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Evaluating Bernie Sanders' Debate Performance; Roger Stone Sentenced to Three Years in Prison. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 20, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson just sentenced the president's longtime ally and friend to three years and four months in prison, two years probation, a $20,000 fine, and community service.

[15:00:03]

Yes, it is a lighter sentence than prosecutors initially offered in that first round of sentencing recommendations, the same recommendation that set off that crisis after the president tweeted his opposition to it and senior Justice Department officials rescinded it.

A jury convicted Stone of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. Conservative commentators say his pardon would be a symbolic way of invalidating the Russia investigation.

But Judge Jackson spent an hour castigating Stone for what she said was covering up for, and not standing up for, the president of the United States.

She went on to say this -- quote -- "This case did not arise because Roger Stone was being pursued by his political enemies. It arose because Roger Stone characteristically injected himself smack into the middle of one of the most significant issues of the day."

So let's start at the White House with our chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta.

And, Jim, as I mentioned, the president's critics are warning him against pardoning Stone. Have you heard any response yet from the president on his friend?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Not just yet, Brooke, and we should point out the president is speaking live right now in Las Vegas.

He just took the stage at an event for former prisoners who are transitioning back into the work force. And this has been a subject the president has been talking about a lot lately. He talked about it during the State of the Union speech, prison reform, and he's going to be talking about it here. It is quite the venue, I suppose, symbolically, if the president were

to go ahead and announce he's offering some sort of pardon or a commutation of a sentence to Roger Stone.

I will tell you, Brooke, if you look at the president's Twitter feed, there are some tea leaves. Just as soon as Judge Jackson handed down her sentence, the president tweeted his displeasure with the fact that Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director, was not prosecuted for misleading investigators in that press leak case.

And he's also been tweeting videos of conservative media figures, saying that the president should pardon Roger Stone. I will tell you, I have talked to a couple of Trump advisers who expect the president to do just that.

But until he does it, a lot of this is a guessing game to see whether or not the president will actually go through it. Lindsey Graham, just a short while ago, put out a tweet, one of the president's top allies up on Capitol Hill, that he's well within his right to pardon Roger Stone.

And so a lot of what -- he's getting a lot of critics who are saying he shouldn't do this, but also a lot of people inside his orbit are urging him to do just that -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jim, thank you.

ACOSTA: You bet.

BALDWIN: Roger Stone, he is among the long list of Trump associates convicted a federal crime during Trump's time in the White House.

Let me run through the list for you. We have Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chair now serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence for tax and bank fraud. Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen is serving a three-year sentence for, among other crimes, lying to the FBI.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn still is waiting for his sentencing, although he is also contesting his guilty plea for lying to the FBI. And one of the men who testified against Roger Stone, Rick Gates, was Trump's former deputy campaign chair. He got 45 days in prison and three years probation for conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

And, finally, there is former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who played a key role in setting off the entire Russia investigation and he served 12 days for lying to investigators.

So now for the deep dive, Harry Litman once served as deputy assistant attorney general. And CNN legal analyst Elie Honig is a former federal prosecutor.

And, Harry, let me actually start with you, because I know Elie -- I'm going to give Elie credit and say he called it. He was saying roughly four years. And so we know Roger Stone got three years, four months. What's your read on the sentence?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Besides how smart Elie is?

BALDWIN: I mean--

LITMAN: Look, she -- I think, all in all, it's really creditable. She's a good judge. She was procedurally impeccable. She went through all the considerations.

And, as you mentioned, she really took a stand, a public stand, against some of the nonsense that Stone and Trump and Barr have been saying. She said, you lied about matters of national-international significance. The truth still matters here. All those were important blows for justice and a credit to the federal courts.

She came down ultimately a little bit light. But I think, given how procedurally sound she was and how well-focused on the broader question, I think it's really an impeccable sentence by her today.

BALDWIN: So then, Elie -- and we will get to the judge, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in just a second.

But what I really wanted to hear from you, you and I were chatting before, and you said with regard to the prosecutors and how they handled this, right, because we know the former prosecutors who have withdrawn from the case, you called it a subtle counter-revolt by the DOJ prosecutors.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

BALDWIN: How do you mean?

HONIG: So I think today was a good day for the Department of Justice and for the rule of law, bad day for Bill Barr.

So what the prosecutors did, let's remember, there were two memos in this case, first, the harsh one from the actual Stone prosecutors.

