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Trump's Classified Documents Case; Israel-Hamas Hostage Situation; Sean Diddy Combs Lawsuit; Recognition of Palestinian State; Tornado Outbreak in Iowa. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 22, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: After delay, delay, delay. A new hearing in the classified documents case facing Donald Trump. It could shed light on what's next for the case. Or the judge could even throw it out. Though that might only add to the criticism currently aimed at her. We're going to break down what's at stake in that case. Plus pressure on the prime minister. The families of female Israeli hostages released graphic video of their October 7th abduction by Hamas. As they demand Benjamin Netanyahu bring them home. We're going to show you some of those very disturbing images.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And a new lawsuit accusing rapper Sean Diddy Combs of sexual assault. Just days after CNN published exclusive hotel surveillance video showing Combs apparently grabbing, kicking and shoving a girlfriend. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN News Central. Right now a high stakes hearing is underway in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case in Florida. The judge in that case, Trump appointed Aileen Cannon, is hearing arguments as Trump's lawyers try to get the case dismissed. It is now the second of two pre-trial hearings today.

DEAN: And our team that's inside the courtroom is telling us that at one point during the first hearing things got pretty tense. Devolving into a shouting match. Prompting the judge to tell one of the prosecutors to calm down. This hearing is happening, by the way, less than 24 hours after newly unsealed records revealed new details about Trump's alleged attempts to hide documents at Mar-a-Lago. CNN's Katelyn Polantz is joining us now. And Katelyn, let's get to that new evidence in just a second because it is important. But first, explain how Trump's defense is trying to get the case dismissed. And what led to these moments in court that we were just describing.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: So what they're arguing in court today is two of the about a dozen or so different ways that they believe Judge Aileen Cannon should dismiss the charges, some of the charges, the case, parts of the evidence. They're challenging her. They're challenging all sorts of things. And Judge Cannon has to have hearings or she wants to have hearings on a lot of those things. The one that's at issue today that really appears to have gotten heated this morning in this courthouse before Cannon is about Walt Nauta, Trump's co-defendant, accusing the prosecutors of retaliating against him whenever he was charged with conspiracy obstruction of justice for allegedly helping Trump hide boxes. And there's a lot of bad blood going back. There's a lot of bad blood going back between his attorney and the prosecutors on this case, namely the main national security guy, Jay Brat, from the Justice Department. Much of the accusations from the defense team is that there's been prosecutorial misconduct because they wanted Walt Nauta to flip against Donald Trump. That would deprive him of his rights, his legal team says, and he didn't want to flip at one point. But what has come up in court today is about this other thing.

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Basically a sidebar conversation that's been going on between Walt Nauta's as defense lawyer Stanley Woodward and Jay Brat for months, where Stanley Woodward was at one point up for a Democratic-appointed position in the federal or in the judiciary, a D.C. Superior Court judgeship. And he believed that Jay Brat at a meeting referenced him being up for that judgeship in the Biden administration as a way to sort of suggest that Walt Nauta should cooperate against Donald Trump. Stanley Woodward said in court today, as this got very, very tense, apparently, I think the implication was that I was to travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation. And if I didn't, that there would be consequences. And then the prosecutor in court responded. This is David Harbaugh. Mr. Woodward. Story of what happened at the meeting is a fantasy. It did not happen.

And then at one point, Stanley Woodward says to Judge Cannon, I'm here. I can tell you exactly what happened in that meeting. That's what they were talking about instead of the case itself, though all of this fits in to the arguments of prosecutorial misconduct, selective and vindictive prosecution that Walt Nauta is trying to make to Judge Cannon. The Justice Department, of course, says we had plenty of reason to charge him. We didn't pick him out of a pile at random.

DEAN: Well, you are always on top. There are always so many changes and nuance and details. You're always on top of all of them. Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much for that reporting. And let's talk more about this with former U.S. Attorney Michael Moore. Michael, always good to see you. This hearing is the first before the judge--

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MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST & FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Good to see you.

