Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

New Deadline for Trump Team and Prosecutors; Former Lt. Governor of Georgia Subpoenaed; Georgia DA Considering RICO Charge; Russian Missile Strike in Ukraine; Mike Lyons is Interviewed about Ukraine's Counteroffensive. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 08, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:37]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump's legal team responds, accusing the special counsel of going after Trump's First Amendment rights. And now both sides are facing a new deadline.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Brand new exclusive reporting. U.S. officials, just briefed on the Ukrainian counteroffensive, are now calling the progress being made against Russia, sobering, and not in a good way. The challenges that Ukraine is facing.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And a violent brawl in Alabama goes viral. A group of white boaters accused of jumping a black security guard, then a full-blown fight escalated on the river front. Warrants are now filed as demands for justice grow.

I'm Omar Jimenez, with Kate Bolduan and John Berman.

CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Special counsel Jack Smith and Donald Trump's legal team now face a 3:00 p.m. deadline today to respond to the judge overseeing the 2020 election case. At issue now is how much and under what conditions evidence can be publicly disclosed ahead of this historic trial. Trump's legal team, not surprisingly, is fighting for looser rules around that than what the prosecutors are requesting. Trump's team now claim in a new filing that prosecutors are on a politically motivated campaign to restrict Trump's First Amendment rights. Now the judge appears to want to put this to bed asap, saying that she wants to hold a hearing to settle the issue before the end of the day Friday.

Adding to this now, CNN has learned that this man, Trump ally, Bernie Kerik, has now met with Jack Smith's team as well. The former New York City police commissioner, a long-time associate of Rudy Giuliani, he coordinated with Giuliani during the contentious post-election period, trying to investigate election fraud. And now he's speaking to the special counsel.

Let's get to it. CNN's Katelyn Polantz is outside the federal courthouse in Washington with the very latest, of course.

So, Katelyn, walk us through this new deadline today. KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, there's a dispute in

this case early on, January 6th, federal criminal case against Donald Trump, and the judge over top of it. She wants to get this dispute settled fast.

So, what's happening here is Donald Trump and his team, they're going to get evidence that they've never seen before that the Justice Department has collected, things like grand jury transcripts, other things that the Justice Department may have learned in this January 6th investigation. That's all going to get handed over to Donald Trump's team to prepare for trial.

And the dispute is over that information and what Donald Trump can do with it before trial. So, Trump's team, they don't want any restrictions on that information whenever they're getting it. They are saying that if there are things in there that the Justice Department believe are highly sensitive, those things, those could be locked down. But Donald Trump and his lawyers have been out there quite publicly saying they don't want anything that would curtail Donald Trump's ability to have free speech about this case before the trial.

Now, the Justice Department, they want to lock down all of that information that Trump and his team have never seen before, that they've collected, and they're going to give to him, and make sure that it's not disclosed publicly to anyone really that the documents aren't shared, that Trump isn't speaking about them. And they're saying that Donald Trump has no right to be sharing these sorts of things legally before he goes to trial. That it could hurt his ability to have a fair trial if he's out there and speaking about these things.

So, where the line is drawn on how sensitive the information has to be for it to be locked down, that's what's at issue here. And the judge does want to have a hearing by Friday. So we should hear by the end of the day today at least when both sides, the Justice Department and Donald Trump's team, are available to have that hearing. And there should be something on the calendar pretty soon as well.

BOLDUAN: Look, it's the rules of the road, if you will. And this is going to be very important for the extent of the pretrial - you know, everything that's going to happen pretrial. The rules of the road and what people can talk about and can't. This is going to be very important what comes out by the end of this week.

But, Katelyn, the control room just told me in my ear also that the grand jury who handed down the indictment, they are once again meeting today for the first time since then. What does this mean?

[09:05:01]

POLANTZ: Well, the investigation continues. That is what it means when the grand jury is assembled after an indictment has already been filed. And we have gotten some hints on what the grand jury still may be investigating. First and foremost, we did see, at CNN, my colleagues were able to get on camera Bernie Kerik and his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, yesterday leaving the special counsel's office. He's a very close associate of Rudy Giuliani who was working to try and find election fraud, which they never were able to get proof of after the 2020 election.