BALDWIN: The seven-to-nine-year recommendation.

HONIG: Asking for the seven to nine years.

Then there was the undercutting memo, the second one, and today everything the prosecutor said was go with the first one.

[15:05:03]

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: That's the one we really meant.

And they did it as subtly as they could, but I think the judge clearly picked up on it. This was a real sentence, by the way. When we throw around these numbers, I mean, that's three years, four months of real time. That is a long time in prison, especially for a nonviolent offense.

Also, you have the president out there tweeting during the sentencing hearing, undercutting Bill Barr again, as the chief law enforcement officer of the country, doing exactly what Bill Barr said, you have to stop doing. What's Bill Barr going to do now?

BALDWIN: That's -- what is Bill Barr going to do now? What's President Trump going to do now?

HONIG: Yes.

BALDWIN: Harry, on the judge, this is something -- one of the things she had said about Roger Stone during the sentencing today is that -- quote -- he "lied to protect the president, lied to protect the president."

Is that usual for a judge in a case such as this to say that? Do you think she is perhaps predicting a presidential pardon and therefore she wants this line to forever be associated to this sentence with this criminal?

LITMAN: Well, I'll say this. She really joined the issue in an important way.

She really brought home how Trump's tweets are about trying to protect the guy who not just lied, but lied in order to protect Trump and in order to keep the truth from coming out in the whole Mueller probe.

And that, I think, will make it more of a political milestone if he tries to pardon. By the way, my best guess is he won't try to pardon between now and November. And one reason is, if he pardons Stone, Stone can be subpoenaed the next day and forced to testify, no more Fifth Amendment privilege.

And I imagine that that is what Congress would do. But she not only did a bottom line time, but she called the sort of principles of justice that were at stake in a really important way. That's not all the time in a sentence. But it was perfectly appropriate for a good judge, and she is that, to do it.

BALDWIN: Let's step back a second, because I think a lot of people watching have been following this Roger Stone case and wondering, OK, so he got sentenced today. Like, where's the jumpsuit and the handcuffs?

HONIG: Right.

BALDWIN: Why does he walk out of court?

HONIG: Ordinarily, this is the point where the prosecutor at the end of the sentencing says, Your Honor, I move to remand the defendant, move him into jail. The marshals come in, they take away your belt and shoelaces and march you off to jail.

BALDWIN: Yes. HONIG: The reason that didn't happen today is because Stone has this

pending motion for a new trial. He says that one of the jurors against him lied during the jury selection process and was improperly biased.

I have looked at that. Based on what's publicly available, there's a 0.2 percent chance of that motion succeeding. But the judge has given him the courtesy and said, we're going to play out this motion before I send you into jail.

How long could that take? If she pushes -- and she can -- a month or so. But once that motion is denied, he's going to go in, unless he's pardoned.

BALDWIN: OK, guys, stand by.

I was just told in my ear that President Trump has just made his first remarks on his good friend Roger Stone. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Stone and his wife, who is really a terrific woman for a long time. And Roger is definitely a character. Everybody sort of knows Roger. Everybody knows him.

And most people like him. Some people probably don't. But I do and I always have. He's a smart guy. He's a little different. But those are sometimes the most interesting. But he's a good person. His family is fantastic. He's got a fantastic family.

And there's always a reason for that, isn't there? Roger was never involved in the Trump campaign for president. He wasn't involved. I think, early on, long before I announced, he may have done a little consulting work or something, but he was not involved when I ran for president.

And he's a person who, again, he knows a lot of people having to do with politics. His whole life is politics. That's what he is. And it's my strong opinion that the forewoman of the jury, the woman who was in charge of the jury, is totally tainted, when you take a look. How can you have a person like this?

She was a anti-Trump activist. Can you imagine this?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Now, you wouldn't know about a bad jury. Anybody here know about that? No.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: These people know more about bad juries than everybody here, including the sheriff and the mayor and everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: They know about bad juries. We're not going to say it too much. So let's not say it in front of more cameras and this.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But you are my experts, OK?

No, but this is a woman who was an anti-Trump person totally. Now, I don't know if this is a fact, but she had a horrible social media account. The things she said on the account were unbelievable.

She didn't reveal that when she was chosen. And she's, I guess, from what I hear, a very strong woman, a very dominant person. So she can get people to do whatever she wants.

