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Jim Jordan Delays Potential Third Speaker Vote; Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty in Georgia Election Case. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:02:57]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: And we are following some breaking news right now.

Donald Trump's former lawyer just pleaded guilty. Sidney Powell is who we're talking about, now entering into a plea agreement in the Georgia election subversion case.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Yes, she is admitting her role in the January 2021 election systems breach in Coffee County, Georgia. And as part of that deal, she would be required to testify at future trials.

And, presumably, that does include the trial or trials -- and we will get to that in a second -- of Donald Trump.

With us now first, Nick Valencia, who I believe is outside the courtroom in Georgia, also our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

And, Nick, we saw this play out. Sidney Powell walked into that courtroom and had to answer a bunch of questions and basically said, yes, she understands what this means, she's agreeing to the plea deal.

Lay it out for us.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John.

Excuse me as we deal with this live situation here, some police cars going by.

But this was a stunning reversal that happened today in court, a stunning reversal for those of us that had been watching this case closely throughout, stunning if only because Brian Rafferty, the attorney for Sidney Powell, had maintained her innocence throughout. He had been adamant that the DA's office had evidence that would prove that she was not the driving force behind this alleged unlawful breach of voting data in rural Coffee County.

But, today, a complete 180. And Sidney Powell, the former election attorney for the former President Donald Trump, admitting to her role in that illegal data breach in rural Coffee County. And, as a result, she's going to pay a $6,000 fine. She's going to have to write a letter of apology.

But perhaps most importantly, the DA is going to use her as a witness to testify against the 17 co-defendants, including the former president, in any future proceedings or trials against these former presidents. It is a major blow to the defense of the former president, if only because she is inextricably linked with the former president, Sidney Powell, an election attorney who filed meritless lawsuits promoting these conspiracies of widespread voter fraud.

[11:05:04]

And now one of Trump's former attorneys is going to be used against him, as the DA's office here in Fulton County tries to secure a criminal indictment against the former president -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Nick Valencia outside the courtroom, thank you very much for that.

BOLDUAN: Also with me now -- with us now, Katelyn Polantz and Elie Honig.

Katelyn, what strikes you with this?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, this is the eve of trial. This is down to the wire, where Sidney Powell had pushed for this trial to go very fast.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

POLANTZ: She wanted the speedy trial. Another defendant, Ken Chesebro, also a lawyer, wanted the speedy trial.

And the rest of the defendants, all 17 others, including Donald Trump, were able to breathe a sigh of relief, let them go to trial first, have Donald Trump as the empty chair, and they would be put at the defense table before the jury, and the prosecutors would have to try the case there.

And Sidney Powell, the piece that she was facing the most accusations in was related to Coffee County, relatively narrow part of this larger racketeering case. So there was really a situation there where, how would this trial go for the prosecutors?

And now, clearly, there was enough reason for Sidney Powell to be motivated to take this deal, to agree to cooperate, and they will be able to use her guilty plea on these six charges of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

That's what the charge is called, but they also will be able to ask her about all of the other things, this entire racketeering conspiracy that she's accused of taking part in as she testifies very likely at this trial in the future against Donald Trump and others.

BERMAN: Our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, is with us now. Elie, Sidney Powell has got to write an apology letter. I don't think that's what's most important here. It's this plea agreement to work and testify in the prosecutions of others here. Talk about how big of a deal that is.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, this is a really big breakthrough for prosecutors.

In order for any cooperation deal to work, the defendant, in this case, Sidney Powell, has to do a couple things. First of all, she has to admit what she did. Second of all, she has to plead guilty, as we're seeing today.

And, third of all, she has to be willing to testify. And it's so important to understand there's no such thing as halfway cooperation. If you're a prosecutor, you would not enter this deal into Sidney Powell unless you had been thoroughly convinced that, A, she is telling the truth, B, she is going to be able to testify for you credibly in a way you can put in front of a jury and justify, and, C, she's not going to be splitting hairs.