But Bernie Kerik yesterday, he spoke to the special counsel's office for about five hours. And upon leaving, his attorney said they had a lot of questions about what the Giuliani team was doing. Giuliani is a co-conspirator in that indictment against Donald Trump. He's not charged at this time. But clearly the special counsel still has questions and a reason to be convening that grand jury today in the courthouse behind me.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Katelyn Polantz, glad you're there. Thank you, Katelyn.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: And to Georgia now, where this morning the grand jury is weighing whether Trump will be indicted for a fourth time this year. They are seeking more testimony. Former Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan says he was subpoenaed last week by the jury and will testify this month. And just last night the Republican called Trump's current attacks on the legal system "erratic and unmoored from the truth." That's for Trump's 2020 find the votes call to Georgia's secretary of state. Duncan describes it as "dangerous and pathetic."

CNN's Nick Valencia is live outside the courthouse in Atlanta.

Nick, I think it's no secret Duncan isn't the biggest fan of Trump. He's testified in this case before. But what could this grand jury be hoping to soon learn from Duncan?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Omar. Duncan did testify in front of the special purpose grand jury. Now the Fulton County grand jury wants to hear from him. The Republican has been a harsh critic of former President Trump. And while he was lieutenant governor, he was the president of the Georgia state senate. The same state senate where former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared in front of three times to spread election conspiracy theories and election interference lies. Duncan has called those meetings unofficial, he says they were unsanctioned. He's even gone so far as to call them an embarrassment.

Listen to him last night on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEOFF DUNCAN (R), FORMER LT. GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA: Yes, I'll be there to answer the facts as I know them and to continue this process of trying to discover what actually happened during that post-election period of time. Certainly, we can never repeat that as a country. Certainly, I never want to see that happen in my home state of Georgia. A lot of good people's lives were uprooted. A lot of people's reputations have been soiled.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VALENCIA: Duncan now one of three people to be subpoenaed by the Fulton County grand jury. Remember, Omar, this is not just about Trump's infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger after he lost the 2020 election here in Georgia. This is also about the illegal accessing of voting equipment in Coffee County by Trump operatives, as well as the slate of fake electors. There's two others who have been subpoenaed independent. Independent Atlanta based journalist George Cheatty (ph), who stumbled upon that meeting of fake electors in the state capitol, and also former Democratic State Senator Jen Jordan, who was at the hearings and meetings with former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: And this is just, of course, one of a number of cases swirling around in the Trump world as well. This, of course, one we're going to keep a close eye on.

VALENCIA: That's right.

JIMENEZ: Nick Valencia, thank you, as always.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who was a mob prosecutor, which pertains to what I'm about to ask you, because we're getting word out of Georgia, where Nick Valencia just is right there, that Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, may use RICO, racketeering charges, to go after Donald Trump.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: I know RICO because I follow mob trials and listen to your podcast. How does that apply here?

HONIG: So, RICO stands for Racketeer Influence Corrupt Organizations. It started as a federal law passed in 1970, designed to fight organized crime, but then expanded outward. And now it's used - first of all, there are various states that have passed their own version, including Georgia. And now it's used to prosecute any type of organized criminal group. Can be a political group. Can be a street gang, a drug trafficking organization. It's being used more and more broadly.

Generally speaking, under RICO laws, as a prosecutor you have to show two things. First of all, the existence of what we call a racketeering enterprise. Meaning, a group, it doesn't have to have an official name, but a group that gets together in order to do the second thing, which is commit a pattern of racketeering, which means two or more crimes for some sort of common purpose. So, we'll see if prosecutors are able to fit Donald Trump and his organization into that legal definition.

BERMAN: In theory it could be - I'm just saying, could it be Trump, the six co-conspirators in the multiple crimes in theory could be the seven states for which they submitted fake electors?

