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Trump, 18 Others Indicted in Georgia; Republican Lawmakers Defending Trump Following Latest Indictment. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 15, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:27]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Donald Trump has 10 days to surrender to authorities in Georgia in his historic fourth criminal case.

Last night, an Atlanta grand jury voted to indict the former president and 18 others, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his post-election attorney Rudy Giuliani. They are accused of engaging in a conspiracy to commit crimes intended to reverse Trump's loss in Georgia in 2020.

The 98-page indictment lists 13 state charges against Trump himself, including racketeering, as well as false statements. Prosecutors claim Trump and his co-defendants -- quote -- "refuse to accept that Trump lost and knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election."

District attorney Fani Willis wants the trial to start within six months, and, unlike in federal court, that trial could be televised.

Let's begin at the courthouse in Atlanta with CNN's Sara Murray.

And, Sara, this is a much more sprawling case, both in terms of the number of defendants, but also the nature and scope of the charges, than what we saw in the special counsel's case. Help lay it out for us.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think that's absolutely right.

I mean, in these other federal cases, we have seen Donald Trump largely charged alone, or he's charged alongside co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case who are lower-level folks working along with him.

What the Fulton County district attorney lays out in this sweeping indictment is essentially this whole parade of individuals, from people who were in Donald Trump's inner circle, people like Rudy Giuliani, his former attorney, like his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, down to people locally here in Georgia, and alleges that these people were all working together with the aim of trying to keep Donald Trump in power illegally.

And, as you pointed out, Donald Trump faces 13 charges in this case, but all 19 defendants face this very serious racketeering charge in this case. I think what we saw throughout the scope and the length of this indictment was a district attorney's office that wanted to be very clear that they were offering a detailed accounting of why they felt this was a compelling racketeering case.

We see act after act after act listed in this indictment as in furtherance of the conspiracy, some of which happened in Georgia and some of which did not, because they wanted to show that this is a wide net that Trump and his allies cast in their efforts to try to overturn the election results and keep Trump in power, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

And using RICO statues, which are something that have often been used, and, by the way, by Rudy Giuliani himself to target organized crime.

The defendants have until August 25, next Friday, to surrender, to turn themselves in. And we should add the caveat that doesn't mean they're going to stay. They will turn themselves in for that day and likely leave perhaps under bond. Can you explain what that will entail exactly?

And has anybody shown up yet?

MURRAY: Well, we're not aware of anyone who's turned themselves in yet.

But this is something that is sort of a multistep process. The attorneys can be in touch with the prosecutor's office before they actually show up and surrender, if they want to try to negotiate terms ahead of time, terms of release, terms of bond, if that is applicable.

And then, normally, for defendants in this jurisdiction, they would show up at the Fulton County jail and they would be processed there, which would include, of course, getting their fingerprints taken, getting a mug shot taken. And then, at some point after that, we do expect these defendants will be appearing in court.

That will be their initial appearance, their arraignment. That doesn't necessarily happen the same time that they surrender, the way that we have seen in these federal cases.

SCIUTTO: A presidential mug shot.

Sara Murray outside the court there in Fulton County, thanks so much -- Jessica.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: The DA and the Georgia case wants a trial within six months.

Special counsel Jack Smith wants the federal election trial to start in January. And further highlighting the competing court dockets at play here, today, a different Trump co-defendant was arraigned in a different case. That's the classified documents indictment in Florida.

CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is here.

Katelyn, great to see you. You have all of these parallel timelines now kind of starting to all

come together and coalesce. How does it get sorted out? And what takes precedence?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, first of all, they can't all happen at the same time.

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Trump's a criminal defendant. Very likely, he would be expected to sit there in person in the court where he's being tried in front of a jury. So they are going to have to work things out. But what happens with a precedent is that, whenever there is a situation like this, it's up to the judges.

What the judges say, that goes. And so, right now, the judges are putting some things on the calendar. You have March as the Manhattan DA's case. You have May as the case set in the Mar-a-Lago federal documents trial. You have potentially an early trial set in this federal case, depending on what Judge Chutkan wants to do.

And so the judges will set time on the calendar. And once it's entered, it's entered, and it's going to be up to the parties to either tell them, we have a problem, we need to move things, or the judges could ask.

And so we might start to see -- seeing some of these things being worked out as soon as this month, when Judge Chutkan, the judge over this federal case this year -- she is having a hearing in the end of this month to basically try and set a trial date, this date that the Justice Department wants to be in December, January. But we will see.

DEAN: And let us all remember that this is all happening concurrent with a 2024 presidential election and a primary calendar that's going to play out kind of through all of these court dates as well.

