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Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) is Interviewed about Iran and Trump; Supreme Court Allows Tax Returns to NY Prosecutor; Supreme Court Denies Election Appeal; Confirmation Hearing for Garland. Aired 9:30- 10a ET

Aired February 22, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): Six months out now from becoming (ph) nuclear power, which is unacceptable for both Democrats and Republicans on The Hill. So we're dealing with a very short period of time.

I think it's -- I talked to the secretary the other day. I think it's going to be very difficult to get them back into compliance with the JCPOA when they have already said that they have no intention of doing that. If they do get back into compliance and then put the ICBMs and the inspections back on the table, then perhaps we could get somewhere with this. But I'm not -- I'm a little skeptical of the Ayatollah. I always have been.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: OK, final question.

Donald Trump, who "Axios" is reporting, when he speaks to CPAC later this month is going to pronounce himself the presumptive 2024 nominee.

Would you support President Trump if he were to run again in 2024?

MCCAUL: You know, I'm going to support who the Republican voters support as the nominee. And I think that's a bit of a bold statement. I think there were some good things about the Trump presidency to carry forward. That's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which created a great economy, standing up to China. I think that crushing ISIS and the caliphate, and I think Operation Warp Speed was a miracle of science. I think a lot of that was squandered in the last month.

And the one thing that the president did well was reaching out to blue collar workers across the United States of America that the Republican Party -- we thought we'd lost. And we got it back. And I think we take the good things from the administration and perhaps leave behind the not so good things. And that's going to be the party moving forward.

SCIUTTO: If -- does leaving behind the not so good things, is that possible with Trump as the nominee?

MCCAUL: Well, we're four years out. That's a long time in political years. And, you know, we'll wait and see where the Republican voters are at that time. I don't know who else is going to pop out. And I do think he did a lot of damage to his legacy in the last month. And, you know, I try to see the good things that happened, but the last month he squandered a lot of those achievements.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, Congressman Michael McCaul, we appreciate you taking the time and taking the hard questions.

MCCAUL: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Great to hear from him. Great interview, Jim.

In just a few minutes, you're going to see the live hearing for Attorney General Nominee Merrick Garland, finally going to get a hearing after he didn't five years ago. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have plenty of questions for him. You'll see it all here live.

We are also moments away from the opening bell -- actually, it's already opened here -- on Wall Street, 9:32 a.m. Looking at a down market right now. Investors really want to know what's going to happen to this proposed stimulus plan. Will a $15 minimum wage actually pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian? That's a huge outstanding question. We've got a big earnings week ahead. We're going to get numbers from Home Depot, Lowe's and Macy's. We're watching all of it.

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[09:37:45]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

SCIUTTO: The breaking news just into CNN, a major decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. We've learned the Supreme Court has now allowed the release of the former President Trump's tax returns to a New York prosecutor now investigating his businesses.

Our Jessica Schneider has been covering this, this morning and for the last several weeks and month.

This is a very big development here.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, Jim, and a big loss for former President Trump. As you said, we've been waiting on this decision since the middle of October. And now, the middle of February, we are finally getting this decision from the Supreme Court.

They are saying that the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance can, in fact, get access to former President Donald Trump's tax returns. This is something that has been playing out in the courts for more than a year now.

Remember, it was back in July when the Supreme Court said, no, President Trump, you do not have absolute immunity from these records that the prosecutor in Manhattan is seeking. This went back down to the lower courts. President Trump's attorneys continued to fight it in the lower courts, saying that this request was overbroad. It was in bad faith. The lower court said, no, you have to hand over these records. But Trump's team continued to fight it to the Supreme Court.

That was back in the middle of October. We've been waiting all of this time to determine what the Supreme Court would do. And now, a month after Trump left office, they have said that these tax records can be handed over.

Now, it's important to note, the public will likely not get an immediate glimpse, if any glimpse, at these tax returns because these will be handed over to the Manhattan district attorney where they will then go to the grand jury as part of this larger investigation. This is that investigation into the hush money payments that were paid and as to whether the Trump Organization did any wrongdoing in covering up these hush money payments. And there's also this investigation into bank and insurance fraud, the possibility that that was committed by the Trump Organization as well.

So it's important to note, the public will not immediately see these tax returns. This is going to the grand jury, which operates in secret. But, of course, Jim and Poppy, this is a major loss for the former president.

[09:40:01]

He and his legal team have been fighting the release of these tax returns for years now. The president said throughout his presidency that he would not release the tax returns. But now they will be out there. They will be handed over because these banks have said that they will comply. They'll be handed over to the district attorney, which will then continue in its investigation here, guys.