[09:10:00]

HONIG: Absolutely. Your group does not have to have a formal name or initiation right. Sometimes groups do. They're called such and such gang or the such and such organization. But it also can be a group that is an informal association, just people working together for a common purpose. We've had reporting, Nick just talked about it there, that Fani Willis is looking at those charges. They do exist under Georgia state law.

One huge difference, though. Under Georgia state law, if somebody's convicted of RICO, there is a five-year mandatory minimum. Have to do five years. Even the federal law doesn't have that.

BERMAN: That's sort of a stunning development. And remember, Trump, if he wins the election, he can't pardon himself in Georgia if he's convicted there. We're a long way from that.

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: I do want to ask, all the things we're seeing this week, and we'll -- by the end of the week we'll figure out how important they are or not. But one of the things that has come out are the statements that Trump is making on social media, including the one where he said, if you come after me, I will come after you. "The Washington Post," Aaron Blake raised this question. And it seemed like a good one. What constitutes witness tampering? If you come after me, I'll come after you. Trump also went after Mike Pence on social media. Pence is going to be a witness.

HONIG: This is art not science. This is one of those areas where ultimately it's in the eye of a judge or if there's an official charge of witness tampering a jury. The rule is - or, excuse me, a witness. You can't say something that is intended to influence or intimidate a witness against you. Of course, that has to be counterbalanced against the First Amendment statement.

And this particular statement, if you go after me, I'll come after you, is a perfect sort of Rorschach test almost. You can look at it from either way. I'm sure Donald Trump's team argues that's political speech. That's a general statement. That means politically I'll come after you, or if you take the stand you'll be cross-examined vigorously. I think prosecutors are of a different view that the meaning there is well understood. And is a potential witness who sees that likely to feel intimidated or threatened? Probably. Ultimately, this may come to a head if prosecutors go to a judge and ask for a next step, which would be a gag order restricting what Donald Trump can say.

BERMAN: So you're saying it's art, which means it's the judge who will ultimately have to decide if Trump has gone too far?

HONIG: Absolutely. I mean prosecutors in the first instance have to decide if they want to ask the judge to take action. But, ultimately, the question about whether it's too far will be a judge. And if there ever is, there's not right now, but if there ever is a witness tampering charge, that's a question for the jury.

BERMAN: So, witness tampering is different than tainting a jury pool.

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: Although it's a little bit on the same continuum. What's the difference here?

HONIG: Yes. So, you see a lot of concern in DOJ's briefs that are going on right now about, well, these public statements could influence a jury pool because ultimately your jury is going to be drawn from civilians, 12 randomly chosen, lucky or unlucky civilians depending how you look at it. And what's so unique about Donald Trump, really singular about Donald Trump, is, everybody knows him. We've had that scenario before. O.J. Simpson, Martha Stewart. But everybody is privy to everything he says. His social media posts goes out to tens of millions of people. And so when you're picking a jury, you're already going to have to sort of work your way through that. You're not looking for 12 jurors who have never heard of Donald Trump. That's not the rule. But you're looking for 12 jurors who are not unduly influenced by statements and who say, and the lawyers believe, can put aside whatever their political or personal believes are.

Jury selection in this trial is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen.

BERMAN: I was just going to say, that is going to be fascinating when it takes place.

HONIG: It's already difficult enough in a normal case. Now you throw in this element and who knows how that's going to play out.

BERMAN: All right, Elie Honig, counselor, great to see you, as always.

HONIG: Thanks, John. All right.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up still for us, new CNN reporting this morning on Ukraine's counteroffensive. The sobering new assessment coming in. That is next.

Plus, severe weather across the country really today. It's dangerous, of course. It's also once again throwing air travel into chaos. We have the outlook for you.

And former Vice President Mike Pence welcomed to the stage. Pence has met a key requirement to be allowed on the GOP primary debate stage. And not a moment too soon, as the debate is now a couple weeks away.