[15:10:05]

And she got on. Then she became the foreperson, forewoman, on the jury.

And I assume they asked her a question. Do you have any bias? Do you have any? She didn't say that. So, is that a defrauding of the court? You tell me.

But does this undermine our fair system of justice? How can you have a person like this? Did she delete her social account?

And when Roger was determined by the same jury to be guilty, before the judge issued a sentence, and he was determined to be guilty, and she started going a little wild. She was very happy.

And she started saying things, and people said, that's strange. That's strange. And then they started looking at it. And how can you have a jury pool tainted so badly? It's not fair. It's not fair.

And it's not happening to a lot of other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, we're going to pull away from this.

Item number one, this is the president of the United States who continues to go after justice, attacking jurors, attacking judges.

Elie Honig, just jump right in, because then there's a lot to go through. As often when the president speaks, we need to fact-check.

Where do you want to begin?

HONIG: OK, these attacks on the foreperson of the jury are ridiculous.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: First of all, the foreperson of the jury, it's on the record, was asked. She said: I ran for Congress. I'm a Democrat.

And the judge asked, as jurors are not expected to be robots. They're human beings. And when this happens, it happens all the time, judges say, OK, given that, can you still judge the facts here impartially and fairly? She said yes.

Roger Stone's lawyers could have thrown her off. You get what's called jury strikes. They did not. They said, fine, Judge. She looks fine.

BALDWIN: So, for him to say she's anti-Trump--

HONIG: I don't know if there's any--

BALDWIN: Roger Stone's own lawyers were like -- they were like, cool.

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: They were fine with her.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: Bigger picture, to attack a juror -- OK, he's already attacked prosecutors, judges. That's way over the line.

Jurors. Jurors are civilians. They are you, me, Jay. You get your jury summons in the mail. It's -- you do your civic duty. You miss work. You have to find someone to watch your kids.

And to attack jurors -- I mean, he's one step away from knocking on people's doors and saying, do you like me or not? And if not, I'm going to attack you.

I mean, we got to draw a line somewhere. Jurors should be way beyond the president's line of attack.

BALDWIN: How about what he said about Roger Stone, wasn't involved in my presidential campaign, did some consulting.

HONIG: Yes.

BALDWIN: I think what he said was, wasn't involved, may have done a little consultant.

Did do a little consulting. I mean, that's not, not involved. And, by the way, this is what he was convicted for. A jury convicted Roger Stone for lying to Congress, because what he did was try to coordinate between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks.

That's what a jury convicted him for and he was sentenced for today.

BALDWIN: Harry, you want to weigh in?

LITMAN: Yes, I mean, so I'm with Elie pretty much down the line. What happened happens all the time. They knew about it. His prognostications impeccable. I will go with point two also.

But he's also, is Trump, attacking not just the jurors, but the law. We're going to have a whole 'nother round in a month or so where Jackson comes out and says, no, this is what the law says. This is why people can continue to serve.

And she's going to dismiss it. In terms of his conduct, as Elie says, it's at best misleading to say he wasn't involved in the campaign. Obviously, the whole point was he was trying to do the deals between Russia and the campaign that Mueller was unable to find, in part because Stone had lied.

So it really sets it up completely for another legal showdown that likely he will look bad in and lose.

BALDWIN: Stand by, you two.

I'm told there's one more clip of the president. Let's Watch.

(CROSSTALK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: -- going to do anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States. I want the process to play out.

I think that's the best thing to do, because I'd love to see Roger exonerated. And I'd love to see it happen, because I personally think he was treated very unfairly.

They talk about witness -- witness tampering. But a man that he was tampering didn't seem to have much of a problem with it. They think they know each other for years. And it's not like the tampering that I see on television when you watch a movie.

That's called tampering with guns to people's heads and lots of other things. So, we're going to see what it is. Maybe there was tampering, and maybe there wasn't.

But I can tell you that there was tremendous lying, really lying and leaking classified documents. That, you don't know about. But they leaked classified documents.

[15:15:00]

You know, there was a young sailor who took pictures of an old submarine and sent them to his mother and a friend. And they destroyed his life. I let him out. They were consider classified.

Now, Russia and China, I guarantee you, have the pictures of this separate for a long time. The submarine was like 30 years old. They had them in the first year. They didn't have to wait for the 30th year.

