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Yuscil Taveras Identified As "Trump Employee 4"; Washington, DC Law Enforcement Prepares For Possible Trump Election Interference Indictment; Chinese Tech Increasingly Linked To Russia War Efforts; Multiple Attacks Reported In Russia In Recent Days; Alabama Woman Arrested For Faking Her Own Kidnapping. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 28, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:41]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: It wasn't exactly the indictment we were anticipating, but former president, Donald Trump is now facing additional serious charges and accusations that he ordered evidence to be destroyed in the Special Counsel's classified documents probe. We have the latest.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Plus, we are following accusations overseas of attempted missile strikes, this inside Russia. Moscow says Ukraine has fired two missiles within its borders amid reports Ukraine is now ramping up its counteroffensive in the east and south of the country. We will have a live report from the capital, Kyiv.

SANCHEZ: And days after admitting to staging her own kidnapping, Carlee Russell has been charged. Though the police chief admits he is frustrated the charges are not more severe. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

As former president, Donald Trump, faces new charges in his classified documents case, we're learning new details about the person that he and his team allegedly tried to pressure into destroying security camera footage. Prosecutors say that Trump, Walt Nauta and Mar-A-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, tried to alter, mutilate and conceal evidence. De Oliveira has been added as a defendant on the case.

Prosecutors argue he told the IT director that "'the boss' wanted the server deleted."

SCIUTTO: The boss. Sources tell CNN the IT director's name is Yuscil Taveras. He is identified as Trump employee four in the indictment. The Special Counsel is now charging Trump with three additional counts, including willful retention of national defense information and obstruction. We are covering every angle of the story. There are a lot of angles to cover. We learned a lot yesterday afternoon.

Joining us here, CNN's Evan Perez and Zach Cohen. Jessica Dean is in Iowa on the campaign trail and former federal prosecutor Kristy Greenberg also with us.

Evan, two categories of new charges in this indictment yesterday, one relating to destruction or alleged destruction of evidence. The other that seems to corroborate this idea that Trump, when he was speaking to folks, by the way without a security clearance, that he was actually waiving a classified document in front of folks that wouldn't have had clearances to see that document. On that particular new charge, what do we know?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that this is the 32nd document that is now listed in this indictment. And really what it does is it shores up certainly one of the most damning examples of the former president sort of being cavalier with classified information, at least in the way prosecutors present it. And we know that that document is, obviously, one of the ones that was being discussed in that recording that prosecutors have.

Of course, that's one of the biggest pieces of evidence, one of the most interesting pieces of evidence that the prosecution has in this case. And now the fact is that they have brought it into the indictment. It tells us that either they have evidence from other witnesses that gives them the confidence to be able to show this to a jury.

And, of course, the rest of this indictment is pretty damning for the former president. It really describes a scheme by him, orchestrated by him, with his two employees to try to destroy, at least according to the prosecutors, to try to destroy surveillance video after they received a subpoena to produce that.

And that example there - that is listed in their chapter and verse from prosecutors with De Oliveira talking to Taveras saying, "'The boss' wants the server deleted and what are we going to do about it" really is going to be something that is going to be a very important part of this case, right, especially if they can get other witnesses to corroborate what is being said there.

SANCHEZ: Some of the details kind of illustrate the dynamics of Mar-A- Lago where you had Walt Nauta apparently sending a group text to people asking if Carlos De Oliveira was loyal and whether he would back the former president.

[15:05:03]

And then just a few hours later, the president actually calling De Oliveira and saying, hey, I've got an attorney for you, don't worry about it. This plays out like a mob movie.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PEREZ: The fact is that this is on an encrypted app ...

SANCHEZ: Signal.

PEREZ: On Signal, right? And so it's clear that the prosecutors have access to this. How do they do - how do they have that? We know that they seized Carlos De Oliveira's devices, his cell phone. They have the devices of many of the other people. They interviewed every single person who works at Mar-A-Lago.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PEREZ: So there's a lot of people who corroborated this.

SCIUTTO: Zach Cohen, of course, yesterday, what folks were looking for was the possibility of the grand jury making a decision on a whole other category of potential charges against the former president, that his and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 Election. It didn't happen yesterday, but you have new reporting that would indicate a decision at least is coming in the coming days, what is that?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yesterday was certainly unexpected, but sources are telling me and Evan that, look, law enforcement officials are still preparing for this third Trump indictment to come down and believe it could come down any time within the next week even.

