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Trump Acquitted In Historic Second Impeachment Trial; Trump Said To Be Relieved By His Acquittal; Despite Trump's Acquittal, President Biden Says Substance Of Charges Not In Dispute; Trump Faces Heaping List Of Legal Problems Post-Impeachment; QAnon Conspiracy Theory Believes Trump Will Be Back In Power In March. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired February 13, 2021 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:09]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for staying with us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York, as we continue our breaking news coverage as the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump comes to an end. The Senate voting to acquit the former president of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): The yeas are 57. The nays are 43.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The Democrats did not get the two-thirds majority they needed to convict. Only seven Republicans voted guilty. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was not one of them. But shortly after voting not guilty, McConnell took to the floor and said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of the day. No question about it. Former President Trump's actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So why did he vote not to convict?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: I believe the best constitutional reading shows that Article 2, Section 4 exhausts the set of persons who can legitimately impeach, tried, or convicted is the president, is the vice president and civil officers. We have no power to convict and disqualify a former office holder who's now a private citizen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Keep in mind, when McConnell held the majority at the time Trump was impeached in the House, he announced he would not allow a trial of Donald Trump until after President Biden's inauguration. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi clearly infuriated by the hypocrisy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The Senate to say all the things he said, oh, my gosh, about Donald Trump and how horrible he was and is and then said but, the time that the House chose to bring it over, no, we didn't choose. You chose not to receive it. It was not the reason that he voted for what he did or was the excuse that he used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: We also have new reporting tonight about how the former president has been interpreting this trial and his fears that he could face criminal charges. More on that in just a moment. But first let's go to CNN's Ryan Nobles on Capitol Hill.

And, Ryan, whoa, what a wild ride today. In the end, though, 43 Republicans voted to acquit Trump despite the evidence laid out.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, and it really doesn't come that much of a surprise that the former president was ultimately acquitted of this. And you could have -- you could see that the Democrats that were involved in this today had to make a tackle choice about just how far they were willing to push this impeachment trial. There was a period of time where they floated the idea of bringing witnesses forward. That would have certainly extended the life of this trial, would have certainly taken it into next week and maybe beyond.

They made the tactical choice to take a step back. Instead just put into the record a statement by Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Butler about that phone call between the former president and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on January 6th. And they decided that that was as far as that was going to go because they were not going to convince the number of Republicans necessary to convict President Trump. Still, they still feel as though they accomplished quite a bit in this impeachment trial.

Listen to what the lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin had to say afterwards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): I think in the eyes of the entire world and the country, we overwhelmingly proved the facts of the case. And Senator McConnell just conceded that. That wasn't the issue. You got to talk to the -- you know, the 43 senators who are basically saying no amount of facts would have made any difference to them because they didn't think that the president was subject to the jurisdiction of the Senate. That was the argument you just heard Mitch McConnell make.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: So there were 43 Republicans that said they just couldn't vote to convict because of this process argument that they constitutionally were unable to convict a president after he had already left office. But there were seven Republicans who disagreed. And I want to appoint to these statements or two of these Republicans particularly. Listen to what Lisa Murkowski had to say.

Keep in mind, she's up for reelection in 2022 so this could be a vote that comes back to haunt her politically and she said today, "It's not about me. It's not about me and my life, my job. This is really about what we stand for, and if I can't say what I believe that our president should stand for, why should I ask Alaskans to?"

[23:05:12]

And then there was Bill Cassidy, and his vote was also very important because you'll remember initially when Rand Paul offered up this point of order a couple of weeks ago, before we got to the trial itself, Cassidy actually agreed that this was not constitutional. He changed his vote on that and then today voted to convict. And this is the reason why. He said, quote, "Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty."

Now Cassidy was just reelected but he's already starting to feel the political fallout from this vote. Tonight, the Louisiana or Republican Party's Executive Committee by a unanimous vote voted to censure Bill Cassidy, their senator, because of this. So this was a consequential vote for many of these Republicans, sticking their necks out, these seven Republicans, because they thought it was the right thing to do -- Ana.

CABRERA: It took a lot of courage and they must feel lonely tonight but they can rest at least easy knowing they did was they believe was truly right in their heart.

