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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Special Counsel Jack Smith Provides Never-Before-Seen Evidence From His 2020 Election Case Against Trump In New 165-Page Filing; New GOP Attempt To Sow Doubt About Dominion Voting Machines. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired October 02, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:37]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
And we begin with news that is truly breaking. Just minutes ago, a federal judge released the most comprehensive narrative to date of the 2020 election subversion case against former President Donald Trump. It's all laid out in a 165-page document filed by the Office of Special Counsel, Jack Smith, as the office plays out a case for the judge in a way that Jack Smith and his lawyers believe would get around the presidential immunity protections outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court, and a decision made earlier this year.
Let's get straight to CNN's Paula Reid.
And, Paula, just to be clear to our viewers, this just dropped minutes ago, so we're all just going over this information, absorbing at, trying to determine what's new, what's important. You have been reviewing it in the few minutes it dropped, what stands out to you at this early hour?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, this as an extraordinary filing that was just released to the public. It's enormous, like you said, it's roughly 170 pages and it is full of redactions. We're not getting to see everything that the special counsel said.
But what makes this so extraordinary is we're just a month out from the presidential election and here, the special counsel is really revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of its case against former President Trump and his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
And this is not something that usually happens in the course of a criminal case. But what is extraordinary here, there are many things that are extraordinary, but back in July, the Supreme Court looked at this case and ruled that former President Trump does have some immunity from prosecution and tasked the trial judge with evaluating this case and determining which charges at which pieces of evidence survive the Supreme Court's decision.
So a couple of days ago, the special counsel, they submitted a roughly 200-page filing to the judge, laying out what they believe is its case, even after the Supreme Court's ruling. So, here, we're getting some of that though there are redactions.
Now, former President Trump's lawyers, they have been fighting the release of this evidence, arguing that this is potentially prejudicial to the November race because of course, this is the last chance that voters will have to see some of this evidence, some of which has never been seen before. And to really hear the story that Jack Smith and his prosecutors would have put before a jury because, of course, this case is not going to trial anytime soon, and if former President Trump is reelected, his attorney general is expected to dismiss this case, as well as the other federal case against Trump.
TAPPER: So, Paula, let me just ask you about some of these redactions because, again, I'm a layperson. I'm not a lawyer like yourself and the wise people involved in this case, but they don't really make a whole lot of sense to me.
For example, P1 is quite obviously Steve Bannon, just to read and this is page seven. So I haven't really gotten very far in it, but by October 2020, P1, a private political advisor who had worked for the defendant's 2016 presidential campaign, began to assist with the defendant's reelection effort.
Three days before Election Day, P1 described the defendant's plan to a private gathering of supporters, quote: And what Trump's going to do is just declare victory, right? He's going to declare victory. That doesn't mean he's the winner. He's just going to say he's the winner, unquote.
Now, that quote exists on video. We know it's Steve Bannon. Why even redact it?
REID: So here, you do see redactions, mostly of specific names of witnesses. Again, this is highly unusual to release the kind of evidence that you have uncovered in a criminal investigation, in a filing like this that is made public. So these are the types of redactions though any one who's covered this case, this investigation, and who's followed the story when given a little bit of time? Going to figure out who most of these people are. Because as you said, this has been something that's been out in the open.
There's of course, the January 6 committee. They've been other cases related to this. So its going to be pretty easy to figure out who said what, but the court here making some attempt to protect the identities of officials in this case of witnesses, right? Because these were people who either testified before the grand jury or spoke to investigators.
I just -- I want to underscore, this is an extraordinary thing to get a filing like this, and this is part of the courts efforts to try to protect those witnesses. But like you said, you only got to page seven and you already knew who one of the witnesses was?
TAPPER: Well, for anybody at home who was doing this that kind of like a bingo game, page 18, it refers to Georgia governor, P17. I believe that's probably Brian Kemp.
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I mean, I'm no master strategist here, but -- but -- I mean, would that be your reading as well?
REID: Yes. I think this is an easy Mad Libs if you look at it that way. And again, what we're looking for specifically is any new evidence, things that we haven't actually heard before, specifically new evidence from former Vice President Mike Pence. There is a listing of different conversations that he had with then President Trump on page 13.