So law enforcement officials looking at this still as a potential indictment coming in the next couple of days. You know, obviously, they're still waiting on official word from the Justice Department, from the Special Counsel's office, because nothing is set in stone until that happens.

But it's good perspective to look at how law enforcement is still viewing this as something that could happen in the very near term.

SANCHEZ: And it's not just the Special Counsel, it's also in Fulton County, Georgia, where we're seeing some interesting movement in the case involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State.

COHEN: Yes, similarly, we're already seeing security preparations kind of being implemented there. We saw some barricades that were set up around the courthouse. And it looks ahead to this Monday window, the opening of this window where Fani Willis, the prosecutor in Georgia said, look, any time between Monday and the next several weeks is when I can announce indictments.

And look, there's a lot of people in that Georgia case who believe their targets and are nervous right now because of the RICO statute in the RICO case that Fani Willis is looking at building right now. It could encompass a wide range of people in a lot of them.

SCIUTTO: Well, I mean, you mentioned comparisons to mob behavior. RICO is a tactic prosecutors have used against the mob repeatedly.

Jessica Dean, I'm certain you've had this experience, I've had it, where Republican lawmakers will say something in private about the president's alleged wrongdoing and something else in public. I wonder, as the Republican presidential candidates are there in Iowa for a key dinner, they're going to make their case in 10 minute segments to voters there for the nomination, do you hear candidates or campaigns there saying privately, well, wow, this is a - this is bad news for the former president?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really, Jim, they are so focused on getting their message out right now. They really don't want to be seen as responding to Trump all the time. And yet there are a couple of candidates which we've heard - whom we've heard from on our air and other places, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, they will go directly after the former president and really make the case, weaving in his legal troubles as a reason why he should not be the nominee and they should.

We are told that, for example, vice president - former vice president, Mike Pence, is going to be more aggressive toward former President Trump and others. But we're waiting to see if that happens. But what has been interesting to see is watching these candidates try to thread the needle as they're out here on the campaign trail. A lot of these voters voted for Donald Trump twice. So really trying to make - not offend them, but make the case that it's time to move forward.

We did hear from the former president, I want you to listen to that clip about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what you're response to it?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just heard it as I'm sitting down. This is harassment. This is election interference.

I wouldn't keep him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

TRUMP: Jack Smith? Why would I keep him? He is deranged. Look, he's gone after other people. He's been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court. He's destroyed a lot of lives.

What he's done is just horrible. And the abuse of power - it is prosecutorial misconduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: They're saying if he were president, that he would fire the person who is investigating him. And, Jim, it will be interesting to see over the next several days and weeks as we lead up to the debate, if any of the candidates start to take this on and usually - and more than we're seeing now and try to contrast themselves to the former president in this way.

I will say in the voters that I've spoken to and this is just anecdotal, these are people that I'm talking to. There are obviously many, many voters across the country. But here in Iowa, they're not focused on indictment. That is not a word that came up. They will talk about Trump's demeanor. There is certainly Trump fatigue and they will say I supported him in the last two elections. I'm ready to move forward. But they're looking at who can win in 2024. That's what I'm hearing from them.

And so if they make the assessment that these legal troubles and this legal peril is going to make him unelectable, then, yes, that's going to weaken him.

[15:10:04]

There certainly is fatigue.

But if he can make the case - this makes him stronger, that he's being prosecuted unfairly, that's going to be up for the voters to decide and we're going to see that all play out on the stage right here in Des Moines tonight.

SCIUTTO: That's interesting, because that is a path that some of the Republican candidates ...

SANCHEZ: Right.

SCIUTTO: ... Chris Christie, for instance, have taken, which is to say he's not the guy who's going to win.

SANCHEZ: Right.

SCIUTTO: Whatever you think of him, he's not the guy who's going to win.

SANCHEZ: Yes, Ron DeSantis who hasn't gone after him directly, but he argues, I'm Trump without the baggage policy-wise ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: ... it hasn't really made a dent in terms of polling. Trump's still with a commanding lead.

Let's pivot from the political to the legal question. We have former federal prosecutor, Kristy Greenberg, with us. Kristy, just right off the bat, what stood out to you about this superseding indictment?

