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First Trump Co-Defendant Booked and Released from Jail; Rescuers Free Four Children in Dangling Chairlift; Ex-Trump Attorney John Eastman Surrenders in Fulton County. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 22, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, the first of 19 defendants in the Georgia 2020 election fraud case has been booked and released from jail. In the next 48 hours, the former president will be doing the same after agreeing to a $200,000 bond. Ahead, details about his appearance and the restrictions that Donald Trump is now facing.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: New threats, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department and several employees being threatened for just doing their job as Donald Trump prepares to surrender on Thursday.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One day until the first Republican debate, which candidate is planning to make the biggest splash? Who is planning to take the biggest swipe at Donald Trump or someone else? We have brand new reporting and snacks.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: Right behind me right there, a live look at Fulton County Jail in Georgia where the first of 19 defendants has just been released after being booked into jail.

Now, within the next 48 hour, former President Donald Trump will go through the same process. It is going to be his fourth arrest but historic moment, nonetheless. And unlike previous arrest, this one may come with his first mug shot. Trump says he plans to surrender Thursday, a day before the deadline.

We are watching closely to see if any of the other 18 accused co- conspirators are going to turn themselves in this morning.

Overnight, Donald Trump agreed to that $200,000 bond deal that includes a ban on him making any direct or indirect threat of any nature against the witnesses or co-defendants. That restriction is coming as CNN learns some of the law enforcement officials who are about to book Donald Trump are facing new threats from the public this morning.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz leads us from Atlanta on this story. What more are we learning about this first defendant who turned himself in? And you have some new information about someone else whose attorney has shown up in court today.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right. So, we are watching here at the courthouse for attorneys and prosecutors to come and do the work that they need to do before all of these 19 defendants are ultimately arrested at the jail.

There has been one defendant who has been into the jail and out of the jail already, a defendant named Scott Hall, a bail bondsman himself, so someone who really knows system over here in Fulton County, Georgia, who is indicted in that racketeering case alongside Donald Trump.

But Scott Hall, he went into the jail to be booked after negotiating his bond in advance at about 8:15, according to the jail's records. And then Zach Cohen and Nick Valencia here at CNN were able to report that he was done and out by just before 10:00 A.M. So, not that long of a time where someone in this case might be sitting over there at the Fulton County Jail, quite a harrowing place to be inside given its history of a lot of difficulties inside of the jail and its cleanliness, questions about violence inside of the jail.

And so we are looking to see exactly how long these arrests take, how long people are there or not. But then at the courthouse, there is business to be done here, too. There are still prosecutors here from Fani Willis' office working at this case, we spotted on the grounds this morning by the large team of CNN that's keeping watch over this complex.

We also have seen one of the attorneys arriving for another defendant, a man named David Schafer. He was the chairman of the Republican Party here in Georgia and essentially the lead fake elector in Georgia who is accused of some of the charges around that fake elector plot that Donald Trump was using to try and overturn the vote, not just in Georgia but in other parts of the country.

The attorney for David Schafer was here apparently very likely to be negotiating with prosecutors what his bond would be. So, it is a little bit like playing the whack-a-mole in that we have 19 defendants. They all have got to negotiate bond and then they've got to be arrested, go over to the jail to report there and be arraigned. But we are tracking one by one as much as we can.

SIDNER: The one that we do know about is Donald Trump within the next 48 hours.

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He will be going through the same gates you are seeing there at the Fulton County Jail, and doing same process that we just heard about.

Thank you so much, Katelyn Polantz, for all your reporting. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And tomorrow, former Trump Attorney John Eastman is expected to surrender to Fulton County authorities. He's facing nine criminal charges accused of helping to orchestrate Trump's fake elector scheme and overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Eastman agreed to $100,000 bond.

CNN's Zach Cohen is outside of the Fulton County Jail, whereas has been discussed, they all need to report to surrender.

