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Russian Strike Hits Apartment Building in Ukraine; Where is Yevgeny Prigozhin?; Walt Nauta in Court. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 06, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:43]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Moments ago, the man accused of helping Donald Trump move and conceal secret documents at Mar-a-Lago walked into a Miami courthouse. He is being arraigned on federal charges. And we are live at the scene.

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: The man who turned on Putin and stunned the world with his brazen rebellion may now be in Russia. The president of Belarus initially saying Yevgeny Prigozhin was in Belarus. Now the president is telling another story.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Meta is coming for Musk, taking on Twitter with the launch of the app called Threads. And just hours in, it has millions of users.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: So, happening now, the man accused of helping Donald Trump hide classified documents is inside a federal courthouse in Miami.

And, according to the judge's schedule, he is being arraigned right now. You're looking at this chaotic moment last hour, as Walt Nauta arrived and was greeted by journalists. He is expected to plead not guilty to several federal charges, including conspiracy to obstruct.

Prosecutors say Nauta, a longtime loyal aide to Trump, moved boxes at Mar-a-Lago at least five times. During that time, a total of 64 boxes were removed. Only 30 were brought back.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is just outside the Miami courthouse where Nauta arrived a short time ago. And we believe the arraignment is literally happening now.

Carlos, give us an update.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right.

John, good morning. So, 40-year-old Walt Nauta arrived to the federal courthouse here in downtown Miami earlier this morning. He was joined by his D.C.-based attorney, Stanley Woodward. Nauta not did not say a word as he walked out of his SUV and into that courthouse here behind me. Now, CNN has learned that he has also added a South Florida-based

attorney, Sasha Dadan. We're told that she is a former public defender with experience trying cases across South Florida. That is according to a source familiar with this situation.

As you noted, John, Nauta is expected to plead not guilty to obstruction charges, as well as lying to investigators. His arraignment, we're told, is only expected to last a few minutes.

Now, according to prosecutors, Nauta moved at several boxes that contain classified documents from a storage room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resorts, he moved them to other properties. And then, according to prosecutors, he lied to federal investigators about the whole thing.

The move, prosecutors say, was all in an effort -- all in an effort so that one of Trump's attorneys would not be able to find some of the classified documents that had been subpoenaed by a grand jury.

Now, the prosecution, the prosecutor, the federal government says that they have surveillance video of Nauta moving these boxes before the FBI searched the property. NAUTA, as you noted as well, is a personal aide to the former president.

He was here a when the former president was arraigned. However, because he had yet to get a South Florida-based attorney, he was not able to enter a plea on his charges the first time around. The second time around, when his hearing was rescheduled, he'd yet to find a South Florida attorney, and then bad weather kept him from making it here to South Florida.

But again, John, at this hour, we believe that Walt Nauta is being arraigned right now on these charges. We have a team inside of the courthouse getting us all of this information and the details coming out of this hearing. The minute we get that, we will, of course, pass it along -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Carlos Suarez for us in Miami. We will get a readout of what took place inside that courtroom as soon as it's available.

Thank you -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, John.

Nauta's arraignment today comes just hours after new details were revealed in the classified documents case. They reveal prosecutors watched surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago before they ever entered and searched Trump's Florida resort last spring.

[11:05:00]

According to newly unredacted documents, the footage shows someone moving boxes in the basement.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is joining us now, following every single detail of all of this. Nauta himself is not named in these new unredacted bits of this affidavit. But is it believed it's him because of the details and how he was charged?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Exactly, Sara.

So, what we are seeing in this affidavit from last summer that the Justice Department presented to a judge in Florida to secure that search warrant of Mar-a-Lago to go in there and remove the classified documents that they found, that document last summer tells, very much, much of the story that we also see in the indictment about Walt Nauta, about what he is accused of doing related to obstruction, and also about the false statements he's accused of making to the FBI.

