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2020 Election Interference Probe; Trump's Team Is Making Calls; Air Attacks on Odessa; Belarus Holds Exercises with Wagner Fighters. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 20, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:27]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In Washington D.C., a federal grand jury is expected to meet once again. That same federal grand jury could vote as soon as today to indict former President Trump for his efforts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election. That jury expected to hear from more witnesses in just hours.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Also, a third straight night of intense Russian strikes on Ukraine's southern port city of Odessa, crippling key infrastructure in the region. This as Ukraine prepares to receive another billion-dollar aid package from the U.S.

BOLDUAN: Now even more questions swirling around the mysterious case of an Alabama woman who went missing and then reappeared two days later. Why people are talking about her internet searches that she did just before she disappeared.

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

As soon as today a federal grand jury in D.C. could hand down another indictment against former President Donald Trump. Any moment now that grand jury is expected to meet once again. And all of this is surrounding his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. Today is also something of a deadline day for Trump and his legal team. After getting the target letter from the special prosecutor - from the special counsel, he has the chance to make his case before the grand jury, but that's seen as highly unlikely to happen.

Someone who is expected before the grand jury today, two sources tell CNN that Will Russell, a special assistant to Donald Trump, will testify today. He's already been before the grand jury in this investigation at least twice. CNN has learned that in the face of this growing legal threat, Trump is expanding his legal team. He added criminal defense attorney John Lauro to work alongside Todd Blanche.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz has the very latest for us.

And, Katelyn, you're outside the courthouse in D.C. What is happening right now?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Kate, the grand jury has assembled, as far as we can tell, into the secret hearing room where they continue to gather testimony and evidence as they look at the potential indictment of Donald Trump. The third potential indictment against Donald Trump if it is approved by this grand jury and brought through the Justice Department into the court system. But it would be quite a significant one, when it is approved, if it is approved, because this investigation is so sweeping, Kate. This investigation has spoken to or had information brought into it from all over the country, from the seven different battleground states where there are state officials that spoke to investigators about what they experienced from the Trump campaign in their administration of elections, phone calls they received from Donald Trump himself.

There's also been quite a bit of evidence coming out of the White House and from Vice President Mike Pence, who was serving under Trump at that time and was receiving that pressure to overturn the results of the election. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, he testified to this grand jury. Many, many others around Donald Trump have already been seen by this grand jury, or at least provided information that they likely are looking at for that indictment.

Today, we expect at least one witness to wrap things up. We don't exactly know when things will be wrapped up, but the witness we are expecting today is Will Russell, a personal aide to Donald Trump after he left the White House. Also someone who worked in the White House with him on an advanced team setting up events, things like that. We don't know exactly what Will Russell will be talking about, but this is at least the third time he has been providing information in this investigation and to this grand jury. And so very likely he would be one of the final things that the grand jury would very much like to hear before they look at the charges that the Justice Department -- that we believe the Justice Department is preparing at this time since they have given Donald Trump that target letter outlining exactly what they believe they could be charging him with and telling him he's very likely to be arrested and charged here in this federal court in Washington D.C.

But a long day ahead of us. There's one prosecutor we know of who's here on the premises already working with the grand jury. It will be behind closed doors. But we are waiting now and watching exactly for what the Justice Department might do next, how many other witnesses they might need to bring in, and if Donald Trump himself will chose to come in and testify. That, too, is pretty unlikely, Kate.

[09:05:01]

But there are a little couple things that could still happen today, but we're waiting for that indictment.

BOLDUAN: Yes, Katelyn, thank you so much. I mean there is a lot of action that could be happening right there where you are this morning. So, we will stick close.

And, Rahel, Katelyn lays out really all the questions of the dominos that could fall today.

SOLOMON: So many.

BOLDUAN: We will see.

SOLOMON: Lots happening over the next few hours. The next few days for sure.

All right, Kate, thank you.

And sources tell CNN that Trump's team is hunkering down and making calls to try to figure out if special counsel Jack Smith has any other evidence or witnesses that they may not know about. Their concerns stem from the potential charges listed in that target letter that Trump received. And they appear to suggest that the special council will prosecute a bigger case against Trump than his team was expecting.

CNN reporter Alayna Treene is in Bridgewater, New Jersey, near Trump's Bedminster Club.