So, Zach, Eastman is expected to report tomorrow. What are you learning about the other defendants as well?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate. As these defendants start to reach agreements, we will start to see them show up here at the Fulton County Jail. And we know of at least three other co-defendants, Trump's co-defendants, who have already reached has bond agreement. That includes a former attorney, Kenneth Cheseboro, that includes former Trump Attorney Ray Smith, and that also includes, as Katelyn was just talking about, Bail Bondsman Scott Hall, who was just released from here after surrendering, becoming the first co- defendant to surrender today.

So, the biggest difference in these bond agreements so far has been the dollar amount, right? You mentioned that Trump, his dollar amount was set $200,000. Eastman and Cheseboro both have a bond agreement of $100,000, while Ray Smith is at $50,000 and Scott Hall was at $10,000.

Now, otherwise, the rest of these co-defendants have pretty generic bond agreements. There are terms include things like you can't intimidate any witness, you can't violate state laws, you cannot even talk about the facts of the case with anybody except through your lawyer.

So, we're going to start to see more of these defendants. There are still over a dozen that have to negotiate their bond agreement. And we will start to see their lawyers trickle in over at the courthouse and then they'll have to show up and surrender here at the county jail.

BOLDUAN: Zach Cohen outside the jail for us, thank you so much, Zach. John?

BERMAN: Let's talk a little bit more about the contours of Donald Trump's bail deal. With us now is CNN Senior Legal Analyst and founding partner of the law firm of Honig, Berman and (INAUDIBLE), Elie Honig is with us.

So, Trump's bail deal has two main tenets here.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It does. So, first of all, there's the cash part. Donald Trump has agreed to post $200,000. He doesn't have to write out a check for $200,000. Typically, you just post 10 percent of that. The reason for that is if a person takes off, fails to appear and you forfeit that bond.

But I think more interesting, more nuanced here, there are serious restrictions on his communications, what Donald Trump is allowed to say about his co-defendants and witnesses. As Zach just said, that's a standard, generally speaking, condition of release. But here, we've got into some interesting nuance.

BERMAN: We sure do. And let's look at the details here or ombudsman or (INAUDIBLE) people. We know there are a lot of words on the screen. That's the point because this is a pretty complicated long list. But, Elie, highlight the important words here.

HONIG: Yes. So, first of all, Donald Trump cannot intimidate. Second of all, he cannot make a threat. Now, this is really important, direct or indirect. They are trying to anticipate what Donald Trump might say and how he might say it.

Now, who can he not intimidate or threaten directly or indirectly? Any co-defendant, any witness, including, by the way, those co- conspirators and, of course, any victim or to the community, in general.

And this is really important also and this, I think, is unique to this particular case to Donald Trump. This includes but is not limited to posts on social media or re-posts, right? Because something Donald Trump has done in the past and say, well, that's not my post, I just re-tweeted it, I just re-Truth it.

So, what it seems to me they are trying to do here is cover ground, anticipate the ways Donald Trump might try to push the envelope.

BERMAN: This is really interesting, honestly, when you highlight these exact words. It shows how specific they are trying to get in some cases. So, give us an example of something that he has said in the past that may tow or cross the line.

HONIG: Yes. How are prosecutors or the judge going to decide whether something crosses the line? Well, I think this is a good example.

Now, this is from before it was in order. But I think they're going to look for two things. One, is the post specific as to a person, a witness here? Geoff Duncan, our CNN colleague --

BERMAN: So, this is the Truth Social post that Trump made about former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, who is a CNN political analyst.

HONIG: Exactly, a known witness. He has said publicly he is a witness. And it's directed not just to the world, in general, but it's directed at a person, he names him there. Of course, he misspells it, but, still, we know who it is.

And then it is not tied to the political world. It's specifically linked to the case. He will be testifying before the Fulton County grand jury. He shouldn't.

So, I think those are the two things we're going to be looking for, how specific to a person, how specific to the case. This is an example.

BERMAN: Now, where is it vague? Where does it get complicated to sort of figure out if he crosses the line?

HONIG: Well, how about this scenario? Mike Pence, of course, is a witness in the case, probably a victim, really, by any legal or commonsense reading, also an opponent, electorally, of Donald Trump's ongoing Republican primary. So, Donald Trump absolutely has a right to attack, criticize Mike Pence as a political candidate.