DEAN:--since she delayed indefinitely the start of this trial. It had been scheduled to begin as early as this week. It's been more than a month since she last held a public in-person hearing on the case, though she has held at least one sealed proceeding since then. It appears unless she picks up her momentum here, it's unlikely these charges will go before a jury before 2024. So if that's the case, can Trump make this all go away if he can delay it long enough if he wins? MOORE: Yeah, I'm glad to be with all of you. You know, I just think there's no way this case gets tried before the election. Let's just call it and go ahead and make that prediction now. And frankly, I don't blame the judge totally. I mean, I actually applaud her for having a hearing. Sometimes in court, they like to get judges to have a hearing. They like to rule on the pleadings, the written documents themselves, the motions, as opposed to giving the lawyers a chance to fight it out in the courtroom. So I applaud her at least for that. But there have been some things that she could have ruled on, I think, that have been sort of slow. But take the judge out of it. I mean, you know, if the judge rules with you, people like the judge. If the judge rules against you, people don't like the judge. We just saw it in New York, right? So, you know, if in fact the delay continues, and that has been, I think, an effective legal decision, I think, that's going to be a big part of the trial. At this point is to drag it out. If he were to become the president of the United States, if he wins the election in the fall, then he would have the ability to direct that the charges be dismissed.

Or, as we talked about some during his last term, whether he could actually self-pardon himself or prospectively pardon himself for any conviction that might come about, since it's a federal court. This is different than in a state court. He has no authority to issue a pardon or to control a prosecution by a state prosecutor. In the federal system, prosecutors effectively work under the president of the United States. And so that's a possibility if, in fact, he were to win the election.

DEAN: And Trump and his co-defendants are arguing for this case to be dismissed in court this afternoon. One of those co-defendants, Walt Nauta, alleges he is being vindictively prosecuted. How high is the bar to prove this to Judge Cannon? And do you think that those arguments stand a chance with her?

MOORE: Yeah, I don't think they stand a chance. I mean, they're sort of laughable on their face. I mean, you know, there are instances where you can have prosecutorial misconduct, you can have vindictive prosecutions. This just doesn't sound like one. And his lawyer's making an argument that somehow in a meeting, somebody suggested that he might not be a judge or could be a judge if his client did a certain thing. And then there's a question of whether or not they're just upset that they being the Department of Justice is upset with Mr. Nauta for not testifying or giving them the information they needed as they were moving forward on the indictment. You know, these are things that pretty much every criminal defendant can say. They don't like the way the department made its charging decision. They don't like the things that the prosecutors have said or, you know, this is sort of run of the mill stuff. It's important to have it on the record. And I don't fault his lawyer, frankly, for having, you know, the chance to put these things on a record. It's important. Part of the job of a defense lawyer is to build a record and preserve and protect that record for an appeal if there's a conviction. But I think the likelihood that based on what I've heard, at least of the vindictive prosecution argument is probably out the window. And, you know, it's going nowhere.

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I think it's just sort of a non-starter at this point, unless they come up with some real evidence, like an email, a letter from the DOJ, a recorded voicemail, or another witness who would corroborate that, in fact, some promise had been made to the lawyer or to Mr. Nauta, and you know that if he didn't do this or act in a certain way, they would not charge him. And if they come up with something like that, that's different, but we haven't seen that thus far.

DEAN: All right, more to come on this. Always nice to have you, Michael Moore. Thanks so much.

MOORE: Great being with you all.

SANCHEZ: As we pivot to the next story, we want to warn you, the images we're about to show are disturbing. The families of seven Israeli female soldiers captured by Hamas during the October 7th attack have released graphic footage from their abduction. This is the video they say they want the world to bear witness to. It shows the women lined up against the wall with their hands and feet tied.. Some of their faces, as you'll soon see, are bruised and bloodied.

DEAN: Hamas previously released this footage, and the families hope by making it public, it will put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring these women home. CNN's Bianna Golodryga joining us now. And Bianna, I know you spoke with the mother of one of the hostages in that video. I cannot imagine what goes through her mind every day. What did she tell you?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: She's one of the bravest women I've ever met. She said this cannot be a sideshow.. I'm talking about Ayelet Levy-Shahar. She's the mother of 19-year-old Naama Levy, who you can see throughout this video, her face bloodied. And Naama Levy, if her name sounds familiar, really came to symbolize the concerns over the sexual violence and rapes committed by Hamas on October 7th against Israeli women. There had been a video of her taken out of a Jeep in Gaza previously, and her pants bloodied. And thus, the focus on really that concern and that war crime began, after that video. She is in this video, as well as five other, four other IDF spotters, these young females who were captured in their camp there at the military base and then went into a bomb shelter. I spoke with Naama's mother, who told me they and the other parents had seen this video, had had it and knew about it for a few weeks. They were very, very confused about whether they should come forward with it or not. There'd been debates internally about releasing this, and I asked her why now, why they decided to do this today.

