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Rep. Jim Jordan Reveals He Sent Coup Plan to Mark Meadows; Former Officer Kimberly Potter to Testify Soon; Central U.S. Endures Hurricane-Force Winds, Tornadoes; Soon, Biden to Present Medal of Honor to 3 Heroes. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 16, 2021 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

KIM WEHLE, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: Clearly, he has material information about the planning. And more and more of it is coming out, that people within the White House, people within the United States Congress were part of a deliberate effort.

To, let's be clear, not take the election from one party or another but take the election from the American people, from the voters. That's a very scary thing.

And so, yes, he should be called. And voters should go to the polls at every opportunity and, frankly, purge these people from the United States government.

Because I agree with the congressman. We are dangerously close to the end of American democracy. And we're watching it unfold now in real time the facts that we all witnessed on January 6th.

And the problem is, Ana, is, at the state level, what's being politicized is our secretaries of state election officials, whose job it is the next round to count and certify the votes.

So this is no longer a debate about who gets to vote, which has been the fight since the dawning of the republic, but whose vote actually count. And right now, we're turning from "we the people" into "we the powerful."

And the question is, what's the accountability for people like Jim Jordan? But also, how do we stop this train, this freight train that's moving us off the cliff?

And those are two separate questions. And I don't have any easy answers anymore, Ana. When I hear something like that, it makes my heart sink.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Kim, we don't even know who all was involved. Now we have Jim Jordan's name but we don't know all of them.

Do you think that there's a strategy behind the committee not sharing the names of other lawmakers who were sending messages to Mark Meadows? WEHLE: I think the committee, at this point, has so much information

that they need to process and they need to process it very, very rapidly.

So, sure, they want to get this information from these key witnesses. But they are getting an avalanche, I would guess, of documents, testimony, texts.

And they have until really November, the mid-terms, to process all of this.

And of course, the committee has no actual power to enforce the law. The question will become, will this turn into something that the Justice Department will pick up and actually prosecute?

Not just the hundreds of insurrectionists, but people, you know, from the leadership, down, that were involved in the planning of this.

And so far, frankly, Merrick Garland has been superseded in some instances by judges who thought that the Justice Department's recommendations for sentencing for people who were on the ground, climbing through the capitol, were too low.

So I really hope -- I hope the Justice Department is going to wake up, like the American people, and see what a threat this is.

Because, Ana, this is bad news, not for my generation necessarily, but for my children and my grandchildren.

We've enjoyed democracy, that is people choose their leaders for over 230 years. When that goes, we all will lose. Not just Democrats. Everybody will lose.

CABRERA: And the threat hasn't passed, as you point out. It's not over just because Trump is now out of office.

Congressman, Mitch McConnell surprisingly weighed in on the January 6th investigation saying he's watching closely for the big reveal of who is behind all the messages.

I wonder if other Republican lawmakers share that curiosity. Because up until now, it seems that, other than Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, most have been actively trying to prevent the truth from coming out.

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, Mitch McConnell, let's remember, he stood up very strongly at the time. He insisted that this was going to be a defining vote, that members needed to vote to certify the election, that this was a very big deal.

And I -- he meant it. And he still means it.

And I think that even many members in the House, who voted against certification, you know, will also acknowledge privately that, you know, that this is -- this is a terrible situation that happened.

And that -- and I think they are also very concerned about what some of their colleagues may have done to aid and assist any of these insurrectionists who committed crimes on the day of the assault on the capitol.

And I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Are they concerned enough to speak out? Are they concerned enough to do anything about it, or are they just drunk on power and are going to keep their mouth shut because they don't want to get ousted from their seat?

DENT: I think many are clearly concerned about their constituents, who, unfortunately, because there's been pushback, they believe this Big Lie. They believe this false narrative.

