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Giuliani Told To Preserve All Records As Lawyers For Dominion Warn Legal Action Is Imminent; Trump Pardons Manafort, Stone, and Jared Kushner's Father; Vulnerable Communities Face Challenges Getting Vaccine. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 24, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now is John Poulos, CEO of Dominion Voting Systems. John, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

The letter your company sent to Rudy Giuliani specifically notes that legal action is imminent. So, how imminent and specifically, what action?

JOHN POULOS, CEO, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS (via Cisco Webex): Yes, thanks, John.

Yes, we did send a letter to several different people that have been spreading lies and defamatory remarks about our company since Election Day on various media platforms. And right now, we did use the word imminent. We've handed it over to our legal team and it's completely in their hands, so they will be filing when they are ready.

BERMAN: But definitely filing, correct?

POULOS: Correct.

BERMAN: And accusing them of what?

POULOS: Well, several different actors have been promoting lies and amplifying those lies, as I said, on various media platforms since Election Day. And many Americans across the country have been listening to this repeatedly and it's causing serious doubts with their election systems, which in our opinion is the exact intent of these -- of these actors.

And they have refused to testify under oath and to bring these matters in front of a court. In fact, to my knowledge, I'm the only one that has testified under oath on any of these matters. So it's just forced our hand. So we fully expect that none of them will be retracting their statements, so it forces our hand to file action.

BERMAN: And none of them will. None of them have as far as I can tell.

Sidney Powell, the president's one-time lawyer and defense attorney, or at least an associate of the president, was back on Fox just yesterday -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY POWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I can hardly wait to put forth all the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact that it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one. It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba, and China has a role in it also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, just respond to her. And again, people need to know what Sidney Powell says is just not credible on a whole range of things, including this.

POULOS: Well, it's complete lies John, and Sidney Powell has certainly been the most egregious and prolific purveyor of these lies and that's exactly what they are. And we're looking forward to showing and proving that in court.

BERMAN: And just so people can understand the consequence of this, you mentioned undermining faith in voting systems, but there's another impact also.

Dominion's director of product safety and security, Eric Coomer, is on temporary leave because he's been receiving death threats. He's filed his own suits against the Trump campaign and others. This is what he said on CNN last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC COOMER, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT SAFETY AND SECURITY, DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS: My entire family -- their private information has been published online. People have taken photos of my house. People have threatened to come by and lynch me, decapitate me. They've referred to me as a traitor. And it is not safe for me to, you know, go about my daily life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So talk more about the impact that this has had on you and your employees.

POULOS: Yes. To put that into context, that just makes me angry listening to it. Eric's father is a decorated war hero from the Vietnam War era and he's been getting threats to his personal safety and certainly, derogatory and defamatory remarks about his son.

This has affected us all and -- starting with our employees. And during my testimony, which I did under oath in an official hearing, I was getting death threats while I was testifying. All of our employees have been forced to remove as much public information of themselves as they can for fear of their own safety since Election Day. It's truly without precedence and it's something that causes us a lot -- a great deal of anger. BERMAN: You know, when you hear what Eric Coomer describes and what you describe, you think of maybe punitive damages. Is this something that you will seek and, if so, how much?

POULOS: I'm not going to comment on the specifics. We have three separate legal teams working diligently on these matters.

But let me just say that the damage has really been immeasurable in many ways, not the least of which is the effect on our customers -- election officials who have chosen to work with us and our technology that have been running successful elections for years and years, conducting literally thousands of manual hand-counted audits and recounts, and showing only thing -- that we count ballots accurately.

[07:35:02]

BERMAN: So over the last week, there have been several of these conservative media outlets that have issued these sometimes bizarre on-air retractions -- or they call them clarifications. How will that factor into your legal action?

POULOS: Well, I've seen a few of them and I really -- it's not going to factor into our legal discussion. It's the bare minimum of what they can be doing specifically regarding the media outlets that have been amplifying these messages. It's the bare minimum of what they could be doing to ensuring reputation of their own brand and their own reputation for reporting facts.

BERMAN: Dominion is working in Georgia as part of this very consequential Senate runoff -- both of them on January fifth. So what do you want voters to know about your equipment?