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AYELET LEVY SHAHAR, MOTHER OF HAMAS HOSTAGE, NAAMA LEVY: Well, you know, these are our fears. We were just putting to words and in our faces the exact things that we fear. We see the violence in that video, in those two videos. We see the implied maybe sexual violence, in spoken words and in what we see. And we were just, you know, I feel like, what more can we say, what more is there to explain how the situation is, they have no time. I'm just, you know, I'm just scared. I'm hurting for her. And I'm frustrated. Frustrated may be the main word because we don't feel like the negotiations are being mobilized as they should be.

GOLODRYGA: Is it true that some members of the government did not want to watch this video?

LEVY SHAHAR: Yes, it's true. This is what has been in the media. The media, ministers and members of the government were asked to watch a version of this video in their meetings, and some of them refused and said, you know, we want to sleep okay at night, so we don't want to watch this now. So if this is the reaction, when their duty is to watch all these materials of October 7th and everything from that point on, this is their job, so they can make correct decisions. Then, you know, we think that we should just put it out there for our citizens and for the world to see this is what they were facing. This is a terror attack, and this has been going on because they have not returned home yet.

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GOLODRYGA: Ayelet said that this terror attack has been going on since October 7th in her mind for her daughter, Naama, and all of the other hostages, and they felt like negotiations were going nowhere over the past few weeks. And this was their way, their opportunity to put more pressure on their government to finally do something to emphasize the need, to prioritize the need to bring these hostages home no matter what it takes.

SANCHEZ: Bianna Golodryga, thank you so much for that report. Keeping our focus on the situation in Gaza, there was a major decision by the U.S.

GOLODRYGA: Sure.

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SANCHEZ: Keeping our focus on the situation in Gaza, there was a major decision by three European countries in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war. Norway, Spain and Ireland have said that they will formally recognize a Palestinian state beginning next week. Those countries' leaders are calling today's announcement an important step towards peace.

DEAN: But the decision has triggered anger across Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying it's, quote, a reward for terror. CNN's Nic Robertson is following this story for us. Nic, what does this move mean?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: This really sort of symbolizes the frustration of the Irish, the Norwegians and the Spanish that they say they are witnessing this suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and feel that if they wait for what the United States says to wait to have a two-state solution when Israel's at the table or everyone's ready to negotiate, that they really just- that this standing on the sidelines waiting for that to happen doesn't really effectively try to bring it forward. And that's what they're trying to do. The Norwegian prime minister said, look, a two-state solution is required. There needs to be a Palestinian state, an Israeli state. That's the only way, he said, to have peace in the Middle East. So you have to, he said, therefore declare a Palestinian state so you can, therefore, get to a peace situation. But, you know, the Irish prime minister framed it this way. He said he knew that there would be pushback on this, but he thought it was important from Irish history, you know, getting independence from the British 100 years ago, for there to be independence for the Palestinians. So they've all come at it from different angles, but they really have timed it together to try to shift the dial on getting a change in what's happening in Gaza because they're frustrated about all the civilian deaths and humanitarian suffering there.

DEAN: All right. Nic Robertson for us with the latest reporting on that decision. Thank you so much. Still ahead this hour on CNN News Central, just days after he apologized for brutally attacking a former girlfriend, a new woman has come forward accusing Sean Diddy Combs of sexual assault. We have disturbing details in the newly filed lawsuit coming up next. Plus, we are getting new details about who is expected to testify at Hunter Biden's gun trial, which is scheduled to start in less than two weeks.

SANCHEZ: And we're live in Iowa, where at least 18, the tornadoes have left a trail of devastation and destruction. The latest after a quick break.

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SANCHEZ: Just days after CNN uncovered disturbing video in which Sean Diddy Combs appeared to grab, shove, kick, and then drag his then- girlfriend, Cassandra Cassie Ventura, a new woman has come forward accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting her.

DEAN: In this new lawsuit, Crystal McKinney, a former model, claims it happened more than 20 years ago. And her complaint is the latest in a string of lawsuits against Combs. CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister. has the latest. Elizabeth, you've had exclusive reporting on this. What are you learning now about these new allegations?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER: Yeah, so this is the seventh lawsuit to come out against Diddy since November. Now, the first lawsuit in November was from Cassie. That one was settled. And one of the seven lawsuits does not accuse Sean Combs of sexual assault. So we do want to point that out. But six of these lawsuits do. And this lawsuit which comes from Crystal McKinney, a former model, she has allegations that are eerily similar to allegations in these other lawsuits. She alleges that in 2003 in New York that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Diddy. She alleges that she was forced into a sexual act. And she says that she felt hazy and suddenly realized what had just happened. Now, I have reached out to Diddy's team. We have not heard back from them on this new suit. But as you said, this is really a string of the latest accusations against Diddy. And, of course, this comes after that violent video that we released here at CNN of him beating Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel. So he came out and he had an apology video after that video came out. But a lot of people saying it's too little too late. And now that we have yet another woman coming forward, whose claims are just furthering this pattern of alleged abuse. This really just continues the troubles and the mounting damage against Diddy.

