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George Santos in Custody as DOJ Unseals Federal Charges; Biden Rolls Out Unprecedented Measures Ahead of Title 42 Expiration; Thousands of Migrants Waiting in Northern Mexico as Title 42 Nears End; Trump Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired May 10, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:13]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The breaking news, Republican Congressman George Santos now in federal custody and facing a major legal battle in a 13-count indictment. New details about what is inside.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The crisis at the border is right now ramping up as we're looking at the final hours of Title 42. More than 10,000 migrants trying to get into the U.S. yesterday alone. We're live in Washington and in Mexico.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Also, should teams undergo training before they get a social media account? A group of psychologists is pushing just that. These stories and more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: A lot of developing news right before our very eyes. Happening now, Republican Congressman George Santos is in federal custody. He is facing a 13-count indictment. The charges include wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to the House of Representatives. Prosecutors allege that Santos solicited campaign funds under false pretenses and then they say he used the money for personal expenses.

Let's get more information about what this indictment includes, new information as we continue to pore over it. Let's bring in CNN law enforcement correspondent Mark Morales.

Mark, tell us what you're finding.

MARK MORALES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we are finally learning the details from this wide-ranging investigation. It's been a long time coming. We know that this has been a months' long investigation, and we're finally learning what's in this.

So as you said, a 13-count indictment, seven for wire fraud, three for money laundering, one for theft of public funds, and two more for making false statements. And these are all related to funds that were acquired during the 2020 and 2022 campaigns.

In one instance he defrauded political supporters. He took thousands of dollars that he said was going to his campaign and really but he was just putting it in his pockets. He was using it to buy lavish things for himself, designer clothing, a car. In another instance, he had a job. He was earning over $100,000 a year but he was still filing for unemployment. He earned about $24,000 during that period.

And finally, there was another instance where they have him with lying about the disclosure forms that he made to the House where in some instances he's overstating how much he's earning and in others he's understating. So it's months' long of the investigation. We know that many agencies have been involved. You know, in looking into George Santos and this is finally where we are today after months of this investigation.

BERMAN: All right. Mark Morales, again, outside the courthouse on Long Island. Thank you for your reporting. We'll check back in with you again soon. Sara?

SIDNER: CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with more.

Now, Evan, there has been a mystery that you've been talking about as to exactly why George Santos was misleading his income to the House Ethics Committee. Tell me more about that and now solved, I'm assuming?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I think there's a little bit of a picture here that the Justice Department paints in this indictment. There's still more, and by the way, it's clear from the Justice Department that they're still investigating him. There may be additional charges that could be brought here.

Keep in mind, these charges relate largely -- the campaign finance picture that we see here is only from things that happened in 2022. So we know that they've been examining some of his earlier financial disclosures and that is still in process, but one of the things that emerges is back in 2020 it appears that he is understating what his -- what his income was according to this indictment.

He talks about having only bonuses totaling about $55,000 according to this indictment, but then you skip forward to the 2022 campaign, the later campaign, and according to this, you know, the Justice Department says that he essentially overstated it. At the time part of the congressman's public persona was that he was this rich guy, that he had this -- again, he had constructed this elaborate story of how he had all this income from private wealth.

That he was a former investment banker. According to the Justice Department, you know, what they say here is that, you know, basically he was getting $28,000 from one investment firm that he was working for and no more than $20,000 were in his bank accounts and that was from unemployment fraud, which is the fact that he had applied for unemployment insurance from the Department of Labor in the state of New York.

[10:05:11]

But he was actually still working. He was getting a salary. So according to the Justice Department here what Santos was doing in the later campaign was trying to overstate how much money he has to fit the persona that he was trying to sell to voters at the time.

SIDNER: Evan, you've been all over this. You, Mark Morales and Gregory Krieg broke the story that he was being charged and now we are seeing those charges, 13 of them. Thank you so much live there from Washington, D.C. for us. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So as we follow all of these next steps for Congressman George Santos, I want to bring in former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers for much more on this.

You've been looking through this indictment as well, Jennifer. What surprises you in here? What sticks out to you in here?

JENNIFER RODGERS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, first, I'm surprised at how quickly they brought this. I mean, they started in January, four months later with a big financial investigation they've done, which shows how seriously DOJ takes elected officials who commit crimes.