POULOS: Well, voters should trust the system. It produces a paper ballot. I think voters should take the opportunity to vote early and make sure that they pay attention to their paper ballot that they create. And when they -- when they cast it securely they should know that paper ballot never leaves the county, let alone the state, and certainly not the country. And it's, in fact, that paper ballot that gets counted and is the official record of a vote.

And if there is any kind of recount -- and there will be a manual risk-limiting audit -- it's those paper ballots that are reviewed by poll officials and bipartisan poll watchers and reviewed by hand.

BERMAN: I've got to let you go but as they say, the fish rots from the head here.

How much do you hold the president, Donald Trump, responsible for all this? And I will note, he leaves office on January 20th. Is this something you anticipate taking up legally with him?

POULOS: Well, what I will say is our focus, first and foremost, remains on Sidney Powell for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. And we will be looking into absolutely everybody that has repeated -- made and repeated and amplified false statements that have been defamatory and damaging to our company and to our election. BERMAN: Including, perhaps, the president?

POULOS: Like I said, we will not be overlooking anybody.

BERMAN: John Poulos, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

POULOS: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: Sorry for what you and your company and your employees have gone through. We wish you a Merry Christmas.

POULOS: Merry Christmas. Thank you.

BERMAN: So, could President Trump's pardons come back to haunt him? One legal expert says yes and joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:41:55]

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, President Trump issuing this new round of controversial pardons rewarding his longtime allies Roger Stone and Paul Manafort for refusing to cooperate with the special counsel's Russia probe. The president also pardoned son-in-law Jared Kushner's father who had pleaded guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering, and lying to the FEC.

Joining me now is NYU School of Law professor, Ryan Goodman. He previously served as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense. Ryan, thanks so much for being with us.

This is what caught our attention overnight. This is what you wrote. You say, "Based on reading the parts of the Mueller report on Manafort many times, I do think that this pardon now significantly amplifies Donald J. Trump's criminal exposure for obstruction of justice. Rudy Giuliani is a likely co-conspirator in helping dangle the pardon in the first place."

Amplifies Trump's criminal exposure -- how and why?

RYAN GOODMAN, PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF LAW, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: THE GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (via Cisco Webex): So, the Mueller report is pretty explicit that Trump's dangling of the pardon for Manafort's silence met all of the elements for criminal obstruction of justice. And now, with the actual execution of the pardon, it's basically the completion of the crime. And that would add very significantly to the strength of the prosecutors' hands if, indeed, after January 20th they wanted to criminally investigate and look into the president's actions here.

And it's remarkable. I mean, the Mueller report specifically says that Manafort told his deputy, Rick Gates, that Manafort had spoken with Trump's personal attorney and it would be stupid to plea, and they should sit tight because quote "we'll be taken care of." And then Gates says to Manafort, you mean a pardon? Did they actually say the word "pardon?" And he says well, they didn't use the word pardon.

But the Mueller team concludes that this met all of the elements and, in fact, did succeed in Manafort failing to cooperate and maintaining his silence.

BERMAN: We spoke -- I spoke to Andrew Weissmann last night. He was the lead prosecutor on the Manafort part of the Mueller investigation who said Manafort just clammed up -- he clammed up. And he'd never seen anything like it as a prosecutor. And the reason was, he said, was the possibility of a pardon.

And, in fact, the Mueller report, as you note, explicitly says, "During Manafort's prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the president praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the president called Manafort a brave man for refusing to break and said that flipping almost ought to be outlawed."

So this is explicitly described in the Mueller report.

Now, as to the power of the pardon in general, whenever a president pardons people, we commonly come on T.V. and say that the president has an unencumbered power to pardon. It is his -- it is his role, it is his right to do so. But you think there is a 'but' there. It's not unlimited, you say. How?

[07:45:00]

GOODMAN: So it's not unlimited in the sense that if a pardon is part of a crime, then most experts would agree that, in fact, the president could be criminally prosecuted for it. So just imagine a president exchanged a pardon for a bribe. Well, most experts agree that the president could then be prosecuted for bribery and for accepting the bribe.

And this is similar to that. The quid pro quo is the bribery in a certain sense, but we don't need to do bribery law. We could just do the straight-up obstruction of justice.