That is one example of evidence that could be new never before seen. We're also looking for anything related to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, because it's been unclear what exactly he provided in the course of this investigation, and those are two incredibly important witnesses.
But also, they are the focus of defense attorneys for former President Trump who are going to argue that any conversations that Trump had with his White House the staff or his vice president would have fallen under his official duties and that those cannot be used as evidence. And speaking with sources close to the Trump legal team, they have always believed that they could probably kill this case outright by just attacking those key pieces of evidence. And now were getting to see some evidence we've never seen before.
TAPPER: All right. Paula, go back to the documentation. I know you got a lot of reading to do, 160 or so pages left. We'll come back to you in a second.
But in the meantime, let me bring in CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.
Elie, put this in legal context for us. Obviously, the political context is obvious. We are just under five weeks until the presidential election, and we're going to hear from the Trump team that this is election interference. It's being dropped right before the election but -- but put it in the legal context for us.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jake, what Jack Smith is doing here is he's essentially laying out his trial case, but on paper rather than in a courtroom. Now the reason he's doing this all stems back to the U.S. Supreme Court's immunity ruling, which came down on July 1st of this year.
What Jack Smith is now arguing to the district judge, the trial judge, Judge Chutkan, is all the things that we've alleged against Donald Trump, that are in the new indictment, the slimmer indictment that was returned a couple of weeks ago. All of these were personal or political acts and not official acts.
There's a quote in here from Jack Smith that I think sums up his approach very well. He says, quote, the through line of Trump's efforts was deceit. The through line of these efforts was not doing his job as president. He was acting to see deceitfully. So Jack Smith here, this is his brief, and he's saying to Judge Chutkan, all the stuff that's in our new slimmed-down indictment, it's all okay. It -- none of it is entitled to immunity. And we should be able to proceed to trial on it.
TAPPER: How did this motion come about? It's important for folks to understand why it is that Jack Smith was and he was given a green light by Judge Chutkan to file this and have it be released.
HONIG: It certainly was. And there are a couple of unusual things about the way this happened, Jake. So, first of all, ordinarily, when you're -- when it comes time for motions, the defense goes first, the prosecution puts in its indictment. The defense says, here's what we object to in the indictment and the prosecution responds.
Here, Jack Smith said a few weeks ago, Judge Chutkan, we want to go first and judge Chutkan actually said, well, that's quite unusual, but she let them go first and the effect of that now is we essentially have Jack Smith's case at least on paper, at least the parts that have not been redacted, 30 some days before the election, whereas we might not otherwise have it had.
Now, Donald Trump's team will respond to this. They will essentially all the stuff that he is accused of doing was all part of his official job, including the Mike Pence conversations and Jake, I should note like you a mountain all the way through this thing. But just to give you a taste of what Paula and others are looking at it, there is a list of conversations fairly early on in this brief, it's just a bullet point list, a page and more of conversations that Donald Trump had with Mike Pence.
And some of that I believe gives us new detail. For example, at one point, Donald Trump tells Mike Pence, according to Jack Smith, to treat it not as a lost, the election, not as the lost, just as an intermission. So we are going to see some more details about those key conversations.
TAPPER: And we're going to go to Katelyn Polantz for more on that list of Pence conversations which does seem new.
How will the judge proceed from here? What happens next?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, the judge is going to have to look at this evidence, but one thing that is happening in this case is that the Justice Department is trying to draw that line between this is the evidence we've gathered. This is what we know publicly was happening that Donald Trump was doing publicly sending tweets, and this is how we can prove it to a jury in a way that's admissible in court because there's lots of the rules around that.
An example, Donald Trump in the dining room on January 6 at 2:24 p.m. Prosecutors are writing in this filing that they want to show in court Trump was alone in his dining room and he issued a tweet attacking Pence to fuel the ongoing riot. So this is the obstruction, the conspiracy, the heart of the case. And the way they say they're going to do it in this filing is they say we have testimony from somebody who was working in the White House as the White House deputy chief of staff.
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We want to call that person as a witness at trial. They're identifying him as a person 45. And when they call that person to try trial, that person will testify that he was the only person aside from Donald Trump, able to send a tweet on Donald Trump's Twitter account and the person 45, the witness is not the person that sent that to 2:24 p.m. tweet about Mike Pence, saying Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.
