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Grand Jury Seen Leaving Federal Courthouse; Georgia Grand Jury Subpoenas Journalist And Former State Lawmaker In Trump Probe; Suspected Serial Killer Appears In Court; Kremlin: Moscow High-Rise Attacked Again By Ukraine. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 01, 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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[15:01:05]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This is a live look outside of the federal courthouse here in Washington, D.C. Grand jurors have been hearing evidence today in the Special Counsel's January 6th probe. They were just seen leaving for the day, and we are standing by to find out if they voted on whether to hand up an indictment for Donald Trump.

Sources telling CNN that the former president and his advisers are right now preparing for a potential indictment.

CNN's Paula Reid is joining us now on that.

Paula, what are you hearing?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So we know that the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the Special Counsel's investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, they have been seen leaving the building. But one important person stayed behind and that is the grand jury foreperson.

Brianna, that is significant because that is the only member of the grand jury that is needed to return an indictment. Now, at this point it's unclear if they have voted to indict the former president or anyone else in this investigation. One of the reasons we're watching their movement so closely today is because of what we've seen over the past two weeks.

We know the former president has received a target letter informing him that he is indeed a target in this investigation. He received an invitation to appear before the grand jury, which he declined. And Brianna, that is usually something that comes at the very end of an investigation.

And also another sign that an indictment was imminent, his defense attorneys met with Jack Smith and his team last week. Sources tell CNN they did not think that they would be able to successfully change the trajectory of this investigation, but they hoped that they might be able to delay it. Now, this is the first time we've seen the grand jury back meeting today at work. But again, at this point, we don't know if they have returned an indictment. Typically, the way this works is that they would bring this indictment to a magistrate judge in a sealed proceeding. It's unclear, though, if this is going to go according to the usual script, because, of course, this would be, once again, a historic case.

So they may deal with it slightly differently, but usually, this would be returned before a magistrate judge in a sealed hearing and the indictment would remain sealed until an arrest. But it's unclear, given the historic and the national significance of a possible indictment, if this could be handled slightly differently, if we could see potentially documents shortly after any indictment is returned.

But, Brianna, we have our wonderful team of reporters at the courthouse watching every possible angle of this right now, and we'll come back to you if we hear that an indictment has indeed been returned.

KEILAR: All right, Paula, we'll be looking for that. Thank you so much. Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Major potential indictment pending here in Washington. Another major indictment pending, possibly, in Georgia. This is, of course, involving Donald Trump, as well. We're learning that the Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, has issued subpoenas to a former state lawmaker as well as an independent journalist. This is a strong signal that she does intend to seek indictments in her criminal probe of Trump, because those witnesses relate to efforts to put a fake slate of electors in Georgia to overturn the results of the election there.

CNN's Sara Murray joins me now. So these newest subpoenas point, it seems, to her focus on this attempt to seat fake electors there. Biden won the state, an attempt to seat electors that would have shown Trump falsely won the state.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think that that is one prong of her investigation. And, again, this has been a sprawling investigation, which lasted for two and a half years and these subpoenas for grand jury testimony are the clearest indication that she's putting forward a presentation to put before the grand jury and to seek indictments.

Of course, as you said, she has not made any announcements yet on who she's going to seek charges against. But George Chidi, who was the independent journalist you mentioned, he's based out of Atlanta, he sort of stumbled upon the Republican fake electors, meeting at the Georgia state capitol.

[15:05:01]

He was kicked out of the room where they were meeting. He was told it was an education-related meeting. Of course, that ended up not to be the case. And the other person who received a subpoena for grand jury testimony is former Democratic state senator, Jen Jordan. She was present when Rudy Giuliani showed up, again, at the Georgia state capitol and shared all of these conspiracy theories about the election being stolen and essentially tried to convince the state legislature that they could be involved in this and move forward with seating electors. And, of course, Rudy Giuliani was there presenting, sharing a number of conspiracy theories.