So let's skip ahead a few jumps here. And I acknowledge that in this question. But if Trump were to win, and he were to become president again, the federal cases, I guess, could go away. He could find a way around them. But it's different with this state case in Georgia.

POLANTZ: Yes, I don't, it boggles the mind to think about the number of things that could happen between now and a Trump presidency with these cases.

DEAN: Sure. Yes.

POLANTZ: A lot of things can happen in court in a very short amount of time.

But assuming that Trump were to become president, say, and were to get rid of the federal cases, he's there, tell the Justice Department he wants to dismiss them or pardon himself if he's already convicted. Then you have these state cases and this case in Georgia. Say he were to be going to trial. Maybe they don't have the trial by then, or maybe they are trying to do things once he's in the presidency. Actually, there has been situations in the past where there are

lawsuits and other things that arise during a presidency, and a president has a lot of ability to argue, I'm the president. That's a very demanding job. It's a very important job, and you can't take time out to deal with some other things.

And so it's very likely this is another thing that could be tested in court. But it's a big question of, how does this all work out? We just don't know.

DEAN: Right, so many tests on the justice system right now.

Katelyn Polantz for us, thanks so much for the reporting, excellent, as always -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Jessica, thanks so much.

Let's take a closer look now at the staggering number of charges former President Trump is now facing across four criminal cases. The total is 91. How does that break down?

Thirty-four in the New York state hush money case. This relates to hush money paid to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Forty in the classified documents case, four in the special counsel election subversion case, and now 13 in the Georgia case.

So you can understand it all, we have brought in CNN legal analyst former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams to help us find some patterns in here and understand all these things.

Let's begin, if we can, on the hush money case, because that number, 34...

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

SCIUTTO: ... it's a big number, but we should note each of those charges or at least many of those charges relate to a false document each. So, the number is a little bit inflated.

WILLIAMS: Right.

It's one of those things where every time you sign a faulty document, you can be charged with it.

SCIUTTO: Got it.

WILLIAMS: But the important thing to note here is, even if convicted, the foreign president is not likely to face any prison time here. He doesn't have a criminal history. It's a nonviolent offender. Probably not going to jail. Might get probation in this one.

SCIUTTO: OK. That's the New York case, which was the first one to be charged.

Let's go to the classified documents case regarding the mishandling of classified information, all those pictures you saw of classified documents held in bathrooms and conference rooms and so on there, 40 charges. Tell us the seriousness of these.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

So the most serious single charge in the case carries a 20-year maximum sentence, Jim. Now, look, you can sometimes read these things where they say President Trump faces 300 years in prison.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

WILLIAMS: That's not happening because that would require stacking every single thing that he's charged with.

SCIUTTO: The maximum for each charge, right.

WILLIAMS: The maximum for each charge.

What -- that's just a reflection of the fact that obstruction of justice does carry a 20-year sentence. Nobody gets that sentence.

SCIUTTO: Right.

WILLIAMS: The federal sentencing guidelines would probably mean he'd get something far less than that, but still...

SCIUTTO: But the guidelines do, at least for normal people, involve some jail time.

WILLIAMS: Oh, it's years, not months, in all likelihood, for 20-year maximums.

SCIUTTO: Got it. OK.

So, number three, in order here, this is the election subversion case by the special counsel. These are federal charges, to be distinguished from the state charges we just saw from Fani Willis in Georgia. For here, tell us the seriousness and how they stack up.

WILLIAMS: Same thing. And it's really important, Jim, to note the difference, as you said, between federal and state charges.

The state of Georgia and the state of New York are prosecuting the former president, but the federal government is prosecuting him for Mar-a-Lago and the 2020 subversion.

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So, this is obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, which, again, one of those carries that 20- year maximum sentence. It could be a lot of time.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: And just as you note there, conspiracy to defraud, the special counsel in his version of going after the president for his attempts to overturn the election focused on that legal line of attack. When we come to Georgia, you have 13 charges against the former

president, took a different legal tack here involving RICO. Explained to folks at home what that means and how she plans to make that case.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Sure.

When you think of RICO, you think of the movie "Goodfellas" and organized crime and mobsters and so on. And, certainly, RICO can be used to prosecute folks like that. But what it's targeted after is criminal enterprises, when people act as a group and carry out criminal acts sort of in succession.

And, here, that's the allegation, that that happened in the state of Georgia. Now, it can carry a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. Judges in Georgia have a little latitude to go below that.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

If you can briefly, before I get to pardon, which is an important distinction here, if you were to look at all these charges as a lawyer and a former prosecutor yourself, all these cases, which is the most serious, the most threatening to the former president?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think, one, anything with the 20-year maximum sentence, as the two federal ones do, is a big deal.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Mandatory minimums are no joke. And so when -- he might be facing a mandatory minimum in Georgia.