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But if he crosses that line and gets into Mike Pence's status as a victim or witness, then he is violating it.

BERMAN: So, if Donald Trump crosses the line, first of all, who decides and what happens?

HONIG: So this is up to two entities to police here. One, prosecutors can go to the judge and say, Judge, we think he's violated, or the judge, on his or her own, in this case, it's a he, can say, I think there's been a violation.

Now, what can a judge do? He can take away that cash bond or he can increase the cash bonds. Say, you've not proven reliable here. You need to post more. He can put in increase restrictions. In a normal case, you can put an ankle monitor on someone, home confinement. I don't think that's likely with Trump. And in a very extreme scenario, which does happen, actually, not infrequently, but I don't think it's likely at all here, you can remand someone. A judge can say, I take away your bail. You have to wait for this case in jail.

Again, do not count on that happening to Donald Trump. But it does happen in real cases. I've certainly been part of cases where that's happened.

BERMAN: There is some room here for Trump to push the limits. We'll have to see how far they go, though.

Elie Honig, that was a great explanation. Thank you very much.

SIDNER: I'd hire that law firm, by the way. You guys are hired, okay? I'm going to need a discount, though.

Joining us now is CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash. Dana, thank you so much for being here, our Inside Politics anchor extraordinaire.

I want to talk to you about the politics of all of this. He's got all these legal troubles that everybody knows about. They keep coming up. And he's also got the campaign going at the same time. Is this going to have a big impact? Because, so far, what the polls are showing us, Dana, that people who support Donald Trump still support him to the nth degree.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: In the short-term. We cannot say this enough. We want to underline it, highlight it, bold it, do whatever you need to do to make this extremely clear, which is the campaign, his legal situation are so inextricably linked.

And not just that. When it comes to the Trump strategy, they're very much symbiotic. So, just look at this week. We have the debate tomorrow, which he is not attending. He's doing his own counterprogramming. And then the very next day, when you have candidates who are going to be on the stage hoping, praying for a standout moment to have the ability to break through what has been very much the Trump of media environment, what is going to happen?

What's going to happen is the media, rightly so, is all going to be focused on a former president going down to Georgia and having the experience of being arrested for the fourth time.

And so when you look at those two things, just, for example, and we can give so many more examples of this, in another world, in a non- Trump world, going down to get arrested for a fourth time would be lights out for a campaign.

This is fueling his short-term campaign for the Republican nomination even more so. And it's largely, Sara, because of how he is playing it, because of his understanding of who his base is and at least, again, I keep saying in the short-term, because we were talking about the Republican electorate, how to play to them vis-a-vis what he's going through and how he makes it about the people, not him.

SIDNER: Yes. And I think the polling keeps over and over showing this that the people who support him believe him. They believe what he's saying. So, all of this they see as just the deep state coming after him. And this is just another example so he doesn't have to show up on the stage.

I do want to talk about the conditions, though, because this cramps his style, where the court has said, look, you cannot tweet, you cannot re-tweet or Truth Social or whatever he is using, if there's any intimation of some kind of intimidation against any of those folks who are involved in his trials, in his trial in Georgia. Does this hurt him? Because he is used to being very bombastic and going after people. That's part of his shtick.

BASH: Absolutely. It's not only part of his shtick. It's why -- it's a big reason why he is where he is in the polls, the far and away frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

This is going to be a test. It really is going to be a test. And to be able to watch how he walks that line, dances on that line, maybe even the better way, the imagery is dancing on the head of a pin. Because you know that he is not going to fully pull back on social media or on the stump.

You just saw last night. He went after Fani Willis, the prosecutor down there. It doesn't seem as though the bond agreement specifies her. It seems as though it's the co-defendants and mostly the witnesses. But who knows.

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Because this, like so many things in Trump world, is uncharted territory.

SIDNER: Well, there's one thing that we do know. It's going to be a big, long battle, both politically and legally. Dana Bash, thank you so much for showing up for us because I know you have a whole show to do coming up at noon.