HARLOW: OK. Jess, it's really significant, breaking news. Thank you. Stand by for us.

Let's bring in our attorneys and experts on all of this, Laura Coates and Elie Honig.

Laura, let me begin with you and let's talk about sort of the substance here of what Cy Vance has been waiting so long to find out if they would have access to. You're talking about allegations that the Trump corporations or company used accounting gimmicks to overstate the value of assets, also to under play any taxes that may be due. There are also, though, like barred by secrecy rules. So even when the grand jury sees these, unless something leaks, people shouldn't think that the public is going to see all this right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Exactly right. I mean the idea that it goes to the grand jury, which is shrouded in secrecy for the precise purpose that you don't want to just tar and feather someone in the public square, so to speak. There has to actually be an indictment or it will actually go to the public in the form of a criminal prosecution or trial. If it runs short of that or if the actual factual predicate and the trial charges that might come up, if they are not based with that evidentially thing of the tax returns, you might never see them.

However, you could very well see that if it was -- if there actually is a criminal prosecution, then grand jury proceedings, although they have to get the court's permissions to come -- to become not secret, you could use some of the evidence used by the grand jury in the actual trial. That's why they have the subpoena power. That's why they're gathering evidence. That's why you have it. And some could make its way.

But, you're right, Poppy, it's all contingent on the public seeing it, if it actually leads to an indictment that goes to an actual trial.

SCIUTTO: All right, Elie Honig, so let's talk about what the standard is here because there's already a lot of public information out there reporting about how Trump and his businesses might have stretched, right, the tax law. But let's be frank, the tax law is written very liberally, right, for a lot of these businesses. A lot of people stretch them. And that's, you know, they hire lawyers to do that.

What is the standard here to establish that Trump or his businesses broke the tax law?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jim, so the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is going to have to prove that Donald Trump or anybody else in the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally either inflated or deflated the value of their assets.

And so the tax records will be a key part of that. Donald Trump's tax returns. Because the question is going to be, well, let's say they valued a certain property, a certainly building. Did they value it differently in their bank applications than they did in their tax returns, for example? And if there's a discrepancy there, then that's where the -- sort of the heart of these criminal charges are going to come into play.

As Laura said, we're not likely to actually see these tax returns unless and until this case gets to trial. But the tax returns are a key piece of the puzzle.

SCIUTTO: Yes, Poppy, it's such a fascinating point. They're like, do you -- do you inflate them when you want to show that your riches so that you can get loans from banks, right, but deflate them when you go to show the government you're poor so you don't want to have to pay more taxes. I mean that's -- that's the -- that's the question here, Poppy.

HARLOW: It is.

So, Abby, let me bring you just in on the politics of all this because we're talking about the former president who held office not that long ago.

And Cy Vance had agreed, Abby, to this three-month delay, remember back in October, like, OK, the election's coming up, we're just like going to wait and see and pause in it. Now we know what he and his team has access to. But this is separate from the House request, Abby, to also having access to the president's tax returns. It's a totally separate issue. I wonder about the political implications on either side. ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean I think

you made the point earlier that, just because these are released to the New York prosecutors doesn't mean that it becomes public. But that's a very different situation when you're talking about Congress.

HARLOW: Yes.

PHILLIP: Of course it's not by default that it become public when it goes to Congress, but it's far more likely to be leaked or to be in the hands, frankly, of political players, which I think was the concern from the Trump team from the very beginning. But at the same time, you know, Congress has this overnight, you know, capability.

That is one of the things that they are allowed to do. And so what they do with that information is certain -- is certainly their purview and I -- at this point it's not clear to me what venues the Trump team has to stop this. He's no longer president. He can't sort of hide behind this executive privilege or whatever, executive legal arguments that they had been making up until this point. So it completely changes the game. And we know that that's one of the things that Trump has been very concerned about down in Mar-a-Lago.

[09:45:04]

He knows that there is this legal dragnet that is closing in on him from all fronts, whether it is from Congress or from prosecutors.

HARLOW: Right. And, Abby, as Jess mentioned, Mazar's, which is -- which is the accounting firm, had agreed, Jim, right, to do whatever -- whatever was decided here by the high court.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: That they would totally comply. So I think, Jim, this means it's all coming.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's the thing. They're not going to challenge it at least.

HARLOW: No.

SCIUTTO: But we shouldn't count out the president finding another way to try to fight back. We'll see.

Abby Phillip, thanks so much.