And so, you know, they kind of feel almost powerless to do anything about it because they worry, if they speak up too much, they will be primaried and defeated and treated like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

And I think that is their fear. But I've always said, if more of them spoke up, if hundreds -- if over 100 of them spoke up and just spoke the truth, you can't take out everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

DENT: And so I think there's power in numbers. So I think this needs --

CABRERA: Power in numbers.

DENT: Yes. That's it.

CABRERA: Kim, you've called this a red-flag moment for American democracy. And I think a lot of people are becoming desensitized to it all. What's your message to our viewers right now about why this matters so much?

[13:34:59]

WEHLE: The whole concept of American democracy is that we get to be the bosses of our own government, that we get to basically hire and fire people who have tremendous power over us and our children.

If that goes, many things that we -- that we consider just the right of being Americans, the ability to speak freely, the ability to associate with whom we want, the ability to practice the religion that we want, these things that, to Americans, are as basic as breathing.

They could go and they could go rapidly. That's happened at other parts of the globe.

And so just like -- I mean, mothers and fathers and grandparents out there, just like you hold your 4-year-old's hand when they cross the street. Even if they are having a temper tantrum, you still hang on because their safety is that important to you. Preserving American democracy should be that vital to every single

person who has enjoyed our freedoms for now several hundred years.

But as Ben Franklin thought, we have it so long as we can keep it -- I'm paraphrasing. But this is not our right -- our birth right. This is a privilege. And we have to join hands and protect it.

CABRERA: Kim, just one more quick question, if you will.

You know, when we talk about accountability, we've learned oral arguments for three lawsuits aimed at holding former President Trump and his closest advisers accountable for the insurrection.

Oral arguments will take place on January 10th. Now, a D.C. district judge is going to determine if those lawsuits will go forward.

How could what we learned, maybe this past week, impact that decision, if at all?

WEHLE: Well, I think the federal judiciary, so far, with frankly, perhaps the except of the newest appointees on the Supreme Court, who are very disappointing in terms of ideology, frankly, the federal courts understand the stakes here.

I've looked at those cases. I've looked at those motions. And as Congressman Dent indicated, Mitch McConnell sort of pointed to civil litigation as a means of accountability.

All of these lawsuits seek to hold Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and others accountable under federal civil rights laws, under assault and battery laws, other ways of basically saying, no, going forward, here's an injunction. Can't do it next time, here's some damages.

The D.C. government also filed similar lawsuits.

They are arguing First Amendment. They are arguing immunity. They are arguing a lot of threshold protections that, frankly, Ana, we haven't seen anything like this in our -- in recent memory, this kind of a coup or an attack on the capitol, an attack on democracy itself.

So the arguments that old laws don't fit these new -- these new circumstances, I don't think it's going to work.

And then the question will be, what will these cases, these litigants, find out in discovery? Will Jim Jordan and others be brought before depositions in federal court?

And holding someone in contempt of court is a much faster process if they refuse to comply than Contempt of Congress.

Which has squishier constitutional implications that I think have allowed people to get around their obligation under the Constitution to give the American people their story.

CABRERA: We'll be watching closely and reporting it all out.

Thanks so much, Kim Wehle and Charlie Dent. Good to have you here. Appreciate the discussion.

[13:38:16]

Soon, President Biden will present the Medal of Honor to three men who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their incredible stories of sacrifice and courage just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:43:23]

CABRERA: Former police officer, Kimberly Potter, says she will take the stand in her trial as she faces manslaughter charges for killing Daunte Wright, an unarmed black man, during a traffic stop just outside of Minneapolis.

Potter maintains she meant to draw her taser to stop Wright but accidentally pulled her gun and fired, killing him.

CNN correspondent, Adrienne Broaddus, is outside the courthouse.

Adrienne, the defense just began making its case today. Fill us in.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, they did, calling their first witness to the stand, a veteran when it comes to law enforcement.

His name is Stephen Ijames. He has more than 40 years of experience in law enforcement. And he's trained other police officers around the world in at least 33 countries, he's testified.

