on, John, you speak Giuliani.

AVLON: I do.

CAMEROTA: Because you worked with him. You were a speechwriter for him. So why is he revealing that?

AVLON: Look, I think Rudy can have a great deal of candor. He can be kind of an open book, somewhat like the president. But this is him, you know, telling the truth. But it also is not particularly relevant. They have negotiated the president to a place where he doesn't have to sit down and answer questions like Bill Clinton. And Republicans at the time insist that the president had to.

CAMEROTA: One of the things that Dawsey tweets is that his lawyers have decided whether they'll answer all of Mueller's questions. They still have --

AVLON: This is not an a la carte exercise. You know, we can test presidential power -- well, we can test presidential power and prerogative. Remember, there's subpoena questions hanging out there. But if they're uncomfortable, it's because they don't know what other folks in the White House have testified, notably Don McGahn, possibly others.

And they're concerned that the president could be maneuvered even if he gets the questions in advance.

BERMAN: Right. This is the easy part. This is the take-home exam.

GREGORY: And it's also that the -- I think the suggestion there by Giuliani that this is not on the up and up, that this is a trap, you know, part of, you know, the bogus part of this investigation that we just tried to trap the president. But the real -- the much more serious issue is that they don't know who's testified to what.

BERMAN: All right, guys, stand by if you will. We've got a lot more going on this morning.

Breaking news about the horrific wildfires in California. The state- wide death toll has grown to 66. And listen to this: the number of people unaccounted for in the Camp Fire has soared to more than 600 -- 600 -- people unaccounted for. That is an astounding number.

CNN's Scott McLean is live in Paradise, California.

Scott, what are you learning?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John.

Well, seven more bodies were found yesterday, and that death toll will likely continue to rise and now stands at 63 people. The reason is because there are 631 people now reported missing. That number is twice as big as it was yesterday, and the reason is because authorities are now going back through 911 call logs and police reports that were filed in the frantic early hours of this to try and find names that were missed.

There have been more than 11,000 structures completely destroyed. As for the fire itself, it is barely growing. It's now 41,000 acres, 40 percent contained.

Now, when you have this kind of mass exodus, we're talking about a city of 20,000 people all leaving at once. It's hard to keep track of people. The sheriff acknowledges that many people likely don't even know that they're listed as missing.

The priority for them is not that list, necessarily. It's finding a place to stay. All but one of the local shelters here is full, and so some people have resorted to staying in a sort of makeshift tent city outside of the Wal-Mart in nearby Chico.

We're talking about families. I met a mom staying in her car with her 7-year-old daughter. I met a grandmother staying in a tent with her 9-year-old grandson who told me what he missed most about his now- destroyed home. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELI KINGERY, CAMP FIRE VICTIM: Just being in the bed.

MCLEAN: You just miss your bed? It's warm?

KINGERY: Being under a ceiling and actually having a real bathroom. It's just hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLEAN: That is one tough kid there.

And John, one other thing. We've got word from the White House that President Trump will visit California tomorrow to survey the damage and speak with people himself. This trip comes days just after he criticized the state for its forestry management, blaming that for the fires. He also threatened to pull federal funding for the state -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Scott, could anybody be more plainspoken than that little boy? We know that the wildfires are ruining people's lives, but we didn't know how bad it was, actually, until these new numbers and hearing from people directly. Thank you very much. Obviously, we'll check with you throughout the program. The numbers keep going up, sadly.

So it has been now more than a week since the mid-term elections. We still don't know the outcome of Florida's Senate and governor's races, so we will tell you where the recounts stand now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:18] BERMAN; A new round of post-election drama in, where else? Florida. A hand recount is underway with a razor-thin margin separating Republican Governor Rick Scott and incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. This is for the Senate race. Scott leads by more than 12,000 votes. The new deadline for Florida counties to finish that manual recount is noon on Sunday. Will they make it?

CAMEROTA: I doubt it.