There is more news from the Supreme Court and this is a decision that goes to the election. The Supreme Court, Jessica Schneider, denying a case by Pennsylvania Republicans who wanted to litigate ballots arriving up to three days after the election. Tell us what they -- what they found here.

DEAN: Right. This is yet another example, we've seen many in the past few months, of the Supreme Court justices wanting to stay far out of this fight over the 2020 election. So as you'll remember, it was the state of Pennsylvania that was really the main focus of the election fight here.

And the state supreme court in Pennsylvania had allowed really a three-day window after election night, after the polls closed for those ballots to arrive. Republicans in Pennsylvania furiously fought this allowance by the state supreme court, really saying the state supreme court didn't have the power to extend this window.

Really, the ballots that arrived after election night, there were only a handful. You're talking about, you know, 10,000 ballots when Joe Biden won by I think about 80,000 in Pennsylvania. So the Supreme Court saying here, we are not going to take up this case. The Republicans in Pennsylvania had challenged this all the way up to the Supreme Court saying, we want you to decide if the state supreme court even had this power to extend the deadline for those late arriving ballots to still be counted.

We thought maybe the Supreme Court might hear this because it was Justice Alito who actually talked about the fact that it was an important issue to decide whether a state supreme court can step in and really usurp the power of the legislature to decide these election roles. It turns out, though, today, the Supreme Court is still staying out of this. They will not hear this case. That means what happened, what unfolded in Pennsylvania will stand.

It's important to note that even if the Supreme Court did take up this case, it would not have affected the results in Pennsylvania or the broader 2020 election.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DEAN: But it does just signals here, Jim and Poppy, the Supreme Court does not want to look back.

HARLOW: Right.

DEAN: They do not want to further get involved in politics, especially when it's not necessary here because taking up this case wouldn't change the game anyway, guys.

HARLOW: OK.

SCIUTTO: And, Poppy, it's yet one more loss in the courts for the president.

HARLOW: Yes. That's right.

SCIUTTO: And dozens of court losses for his allegation that somehow the election was stolen or there was widespread fraud or problems with election law at the state level.

HARLOW: That's right. Yes, just another one from the highest court in the land.

OK, let's go to the other big news happening right now and that is the confirmation hearing from President Biden's pick to be the next attorney general, that is for Judge Merrick Garland. We've got our entire team here as well. Manu Raju joins us from The Hill.

Manu, I think what I was so struck by in this pretty short opening statement that we'll hear from Garland is his focus on civil rights and what real, true equality means. He noted that in July of 2020, it was the 150-year anniversary of the DOJ being formed after the Civil War in this country. And he writes this in his remarks. The mission remains urgent because we do not yet have equal justice. And he goes on to say, communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment and criminal justice.

How significant to hear him choose to really bring that to the fore in this hearing?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that's going to be a big priority, of course, in the Biden administration to consistent with the new president's approach. One of the things that he will also be pressed on through the course of this hearing that will take up today, will go into tomorrow, is about exactly how he plans to pursue what happened on January 6th.

We just heard the opening statement from the new chairman of the committee, Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary chairman, saying that people involved in what happened on January 6th need to be fully prosecuted. Everybody involved.

Now the question will be from a number of these senators was -- will be, will the former president be part of that investigation? It will be interesting to hear how Merrick Garland deals with that. But it -- what Garland, in his opening statement, will say -- called the attack a heinous attack, will make clear that he plans to look into domestic extremism. But what will be the scope of that?

Also, Republicans plan to push on other issues, namely whether or not he will allow an investigation that has been going on in Delaware into the president's son, Hunter Biden, how he will deal with questions about that. That will be key to watch. As well as the Durham investigation, the probed into the Russia investigation that the special council was set up to look into that by the former president, Donald Trump.

[09:50:01]

How will he deal with John Durham's investigation?

Those are some of the key question. Now, this will be different, too, guys, than some of the other attorney general confirmation proceedings which have been sharply partisan. And this -- some Republicans have been open to supporting Merrick Garland, including Lindsey Graham, the -- who sits on this committee, as well as John Cornyn. Both of whom have indicated to me that they will likely support this nomination.

But big questions remain, how does he answer these questions, will it change the dynamic, how he does answer these over the next two days. That's going to be a question going forward. But at the moment, Democrats confident he will soon get the job. SCIUTTO: Abby Phillip, what a difference five years makes. Because

five years ago Merrick Garland did not get his hearing. Republican lawmakers wouldn't even meet him on The Hill under a different Democratic president, when Barack Obama nominated him for the Supreme Court, though the Senate was under the control of Mitch McConnell at the time. I mean it -- that difference is notable, is it not?