BOLDUAN: What do make of the fact that they moved so quickly? That they have such strong evidence or that it was a top priority?

RODGERS: It was a top priority because we have an elected official in Congress who has committed crimes so they need to move swiftly on that.

BOLDUAN: What else surprises you in here?

RODGERS: So the new information of course the unemployment benefits, the theft of public funds, we hadn't heard about that before. The false statements to Congress is a new charge. But also the way that they've charged this. So this scheme about telling people that they are taking in money to this non-profit for the campaign and in fact he's just using it to pay for clothes and things. That usually starts as a campaign finance violation.

It's a criminal violation. It doesn't carry very high penalties. They charge it here as a wire fraud, which is fine, you can charge something in any way that fits with the statutory requirements, but it's a more serious offense that way.

BOLDUAN: OK.

RODGERS: It has higher statutory max. It will carry a higher sentence. So I think that also shows again how serious DOJ is about elected officials.

BOLDUAN: The fact that there are 13 counts here, just like the number and the range of what has been put out here and that is always -- there could be more charges that's kind of how these things always start. What do you think of just like that scope?

RODGERS: Well, the number isn't so significant.

BOLDUAN: OK.

RODGERS: -- because every transaction is going to --

BOLDUAN: It's going to be one.

RODGERS: One as far as the -- but the scope, I mean, four different kind of categories of crimes here demonstrates that there's a lot in this indictment.

BOLDUAN: The way the Justice Department put it this morning is if convicted of the charges, Santos faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the top counts. What do you make of that? What kind of exposure does he have when you look at these four big categories in terms of penalties and punishments?

RODGERS: So both the money laundering and the wire fraud which are the one that are going to carry the big hit here, the sentence ultimately will be based on the amount of the fraud. So there's a kind of sliding scale at the sentencing guidelines.

BOLDUAN: OK.

RODGERS: So the more money he stole, he defrauded, the more time he will serve, but 20 we shouldn't get too attached to because that would be the very highest. I mean, I would be thinking for this amount, just spit-balling here, I don't know. Two to six years, maybe.

BOLDUAN: The investigation moved rapidly. You've already noted that. What does that mean in terms of how fast the process moves now, how quickly this will go to trial, what this means? We know he's in custody right now. We know he's going to face a judge at 1:00. You know, talk to me about how quickly the process is going to move from here you think.

RODGERS: So Santos will be arraigned today. He'll get -- the case will be wheeled out to a judge who will then handle it from here on out. The judge may set a trial date at the first appearance or he or she may not. A lot of that is just judge dependent, right, depending on the individual trial schedule.

I would think in a case like this, at this level of complexity, he would see trial inside of a year so maybe set it for about eight to 10 months away. That sort of thing. So it will move fairly quickly.

BOLDUAN: What does this mean for him politically? What does this mean for his seat? We have a long list -- I would say even one is a long list of members of Congress who have been convicted of crimes and who have tried, at least, to stay in their seat. This of course he's just now accused and indicted and charged of crime. What does this mean for him?

RODGERS: Well, he doesn't have to resign.

BOLDUAN: Right.

RODGERS: And they don't have to expel him, but they very well might based on this. If he is expelled or he resigns then Governor Kathy Hochul actually will set a special election to put someone in that seat so we'll have to see what happens with that, but he's been very bold about not stepping down. So, you know, he may continue to fight.

BOLDUAN: And how does it play also just kind of the possibility of Santos resigning? Do you think that could play a role in kind of prosecutors' approach here?

RODGERS: It could. Prosecutors can say to him, listen, if you want to take a plea maybe we'll drop some of these top counts, and you resign as part of that plea bargain. That's perfectly legitimate for prosecutors to do that. DOJ doesn't want criminals in elected office. It's perfectly legitimate for them to say let's make a deal here, we'll drop a little bit, you resign.

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BOLDUAN: Interesting. All right. Let's see what happens next. Thank you, Jennifer.

RODGERS: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John?

BERMAN: A murder twist in Utah. A woman who wrote a children's book about grief after her husband died is now charged with murder, accused of killing him.

The White House bracing for what it calls chaos at the southern border. The unprecedented measures the administration now says it is preparing to take.

