Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump and 18 Others Indicted in Georgia; Georgia DA Uses RICO Law; Darryl Cohen is Interviewed about the Georgia Case; Trump to Hold Monday News Conference. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 15, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:32]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Donald Trump now faces his most sweeping indictment to date. The former president, current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, is accused and facing a slew of new charges for allegedly masterminding a plot in reject the 2020 election results in Georgia to stay in power. He and all the other defendants now have ten days to surrender.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Late last night, an Atlanta-based grand jury voted to indictment Trump and, as you can see, 18 other people, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, on state criminal charges across 41 counts. All of them stemming from their alleged efforts to overturn Trump's 2020 defeat. The indictment arguing that all of them, quote, "refused to accept that Trump lost and knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, this is a RICO case, racketeering, charges often brought against mobsters, alleging a widespread conspiracy to commit multiple criminal acts. Trump is accused of 13 new crimes. He's now charged with 91 crimes total from the four indictments. Trump calls the new charges politically inspired. The defendants face an August 25th deadline to turn themselves in. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says she plans to try all 19 together and is asking for a trial date within the next six months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the law. The law is completely nonpartisan. That's how decisions are made in every case.

We look at the facts, we look at the law and we bring charges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, there is a lot to walk through with all of this.

Let's start with CNN's Paula Reid. She's outside the courthouse in Atlanta for us.

Paula, lay out this case that is spelled out in this very lengthy indictment.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Lengthy, indeed, Kate.

While this is the fourth criminal indictment for former President Trump this year, it is by far the most sweeping. Here the district attorney, Fani Willis, has made a choice to structure this as a RICO prosecution. As you noted in the intro, RICO is most commonly associated with the mob. It's a law that was designed to dismantle organized crime. So, it allows you to charge a group of people with certain crimes, even if not every person, in this case not every one of the 19 defendants, participated in every one of the crimes.

Now, in the indictment at the top she lays out how they allegedly engaged in this conspiracy. For example, she alleges that as part of this conspiracy this group lied to state officials, state lawmakers. She also alleges that they tried to install slates of fake electors. This was part of an effort to subvert the Electoral College process in favor of Trump. She also alleges they tried to harass at least one election worker. Also she alleges the Justice Department, they were putting a lot of pressure on that organization to try to help Trump to overturn the results of the election.

As we've reported extensively, the vice president also facing a pressure campaign. She also alleges they tried to breach voting machines in rural Georgia, and then cover it all up.

So, Kate, by far this is the most broad-sweeping indictment ever brought by a local prosecutor. And, of course, the former president, he has denied any wrongdoing.

BOLDUAN: Paula, what happens next now?

REID: So, the district attorney has given all of the defendants until next Friday at noon to surrenderer. Now, we don't expect that the former president is going to object to that. So far he has cooperated in all the other cases, negotiating a surrender, an initial appearance, going through the process of being arraigned. But then once they get past the procedure of all that, you can expect legal challenges to be filed. One of the key ones I think we're going to see is an effort to try to move this case from the state level, Fulton County, Georgia, to the federal level.

Now, one of the big advantages for Trump there would be that they would be pulling the jury pool not just from heavily democratic Fulton County, but from a broader pool, a federal jury pool.

Now, also, if there is a case, if there is a conviction at the federal level, that would also be within the powers of former President Trump, if he's re-elected, or other Republican candidates who have vowed to pardon him, or even commute a possible sentence.

[09:05:08]

So, a lot of advantages for him at the federal level. Unclear if he will be successful in getting this moved though.

BOLDUAN: That's a great point.

It's good to see you, Paula. Much more to come. Thank you.

John.

BERMAN: All right, let's talk about what is new in this indictment. For that I am joined by CNN senior legal analyst and the founder of the law firm of Honig Berman and Honig, Elie Honig is here with us.

OK, again, I want to talk about what's new and different here.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: Number one, this is a RICO case, a racketeering. What does that mean exactly?

HONIG: Racketeering can be the prosecutor's best friend. It's such a powerful tool. But as a prosecutor you have to do extra work. There's more you have to prove than in a normal case. If you can do that, the benefits accrue.