So pooling altogether to say, here's a witness who can point to what Donald Trump himself knowingly chose to do on January 6 to pressure or to obstruct the certification of the vote to fuel the rioters that were outside of the capital, putting that in a way that is coupled to what is actually known, these tweets from Donald Trump. They have to draw every single line very clearly in court and they also have to show the court in this brief how these things are not part of his presidential duties, how this was the campaign, and these were things Donald Trump was doing for himself and not for the country -- Jake.
TAPPER: And just thank you, Katelyn. Stick around and let us know when you find more stuff to talk about.
Just -- just to reiterate what this is fundamentally about. I understand all the politics of it. But just to understand what this is fundamentally, fundamentally about, at least according to special counsel Jack Smith, the factual proffer begins with, quote, when the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office with private coconspirators.
The defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states. That he had lost. So this is about crimes that were committed allegedly.
Let's bring in CNN's Evan Perez.
Evan, there are also details in here about another close Trump ally as Paula alluded to, not just Vice President Pence, but then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake, I mean, one of the things that the special the counsel is doing with this filing is that they're going state by state. You'll remember Jake, that part of the key -- the key effort here by Donald Trump and his team was to try to figure out a way to get some of these states that they believe were going to be close enough to then make them -- have litigation to be able to have go to the Supreme Court and perhaps get some -- some way, some kind of like 2000 era, you know, if you remember, Bush v. Gore, have the Supreme Court essentially give him the presidency in that way. That was the game.
And so what they were doing state-by-state as they were pushing forward, different conspiracy theories about different things. In the state of Georgia, one of the things that you see here on page 21, they talk about how they were pushing this idea that there were 10,000 dead voters who were -- who they say had cast ballots.
And one of the things you'll see the special counsel say the defendant had early notice that the claim of election fraud in Georgia was false. Around mid November, a campaign adviser identified as P4 told the defendant that has claimed that a large number of dead people had voted in Georgia was false. Now one of the things you see in the document, you see that they have -- clearly, they have access to Mark Meadows's communications, Jake. That was a key thing that was battled over between the Justice Department and the Trump team.
And so, the question remains, you know, what role will we see Mark Meadows play if this ever goes to trial? Are we going to see him, be brought to court and made to talk about some of these -- these private communications because some of these communications the special counsel notes, Jake, happened on his personal cell phone not on his phone, that he was using for government business.
So, again, there's a refrain you see in this document trying to make sure that people notice that this is all about private conduct, not Donald Trump's role as president, that he was working in his capacity as a candidate and key people like Mike Pence and Mark Meadows were essentially serving in roles not their constitutional roles inside the presidency -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Evan Perez, standby, and all of our experts all are correspondents covering this are going over the filing right now and when they find something important or something interesting, they're letting our team know. We go back to them and this is a first example of that.
Paula Reid is back with us now. Tell us more about what you're finding.
REID: So in speaking with the Trump side of this, Trump's lawyers have declined to comment, but they have issued an official statement from his spokesman, Steven Cheung. Now, they are trying to tie the release of this filing to the in November election, something I predicted short time ago, they would do saying, quote, the release of this falsehood written unconstitutional January 6 brief immediately following Tim Walz's disastrous debate performance is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine American democracy and interfere in this election.
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Deranged Jack Smith and Washington, D.C. radical Democrats are hell- bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power. President Trump is dominating and the radical Democrats throughout the deep state or freaking out. This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed entirely together with all the remaining Democratic hoaxes.
Now, clearly, that is filled with hyperbole and subjective statements about the race itself. But this is again, a more dramatic way of making the same argument that his lawyers have made, which is that releasing this evidence, allowing prosecutors to effectively summarize their case for the American public without a trial is unfair to their client. They say doing this -- this close to an election is not fair. They argue that it is unconstitutional.
We have seen similar arguments like this in all of the other Trump criminal cases. And I will note that the Supreme Court reviewed this case and they did not find that it was illegitimate or illegal. They just said that Trump has some immunity and ask the trial judge to assess the case accordingly.