SCIUTTO: In Georgia.

The other issue with Georgia, Georgia is a state case. A president cannot pardon, nor can the governor in Georgia pardon someone, if convicted.

WILLIAMS: Right, exactly. Right, exactly. Pardon me.

So, under the federal system, the president of the United States can pardon people of federal crimes. That means wipe them off their records altogether or expunge their sentence in some way. In the states, it would have to -- the pardon -- the absolution would have to come from the state, either the governor, as is in the case of New York, or a state pardon board, which would be the case in Georgia.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

WILLIAMS: So, needless to say, no matter who's president, no matter who it is, Democrat or Republican, they can't touch either of those two, New York state hush money case or Georgia meddling.

SCIUTTO: Listen, the various scenarios going into 2024 are remarkable. We're going to be covering them.

Elliot Williams, help -- thanks for helping break it down -- Jessica, back to you.

DEAN: Just ahead: Trump's legal battles are adding up, and the campaign calendar is filling up.

How the former president is fighting for votes on the trail while he juggles upcoming trials and what other GOP contenders are saying about all of it.

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DEAN: Just hours after a Georgia grand jury indicted Donald Trump and 18 allies in a sweeping racketeering case, the former president went on attack, again targeting Fulton County DA Fani Willis and calling the new indictment -- quote -- "politically inspired."

CNN's Alayna Treene is joining me now.

And, Alayna, these types of attacks by Trump aren't necessary -- necessarily new. Tell us more about what he's saying.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Right,.

Well, they're not new. This is clearly Donald Trump and his team using the same playbook that they have with the previous three indictments that we have seen, and that includes Donald Trump wanting to respond to this himself directly, as well as directly going after the person who's charging him. In this case, it's Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

Now, Donald Trump in an early TRUTH Social post this morning -- quote -- "So, the witch-hunt continues, 19 people indicated tonight" -- I think he meant indicted -- "tonight, including the former president of the United States, me, by an out-of-control and very corrupt district attorney."

The post went on to read: "Why didn't they indict 2.5 years ago? Because they wanted to do it right in the middle of my political campaign."

Now, Jessica, it's unclear how the judge will ultimately, in this case, rule on some of his social media activities. We know that -- in the federal case regarding the 2020 election and Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the results there, that the judge has posted some restrictions on his social media activity.

But I'm told from my conversations with Donald Trump's advisers that he has no plans to cease posting. He views TRUTH Social and social media as his most direct way of communicating with voters, and particularly his base, in that he thinks it's the best way to defend himself.

And so the problems that we're seeing arise in the federal case, the special counsel's case with his social media activity could also potentially be a problem in this case as well. DEAN: It doesn't sound like he's going to stop that anytime soon.

All right, Alayna Treene for us, thanks so much.

TREENE: Thank you.

DEAN: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, despite Donald Trump's fourth indictment in just over four months, many top Republicans are still lining up behind the former president and defending him, though there are some notable exceptions.

CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill.

Lauren, as you know, for instance, the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in the immediate aftermath of January 6, said Donald Trump bears responsibility. He has now changed his tune. Is that a consistent reaction on the Hill in the last 24 hours?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you have seen this over and over again in the previous indictments as well, that House Republicans are very swift to come out and support President Donald Trump.

And there was no exception last night. Mere moments after this nearly- 100-page indictment came down and it was released, you saw so many House Republicans take to Twitter, including the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who said this was "a radical DA in Georgia who is following Biden's lead by attacking President Trump and using it to fund-raise her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham."

You also heard from Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who just said is a witch-hunt in all caps against President Trump. "He did nothing wrong."

And we have seen that echoed amongst the rank and file as well up here on Capitol Hill. I just spoke with Morgan Griffith, who was on Capitol Hill, briefly opening the House chamber for a pro forma session, and he said that he hasn't even read the indictment, Jim, because he just views this as more of the same, a kind of pile-on.

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He said that he might get to it eventually, he might read through it. But when I pushed him on whether or not he thought that Joe Biden actually won the state of Georgia, he said he didn't really even know. And I think that that just speaks to the reality for so many House Republicans and rank-and-file members, as well as their base voters, that they view this moment as really just an us-against-them fight with Democrats, and that they are not looking into the nitty-gritty details of these indictments, as we heard from Morgan Griffith.

SCIUTTO: Well, we should note that the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, just a short time ago said in no uncertain terms, the election in Georgia in 2020 was not stolen. There are some Republicans out there speaking the truth.

Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill, thanks so much -- Jessica.

DEAN: And I want to talk more about all of this now with CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp.