So, first thing you have to prove is the existence of what we call a criminal enterprise. Traditionally it would be an organized crime, mafia family, a drug trafficking organization. But, as here, can be applied to a large, corrupt, political organization. And the indictment makes very clear Donald Trump was at the head of that criminal enterprise. If you picture one of those hierarchy charts, he would be up top.

The other thing you have to prove is what we call a pattern of racketeering activity. Meaning, two or more acts designed to further that enterprise. Here, Georgia prosecutors allege a mere 161 acts. Now, each of these acts on its own does not have to be a crime. Some of the acts are put a - post up on Twitter, for example. Not a crime. But the point is, they further the illegal purpose of the enterprise. The illegal purpose here was to steal the 2020 election. A really important point.

Under Georgia law - Georgia RICO law is actually tougher than the federal law I used to charge, because if someone gets convicted under RICO in Georgia, five years mandatory minimum behind bars. That is very serious.

BERMAN: We know either the president, nor the governor, can issue a pardon within the first five years.

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: OK, something else that struck me as new and different in this case. There are other charges above and beyond fake electors, above and beyond a scheme to overturn the election, Elie.

HONIG: Yes, RICO tends to casts a long shadow. But let's not forget, after the RICO charge, there are 40 other charges - 39 other charges. And some of them are much more straight forward. Less work to do.

Solicitation, a violation of the oath of office. There's a whole bunch of charges of this. If you ask a public official in Georgia to do something violative of the constitution, of their oath of office, that is a crime. Think of Donald Trump's call to Brad Raffensperger. Just want you to find 11,780 votes.

False statements and documents to me is the most straightforward. Rudy Giuliani gives false testimony in front of congress, in front of the Georgia state congress. They submitted documents in court proceedings claiming that there was massive election fraud that they knew were false, according to the indictment.

Computer trespass. This is the brand-new story about the breach of those voting systems in -

BERMAN: Coffee County.

HONIG: Coffee County. Coffee County. If you do that, I mean not surprisingly, that's a crime.

BERMAN: Yes.

HONIG: And so if they can prove that, those people will be convicted.

And then forgery of documents. This goes to the fake elector scheme where they got together people who claim they were Trump electors, had him sign the forms and sent them in.

So, RICO's count one, but there's much more behind it.

BERMAN: And in theories, possible these could be easer to prove. We'll have to wait and see.

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: But at least on paper you think the standard is a little bit lower.

OK, the other thing here, all the defendants. It's not just Trump.

HONIG: Yes. There are 19 defendants in all. Now, here's all of them. But let's sort of break them down into categories.

Trump is his own category. But Mark Meadows, this was a shocker to me because he's not charged in Jack Smith's case. He's not one of the six co-conspirators in Jack Smith's case. He is charged here, but in a fairly limited capacity. He's charged in the RICO. He's also charged for that call to Raffensperger.

The lawyers, eight lawyers, charged in one state. These five, by the way, are the five co-conspirators from the Jack Smith indictment. But a lot of this ran through and was blessed by and designed by the lawyers. Jeffrey Clark, it's worth noting, is a DOJ -- was a DOJ official. Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani also were former federal prosecutors. That's kind of shocking to see.

And then let's not forget the fake electors, the campaign officials, the locals. The thing to keep in mind, John, here, 19 co-defendants. Donald Trump historically pays for lawyers for his co-defendants, which is not illegal, but makes it hard for them to flip. He is not going to be able to pay for all their lawyers here.

BERMAN: Well, to that point, when you see 19 co-defendants here, that's a lot. How much does that raise the possibility that some of these people could flip?

HONIG: Oh, exponentially. And what you want to do ideally in a situation like this, get people to flip up the chain, towards the boss, Donald Trump. I would put him probably right here if we could.

BERMAN: Yes.

HONIG: But you're always looking for people to flip up the line.

Now, we don't know if Scott Hall or Misty Hampton had direct contact with Donald Trump -

BERMAN: Right.

HONIG: But they can get you to the mid-level. So, I would look for these people to flip. I think prosecutors are putting a heavy hand on them to try to get them to flip.

BERMAN: And, as I like to say, Elie, you prosecuted the mob. I mean you were a mob prosecutor. You used RICO cases. You prosecuted multiple people at once. But 19? What are the advantages/disadvantages to doing 19 at once?

HONIG: The advantage is you get to show a jury the whole picture.