TAPPER: Yeah, I was not commenting on the fairness or unfairness of it at all. I mean, it was a Trump legal tactic to delay, delay, delay, delay. This could have come out much earlier in the year. They delayed it as long as they could, were trying to delay it past the election. Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan said not so fast. But I understand their argument certainly.
Again, if you're just tuning in, there is a brand new court filing, 165 pages just dropped from special counsel Jack Smith. It is part of the prosecution of Donald Trump and the January 6 case.
This is our first look at this new evidence against Trump. It's coming 34 days before the election. Our reporters are digging into the filing. We're going to go back to them.
I'm also going to bring in a former Trump attorney. We also have some political commentators and other expert reporters.
Keep it here. We're back in a moment.
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TAPPER: We're back with our breaking news. Here it is a filing from the office of special counsel, Jack Smith, 165 pages long. It was released just moments ago. It outlines in detail evidence in his Jack Smith's federal election subversion case against Donald Trump.
And CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now. She covers the Trump campaign for us.
And, Kristen, this is dropping hoping about a month before the election. I have a feeling -- I know what we're going to hear from the Trump team. We heard a statement read by Paula. But what specifically are you hearing?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jake. Well, this is an immediate attempt to make this political and that is completely unsurprising given what we've seen time and time again from Donald Trump and from the campaign about all of his legal issues. He has worked to try and make this about the election to say that he is under persecution, that all of this is because Democrats don't want him in the White House. And today, as you heard, Paula Reid, that is no different. Now,
particularly as she said, this again, comes from a spokesperson from the campaign, they are saying that this is about the debate, about the fact that Vance had a good performance and that that's why Democrats, quote/unquote, Democrats, even though there's, of course, is coming from Jack Smith, not from Democrats, decided to release this today, essentially saying that Democrats are concerned they're not going to win the White House.
Again, we have seen this time and time again. It is a page from the same playbook in which he has tried to politicize all of these various legal issues as part of why he continues to go to these court appearances. The ones that he doesn't have to go to because he wants to draw attention to the fact that he's involved in these legal issues, if only to say that they are all fake, that he is not supposed to be under the legal attack.
And again, one thing to bring to the attention here is that these cases are all brought by different jurisdictions. Some of them are state cases. Some are brought by the DOJ.
But this idea and some are even civil cases. So some of the idea that this is all coming from the Department of Justice, and at the direction of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, there's absolutely no evidence of that.
But one thing to point out here, Jake, is that sometimes this works with some of his supporters. They believe that some of this is political persecution. So we can say over and over again that it's not. But Donald Trump himself has managed to convince people that this is all part of the political narrative in some ways, we've seen this help him when it comes to fundraising.
I will guarantee you that today they will release another fundraising email or fundraising text message as they tried to gain money for this, as they have and political gain heading into November.
TAPPER: But two things, these two ideas can be true at once, right, Kristen Holmes. I mean, it is true that anybody who is running for president, if something like this is dropped by a special counsel so close to an election, even people who think Trump did it in his guilty can say -- well, that seems really close to the election and his base would rally around it and raise money that can all be true.
And at the same time, it is also can be true that Donald Trump actually did everything that is being alleged in here.
HOLMES: Right.
TAPPER: I mean, both -- both facts, they're not exclusive.
HOLMES: They're not mutually exclusive, but one thing I will say is, yes, this is close to the election, but one thing I will note is that he has been doing this for two plus years in terms of linking this to the political. So I agree we're likely to hear a lot of Republican operatives come
out, even potentially people who don't support Donald Trump and say this is very close to the election. However, this is not a new strategy given the timing. This is something that he has repeatedly done and now can amplify this same narrative, particularly as we have closer to the election.
TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes, we're going to come back your way when you get more.
I'm going to bring back CNN legal analyst, Elie Honig, also joined by Bill Brennan who was an attorney for the Trump Payroll Corporation.
Elie, what is the goal of Jack Smith here?
HONIG: Well, Jake Jack Smith is trying to salvage his indictment as any prosecutor would and should do. And just to refresh everyone's memory, Jack Smith brought his initial indictment back last summer of 2023. A few months ago, the Supreme Court said much of what's in that indictment is immune. Donald Trump has immunity and it's out of the case.
