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Rep. George Santos In Custody As DOJ Unseals Federal Charges; Trump Vows To Appeal Jury Finding He Sexually Abused, Defamed Carroll. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 10, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:22]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, a congressman facing a judge. Republican Congressman George Santos expected to arrive to a New York courthouse very soon after prosecutors filed criminal charges against him.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The Biden administration rolling out unprecedented measures to address a flood of migrants at the southern border, as Title 42 is set to end in less than 48 hours.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Brand new numbers just in new welcome signs that inflation is cooling. All of this right here on CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: Republican Congressman George Santos, almost better known for his lies than his work in Congress, he's expected to arrive at a Long Island courthouse very soon to face federal charges. The Department of Justice filed those charges under seal overnight, meaning of course that we don't yet know what he's really facing. We do know that public integrity prosecutors with the FBI and DOJ have been investigating allegations of making false statements in his campaign finance filings, and of course other claims.

Santos has a lengthy history of making false statements as you know. He's claimed that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He said that he earned a master's degree in business from NYU, and later admitted that he didn't graduate from any college or university. He also claimed that his grandparents survived the Holocaust, which a CNN investigation found was not true. And Santos said also that his mother was at the World Trade Center on 911. Records, however, show that repeated claim was also not true.

And then there was the two New Jersey veterans who claimed that they were duped by Santos, claiming that Santos took $3,000 from a GoFundMe account that was intended to help a dying service dog. CNN's Brynn Gingras is outside the court with much more on what is going to happen today. Brynn?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Kate, you're expecting the Republican congressman to come here to Central Islip and show up to the federal courthouse. That's why you can see the crush of media that is behind me waiting for him to actually arrive sometime possibly, even soon. And just like every other citizen we're hearing, it's very likely that he'll have to make that walk from where you see those photographers, all the way up those steps to the front door of that courthouse where he is facing that indictment.

Again, we don't know the details of those charges. But you just laid out all those falsehoods, those lies that Santos has been connected to ever since before he even took office. And of course, none of those would actually land him behind bars. It's a different game now with this indictment being filed. Of course, again, we don't know the details of those charges but we are expecting to find out more as the morning goes down.

We also know though that the district -- sorry, the Department of Justice was investigating Santos even the end of last year looking into how he's made his money and contributions to his successful 2022 campaign. $700,000, more than that, was contributed to his campaign. And there are questions about where did that money come from. There's also been scrutiny around expenditures by his campaign. So these are all things that are possible now criminal activity that we will wait to learn more.

Now, we also know about a number of investigations that have sort of been going on not only by the DOJ but the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, the Ethics Committee, and all of its sort of culminating until this morning. So we're waiting to see if when the Congressman arrives and we'll continue to update you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Brynn, stay close please because this is where all the action is going to be this morning. It's, of course, not illegal to lie to the public. It is illegal to lie under campaign finance filings. Sara?

SIDNER: And as we follow these federal charges against Congressman Santos, I want to bring in Elie Honig, speaking of legal, senior legal analyst for CNN and former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Elie, there are lies, just as Kate mentioned, that make you look morally bankrupt and untrustworthy. But they don't necessary cross that legal line. What is the thing that we think he may have crossed into?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So you're right, Sara, not all lies are crimes. It's not a crime to lie to the public about your ancestry, about your resume, about your volleyball playing skills as George Santos did. But what could be a crime is to lie to the authorities, if there were lies contained in his election paperwork that he would have to submit to the Federal Election Commission, or if he used lies in order to defraud people of money which is one of the other things that's been reported. Those things are crimes so that's what I'm looking for when we see this indictment probably quite soon.

[09:05:07]

SIDNER: All right. At this point in time, the indictment all of the charges are, if there are more than one, seal. Why are they sealed and when might we see this? Will it be first thing in court or maybe not? HONIG: So this is a typical way that prosecutors will charge a case. You file the case under seal, meaning not available to the public on, let's say, day one, with the idea of having the person either arrested or surrender on day two. So now it looks like Santos, according to Brynn's reporting, is expected to arrive in court soon. When he arrives, he then has to be processed.