S.E., it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

We know that Trump is now facing -- it's 91 charges in four criminal cases over the course of four months, for everyone following along at home. Yet we know that the bulk of the 2024 GOP candidates really are not going after him on this at all. And, in fact, the ones who are pulling closest to him have really taken his side in all of this.

What do you make of that? And is that the right move politically, and is it the right move for the Republican Party generally?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I did a quick search on Twitter just before I came on.

And you're right. It's mostly been crickets. Nothing from Ron DeSantis. Nothing from Nikki Haley. Nothing from Mike Pence. Tim Scott apparently was giving an interview, and he called this a weaponization of the legal system. So he's defending Donald Trump.

Asa Hutchinson put out a statement critical of -- condemning Trump for these indictments. But, yes, I mean, this feels like all of these campaigns are pretty much vanity projects. I don't think any of these people really want to win.

Because if you really wanted to become the president, and you're polling at least 30 points behind the top guy -- that's if you're doing well -- you would definitely go out and say to voters: Hey, I get it. You like Donald Trump, I like Donald Trump, but Donald Trump is most likely going to be facing prison time. That's not a great scenario for voters, for the country, for the Republican Party. Let's just be realistic here.

None of them are really willing to do that basic thing in any kind of fully frontal way. So that leads me to believe they don't actually want to win. They want to sell books, maybe up their name I.D., raise money, but not actually take on the guy that is currently beating them all.

DEAN: Yes. No. And they're -- no. Yes, you're right. It's being that explicit about saying he could face prison time. We have seen DeSantis talk about it in interviews or Pence talking about him putting himself over the Constitution.

But in that -- those direct terms that you're talking about, it's rare. Now, one person that has gone after the former president pretty aggressively is former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. I want to listen to a clip of him reacting to this latest indictment. Then I will come back to you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think this was unnecessary as to Donald Trump.

Now, remember, as to the other defendants, Jack Smith chose not to charge them. So I would have less of a problem with this if she decided, OK, I'm not going to charge Donald Trump here because he's been charged for essentially this conduct by Jack Smith.

But Giuliani and Meadows and others have not been charged at the federal level. That would be a more defensible indictment, I think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: S.C., what do you make of that? Because he has been so aggressive about criticizing the former president.

CUPP: Yes.

DEAN: It is a bit of a departure from what we have heard from him.

CUPP: Yes, I think Chris Christie the presidential candidate, briefly returned to Chris Christie the attorney, and he fell into a legal argument, and he's able to make that argument. It's a decent argument.

But he's running for president, and he has been really willing to take on Donald Trump, unlike most of the others. It's kind of his thing, right? His campaign is built around taking on Donald Trump. This was another opportunity, despite his legal parsing, to say this person could go to prison.

Between the mandatory minimums, the no state pardons, the four indictments, the 90-plus charges, this person could be going to prison. That's all you have to say. It doesn't put you on either side of Donald Trump. It's just honest and obvious. And I don't get why this isn't, like, the mantra of every single person running against Donald Trump.

DEAN: Yes.

And one piece of all of this is, if you look at the polling, both nationally and in these early states, we all know that Donald Trump continues to lead by double digits, that he's remained pretty consistent over the last several months, over the last several indictments.

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TBD on if that changes moving forward.

But the fact that he, as of now, has been able to successfully convince the Republican base and his key supporters that all of this is politically motivated, that this is a weaponization of the DOJ, that he gets this cover from people like Tim Scott saying a similar thing and other candidates, Ron DeSantis as well, so many of them, what do you think about, that so many American people genuinely believe this is all for politics?

CUPP: Well, keep in mind, this is the Republican primary, and the base is with Donald Trump. There's no doubt about it.

But the base is shrinking. And so I think the vast majority of Americans do not believe that Donald Trump is a victim in all of this and think there's probably something to these indictments.

But, listen, Donald Trump -- this is vintage Donald Trump, playing the victim, saying he's got definitive proof that he's going to reveal on Monday that he's really the victim in all of this, proof he's held onto, I guess, for three years. This is what he's done.

And it convinces just enough people, his base, to believe these lies and believe that he is indeed the victim, instead of at the center of all of this corruption and abuse.

DEAN: All right, well, as always, great to see you. Thanks so much for your thoughts. We appreciate it.

S.E. Cupp, great to see you.

CUPP: Sure.

DEAN: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Dead voters, stuffed ballot boxes, just some of the debunked claims Donald Trump has used to try to overturn his defeat in Georgia, cast doubt on it.

Ahead, we're going to fact-check some of those claims, as well as their impact on the GOP.

Plus, the judge assigned to preside over the former president's fourth criminal case of the year, what we're learning about Scott McAfee -- just ahead.

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