So, Alayna, what more are we learning about who team Trump could be calling?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, good morning, Rahel.

They are calling a lot of Donald Trump's allies and lawyers and trying to get a better understanding of what exactly a potential criminal case against him would look like.

Now, they have a couple questions. One is, did anyone else receive a target letter? They want to know, is Donald Trump the main focus of this case or are there others involved as well that the special counsel is looking at? They also are trying to get a better sense of the evidence that special council Jack Smith has against him, as well as whether any other Trump -- members of Trump's inner circle cooperating with the special counsel.

Now, the charges that were laid out in that target letter that Donald Trump received Sunday night are much more sprawling than they had anticipated. And so they're trying to get a sense of, what does this case look like and what do we need to be prepared for?

Now, I think it's important to note that many of the witnesses that have so far come before the grand jury are people who were represented by many of Donald Trump's legal team or are paid for by Trump world. And so that is something that they're watching very closely and it also gives them a lot of insight potentially into what they're being asked.

Rahel.

SOLOMON: Yes, potentially incredible incite.

Alayna, you also have some new reporting of Trump's schedule. What more are you learning about that?

TREENE: Well, Donald Trump is keeping it business as usual despite receiving that target letter and anticipating a potential indictment could come as soon as today or tomorrow. He hosted last night, at his Bedminster golf club, just near where I am now, a screening for the movie "Sound of Freedom." It's been lauded by conservatives and evangelical Christians. And many of Donald Trump's close advisers, as well as his fiercest allies, were with him at his club last night. I spoke with Steve Bannon. He told me that he attended that screening. And I think this shows that he is keeping up his campaign schedule.

We saw him still attend that campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday. He also carried forward with his town hall with Fox News' Sean Hannity. And so he is not slowing down his schedule despite receiving that target letter on Sunday night and anticipating a potential indictment to come soon, Rahel.

SOLOMON: Alayna Treene, live for us there in Bridgewater. Alayna, thank you.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And joining us now, CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, and CNN political commentator Ana Navarro.

Thanks, guys, for being here.

Elie, let's talk about where Alayna Treene left off, which is Trump lawyers and advisors, they are now kind of on a hunt or a search to try to figure out what evidence and witnesses might be out there, or the special counsel has pulled in that they're unaware of. I'm sure every defendant would like to know the case against them before - before they're charged, but what does this indicate to you?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is absolutely normal, first of all, for somebody who is a defendant, or who has received a target letter, or who might, to hire a team of attorneys and to try to track the government's investigation as it goes. It's actually not illegal or improper to call somebody up and say, hey, have you been asked to go into the grand jury? They can tell you or they can decline to tell you. You can even ask them, what did they ask you? What did you say? As long as you're not tampering with the witness.

I'm surprised it's actually taken Donald Trump this long to mobilize his legal team. A savvy, well-resourced person would have done this two years ago when it became clear that he was going to be the object of multiple criminal investigations. And now they're sort of scrambling and they're still short staffed. And I think that could ultimately hurt Donald Trump's prospects.

BOLDUAN: And the fact that it's being described as they were surprised by this kind of coming at them. And, I mean, the investigation has been going on so long. And we do know that Trump's team, if you will, is paying the legal fees, the legal bills for many of the witnesses, at least that they're aware. What do you see here?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I -- exactly like Elie, I cannot believe that practice has not made perfect for Donald Trump at this point. I mean this is a person who's already under two indictments, 71 counts, also dealing with the Carroll trial at the same time, had all the legal issues while he was president, how could he possibly not have had the best team on retainer doing this constantly. This what coming. What did he think Jack Smith was doing for all these months?

[09:10:03]

What did he think all of these witnesses going in to testify was about? I mean, you think they were sharing recipes? No. This was - you know, they were building a case.

So, it is - it is really befuddling to hear that this team is surprised that Donald Trump is surprised and that they were not ready for this.

BOLDUAN: Surprised if they are. Now they have more information to move ahead with until - and, you know, if and until they -- an indictment actually comes down.

I want to dig deeper into some of what we heard in the target letter because you've been -- you've been interested in this as well, Elie. One with related to one of the statutes. Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which obviously we're all learning about, except you know about, it states the following, if two or more persons conspire to injury, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any state, territory, commonwealth, possession or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States. This surprised some folks that - of this inclusion in the target letter. Why?