He's not named -- he's named as an apparent witness at that time, because he had been talking to the FBI right around that period of time in the summer of last year. But all of these details we're seeing in the affidavit that was released now that the indictment is out, this affidavit from last year, it's why they needed to do this search at that time.

They had talked to Walt Nauta by then, and he had said there weren't really boxes that he could remember moving, but they also had surveillance video of him moving boxes at Mar-a-Lago. And they realized at a visit to Mar-a-Lago that federal prosecutors were seeing boxes in this storage room, but they knew that there should have been more there.

And they actually wrote in the affidavit to the judge: "Video footage reflects that evidence has been moved recently. The current location of the boxes that were removed from the storage room area, but not returned to it, is unknown."

And so that's the reasoning that they were giving the judge, one of the reasonings that they were giving a judge last year to say, we need to do this unprecedented search of the former president's home with the FBI to see what we can recover and to see if there is a case that can be charged.

Ultimately, they did charge that case. And that's why Walt Nauta is in court today in South Florida -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

And we will give you the details of what happens in court when our reporters are able to get out of the court and when the arraignment is over.

Thank you so much, Katelyn Polantz. Appreciate you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Sara.

Joining us now to talk more about this is former U.S. attorney Michael Moore.

It's good to see you, Michael.

OK. Walt Nauta, your take on what you think about this role that we're learning more about that he may have had in the documents investigation, and the case the prosecutors have been building?

MICHAEL MOORE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes, well, I'm glad to be with all of you this morning.

I mean, this is sort of just a standard part of the process now. He's entered his not guilty plea, and he's moving forward. I think, probably, the most interesting thing will be the idea of the surveillance tape and how that played into the issuance of the search warrant. It's nothing particularly unusual, if a judge has some belief that maybe evidence is being destroyed or lost or misplaced and may not be available, for a judge to actually go ahead and issue the warrant to protect that evidence.

And that seems to be the case here. The issue for the government is going to be talking about and being able to say what was in the boxes that was being moved. We know, if you think about the number of boxes that they allege were at Mar-a-Lago, and you compare that with the number of documents that are in the indictment, it's a relatively small number that clearly would not mean that every box was filled with documents.

And so the government is going to need to talk about, what was in the box? What was in the box that was being moved? Are they claiming that somebody is secreting away some evidence? Then what was in that box? And so that's going to become key as they move forward.

And we will see. I mean, he's -- this clearly is just another building block in the government's case, and whether or not it's enough to ultimately take down a former president, we will see.

BOLDUAN: We will see.

Just as you're speaking, I was just informed by the control room we have new reporting coming in from Miami and this hearing. The hearing is now over. It lasted all of two minutes, Michael, and Walt Nauta pleaded not guilty, as anticipated, quick, and in and out before they could even probably say much more. And now the process continues.

But as you're talking about in this, if Nauta is seen on video moving dozens of boxes of classified documents, yes, they would need to prove exactly what's in those boxes, as you're saying, and then he lied to prosecutor -- investigators as they allege that he did, what does it mean for him and the defense that he will need to put up?

MOORE: Yes, that's often the thing that catches people more than anything else, and that is either lying to federal agents or trying to cover something up.

And that may be his biggest obstacle here, if, in fact, they could prove that he told them a lie to a federal law enforcement agent. And that's going to be a big deal.

[11:10:00]

So he would want to come in, I expect, and he will say something to the effect of, look, I'm just the valet. I just move boxes. I do whatever I'm told to do. I had no idea if there was classified material, whatever you're talking about in there. For all I knew, it was golf shoes. We didn't participate in the packing of these boxes. We had no idea.

So when you asked me, was I moving stuff, I move stuff all the time, and see if he can make any traction there. Unless they have some pretty strong evidence that he knew what was in the boxes at the time, then he might be able to make a good argument that would at least entertain the interest of one juror in a trial.