And so if she's going to admit her involvement in the Coffee County scheme, as Katelyn laid out, she's also going to have to admit -- let's remember, she's also charged in the racketeering charge here, along with Donald Trump. So she's also going to have to admit that, yes, what we were doing was trying to steal this election. Yes, I knew it was illegal. Yes, it was, in fact a crime.

All of that is in play for her testimony against all of the 17 other co-defendants here, including Donald Trump.

BOLDUAN: And, Elie, you also think that this could -- this also could extend to Jack Smith's investigation and the case that he's bringing.

HONIG: For sure.

So, let's remember Sidney Powell is not a charged defendant in Jack Smith's case involving the effort to steal the 2020 election, but she is one of the unindicted co-conspirators. There are six of them in Jack Smith's indictments. Rudy -- Sidney Powell, along with Rudy Giuliani, are two of the six.

So, in Jack Smith's view, Sidney Powell was part of this conspiracy. And now we don't know whether there was any coordination between Fani Willis and Jack Smith here, but, if I'm Jack Smith, I'm picking up the phone, calling the DA down in Georgia, and I'm saying: Hey, I see you guys have flipped Sidney Powell. We'd like to talk to her too, because if you believe that she's come clean and she's someone you could put on the stand, we, DOJ, Jack Smith, would absolutely be very interested in putting her on the stand in our case as well.

She may have to work out a separate agreement with Jack Smith. She may have to plead guilty to something separately with Jack Smith. But if she's come clean, and I'm Jack Smith, I absolutely want her as a witness.

BERMAN: That phone call should be interesting.

I can't help but notice that -- that Sidney Powell has pleaded guilty in Fulton County.

Katelyn Polantz -- and I hate to put you on the spot, because we have all been running around covering a different -- bunch of different things. And you just literally ran into the studio. Sidney Powell was that December what meeting?

BOLDUAN: Eighteenth, the December 18...

(CROSSTALK)

POLANTZ: Indeed.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Talk to me about that meeting. Who was there? Because that is such a source of drama before what happened on January 6.

POLANTZ: That was a moment of drama.

And I don't want to list everybody off the top of my head, because I might misspeak...

BERMAN: Yes.

POLANTZ: ... one of the names. But it was the people that were central in the White House.

I believe that there were people that were quite high up both in the White House and in the legal world around Donald Trump. And there was shouting at that meeting about what to do that people like Sidney Powell were trying to get one-on-one time with Trump, and ultimately did.

[11:10:00]

And then I believe that Mark Meadows was a person that was also in the room and seeing this play out. And all of that is important in the federal investigation and has become part of that indictment against Donald Trump there, because it shows how all of these people were very close to Trump himself, having conversations with him.

And so Elie's mentioning about the federal prosecutors, their interest in the willingness of Sidney Powell to plead guilty and cooperate in Georgia. It's very likely that they would want to talk to her about her one-on-one conversations with Donald Trump, the defendant that they will be taking to trial in March in federal court.

And she does split from the Trump world after that meeting after December 18.

BOLDUAN: That's right.

POLANTZ: But she was someone that was involved not just in the fund- raising effort for Trump after the 2020 election, as they were talking about election fraud. She was also a lawyer that was out there publicly and in court.

BOLDUAN: And that's the thing, Katelyn, just to hit that point again, is, she never backed down from the election fraud theories. I mean, she was -- and she pleaded not guilty. She was fighting this Georgia case up until -- I think it was even yesterday, there was like an -- or maybe it was just the end of the -- beginning of the week, that -- and trying to continue to fight it.

Just what a big shift this is.

POLANTZ: It is. And just knowing her personally, as someone we have seen in court before...

BOLDUAN: Yes.

POLANTZ: ... she is very much a fighter and has always been.

She somehow got Michael Flynn's guilty plea deal that was signed, delivered to the judge unraveled at the end of the Trump administration. And not only that. She had done all -- she had all kinds of tactics in court to try and unravel that.