HONIG: Yes. So, let me try to boil all that legalese to one sentence.

BOLDUAN: Please do.

HONIG: It is a crime to interfere with somebody's constitutional rights. That's what that statute means. And I - you know, we can speculate about what the constitutional right is here. It could be the right for people to cast their votes and to have those votes counted.

And I think when we look at the charges that we're learning about potentially through this target letter, what it tells me is Jack Smith is looking at this in the broad view. And, really, I think the focus of this indictment, if it comes, is going to be largely on the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, not so much on the speech at the ellipse and the attack on the Capitol itself, but the broader effort to steal this election through fraud, and through pressure, and through coercion.

BOLDUAN: Also in this it talks about -- obviously it also - this target letter talk -- gets to conspiracy.

HONIG: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And I'm not - I'm not trying to be facetious or intentionally dumb here, but to have a conspiracy, do you need two people? Can you conspire with yourself? Does that mean someone else, if he's indicted on a conspiracy charge, someone else has to be charged? HONIG: That's a smart question.

BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE).

HONIG: You do need two people in order to conspire. It's a meeting of the minds. But it does not necessarily mean that a second person will be charged with Donald Trump. You can charge them separately.

BOLDUAN: OK.

HONIG: Or even at all. Sometimes you have a situation where you have let's say two co-conspirators, you think it's worth it to charge me, but not my co-conspirator -- sorry, Ana, you're standing there.

NAVARRO: Yes. Please don't - please don't (INAUDIBLE).

HONIG: But Ana would be labeled as co-conspirator one without (ph) a charge.

BOLDUAN: Ana has conspired with many - on many a fun thing, I'll say that.

HONIG: Yes.

BOLDUAN: But why would you not charge the other people?

HONIG: If you don't think the proof is strong enough to charge person number two, if the person perhaps is -- worked out some sort of deal, those are the two most common scenarios.

BOLDUAN: So this would be the third indictment of Donald Trump if it comes. And in the face of all this, as you listed out, practice should make perfect. But this -- he has remained a frontrunner. He has remained the - you know, the head of the Republican Party throughout all of this. Does he remain, in your view, Ana, the frontrunner in spite of or because of the growing charges he has faced?

NAVARRO: I think both. And I -- listen, I am no Trump fan. Everybody knows that. But I think it's pretty impressive that he's dealing with three legal cases, ongoing, about to be a fourth, and at the same time a mammoth presidential campaign and leading by 20 points.

Look, he does - if -- there's a few things that Donald Trump does very well. Playing the victim is one of them. And he is going to milk this for all it's worth. He's fundraising out of it. He is casting himself as, I am taking the blows for you. This is happening to me because I am the sacrificial lamb for you. It's almost like a Christ-like description of himself that he goes into in the campaign trail.

And, frankly, also, Kate, there are no better alternatives for Republicans conservatives, right? Ron DeSantis, who everybody thought was going to be the vanquishing hero and the successor has turned out to be a dud who people --

BOLDUAN: That's what -- I wanted to get your take on what you thought of the reaction from the other Republican candidates. It's a bit of a mixed reaction I think is the broad way I could say, but definitely not anyone coming out to say, we can - I can use this to take him out this time. If an indictment comes, does that change -- do you think that changes anything if the indictment comes? If they don't take the leap to say, this means he can't be president.

NAVARRO: It's not going to change anything. It's -- literally you can replay what they said after the first indictment, you can replay what they said after the second indictment, and you can just put it on a loop.

BOLDUAN: But isn't -

NAVARRO: Really the only person taking him on --

BOLDUAN: I don't know, I'm going to say -- one counterpoint is, isn't this -- wouldn't an indictment on this be different? It's about trying to overthrow a peaceful transition of power. It's not --

NAVARRO: It's a -

BOLDUAN: You know, it's not the other charges he's facing.

NAVARRO: Right. It's not hush money to Stormy Daniels.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Right.

NAVARRO: I -- but I am telling you, nothing is going to change because we actually saw this in 2016.

[09:15:04]

They are not willing to do anything that might antagonize a Trump supporter. And so they are trying to walk this fine line -

BOLDUAN: Yes.