KRISTY GREENBERG, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: What stood out to me was that these changes, the additional defendant and these additional charges really enhanced the jury appeal of the case that Jack Smith and his prosecutors are going to present at a trial. You have a lot of times it's the cover up.

And here, the cover up just got a lot juicier. This idea of deleting security camera footage of the conversation about the ballot, about the boss telling me to do it, that it was clear that these are directions coming directly from the top, from Donald Trump and that he's the one telling them, here's what you're supposed to do. Get rid of the evidence. Anything incriminating that could hurt me, get rid of it. And that he is demanding loyalty like a mob boss.

That is the kind of evidence that jurors are really going to understand and it so removes him from this idea, the cachet of being a former president. Here he is just acting like a criminal who is trying to cover his tracks.

SCIUTTO: Listen, the parallels to Nixon and the tapes. Interesting, to say the least.

Let's talk about timing, if we can. Now, there's another defendant added to the case, Carlos De Oliveira. You've got a scheduled late May trial start date. Does that timing still look likely to you?

GREENBERG: It does. So now that we are not looking at the proposed December date that the prosecutors had initially put forward in their scheduling order, and we're looking at May, there is still plenty of time for this new defendant to get the discovery, for his attorney to get up to speed. No motions have been briefed yet.

So there is ample time in this schedule now for these new charges and this new defendant to be part of that schedule for a May trial.

SANCHEZ: Yes. No question it's going to be a complicated discovery, given the sensitive nature of the evidence.

SCIUTTO: You might say it's going to be a busy year, legally, politically, possibly.

SANCHEZ: With the backdrop being a presidential election season, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Thanks to everybody for being with us. Kristy, Jessica, Zach and Evan, appreciate the conversation. A very busy start to this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. And we have more on the way.

After months of slow progress, Ukraine appears to be ramping up its counteroffensive. We're going to take you live to Kyiv.

Plus, this Alabama woman has been arrested after admitting to staging her own kidnapping. We're going to break down the charges that she's now facing.

And there are chilling moments playing out in a Michigan courtroom, as a former classmate of Ethan Crumbley details the moment the teenage gunman executed a student in front of him. How the witness says he got away.

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[15:17:31]

SCIUTTO: At any moment, the White House is expected to announce a new weapons package for Taiwan. The price tag, more than $300 million. The move almost certainly to upset China. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway territory, opposes any sort of armed sales. Of course, Taiwan concerned about the possibility of a Chinese full-scale invasion.

CNN's Oren Liebermann joins us now from the Pentagon. Oren, this is part of a consistent policy to provide Taiwan with the weapons it needs to defend itself. Do we know about what's going to be in this package, what kind of weapons and why this move right now to expedite the transfer?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the officials we've spoken with have given us the heads up that though we have a sense of the size of the package, more than $300 million, the U.S. isn't likely to detail what's in it because of how sensitive relations are with China.

This package, however, is expected to get there faster than previous armed sales to Taiwan. And that's because for the first time ever, the U.S. is providing weapons and equipment to Taiwan under presidential drawdown authority, which means it's pulled directly from Department of Defense stocks so it can be sent in within days or weeks.

This is the exact same authority that the U.S. uses to quickly ship weapons to Ukraine. Now it will be shipping to Taiwan. Taiwan having complained in the past of delays in shipments, at least partially because some of that was diverted to Ukraine, so this will at least go in quickly, as you point out, Jim, with increasing concern over China's intent for Taiwan.

It's worth pointing out that the U.S. has a billion dollars of this authority, so this will be about a third of that and we'll wait to see, first, when it's announced, and second, where that other two- thirds is and if there are more of these coming.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And we should note it's been part of U.S. policy for decades to sell arms to Taiwan for its defense.

Oren, another story we're following, a new U.S. intelligence report reveals details about China's relationship with Russia, specifically to the question of support for Russia's war in Ukraine. What do we know?

LIEBERMANN: And this is something we've been watching since the beginning of the war. How much is China helping to support Russia's war effort? A newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says, increasingly so.

It is worth noting that some of this report is based on Western media reporting and open source, but there is a U.S. intel assessment that Russia is becoming increasingly relying - reliant upon China for its war effort. Now, it doesn't say that China is shipping in weapons.

[15:20:02]

But it does say that there's dual use equipment, semiconductors, some of which China sends in from the U.S. and allows Russia to avert sanctions, as well as drones and other equipment that Russia uses as part of its war effort.