We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:59] BOLDUAN: Utter devastation. You're looking at these pictures of -- this is an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Russia launched two missiles targeting a residential area. And here's the thing, the second strike hit a hotel, just as first responders were trying to rescue victims from the first attack next door. So far we have heard at least seven people were killed, 81 people have been wounded. And we're told that includes children and rescue workers.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in Ukraine for us this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's the reason why this strike in Pokrovsk was so damaging that is particularly chilling. Yes, we see strikes against civilian targets almost nightly in Ukraine. Tand there were two dead in Kharkiv in the similar 24-hour period. But in Pokrovsk, the first missile, Iskander missile according to Ukrainian officials, hit the hotel initially causing, of course, a significant amount of damage, windows taken out. In all the neighboring buildings, 2,000 according to Ukrainian officials. But it was then that rescuers, as usual, rushed in to start searching through the rubble, to get people out, to bring essential first aid.

And then, 40 minutes later, the second Iskander missile hit the same target. Now, that's not really an accident. That is calculated. It's a tactic known as a double tap after the sort of two bullets fired sometimes in the military. And it's used to increase casualties because the second missile is designed to kill the first responders.

And, of course, here the same target showing perhaps that the Russians knew what they were hitting and chose to hit it twice. This part of, frankly, barbarism we've seen on Russian behalf, it's a tactic that the Syrian regime used perhaps with their assistance during the Syrian civil war and just adds, I think, to the growing anger and loss and grief amongst Ukrainian civilians.

In the same period we heard unusual outcomes from peace summit, peace talks without Russia in Saudi Arabia in which China, who unexpectedly turned up to that particular meeting.

[09:20:11]

A bit, I think, to bring many countries that once had sympathies for Russia closer to Ukraine's position in the event that there is some kind of peace negotiation. It's farfetched for now. China emerged saying that the meetings had, in fact, consolidated the international consensus. An unexpected outcome certainly for Moscow, who must have hoped that it would still see international opinion fractured. But that a sign that as the counteroffensive rumbles on here and the civilian death toll mounts, there is still some degree of international consensus about Russia's behavior in Ukraine.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Nick, thank you so much for that.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, new CNN reporting this morning on how the war is going. Ukraine's western allies are receiving what they say are increasingly sobering assessments about Ukraine's counteroffensive, specifically the Ukrainian force's ability to retake significant territory from Russian troops.

So, let's talk about this with retired Army Major Mike Lyons.

Good to see you this morning, Major.

So, I want to start with that latest reporting, that western allies are receiving increasingly sobering updates on the counteroffensive here, which is, of course, very different than maybe some of the optimism we saw leading into this. Plainly, where does Ukraine go from here?

MAJOR MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): So, we're two months into their counteroffensive to the day actually today. And right now their counteroffensive has not gained the kind of land back it thought it was going to. It - you know, it -- frontal attacks on fortified positions that are surrounded by mines, without air superiority, does not have any historical context to be successful. So, and in some ways they've overset expectations that they thought they were going to be in a different place by now. They've not been able to threaten Crimea on any level. But until they get air superiority, until they have, you know, more crew protection in some of these western equipment, their reserves have not been committed yet. That's kind of the issue here. They've not decided to, you know, commit to one specific avenue of approach here. Maybe that would change the situation on the ground. We just have to see.

JIMENEZ: Well, and, obviously, this is a situation where, yes, two countries are fighting but a lot of interested parties.

LYONS: Right.

JIMENEZ: Of course, western allies supplying a lot of funding, of course, to the Ukrainian side.

When something like this either is highly touted as it was, doesn't go either as planned or as well as initially thought, what does the fallout look like there? I mean will it contribute to - to fatigue among western supporters and support here?

LYONS: Yes, I think that's possible. I think that's Vladimir Putin's plan. He holds out as long as he possibly can in the defense right now. They don't have to go on any kind of offensive operations.