And, Andrew Weissmann, as you mentioned -- in his book "Where Law Ends," he says something that wasn't completely explicit in the Mueller report, but he's basically saying there that this would be criminal on the part of the president for, in a certain sense, exercising the pardon power by dangling it.

But now, by actually providing the pardon -- you know, even Bill Barr would agree that a pardon for a bribe or a pardon for criminal obstruction would, in fact, put a president in criminal jeopardy.

BERMAN: Looking in the rearview mirror, we just need to remind people that the Mueller report would not rule out that the president obstructed justice. It explicitly chose not to issue a ruling on it one way or the other, but certainly didn't rule it out because it was following Justice Department guidelines that a president cannot be prosecuted. As of January 20th, Donald Trump will no longer be president. So

everything you are raising right now -- all these possibilities have to do with whether or if a Biden Justice Department or a Justice Department post-Donald Trump would choose to prosecute or investigate. What makes you think that the Biden administration would choose to do so?

GOODMAN: So it's difficult to know what their choice will be and what the attorney general -- whoever will be named as attorney general will do, but this puts a lot more pressure on them.

The pardons seriously gut the work of the Justice Department in cases that -- even Bill Barr called the Roger Stone case a righteous prosecution and he said Stone's sentence was fair. And that's a lot of work from the Justice Department to go after egregious crimes and egregious crimes on the part of Paul Manafort.

And as a precedent for this, when Bill Clinton issued a controversial pardon on the last day in office, what happened after he left office? The Southern District of New York federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into it.

So that's another reason why the Biden administration might be able to say it's been done before.

BERMAN: I will note that Joe Biden has made clear that he would not order it or not. It's not something that he will get involved in. So if it happens -- I'm not even sure we should call it the Biden Justice Department. It would be a decision by the Justice Department -- but it will be a difficult one, you do admit that?

GOODMAN: Absolutely. I think it's a very difficult one. They have a lot of factors to balance. And also I agree with you this is -- we shouldn't refer to it as like Biden's choice or the Biden administration. It really is up to the Justice Department and the attorney general.

BERMAN: Ryan Goodman, a really interesting discussion. It raises all kinds of legal questions.

One other thing I wish we had covered and we can't delve into it now is once you get pardoned -- Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, they can't plead the fifth anymore, right, on this stuff? If they're called on to testify they pretty much have to testify, correct?

GOODMAN: That's correct. That's another way in which it would actually strengthen the prosecutors' hands.

BERMAN: All right, much more to discuss, perhaps, on this in a few weeks. Thanks so much for being with us -- Erica.

GOODMAN: Thank you.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in the U.S., two vaccines are becoming available. Of course, that doesn't mean they're accessible to everyone. So what does that mean moving forward? We'll explain, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:53:28]

HILL: More than a million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered so far in the U.S., according to the CDC. There are concerns though that more vulnerable communities -- those often hit hardest by the virus -- may not have equal access to the potentially life-saving vaccine.

CNN's Omar Jimenez joining us now live from Chicago to explain. Omar, good morning.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

And that's the real concern here, that some of the communities hardest hit by COVID-19 have a higher hurdle to jump when it comes to the solution of a vaccine. And this dynamic is wrapped within a number of health factors that are all connected and existed long before this pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ (on camera): How long have you lived in this neighborhood?

ROCHELLE SYKES, LIVES IN CHICAGO'S AUSTIN NEIGHBORHOOD: All my life, 55 years. It's changed a whole lot. If they're going to roll out a vaccine and they're going to roll it out to grocery stores and pharmacies, I see a problem.

JIMENEZ (on camera): You feel just because the vaccine is available, it's not necessarily going to be accessible.

SYKES: That is correct.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Rochelle Sykes lives in the predominantly black West Side Chicago neighborhood of Austin and is in a zip code that has among the highest COVID-19 death rates in the city. And the barriers to getting a vaccine are already taking shape ranging anywhere from distance to pharmacies, confidence in health care, and even personal safety, as Austin is also among the city's most violent neighborhoods.

SYKES: Is it even worth the time, OK? You hear gunshots. You know, you've got to get out and get in your car -- they're doing carjackings. And if you don't feel safe then you just don't do it.

