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At This Hour

Biden Tries to Reset at One Year Mark; January 6 Panel Subpoenas Giuliani, Others Who Pushed Election Lies; January 6 Panel Obtains Phone Records of Eric Trump and Girlfriend; Blinken Visits Ukraine, Warns of "Difficult Days" Ahead. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2022 - 11:00   ET

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

Type: SHOW

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan.

Targeting the Trumps: New York's attorney general wants answers from the former president and his children as she alleges fraud in the family business.

No backing down: U.S. officials warn Russia could be preparing to seize Ukraine's capital. The high-stakes test the White House now faces with Putin.

And free masks for all: the Biden administration says it will give away millions of free N95 masks amid a disturbing rise of COVID cases among children.

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BOLDUAN: Thanks for being here. Let's begin this hour with former president Trump and his inner circle facing serious legal jeopardy. New York attorney general Letitia James says her office has uncovered, quote, "significant evidence of fraud and misleading statements" in financial documents presented by the Trump family business, including misrepresenting the value of assets by millions of dollars to boost its bottom line.

And there's also big developments in Washington. The House Select Committee investigating the insurrection has obtained phone records from Donald Trump's son, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle. The committee issuing new subpoenas for Rudy Giuliani and other Trump associates, who helped push his massive lie about the election. We're also watching the White House this morning as President Biden is

gearing up to hold a news conference to mark one year of his presidency. Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Kara Scannell, who is in New York with the breaking news on the investigation into the Trump Organization.

Kara, can you lay out the details that the AG is now revealing?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This came in a filing overnight, where the New York attorney general Letitia James is trying to compel the testimony of the former president, Donald Trump; his son, Donald Trump Jr.; and Ivanka Trump.

In this lengthy filing she says that they have found, over the course of this multiyear investigation, significant evidence of fraud and misleading statements in these financial statements. These were financial statements given to lenders and insurers and helped inform filings that went to the IRS.

Through these statements, James' office is pointing to a number of different areas, a number of properties, including 40 Wall Street. That's the building in Lower Manhattan. Numerous golf courses, one in Scotland and one in Los Angeles and some other properties.

She's saying the key to her civil investigation here and what kind of decision she will make is what did Donald Trump know?

"In the filings she writes, Mr. Trump's actual knowledge of and intention to make the numerous misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are essential components to resolving OAG's investigation in an appropriate and just manner."

Then she also tweeted last night, after this filing hit the docket, that, "Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have all been closely involved in the transactions in question, so we won't tolerate their attempts to evade testifying in this investigation."

Now Donald Trump took over the family business when his father became the president. He signed off on a number of financial statements and he also was involved with the Lower Manhattan building.

And Ivanka Trump was one of the key liaisons with Deutsche Bank, the German lender who has loaned the Trump Organization over $300 million. Now whether or not they will testify will be up to a judge.

But we should note that, when Eric Trump was subpoenaed and compelled to testify, he took the Fifth Amendment to over 500 questions.

BOLDUAN: Kara, thank you. Appreciate it.

Let's turn to the other investigation into Donald Trump. The House Insurrection Committee has now obtained phone records from Eric Trump and Donald Trump and Don Jr.'s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, making this the first known subpoenas targeting members of the Trump family.

And that's not all. The panel has also issued subpoenas for Rudy Giuliani and others close to Trump before, during and after January 6th, key players pushing the election fraud conspiracies. CNN's Evan Perez is watching this for us from Washington.

Evan, what are they looking for?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, let's take the subpoenas of the former president's lawyers first. Those are very important subpoenas.

In the case of Rudy Giuliani, we know he was sort of the face of this effort to claim that there was fraud and that there was reason to doubt the victory of President Biden.

We know that these subpoenas -- we know that the committee has testimony from other people that talk about, for instance, Giuliani's push to seize -- he wanted the Homeland Security Department to seize voting machines around the country, something that the Homeland Security Department told him they didn't have the power to do.

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PEREZ: We know that there's a lot of testimony that the committee has, that these people, they want to now confront with, to see what they can learn about what was going on behind the scenes around January 6th.

