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Wagner Boss Prigozhin Listed Among Passenger In Plane Crash; Giuliani Arrives At Fulton County Jail; Russian Media Says Eight Bodies Found At Crash Site Of Prigozhin-Linked Plane. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 23, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let me give you a brief reaction from someone serving right on the front line at the heart of the counteroffensive. Initially, they said maybe it's time for good champagne but then a matter of minutes later said we need to see the cold - a backfiring car there, forgive me - we need to see the cold dead body of Prigozhin to be sure.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Mm-hm.

WALSH: And I think that's the ultimate question here, Jim, is really exactly are we going to have ultimate proof that Prigozhin is dead. At this stage, we have a manifesto shared on Russian state media, a passenger manifest which lists Prigozhin as being among the passengers on that plane. We have shocking footage of the plane falling from the sky with an apparently damaged wing. There are graphic videos circulating of the damage as you've often seen Jim when it comes to air crashes utterly horrific at times showing bodies on the floor.

But even an open transparent investigation using DNA would struggle to go through a scene like that and be clear about every single person who'd lost their life there who indeed they were. But instead we have Russian state media Russian state investigators launching into this investigation.

Remember these are the people in the pay of Vladimir Putin who often channel his every word and wish. Sometimes there's chaos, sometimes we don't always see a perfectly orchestrated plot. It's unclear what we're seeing here, but the messaging is coming thick and fast and it's all pointing towards the possibility that Yevgeny Prigozhin is indeed dead.

Now, he's a - frankly, a seminal figure in Putin's Russia. He was the chef who then turned the military food supplier, who then turned the man who ran the internet troll factory that caused havoc in the U.S. elections. He's openly admitted recently to being involved in trying to meddle in the United States electoral procedures but also too, in this war in Ukraine, in charge of the bitterest most brutal, most savage part of the Russian military fighting here.

The Wagner Group fought bitterly in Bakhmut behind repeated atrocities here in Ukraine, also in Syria too, also in Africa as well, part of the deniable military paramilitary wing of the Kremlin working around the world. The demise of Prigozhin already being welcomed by some within the Ukrainian government.

It's important to point out since he led that extraordinary rebellion over (inaudible) ...

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Nick, I'm going - Nick, I'm so sorry - I'm so sorry to interrupt you. We were going to come back to you, but we do have to head to Fulton County Georgia where Rudy Giuliani is arriving as we understand it at the Fulton County jail. He had worked out a bond agreement and this was the next step.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: Sort of unusual compared to the other defendants here. He was working out the bond agreement and then turning right around going to the Fulton County jail to be processed and then released, which is what we've seen so far with most of these - most of the 19 co- defendants so far who have worked out a bond agreement and then reported for mugshots, fingerprinting and alike.

SCIUTTO: And charged as many of the defendants in the Georgia case are under the RICO statute. As it's known, RICO, which has been used to prosecute organized crime figures members of gangs and one that we should note when he was DA in New York, Rudy Giuliani used quite successfully to prosecute leaders of the mob families there or organized crime families there.

This is a moment for the former mayor of New York, former prosecutor of New York and former presidential personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. You can see him there in the center walking in following this agreement. He's well arriving at the Fulton County jail to surrender in light of those charges against him.

KEILAR: And he's not the only one today, Sidney Powell who, of course, was the Trump campaign lawyer who was indicted in this Georgia election subversion case has also surrendered at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta as well.

SCIUTTO: Our Zachary Cohen, he is in Atlanta covering this, I believe, outside the courthouse or is that the jail behind you, in fact.

KEILAR: Outside the jail.

SCIUTTO: Sorry, the jail behind you there, Zach. Tell us what you've seen as the president's - the former president's former personal attorney arrived there.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jim. We just saw an SUV with tinted windows that we believe to be Rudy Giuliani arriving here through this entrance right behind me. Rudy Giuliani as we reported earlier today was expected to surrender after meeting with prosecutors to reach a bond agreement which we know he did. A hundred and fifty thousand dollar bond was set. He now appears to be inside the jail turning himself in just like several other defendants that we've seen come and go in the past day and a half or so. So Rudy Giuliani definitely the most high-profile defendant we've seen turn himself in, in addition to Sidney Powell, a fellow Trump lawyer who's also surrendered to authorities here at the Fulton County jail today.