BERMAN: Why do we ask?

CAMEROTA: Because of what happened yesterday.

BERMAN: Three of the counties missed the deadline in the machine recount, including Broward County, which missed by two minutes and the state didn't accept it.

Want to bring back John Avlon and David Gregory and joining us, Nia- Malika Henderson.

Nia, Florida covering itself in glory.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

BERMAN: Once again.

HENDERSON: Once again, yes.

BERMAN: In the Democratic process here. Broward County, let's talk about what happened yesterday before we talk about what's going to happen. Got its machinery count in but two minutes late, because the guy couldn't figure out how to push the buttons right, apparently, and the state didn't accept it. Two minutes?

HENDERSON: Yes, you know, I'm a deadline person, and they knew the deadline and they ended up missing the deadline. So now it just basically reverts back to the count they had before. Listen --

BERMAN: I'm never taking your class.

HENDERSON: Listen, if you are a voter, I am sure you're not pleased with this, with this democratic process but, you know, them's the rules in terms of when you're supposed to get the recount in.

AVLON: But the rules exist to have people who vote get their votes counted accurately. Look, it's totally incompetent that this fellow in Broward didn't -- hadn't checked out the secretary of state's website before the deadline and actually just didn't know how it works and missed it by two minutes.

But it's also absurd that the secretary of state's office is like, hey, those are the rules, pal. We're just going to -- we're going to waste everybody's time for the past week and go with what we know is an inaccurate count. That may not change the outcome. That's the major caveat. But this is just pathetic all the way around. [06:20:02] They had one job. They screwed it up.

CAMEROTA: David, break the tie for us. Should it have counted that it was two minutes late?

GREGORY: You know, I don't know. I mean, I think --

BERMAN: There we go. There we go.

CAMEROTA: Come on, David.

BERMAN: Profiles in courage.

GREGORY: Yes. Not my gig here to break the tie, no.

But look, I think the fact that you have it coming down to this, you know, we shine a light on these inadequacies, whether it's this old equipment in Palm Beach County or the inability to know the rules. McLean, who read the Democratic fight for back in the 2000 recount.

So the strategy has got to be that Democrats have to win by larger margins, that that has to be the answer to this, instead of focusing on the fact that whether it's machinery, whether it's election security, we don't tend to focus on these things until and unless something happens.

I do think we can -- we can talk about this deadline, but the reality seems to be that, in this senator's race, Bill Nelson seems to have a very difficult time catching up, no matter what happens.

BERMAN: And the manual recount, just to be clear, the manual recount is mandated by law. They are now in a --

CAMEROTA: It was triggered automatically. Nobody forced this.

BERMAN: -- triggered because it was in the margin. So no one should gripe about the fact that they're now going to count by hand until Sunday.

We should also note that, in the governor's race, it did not reduce the margin to the manual recount. So we're just waiting for this to be declared official, to be certified. DeSantis, for all intents and purposes, he is going to be governor of Florida, and Andrew Gillum has got to figure it out.

HENDERSON: What he does. I mean, he came out initially, conceded on the night of the election, called DeSantis and said as much.

And then he decided to un-concede and say -- you know, basically take the Stacey Abrams stance, who, you know, the governor's race in Georgia and say every vote should count. You know, and going through with this process.

And I think part of it is what David spoke to here, this idea that there is something wrong with the electoral process in many states. We've seen it, obviously, in Florida. We've seen some of these issues in Georgia, as well. So this prolonged light shining in Florida on this process, I think is good ultimately for the process. We'll see what comes out of it. I think somebody got a lesson about deadlines down in Broward County.

BERMAN: I want to know what happened to you growing up that makes deadlines such a big deal?

CAMEROTA: I appreciate this, because as you may know, I'm two minutes late to everything. And so I also would have missed this deadline.

HENDERSON: I'm a -- I'm a ten-minute -- I'm a ten-minute early person.

CAMEROTA: I admire you.