NAVARRO: Right, where on the one hand they're, you know, responding to the indictment, but on the other hand, God forbid that I say anything that might be - that might come across as offensive. With the exception of - and it's an honorable exception -- Asa Hutchinson -

BOLDUAN: True.

NAVARRO: And Chris Christie. Chris Christie has nothing to lose. Asa Hutchinson, both of them, come from law enforcement backgrounds. And I think that's a very big part of it. Even more disappointing about Ron DeSantis, as if there was anything more disappointing --

BOLDUAN: Yes, he's a JAG.

NAVARRO: He's JAG. Yes, he's a lawyer. He - he comes from this too. But politics before law.

BOLDUAN: We - politics is definitely wrapped up -

HONIG: Politics, law. BOLDUAN: And here we have the sandwich together. I don't know what

that makes me in between. But, the wonderful result of all of it.

It's good to see you guys. Thank you so much.

Rahel.

SOLOMON: All right, Kate, thank you.

And still ahead, the sky lit up by missiles for the third night in a row as Russian attacks on the port city of Odessa, Ukraine, show no signs of letting up.

Also, a woman claimed to be abducted for two days, but police aren't so sure. So, what happened to Carlee Russell?

And there is finally a winner. Someone is waking up this morning with a whole lot of money after the Powerball prize soars to $1 billion. We'll tell you where the winning ticket was sold when we come back.

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[09:20:33]

BOLDUAN: It has now been three straight nights of Russian attacks on Ukraine's southern port city Odessa. At least one person was killed overnight. The port's infrastructure is in ruins.

Our CNN team on the ground captured some of the strikes that happened in the dark of night. You can see them lighting up the night sky. The flashes, part of the 38 air strikes -- air attacks that the Ukrainian air force counted. And Ukraine says that they were able to intercept and take out 18 of them.

Russia strikes also rained down on the southern city of Mykolaiv. Homes were seen gong up in flames there and at least 19 people were hurt in the attacks.

CNN's Alex Marquardt is on the ground in Odessa with a look at the damage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This city has never seen anything like this since the beginning of this war. I can't overstate the terror that the citizens of this city have had to experience over not one but the last three nights. And it is no mistake that Odessa is home to Ukraine's most famous port.

I want to show you some of the destruction from last night. This is an administrative building. It looks like it was around four stories high. You can see it has completely collapsed.

We are told this is still a search and rescue operation. We know that at least one young man was killed. There were several people who were injured. You can see those firefighters trying to put out the fires in this building, both in them -- from among the rubble and up on that ladder up there. There are firefighters, there are rescue workers, there are volunteers and residents of this neighborhood who are just trying to make sense of what we experienced last night.

We are on the edge of the port. The - one of -- the biggest port in Ukraine, which we can't show you for security reasons. But that is almost certainly why, according to Ukrainian authorities, Russia has been carrying out these strikes on Ukraine.

Now, this attack started just before 2:00 a.m. local time. It was a combination of drones and missiles. We could hear those drones very clearly buzzing the roof tops in downtown Odessa.

I want to play you some of the video that - sorry, we're just going to get out of the way of these -- this water.

I want to play you some of the video shot by photojournalist Scott McWhinnie of one of the explosions of the missiles here in Odessa last night.

Take a listen.

That is the kind of thing that we heard for an hour and a half. Now it was not just Odessa that was hit. It was also Mykolaiv, which is another southern port city. There, 19 people were wounded.

This was an incredibly sophisticated attack. Almost 40 drones and missiles. Most of the missiles got through.

Russia used long-range strategic bombers, supersonic bombers. They used four different kinds of cruise missiles. They used those Iranian Kamikaze drones. Just the symbolism of what they used is sending a very large message to Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has said it is very clearly Russia trying to target the grain infrastructure just a few days after Russia pulled out of that critical grain deal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Alex Marquardt in Odessa, Ukraine, for us this morning.

Rahel.

SOLOMON: And this morning, the Belarusian military says that its troops have been gaining a unique experience training with Wagner troops at a camp near Belarus' border with Poland. New video and photos show the Belarus special operations forces training with Wagner fighters. It comes just weeks after the Belarusian president invited Wagner forces into his country to help train his military. And that invited followed a failed insurrection by Wagner and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Russian military leadership.