KEILAR: That's right. So kind of a lot of action there these are two pretty key figures. And Zach, just to remind our viewers, what they are going through, because - I mean this is extraordinary. Rudy Giuliani ...

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

KEILAR: ... walking into the Fulton County jail and tell us a little bit about what he will go through, mugshot, fingerprinting, tell us about this process.

[15:05:01]

COHEN: Rudy Giuliani is probably more used to being on the other side of this equation, storied prosecutor, has used the RICO statute to prosecute people in his past but now finds himself inside a jail as the defendant. And like you mentioned, the other defendants that we know who have surrendered to this jail have been fingerprinted, have been - have taken mugshots, have really been treated like any other criminal defendant in any other case would be.

Now, again that comes with the caveat as we wait for former President Donald Trump to arrive here expected tomorrow if he will be treated the same way that his other co-defendants have when they've turned themselves over to authorities.

KEILAR: And $150,000 bond agreement here second only to Donald Trump himself.

SCIUTTO: To Trump. Yes, you see the sort of gradation of the bond agreements ...

KEILAR: That's right.

SCIUTTO: ... based on the severity and number of crimes, but also the position of the person in this quite broad group of indictments that the Fulton County DA has issued here.

KEILAR: That's right.

Let's go to Katelyn Polantz. She is there outside of the courthouse as we are watching this extraordinary moment unfold, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes it just is so astonishing to see Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell both over at the jail apparently at the same time. We really have no idea the last two times these two people may have interacted. Sidney Powell after the election was alongside Rudy Giuliani in those press conferences in many of those public statements that they were making on behalf of Donald Trump to try and undermine the public's faith in the election. And they were just these two prominent voices that became quite infamous for what they were doing for Trump during his administration not just after the election. Giuliani, his personal lawyer, during the Mueller investigation, Sidney Powell being the - carrying the banner for Michael Flynn trying to fight his case getting his guilty plea unraveled and really coming to quite fame on doing that in a way that got her very close to Donald Trump and his inner circle of lawyers.

And so having those two people who had essentially been purged out of the Trump universe after the 2020 election because of how the court plan that they had launched where they brought court cases to challenge the election results, to throw out popular votes, how that just totally failed across the board in 60 cases or so that after that Sidney Powell really had split from what we know of was the Trump inner circle of lawyers around, Rudy Giuliani has clearly not been as closely kept by the president as someone in his inner circle since then since Donald Trump has not been paying for either of their legal bills. But now to notice that they are in that jail in Fulton County at the same time.

But one thing that I should be really clear on with this is that what Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani are both charged with here is the racketeering charge, the same as Donald Trump is facing as part of that whole group. But when you look at their individual felony charges that they're facing, Rudy Giuliani is facing as many charges as Donald Trump ultimately and is the man that the prosecutors in this case say was behind so many pieces of the effort in Georgia to unravel Trump's loss whereas Sidney Powell what she's charged with here in Georgia outside of racketeering is specifically about what was happening in Coffee County, the computer access to the voting machines that that scheme was one that the prosecutors want to give her ownership of as they prosecute this case.

Now, both of them in the federal investigation around January 6 are co-conspirators and we haven't seen what will happen with them. But there has been - there have been quite a lot of people on tenterhooks wondering are these two people going to face some sort of fallout from the federal system, too, as that investigation clearly continues on.

SCIUTTO: No question. And as you reference there, RICO, that's the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act which Giuliani himself used quite liberally in the '80s to prosecute leaders of organized crime families there with enormous success, broke up - credited with breaking up organized crime in New York and now he has walked just moments ago as we saw in that video there into that jailhouse in Fulton County to surrender himself to face those charges as we get closer to trial.

I believe we have Elie Honig available for us or we're working on Elie Honig to be available for us.

KEILAR: Right.

SCIUTTO: There he is, the reliable Elie Honig, former prosecutor himself. As you see this video we're playing right here to see Rudy Giuliani, former mayor in New York, former DA from Manhattan, someone who prosecuted successfully so many including under the act that he now faces charges under. Tell us the significance of this moment.

[15:10:01]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jim. It's certainly a sobering moment and I think a reality hit for Rudy Giuliani. As you said he was a longtime very respected federal prosecutor. He was the U.S. Attorney for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office of Southern District of New York in the 1980s. I had the honor of working there about 20 years later. And Rudy was a figure who was venerated inside the Justice Department and inside the Southern District of New York.