And then the mother facing charges after her 6-year-old son shot his first grade teacher in Virginia is speaking out for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That week he did come home and he was talking, you know, a lot about how he felt like he was being ignored so he would come home, and mom, I don't think that she was listening to me. I didn't like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[10:15:08]

BOLDUAN: On our radar this morning, the Texas House has voted unanimously to kick one of its members out. This is for the first time in nearly a hundred years. A House committee found the Republican Brian Slaton had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 19-year- old aid. The report says the 45-year-old former pastor who's married and a father gave the aid alcohol to the point that she wasn't able to give effective consent.

Slaton submitted a resignation letter to the governor but has not responded to CNN's request for comment.

Now teachers in Oakland, California, they are now on day five of a strike. Union members are seeking better pay. The district has offered a 22 percent raise. The teachers also want the district to address other concerns like providing housing for students who are homeless. Schools have remained open during the strike to provide food and support services to students.

It is nothing short of a miracle for sure. Rescuers found an 8-year- old boy safe. This is after he was lost for two days in a state park in Michigan. He was camping with his family when he went missing Saturday while gathering firewood. How he survived? He says he ate snow. He also gathered leaves, branches, and logs to keep warm. Volunteers eventually found him about two miles from the family's camp sight. Sara?

SIDNER: This morning the Biden administration is establishing unprecedented measures ahead of what's expected to be a flood of migrants at the border. The influx is coming as the pandemic era policy of Title 42 is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. U.S. officials have used it to expel migrants more than 2.8 million times since it was implemented in 2020.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is at the White House and David Culver joins us from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Priscilla, I want to begin with you. What are these new unprecedented rules that are going to be put in place by the White House?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sara, this is a major test for President Biden's border policies and it's coming into sharp focus with the numbers that you listed there. A source telling me that yesterday they had more than 10,000 encounters. They also have over 20,000 migrants in custody straining capacity and resources along the U.S. southern border, and that has prompted senior administration officials to put in place unprecedented measures to try to manage the flow.

So what does that look like? A new asylum rule that would largely bar migrants who have transited through other countries from seeking asylum in the United States if they did not first seek refuge in one of those countries. That, by the way, has echoes of a Trump policy, according to advocates and lawmakers. Then two, they plan to push back certain non-Mexican nationals to Mexico if they do not qualify for asylum.

But of course, beyond policies, this is also simply a logistical challenge. And so administration officials have told reporters that they are going to set up two CBP facilities as well as send troops along the border to provide additional resources.

But, Sara, even with all these preparations in place, President Biden himself has said it remains to be seen how effective they are and it should not be overlooked that these policies can really reshape asylum policy and the way that the U.S.-Mexico border is managed and all of that will come to a head in just the next 48 hours. SIDNER: All right. Priscilla, just stay with us for a second.

I want to go to you now, David Culver. You are on the Mexican side of the southern border there. I want to ask you, you know, oftentimes you hear these things, we get the information, and the migrants actually get the information pretty quickly or they hear rumors. What are you hearing? What are you seeing there?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of the information coming through here, Sara, but also misinformation, to your point. Yes, the rumors that are going around. Where we are is closer to the city center right now so we're a bit farther from where most of them are congregating along the border, but I want to show you these images that we captured late last night here, and it was when the spurt of mobilization started to occur that we got word so we hurried over to the border wall.

And this is what we saw on really what is on really what isn't Ciudad Juarez side but on U.S. soil, so it's just over the Rio Grande. And you're looking at the U.S. side and that's U.S. troops in particular. Texas National Guard from what we could see along with the U.S. Army unraveling more barbed wires. So it looked like some sort of mobilization that was underway that perhaps would indicate one of two things.

They were going to remove those migrants, hundreds of whom are camped out just on that one small portion and bring them back to Mexico, or some of the migrants thought perhaps this is a chance for us to be processed and it was going to begin. And we can show you some of the images of the migrants throughout that period. They were praying at times.

They were trying to stay hopeful, stay energetic, to try to keep really moods lifted but at the same time they've also seen the realities of these going many different ways. And we've seen that, too, covering it in November and December where those same mobilizations would force them back here to Mexico.