So these are witnesses that she seems to want, Fani Willis seems to want ready to put forward for a possible grand jury presentation sometime in the month of August. The subpoenas essentially say be prepared, be ready to go between August 7th and the end of the month and we'll give you 48 hours notice for when you need to appear. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Goodness. And also that effort, it appears, to conceal what they were actually up to in that state house in Georgia at the time.

Sara Murray, thanks so much.

Joining me now, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

And here we are, the former president possibly on the cusp of not one, but two additional indictments or perhaps multiple one here in Washington, D.C., and then the ongoing case in Georgia. If the Special Counsel, if this grand jury has decided to indict the former president specifically for events on January 6th also an effort nationally to overturn the election, can you place this into some context for us more serious than the other indictments, but also historically, have we ever seen anything like this legally?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: We haven't. And I think when you said, put this in context, it is beyond any context we've ever seen in the criminal justice system before. Up until the Mar-A-Lago case, we did not have an indictment of any sitting or former president. That was the first ever indictment, federal indictment, I would say, of a former president. Obviously, he has two already.

But here, you have someone being indicted, and here it's not just someone, it's not just some oath keeper, it is the former president of the United States being indicted for a scheme to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in the United States. It is incredibly serious, because one thing that's been a hallmark of the United States since President Washington stepped down is that we have a peaceful transfer of power in this country and so it's certainly serious.

I mean, I could break it down in a legal sense of whether it's serious or not, but it's unprecedented. It's far-reaching. It is the first and only indictment of its kind, if it comes out.

SCIUTTO: You're at a disadvantage, as we all are, because we're not members of the grand jury. We have some tea leaves as to the evidence and the witness testimony that the Special Counsel has in this case. But based on what you know, can you describe the standard, right, to prove this, you're - if you've convinced a jury, a grand jury, to indict him, that's one thing. You now have to convince a jury of 12 to convict a former president here. What would you need to see to meet that standard?

MARIOTTI: It's a great question. The standard legally is, for a grand jury, they just need good reason to believe a crime occurred, pretty low standard. In trial, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. And the Justice Department policy is not to seek an indictment unless you're confident that you can prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt when it gets into the courtroom. And so what are we looking for here? What would Jack Smith be looking for in his investigation? He's looking to disprove arguments that Trump has that he legitimately knew that he legitimately thought that the election was stolen from him.

In other words, he wasn't trying to defraud everyone by selling that big lie. In fact, he really thought, genuinely thought the lie was true. He's trying to subpoena witnesses who are close to Trump, whether as we've heard Jared Kushner, we've heard Mike Pence, others that have been subpoenaed for that.

Also trying to deal with these, I would say, advice of counsel defenses from - essentially advice he's getting from dishonest or crooked lawyers, people like Giuliani or Eastman who have very, often very questionable, unethical legal theories. What did he really believe about that? What else was he told by legitimate, honest lawyers about what his legal options were? I think that's going to be (inaudible) focus of what he's looking for.

SCIUTTO: Now, you, of course, have the Georgia investigation, which relates specifically to Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the election there. But if you were to have him indicted, both here in federal court, in Georgia, the state investigation, in addition to the indictment, and it was superseded, in fact, expanded last week in the documents case and then the one in New York, this is a man running for president, currently leading for the GOP nomination. How busy would he be in court in the coming weeks and months?

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MARIOTTI: For most defendants, for most people, being indicted in one case is an all-consuming matter. It is, for - many people attempt suicide, they lose their businesses, they lose their marriages. Their life is turned upside down by one indictment.

Dealing with four indictments, I mean, that's the full R. Kelly treatment, where you're indicted across the country by prosecutors all over the place in federal and state court. That is a very difficult situation to be in. And, frankly, that is more than one person can ordinarily handle when they're not running for president.

SCIUTTO: Renato Mariotti, I imagine we'll have some more questions for you going forward as we continue to watch developments here in Georgia and elsewhere. Thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Here moments ago, the Gilgo Beach serial killing suspect appeared in court. Rex Heuermann is pleading not guilty to the murders of three women and police believe that Heuermann may have committed the killings inside of his family's home when his wife and his two children were out of town. And after an intensive search of the property, his wife's attorney shared some photos of the aftermath.