[09:10:03]

Say, this is the whole crew. They all worked together as one cohesive entity towards an illegal end. You also have the advantage you can pick off some lower-hanging fruit and get it to flip. But the hard part is, it's a lot of work. You're not going to be able to try all 19 at once. I know Fani Willis said she intended to. That's good prosecutor speak. That's not going to happen.

And you just never know how every one of these defendants, let's not be - you know, let's put aside Trump. Every one of these defendants, even the people we hadn't heard of, is going to mount a furious defense, as is their right to do.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you very much. A lot more to discuss here. Appreciate it.

HONIG: (INAUDIBLE). Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, with us now is former Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Darryl Cohen.

You are in a unique position because you know this court system and how it works to explain some of this to us. I want to start with this. DA Fani Willis brought this sweeping case

in Georgia. It involves 19 people, as you just heard, including the former president and a whole slew of lawyers. Why do you think this case is far more reaching than the federal case?

DARRYL COHEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the federal case is the federal case. And if Trump or any of his coconspirators are convicted, then if Trump were to win the nomination and then win the presidency again, he could give himself his own pardon. Or if a Republican was elected, he or she could pardon Donald Trump.

In this instance, if he is convicted in Georgia, even the governor of Georgia is unable to pardon him. So that's really, really important. But here Fani Willis, who I think has done as comprehensive a job as anyone could possibly do, has brought in, as previously mentioned, all of the people from throughout the state. So it didn't have to happen. The crime crimes did not have to happen in Fulton County. They happened throughout the state. And by using RICO, which obviously was designed for mobsters, by using RICO she's able to put it all together.

But it's a very complicated thing. This is not easy. You have to convince 12 men and women at some point whether or not Trump and any or all of his co-conspirators are guilty. And she is saying - that is Fani Willis is saying that we're going to try this case in six months. I'm not a betting guy, but that's not going to happen. It is not going to happen.

SIDNER: All right, Darryl, let me ask you about this. Our reporter Sara Murray asked Fani Willis last night about how the case would be tried. And this is DA Willis' response.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Have you had any contact with the special counsel about overlap between these cases, and do you intend to try all of these defendants together?

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Do I intend to try the 19 defendants in this indictment together?

MURRAY: Yes.

WILLIS: Yes.

MURRAY: And have you had any contact with the special counsel about the overlap between this indictment and the federal indictment?

WILLIS: I'm not going to discuss our investigation at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: OK, the thing to pull out of that is, she says, yes, I'm going to try all 19 people at the same time. Is that possible? When you're talking about 19 defendants, you also are talking about 19 lawyers, maybe more, for those defendants in a court. I mean, how will she do this?

COHEN: Well, is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? No. It will be a circus of a trial. Each one of those defendants is going to have his or her own attorney fighting tooth by tooth by tooth. And pulling teeth is not fun, but pulling teeth with multiple people is unbelievable.

So, do I -

SIDNER: I mean, Darryl - I'm sorry to interrupt you.

COHEN: Yes.

SIDNER: I'm curious. Can a jury ingest all of this? When you have 19 people -- I covered a case with the Oath Keepers where there were about a dozen and they broke -- the feds broke the case up into two because it's just a lot of information for a jury to take in.

COHEN: Well, as a prosecutor, I always believed in the KISS method. Keep it short stupid, keep it simple stupid. A jury is not going to be able to take all this in. But don't forget, it's also political. Whether we like it or not, no matter what Fani has to say, it's political. If you're Democratic and you hate Trump, you're going to hear it one way. If you're Republican and you love Trump, you're going to hear it another way.

And so as a result of that, it's going to be complicated, it's going to be a circus, it's going to take a tremendous amount of time. Right now there's a case going on with multiple defendants in Fulton County and they've not yet been able to seat a jury, and this started in January of this year.

SIDNER: Wow.

COHEN: So, if you multiply that and you realize, this is far worse, this is unprecedented, it's never happened before in the United States.

SIDNER: (INAUDIBLE).

COHEN: We don't know where we're going to be. There are going to be potholes and mines all along the way.

SIDNER: I do want to talk to you quickly about Fani Willis' history when it comes to RICO.

[09:15:06]

She's in the midst, right - she's -- what is her experience with this RICO charge?