He spent most of the morning talking about taser training. And like the other use-of-force expert that we heard from yesterday, he testified saying he believed Potter intended to pull her taser.

But that's not the crux of the case. He has not said why she pulled her gun instead.

He also testified saying Potter did what she was trained to do. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL ENGH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Was the warning "taser, taser, taser" reasonable under the circumstances of this case?

STEPHEN IJAMES, DEFENSE USE-OF-FORCE EXPERT: That's specifically taught in the lesson plan. A number of reasons for that, it's not really for the suspect. It's more for the officers and others around the event to understand that a taser is just about to be deployed.

ENGH: We heard testimony yesterday that the taser in this case was or the assumed use of the taser was too close to -- to Mr. Wright to be effective in its impact. Do you agree or disagree with that?

[13:45:12] IJAMES: That's completely untrue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: During cross-examination, the prosecution pushing back a little bit.

It's important to underscore the prosecution rested its case this morning after calling more than 20 witnesses, including Daunte Wright's mother and his father.

Court resumes after lunch today.

And I also want to point out this use-of-force expert that's testifying today, the first witness the defense called, said he had open heart surgery last week -- Ana?

CABRERA: Adrienne Broaddus, thank you for that update.

I want to bring in CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson, now.

Joey, Potter says she is going to take the stabbed. Good idea?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Ana, good to be with you.

I think it's fraught with difficulty for the following reason. If you take the stand in the case -- and I understand the significance of it, right?

Let's talk about that first. There's something called symmetry. And you know that a jury, notwithstanding the fact that they will be instructed that a defendant doesn't need to. You're to draw no adverse inference from the fact that they don't.

People want to see both sides of the equation so there's that imperative, I get it. There's the imperative of humanizing her. She feels miserable about this. I'm sure they will relate that to the jury.

Having said that, some of that has already occurred. There's a videotape where she's pretty much saying, Ana, I should kill myself. That's how badly she feels about what occurred.

But in the event she takes the stand, she will have to admit to the material elements of these charges.

What do I mean? I mean as follows. You've been an officer for quite some time. Isn't that right? You've been an officer for a couple of decades, more like a quarter of a century, and had repeated training as it relates to taser usage, is that right? Not once, not twice, several times.

And you know that you use a taser but it's on the non-dominant side. That's correct. But you mistook your taser, at this point, for an actual gun or vice versa. You did that, didn't you? And in the event she says yes, that's an admission.

Remember what she's charged with, Ana. She's charged with the first count of you being reckless with respect to using the taser instead of a firearm.

And if the jury doesn't conclude she's reckless, meaning she consciously disregarded the risk and made the mistake, they will certainly conclude she was negligent, that is careless.

And are you not, if you testify, having to make the admission that you were either reckless or negligent?

Last thing, her attorneys argued she would have been justified in using lethal force because Daunte Wright was trying to move away, drive away. But she concluded that it wasn't necessary.

So she's going have to admit and, thereby, undermine what her defense team is saying.

The fact is you didn't use lethal force because you didn't think that it was necessary, correct? You didn't think it was justified. From your perspective you didn't conclude that that is a reasonable thing to do. Answer yes.

I get why she wants to testify. But in the event that she does, all of those admissions go to the establishment of the prosecution's case, and that goes to the word that we use or the jury will use, and that's guilty.

And so it's a big risk.

CABRERA: OK. So you just laid out a lot of things that we will be listening for, Joey Jackson, when Potter takes the stand.

Thank you.

JACKSON: Always.

[13:48:28]

CABRERA: "Unprecedented and historic." That is how meteorologists are describing severe weather after tornadoes and hurricane-force winds left a trail of damage all across the country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:53:39]

CABRERA: More than 500,000 customers are still without power after record-setting winds across the Midwest and the great plains.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(WIND BLOWING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: It's like something out of a movie. Look at the sheer ferocity of this storm in eastern Colorado. Gusts up to 107 miles an hour reported there.