Ryan Nobles, thank you for your reporting.

Let's go to Boris Sanchez near the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate.

Boris, what are we hearing from Trump tonight?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Relief in a word, Ana, from former President Trump. He expressed in a statement that he was pleased with the results of the Senate impeachment trial. His legal team also expressing relief after a stressful set of days for them, and which one of them even quit yesterday and then had to be talked back into the job by Trump himself.

Ultimately, though, we are hearing from people close to the legal team that they were surprised that a total of seven Republican senators voted to convict Donald Trump. That number higher than they anticipated. And we're hearing from sources close to Donald Trump that he's concerned about potentially facing criminal charges for his role in inciting the violence that precipitated on January 6th and that riot we saw at the Capitol. Trump has remained largely silent on that issue. Since then mostly

we're hearing from sources out of concern about what charges he may face. This reporting comes on the heels of what we heard from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell about the Justice Department potentially looking into Trump's involvement in the riot and also as federal investigators have outlined to CNN that they are looking at everyone and anyone who may have been involved in what happened including the former president.

I want to read you now a portion of the statement that Donald Trump put out tonight because there is none of that concern in the statement, and in fact, there's foreshadowing about his political future.

Here's what Trump writes, in part, quote, "This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country. No president has ever gone through anything like it and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago.

Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to make America great again has only just begun. In the months ahead, I have much to share with you and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all our people. There has never been anything like it."

Two things that stand out there that he has much to share, and of course pointing out the nearly 75 million votes that he got for president. That has a consistent threat from Trump, his allies, even his legal team to fellow Republicans who considered crossing Trump. As for what he has to share with his supporters, you can bet he is going to campaign and fundraise against those Republicans, people like Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach him and voted convict him.

And of course, the specter of another run for the presidency looms large over the race for the White House in 2024 for Donald Trump, Ana.

CABRERA: Boris Sanchez, in West Palm Beach, thank you.

With us now is former Democratic senator from Alabama, Doug Jones.

Senator Jones, thanks for staying up late for us. First, what is your reaction to today's vote to acquit Trump?

DOUG JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I was not surprised. But like a lot of folks, I was at least pleased to see seven Republicans. I think that is historic. Seven Republicans who repudiated Donald Trump who said he was guilty. They said he should be impeached. They found the jurisdictional element necessary. And I think it was very important. We saw a bipartisan vote in the House. We've seen a bipartisan vote in the Senate and I think that's incredibly important for the future going forward.

CABRERA: Following the vote, Senator McConnell essentially made the case to convict Trump after he had voted to acquit. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: Seventy-four million Americans did not invade the Capitol.

[23:10:06]

Hundreds of rioters did. Seventy-four million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it. One person did. Just one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: What do you think about how McConnell handle all this?

JONES: Well, let me tell you, Ana, I was, you know, I was in my car listening to Senator McConnell and that speech, and I had to do a double take because I thought I was listening to a House manager give their closing argument. He did as good a job as any until it got to the end.

You can say a lot of things about Mitch McConnell but he's very smart and he's very shrewd. He knew exactly what he was doing by postponing this trial. He knew that he was giving his caucus an out should they want to take it. He was giving them the option to vote in their conscience but also giving them an out to hide behind the jurisdictional element. And so he had it both ways. He was able to have folks vote their conscience, to give them a pass, but also have -- make sure there were enough folks that voted against -- for acquittal that there's no impeachment.

So I think it was very smart on his part to do because he's calculated it and at the end of the day on the speech, he has tried to draw the first stake in Donald Trump's political heart by trying to drive him out of the Republican Party, without the impeachment but trying to do some things and start separating the Republican Party that he cares an awful lot about from Donald Trump.

CABRERA: If McConnell had voted to convict, though, do you think other Republicans would have followed? You know, they needed another 10 Republicans to vote with Democrats in order for there to be a conviction.

JONES: I think certainly others would. I mean, if there's one thing Senator McConnell does well is to persuade his caucus. And I think certainly if he had voted to convict, there would have been other followers. Whether he could have gotten I guess a total of eight others plus him to follow. I think that remains to be seen. But I think you would have seen several others. If this had been a secret vote, I got a feeling that we'd have a conviction just like we saw the secret vote in the House that kept Liz Cheney in power.