Now that can take a bit of time depending on the volume of traffic that can take hours, in fact, but here we are in Central Islip, which is actually not as busy a courthouse as the one in Brooklyn or Manhattan. So George Santos will appear. He will be processed. He will then make an appearance in front of the judge. At that point, the indictment will be unsealed and then we will see the specific charges against him.

SIDNER: Because as a defendant, you have to hear what the charges are against you so you can defend yourself.

HONIG: This is an arraignment. Yes, this is what we call an arraignment. The judge will say here's the charges against you. Do you want me to read them in open court or have you read them with your attorney? How do you plead? He surely will plead not guilty today.

SIDNER: All right. Let me ask you about -- we talked about, you know, sort of lies and what that means but the legalities. What about lies and politics, because when it comes to a case like this, it's a criminal case. If he is convicted, I know we're going way for it and he is innocent until proven guilty. But if he is convicted, does that preclude him from being in Congress?

HONIG: Believe it or not the answer is no. A person can theoretically serve in Congress, even if they've been indicted, even if they've been convicted, even if they've been sentenced. The only way to get rid of someone is to either vote them out when that comes around, or Congress does have the ability to expel its members. You need a two thirds vote in order to do that. And if you do the math here, that's going to require every Democratic vote plus about 77 Republican votes to hit that two thirds threshold. We'll see if that ever happens.

SIDNER: All right. Elie Honig, we have a long way to go. In this case, it has just begun. Thank you so much for all of that analysis. John?

BERMAN: So this morning, former president and current White House candidate Donald Trump is valley to appeal after a jury in New York found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. After less than three hours of deliberations, the jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million. The writer who claimed the Trump attacked her in the 1990s spoke to CNN Last Hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

E. JEAN CARROLL, WON DEFAMATION CASE AND SEXUAL ABUSE CASE AGAINST DONALD TRUMP: The old view of what the perfect victim looks like totally changed. The old view of the perfect victim was a woman who always scream, a woman who immediately reported, a woman whose life is supposed to fold up and she's never supposed to experience happiness again. That was just shut down with this verdict. He did it and you know it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. CNN's Kara Scannell was in the courtroom as the verdict was read and she joins us now. Kara, a dramatic day. You saw it all unfolding, so what now?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. It was a dramatic day and it only took them less than three hours to deliver that verdict. And it took Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopina, about an hour and a half after that verdict to come out and address the media. And he told us that the former president, he spoke with him he said that he was strong. They looked to move forward and that they were going to appeal.

Now, we heard a little bit from Trump on his social media platform last night, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: This was a very unfair trial, that's all you have to say. This was a very unfair trial.

SCANNELL (voice-over): Now, Trump also went on to criticize both the jury and the judge in this case. And the judge, though, we have to remember, gave Trump extra time, an additional weekend to decide if he wanted to testify in this case, and Trump decided not to.

Now, his attorney says that they will appeal and he's pointed to a couple of areas. He's pointing to some evidence that came in. He wanted to keep the Access Hollywood tape out. That tape is something that Carroll's attorneys really capitalized on in their closing arguments. They called it a confession when Trump was asked about that in his deposition and said that, you know, stars historically can do that, you know, unfortunately or fortunately.

And he also wants to appeal on not being able to introduce evidence about a Democratic donor who helped finance some of Carroll's campaign. The judge had heard arguments on that beforehand, and he decided to keep that evidence out. So we're going to see Trump continue to fight this in court, which is not an unfamiliar tactic of his usually appeals decisions. And it looks like that's the path forward here, John.

BERMAN: It is, of course, his right to appeal this unanimous jury verdict. Kara Scannell, it was great hearing your reporting yesterday, great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for being with us. Sara?

SIDNER: Continuing on here with this case. So what exactly did E. Jean Carroll have to prove to win her civil case? Here's what the jury of six men and three women had to assess.

[09:10:01]

The civil suit was filed in November under New York State's Adult Survivors Act which took away the statute of limitations in sexual assault cases for a certain period of time allowing Carroll's 1996 allegation to be considered because this case was civil, not criminal.

The jury had to determine whether Donald Trump committed allegations by a "preponderance of the evidence," a fancy way of saying he more likely than not greater than 50% is liable in the case.