With regard to the former president's son, Eric, he spoke at the president's rally on January 6th. Kimberly Guilfoyle, her phone records, along with Eric Trump's, apparently are part of this larger effort to see what was going on in the days leading up to January 6th, who were they talking to, what were their communications like.

In the case of Guilfoyle, she was a big fundraiser for the so-called Stop the Steal efforts. Clearly the committee has a lot more work to do, they clearly have a lot of information from other witnesses. So now they're trying to put some of this together -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Evan, thank you for laying that out for us.

There's a lot to go through. Joining me right now is CNN senior legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, and CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, former state and federal prosecutor.

Elie, let's start with the new information coming from the New York attorney general investigation.

How significant is this information that is coming out?

What's the most important thing you see here in this response?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Kate, I think the big headline is that the New York attorney general has substantial evidence that there was not just fraud but major fraud, worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

That is going to be relevant to the civil action that the attorney general is looking at right now and her effort to subpoena and depose Donald Trump and members of his family.

But it's really important to make sure people understand: that is separate from the criminal case. It's one thing to say I can demonstrate there was fraud in the Trump Organization and people were involved, to use Letitia James' language.

That's a different university that being able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that a specific individual knew about and had criminal intent on the fraud. So I think it's a big development on the civil side; I would not read into it that there's likely going to be criminal indictments imminently.

BOLDUAN: Paula, the AG put this out in making the argument to the judge of why she needs testimony from Donald Trump and family. That's kind of the entire point of this response.

Do you see that she needs Trump's testimony to get at this, the information she's trying to get at?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Kate, of course, it would help if the former president showed up and admitted to committing fraud. Clearly that would make it a lot easier to bring a civil enforcement action, potentially criminal charges as well.

But that's not the way most cases are built. Here, she has documents, she has witnesses that she can use potentially to bring a civil enforcement action. But she tries to lay out the reasons why that's not enough.

Specifically, she says Trump has not complied with subpoenas for some of the records that they have sought. Interestingly, investigators say they have over a dozen current and former Trump employees who have said that Trump personally approved the production of his tax returns.

So it seems, yes; she is saying I have some evidence but I want more. Now it is highly unlikely that the former president is going to come in and cooperate, as our colleague, Kara Scannell, noted. His son came in and pled the Fifth to about 500 questions.

This is similar to the challenges that her colleague has faced in a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization. It's very difficult to get witnesses who are willing to go against the former president.

BOLDUAN: Elie, with everything that Paula just laid out there, how hard of a case do you think this is to prove?

Real estate valuations can be subjective.

HONIG: Yes, there's an element of subjectivity. I think the variations laid out in this document that was filed last night go maybe beyond subjectivity. We're talking about tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of difference.

But it's important to understand it's not enough for a criminal case to say, well, the valuations varied and the guy in charge must have known about it, like let's use common sense. His name is on the building; therefore, he's guilty.

That's not going to cut it in a criminal case. You need specific proof, whether in a text, an email, a recording, a reliable inside or cooperating witness to say Donald Trump or whoever you're defending is, knew about this, knew it was a fraud, had intent to go through with it, told me to do it.

And I don't see evidence that Letitia James has that. In fact, she said in her filing last night, the reason I need to take their depositions is because I don't exactly know their criminal intent.

BOLDUAN: Great point.

Paula, let's turn to the January 6th committee, now going after Kimberly Guilfoyle and Eric Trump. It's the first kind of direct action that we know of that the committee has taken against the Trump family.

Is it clear what kind of information and detail the committee is getting that they were able to obtain from these phone records?

REID: So with these specific records that they've obtained, they're not getting the contents of conversations.

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REID: Instead, they're getting some information about incoming, outgoing calls, the date of the calls, the lengths of the calls, putting it in a log for text messages but not the actual messages themselves.

As you noted, this appears to be the first time the committee has directly targeted a member of the Trump family. The committee appears to be interested in Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle because of their involvement in the Stop the Steal rally.

