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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces Plan for State to Build Border Wall with Mexico; Trump's DOJ Seized Data of House Democrats from Apple. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 11, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The plan for the state of Texas to begin building the border wall in the state of Texas.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some elected officials were very concerned about what Abbott's policy would mean for migrant families. We all remember the latest zero-tolerance policy on the border. That was under the Trump administration, and what that meant for migrant families. Thousands of children were separated from their families, and some of those children still have not even reunited with their parents.

And so signs says that a very concerned public official asked Abbott what this would mean for children, what this would mean for migrant families. And, John, he says that Abbott says that his new policy would only apply to single adults. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Rosa Flores, important reporting. Keep us posted. Thank you.

NEW DAY continues right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: And good morning again to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, June 11th. This morning, there are stunning new allegations of abuse of power by the Trump White House and the Trump administration. Just how far did Donald Trump, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions push the Justice Department to go to go after Trump's perceived political enemies? New reporting this morning reveals, pretty far.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Definitely.

BERMAN: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for iPhone records of at least two House Intelligence Committee Democrats, Chairman Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, along with their staff and family members, including a child. "The New York Times" first reported the story that prosecutors were hunting for leakers trying to find out who was behind media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. According to "The Times," even after investigators thought they hit a dead end and discussed closing the inquiry, Trump Attorney General Bill Barr told them keep digging.

KEILAR: I think that's one of the big red flags in all of this. Prosecutors also obtained a gag order. They renewed it three times before it expired this year so that Apple couldn't say anything about this until now, because this is from years past, right? Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are calling for an investigation into what Pelosi is calling the weaponization of the DOJ by the Trump White House. And this is just the latest evidence of Trump's heavy-handed tactics in leak investigations. This is also the most alarming.

Joining us now is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney who is with us. First off, sir, can you react to what has happened here?

REP. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (D-NY): Well, it's extremely disturbing, and infuriating, in fact. January 6th was out in the open and we could all see it, and look at the trouble we're having getting to the bottom of that. But this is in the darkness. As "The Washington Post" says, democracy dies in darkness. This is the way most authoritarians around the world, whether you're talking about Erdogan in Turkey or Duterte in the Philippines or Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia or Xi in China, Putin in Russia. You accuse your opponents of national security threats or of corruption, and you use the instruments of the executive branch to investigate people, to drum up charges, to launch investigations where none is warranted.

So there are serious questions about whether there's predication, as lawyers would say. Was there a justification for this? Because there should be an extremely high bar for going after political opponents using the Justice Department. And here, where you're employing the services of an American company and you are going after members, staff, their children -- finding nothing, by the way -- it stinks. And it warrants a full investigation, and heads should roll at the Justice Department, and there should be consequences for people like Bill Barr, depending on what they did in terms of Bar Associations and other sanctions. It's one of the most serious things I've ever seen out of the Trump administration, and that's saying a lot.

KEILAR: That is saying a lot. This is -- we're talking about metadata subpoenaed and obtained in the case of, I think, more than a dozen officials, according to "The New York Times." So this would -- this would show who, say, a member of Congress might be talking to, which then could lead to seeking even more records. Do you have reason to believe that the Trump DOJ sought your personal records?

MALONEY: No, but I have a bunch of questions about this, including there seems to have been some electronic notification, an email from Apple in May that members may or may not have received that may or may not have gone to spam filters. What the hell are we talking about? The idea that that's an adequate means of notifying members of Congress on the Intelligence Committee that they may have been investigated for no reason by the Justice Department while they were doing oversight of this administration for impeachable offenses, that doesn't cut it.

[08:05:14]

So right now, members of the intelligence committee are literally looking in their spam filters to see whether the Apple Corporation sent them an email. That just defies belief. And so we have a bunch of questions this morning, and need to get to the bottom of them.

KEILAR: Is this how any members of the committee have discovered that they have been targets here, that they did go to their spam filter and find some notification?

MALONEY: The answer to that question is we're talking to each other right now. Most of us learned about this from "The New York Times" last night. That alone is troubling. And then in addition, yes, it's unclear -- most of us who may not have been on the committee at the time or who have not any reason to think we were the target of this are unlikely to find this kind of notification.

But the fact there's confusion about it is really troubling. It ought to be really clear, and there ought to be a very high bar. And it seems to me there should be a special procedure, an independent procedure for taking steps like this when you're going after congressional overseers on the basis of what appears to be very slim evidence while they're doing oversight of the executive branch. That is, as the speaker said, the weaponization of the executive branch.