SANCHEZ: And Elizabeth, we're also hearing from Combs's ex and the mother of his firstborn son. What did she say?

WAGMEISTER: Yes. So Misa Hylton, she is, as you said, the mother of Diddy's oldest son. Now she posted on her Instagram and I want to read you her statement for as she says, quote, I am heartbroken that Cassie must relive the horror of her abuse and my heart goes out to her. I know exactly how she feels and through my empathy it has triggered my own trauma. She goes on to say that Sean Combs needs help and I am praying that he truly does the personal work and receives it. Now, what is important to point out there is she says that watching the video of Cassie that we released here at CNN has triggered her own trauma. And of course, this is the mother of one of Diddy's children. You know, this is obviously someone from very much inside his inner circle.

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You know, they were together for years and they had a child together. And for her to say that this is triggering her own trauma, that seems to indicate that she may have experienced some similar behavior from Diddy. So that was very telling coming from her. And again, just on the heels of now that video, but also yet another lawsuit against Diddy just continues this pattern of alleged behavior.

SANCHEZ: Elizabeth Wagmeister, thanks so much for the update. Let's discuss with attorney and legal analyst Areva Martin. Areva, right off the bat, what do you make of these latest allegations against Combs?

AREVA MARTIN, LEGAL ANALYST & ATTORNEY: Not really surprised by them, Boris. Allegations of this nature have been swirling around Sean Combs for decades. A very similar in ways that we saw with respect to R. Kelly. Unfortunately, many people in the inner circle of people like Sean Combs are aware of the violence and the predatory conduct that he has engaged in. And when Cassie Ventura filed that lawsuit at the end of last year, that just gave a voice to so many other victims to come forward and to tell their stories. I don't think the lawsuit that was just filed by the former model is going to be the last lawsuit that we will see where someone comes forth. A victim saying that they were sexually or physically abused by Sean Combs.

DEAN: And Areva, to that point, these new allegations date back to 2003. And McKinney is suing for a violation of a law which gives, quote, survivors of gender motivated acts of violence more time to pursue civil actions by extending the statute of limitations. But these are civil lawsuits because given the statute of the limitations, are these civil suits the only means of recourse for some of these women that maybe this happened to them years and years ago? MARTIN: Yeah, Jessica, great question. I think the civil lawsuits and what we've seen from the district attorney's office in Los Angeles after that video was released coming forward, is saying that the criminal conduct, the assault that we watched in that video was beyond the statute of limitations and therefore not likely to be charged in California. But it raises the question about that federal investigation that we know is underway. His homes were raided a couple of months ago, and that had to do with what we've been told is sex trafficking. So. Perhaps there will be some criminal accountability that Sean Combs will have to face, even though some of the actions alleged in these civil lawsuits may be outside the purview of applicable statutes of limitations, not just in California, but in other states as well.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned that he's the target of this federal investigation carried out by a Department of Homeland Security team that handles human trafficking crimes. How serious are his legal troubles? What kind of charges could he be looking at there?

MARTIN: Very serious. What we know, particularly from one of the lawsuits that was filed by a male producer in allegations of human trafficking, including with underage girls in those allegations don't pay back 10 years, 15 years. Those allegations in the lawsuit by a former music producer involved conduct that he says happened within the last year or so. So if those allegations are proven to be true, if federal law enforcement agency is able to collect evidence, we would see some kind of criminal indictment of against Sean Combs. And I just want to know the people that have come out and have said that Sean Combs needs help. No doubt he doesn't need help. He also needs to be held accountable. What we witnessed in the video with Cassie is criminal activity, not just activity that needs mental help, but he needs to be held accountable on all fronts.

SANCHEZ: Areva Martin, thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us.

MARTIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course, if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence and need help, you can call the domestic violence hotline. That number is on your screen right now. 1-800-799-SAFE that's 1-800- 799-7233. Still to come on new central, we're going to take you live to the ground in Iowa, the center of yesterday's tornado outbreak in the Midwest. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped out. Multiple people killed. The latest in just moments.

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