Then, Jack Smith came back with a narrow down indictment. And in this filing, Jack Smith is arguing to the court what's left in my indictment is all kosher, smooth, so to speak. It's all good to go for trial. And the key dividing line there is, if it's an official act, then Donald Trump is immune and it's out of the case.
But if it's private, then it's not an official act and it can stay in the case and that, Jake, is the number one word that you see -- the number one theme that you see repeated throughout this filing by Jack Smith private. He argues all of this conduct was private. It was criminal, and it should stay in the case, Jack Smith argues.
TAPPER: Bill, I want to get your initial reaction to this filing.
WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, FORMER TRUMP PAYROLL CORP. ATTORNEY: Well, Jake, it's certainly not unusual for a prosecutor to lay out his best case in a trial memorandum, and that's basically what this is. It's kind of a written version of the closing of the opening argument the difference here is, as you pointed out earlier, we're 34 days election. This could have been filed under seal where it would have gotten to the court, the points would have been made, but it wouldn't be disseminated, you know, across the Internet, across the world a month about from an election.
So it's going to be an issue that the former president will take umbrage with in any criminal case. There's something called the Jencks Act where the prosecution must for any witness are going to call provide any statements or memorandum or anything they have. So that's not unusual, that they would lay out the case, either a trial memo or Jencks material or there's a Rule 26.2, you have to disclose it.
But it is a bit unusual to have it disclosed publicly when its Jack Smith's version of his case. You know, the president, like all of us, as American citizens when indicted for a crime or in this case for crimes, is presumed innocent and the problems going to be that when this is read by -- done to public, it could be taken as verbatim and factual and true when really it's only Mr. Smith's version of his best case.
TAPPER: Elie, how's Judge Chutkan going to proceed from here?
HONIG: So, Jake, what happens next is Donald Trump's team has opposed this and will continue to pose this. They will argue essentially like Bill was just laying out that all of this conduct related to his job as president. Therefore, it was official acts therefore, he was immune.
Judge Chutkan at the end of this probably after the election, will come down that was the ruling saying, here's what I find can stay in the case, and here's what I find if anything, is out of the case. But really important to note, the Supreme Court was explicit that Donald Trump will get to appeal that before he has to go to trial, which means no way we get a trial before the election. No way we get a trial really before the end of 2024. We are still a ways away.
So Judge Chutkan will decide, then Donald Trump gets to ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review it. And then if he loses there, he gets to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take a second look at this case.
TAPPER: So, Bill, Jack Smith lays out arguments in this brief as to why, for example, Donald Trump's tweets that Mike Pence let them down by, you know, following his constitutional duty that -- why that was the act of the private act of a desperate in Jack Smiths language, a desperate candidate who lost and not an official act of a U.S. president.
Do you think that Jack Smith could be successful in making that argument, getting around the immunity protections that the U.S. Supreme Court outlined earlier this year?
BRENNAN: Well, Jake, for him to survive. He has to be successful. This is fourth in short, and he's got to get across the goal line.
The decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the spring said that anything done as president is immune, anything done in private is not immune, then there's this heartland in the middle where if its equivocal, possibly presidential, possibly not. It's a rebuttable presumption that it's immune.
So he now has the task and he's trying to, in this under 65-page document to paint the former president, is in office seeker as opposed to an office holder. If he fails in those two quests, this case will be dismissed again.
TAPPER: Bill, if you could lay off the football analogies until the Eagles improve their record this season, that would be -- I think Elie would appreciate it.
HONIG: Ouch, ouch, Jake. It hurts.
TAPPER: Elie, we're all -- all three of us are Eagles fan just a reference there.
Bill and Elie, thanks so much.
The political panel is seated here at the table. They've been patiently studying the document, listening to the reporting. We're going to get their take on this all, next.
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[16:33:40]
TAPPER: And we're back with our breaking news, and this very lengthy, oh, so heavy filing from the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith released just moments ago, detailing the actions that Donald Trump allegedly talk to overturn the 2020 election. Jack Smith arguing that this was in his private capacity as a candidate, not as a president.
Let's bring in our political panel to talk about this.
Alex, you're the journalists at the table as opposed to the two partisans. What's your take on all this drop in right now?
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, Democrats have been really debating since January 6 itself how much it was going to affect the 2024 election, and they're really divided. Now if Joe Biden was still the nominee, they -- they would be taking this document and sending it to every single journalist out there and they would probably be focusing on it. They would be cutting ads and spending a lot of money on it.