But this is a famous story. And they had these pictures. And they put him in jail. He sent them to his mother and to his friend. His friend was not interested in what you're thinking. And there are many other cases where documents were leaked, even accidentally.

It is so -- classified documents are so important that, even if they are leaked accidentally -- now, Hillary Clinton leaked more classified documents than any human being, I believe, in the history of the United States of America, right?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And she deleted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK.

Let's -- we know the truth on that latter point, I think. Let's go to the point where he said, Roger Stone would -- I would love to see Roger exonerated.

Harry, to you first. Is that him basically saying, I want to pardon him?

LITMAN: I actually think that's code for, I will wait until November

BALDWIN: Ah.

LITMAN: And especially if exoneration includes courts of -- court of appeals and Supreme Court.

I think he's been told he can't pull the trigger on it right away. He wants to have the jury lay out. I will be interested in what Elie thinks about it.

And I just have one very quick point. Just the Department of Justice here looks like it's been buffeted by political winds back and forth and back. The reversal in court today by the same guy who had signed that second brief is a huge, I think, embarrassment for the department.

Sorry. Go ahead, Elie.

BALDWIN: What do you think?

HONIG: Yes. No, I think Harry is exactly right.

So the president wants to partner Roger Stone, wants it clearly very badly. Someone has told him, smartly, if you do this, the blowback will be enormous. I think this is the theory.

And when he says, I want to see Roger Stone exonerated, there's only a couple ways that can happen. One is if the judge grants this motion based on the juror. It's not going to succeed.

BALDWIN: Right.

HONIG: But that's going to take time.

And the other one, as Harry said, he -- Roger Stone has a right to appeal. That's going to take months and months, months, six, eight, 10, 12 months. And so Donald Trump can say, I wanted to give that whole process a chance to play out. Then I will pardon. And that would also, in all likelihood, be after the election.

BALDWIN: After the election.

He also said, it's not like witness tampering I have seen in the movies. It's like witness tampering is witness tampering is witness tampering.

I mean, these are serious, serious charges and convictions.

HONIG: And the hilarious example he gave was in the movies they put guns to people's heads. Sure, yes. That would be witness tampering, but that's not the only kind of witness tampering.

And let's remember, in this case, Roger Stone said to Randy Credico, prepare to die. Not that really far removed. So the movies are awesome, but they're not the law.

BALDWIN: Yes.

OK. Harry, go ahead. Close this out.

LITMAN: Well, prepare to die. It was -- there was a final little M.F. in there as well.

Yes, he's a thug. And he's been a thug for 30 years, and she called him a thug. And that was a good day for justice.

BALDWIN: All right, guys, thank you very much, Harry and Elie.

LITMAN: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next: Senator Bernie Sanders in the firing line from his Democratic rivals for his Democratic socialist policies. Hear what one of his campaign chairs made of his debate performance last night.

And Senator Warren's campaign says her debate performance led to its biggest fund-raising day ever. But will her new attack strategy pay off in the polls?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:19]

BALDWIN: Senator Bernie Sanders has embraced and defended being a self-described Democratic socialist in a nation that is synonymous with capitalism.

But now that he is the front-runner in the Democratic race for president, some of his rivals are pouncing on whether Sanders can beat President Trump with his vision for America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Most Americans don't see where they fit if they have got to choose between a socialist who thinks that capitalism is the root of all evil and a billionaire who thinks that money ought to be the root of all power.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can't think of a ways that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get reelected than listening to this conversation.

(LAUGHTER)

BLOOMBERG: It's ridiculous.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: We're not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn't work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Nina Turner is the co-chair of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Nina, welcome.

NINA TURNER, NATIONAL CO-CHAIR, BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You just saw that clip. Your response to some of those lines last night?

TURNER: Well, Senator Bernie Sanders is the front-runner in this race. And it is very clear on all of the issues that matter to changing the material conditions of people in this country, Senator Bernie Sanders is on the right side.

And, Brooke, it just really boggles my mind to have people like Mr. Buttigieg and Mr. Bloomberg sit up there and talk about how defending people who already have everything going for them in the system is the right way to go, and having Senator Sanders defend people who are on the bottom side of that doesn't make sense.

You know, what Senator Sanders is fighting for, just plain and simple, if people want to call it Democratic -- he calls himself a Democratic socialist. People want to make this a bad word.