And that one juror can be enough to hang a jury. So that's who they're play to here. I'm thinking about this two-minute arraignment. That's going to be the shortest thing that happens in this case, I can tell you, because we're now going to get into this issue of, you're going to have pretrial motions.

BOLDUAN: Right.

MOORE: We're going to have -- likely, we're going to have appeals going up for rulings that are made.

And so this case is...

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Well, and, Michael, I wanted to ask you about that, because you say that one of the biggest things that is a challenge or just the tough reality of where this thing heads is the calendar in all of this, not just for Nauta, but when talking about what this looks like for the former president as well.

Why?

MOORE: Well, there's a longstanding policy with the Department of Justice not to give the appearance that they are meddling in elections.

And what that typically means is that, for six weeks or so prior to the election, the government sort of stands down on cases, so that it doesn't tend to favor one side or the other, or give the appearance that there's some preference about who might win the election.

So, in this case, as you think about we're now talking about a trial, possibly, based on the government's request and this issue about classified documents, very late December, at least, in the year. Well, you're going to have the presidential primaries coming beginning in February.

So the government is going to have to do something so that it doesn't give the appearance that they're trying to knock Trump, who, as he enters this case, just like every American enters into it as a presumption -- with a presumption of innocence, they're going to have to do everything they can to show that they're not simply trying to knock him out of the primary season and making him sit in a trial, by attempt -- by appearing to weigh in on a preference for a candidate bringing this prosecution.

And so the calendar is going to catch them. And that's why I continue to think this case is likely of not going to have to happen until after the election.

BOLDUAN: All right, Michael Moore.

It's always good to have you, Michael. Thank you so much.

And just as we were talking, just to recap, as we were hearing while Michael and I were just talking, the hearing is now over. Walt Nauta has entered a not-guilty plea to the charges that he is facing. We're expecting to probably see him leave that courtroom in Miami and that courthouse very soon -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate.

Coming up: stunning new developments in the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin's revolt against Russia, Belarus now claiming the Wagner boss is, in fact, in Russia, not Belarus, as first announced.

And Janet Yellen's trip to China is officially under way, the Treasury secretary arriving in Beijing just a few hours ago, we will dive into what she is going to focus on over the next three days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:17:45]

SIDNER: This morning, we heard from the president of Belarus, who says the man who led a rebellion against Putin is actually in Russia as a -- quote -- "free man" and not living in Belarus, as he had previously claimed.

That is all from President Alexander Lukashenko, who first, of course, said Yevgeny Prigozhin was in his country. But when CNN asked him about all that this morning, that story changed. The Kremlin is staying mum, not saying a word about the Wagner leader's whereabouts, as Russian state media has launched a fierce smear campaign, painting the man once considered a Russian hero as a criminal and a traitor.

They aired footage also of a police raid at Prigozhin's St. Petersburg home and office and published images of items they say they found during that raid, items like wigs, gold bars, guns, stacks of cash, and multiple passports with different aliases.

CNN's Matthew Chance joins us from Minsk, Belarus, this morning.

Matthew, can you give us some sense of what that meeting was like? Lukashenko does not meet with reporters on any kind of regular basis.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, they're very infrequent, these kinds of -- sort of news conferences that are called by the Belarusian leader.

It's very hard to get into this country, Sara. I mean, you have to be invited by the authorities, which is what we were, so that Lukashenko, Alexander Lukashenko, could sit down with us at that marble-clad presidential palace here in the center of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and talk to us about whatever we wanted to ask him.

And, of course, the first thing that any of us wanted to ask him was about Wagner and about Yevgeny Prigozhin, because he had brokered this deal, supposedly, to bring to an end the dramatic events of last month with Wagner staging a military uprising against the Kremlin.

Take a listen to what Alexander Lukashenko told me when I asked him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: I wonder if you could provide us all with a bit of an update on the whereabouts of the Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Is he in Belarus or not?