Kamala Harris is not focused as much on January 6. Now, she did just cut an ad today featuring J.D. Vance's evasion of the answer about January 6 from last nights debate. But the fact is that she is not leaned in as much on the democracy argument. A lot of her advisers do not think basically, I think that January 6 is baked in, in terms of people's -- people's expectations that in terms of the political effects.
Basically, the images of January 6 are going to be much more, you know, effective or consequential than any new details in this report.
TAPPER: I don't know if I believe that though.
Marc, what do you think? I mean, like, I think any new attention to this and there are new details in here.
[16:35:03]
You're -- you used to work for Vice President Pence. There are a number of descriptions of phone -- I had no idea he was so outspoken behind the scenes, trying to tell his boss, Donald Trump, that no, you did not win the election, you did not. I didn't see, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He actually comes across as fairly heroic and stalwart in here, even more so than he had been portrayed before.
But what do you think? I mean, I'm sure you take issue with the release date of this new album dropping.
MARC LOTTER, CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE: Yeah. I mean, obviously that's a very easy talking point and I think every time this has happened, he's gotten either more popular, he has seen a spike in fundraising.
And this is actually, I think Jack Smith, I can't try my case before the election, so I'm going to put it on paper and try it with no response. I mean, pick any page, any allegation, if Judge Chutkan or if the appeals court says nope, that was in his personal capacity, so the official capacity, throw it out. God matters been talked about for the next 34 days. That's what this is about.
I mean, remember Paula saying at the top of the show, unprecedented, unprecedented. Voters have to know before the election. This is his only shot to do it, because if Trump wins, the case goes away.
TAPPER: There is a tradition of I forget the exact number of days, but 90 days, 60 days where like the Justice Department says, okay, were not going to release anything in this -- in this two-month period before the election and it was famously violated by FBI Director James Comey before the June 2016 election. And here we have it again.
ALENCIA JOHNSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think the new precedent is to make sure that that voters have as much information as possible to be informed at the ballot box. And look, I think it is a coincidence. I don't think it had anything to do with one another at this came out literally today after the debate last night, especially because it takes so long to get all this evidence together.
But I'm thinking about what the American people are looking at. The fact that the moment that Tim Walz did have last night was actually cornering J.D. Vance, who would not answer about whether or not Donald Trump lost the election. And then you have pages and pages of evidence that's saying that Donald Trump, he even said I got to skim through just a little bit, even said on page 20 that he didn't have enough evidence on the ground in Arizona around voter fraud, enough facts on the ground on voter fraud in Arizona, and was pushing for legislators to convene, even though he knew that he did not have the facts.
So I think this supports those informed the supports the argument that a lot of informed voters are looking for to not vote for Donald Trump when it comes to what happened on January 6.
TAPPER: So you just referred to I think it's fair to call it Vance's worst moment and Walz's best moment, if not Walz's only good moment as some -- some analysts would have it last time at the debate, but it wasn't important one and it's so important that the Harris campaign has already cut an ad. I don't know if you guys have that ready, that -- the TV ad that they already he cut, but let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Did he lose the 2020 election?
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tim, I'm focused on the future.
WALZ: That is a damning non-answer.
SUBTITLE: If we elect Donald Trump, the past will be the future.
WALZ: America, I think you've got a really clear choice of who's going to honor that democracy and who's going to honor Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, Senator Vance said that the Donald Trump, that there was a peaceful transfer of power, but that's not true and we all know it wasn't true. We all saw it.
Why did he handle it that way do you think?
LOTTER: Well, I think the pivot at the beginning was focusing on the future, which is probably where he has to go. And that's the -- and that's the obvious answer. I would have probably advised him to go in a different direction with the rest of the answer.
TAPPER: What would you have said?
LOTTER: I would have gotten into the fact that in the six presidential elections we've had this century, four of them have been challenged, at -- on January 6 in the House.
JOHNSON: So, what about, yes, he did lose?
LOTTER: And it was 2000, 2004, 2016, supposed to arguing who's to blame and who's to not. Let's get together and fix the problem.
JOHNSON: But just to answer, did he lose?