And, even now, in this case, you see her be indicted. Even if she's not in the Trump inner circle anymore, she is a lawyer who has her law license at risk in pleading guilty to a crime that would have some sort of moral underpinning to it. And then, also, she is a person that would have a lot of information.

Does she want to politically be perceived as different than she was before.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, Sidney Powell pleading guilty days before her trial. Jury selection was supposed to begin.

Kenneth Chesebro, his trial is still set to begin next week on TV. I mean, this is something I think has fallen a little bit under the radar with everything else going on in the world. But, very shortly, we will see an election fraud trial playing out before our eyes.

What does Sidney Powell's guilty plea, what is the impact on that? What are you expecting?

HONIG: Well, so it means we're going to have one defendant at this trial, Kenneth Chesebro, and not two, because Sidney Powell is now out.

But, John, as you say, it's so important that we, the public, are going to be able to see this whole trial play out. But, even more importantly, strategically, Donald Trump and the other co-defendants in that Georgia case are going to get to see it all play out. That's going to be a real strategic advantage for them.

And let's remember the DA here has said, my evidence as to any one of these 19 defendants, two of whom have now pled guilty, Sidney Powell and, previously, Scott Hall, but she said, my evidence as to any one of them is going to be essentially the same as my evidence as to all of them or any other of the defendants, meaning, when she tries Kenneth Chesebro starting in a couple of weeks, she's going to put on her entire case.

Now, on the one hand, we will get to see that. That will be fascinating. We will learn a lot about what happened and what happened behind the scenes with Donald Trump. And he could well take on some damage in that respect.

On the other hand, tactically, Donald Trump and the other co- defendants, they get to sit back and watch and take notes and prepare for their own defense somewhere -- somewhere on down the line.

BERMAN: All happens very soon with this dramatic new twist over just the last few minutes, Sidney Powell agreeing to plead guilty.

Our thanks to Elie Honig, Nick Valencia, and Katelyn Polantz here in the studio with us.

POLANTZ: My pleasure.

BERMAN: Great to see you.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for popping in, my friend.

All right, we're going to stay close to this, the developments here.

We're also -- we're also watching very closely the developments in Israel and in Gaza. Coming up: Children are among the dozens of people that were rushed to a local hospital after a blast in Southern Gaza this morning, the very latest on the developing situation in Khan Yunis.

Plus, antisemitic acts rising really across the globe, including here in the United States. Take a look at this picture, a swastika sprawled, graffiti on the building of an iconic Jewish deli in New York. We're going to speak to Israel's special envoy for antisemitism.

And right now on Capitol Hill, there are some changes in the air.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Our reporters on the Hill now saying that Jim Jordan will not hold a third speaker vote today. This is according to sources to CNN, yet more twists and turns. We're going to take you back to the Hill.

BERMAN: Yes, that's some breaking news right there.

BOLDUAN: There you go.

BERMAN: No speaker vote today.

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[11:19:22]

BERMAN: All right, we have big breaking news from Capitol Hill on a vote that we now just learned will not happen today.

CNN's Lauren Fox the very latest on Capitol Hill.

Jim Jordan backing off, Lauren. Where do things stand?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we expect, in this private conference meeting, according to multiple sources that me and our CNN colleagues have been talking with, that Jim Jordan is going to lean towards supporting that resolution to empower Patrick McHenry until January, rather than running again today on the floor for House speaker.

[11:20:01]

There's some thinking behind this. First, Jim Jordan is not expected to drop his bid for the speakership. Instead, this would give Jordan more time to try to shore up support.

Does that work over the course of the next several months? It's extremely unclear. There are a number of opponents to Jim Jordan who say that they are not going to back him. And it's not clear that more time is really going to change their minds.

But on the legislative front, empowering McHenry for several months would essentially allow him to clear the deck for any future speaker on the toughest, most difficult legislation to pass through the House Republican Conference.