This is extremely serious. And I know there's a long list of serious things that we're all concerned about, but in terms of threats to our democracy, if you let an executive do this sort of thing, there will be no end to it.

KEILAR: Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, we appreciate it.

MALONEY: Thank you.

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN chief national correspondent, anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS," John King. You know it's big if John King is here. Look, Sean Patrick Maloney, the Congressman, said there's a long list of things, but this, this is chilling, John. I'm just wondering, when I read this, I thought, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No. I was reading this last night and thinking, I was nine, 10 years old, watching my father watch the news during Watergate when he somehow turned the word "son of a bitch" into one syllable watching what he was learning about Richard Nixon.

This is a president, and again, we need to get all the facts here, but think about this and then lift your head a little bit. What have we talked about just in the last week? Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, bullying a foreign government in the middle of a war with Russia to do something. We've learned that reporters' emails have been gone after, including CNN reporters' emails. We know the president tried to bully the former president, tried to bully secretaries of states and governors to change election results, and now this.

So the question is, the government has legitimate rights to protect its secrets and information. The government does not have the right to do what the president wants to get what the president wants. This seems like it's not about America first or about America great. It's about what does Trump want and how do we use the levers of power to achieve that. That's corrupt.

KEILAR: They went after the records not only of elected officials, which is nuts. They went after the records of their family members, including a minor child. What does that tell you?

KING: That tells you that it is just off the rails. There's no other word for it. Again, if you believe Chairman Schiff, somebody else legitimately leaked a secret, the government has a right to take certain steps. We all sign employment agreements. If you have access to sensitive information, you sign employment agreements. You understand that you are subject to scrutiny. But there's a difference between legitimate scrutiny and abuse of power.

And doing things, using the levers of government, especially this Justice Department, law and order, the levers of any government, though, any levers of government, but especially there on this to go after people, you're not supposed to do that. You can legitimately look at legitimate issues, and then the challenge is, once you have it, and this has to be done secretly because it's so sensitive, then lay your case out in public. This seems, again, we'll get more facts as it comes out, this seems like a gratuitous abuse of power to get vindication, to be vindictive against people the president at the time did not like p.

BERMAN: A politicized, weaponized Justice Department. That's the fear, right?

KING: Yes. And that is why you have seen again, if you're looking for contrast, this is why President Biden as a candidate and as a young president -- in the young days of his presidency has said, I didn't know about that, when we have learned things from the Justice Department. He has tried to completely separate himself.

I do think you just heard the congressman say they want to know more. I do think there's a challenge, and there's legitimate frustration among some Democrats, that the new attorney general, Judge Garland, now General Garland, is an institutionalist. If this was as sweeping as it looks, a lot of career people in the Justice Department got caught up in it. They may be embarrassed by that. They may have been following the boss' orders back in the Trump days, but there is some frustration among Democrats now that the current Justice Department, which had nothing to do with this, this was all done in the Trump days, but that they're not being fully transparent in helping root out what Democrats believe were the abuses of Attorney General Barr because they believe he was doing the bidding of his boss. [08:10:04]

KEILAR: This is very revealing about the weaknesses that we're seeing in our government, in our system of government. I think it raises questions about how much it is governed by norms, which in some ways is a strength of the American system, right? But here it is revealed as a weakness, as something that can be easily abused by an unscrupulous administration.

KING: I think that history, when we read history in five, 10, 15, 20 years, we'll know a lot more about this. Remember when Bill Barr was brought in, there was actually a great sigh of relief in this town, that Donald Trump had gone out, someone who served in the Bush administration, somebody who was more of a careerist, was more of an institutionalist, that's what everybody thought.

And then they believed what happened there was even an acceleration of an attorney general who viewed himself as the president's lawyer, who viewed himself as doing what the president wanted, even if the president didn't directly ask for it. And you see sometimes in things the president said, the cues. I don't like Adam Schiff. If you work for Trump and your goal is to please Trump, there's your signal right there. You don't need a go after his metadata.

BERMAN: We also, the stuff that Bill Barr said, too, and I'm going to get to infrastructure in a second. But since you brought up Bill Barr, let's just play the exchange with Kamala Harris and the attorney general, because it's very revealing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I wouldn't, I wouldn't --

HARRIS: Yes or no.

BARR: Could you repeat that question?

HARRIS: I will repeat it. Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone. Yes or no, please, sir.

BARR: The president or anybody else --

HARRIS: Seems you'd remember something like that and be able to tell us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I don't know what more there is to say about this at that point.

