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Georgia Fake Elector Cathy Latham Says She Was Following Trump's Orders; Trump & All 18 Co-Defendants Have Now Surrendered; Russian Investigators Say They Have Recovered Flight Recorders From Crashed Prigozhin Plane; Hawaiian Electric Company "Disappointed" In Litigation. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 25, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A booking number, a mug shot and a new fundraising slogan, never surrender, after literally surrendering at a county jail. What happens next as Donald Trump's trial calendar collides with the 2024 campaign season?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Who exactly is to blame for the Lahaina wildfires? The Maui government is now accusing Hawaiian electric company of causing the deadly blaze as another lawsuit claims that same company removed damaged power poles and other equipment before investigators arrived.

KEILAR: The New York governor pleading for help from President Biden amid a surge of migrants as New York City may start using a shuttered prison as a temporary shelter, officials desperate to find room.

We are following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

The 45th President booked on criminal charges four times now and that last one makes him the first ex-president to have his mug shot taken. Donald Trump called his experience at the Fulton County jail last night terrible. That didn't stop him from using the mug shot to sell campaign merchandise.

As he tries to profit off the case, several of his co-defendants are trying to get out of it and they're doing it by pointing the finger right at Trump saying that they were just following his directions.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is at the Fulton County courthouse for us.

Katelyn, tell us about the next steps in all of this.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, for Donald Trump and for all of the 18 other defendants here in this case in Fulton County, Georgia, they're on to be on the path to trial now and that is starting with arraignments. Now, that they've all been arrested, they have the ability to start making filings in this case and also they have the ability and the need to enter their initial pleading, so it's very likely that many of them will plead not guilty, if not all, at least initially people could always plead out.

Donald Trump, of course, is expected to enter a pleading of not guilty to start things off in this case and hold that the whole way through trial. He wants to go to trial and then that's the next thing that they're going to be talking about very likely, when a trial would happen, will it be all of these 19 defendants together or whoever many - however many end up going to trial ultimately or will the case get split up in different regards, either having some people tried earlier, some people tried later, potentially some of the proceedings here happening in federal court, that's the other question on the table too.

There are several different people who say that they had a role in the federal government or they were acting at the direction of the federal government fake electors. Mark Meadows is the chief of staff, Jeffrey Clark from the Justice Department, those - all of those defendants are seeking ways to get their case moved somehow to federal court. That is going to be teed up in a hearing on Monday for Mark Meadows, but we are going to be watching and seeing just how this plays out.

The dynamics between all of those defendants one by one making their own decisions and Donald Trump, does he keep them all in the fold and so this case moves together as a - as one monolith or does it get split up.

KEILAR: Yes, that will be a critical question that maybe we'll get some answers to on Monday.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

I want to go now to Nick Valencia. He is just a short distance away at the Fulton County jail where the final two surrenders happened today.

Nick, even after Trump last night, there was still a lot of activity where you are today. A flurry of activity is what we've been calling it as a revolving door here at the Fulton County jail, as the last of the 19 co-defendants turned themselves in and they waited essentially to the 11th hour.

Earlier today, it was Trevian Kutti, the publicist who at one time worked both for R. Kelly and Kanye West as well as Pastor Stephen Lee. Both are from Illinois. Both have been charged in this RICO indictment as well as with their attempts to intimidate Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman.

[15:05:03]

Now, it was just a short time ago that Pastor Stephen Lee left the jail. He was the last one to turn himself in, waiting for about an hour before that noon deadline. And it was as he was released that I tried to catch up with him and ask him some questions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (off camera): Mr. Lee, do you have any regrets? Mr. Lee, do you have any regrets? Do you believe the election was still stolen? STEPHEN LEE: (Inaudible) I'm going to get out and I'm going to go (inaudible) ...

VALENCIA (off camera): Oh, okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA (on camera): No comments from Pastor Lee, but shortly after that exchange, his attorney did stop to speak to reporters and seemed to suggest that his client was merely in Atlanta from Illinois to knock on the door of Ruby Freeman. Freeman, though, was so scared by that exchange, she actually called the police.

I did ask his attorney, the pastor's attorney, if he knew the president. Listen to what he had to say to that question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA (off camera): Does your client regret attaching his name to the president?

DAVID SHESTOKAS, ATTORNEY FOR TRUMP CO-DEFENDANT STEPHEN LEE: My client has never met the president. He's had no association with the president. He's never met him. He's never - to my knowledge, he's never been in (inaudible) ...