Joining us now, CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel Leighton, great to have you today. Thanks for being on the program. I want to talk about Alex's piece and Odessa in just a moment. But, first, I want to talk about this information that we learned that Belarusian forces are now training with Wagner forces. What to you make of that?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think, Rahel, what are the big issues here is the fact that it's happening right on the Polish border, which, of course, is the border of NATO. And the fact that it's happening in Brahest (ph), which is a city that has a lot of history when it comes to conflicts in that region, you know, really shows that the Wagner group and the Belarusian army are getting together to, you know, try to figure out a way to not only improve the Belarusian forces, but in essence it will make them more brutal as they learn tactics and techniques from the Wagner group.

[09:25:12]

That should be of great concern not maybe in the next week or so, but certainly for the future when it comes to Belarusian capabilities. And that's -- that's something I think that we need to pay close attention to.

SOLOMON: I mean Wagner's brutality certainly well documented.

Let me ask, is it clear, based on this video, or what we're learning, what the status of Wagner is? I mean we also got some video that appears to show Yevgeny Prigozhin for the first time. I mean how do you read this? What is the status of this group?

LEIGHTON: I would almost characterize it, Rahel, as being alive and well. You know, they - there was this big, you know, Trumpeting of the demise of Wagner group and you saw the signs being removed, you know, from their headquarters in St. Petersburg. But I think that was all cosmetics. The Wagner group still exists. Prigozhin still seems to be in charge of it. And I think they're, you know, in essence, you know, refocusing their efforts perhaps in a more internal direction temporarily. But I expect them to be back in Ukraine shortly. Right now they say that they're out of Ukraine. But the key thing to remember is, is that they could return to Ukraine at almost any time. But right now they're busy training the Belarusian forces and, of course, they've got activities going on in Africa and other places around the world.

SOLOMON: Absolutely. There were a lot of questions about what this would ultimately mean for their operations in Africa.

Colonel, the attacks overnight in Odessa and Mykolaiv, the result of weapons that have propulsion systems, of course, as you know, allowing them to travel long distances. Ukraine has been pleading for better air defense systems. What do they need most at this point?

LEIGHTON: Well, one of the key things that they need, Rahel, is a -- what amounts to point-to-point defenses. And what that means really is they need a bigger umbrella to cover places like Odessa. The Ukrainian air defenses have focused mainly on Kyiv and then to another extent on Kharkiv, the second city up in the northeast. But they really need to protect Odessa because the Russian goal has always been, from the very beginning of this phase of the conflict, has always been to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea.

And what the Ukrainians need are systems like the NASAMS systems, the IRIS-T system from Germany, and the Patriot system. These systems would allow them to do a better job of shooting down the missiles.

Alex, in his report, mentioned, you know, some of the limitations that they had and the fact that they really didn't shoot down all of the missiles. There were 38 that were thrown at Odessa. They got 18 I believe it was. So, that, you know, shows that they have to have a better track record. Once there's a more concentrated air defense system, the track record goes up. And, you know, in some cases, you're able to achieve a track record of shooting down almost 100 percent of incoming missiles. And that's what they need for Odessa to protect that infrastructure.

SOLOMON: And, Colonel, to that end, how much will this newest aid package help with some of those weapons you just outlined there?

LEIGHTON: It will help considerably because there are a lot of munitions for the Patriot system and for the NASAMS system that are coming in as part of this $1.3 billion aid package. That is one aspect of it. The other aspect is that some of - there will be some more NASAMS systems themselves coming. There will be four more coming in as part of this aid package.

So, as a result of that, Ukraine should be better able to protect some of its other critical assets, such as the Port of Odessa and possibly the port of Mykolaiv. And that will then allow them to fend off these attacks and limit damage to that critical port infrastructure.

SOLOMON: Yes.

Colonel Cedric Leighton, thanks for being with us today.

Kate.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Rahel.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, controversy on Capitol Hill not having to do with what the hearing is about, but who Republicans have decided to call as their key witness.

And the Justice Department is now stepping in. Troubling reports about the treatment of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and allegation that Texas troopers were told to push migrants back into the Rio Grande and also deny them water in the scorching heat.

We'll be right back.

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