For the defamation claim, Carroll's team had to prove Trump knew it was false and knowingly exposed her to public ridicule when he published a statement calling Carroll's allegations a hoax and con job, and insisted Carroll was "not his type." But during Trump's deposition, Trump saw this photo of Carroll and confused her with his ex-wife, Marla Maples.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: That's Marla, yes. That's my wife.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which one are you pointing to?

TRUMP: Here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person you just pointed to is E. Jean Carroll.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: As for the battery claim, Carroll's team played for the jury Trump's now infamous Access Hollywood tape which he later doubled down on when to post.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what you said, correct?

TRUMP: Well, historically, that's true with stars. Not always but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The jury ultimately and unanimously found Trump sexually abused Carroll, which was sufficient to hold him liable for battery. Kate?

BOLDUAN: There are new numbers out just this morning showing annual inflation cooled off slightly in April, climbing by just 4.9% for the past 12 months. And economists had expected that the report to show consumer prices rise by 5% year over year. So again, what does this all mean? CNN's Christine Romans is back with me once again.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: So does this mean that the Feds rate hikes are working? ROMANS: It sure looks like it, and when you look at this number behind us that is the smallest number in two years exactly. So that means we're going here in the right direction. The smallest 12 month increase in two years.

Shelter, used cars, gasoline, these were the things that were driving prices higher. But when you look at the trend, the trend is clearly showing peaking here in the inflation story, 10 --

BOLDUAN: (Inaudible) I'm an economists but that looks like a peak.

ROMANS: The trend is your friend as they say in charting in economics, but 10 months of those going down in a row. So slightly deceleration, I would say, over the past 10 months. When you look at the overall month to month, it grew about 0.4%, you know, it's been a little choppy month to month because of all these different factors that we chart here, but going in the right direction.

One of the things that has made inflation issue number one for American families is that, the wage gains they've been enjoying over the past few years have been eaten up by these price hikes. And you can see that starting to narrow a little bit. The difference between wage gains and inflation --

BOLDUAN: This is helpful, yes.

ROMANS: That's showing you that that gap is narrowing a little bit, and so people might be able to start to feel better about the economy if inflation can come down. And they can keep hold of those decent wage gains. They've had the best wage gains, actually, in the last couple of years that we've seen in a decade or so.

BOLDUAN: Interesting.

ROMANS: Great to see you. Let's leave it right there.

BOLDUAN: Yes. We actually have lowly but surely.

ROMANS: You see a trend finally, rather than saying it's still confusing.

BOLDUAN: That's right.

ROMANS: We'll wait till next month.

SIDNER: It's nice to not have the confusion, all right. The President and top congressional leaders are now scheduled to meet again after apparently making little to no progress on the debt ceiling during Tuesday's meeting at the White House. Neither side seems willing to budge from their positions.

They're scheduled to meet now Friday as the clock continues to tick down toward a potentially catastrophic default as early as June 1st. That's just a couple of weeks away. CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill with more. Lauren, the two sides, as I just mentioned, not willing to sort of budge from their position, so why is there any hope that Friday will be any different?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know, Sara, that the staff is going to meet this afternoon, begin a series of meetings that they hope will shake some things loose. But like you noted, it's never a good sign. If an after a high stakes meeting like the one that you saw yesterday, all parties all leaders come out and basically hold their own press conferences digging in into the positions that they already held previous to that meeting. Here's what they said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: Everyone agree that deficit to falling the debt is off the table. I know we have the time. I mean, we could do it easily but do we have the will?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I didn't see any new movement. The President said the staff should get back together. But I was very clear with the President, we have now just two weeks to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:15:02]

FOX: And this morning on Capitol Hill, Kevin McCarthy holding a series of meetings with his conference. He just finished a meeting with one group in his Republican conference, the Main Street Caucus. And I'm told from multiple meetings, members who came out of that meeting, that essentially McCarthy just reiterated the same position that he feels very comfortable with the fact that House Republicans have passed a plan that would increase the debt ceiling as well as cut spending in the United States.

But I asked members, are you worried? Are you at all concerned about the fact that you guys could get blamed for this if there's a default? We're just a few weeks away. Members told me over and over again, they feel confident in their position. McCarthy meeting now with the full Republican conference just off of Capitol Hill, we'll see if he has any more message for his conference. Sara?