You can check out Dana on Inside Politics today. As I said, at noon Eastern, don't miss it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So, just stay here and stay on through.

Coming up for us, the debate stage is set. Eight Republican candidates have met the requirements and are now honing their message as they prepare for the biggest night of their political careers. How does their pitch change now with the frontrunner refusing to show up?

Plus, at least two children trapped in a chairlift dangling 900 feet in the air. They have now been rescued. We have more on the breaking news ahead.

And a blackout at a Los Angeles hospital has forced evacuations after the backup power failed as well. Firefighters working to move more than 200 patients to nearby hospitals, including critically ill patients and children. An update ahead.

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BERMAN: All right. We do have breaking news. I am being told now that in Pakistan, four children have been rescued. Now, they were part of a group trapped in a chairlift dangling 900 feet over at this mountainous ravine. Four children have been pulled to safety from that.

A cable on the chairlift snapped earlier this morning. There were several others still believed to be stranded on that chairlift. They've been there for like more than ten hours at this point.

CNN's Sophia Saifi is live in Islamabad with the details on here. So, four children, is that right, are now safe?

SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: Hi, John. Yes, four children are now safe. Special service commandos have been leading this rescue effort for many hours now. And they've been dangling by just one cable above 900 feet above ground.

So, it's been ongoing for a very long time. This was a regular school run that is very common in the northern part of Pakistan. These are communities that are connected by cable cars of one valley to the next. It's about a four-minute cable car journey, but these cable cars themselves are very hokey. They're not the best made. There's not much safety oversight.

We do know that the helicopters that have been hovering there about this cage-like cable car, which had these children ages 10 to 15, trapped within it. The helicopter blades themselves were causing winds, which were creating problems and causing that one cable that was holding and suspending that cable car aloft to move. So, it is a very slow and steady rescue operation. We're now going into the night here in Pakistan and they're really hoping to complete this rescue effort before it gets too late and it gets more difficult and more dangerous.

So, four people have been rescued. Four people continue to stay inside that cable car. And we're just hoping and praying across the country that this ends on a good note. John?

BERMAN: So, four children rescued. We believe four others at least still trapped inside. We've been told that some of the children have been losing consciousness or going in and out of consciousness as they were awaiting rescue. So, some partial good news, at least some of them are now safe. We will wait for word on the others.

Sophia Saifi, thank you very much. Keep us posted. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right, John. We have more breaking news coming in right now. Former Trump Attorney John Eastman has now turned himself in, we're told, to surrender as part of now seeing kind of a cascade of co-defendants turning themselves in, in Georgia.

Let's get over to Katelyn Polantz for more on this. Katelyn, what are you learning here?

POLANTZ: Well, John Eastman, one of the more high-profile defendants alongside Donald Trump in this case out of Fulton County, Georgia, has been charged. He has had his bond set, and now he is over at the jail, according to the records that we're able to see from the Fulton County Sheriff's Office.

John Eastman, he was an elections attorney for Donald Trump, a prominent figure in right-wing legal circles, who then became essentially the architect of some of these efforts that Trump made to overturn his loss after the election, trying to stop Congress, trying to use fake electors to do so, trying to pressure Mike Pence.

And John Eastman, we are now seeing all of the details as a criminal defendant who has been arrested, who is over at the jail. He has a booking number. They've taken down his age, his weight, his race, his hair color, his height, and they've listed all of the charges he is facing now.

He is expected to be released in due time once that arrest is finished and he's been processed. That's because he has negotiated his bond ahead of time and has agreed to pay a certain amount to the court system if he doesn't appear for trial.

But it is a sobering moment to see someone, a prominent attorney for Donald Trump after the election that we've spent so much time discussing what he did. We've seen him fight charges or issues related to his law license, and now to see him come through the system as someone who is arrested, who is in jail here in Georgia, even temporarily, to respond to this.

We did get a statement from his attorneys, through his attorneys, that Eastman made himself, saying that he was here today to surrender to an indictment that should have never been brought.