But, the last time I checked, when President FDR was standing up for folks in the 1930s, he had to fight against the elites of his day as well. And so Senator Bernie Sanders is on that stage standing up for the everyday people of this country and fighting against the elites, including some of the elites on that stage last night.

[15:25:13]

BALDWIN: I hear you, but since it is a word he uses to describe himself, I want to focus on him.

TURNER: Sure.

BALDWIN: And there was just new polling, because I think we do care about what the electorate thinks.

There's this new "Wall Street Journal"/NBC News poll that found that two-thirds of the respondents said that they were actually uncomfortable with a socialist president.

TURNER: But when you break it down -- Shakespeare once said, what is in a name? A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.

What is Democratic socialism? It is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. What does that mean?

BALDWIN: Nina, I appreciate Shakespeare just as much as you do. I had a role in "Macbeth" way back in the day.

But I am talking about this particular poll. And I want to -- I want an answer on the fact that the majority of America is not comfortable with a socialist president.

TURNER: He is a Democratic socialist.

BALDWIN: Democratic socialist president.

TURNER: And the majority of the American -- the majority of the American people, let me tell you what they're comfortable with.

They are comfortable with Medicare for all. They're comfortable with college for all.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Nina, you keep pivoting. You got to answer the question.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I hear you.

TURNER: No, I'm not. I'm answering the question.

BALDWIN: You are pivoting.

TURNER: I'm answering the question. I might not answer it the way you want me to answer, but I am answering the question.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: There is no way that I have a specific idea of how you want to answer the question.

I'm just trying to get an answer for the American people. The majority aren't comfortable with a Democratic socialist.

TURNER: When you break down Democratic socialism and what it really is, that's what I'm saying to you -- when you break it down and what it really is, when I talk to people across this country, as I have traveled to many states in this union, about what lifts them up, Medicare for all is that. College for all is that. Canceling student debt is that. So, just because some people want to demonize the word does not mean that, when you start to have conversations with people about what that means and what Senator Sanders means by that, then they think about it differently.

But if you just bandy that word about without an explanation and try to demonize it, which that's what the elites are doing, then you get that in that poll. People can swing polls any way that they decide to swing those. And you and I both know that.

BALDWIN: Should he use a different word?

TURNER: No.

No, Brooke, you know what? One of the beautiful things that people love about Senator Sanders, whether they agree with all his policies or not, he is trustworthy. He is honest. He is consistent. So that's why he's not running from the word, you know what, in the same way that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't run from the -- from that word.

As we know, before he was assassinated, he indicted this country, materialism, militarism, poverty, racism. He said, we need to do a self-check.

So for all of the people trying to make hay over the word, Senator Sanders is not talking about socialism in a traditional sense, in terms of what happens in Europe. He never once said that the government should take over the production of all goods and services in this country.

Brooke, the only thing that he is saying is that there are millions of people in this country who are suffering. And isn't it time that we call out Wall Street? Isn't it time that we call out a pharmaceutical industry?

BALDWIN: I hear you. I hear you.

TURNER: Isn't it time that we call out health care executives who work in a system that really doesn't care where people are dying?

That's simply all he's saying.

BALDWIN: He is the one -- and everyone knew it going into that debate last night. He's the one right now to beat.

TURNER: Yes.

BALDWIN: And so, as we're listening to you very, very carefully as to so what he stands for, let me play some sound.

This is from Mike Bloomberg. This is what he said this morning about the debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BLOOMBERG: Look, the real winner in the debate last night was Donald Trump, because I worry that we may very well be on the way to nominating somebody who cannot win in November.

And if we choose a candidate who appeals to a small base, like Senator Sanders, it will be a fatal error.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: My question is, did Senator Sanders, did the other candidates make a mistake by not going after Trump more last night?

TURNER: President Trump came up.

And, as we know, Senator Sanders has been very clear. What we need to defeat President Donald Trump is not somebody that's Trump-like, not somebody who sided with the billionaire class, and basically said that the Great Recession in 2008 was caused because the banks were not allowed to redline, not the person who once supported cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

We can't have somebody that's Trump-like to go up against President Trump. We need somebody who is the antithesis, Brooke. And Senator Sanders is that. President Trump lies. Senator Sanders tells the truth.

President Trump pretends to stand up for the working people. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he gives a $1.6 trillion tax cut to the wealthiest people in this country.

And you know what Senator Bernie Sanders would have done with that same $1.6 trillion? Cancel student debt in this country.