LOTTER: So we don't have this going forward ever again.
TAPPER: I don't think it's the objections in the House of Representatives at issue.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
TAPPER: It's the violence and the dead people and beat up cops and, you know, all this.
Everyone, don't go far. We're going to continue this conversation about this landmark, unprecedented filing that just dropped moments ago.
I'm hearing our CNN justice teams have found new information in this new court filing worthy of talking about. We're going to take a quick break, bring them back in, get you up to speed.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:43:26]
TAPPER: And back to our breaking news, this new court filing showing never before seen evidence that outlines how special counsel Jack Smith is hoping to build his 2020 election subversion case against former President Trump, unless, of course, Trump wins and dismisses the whole thing.
Let's bring in CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Paula Reid.
Paula, first to you -- how is Jack Smith now, you've had some time to go through this, trying to get around the Supreme Courts ruling earlier this year which provides President Trump with the cloak of at least some presidential immunity for official acts.
REID: That's exactly right. If the former president is reelected, we know his attorney general would dismiss this case. But if he's not re- elected, this case will continue and it is expected, and the sources I speak with on both sides of this case that it will return to the Supreme Court because there was an implicit invitation in their decision back in July, first, to let the Trial Court Judge Tanya Chutkan review the case, look at the Supreme Court's opinion that make a decision about what remains, and then to return to the Supreme Court for any further clarification.
So what's so interesting is in this filing and this was flagged by our Supreme Court reporter, John Fritze, is he's clearly trying to Supreme Court-proof what remains of his case by making a separation of powers argument, he is arguing that the executive branch has no role in selecting the president. So then he says, look, so anything Trump did was outside his role as president, and therefore, it was private and should not be protected.
He says, quote, they sought to encroach on power specifically assigned by the Constitution to other branches to advance his own self- interests and perpetuate himself in power contrary to the will of the people.
[16:45:02]
That is Supreme Court justice love language right there, Jake. He right there is making an appeal to the Supreme Court foreseeing another trip to the high court if Trump is not reelected.
TAPPER: Katelyn, the special counsel is apparently paying close attention to Donald Trump's campaign speeches.
POLANTZ: Yeah, not only that, they want to use his own words against him before a jury when this goes to trial, they say that there were two speeches that Donald Trump gave after the election, one in Georgia and then that speech on the ellipse on January 6, where his supporters then left listening to him, and went to the Capitol to riot and get into break into that building.
One of the things that they say is that just listen to what Donald Trump was saying in these speeches. He keeps talking about how there was fraud, but he's only talking about himself. The prosecutors are telling the court that he's talking about his own election in the margin of victory in his race, but not about any down-ballot races that other members of the House that he was trying to enlist may have lost.
He keeps using the pronoun we to talk to his own supporters, not the broad swath of the American electorate. And then also they say he keeps in those speeches talking about Joe Biden, the person he was running against.
So, a lot there that they want to bring me into trial.
TAPPER: All right. Katelyn, Paula, we'll check back with you as you comb over the new filing.
I also want to get no to a different lawsuit moving through courts and battlegrounds, Georgia, this one is from Trump allies of questions voting machines security. Is there any credibility to these claims or is this more about sowing seeds of doubt? We'll bring you that story, next.
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[16:50:35]
TAPPER: We're back with the breaking news. A brand-new 165-page court filing from special counsel Jack Smith and the January 6 case detailing various ways Donald Trump allegedly tried to break the law.
Our teams are digging through the filing that provides some never before seen evidence. This, of course, is dropping less than five weeks before election day. We'll have more from that filing in a moment.
But, first, there's another case that I want to tell you about, right before this election. Of course, this one is a lawsuit from Republican Trump allies, and it is trying to question the accuracy of voting machines specifically in Georgia. Georgia, of course, the state the Joe Biden flipped blue in 2020, the same state that Donald Trump made this infamous phone call about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This lawsuit from Trump allies also specifically goes after machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. Remember Dominion? That's the same company that was smeared in 2020. It forced Fox News to pay out a $787.5 million settlement for said its smears. That's the largest settlement of its kind.
Now in 2024, Republicans and Trump allies are claiming that Dominion voting machines are, quote, not in compliance with Georgia law. And therefore, it should not be used because they are not safe, nor secure.