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Those are his words. He said it was the crossing of the Rubicon for our country and that his belief is that it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients. In this case, Eastman was working for Donald Trump after the election.

But even judges who have looked at it have said that there is a possibility that lawyers who may have been working for Trump on his behalf could have been taking steps to advance a crime.

These men at this time will be charged. We do expect Eastman to plead not guilty.

BOLDUAN: Katelyn Polantz with more of the breaking news, let's see what else happens today. Since now we're kind of seeing kind of the floodgates opening as people are turning themselves in to surrender to start this process, to be processed and to face these charges.

Katelyn we're going to come back to you very shortly, I'm sure. Thank you so much.

Joining me right now is CNN Political Commentator, former South Carolina State Representative Bakari Sellers, and former RNC Spokesman and also a former Senior Adviser to Mitt Romney's Presidential Campaign, Kevin Sheridan.

Gentlemen, let's talk about the debate in just one second. But with this breaking news, now that we have defendants in Georgia turning themselves in linked to this conspiracy or this role facing racketeering charges related to this fake elector scheme trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Bakari, put your attorney hat on first. This is a big moment when you see John Eastman and others kind of turning themselves in here. What do you think of this moment?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the first thing that I think about is his problems he's going to have with the bar going forward of being able to practice law. That's somewhat the first thing. I mean, you stake your entire livelihood, you go to law school for three years. In my case, you take the bar exam a couple of times. But regardless, you take the bar exam, you do your very best to have some ethics and morals throughout your legal career. And then you find yourself in a position where you are not just

helping a client, where the allegations are that you're aiding a client commit a crime, and in this crime is actually overthrowing democracy. And you find yourself with the mug shot, a booking photo, and all of these other things someplace you never saw when you gave your oath.

And so I think that John Eastman is thinking about this process, thinking about his family, looking at a mandatory minimum of five years with RICO. He's in Rice Street right now, which is a legendary detention center. And it's all hitting him. It's like cold water dousing you on the face in the morning. What's going to be his future and what does it look like?

John Eastman, a young thug, Lucci (ph), I mean, he never thought he would be in that same category as defendants of Fani Willis and the Fulton County Detention Center.

BOLDUAN: I think probably no one would think those three people would be together in kind of the same category, Bakari, to say the least.

Kevin, this is -- I mean, it is happening this week, and this is a first step in a long process. But just when you think of John Eastman and the role that he played in pushing the fake elector scheme for Donald Trump, how close he was to Donald Trump and in the inner circle, and now he's surrendered himself to be arrested, even temporarily in Fulton County, Georgia.

KEVIN SHERIDAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER FOR ROMNEY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Yes. And we're going to see this all week long. And it's going to culminate Thursday with Donald Trump unprecedentedly turning himself in to be arrested. And that will step on every bit of news that comes out of Wednesday's debate.

It's unfortunate for all the other candidates. If they have a viral moment, if they shine, and Ron DeSantis puts on a great show, suddenly half the party that is open to another candidate other than Trump starts looking at one of these candidates very, very seriously. Donald Trump is going to swamp them with the news and step all over it.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about that, because we now have eight candidates who are going to be on that debate stage. We know Donald Trump clearly met the requirements, but he is refusing to show up. Kevin, if eight people are going to walk on that stage, who has the most to win? Who has the most to lose?

SHERIDAN: In both cases, it's Ron DeSantis. This really will be the Ron DeSantis debate. He has -- this is his first big opportunity to be the alternative to Donald Trump.

This is the first time many voters outside of Florida will really see him, and he's been attacked. Millions of dollars have been spent, dropped on him, calling him sanctimonious and unlikable. If he's none of those things and he's competent and he shines and he takes all the hits and he delivers the hits, then we might see a very different a primary outlook and he might vault ahead. If he doesn't do those things, I think his campaign will be in serious trouble.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Given we know, Bakari, Donald Trump is not going to be showing up, and he's going to be trying to counterprogram, and then you have on Thursday him turning himself in, as Kevin rightly put it, he is going to steal a lot of the spotlight.