SIDNER: Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill for us. Thank you. John?

BERMAN: All right. As migrants continue to gather at the southern border, the White House is preparing for what the President calls a chaotic end to Title 42. After mounting calls for her resignation during a three month absence, Senator Dianne Feinstein is back on Capitol Hill, what her return means for Congress? And an amazing rescue in Michigan. An eight-year-old goes camping, gets lost in the woods and survives for two days all by himself. Wait till you hear what he did to survive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:35] BERMAN: All right. Welcome back. We do have breaking news. The Justice Department has just unsealed the federal charges against New York member of Congress George Santos. The Republican member we are told is currently in custody. CNN's Brynn Gingras is live outside the courthouse on Long Island. Brynn, what do you hear?

GINGRAS: Yes. We're just hearing, John, that George Santos is in custody. And this indictment has been unsealed. I want to give you some quick details as we're going through the paperwork. He is charged on a 13 count indictment. According to those court documents, the charges include seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

Again, we're just getting this indictment. It has just been unsealed. We're hearing that Santos is inside the federal court courthouse here behind me and he has been arrested on these charges. And, of course, we're learning that he will see a judge later today very likely on these charges. But we are still going through that paperwork to get the details of these counts. Again, though, 13 count indictment just unsealed including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

BERMAN: All right. Brynn Gingras fringing grass for us outside the courthouse. Brynn, thank you very much. We'll let you dig through this indictment more as more details become public. Thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: Indicted, now it is unsealed. And now he is in custody. Wire fraud, Elie, money laundering, theft of public funds, what do you make of that?

HONIG: So we have not seen the actual indictment yet. But based on that description for Brynn, let's sort of run through generally what the statutes are.

Wire fraud is a very broadly used statute that basically says, to steal anything from anybody by lying to them. The wire part just means you did it over the internet or the phone, something that's always going to apply to. So this is going to apply to some sort of fraud, whereby George Santos presumably took money from somebody else by lying to them.

Then we have money laundering. Now, that means taking the proceeds, the money that you stole, and hiding it somehow, trying to conceal it from investigators, then we have theft of public funds. Now, that's interesting. That means not only did he steal money from some private individual, but it would have to be some sort of public money, some sort of federal or state governmental money. So I'm interested to see what that is about.

And then finally, making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. This is what we were talking about, I think, before, Sara, that you have to make certain campaign related disclosures to the House, of course, lying to the house, whether during verbal testimony or in documents that you file that too is a federal crime. SIDNER: So I was just sort of looking at this up and that money laundering, if you can get up to 20 years. I mean, these charges are very serious and hold a lot of time potentially, if he's convicted.

HONIG: they are very serious. Most of these charges are going to carry 20 year maximums. Now we have to be careful whenever we talk about these maximums because it's very rare, putting aside your murder type cases. It's very rare that anyone gets the maximum or anything near it.

But ultimately, this looks to me like it's not all based on one thing. This isn't all about one transaction or one fraud.

BOLDUAN: They are not based on his resume.

HONIG: No, absolutely not.

BOLDUAN: -- salacious noxious lies some of his resume that we've -- that we -- were first introduced to George Santos.

HONIG: Right. None of this has to do with him claiming what his background is, his heritage is, his family is, his resume. Now, prosecutors ultimately might try to introduce that at a trial to support some of these other charges. But no, this looks like, again, based on the charges, a sort of -- well, it's atypical because involves a member of Congress, but in some respects a standard fraud and false statements case.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, standby for a minute. We have our justice correspondent Evan Perez with us somewhere. I will look and find him. Evan, there you are.

Evan, look, it strikes me, by the way. Also, there are financial crimes here alleged was generally means paper trail records, cases that are tough for a defendant. Talk to me about the breadth of the charges here.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, look, I mean, the fact is that this is a congressman who's only been in office for, you know, four to five months, and there has been just a stunning number of allegations of frauds and lies that he's been facing, and under scrutiny for.