COHEN: Well, no one has experience in this type of RICO charge. No one. Not any state prosecutor in the United States because never before has a former president been charged and his having co- defendants, 18 additional, and 41 counts. This is unprecedented. It's going to be step by step. And it's going to be prosecution learning piece by piece because they're going to be forward and backward. And for every step forward there's going to be a step and a half backward. For every step and a half backward, they're going to be three steps forward. We just don't know.

What we do know is it's going to be completely fought. It's going to a circus. And it's going to happen and take a long, long time to do it. And six months is not going to be what -- she's hopeful. Not going to happen.

SIDNER: Likely might happen after the election potentially.

Darryl Cohen, thank you so much for your insight there in Fulton County as a former DA there - former assistant DA.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Super interesting hearing she might be hopeful for six months, and he's saying very definitively, six months is not going to happen. But we're going to -- much more to come on this, including this.

Coming up, former President Donald Trump speaking out this morning, announcing what he calls a major news conference on the Georgia indictment. When and where that will happen, we have that for you.

Plus, you know their names, Giuliani, Meadows, Powell, but there are other people now charged along with Donald Trump who are not such household names from Trump's circle. A look at all 18 co-defendants, names in the Georgia indictment, and their alleged crimes.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:56]

BERMAN: All right, just in, we now know how the former president, Donald Trump, will react to this news of the new indictment in Georgia. Moments ago he just announced he's going to hold what he calls a major news conference next Monday.

CNN's Alayna Treene is with us now with the very latest on this.

All right, Alayna, what's the plan?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, as you said, John, moments ago Donald Trump announcing on social media that he's going to be holding this, quote, "major news conference" next Monday at his golf club in New Jersey. And he said that the point of this conference is to present a report that his team has put together regarding the false claims that the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia were rife with fraud. That post reads, the "report on the presidential election fraud, which took police in Georgia, is almost complete and will be presented by me at a major news conference at 11:00 a.m. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey.

It goes on to say that, "there will be a complete," in all caps, "exoneration. They never went after those that rigged the election. They only went after those that fought to find the riggers," Donald Trump wrote.

Now, of course, Donald Trump has long been claiming that the 2020 presidential election has been full - or was rife with fraud that he won the election. All claims that we know are not true and are false. But this is one of the ways that Donald Trump and his team are planning to defend him against this latest indictment.

And, honestly, John, I'm not that surprised that they'll be doing this. When I spoke to his advisers yesterday in the lead-up to the indictment, they told me that they expect the former president will want to make some sort of formal remarks around the latest charges if and when they were filed. Of course, the indictment dropped last night.

They want to get ahead of this as much as they can. They want to message these charges on their own terms. As we've seen them do with the past three indictments that he has faced in the past several months. And this is exactly one of the ways that they're going to be trying to do it, John.

BERMAN: It's interesting, this is a political argument. Obviously, whether or not they take this message into the courtroom, that's a discussion for another time.

Alayna Treene, keep us posted. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us now for more on this whole thing is Van Jones, CNN political commentator, former Obama administration official. And CNN's senior political commentator, former special assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings is here as well.

Major news conference.

Scott, do you want to be hearing from Donald Trump in this moment as a Republican?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he has every right to counter message this. And until a jury get this thing, in the eyes of Donald Trump and his supporters, it's all a political document anyway. I mean they're going to cast it as part of the campaign to keep him out of the White House. So they're going to counter message that. And based on what the lawyers says, this thing may never go to trial before people cast their votes, either in the Republican primary or even in the November 2024 election.

So, he has every right to counter message it. I think most of his supporters want him to counter message it.

I would just say this, if I were a strategic thinking Republican voter, I might ask myself, do I want the election next year to be a referendum on Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 election, or the state of America under Joe Biden. You nominate someone under the age of 70 who is not indicted, and you get the referendum on Biden.

BOLDUAN: Let me -- real quick, hold it.

Republican reaction so far.

JENNINGS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Not surprising, generally, if I'm going to say, across the board. Kevin McCarthy saying, "radical DA in Georgia is following Biden's lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fundraise her political career."

Jim Jordan, close ally of Meadows and Trump, calling it a "witch hunt against President Trump," and saying "he did nothing wrong."

But what do you see in this Republican reaction?