But when you got to a public vote about the congresswoman from Georgia, it was a different story. So I think that it could have been different should Senator McConnell have voted. But again, he has it both ways. He can keep some Trump base by doing this, but now he can begin the process of trying to separate the traditional conservative Republican Party from Donald Trump.

CABRERA: I just keep coming back to what he said very early on this process which is this is going to be perhaps the most consequential vote you will ever take in your, you know, public life or the most consequential vote he would take, and that's how he chose to vote.

I just want to read from an op-ed that you wrote this week, and I'm quoting here, "I never dreamed I would see what happened in this country on January 6th. I never dreamed that I would see a president stoke the flames of hate to cause a siege of the U.S. Capitol with Congress in session. If Trump's actions are not impeachable, then nothing is. And we may as well strike that provision from the Constitution."

Senator, what is the impact of today's vote going forward and the precedent it may have now set?

JONES: Well, I don't think it's a good one but the fact of the matter is every impeachment trial has been a very partisan trial. Every one of them. There have been some crossover. But the bottom line it is basically a partisan political vote. And that's unfortunate. We -- this case was absolutely the worst that American history has ever seen and hopefully it will be the worse that we will ever see in the future.

But the fact that you still have 43 Republicans who hid behind a jurisdiction element, if they -- you know, after the Senate, the institution of which they took an oath of the law that the Senate of the United States said this is a constitutional process by more than a majority -- more than 50 votes. There were Republicans that voted that way. And they still decided that they would hide behind that jurisdictional element because they disagreed with that majority vote.

If that was really true, they should have just taken a walk. They should have just stayed home, not voted and allowed the votes of those people who believed it was a constitutional process that the Senate did it, vote and if that had happened, it'd only take 15 of them to stay behind and 57 votes would have convicted Donald Trump.

CABRERA: So what is the answer then to holding a president accountable if impeachment is just inevitably going to be a partisan exercise?

JONES: Well, I think you still got to go through the process. Should circumstances arise, you cannot let things pass. You can't let things just go under the table and say we can never get a conviction.

[23:15:04]

You know, if I had done that in 2001, about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing cases, we would have never tried that case. But we knew we had the evidence. And we knew it was the right thing to do. So we've got to go forward with a legislative branch of government has got to continue to do everything they can to hold the administration, to hold the president or the vice president or any of the Cabinet members accountable. And whether it's in siege or not, there is a certain element of

holding them accountable and going through this process. This was not a waste of time. This was not a waste of effort. I said all along that yes, we -- the House managers were presenting evidence for the Senate, but they were also presenting evidence for the people of America. And they did a masterful job of showing to the people of America, connecting all the dots between the actions that occurred on January 6th in that Capitol building to the words and deeds of Donald Trump.

CABRERA: Here's what lead impeachment manager, Congressman Jamie Raskin, and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RASKIN: Senators, this trial in the final analysis is not about Donald Trump. The country and the world know who Donald Trump is. This trial is about who we are.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): This trial wasn't about choosing country over party, even not that. This was about choosing country over Donald Trump and 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So where did Democrats go from here? Should they pursue another form of punishment against Trump like a censure or do they move on?

JONES: At this point I think they move on. The Republican Party has kind of made their minds up that they want to keep Donald Trump up in that party, and I don't think Democrats should do anything else but let them figure out what's going on with the future of their party in the form of precedent. I think that President Biden needs the Congress to step up. They need to get this behind them and move forward. He's got an aggressive agenda for the American people.

He's talked about the things he needs to do with COVID relief and the pandemic and getting this economy going. We've got to restore our standing in the world with foreign nations. There is an awful lot to be done and it's now with this and over once and for all it's time to go forward and not backward. And let's get the country moving and let President Biden get his agenda moving.

CABRERA: Former Senator Doug Jones, really great to have you here. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective.