[09:25:10]

And it's clear, and this is something that we heard repeatedly during the investigation. You know, the FBI and prosecutors knew that there was going to be plenty to work with here. They knew that there was there was a lot of paperwork. Every one of these things that he filed with a government agency was potentially a crime. And the fact that it took this long, I think some members of Congress yesterday were remarking that -- I'm surprised it took this long.

Well, part of the reason was that they kept finding new things to investigate. And, again, what you see here in this indictment is just the basics that what the Justice Department, what the FBI, really, you know, it's their bread and butter, which is to look at, you know, some of the financial statements that he's made, some of the things that he did to raise money, according to the indictment, which were fraudulent.

And so, those are the things that, as you pointed out, are very difficult for a defendant to defend themselves against because either you file the paperwork, and it was false, or you didn't. And we know you filed it because we have it. So that's part of the problem here for the congressman. And we'll see, you know, whether he decides to go to trial, or whether there's a way for him to figure out a way to make a deal as he did with Brazilian authorities just a few weeks ago, where he admitted to a fraud there in Brazil from several years ago, in order to avoid having to go back and face a trial there.

So again, this is -- we're still reading through the indictment, 20 pages or so, to see what exactly he's accused of here. But again, so much that the FBI had had to work with over the last few months.

BOLDUAN: Evan, stick with us, if you will. I want to go to Katelyn Polantz as well. Katelyn is joining us in Washington. Katelyn, talk to talk to us a little bit more about one of the big questions all along has been also violations of campaign finance laws. What are you picking up on that?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right. Well, this is a really meaty indictment. I'm still going through it. But even at the top, whenever you're looking at it, the thing that jumps out is that the federal prosecutors were able to discover political contributions that did not go to George Santos' political candidacy.

So they say, in this indictment, that September and October in 2022, so not that long ago, he was taking in money that was supposed to be used to his candidacy into a company. But that was a false pretense. Instead, it was going to things like luxury designer clothing and credit card payments for personal expenses. He was soliciting it for personal expenses.

And so, that's a pretty meaty charge on its own. There are other violations here related to his political life. There are campaign finance violations that are outlined here. There are also violations relating to what he was telling the House about his own employment, about the money he had. But even that, we don't get a lot of more specifics than the luxury designer clothing, credit card payment detail here in this indictment. But it really is, on its own, just an astonishing thing that it was taking in money from political donors. And it was going to -- not that, it was going to benefit George Santos himself apparently based on what we're reading so far.

BERMAN: Katelyn Polantz, keep reading. You've got the paper copy right now. Please dig in more and fill us in when you get this new information. Elie Honig, based on what you just heard from Katelyn Polantz, what gives --

HONIG: Yes. So that's really interesting. So the idea here is the fraud, as he said, okay, people who support me politically, donate to my campaign, and I will use it to buy yard signs and ads, and win a seat in Congress. Instead, according to Katelyn's reading of the indictment, he basically pocketed that money and used it for his own personal expenses, which you cannot do.

BOLDUAN: And this is after he's under scrutiny. This isn't pre- election. This is after he was already under scrutiny, according to what Katelyn just said, October-September of 2022.

HONIG: 2022, right. That just happened, yes. So that's, you know, he was up for election in, I guess, November of 2022. So it would have absolutely overlapped with the election itself.

BERMAN: I hesitate to use this term, but I can't think of one better on the moment. This is JV stuff, when you're -- you raising money in a campaign. The one thing you know when you raise money for a campaign is you can't spend campaign money on personal stuff.

HONIG: Yes. It's remarkably in some sense, unsophisticated. I mean, there's all we've seen politicians over the years, sort of, in more sophisticated ways, launder money, maybe that'll come into play here, but use it in ways where maybe it's arguable as a campaign expenses, as a personal expense. But the things that Katelyn just laid out there, that are laid out in the indictment are seemingly undoubtedly personal expenses. So if prosecutors can prove that.

And by the way, prosecutors are going to be very careful before they bring a charge against a sitting member of congress. So if they can prove that then that'll make out the wire fraud claims.

SIDNER: And you made the point that this has happened fairly fast.

HONIG: Yes.

SIDNER: So, you know, the evidence, they have to have it in order to go forward with this obviously.

[09:30:00]