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Let me show what we're seeing here. This is one of the really many encampments with thousands of migrants in this city, in the city center. This one has several hundred and you can see the tents lined up all along this sidewalk. And then on this side, this is rather important because to your point of people in communication with folks on the other side of the border, you can see some folks here including these two women earlier on a cell phone, this guy right here is, too, if you look a little bit more to your right, and then a woman over.

What they're doing is they're trying to log on to the CBP1 app. So this is, as Priscilla was walking through some of the things the administration is trying to put in place so as to facilitate the flow of migrants legally, this is one of the ways that they're hoping to do that. The frustration that we're seeing here, and this has now proceeded every single morning, so it seems, is they get on at this hour. They try to log on to register an appointment for an asylum officer to

have their case heard. But time and time again because of the limited number of appointments they're just disappointed. And I was talking to one woman just before coming on live with you, Sara, and she said she almost had a confirmation and then realized it didn't go through. So now she's trying again. They want to go over legally, but realized that's becoming increasingly challenging.

SIDNER: Right. You see the desperation there in person. Thank you for that very illustrative look at what's happening on the other side of the border in Mexico.

David Culver, thank you to you. Thank you to you also, Priscilla Alvarez. Appreciate it.

All right, John.

BERMAN: All right. The man convicted of killing a Black Lives Matter protester will be sentenced today. But Texas Governor Greg Abbott says he wants this convicted killer pardoned. So where does this all go next?

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[10:26:30]

SIDNER: Back now to our top story this morning.

Republican Congressman from New York George Santos has been arrested and is in federal custody at this hour. He is charged on 13 counts including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements to the House of Representatives. He's expected to face a federal judge a bit later today. Kate?

BOLDUAN: The verdict is in. Donald Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. After less than three hours of deliberations, a jury in New York, they delivered that verdict and awarded plaintiff E. Jean Carroll $5 million. Now the former president he responded to the news by vowing to fight it. E. Jean Carroll spoke to CNN this morning. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

E. JEAN CARROLL, WON SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEFAMATION CASE AGAINST DONALD TRUMP: The surge of this sort of feeling of victory that at last somebody has held him accountable in a courtroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Paula Reid has more on this.

Paula, walk us through what you've learned about how the jury reached this verdict.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, E. Jean Carroll makes an important point there, Kate. Even though dozens of women have accused former President Trump of sexual misconduct, this is the first time that such a claim has been affirmed by a jury.

Now, yesterday the jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll awarding her roughly $5 million. Now they did not find that he raped Carroll, but sexual abuse is still sexual assault, that is still a battery, so this is a complete victory for E. Jean Carroll.

Under the law, the difference between finding that he raped her versus that he sexually abused her has to do with the nuance and the definition of the type of non-consensual sexual contact. The former president's lawyers who did not put on any defense, they have vowed to appeal this verdict.

But, Kate, they're already making their argument in the court of public opinion. Yesterday we saw former President Trump calling this politically bias, saying he can't possibly get a fair trial, and once again saying that he does not know E. Jean Carroll even though he was asked to comment on a picture of them meeting during his deposition. I believe we have that sound. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: That's Marla, yes. It's my wife.

ROBERTA KAPLAN, E. JEAN CARROLL'S LAWYER: Which woman are you pointing to?

TRUMP: Here. Oh, is that --

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

TRUMP: Oh, I see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Now he was of course famously confused in that deposition. After saying that E. Jean was not his type, he confused her with his ex-wife Marla Maples.

Now going forward, one thing that Trump supporters are starting to resurface are questions about how exactly Carroll's case was funded. Now she previously failed to disclose during her deposition that she received some money for her defense from a Democratic donor. She was asked about that this morning on "CNN THIS MORNING" and she said she just forgot about it and that's why she didn't initially disclose that money.

But those comments are coming under some scrutiny and as the former president and his supporters tried to attack her and this verdict, that is likely where a lot of their arguments are going to lie again in the court of public opinion. While they're going to appeal this it's unlikely that they will prevail in a court of law.

BOLDUAN: Paula Reid, thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right. As is frequently noted, Trump faces other legal issues, as well. He pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the hush money payments made from Stormy Daniels. That case includes three four-felony counts including falsifying business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct. He is now seeking to move this case out of New York City and into federal court.

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