Now, it is worth noting the Chinese embassy in the U.S. did respond to this, saying all of their economic and trade partnerships are above board, Jim?

SCIUTTO: And it's a key distinction there, not direct weapons shipments at this point, but dual use technologies that can be used to help the war effort.

Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, thanks so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: The war in Ukraine appears to be spilling beyond its borders. There have been several missiles launched on Russian cities in recent days, including a rocket that was shot down today over the border city of Taganrog.

CNN's Alex Marquardt joins us now live from Ukraine's capital of Kyiv. And, Alex, there is late word of a missile strike somewhere in Dnipro. What are you learning about that?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, a Friday night missile strike in the center of one of Ukraine's biggest cities, Dnipro. We heard from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just moments ago on social media, he confirmed the missile strike. He said that there has been damage done to what he described as a high- rise building, as well as the headquarters of a headquarters of Ukraine's security services, the SBU.

Boris, in terms of people who were injured or hurt or killed, we don't have any sign of that just yet. But it is, of course, still early. A member of parliament who is in Dnipro says that he has not heard of anybody being hurt or killed.

But, Boris, this is Ukraine's fourth biggest city. It's quite far from the front line. It's about 60 miles from the closest front. We were there just two weeks ago. We actually spoke to our hotel tonight, which is about a third of a mile from the strike site, someone at the hotel saying that it was extremely loud. They heard two explosions. It rattled the entire area.

This is a city that doesn't come under regular missile attack, but it just speaks to the fact that Russia continues to target cities all across the country with what President Zelenskyy described tonight as terror. Now, meanwhile, Boris, this comes just hours after we heard about missile strikes inside Russia, which they are blaming on Ukraine.

The Russian military says that two S-200 missiles, which are air defense missiles were fired into the southern part of Russia. They were taken by - down by air defense, as they say, but falling debris landed in the city of Taganrog, and it hurt at least 14 people on the ground and caused some destruction.

The second missile, their - its debris did not do any damage. It fell into an open area. There has been no claim of responsibility, Boris, but we have seen recent attacks, both drones and other kind inside Russia that Ukraine has claimed. So they are continuing with their cross-border attacks. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Alex Marquardt reporting live from Kyiv. Jim? SCIUTTO: Coming up, survivors are testifying today in court as a judge decides whether high school gunman, Ethan Crumbley, will spend the rest of his life in prison. Hear how one of the students who survived describes coming face-to-face with Crumbley and how he says one of the people killed that day, young people, saved his life.

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[15:28:02]

SANCHEZ: We have new details in the case of an Alabama woman who faked her own kidnapping. She's now under arrest, charged in the hoax and her smiling mugshot was released just moments ago. Carlee Russell gained nationwide attention earlier this month when she called police, claiming that she saw a toddler walking alone on the side of a busy highway. When police showed up, all they found was her empty car and some of her belongings, including her cell phone. A scene that we now know was a setup.

CNN's Ryan Young has the new developments.

So, Ryan, bring us up to speed on the charges that she's facing.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so much work put into this, Boris. I should note that she is bonded out right now. She faces two misdemeanor charges. One was for false reporting to law enforcement authorities and also false reporting an incident, both a thousand dollar bonds and she's gotten out.

Talk about that mugshot because that's something new that we have been able to get in the last hour or so. There's a news conference happening at 2 o'clock. The police chief explaining the misdemeanors were as far as they can go. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF NICHOLAS DERZIS, HOOVER, ALABAMA POLICE: I know many are shocked and appalled that Ms. Russell is only being charged with two misdemeanors, despite all of the panic and disruption her actions caused.

Let me assure you, I too share the same frustration. But existing laws only allow the charges that were filed, to be filed. I can tell you that I will be contacting our state legislators on behalf of law enforcement in Montgomery and asking them to look at this law as applied to these facts and urge them to add an enhancement to the current legislation when someone falsely reports a kidnapping or other violent crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Boris, you can tell the chief is not happy about this. A lot of resources were put into this, the drone put in the air, K-9 units were put in to work there. They also had other federal authorities come in to help with the search. People from the community came in to help the search. So everyone is trying to figure out where Carlee was for that 49 hours, that still hasn't been figured out just yet.

[15:30:02]

And police are still investigating that part. They did talk about the fact that she went to a Target and bought snacks before all this happened.