VALENCIA (off camera): What do you make of being a co-defendant now with the president?

SHESTOKAS: That - he didn't attach his name to the president. Fani Willis attached his name to the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA (on camera): Now, with all co-defendants who have surrendered, taking care of their legal obligation, we look ahead till Monday where the former chief of staff for the former president has a federal court hearing. He's trying to get his criminal proceedings moved from state court to federal court in hopes of getting these charges dismissed. Brianna?

KEILAR: We'll be watching that.

Nick Valencia live for us in Atlanta, thank you. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Let's dig into the law here with Georgia State University Law Professor, Clark Cunningham and Jamil Jaffer, former associate counsel to President George W. Bush.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining. You now have three co- defendants saying in court filings that they were following the direction of then-President Trump. Now, this is part of an argument to push their cases to a federal court. Of course, Trump, a federal official at the time.

But do those arguments saying, hey, he had this plan. He told us to carry it out. Is that dangerous for Trump himself?

JAMIL JAFFER, FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO GEORGE W. BUSH: I mean, I think so. I think it's dangerous in a couple of ways. One, it puts the responsibility right back on him. The co-defendants are now starting to turn on one another, blame one another, assert responsibility.

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

JAFFER: On top of that, they're also saying they were federal officials at some level that he was acting in his capacity as president. Of course, this is about the election, though. He might make the same argument if he were to try to remove it, which he's not, to federal court. Mark Meadows, though, his chief of staff, said the same thing.

SCIUTTO: Clark, so I've been told that the DA, Fani Willis, has an incentive here to try to wrap up some of these cases before trial, to perhaps get some folks to plea before trial. Does the fact that some of them are saying, hey, Trump did this, does that offer an opportunity for her to do just that? And if she's able to do that, what dangers does that pose for the president's own prosecution here?

PROF. CLARK CUNNINGHAM, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Well, it seems to be that there are three of the so-called fake electors that are in the indictment and we now have them, Hampton, Still and Shafer. And it seems to me that they're all - in effect, already cooperating with the district attorney.

They might have - they should have taken a plea deal earlier, as their fellow electors did, because each of them are saying exactly what the District Attorney wants to hear them say, which is we were directed by President Trump. We were directed by him. We were following his direction.

So it makes their arguably illegal acts his responsibility. So yes, this is very bad for the former president in my opinion.

SCIUTTO: And as you say, you have folks who have already pled in advance in effect to that.

Last night, we saw the president leave and he did speak to the press, Jamil Jaffer, and he did speak to a television show and we might expect him to do similar going forward. As you're aware, the judge has put restrictions on the former president and said, you cannot, say, attack witnesses in this case. You cannot attack public officials involved, intimidate them, et cetera.

He didn't seem to do that last night. But how close did he come to the line and who's watching?

JAFFER: Well, look, you know that Donald Trump has a hard time keeping his mouth shut generally, right? But when it comes to his own personal liability potentially here, right, he's going to lash out. There's almost - he can't help himself, right? He's done - he did it on Twitter just a few weeks ago, right? That's what caused the judge to put this order in place. It's what's caused other judges to put orders against him in place as well.

He's going to have a very hard time if he continues to talk to media as he's going to - to restrain himself from going after witnesses, the public officials involved. It's going to be very difficult. Now maybe, he's going to find a way to do it. I'm pretty skeptical.

SCIUTTO: Clark, you know Georgia pretty well, how it operates there. You do have one trial set to begin on October 23rd, but that's because Kenneth Chesebro, he's requested a speedy trial.

[15:10:03]

The others are almost - are certainly not and might be like Trump, requesting the opposite of that. They want to drag this out as long as possible. If you were a betting man knowing how this operates, is Trump's trial in this Georgia case likely to happen before the election?

CUNNINGHAM: Before the election? I think there's a very good chance of that. I think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Donald Trump will be on trial here in Fulton County by October 23rd. That's exactly what the district attorney wants to have happen and it could happen.

SCIUTTO: Do you, Jamil, see that as likely as well?

JAFFER: I think it's - I think Donald Trump is going to try to make it as hard as possible, right? We've seen other defendants and their lawyers had - say on TV, they don't want a speedy trial. But it's very unusual ...

SCIUTTO: True.