JENNINGS: The same thing I've seen in all the reaction. I mean they've cast their lot with Trump. And he has expectations of them. And if they don't meet those expectations, then they know what happens to them. And so --

BOLDUAN: They get a mean tweet. I mean, like, at some point --

JENNINGS: I don't think - well, not -- it's not just that. It's him telling their constituents, this person can't be trusted anymore, and casting them out, basically.

[09:25:01]

And so they've - they've been riding along in this car for this long, you think they're going to jump out of the window now? I mean they're - they're pretty far down the road at this point.

BOLDUAN: This also has me thinking this morning - and - and also hearing, Van, about a press conference coming from Donald Trump about something he said earlier this month right after his federal indictment over the 2020 election fraud claims, election subversion. Let me play this. This is from a campaign event he had in Alabama.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls. We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment and this election is closed out. Nobody has even a chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: He got that indictment. VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, yes. Well, every now and

again even Donald Trump tells the truth. I mean it seems to be --

BOLDUAN: Do you think that's really what - we've got a long way to go in this primary, but do you think that's what has happened, one of the - the political fallout, at least when talking about the Republican primary?

JONES: I don't think Donald Trump is crying. What do you want in an election? You want to be able to dominate every news cycle and shut your opponents out. He's dominating every news cycle and shutting his opponents out. You've got Vivek out there pretending he's Eminem just trying to get any attention at all, like doing rap acts. I mean, like, that's just nuts.

What do you want? You want to be able to raise money. Every time this happens, people send in their little $2, or $3, their $5. So, this is the campaign. This is - you've never seen it before, but this is the campaign. Donald Trump presenting himself as some kind of a victim, some kind of a martyr, when the actual - the victims and the martyrs are people like Ms. Freeman who was just trying to do her job helping her neighbors vote and have her life destroyed. And I'm glad that we have a prosecutor in Georgia who's willing to stick up for people like Ms. Freeman.

The true defenders of democracy are the ordinary people who stood in long lines to vote, they're the everyday people who listen to podcasts and got educated on issues and did the best they could to participate and almost had their votes nullified by this criminal conspiracy. Those are the true defenders of democracy. And I'm glad that somebody is sticking up for them. But through the looking glass, somehow Donald Trump says he's the victim.

BOLDUAN: Let me ask you this. Let's go back to - let's go back to Indiana. Let's go back to Kentucky real quick. Do you think this becomes, with a fourth indictment, white noise in a pylon, or does this become something of a last straw when it comes to public attention and perspective on this? Because you raised an interesting question this morning, Scott, that I've been sitting which, which is, will Republicans vote for a convicted felon for president.

JENNINGS: I think there's a cohort that won't. But the question about white noise, I have a lot of friends I talk to on a daily basis who I consider to be pretty plugged into the news. You know, they're, you know, consuming all this information. And every single day one of them says to me, now which indictment is this and which jurisdiction is that and which case is this? And these are people that I would consider to be voracious news consumers.

Now, apply that to the average non-veracious news consumer, or the casual political observer, or to the casual voter who only shows up when Donald Trump is on the ballot, who trusts nothing that they hear from the news or really any institution. Of course this becomes white noise. And I think in a lot of people's minds it's all just part of the same trap. They laid a trap for Trump. And until, you know, somebody convinces me otherwise, I will not see it any differently. So, yes, I think the white noise factor is a real thing.

BOLDUAN: You think cameras in a courtroom in Georgia could change any of this?

JONES: I think it helps because -- and at least people are watching the same show. People are watching the same stuff. But remember, there were cameras in the courtroom for O.J. Simpson.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

JONES: And people had very different opinions about what was going on even there.

BOLDUAN: You make a good point.

JONES: Yes. So -

JENNINGS: If these ballots don't fit?

BOLDUAN: No, we are not - we are not - no, we are not going there right now.

Sara, I'm going to - I'm going to - I'm going to -- we're going to wrap this.

SIDNER: Jennings. Absolutely not, sir.

BOLDUAN: It's not happening in my courtroom, Scott Jennings.

SIDNER: Absolutely not.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys, it's good to see you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, there are 18 others, as you know, indicted in Georgia besides former President Trump. Ahead, we break down who they are and what charges they're facing.

Also, what top Republican lawmakers are now saying about Donald Trump in the wake of this sweeping indictment out of Georgia. The fourth indictment against him. More on what they're saying, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)