We're getting into the fall shortly and rainy season is going to make some of those roads impassable. It's going to make military operations much more difficult. Next you know it's winter. Now it's springtime. In the United States,

we're full on with the presidential election. We'll have politicians arguing whether or not we should support this. Right now Ukraine needs probably two to three years of commitment from western allies if they're going to have any success with regard to trying to take some of their land back. Their commitment right now has been six to eight months at a time.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And I want to look forward a little bit here because, you know, we had the first batch of U.S. Abrams tanks that was approved to go over there.

LYONS: Yes.

JIMENEZ: They're not going to get there until the fall, of course.

LYONS: Right.

JIMENEZ: But to set context for our viewers, how much of a difference does that actually make when it arrives?

LYONS: Well, yes, you know, they need 400 first of all.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

LYONS: So, it took a while to get 31 there. And where those 31 are going to go will be the focus of where their attack has to be. The Russians will know that, too. They'll concentrate troops there as well. But those tanks will still be exposed to being the tracks blown off from mines. They're not game changers on any level. They will provide more crew survivability from the Ukraine crews that they've been training in Germany for. So, they'll jump right in. They might provide, again, a little bit of a difference. But, again, until you can combine the air with the ground and all those assets together, air defense platforms, combined arms is how you win a counteroffensive, and right now the Ukraine military still fights one dimensionally.

JIMENEZ: And, of course, you know, throughout this however long - how long it's been developing, of course, over now years at this point for many allies that have been supporting, you've been looking for marginal progress.

LYONS: Yes.

JIMENEZ: This, of course, the counteroffensive was talked about so much going into it. Now, of course, this is concerning in some circles as, you know, our reporting shows, sobering in other circles. And you bring up a good point, when we get to the election, there will be a lot of fighting over where this funding from the United States side goes.

LYONS: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Major Mike Lyons, thank you so much for joining us.

John. BERMAN: Omar, this morning, police in Pennsylvania say a driver is facing charges after he crashed his car into a house, the second floor of said house. Authorities say the driver was speeding when he veered off the road and went airborne. He was taken to the hospital. Three people were inside the house but none of them were hurt.

Maryland State Police say they have rescued almost four dozen people who were trapped in their vehicles for hours by downed power lines.

[09:25:01]

Storms knocked down several electric poles. Crews had to deactivate the lines to get the trapped drivers and passengers out. Police say 33 adults, 14 children and one dog were rescued.

So, this morning, an explanation of sorts for why Orioles fans cannot have nice things. The sports world is agas this morning after the Orioles TV announcer appears to have been taken off the air by the team. Kevin Brown has not announced a game since he basically noted how much better the first place Orioles are this season than the last few. That's pretty much all he said.

Now, the site Awful Announcing noticed he was off the air. The Orioles claimed they don't comment on personnel moves and he wasn't suspended per say, but he hasn't been on the air. And if that's enough to take him off the air because he noted how good they are now and how bad they were, maybe we need to get Sanjay on the line to talk about a dermatological condition for Orioles ownership, chronic thin skinedness (ph).

Kate.

BOLDUAN: This is what happens when I forget to read what you're about to say before you say it. That was --

BERMAN: He was taken off the air for saying how good they are --

BOLDUAN: I'm going to leave -- I will leave open one possibility and you can debate me.

BERMAN: OK.

BOLDUAN: Could there be more to this story?

BERMAN: Maybe, but all the sports sites that have done their reporting on this say that all the sources confirm it was the statement he made about how good they are now but how bad they were that upset the owners.

BOLDUAN: So, you're saying you can be taken off the air for speaking the truth?

BERMAN: For speaking the truth, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Hmm. Hmm. OK, let's move on. We're going to get through - clearly got to dig deep into that one later. Okay. Let's move on. Clearly have to dig deep into that one later.

Coming up still for us, a massive brawl breaks out on a river front dock in Alabama. The whole mess caught on video as everything is these days. And now serious charges could be coming. We got more on this coming up.

And the cousin of the Uvalde killer, the cousin of the man who killed 19 children and two teachers in that school massacre, that cousin is now under arrest, accused of threatening to carry out a similar attack.

We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:00]