Kimberly Guilfoyle went on to fundraise off of the Big Lie and the calls, this information and data they're gathering, it may not be just specifically for Eric Trump or Kimberly Guilfoyle.

They can use this to match up what they know about other potential witnesses, as they try to piece together who was talking to whom ahead of the January 6th rally.

BOLDUAN: Add to this the four subpoenas that the committee also issued for Trump attorneys and an adviser, Elie.

Does it tell you anything about the direction of their investigation?

HONIG: It tells me that the committee is taking a holistic, 360- degree look at this entire scandal, this entire coup attempt. I think of it like this, there's the muscle, the people who stood at that rally and physically stormed the Capitol. Obviously the committee is focused on them.

DOJ seems to be focused on them. We saw the Oath Keepers indictment last week. Then you have what I'll charitably call the brain power, the people behind the scenes who were coming up with this plan, this legal cover for how can we do this?

How can we pressure the vice president, what are his powers?

Which is based on a lie, of course, and I think dubious, at best, legal advice.

Now is there a specific connection between those two things?

We'll find out. But this tells me the committee is looking at this from all different angles.

BOLDUAN: Interesting. It's great to see you guys. Thank you for that.

Coming up, in just hours, President Biden will hold a news conference at the White House, the president sure to promote his first-year accomplishments.

But how does he address the crises also facing his administration?

That's next.

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BOLDUAN: This afternoon President Biden will hold his first news conference of the year marking his first year in office. It's also the moment where the president is facing multiple crises and a divided nation still in the throes of a pandemic. Jeremy Diamond is live at the White House this hour.

Jeremy, how does the White House view this moment and this news conference?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: One thing President Biden will certainly be doing during this news conference is reaching for the reset button after one of the roughest stretches of his presidency.

You have decades' high inflation numbers, record coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, a legislative agenda that is stalled and a potential Russian invasion of the U.S.'s ally in Ukraine.

At the same time, President Biden is expected to acknowledge where he has come up short. But he'll also be looking to tout some of his accomplishments in office, like the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, record job creation over the last year and a vaccination campaign that has gotten three-quarters of American adults vaccinated.

But ultimately he'll acknowledge where progress has been made and where he came up short and talk about the ways he wants to move forward, talking about having laid the foundation for progress over the next year.

One of the things he will be able to tout today is this announcement from the White House of 400 million N95 masks that will be made available to Americans. Those shipments go out late next week.

Americans will be able to get these masks, three per person, at pharmacies and community health centers around the country, more than 10,000 locations.

This program is expected to be fully up and running by February. This is just one of the ways the president can talk about the latest steps to tackle this unrelenting COVID pandemic.

BOLDUAN: Jeremy, thanks for that.

Joining me now for more on this is CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger.

Gloria, I want to read some of the headlines the president is facing and that the White House is sensitive to, which is "The Washington Post," saying, "The long slide inside Biden's declining popularity as he struggles with multiple crises."

"Politico" putting it, "Dems stare down another failure to deliver for their base."

And "Axios" from a bit ago, saying Biden's "epic" failures.

How do you describe the position that you think the administration finds itself in right now?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think you'd have to call it something like a defensive crouch, because they're playing defense right now. Even though folks in the administration, when I talk to them, will talk, rightly so, about how many jobs they've added, the progress they've made on vaccines, et cetera, et cetera.

They are being hit in the face with inflation, with foreign policy crises and, on the pandemic, which used to be Joe Biden's strong point, the public is now not giving him as much credit. And they're much more worried about the economy.

And, by the way, he's also bleeding independent voters and those are the people who were so important to him because they believed he was going to govern from the center and they believe that he really hasn't done that. So I think he's got a long way to go to convince people that he is who he said he was when he got elected.

BOLDUAN: That's a really interesting way of putting it. David Axelrod was on earlier today. And he is, of course, someone who wants the Biden administration to succeed. Let me play for everyone how he puts it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is a point in time -- he's gone through a bad stretch here. We don't know where we're going to be six months from now. But you have to draw some lessons from mistakes that have been made over the last year.