And as you said one of his signatures was that he really pioneered an expansive use of the RICO Act, the racketeering act to go after organized crime figures and others here in New York City and now here he is surrendering into a state at county level jail facing charges of RICO violations of his own. So it's really quite a remarkable turnaround and fall for Rudy Giuliani.

Now, of course, he has - he is presumed innocent, he has made clear he intends to fight this case, but he will be sitting on the other side of the courtroom to where he's used to.

KEILAR: I wonder, Elie, the sort of rebound of Rudy Giuliani was so closely tied to Donald Trump. I know he hadn't forgotten that. But now here you have this incredible dive that is also tied to Donald Trump. He is so far in debt, right, millions of dollars in legal bills as we understand it. He has gone hat in hand to the former president looking for assistance with that. He hasn't gotten it outright, though perhaps some overtures to help fundraise to get him some help.

But I just wonder what you think about the possibility that Rudy Giuliani might be someone who could flip on the former president or do you think that just isn't in the cards?

HONIG: So, it is worth reflecting on just how much legal and financial jeopardy Rudy Giuliani is in right now. He is an indicted defense (inaudible) case that we see him surrendering on out of Fulton County, Georgia. He is co conspirator one in Jack Smith's federal indictment that could well result in him being indicted there as well he's facing various civil suits including a defamation suit from the two Georgia election workers who he allegedly defamed and he has essentially conceded now that he wrongly spread lies about them. He has all sorts of financial trouble.

Ordinarily, I would say the table set for someone in this position to flip. This is why people flip. They're facing potential imprisonment. They're having financial problems.

However, Rudy himself has shown zero inclination to do that. He's remained defiant as recently as this morning when he was leaving his Manhattan apartment. He was quite defiant towards prosecutors and seemed to have no interest towards accepting responsibility. And on the flip side of that, I'm not so sure if prosecutor would ever really want to cooperate Rudy Giuliani and present him as a witness that you're asking a jury to rely on.

I know I would have a great hesitation about doing that as a prosecutor just given his thorough lack of credibility. So it looks to me like Rudy intends to dig in and fight this case and I think that's what we're in for in the next several months.

SCIUTTO: Speaking of witnesses who might flip or have flipped, we did have the news in the last 24 hours on the other - one of the other cases that the former president faces that involving mishandling of classified documents in Mar-A-Lago that one of the witnesses there who initially - well, was charged with lying about whether they attempted to delete security camera footage is now in effect going states evidence and saying, well, there was a plan to delete security footage that might have shown the movement of those boxes and classified documents, significance of that regarding that case.

HONIG: Yes, so this is somebody who I would normally look to cooperate, because it's not at all unusual, Jim, to have somebody who lies in their first interview or their first grand jury session. It's not ideal as a prosecutor you'd rather have somebody who comes clean from day one. But this happens and as a prosecutor as long as you're convinced that, A, the person has now come clean; B, you can rely on them in front of a jury and C, you have some explanation. They're going to need to explain to a jury, well, here's why he lied the first time.

And I think the very reasonable and quite common explanation is he had a lawyer who wasn't really working for him. He had a lawyer who was being paid for and was loyal to The Trump Organization.

And so I think jurors can understand that type of pressure to not come fully clean. So it seems to me like this person is potentially a very valuable witness for Jack Smith in that Mar-A-Lago case.

KEILAR: Elie, this is sort of a big day, Sidney Powell as well as Rudy Giuliani, what are you expecting here as we are going towards what is really the big appearance tomorrow, especially knowing that some of these defendants, they actually turn themselves in, in the middle of the night.

We should remind people that the Fulton County jail has this 24-7 ability to accept people. So some people may be going during the day. It's a big show, right? They know that they're going to be seen. Some people are going in the dark of night and they aren't.

[15:15:00]

HONIG: It's a great point. As much as it's remarkable, surreal, bizarre in a way to see people who were once powerful public officials, people who were once respected in the legal and political community, Rudy Giuliani, perhaps Sidney Powell, eventually Donald Trump go into a prison to surrender, the way this has been playing out has been very routine and I mean that in a good way. This is the way it's supposed to work. This is what happens. It's all day every day in prosecutors' offices across the country. You get together prosecutors and defense lawyers, you work out hopefully a reasonable bail package if you can. People go in, they go through the motions. They're processed in, they're fingerprinted, they're - they have their mugshots taken.