That includes things like ensuring that the government is funded after that November 17 deadline, potentially coming together with Democrats on a full-year spending bill sometime in December. And then, of course, there are questions about Ukraine aid, Israel aid. All of those issues would have to be dealt with in the next few weeks, as the administration is planning to send up a supplemental request any day now.

So, that gives you a sense of why Jordan may be leaning towards supporting this resolution to empower McHenry, but obviously significant news this morning that Jim Jordan is not expected to run on the floor for speaker today in a third ballot, after he lost 20 and more members yesterday on that second ballot -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, he's -- well, I think it's pretty safe to say he's backing off pushing for another vote today, because he was headed toward a defeat, probably a bigger defeat. He was going to lose a third ballot.

Now he's got at least a pause, an off-ramp, empowering Patrick McHenry to serve as some kind of temporary speaker pro tem until January, Lauren. I know there's a lot of Latin there, and it sounds complicated, but what exactly does that mean the House will and won't be able to do for the next two months? FOX: Yes, I mean, just remember, right now, because McHenry is in an interim role that he was appointed to, the belief is that he did not have the power to bring any legislation to the floor of the House, not even a simple resolution saying that the House of Representatives supported Israel.

In a bigger expanded role, he would be able to bring legislation to the floor of the House, essentially acting as any other speaker would. And that, again, is so essential, because that government funding deadline is coming November 17. That gives lawmakers less than a month to figure out what they're going to do.

And even if they want to move forward with another short-term resolution, at some point, there will need to be a bigger conversation about how to fund the government for a longer period of time. And I will just note that Patrick McHenry was the architect of that deal that was cut between McCarthy and President Biden to increase the debt ceiling and set caps numbers, spending numbers, for a full year spending deal.

And for the last several months, McHenry has been warning that, as the Republican Conference was having these internal squabbles over how they were going to fund the government, that his prediction was always they were going to end up back in that place of what was included in the debt ceiling deal.

So, one of the big questions I have right now is, what are Democrats going to do? Are they going to support this resolution? They have openly signaled that they could be supportive, but, obviously, they want some assurances from McHenry that they are going to make sure the government remains open, that there's going to be some kind of promise on Ukraine aid and Israel aid.

Obviously, given McHenry's ties to that debt deal back in May, Democrats have a lot of faith in him. But I think that that is one of the outstanding questions we still have right now, John.

BERMAN: Yes, Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois told me, yes, probably, he would vote to support empowering Patrick McHenry for some period of time, which is basically what all Democrats have said.

I think they all want to see the fine print here and what that means, and they could get that fine print in the next few hours.

Obviously, a lot of new things developing here. As you just reported, Lauren, I want to make clear, Jim Jordan is still suggesting that he wants to be speaker and might give it another try in January. Of course, January is a long ways off, so we will have to wait and see.

But he's not one to just out-and-out quit, correct?

FOX: Yes, that's exactly right.

And one thing that's really interesting is, before all of this came out in the last few minutes, I did talk to Warren Davidson, who's a close ally of Jim Jordan this morning. And Davidson said the conference really needs time to heal.

Think about what has transpired over the last 16 days within the Republican Conference. There was a speaker ousted. There was another candidate who came to the forefront, won in a closed-door meeting, and that was Steve Scalise. Then he couldn't get the votes. He dropped out because there were a number of Jordan detractors who said that they would never support Steve Scalise.

Then Jim Jordan was running. There's a lot of bad blood, a lot of raw nerves, a lot of healing, in the words of Warren Davidson, that still needs to happen. So I think the thinking from Jordan allies right now is, let's give this some time. Jordan is not dropping out, but let's see if he can get there over the next several months.

[11:25:04]

BERMAN: A whole lot of dysfunction is another way to put what we have seen recently.

Lauren Fox, great to see you. Thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: All right, coming up for us: We have new airstrikes in Northern Gaza this morning. The IDF says they hit hundreds of targets. We have got new video coming in next.

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