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BOLDUAN: As Axelrod puts it, is that what the president really needs to do, to lay out in his press conference today not only the successes as every president should and would lay out but also really acknowledging the failures?

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BORGER: Yes, but he shouldn't overdo it. Obviously a dose of humility is really always welcome. Biden has always gotten out there and said, yes, we didn't have enough tests, for example, we should have done more in testing but we didn't anticipate Omicron, et cetera, et cetera. So I think he'll talk about that.

But what he has to do substantively is sort of say, look, we're going to get parts of Build Back Better done. You'll recall, because we covered it all the time, the Democrats spent months arguing with each other.

So it's no surprise that the American public believes the Democrats didn't really have a governing majority, because they couldn't prove they could govern on some things. They did the rescue plan, they did infrastructure.

So now I think he has to do what Bill Clinton did after his shellacking and lost both houses in '94. What he's got to do is sort of say, OK, this part of Build Back Better we can get done.

And maybe he'll get some Republicans to do it with him. Maybe he'll get something on prescription drugs, which is really popular, for example; universal kindergarten, pre-K.

Why not try some things like that?

It worked for Bill Clinton. So you can't say this is the end of the Biden administration but I do think it takes a real realignment here.

BOLDUAN: You raised something interesting. I wanted to ask you about what former Clinton press secretary, Joe Lockhart, has put it, which is he sees this real disconnect that we obviously know exists between Washington and the rest of the country. But he also sees it as a potential advantage to the president.

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JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE SECRETARY: People have experienced some cross currents here. The economy is really strong, jobs are really strong. Inflation is a problem though, although most economists believe it's transitory, based on some outside influences. So the president has to speak to the rest of the country, who, I

think, is a little less skeptical and maybe cynical than those of us who spend a lot of time in D.C.

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BOLDUAN: Is that a little bit what you're getting at Gloria, with how he needs to govern going forward?

BORGER: Yes, I think it is. Look, his popularity is way down. As I was saying before, independent voters, really, he's losing them. He's got to show them who he really is.

And we don't really know the answer to that yet, do we?

Because he ran one way and he governed in another way. And I think what Joe is saying is, look, this president kind of has to step up and speak to the American public and say, as his former boss, Bill Clinton did, I feel your pain. I know what you're going through. Biden is pretty good at that.

But then he has to have a way out of it because what people are feeling is frustration. They're feeling frustration with the pandemic and they want to get back to some sense of normalcy, because that's what they were promised. They don't feel that yet.

BOLDUAN: Or a new normal, whatever that is. Good to see you, Gloria, thank you so much.

CNN's special coverage of President Biden's news conference will begin at 3:45 this afternoon, leading off with Jake Tapper.

Coming up for us still this hour, America's top diplomat is in Ukraine, trying to prevent a Russian invasion. The latest developments from the region. That's next.

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BOLDUAN: Developing right now, secretary of state Tony Blinken is in Ukraine, warning its leaders to prepare for, quote, what could be "difficult days" ahead, as the Kremlin is calling on the West to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons, amid growing fears of a Russian invasion.

Let's begin with CNN's Matthew Chance, live in Ukraine's capital city.

Matthew, what is the latest from there?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The very latest, Kate, is there's been a press conference with secretary of state Blinken and his Ukrainian counterpart, the Ukrainian foreign minister, where he has explained why he's here, meeting the Ukrainian leadership, briefing them on the outcome of the negotiations held between the U.S. and Russia last week on the core Russian demand that Ukraine never be allowed to join the NATO military alliance.

It also comes at a time of particularly heightened pressure in the country and tension and that military threat by Russia on the borders, with Ukrainian defense, intelligence officials telling CNN there are more than 127,000 Russian troops, according to their latest assessment, that are potentially poised to take part in a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Secretary of state Blinken making it clear during his online press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart that the U.S. assessment is that, if it comes to a Russian invasion, the figures, the troop numbers could be much higher than that. Take a listen.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We know there are plans in place to increase that force even more on very short notice. And that gives President Putin the capacity, also on very short notice, to take further aggressive action against Ukraine.

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