[11:20:04]

ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, PRESIDENT OF BELARUS (through translator): In terms of Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg, or maybe, this morning, he would travel to Moscow or elsewhere, but he is not on the territory of Belarus now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Well, that was Alexander Lukashenko with that incredible revelation that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who he had previously said was in Belarus, saying now he is not in Belarus, which is big enough.

But the fact that he is still in Russia, the country he turned against, with Vladimir Putin, who has basically characterized him and the Wagner fighters who took part in the uprising as traitors, is all the more extraordinary.

And it is -- I mean, we don't know what is going to happen now to the Wagner leader. I have certainly spoken or tried to speak to the Kremlin about this earlier today. They're saying they will not comment on this right now. But it seems like that deal to end this uprising by Wagner is now being renegotiated, shall we say, by the Kremlin.

SIDNER: It is fascinating reporting. Matthew Chance, thank you, for all of your reporting on that -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

And in the backdrop of all of this, of course, continues to be the war in Ukraine. And for hours, rescue workers in Lviv have been digging through the debris, really all day, looking to find anyone who might have survived an overnight missile attack. The Russian missile hit around 2:45 a.m. local, and people were understandably sound asleep in an apartment building there. That building was destroyed. This video we're going to show you shows

one of the people who was rescued from the rubble. The death toll stands, though, at five.

To give you a sense of the scope of the damage, along with that apartment building, 30 homes destroyed, a dormitory, an orphanage, two university buildings hit as well. The mayor of Lviv calls this the most devastating attack on civilians in that region since the start of the war.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Ukraine. He joins us now with a look at this.

And, Ben, as you well know, and to remind all of our viewers, Lviv has long been seen as one of the safer places in Ukraine. So what does this strike mean to this?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly means, Kate, that it's not so safe anymore.

Now, there have been strikes on Lviv, but this one certainly has had the highest civilian death toll in what appears to be a completely residential area. Now, Lviv is where many people fled to during the early stages of the war, certainly fleeing from where we are, the eastern part of the country, to there, because people thought -- it's just an hour's drive from Poland, a NATO member, that perhaps they would be safer.

But now, certainly, this is going to raise doubts about the safety of staying there. Now, among the dead was a 21-year-old woman, a journalist, as well as a 95-year-old woman who had survived the Second World War. This incident has also raised questions about the bomb shelters in Lviv.

It turns out that, when this strike happened, 10 of those bomb shelters were closed, locked, locked shut, perhaps because nobody was expecting or they were assuming that Lviv would not be targeted. So now the local prosecutor has opened an investigation to figure out why those bomb shelters were closed -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Ben, thank you for your reporting, as always. It's good to see you -- John.

BERMAN: A critical few days for U.S.-China relations, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Beijing meeting with senior officials.

And Grammy nominee, philanthropist legend, Lil Jon is helping people in new ways, and he is here, like right here, live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:28:45]

SIDNER: All right, our top story now.

You are looking at live pictures there was we wait for Donald Trump's close aide and co-defendant to leave court after he was arraigned in the raid in the special counsel's classified documents case. He pleaded not guilty to six federal charges, which include conspiracy to obstruct.

Our reporters say it only took a few minutes for Walt Nauta to be arraigned. Nauta is accused of helping the former president hide documents that government officials wanted returned to them. I do want to mention we are watching to see if he's come out of court. We know that the arraignment was very short, which is normal, but he has not left court, a very different situation than we saw when Donald Trump went in to be arranged, John.

BERMAN: All right, Sara, shout if you see something developing there.

In the meantime, this morning, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing for three days of meetings, and these discussions with high- ranking officials come at a crucial and precarious time. Tensions between the United States and China remain high, in some ways getting even higher. We are told she will discuss a wide range of topics, including the global economy and financial developments.

With us now, "Washington Post" columnist Josh Rogin, Threads influencer.

Great to have you here with us, Josh.

How high is the administration setting expectations for this round of meetings?

JOSH ROGIN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, John, just like with the previous trip of Secretary of State Tony Blinken.