JONES: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told his caucus the impeachment vote was a vote of conscience, and at least one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict the former president is already being punished by his state party. That's next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [23:22:01]

CABRERA: This was a historic impeachment from the beginning. The first time a president was impeached twice. The first time a former president was tried in an impeachment trial after he left office. And now Trump is the first person to be acquitted twice in an impeachment trial that lasted just five days, the shortest impeachment trial on record.

With us now, CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali and CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein.

Always good to have you here with us. Tim, let's talk about the historical first here. Former President Trump acquitted for a second time even though a bipartisan majority did vote to convict, it just wasn't the two-thirds needed. What do you see as the significance of this outcome?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, this is the first time that an American president has been impeached for inciting an insurrection. This is the first time that the leader of the president's party has agreed that the president was guilty of the charges described by the House managers. This is the first time that a former president has been tried.

What is really disturbing about today is not that they didn't reached 67. No one expected there to be 67 votes to convict. And it was a great surprise that seven Republicans joined. But what were so dismayed was that Leader McConnell, or former leader, now Minority Leader McConnell, admitted that he believes that Donald Trump was practically and morally responsible for an insurrection, and yet he found a reason not to vote to convict.

This is a man who found in the Constitution the right to ignore a presidential nominee for the Supreme Court. A man who found time and again powers necessary to get his will in the Senate. And yet knowing that Donald Trump was guilty, he still couldn't find it in his conscience to vote to convict. That worries me about the power of impeachment in this partisan age.

CABRERA: Carl, Republicans didn't take this as an opportunity to reject Donald Trump en masse like they did under Richard Nixon. Why not?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Because they're cowardly and craven but when Tim starts to talk about Leader McConnell, his actions today are the most cowardly act by a leader of a political entity in this country in my lifetime. Here was an opportunity for the Republican Party under his leadership to say we will not have seditionists in our party. We will banish from our party sedition, succession, the kind of racism, the kind of things that this president of the United States stood for and advocated, and especially undermine our very electoral system.

[23:25:07] He did this on a technicality. It is almost as if, say, you are -- before the civil war in this country and Jefferson Davis who eventually was the head of the Confederacy, and he was convicted and sentenced, as if the leader of a political party said, oh, the hell with it, there is a technicality that I can let you walk on.

This is a statement by Leader McConnell as to what he wants his party to be and that includes the Trump cult. He wants them under his wing and he has now instead of banishing those people from respectability and a place in the party, he has embraced them yet again, the same he enabled Trump through all four years of his presidency.

CABRERA: It really was quite shocking to hear Mitch McConnell's words after he voted to acquit, as he tried to have it both ways saying, you know, after that vote that if Trump were still president, his vote would have been different. A lot of Republicans tried to hide behind this argument that it is unconstitutional to have a trial and convict a former president.

Tim, how do you think history will remember Republicans like Senator McConnell?

NAFTALI: Well, history doesn't look kindly at seditionists. And I think today the question was, are you on the side of the Constitution or are you on the side of those who thought it patriotic to prevent a constitutional count of the electoral vote? It was that simple. Seven Republicans realized that their party had gone astray. Mitch McConnell admitted that his former president had gone astray, but he was unwilling to move his caucus, to embrace the Constitution that Republicans incessantly lecture us on.

And talk about the original intent, the original intent of our founders was to defend the Constitution. What Donald Trump did was the epitome of opposing original intent. Leader or former Leader McConnell had an opportunity to lay down a marker, to protect his party, to turn away the anti-Constitutionalists in the Republican Party. And today he decided he couldn't. I think it's the end of his control of the Republican Party and I suspect in the Senate it is now the party of Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. And I worry about the consequences for the nation.

CABRERA: Carl, I keep thinking of the statement Congressman Ted Liu made during the trial, when he said, quote, "I'm not afraid of Donald Trump running again in four years, I'm afraid he's going to run again and lose because he can do this again. And Trump is already saying, you know, the MAGA movement has only just begun, is part of the statement he issued tonight. What do you think we're in for?