PHILLIP: Yes. He's had a real tough go of it recently. Not really even being given the opportunity to engage in this process. And it's striking because Merrick Garland is known, by all accounts, pretty well-respected on both sides of the aisle.

Early on in this process when Joe Biden announced that he would be nominating Merrick Garland during the transition, one of the people who spoke out saying that he -- that he would be willing to consider him was Senator Lindsey Graham, as staunch Republican, perhaps the staunchest you can get. But and yet even this hearing has been somewhat delayed by the process. Republicans not wanting to take it up before the impeachment hearing, so that's why we are well into February before he's having this part of the process.

But this is someone who has spent most of his time really kind of staying out of the political fray. But he will be dragged right back into it today during this hearing. I think you're going to see a lot of Republicans trying to bring up some really thorny, legal issues to try to box him in, find out where he stands with them and how he deals with that under that kind of intense political pressure. Very different from what he would have faced as a Supreme Court nominee is I think the thing to watch today.

HARLOW: Elie, he's going to face a lot of -- a lot of tough questions, but he made sure to point out in his opening remarks, and I think this will be a focus, domestic extremism.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Can you just speak to when you -- you wrote really well in your piece over the weekend about this, Elie, his experience literally flying to Oklahoma City the day after the '95 Oklahoma City bombing, leading the prosecution team on that and how that sets him up to deal with the biggest challenge to this country's security that DHS says is that domestic extremism.

HONIG: Yes, Poppy, who better to take on the current threat of domestic extremism than somebody like Merrick Garland, who was involved firsthand in the response in the prosecution to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He flew out the night that happened and he was on the scene and he's talked publically about how he was so moved by that and it stuck with him.

And I think Merrick Garland, in his opening statement, draws a really important parallel between what we saw back in the mid-1990s that sort of reached its worst point with Oklahoma City, and what we're starting to see today. And I think he makes a compelling argument that there's a real connection there and we're heading down a dangerous path as we saw on January 6th. So I think he's going to make that a top priority to address.

SCIUTTO: Listen, people talk, national security officials, law enforcement, I speak to about the worry of another Tim McVeigh, right, the level of the threat in this country so great.

Laura Coates, let me ask you this because Garland will also be asked today how he would handle continuing an investigation into Hunter Biden.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: What will his answer be and how much will that show a break with the way the Justice Department was run under former President Trump?

COATES: You're going to see a thousand different ways to ask how he's going to look at and evaluate and handle and oversee politically charged investigations. Whether it's the issue surrounding Hunter Biden or other issues, he's going to be asked a thousand ways and I suspect he'll give a singular answer about wanting to be, as if he were a Supreme Court nominee, a little circumspect in the way he wants to handle these cases. He's aware of what he's inherited.

But you're also going to see at least four members on the Judiciary Committee who all hope to be or are named in some form or fashion as 2024 political hopefuls. And, of course, we know that the -- at least to some extent the now Vice President Kamala Harris was able to get a lot of attention generated around her incisive questioning of people who were nominated by then President Trump.

And so you're going to see people trying to throw out ways of rhetorical questions, more of their own statements and actually trying to illicit a response. A lot of ways trying -- from Hawley to Cruz to perhaps Ben Sasse, to perhaps Senator Ted Cotton, Tom Cotton, all of these things being a part of it.

And so what we're going to look for is to see how he is aware of what the priorities will be. He said in his opening statement already that he will not essentially use the Justice Department as a law firm for the president.

[09:55:06]

We heard from President Biden saying, you do not work for me. I'm looking for autonomy. I'm looking for the idea that he knows what all of the vast priorities will be. His focus on civil rights, which really is the judicial zeitgeist right now, but also recognizing that many cases from Governor Cuomo's handling of nursing homes to -- deaths to the issue of Hunter Biden, these are all going to be top of mind hot button issues.

But he would be well in his -- within his wheelhouse and within his reason to be circumspect about the very things he can't predict. These are going to be career line attorneys handling the vast majority of it. So I think we're going to see him answering it, but no answer he will give will satisfy those who have their hopes and minds set on a 2024 run and trying to essentially make their bones off of this.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: OK, everyone, stay there. Don't go anywhere. We're going to get a quick break in. We'll be back on the other side.

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HARLOW: Top of the hour. A very busy news Monday. We're glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. Happening right now on Capitol Hill, President Biden's pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, testifying in his Senate confirmation hearing. The longtime federal judge tasked with leading the Department of Justice is vowing to prosecute the domestic extremists involved in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol January 6th.

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