I guess, we're still not entirely sure whether Donald Trump will have his taken, and then you're into the court system. And in a few weeks we will have an arraignment. They'll be advised of their rights and the charges against them, and they will presumably enter not guilty pleas and go from there.

So there's a bit of dissonance, I guess, watching this play out between seeing these people who are powerful, well-respected people who've now had had precipitous falls in their lives but, of course, are entitled to fight their cases and yet they're entered into the most routine aspect of our criminal justice system now.

KEILAR: We are continuing to cover this, obviously, a big development. Rudy Giuliani coming to a bail agreement there in Fulton County, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, that's pretty big. Trump at $200,000, so his is only the second highest to the president himself and there are conditions here as well, Elie, that I wonder what you think about.

Conditions where he can't talk to someone who might be a witness, tell us about how he navigates that considering that his good friend Bernie Kerik who is accompanying him on this trip is an unindicted co- conspirator here. I mean, what does he do here, Rudy Giuliani?

HONIG: Yes. Well, if he was being super careful he would cut ties with anyone who is a witness or potential victim in this case. I do think that as long as they're not discussing the case, I don't know that that would violate any of the conditions here.

Now, how does that get policed is probably a natural question. The truthful answer is it's an imperfect process, prosecutors and judges really are the only ones who can police it. So I think Rudy Giuliani is going to have to walk a pretty narrow tightrope as Donald Trump is as well and the restrictions that have been placed on him. And if people are wondering about these numbers by the way, $200,000 for Trump, apparently $150,000 for Rudy, a couple things to know.

One is they don't have to post all of that in cash, typically you have to post 10 percent. There are some ways in Georgia that you can just sort of sign a surety without posting any of it. And if you're wondering how they arrive at these numbers, it's based in part on the nature and number of the charges but it's really just negotiated between the prosecutor and the defense attorney. You come to a number that you think will be reasonable to ensure that the person comes back and that's how I'm sure they resulted in this $150,000 number.

SCIUTTO: Well, we continue to cover two major breaking stories that of Rudy Giuliani, the former president's former personal lawyer as well as Sidney Powell, two people central to Trump's and his allies efforts to overturn the election in Georgia. Giuliani arriving there to surrender at the Fulton County jail you saw those pictures just moment ago - moments ago.

We are - in fact, there he is, the former presidential personal attorney as well as New York mayor during 9/11 and DA in New York in the '80s prosecuted many people organized crime leaders under the very same statute he is now walking into that courthouse to surrender for.

We are following another major breaking news story overseas, this news as reported by Russian state media that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner, there you see him, Wagner mercenary group that's been so central to Russian military operations around the world under Putin that he was listed among the passengers on a plane that fell from the sky. You see the video right there crashing into a fiery pile of wreckage.

Still unconfirmed as - whether Prigozhin died in that crash, Russian state media says he was on the passenger list. They have since recovered eight bodies. We continue to cover this story as well. Please stay with us. We're taking just a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:20]

SCIUTTO: We continue to cover two major breaking stories. First, we are told at any moment now the president's former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will speak to the cameras, make public comments following this moment when he surrendered at the Fulton County jail for the many charges he faces there. We will bring you those comments live as soon as we have them.

We continue to follow events overseas as well and that is reports that the leader of the Wagner mercenary group pictured there was among those listed at least on the passenger manifest of a plane that went down a fiery crash just outside of Moscow earlier. This is a picture of it, a video of it as it fell to the ground, missing one wing.

Just moments ago, President Biden commented on this, have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign language).

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know for a fact what happened, but I am not surprised.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think (inaudible)?

BIDEN: There's not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don't know enough to know the answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind.

We're joined by a number of reporters and folks who know Russia very well. I do want to go to Steve Hall first. He read the - led the CIA station in Moscow for a number of years.

Steve, two months ago to the day, Yevgeny Prigozhin leads a failed coup against Vladimir Putin. Today, a plane, not just that Russian state media says he was on the passenger list, but a plane that CNN's own tracking of the tail numbers and a registration number on his jets indicate this was a jet that belonged to him and that he traveled on frequently. What's your reaction? What do you believe happened here?