CNN's Jean Casarez is joining us live from outside of that courthouse, where, Jean, the DA as well as the attorney, the court-appointed attorney for Rex Heuermann has just - they've both spoken. What has happened there?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me tell you what happened in the courtroom, because, first of all, the defendant was in the courtroom. He was there and he was wearing khaki pants, a gray suit jacket. He was handcuffed when he was at the defense table. He spoke a little bit to his attorney, but the focus of today's proceeding was the voluminous amount of discovery. In court, it was said 2,500 pages of discovery.

There were two hard drives, six discs that will get in the hands of the defense. And as we heard the prosecutor say out in the press conference that New York has a very, very broad discovery requirement from the prosecution to the defense. We also heard what those 2,500 pages incurred.

My colleague, Brynn Gingras, told me that it's photos and autopsy photos and lots of paperwork, lots of reports. Also, from the New York medical examiner's office, the autopsy reports, photos of the crime scene, crime scene processing photos, so much for a 13-year investigation to be handed now over to the defense.

We just had a presser from the prosecution and the defense. I want you to listen to a little bit of that.

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MICHAEL BROWN, ATTORNEY FOR GILGO MURDERS SUSPECT REX HEUERMANN: The press has convicted my client without seeing a shred of evidence, so he doesn't stand a chance with the press. And we're not going to try the case in the press. I doubt that any one of you for a moment have even contemplated the possibility that they have the wrong guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, we can tell you from what he just said, this will be a very aggressive defense by that attorney for Rex Heuermann. I can also confirm with you that there were family members of the victims in that courtroom this afternoon. The district attorney said more than one, he would not say who they were. They do not want to be public. They want to stay private, but they are so focused in on this, of the family members that they lost so long ago. Jim?

KEILAR: Yes, he said that some of them are very, very engaged, Jean. And certainly many of them have said they feel relief knowing that someone has been charged with the murders of their sisters, of their daughters.

Walk us through these photos, which we should mention have been released by the attorney for the family, for Asa Ellerup, the, I guess, estranged, the wife of Rex Heuermann who was filed for divorce, that they have released to the public of the house following this extensive search by police.

CASAREZ: Well, obviously this is what they found when the family returned late last week when the processing was over of that home. Things are turned around, turned over. It doesn't look like a home anymore. There's boxes that say evidence with the evidence tape, obviously, those are boxes they determined they would not take for processing because that's what's going on with all this potential evidence that they have in their hands now.

But they are trying to find forensically, and the district attorney confirmed this just minutes ago, anything forensically that is relevant to this case that may show that the victims were actually inside that home because we know from the application from prosecutors that the family was out of town when these people, these victims went missing and when they were murdered.

And so they're looking to see if there's anything that is of evidentiary value for this prosecution.

[15:15:02]

KEILAR: All right. Jean Casarez in Riverhead, a lot happening there today. Thank you so much. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, Moscow under attack once again. We're going to have the latest on Ukraine's new apparent strategy.

Plus, brand new polling paints quite an interesting picture of what a potential Biden-Trump rematch could look like. It's close.

And a financial ruin and back, Bed Bath & Beyond has new life after bankruptcy. A look at the company's new name and website.

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[15:19:39]

Just days after Ukraine's president suggested, Russians would see more of the war themselves inside Russia. There has been another drone strike in Moscow on a high-rise building there. The same building, in fact, that suffered damage on Sunday from a similar drone attack. This video appears to have captured today's drone just before impact - wow, quite a piece of video there.

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The skyscraper that's now been struck a second time, houses government offices, including the Russian ministries of economy and digital development.

CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, has been covering.

Nic, big picture here seems to be a clear effort to bring the war home to Russia in the costs of the war. Any sense of why this particular building here? Is it because of those government offices?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Potentially it could be. I think there can be a number of reasons. If we look back at what Ukraine has targeted in terms of drone targets in Moscow, it went for the Kremlin in the beginning. And it seems pretty clear the Kremlin put up some kind of electronic defenses.