JAFFER: ... for a defendant to not want a speedy trial, they want to delay it. In this case, the president and his colleagues - his co- defendants see some advantage with the exception of obviously Kenneth Chesebro, so we'll see what happens. I think that Chesebro's trial will put a lot of pressure on the other defendants because they're going to be called out, right? They're going to look to - they're going to look likely to cut deals. The more pressure there is, the harder it is for the president to avoid it.

That being said, I'm skeptical the trial goes forward, but, the professor would know better than I would for Georgia law.

SCIUTTO: We'll be watching.

The other big question, as you know, Clark Cunningham, is not the timing, but the place, right? And you have Meadows and others trying to move this to federal court.

CUNNINGHAM: Right.

SCIUTTO: We've had lawyers on our set before who say it's unlikely they win that argument. What's your view? CUNNINGHAM: I think that the district attorney is making a very powerful argument against the Mark Meadows attempt to move his case to federal court. We're going to hear that on Monday. With luck, we'll hear Mark Meadows on the witness stand under oath being cross- examined, which will make Monday really a remarkable event.

But the district attorney makes a really good point, which is that everything that Mark Meadows is accused of doing, she says was actually illegal under federal law because it's illegal for a federal employee to use their official position to try to influence an election. And his whole argument is everything he did, he did as chief of staff. Well, if that's true, he was breaking federal law. It's a really strong argument.

SCIUTTO: Notable. Clark Cunningham, Jamil Jaffer, thanks so much. I think this is probably not the last time we discuss (inaudible) ...

CUNNINGHAM: As always, it's great to be with you.

SCIUTTO: ... such as these. Brianna?

KEILAR: Coming up, how former President Trump is fundraising with mug shot merch.

Plus, lawsuits leveling blame about who caused the deadly Lahaina wildfire ahead. We're going to have an attorney representing Maui County in one of those lawsuits.

And later, likely killed. What U.S. officials are now saying about the plane crash purportedly with former U.S. military leader Yevgeny Prigozhin on board.

All of these stories and more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Less than two hours after the former president's mug shot was filed into the Fulton County legal system. Donald Trump started using it to fund his reelection campaign and seemingly coining a new campaign slogan, "never surrender."

CNN's Alayna Treene is joining us now from New Jersey near Trump's Bedminster golf resort.

Alayna, what else is Trump saying about his arrest?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, Brianna, I think two things can be true here. I think the former president is very much upset and frustrated about having to go to Georgia yesterday and having had his mug shot taken. But I also think his team very much recognizes the monetary value in having that mug shot and recognizes how much they can fundraise off it. And that's why you're seeing so much attention from his team being put on this, including the former president joining X or rejoining X, formerly known as Twitter, to share a shot of that mug shot.

But again, privately behind the scenes, Brianna, I know from my conversations with Donald Trump's team that he wasn't happy yesterday, that he loathed really going to Georgia and having to go through that process. And he admitted as much during an interview with Newsmax last night. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Terrible experience. I came in, I was treated very nicely, but (inaudible) it is what it is. I took a mug shot, which I'd never heard the words mugshot. That wasn't - didn't teach me that at the Wharton School of Finance. And I have to go through a process. It's election interference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, Brianna, in that interview, you also are hearing Donald Trump using that rhetoric that we've heard him use time and time again now when talking about the charges that he's facing. He calls it election interference, as well as you're seeing him continue on social media to attack the people who are prosecuting him, including the Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis.

But I also just want to say that I was in the motorcade yesterday and I rode with Donald Trump's team. Many of his - the former president's aides were with me in the motorcade going from the airport in Atlanta to the jail and then back. And the vibe that I picked up from them was that they were uncertain of how it was going to go, but I can tell you that in my conversations in the hours after his surrender, they do think it went as well as it could have.

And, of course, they are pushing a lot of media attention around that mug shot and still trying to fundraise off of it as much as possible, Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, a beer koozie for $15, I see, though, it is a set of two, so I guess it's $7.5 each.

Alayna Treene there for us in Bridgewater, New Jersey, thank you so much. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Russian investigators say they have now recovered flight recorders from the plane wreckage, from the crash that is believed to have killed mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. U.S. officials say there are no signs that it was shot down by a missile, either a surface-to-air missile or air-to-air missile, as we reported yesterday. But the U.S. does believe the Wagner chief was on that plane and is now dead.