AVLON: You should have been administering the elections, and you should --

CAMEROTA: Yes. But I mean, but here is how the Broward County director of elections, Joe D'Alessandro, felt when he found out that he had missed it by two minutes. Listen to this.

BERMAN: We have to get with the sound.

CAMEROTA: You and I are going to do a dramatic reading of this.

BERMAN: Right. Who are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm D'Alessandro.

"The manual numbers will be added onto the second unofficial results."

BERMAN: "Wait, so as if we never did a machine recount?"

CAMEROTA: "Basically, I just worked my ass off for nothing."

BERMAN: "I understood."

GREGORY: That's why you read it aloud. That's why you can't play the sound right there.

BERMAN: That was good.

AVLON: But -- but, see, the problem with Joe's frustration is it's not actually about Joe working his ass off for nothing. It's about the people -- the voters of Florida being denied an accurate count because of his incompetence. That's the issue.

And look, it's terrible that everybody worked this, but the real outrage is that everyone was trying to get an accurate count. We have an unusual problem with people voting in this country. We did in this election. We had historic midterm turnout. People have a right to expect that their votes will be accurately counted, and they still aren't.

BERMAN: Accurately recounted in this case. AVLON: In this case.

BERMAN: Because what happens is it reverts to the original count. And the manual recount still goes over those votes again, so there is a little bit of a backstop here, even in Broward and Palm Beach County in Hillsborough, where the recounted numbers didn't get submitted.

AVLON: That's right.

BERMAN: You're speechless.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I am speechless, because you know -- and to David's point, it does look like you're going to have a Governor DeSantis and you will likely have a Senator Scott.

Well, that is the one consolation, David, because if it were 500 votes apart --

HENDERSON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- this would be even more outrageous. But they do have -- I don't know if they've put up the leads. Here are the numbers as they stand right now. So in terms of the Senate race, we are at -- you know, you can see that there. It's 50 -- 50 percent, point one, to 49. Now, that is actually 12,000 votes apart. Then, with the governor's race, it is farther apart, so 30,000 votes.

GREGORY: But look, I mean, -- so maybe we're dodging a disaster here of it being even closer, but it's enough of a warning sign. To John's point, you have historic turnout. 2020 promises to be a huge turnout, as well, where there's so much activism and so much energy on both sides.

[06:25:10] These kinds of things have to be addressed so that there's confidence. And I don't blame Andrew Gillum either. You know, which is -- I think you want to be a candidate who stands up for making sure all the votes are counted and that the systems work as well as they can. I think people will understand that. And these -- these voting systems have to be brought to heel and get their act together.

BERMAN: And again, as more days pass, there are more questions raised about certain procedures. There was apparently a Democratic official who talked about submitting some of these challenged ballots with a date after the election. You know, you're going to see more questions raised as days go on, but I think to Alisyn's point, Nia, the outcome here probably not affected.

HENDERSON: Yes, I think that's the main point here. In some ways, it was kind of clear on election night who was going to win because the margins were just so big. But listen, you know, the -- I think every cycle almost there is an education around the voting process for voters. And we're seeing that in spades down in Florida.

BERMAN: Like we said, manual recount. Now, let's let them do it. There are still questions in the Senate race, as opposed to the governor's race. Unclear whether maybe the manual recount will turn up something there.

CAMEROTA: They should set their alarm clocks.

HENDERSON: That's right. Yes.

CAMEROTA: For the minute. I mean, for exactly when it needs to be --

AVLON: Or just a few minutes before.

CAMEROTA: A few minutes before. Let's follow Nia-Malika.

BERMAN: Or what you do in my house, is I'll just lie about the time of the appointment. I will say it's a half an hour earlier, so someone makes it there on time.

CAMEROTA: That's a great idea.

BERMAN: I'm hoping my wife's not up yet.

All right. Thank you all.

A deadly snowstorm wallops the Northeast, snarling commutes and stranding travelers. What can you expect today? Stick around.

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