[15:25:02]

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, Jim. I think that a lot of Russia watchers like me, after the mutiny that Prigozhin led a couple of months ago were asking, it's not really a question of if, but when and how. And I think those last two questions have now been answered.

It is interesting that it took Putin two months to do this and I don't really think that there's any doubt that the Russian government was somehow involved in this, directly involved I would argue. It did take two months and that's kind of going to be an interesting question going forward.

I think it might have something to do with concerns on the Kremlin side by Putin that Prigozhin has certain level of - basically enjoyed a certain level of support certainly from people in Rostov who saw the footage on that. But I think if he had turned around and murdered him, killed him quite obviously soon after that mutiny, perhaps he was concerned about some pushback from the Russian people.

But again, I don't - this is really no surprise. It's interesting - it will be interesting to see how the Russians spin this. We will never know the whole truth, but we will get some clues depending on what the Kremlin says, Jim.

KEILAR: But Steve, also two months to the day, to be clear, of when that coup that ultimately fizzled out began. I wonder what you think that two months of Yevgeny Prigozhin going back to Africa and sort of in a way providing a bit of a transition, right? He wasn't just all of a sudden axed from Wagner when the coup happened.

Instead, there was this two months and I wonder what you think that time may or may not have bought Putin for some sort of transition or getting the House in order to make sure that Wagner could provide for him and for Russia what it does.

HALL: Yes, I think there's probably a number of different issues in terms of the timing. So I think what other analysts have been saying earlier I think is true. Putin is partial to anniversaries and to using them symbolically. So I think there's a good argument to saying, okay, there might be some connectivity there. That's certainly true as I was just saying. I think Putin felt the need to put a little distance between the mutiny and the repercussions, the inevitable end for Prigozhin. Again, if he had done it very quickly, I think that there could have been some sort of backlash from the Russian populace themselves and people in the streets. And indeed, that shows, I think, how weakened Putin has become. Simply because he appears to have been able to successfully off Yevgeny Prigozhin doesn't mean that he is returning or has returned to the status of - that he had before of being a really all in control, strong man of Russia.

I think he's significantly weakened, but he needs to send the message. And the message is, don't mess with me like this or this is what will happen to you. And he's very good at sending that message.

SCIUTTO: We've been getting reaction from around the world a short time ago. The Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, of course, right on the border with Russia said that if these reports are true, it shows Putin will eliminate opponents and that scares anyone who is thinking of expressing opinion different than his. Certainly, it might be part of the message he's willing to send. We've seen him take out other dissidents and opponents before and people he views as traitors.

Our Nick Paton Walsh is in Ukraine, continues to get reaction from Ukraine, where Wagner forces have played a very prominent role until recently.

WALSH: Yes, a very brutal role, frankly, using some pretty awful tactics, including the use of prisoners recruited by them essentially as cannon fodder in some of the fiercest fighting around Bakhmut. We're hearing from a key figure in the presidential office, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mikhail Podolyak, one of his advisers, saying that while we're still waiting to see how the fog of war clears, it's important to know we have no clear confirmation that Prigozhin has indeed died in the plane crash on a jet that he is listed as being part of.

Podolyak says it's obvious that Prigozhin signed a special death warrant for himself the moment he believed that Lukashenko's bizarre guarantees and Putin's equally absurd "word of honor." Now, he's essentially referring there to the deal brokered by Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko that ended the armed rebellion exactly two months ago that led Yevgeny Prigozhin and his men on the door - on the way to Moscow along a key highway.

Essentially, they thought at the start to remove top brass in the Russian military who were behind what they thought was the appalling conduct of Russia's invasion here of Ukraine. But it turned into a much bigger challenge to Vladimir Putin, the biggest he'd had in 23 years.

And so we're dealing now here with an extraordinary moment for Vladimir Putin where it is not exactly at this stage entirely clear what has happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin. The preponderance of information swirling around this plane crash would suggest that he is on board. But I should point out, Jim, we did not know where he was for days after the failed armed rebellion. There were apparent sightings of him in a mask getting on a helicopter in St. Petersburg.

[15:30:03]

There were suggestions his plane was headed towards Belarus.