BERNSTEIN: I think first of all we have to look at the dereliction of duty by the Republican senators under Mitch McConnell but all of these Republican senators because what they have done, as you're suggesting from going back to Ted Lieu's quote there, it's not about whether or not Trump runs, it's the fact that his movement instead of having had a state driven through its heart by this impeachment proceeding has got another lease on life because of the dereliction of duty by a cowardly Republican Senate. This is something -- imagine -- let's go -- Tim can talk about this,

too. Look, Richard Nixon would have been convicted in a Senate trial. The reason that however that he would have been convicted is because of courageous leadership by the Republicans, by Senator Barry Goldwater at the time, by the Republican leaders of the Senate and the House who told Nixon they would turn against him unless he resigned. And if he didn't resign, they would make sure he was convicted.

That's not what these Republicans did today. That's not what Leader McConnell did today. They did the opposite. They gave Donald Trump and his movement, his seditionist movement, his unconstitutional attitudes, demagoguery, and enabling a violent, ugly, strain and not just a small strain in our culture today to have a lease on life that they do not deserve. And now they are the Republican Party as we go forward.

They are in McConnell's Republican Party. And that's where what we're left with today, instead of the opportunity for a truly conservative principle. Republican Party with new kind of opposition to the Democrats but without the horror and demagoguery, authoritarianism, neofascism of Trump and his movement.

[23:30:05]

CABRERA: Tim, what has President Biden need to do with this?

NAFTALI: Well, the fight is the deradicalization of the Republican Party is a Republican story. Understandably President Biden and Vice President Harris have been focusing on good government, on helping us through the other crisis that we're facing. We face twin crises now. One of the COVID crisis, the other is this political crisis.

The leadership we need to get through the political crisis will come from grassroots organizations, from local Republicans, from local faith communities that will reject this anti-constitutional seditionist view of our government. Those groups, Joe Biden can talk to, can show respect for, but in the end, the movement to clean the Republican Party must be led by Republicans.

And that's why what happened today, the speech by McConnell, as I agree with Carl, I often do, the speech by McConnell was a signal that he will use rhetoric but not power to clean out the Republican Party, and Donald Trump won the fight for the soul of the Republican Party today.

He didn't win the fight for the soul of American. That fight is ongoing. But in terms of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell basically resigned today because for him to lead, he would have had to vote to convict and he could not do it.

CABRERA: Tim Naftali and Carl Bernstein, great conversation. Thank you both for staying up with me.

NAFTALI: Thank you.

BERNSTEIN: Good to be with you. CABRERA: Up next, President Joe Biden has just reacted to the

acquittal of his predecessor, former President Trump. We'll take you live to the White House right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:35:30]

CABRERA: We continue with breaking news tonight. President Biden is reacting to the Senate acquittal of former President Trump in connection to the deadly January 6th riot at the nation's capital. The final tally 57 senators -- 50 Democrats and seven Republicans -- voted guilty and 43 Republican senators voted not guilty.

I want to bring in CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz.

Arlette, what does President Biden have to say about his predecessor's acquittal?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, President Biden says that even though the Senate did not acquit former President Trump, it does not change the substance of the charges. He talked about --

CABRERA: Where they didn't convict.

SAENZ: Yes. Convict. I'm sorry. And he talks about how this was a bipartisan vote, that there were a record number of seven Republicans who voted to convict him, but then Biden went on to say, "While the final vote did not lead to a conviction, the substance of the charge is not in dispute. Even those oppose to the conviction like Senate Minority Leader McConnell believe Donald Trump was guilty of a disgraceful dereliction of duty, and practically and morally responsible for provoking the violence unleashed on the Capitol."

Now the president went on to say, speaking of that insurrection on January 6th, he said, "The sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile, that it must always be defended, that we must ever be vigilant, that violence and extremism has no place in America, and that each of us has a duty and responsibility as Americans and especially as leaders to defend the truth and to defeat the lies. That is how we end this uncivil war and heal the very soul of our nation. That is the task ahead and it is a task we must undertake together as the United States of America."

Now the president throughout this whole process had been very careful with his comments relating to the impeachment. He never weighed in directly on whether he thought the Senate needed to convict former President Trump. He simply said that he believes that this trial did need to follow a suit after the House had voted to impeach him. Now the president also this week has said he was anxious to see how some of those Republicans were going to vote. He thought that the video might sway some minds.