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Russia says genetic testing is underway to confirm if that is the case that 10 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage. CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Oren Liebermann, joins us now. The U.S. is watching this somewhat from afar. Tell us what they're learning so far and how far they're willing to go in terms of their confidence as to what happened here and whether even Prigozhin is indeed gone?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Of course, Jim. And this information, it's important to caution, is based on the early assessments and early indications. This isn't conclusive. It's not a hundred percent and officials have cautioned us that it may never be because it's not like they can get investigators on the ground there outside of Moscow to take a look at what's there.

But crucially, officials told both you and I, Jim, that they do not believe it was a surface-to-air missile or an air-to-air missile that downed Yevgeny Prigozhin's private aircraft, an Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft. The question, of course, then, what did down it? The Pentagon said yesterday they do believe Prigozhin himself was on that flight.

I pressed the Pentagon to find out why they believe that, because it can't just be based on Russian statements. Those have been viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism. Here is what the Pentagon said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIG. GEN. PAT RYDER, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I'm not going to go into the specifics of how we gather information other than, again, our initial assessment, based on a variety of factors is that he was likely killed.

LIEBERMANN (off camera): But not just based on Russian statements, I would imagine.

RYDER: Based on a variety of factors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: So, if the Intelligence Community in the U.S. have been able to largely rule out the possibility of some sort of missile, surface-to-air or air-to-air, what are the other possibilities being examined? This question is still largely wide open, but the possibility of an explosion or explosive device being looked at, as well as the possibility of something happening on board, because in the last minutes of the flight, there were erratic climbs and descents. So, Jim, still, for the most part, pretty wide open and certainly not definitive now.

SCIUTTO: So, the Kremlin, speaking out about this in public and as you say, take anything that comes out of that building or those leaders with a heavy dose of skepticism, they're denying they were behind it. Does the Pentagon have a view?

LIEBERMANN: So the Pentagon hasn't commented specifically on what we heard from Russia. I think it was Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov who called it an absolute lie to imply that in any way Russian president, Vladimir Putin or the Russian administration were involved in this in some way.

And yet, it was Putin himself who gave kind of an interesting statement. He called Prigozhin a talented businessman, but also implied that he had made some difficult or wrong decisions and that appeared, at least, to be a very clear reference to the attempted mutiny or attempted insurrection from just two months ago - two months to the day almost exactly before his plane was downed, and what was the most open and perhaps the most successful attempt to challenge Putin in his more than two decades in office.

SCIUTTO: Yes. True within a couple hundred miles in Moscow, he and his forces did.

Oren Liebermann at the Pentagon, thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Coming up, in a new lawsuit, Maui's government is pointing the finger squarely at a utility company for causing the deadly wildfire. One of the attorneys involved in that suit is going to join us next.

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KEILAR: For the first time, an entity of the Hawaiian government has sued over Maui's wildfire disaster that has killed at least 115 people lists nearly 400 people still unaccounted for and caused an estimated $5 billion in damages. Maui County just filed suit against Hawaiian Electric, known as HECO, and its subsidiaries. The suit alleges that HECO's inaction, negligence and recklessness were responsible for the fire.

The suit shows images of power lines that were down from high winds on August 8th, hours before the flames decimated Lahaina saying that HECO still, "inexcusably kept their power lines energized." A VP told CNN HECO does not have a formal shutoff program and about a week after the wildfire, its president said this.

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SHELEE KIMURA, PRESIDENT & CEO, HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC CO. INC.: It's worth noting that even in places where this has been used, it is controversial and it's not universally accepted. It's seen as - it can be seen as creating a hardship for those customers that have medical needs that are at higher risk.

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KEILAR: Joining me now is John Fiske. He is the attorney representing Maui County in its lawsuit.

John, thank you so much for being with us. I want to explain a little bit what the Post is reporting here because it's so critical to our discussion that we're going to have here today. This is reporting that is based on court documents and records and it says that HECO removed downed power lines, may have compromised evidence, before agents from the ATF arrived on the scene and after lawyers for families who are suing the utility, separate from your suit, twice asked that they preserve the scene.

A spokesman from the Hawaiian Electric - from Hawaiian Electric told the Post that it's, "In regular communication with ATF and local authorities and are cooperating to provide them, as well as attorneys representing people affected by the wildfires, with inventories and access to the removed equipment, which we have carefully photographed, documented, and stored."

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