We've also seen them try to target airfields, airports, military, civilian airfields around Moscow because a couple of times over the past month or so, those airfields have had to shut down their airspace, but no reported impacts on the airfield that we're aware of, so were there defensive measures put in place by the Russians there.

This area that they've hit, yes, it does have some government employees, but they don't seem to have a particularly important function. As best we know, one of the departments there is a sort of a weights and measures department. Another that checks measurements, another one has a technical library.

Another one may have something to do with electronics and drones, but not clear. But it certainly doesn't seem as if there's any sort of high value military or potentially commercial target there. So what it may be is, is just this - this is a very smart, fancy commercial neighborhood that went up maybe a decade or so ago and for this reason.

And I think another thing about it here, you think about Ukrainians connecting a message to Russians, this set of buildings is right next to a major route into the center of Moscow from the suburbs of Moscow. So a lot of people are going to see it. So I think there's a lot of reasons here.

SCIUTTO: Yes, understood. And like we said, last hour, information warfare is always a front, particularly in modern warfare.

Nic Robertson in London, thanks so much.

CNN Senior International Correspondent, Fred Pleitgen, also joining us now, of course, covering the war extensively, not just from Ukraine, but also from Russia itself. And I wonder, given Nic's point just then, a highly visible target on a highly visible road into Moscow where lots of folks are going to see this and say, hey, wait a second, Ukrainians can strike here, what does that mean for me.

What is your sense of the impact these strikes are having on public opinion, on the war inside Russia?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I certainly think that they could have an impact. And it's one of the things that Nic said, that it is a highly visible target, certainly in a highly visible area. And also, I think what we also need to point out, it is also sort of a symbol of the power of Russia, the financial power, but also the power that it has in things like hydrocarbons and business as well.

So certainly this is right a strike at the heart of the economic center of Russia. So I do think that in that respect, it is something that has an impact on the Russian population. But one of the things we also kept - we have to keep in mind, Jim, is that the Russian leadership does not want Russians, particularly in Moscow, to be talking about the war, to be thinking very much about the war, and especially not to be thinking that the war is going very difficult.

Of course, one of the things that we've heard from the Kremlin over the past, really, over a year since the war started, is that everything is going according to plan. Well, certainly drones hitting the financial center in Moscow is definitely not something that appears to be part of that plan.

And I think one of the things that we've also seen in some of the videos that have come out of those strikes is that those drones don't appear to be very big, but they do appear to pack a punch. In fact, I want us to look really quickly at some video that came out of one of those impacts. Let's have a look at that.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Foreign language).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So, as you can see, I mean, those are some pretty horrified pedestrians that were out there. However, one of the things I also have to say is I was actually on the ground in Kyiv in Ukraine when the Russians first used those Shahed drones that I would say are almost of the same size. And the explosion was about the same. And, of course, those unleashed terror as well. And that's where you get back to the message that the Ukrainian president was sending to the Russians that the war has now come to them.

And that certainly seems to be something that may be dawning now among many Russians, that first of all, these drone attacks are happening and, second of all, they seem pretty hard to stop by the Russian leadership. Jim?

SCIUTTO: No question. And as you know, for context, since the very start of the war, Russia has been repeatedly talking - targeting civilians in Ukraine with, well, drones, missiles, you name it.

Fred Pleitgen in Berlin, thanks so much. Brianna?

[15:25:00]

KEILAR: Up next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, brand new polling giving us an idea of what a Trump-Biden rematch would look like as the former president continues to dominate his Republican rivals.

And police are investigating the stabbing death of a Brooklyn man as a possible anti-gay hate crime. And the suspect they're looking for is just 17 years old. We'll have the tragic details ahead.

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[15:30:01]

If President Biden and former President Trump face off again in 2024, a new poll from the "The New York Times" and Siena College shows just how close a rematch this could be.