But this is the most thorough kind of response that we've received from the president as this impeachment trial has now wrapped up. Now the Biden administration has been clear that they wanted to keep their eye on the ball on the issues that were important to the administration including the COVID relief package and getting their nominees confirmed. And that is something that can really now run full speed ahead as this impeachment trial is over and as the president looks to enact much of his agenda with COVID relief being the top priority at this moment.

CABRERA: Arlette Saenz, thank you for your reporting.

He's got 99 problems and even after acquittal, legal issues are still one. CNN is learning that former President Trump is worried he could face criminal charges related to the Capitol riot. That's next.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:42:23]

CABRERA: He may have just been acquitted in his second impeachment trial but that doesn't mean former President Trump is free of worry. CNN has learned that he has privately voiced concern in the last couple of weeks over potential future charges related to his role on the January 6th insurrection. Now that's something the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell kind of danced around earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen. Unless the statute of limitation has run, still liable for everything he did while he's in office. He didn't get away with anything yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: But it doesn't stop there. The former president also has a slew of other legal problems post impeachment. For example, Georgia officials have opened investigations into his efforts to overturn that state's election results including his pressuring officials like the secretary of State there no find votes, to swing the outcome in his favor.

He's also facing defamation lawsuits by two women who've accused him of sexual assault, and there is a criminal investigation in New York where the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is looking into whether the Trump Organization violated state laws such as tax or insurance fraud.

Joining us now is former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, Nick Akerman.

Nick, does Trump have a lot to be worried about here in the legal realm?

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: I think he's got a lot to be worried about. I mean, just starting from the top where you mentioned before the insurrection at the Capitol. I mean, we now have coming into the Department of Justice somebody who is truly viewed as an independent person and is going to make the Department of Justice an independent agency once again, Merrick Garland.

I mean, in fact, I've always wondered why it always comes to picking somebody like him when we've had some kind of a problem like Watergate, when we had to look for Archibald Cox or for Leon Jaworski, or with the Russia problem finding Mr. Mueller to come in. I mean, now we have somebody that I think everybody can agree can handle an investigation fairly and independently. And so if I were Donald Trump, I'd be worried because I think the Department of Justice is going to look into this.

Mitch McConnell almost asked the Department of Justice to do this. He almost welcomed it. This is quite unlike 1974 when Richard Nixon was pardoned by President Ford and people really kind of felt that the country had been too much and there wasn't sort of the desire to prosecute the former president.

[23:45:06]

But I think here Donald Trump has really asked for it by virtue of what he's done with respect to this incident at the Capitol and the Department of Justice I think is set up to deal with it at this point. In addition, just as you mentioned before, I am sorry --

CABRERA: Go ahead. Finish.

AKERMAN: Yes. I'll just say this, as you mentioned before, I think the other -- there's two other big items that he has to be concerned about. One is in Georgia. I mean, that's a pretty easy case in the sense that he's on tape. And when you got a tape recording like that, that makes prosecution a lot easier and you've got two separate criminal investigations going on down there.

And then when you've got the district attorney in Manhattan looking at the tax implications and the possibility of criminal tax charges and bank fraud for lying on loan applications, I mean, as Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, said either he would deflate his income for tax purposes or inflate it in order to get mortgages on a financial state.

CABRERA: Right.

AKERMAN: So either one of those is a federal crime or a state crime. So he's got a lot to be concerned about.

CABRERA: How long does it take for those last two cases, the Georgia case, the Manhattan district attorney case, how long will it take to, I guess, come to a conclusion in those different cases?

AKERMAN: Well, it seems like the New York cases is moving along. I mean, a lot of people have already been called in. They've taken testimony. But again tax cases are very complicated in the sense that you really have to block out all the possible explanations.

A tax crime really is what is known as a specific intent crime. You've got to show that the person willingly and knowingly lied on his taxes and cheated. So you've got to develop, that were known as badges of fraud, either that they were from documents, there were from statements that were clearly knowingly false on the return.