KING: He was at that hearing. If she asked him, does Friday come after Thursday, he was not going to answer the question. He was there not to cooperate with the Democrats. If you watch that hearing in full, the answers he gives Republicans versus the answers he gives Democrats.

However, however, there's a simple answer there. No -- if the answer is no, or, I would never allow that because that's not my job. And that is a deliberate play, ploy, call it what you will, by Barr to essentially say you're a Democrat. I don't have to answer your question. The government cannot work if that's the way --

BERMAN: And based on what we know, this new reporting, it makes the whole thing even that much more suspect and alarming.

Let's talk about roads and bridges and tunnels, happy things like that. There's this bipartisan group of 10 senators, five Democrats, five Republicans, who struck a deal last night. We don't have a lot of details on exactly what they agreed to, but they say they've got a compromise. What are the prospects that this becomes law at this point?

KING: Look, there's still a big question about how you pay for it. And that's where this has gone off, forgive me, off the rails every time before where they make progress on what to do or how to define infrastructure, how much do we want to spend. They make some progress, then how do we pay for it?

Let's see if this works, but let's also remember this. There's enormous pressure on the president from members of his own party to be bigger and bolder. He is not going to be as big and as bold as he wants. He doesn't have the votes. So even if he cuts this package, it will be more modest package. He will have to trim his sails. He would like a bipartisan signing ceremony at the White House. He believes that would send an important signal to the country, in part because of what we just talked about. Government off the rails. Government not operating in a normal way. People not seeing any productive adult behavior in the Capitol city. The president would like that. It makes a lot of sense.

That does not mean that they will not then immediately move on to Bernie Sanders, the Senate budget committee chairman, writing a big Democratic package and then trying to get it through with just 50 votes, plus the vice president and the United States Senate. So there could be a two states chapter here. The president really wants -- really believes in the idea of something bipartisan, even if the very next thing you do is a partisan fireworks show. He thinks it's important. We'll see if it can get there. The fact that it happened while he's overseas does quiet the temperature. It's been unusual.

Politics stops at the water's edge, they used to say. That went out the window with Twitter and the Internet and everything else. It went out the window a long time ago, but it has been unusual to see so many members of the president's own party saying his approach, talking to Republicans is foolish, not going to get you anywhere. They're playing you. So at least it buys the president 24 hours on the world stage to say maybe I can get a bipartisan deal. I'd be skeptical about paying for it, but let's see.

KEILAR: John, it is great to have you this morning. I think we should do Fridays with John.

BERMAN: I think it's great.

KING: I thought I was coming in to talk about the rabbits.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Where are you on the rabbits?

BERMAN: They don't like the rabbits. Everyone says they like rabbits. Has anyone read those damn books?

KEILAR: "Peter Rabbit."

KING: There's a follow-out coming out, Berman expose, "Peter Rabbit" is coming out, I think.

BERMAN: The real story. John King, great to see you.

More on the breaking news. The secret subpoenas are just the latest example of the former president using the Justice Department against his perceived enemies.

KEILAR: Plus, we'll talk to a man who was part of the mob that stormed the Capitol. Does he still believe Trump's lies?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:27]

BERMAN: All right. Breaking news this morning, the Trump Justice Department seizing the iPhone records from Apple for key Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee, their aides and family members, even a minor. This tops off just a stunning week of revelations about the Justice Department.

Joining us now, CNN chief justice correspondent Evan Perez.

And, Evan, look, so much has gone on this week from one thing to another, and another --

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Just this week.

BERMAN: Explain it all to us.

PEREZ: Well, you know, this week, we learned a lot about all the things the justice department has been trying to reveal about what went on during the Trump administration. And among, obviously, the latest revelations, the two congressmen, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell's records were part of this dragnet that was taken by the Justice Department in 2018, beginning in 2018.

We also learned that Mark Meadows at one point at the end of the Trump administration was pushing the Justice Department to investigate some of the crazier conspiracies, including one called Italy-gate which you'll have to Google because I can't even explain it.

And, of course, we learned more about the gag order that was put on CNN during a months-long legal battle over Barbara Starr's phone records, her email records, and it was only at the end of that, that CNN learned, fighting them again over a period of months, that the Justice Department had also seized some of her private information, some of her private emails, data, some of her phone number data.

[08:20:01]

It was extraordinary week at the Justice Department.