Let's bring in CNN's Zachary Cohen, as long -- as well as a Sara Murray.
Thanks for being here, guys. Appreciate it.
So you've been following this case closely, with 34 days from election. Georgia is neck and neck. We have no idea who's going to win there.
What do these plaintiffs claim is so wrong with the voting machines and is there any reason to take this seriously?
ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Jake, these are DeKalb County officials in Georgia, Republican officials who are drawing on some credible evidence that has emerged in the year since 2020 and even before then, that there are certain vulnerabilities to these voting systems. But ultimately, there is no proof that those vulnerabilities have ever been exploited to cause the kind of massive voter fraud that Donald Trump and his allies have been claiming impacted the 2020 election.
And these Republican officials in Georgia are essentially arguing that these voting machines don't meet the threshold to be able to certify the election results. It can't be trusted. They're not secure and therefore should not be essentially used in the 2024 election.
They want different rules put into place just weeks before the election, changing the rules, weeks before the election as a result of this lawsuit. And look, there's a high amount of skepticism about the intention behind this particular lawsuit. The lawyers were representing the county officials are some familiar faces that we saw during the 2020 election. They brought a series of lawsuits in the time after that that have all failed based on these or similar claims about Dominion voting machines.
So, ultimately, we're going to see what Judge Scott McAfee, who you may remember from the Georgia criminal case. He's overseeing this civil suit, what he decides if he lets this lawsuit go forward. But again, the proximity to the election itself and the fact that these lawyers and these county officials don't seem to be asking for any sort of actual remedy in response to the concerns raises questions about what their motivations are about.
TAPPER: So, you know, this is not irrelevant to what we're seeing now because the -- in terms of the new filing from Jack Smith about Donald Trump trying to overturn the 2020 election. This seems very much possibly designed to help Donald Trump if he makes arguments to try to overturn the 2024 election, should he lose that? Although again, I -- it's neck-and-neck.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, look, there's a wave of litigation going on right now in Georgia and all these other battleground states and it's not just about machines, it's about what the voting rolls list looks like and people with that should be purged from there in Georgia, it's about, you know, needing to hand-count ballots at every precinct after the polls close on election night.
And a lot of this Democrats and voting rights groups say, has to do with Republicans laying the groundwork to really try to challenge groups of ballots are challenged the overall election results if Donald Trump comes up just short, if the margins are very tight as we expect them to be on election night. So in some ways, he's sort of see the aftermath of what happened in 2020 is still playing out Donald Trump's still not facing the ramifications of that at the time when Republicans are beginning to sort of lay the groundwork for how to launch some of these contests in 2024.
TAPPER: So, again, I mean, Donald Trump was sowing seeds of doubt in 2012 when he was supporting Romney before Romney lost.
[16:55:07]
And in 2016, although he ended up winning so there goes that. 2020, I mean, this is -- this is -- this is his play. This is -- this is his one go-to move.
For these Trump ally lawyers, I mean, we're 34 days before the election. If they were really concerned about this, why didn't they do this a year ago?
MURRAY: Well, there was a lot of litigation around this previously, you know, it didn't get the result. They were hoping for, which is to get rid of these voting machines and the belief is that a lot of the reason you bring these so close to election day is to try to create this aura of doubt, this aura of potential so misinformation and to create a public concern around what's going to go on.
TAPPER: And we should remember, and remind people, you know, they were grabbing -- the Trump team was grabbing an every public conspiracy theory, including, I think there was something about the Italians using satellites. I mean --
COHEN: Chinese thermostats, right?
TAPPER: Chinese thermostats.
COHEN: Chinese hacking thermostats.
TAPPER: Oh, yeah. There was also the ninja. What was the Cyber Ninjas? Oh, boy. Okay. Here we go again.
Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
The other big case today, of course, is this brand new court filing from special counsel Jack Smith. All right. Here it is right here, 165 pages that just dropped. It's against Donald Trump.
Our reporters are going through the pages now. Next, we're going to have the new details about Vice President Mike Pence and reported actions around the 2020 election telling Trump that he lost the election over and over and over. We did not know a lot of these details. We'll tell you about them next. Plus, how this filing gives us a much better sense of the case long term/
We'll be right back.
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