And it takes time to put that evidence together. There's a lot of witnesses to talk to, there's a lot of documents to go through. None of these cases are easy so they all take time. And even in Georgia, I think they're going to want to be speaking to a lot of people there because it sounds like Donald Trump wasn't just calling the secretary of State, he was calling the head investigator in the secretary of State's office. We have no idea how many other calls he personally made to people. So I think there's going to be a great deal of investigation going on here.

CABRERA: You talk about the importance of witnesses, and going back to the impeachment trial when Democrats initially said this morning that they wanted to call witnesses, this was how Trump's defense attorney reacted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL VAN DER VEEN, ATTORNEY FOR FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP: But if they want to have witnesses, I'm going to need at least over 100 depositions. Not just one. There are a lot of depositions that needed to be happen. Nancy Pelosi's deposition needs to be taken. Vice President Harris' deposition absolutely needs to be taken. And not by Zoom. None of these depositions should be done by Zoom. We didn't do this hearing by Zoom. These depositions should be done in person, in my office, in Philly-delphia. That's where they should be done.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Nick, you got about 30 seconds here. But what did you think when you heard that?

AKERMAN: Totally laughable. There is no way in a criminal investigation do you do depositions or let the other side take depositions. It's going to be a grand jury investigation. Nancy Pelosi has absolutely nothing to add to this case. Kamala Harris has nothing to add to this case. There are plenty of witnesses to be spoken to but with respect to a criminal investigation, it's all going to be done in the context of a grand jury investigation where Trump's lawyers have no business being there and no right to be there.

CABRERA: Nick Akerman, great to have you here. Thank you as always.

AKERMAN: Thank you. Good night.

CABRERA: March 4th, that is the next date that the conspiracy group QAnon has its eyes on. We'll tell you why. Next.

Stay with us, you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:00:00]

[23:53:36]

CABRERA: Some QAnon adherence wants you to circle March 4th on your calendar. That's when these diehard believers of the bizarre and farfetched conspiracy theory say Donald Trump will return to the White House as president.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has been looking into this and has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM WIETING, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I don't believe -- this sounds so crazy and I recognize how crazy this sounds, but I don't believe Joe Biden is going to be sworn in as president today.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A popular QAnon conspiracy convinced some Trump supporters that Biden was not going to be inaugurated on January 20th.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

O'SULLIVAN: But as soon as Biden was, a new conspiracy theory took hold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trump will take office as the 19th president of the United States on March 4th under the restored republic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, hey, it's your favorite truth seeker holding the light for everyone out there who's given up hope that Trump is not the president of the United States of America when in fact he is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you think about it, you know, Biden's not in the White House and they have proof that he's out in California and it's all staged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Executions will be happening on March 5th. That's a big statement and I'm really looking forward to it.

O'SULLIVAN: Trump will return as president in March they falsely claim.

[23:55:01]

The conspiracy theory is apparently rooted in the belief that an 1871 law turned the country into a corporation and any president elected after that is illegitimate. The last president to be sworn in before that law passed was Ulysses S. Grant on March 4th, 1869.

It is this latest bizarre conspiracy theory that Trump would be president again in March that made former QAnon believer Ashley Vanderbilt realized the whole thing is a fraud. ASHLEY VANDERBILT, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: It doesn't make sense that

all of this is happening and then all of a sudden Trump is going to come back March 4th and it's going to change. I was like, it just -- it doesn't seem right. So that's I guess what started -- I just had that little bit of doubt.

O'SULLIVAN: But while Ashley was able to get out, others are still clinging on to QAnon. "Repost if Trump is still your president," read a message posted to Gab late Sunday after the Super Bowl. Gab is a hate-filled social media platform that some QAnon followers have turned to since platforms like Twitter shut down some QAnon accounts after the insurrection.

A QAnon account on Gab has more than 200,000 members and in it believers continue to look for signs that QAnon is a real thing. A photo purportedly of the White House at night posted with the message "Q did say something about if the lights go out, please know we are in control."

Echoing the false conspiracy about executions on March 5th, a person posted a picture of the media risers outside the White House used during the inauguration, with the message, "It's beginning to look a lot like gallows."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Our thanks to Donie O'Sullivan for that report. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: You are live in CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.