BERMAN: It just runs the gamut, I mean, he's in the middle. At a series of revelations about what went on during the Trump administration and the lingering effects even now from the House Intel to Mark Meadows to CNN reporter. Talk about all the different targets we're seeing here.

PEREZ: Well, the commonality here is the president's perceived enemies list. Obviously, these are two of the congressmen who Trump believed were targeting him, were helping spread the stories about Trump and Russia connections during the height of the Mueller investigation.

Of course, CNN, he said, was one of the enemies of the people along with "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times." and, you know, this is -- what this tells you is what the atmosphere was at the Justice Department, as the president kept attacking Jeff Sessions who was the attorney general at the time. Rob Rosenstein was the deputy attorney general who was running all the Russia investigation stuff.

And curiously, last night, Sessions' former chief of staff noted that "The New York Times" who broke this story did not mention that Sessions had anything to do with this, which raises the question, who approved this? This has to go to the highest levels of the Justice Department. Sessions was recused from anything having to do with Russia. Then the question is to Rod Rosenstein who I reached out to this morning to ask that very question.

BERMAN: Evan Perez, very interesting. Thanks so much for being with us.

Up next, he stormed the Capitol on January 6th. What does he think of Republicans' downplaying what the mob did that day? We're going to speak with one of the rioters, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:39]

BERMAN: Former president Trump's election lies brought rioters to the Capitol on January 6th. Now his continuing refusal to accept reality is keeping them in jail. One federal judge wrote recently in denying bond to a Colorado man,

quote, the steady drum beat that inspired defendant to take up arms has not faded away. Six months later, the canard that the election is stolen is being repeated daily on major news outlets and from the corridors of power and state and federal government, not to mention in the near daily fulminations of the former president.

Other federal judges have shared concerns that Trump's ongoing comments can inspire defendants to pick up arms again if released. We're going to speak to an accused Capitol rioter who is out on bond, Anthony Antonio. He's charged with five federal crimes. He says he realized that he'd been misled by Trump a few days after the insurrection but says he now takes full responsibility for participating. His lawyer made headlines last month when he said Anthony had been hooked on Fox News and developed Foxitis.

Joining me now is Anthony Antonio and his lawyer, Joseph Hurley (ph).

Anthony, thank you so much for being with us.

Republicans have continuously downplayed the January 6th insurrection. Some question whether or not these Trump supporters were tourists just taking a stroll through the Capitol. They blocked the independent commission to investigate this, Anthony.

So, you know, what's your message to those Republicans?

ANTHONY ANTONIO, ACCUSED CAPITOL RIOTER: So here's my message: Obviously, that day, what happened shouldn't have happened. I said it before. I said it on the show before. What happened that day should not have happened.

I take, again, like you've said in the beginning, I take full responsibility for my actions that day.

My message to everyone, Republicans, Democrats, media outlets, everyone out there, American people, is we need to stop being divided, right? This happened because we are so divided as a country that we need to come together and provide unity with each other.

Show love. Provide unity. Come together as one and stop disagreeing. We're going to have disagreements. We're not going to agree on all aspects of everything. And that's one thing that I learned.

BERMAN: You were there. I mean, you were in the middle of it. Did this feel and look like a normal tourist visit to you?

ANTONIO: I have -- so I never took a tour of the Capitol before. I've never took a tour of a national building like that before. Where I was standing -- no, I wasn't on tour. Where I was standing and what I was doing, I can't speak for accounts of other people and where they were at and all that kind of stuff, but from where I was, no, it was not -- not a tour. At moments, I was trying to actually get people to stop going forward.

I was speaking and saying, hey, stop moving forward. Stop pushing forward. Stay where you are.

Even sit down so we can stop what was going on. And so, no, I -- where I was at and me, myself, I did not feel like I was on a tour.

BERMAN: No, I mean, based on what I've seen in my life, cops don't get beat up on regular tourist visits. You certainly saw that happening, correct?

ANTONIO: So, yeah. So that -- that's one of the images that is probably engrained in my mind.

BERMAN: And based on that --

ANTONIO: And one thing that --

BERMAN: Go ahead.

ANTONIO: I'm just saying one thing that I want to say, if that officer is watching, I just want to apologize. I want to apologize because I didn't -- I just stood there. I didn't help. And so, yeah, I did see that.

BERMAN: I think you're talking about Officer Michael Fanone, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who we've gotten to know over time here at CNN. I think we have video of the assault on Michael Fanone where he is suffering, frankly.

And while this was going on, this is bodycam footage. I'm not sure if you've seen this before. But you've recalled.

[08:30:00]