[07:55:04]

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Just down the street, Loretto Hospital was host of the city's first COVID-19 vaccination and the first to set up a West Side community testing site back in April, one they plan to soon turn into a community vaccination site.

DR. AFYA KHAN, DIRECTOR OF INFECTION CONTROL, LORETTO HOSPITAL: In order to stop this virus eventually, we all have to do our part and we want to make sure we involve everybody. We're experiencing three types of pandemics and that's violence, racism, as well as COVID-19.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's an issue leadership continues to wrestle with.

DR. ALLISON ARWADY, COMMISSIONER, CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Where any part of the city is not supported enough, it indirectly impacts the entire city. Not just that this is a let's make sure that we treat COVID, it's about what are the root causes that have made these neighborhoods, these subgroups in Chicago more vulnerable.

JIMENEZ (on camera): Parts of the downtown Chicago area have a life expectancy of up to 90 years old, according to an analysis out of NYU. Then, just about 10 miles down the road near here on Chicago's South Side, the life expectancy goes down to 59.9. That's a difference of about 30 years, which that same NYU analysis says is the largest gap in the country.

EMMA WASHINGTON, LIVES ON CHICAGO'S SOUTH SIDE: All of a sudden, this virus came and took my sister away.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Emma Washington is almost 80 years old. She lost her sister to COVID-19 in September and her brother to COVID the day before Christmas Eve. And now, she's considering what getting a vaccine is going to look like with her pharmacy over a mile away and no car to get her there.

WASHINGTON: I have to take one bus and then I have to take another bus because there was only one place around -- Walgreens -- around my area.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Now, she mostly has her medication delivered.

But this isn't a new phenomenon. One study based on data from 2000 and 2012 found over 50 percent of the city's black communities were so- called pharmacy deserts -- low-income neighborhoods where pharmacies are far from the population and people don't have regular access to vehicles -- compared with just five percent in white communities.

ARWADY: This is not something that's going to get solved in a year or in five years. But how do we take the COVID conversation and turn it into the conversation that links to chronic disease, and homicide, and infant mortality, and HIV, and opioid overdose? Those are the five main drivers of our disparate life expectancies in Chicago and COVID has indirectly impacted all of those.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): But when it comes to COVID, for Sykes, along with those in Washington's community, the vaccine shot is about more than medicine. It's about getting a fair shot without it being a longshot.

SYKES: We're in a lifeboat, they are on a cruiser. If you can come up with a vaccine within a year, why are we sitting in a community where there is no grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables?

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Omar Jimenez, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: And it's not just Chicago either. A recent analysis done for CNN looked at the 50 largest metro areas and on average, they found that around 18 percent of black communities have limited access to supermarkets compared with just 7.5 percent in white communities.

And then on the pharmacy front here, Walgreens, for example, who has led a number of community initiatives in the city -- even they, along with others, have a lower location density on the south and west sides. And as we know, Erica, both pharmacies and grocery markets are going to play a huge role in vaccinating the public come 2021.

HILL: Yes, they certainly are. And that really stuck with me what that woman just said, you know -- give us a fair shot. It doesn't need to be a longshot.

Omar, great piece. Thank you so much.

And NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill with me on this Christmas Eve. We're practically hanging the stockings now.

HILL: We're ready --

BERMAN: It's that close.

HILL: -- but we're not there yet.

BERMAN: Not there yet. We need to get through the next few hours which, honestly, no one has any idea what they hold. What now? Seriously, what will the president do now?

There he is arriving in Florida. He's now at Mar-a-Lago.

This is no game, though. This is life for millions of Americans. If you're unemployed this morning, we just don't know if you're going to get your next relief check. If you're in the military, no idea this morning if you're actually going to get that promised pay raise.

However, overnight the president did pardon his longtime allies Paul Manafort and Roger Stone who refused to cooperate with the Mueller probe. He also pardoned Jared Kushner's father.

Ben Sasse, Republican from Nebraska, summed it up in one sentence saying, quote, "This is rotten to the core."

HILL: The president also left Washington without signing or vetoing the stimulus bill. So today, House Democrats are going to try to pass legislation which would give Americans that $2,000 stimulus check, which the president abruptly insisted on this week. But that effort is likely to fail. So now, Republicans need to make a choice -- are they going to back the president or are they going to back the bill they already backed?