It wasn't just Colorado. Nine states recorded hurricane-strength wind gusts.

There was an extremely rare December tornado in Minnesota, first time ever, in fact. And we're looking at the 20th billion-dollar-plus weather disaster of the year.

Let's bring in CNN meteorologist, Tom Sater.

Tom, in a typical December, we see approximately 23 tornadoes.

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right.

CABRERA: This month, we're up to 116. What do we make of all of this?

SATER: Yes, five times the amount. More like you would see for the month of June. This is crazy.

When you're trying to connect climate change with tornadoes, we have a limited database, really, with this, Ana. We have much more information from hurricanes with ship logs going back to the 1800s.

But if you're not on the climate-change train just yet, open your eyes and jump on.

It begins with the warmth. Like last Friday's outbreak, Memphis hit 80 degrees before we had those 74 tornadoes.

Omaha, 74 yesterday. Their average high is 38. They hit about -- 61 was the previous record. So again, blowing it out of the water.

But two, a couple things happened yesterday that we've never seen before.

[13:55:00]

First, on the left-hand side of your screen, extreme fire threat. The fires were breaking out, being fanned by 100-mile-per-hour winds.

We had one five that grew to 125 acres in less than two hours. Numerous evacuations and burned structures.

We also had level four out of five for the first time ever during the month of December up to the north. In fact, the first time ever for December, January and March for Minnesota.

Satellite imagery, rough weather, of course, across the line with severe weather. Here is the blowing dust and sand that you were showing. This is where the fires were that were playing out.

This little town of Guymon, they were evacuated because of the fires and explosions. They were hosing down the buildings with water to try to save the town.

We saw things yesterday that we never thought we'd ever see.

We had a thunderstorm drop a tornado in parts of Nebraska. When you have a super cell drop a tornado, they're moving fast, 50 to 60 miles an hour. This one was moving at 100 miles an hour.

You can't even believe that could happen with the dynamics needed.

We had tornado warnings in Nebraska, in the northeast. And 150 miles to the west, snow squall warnings at the same time.

They closed schools down from Iowa to Nebraska, and for good reasons. The wind reports, over 400 severe wind reports. And 54 were at hurricane strength, and over 74 miles per hour. That's an all-time record for the U.S. for any month.

And of course, the tornadoes, another 21. I mean, we had over 100 warnings last Friday. You've got another 74 warnings. I mean, just amazing the winds. And now we're still seeing some strong winds in this area.

Second billion-dollar U.S. weather disaster in less than a week. It will be winding down.

CABRERA: Just crazy how scary all of it is.

Thank you, Tom Sater.

Any moment, at the White House, President Biden will present the Congressional Medal of Honor to three American heroes who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Two of the three soldiers are receiving this award posthumously. The third honoree will be at the ceremony, along with family members of the fallen soldiers.

As we await the start of this very special event, I want to bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent, Oren Liebermann, and CNN military analyst, retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks.

Oren, this president will now have his second Medal of Honor ceremony since taking office. The first was in May. It was for a veteran of the Korean War.

Tell us more about today's recipients and what we can expect to see.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I had a chance to speak with family members of the honorees yesterday, and these are all three incredible stories that deserve much more time.

Let me go through these chronologically.

One of these goes back 16 years to October 17, 2005. Sergeant First Class Alwyn Cashe was in Iraq, not his first deployment, when the Bradley fighting vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. The explosion tore through the vehicle and ignited the gas tank.

Flames spewed into the vehicle and, yet, Cashe went back over and over again, even as he began to suffer severe burns, to pull out six men, as well as an Iraqi interpreter before he decided to he, himself, evacuate from the vehicle. He succumbed to his wounds a few weeks later.

He was initially awarded the Silver Star. He family, those who served with him, and many others lobbied for the Medal of Honor that his family, his sister, in fact, will receive today.

In 2013, in August, Master Sergeant Earl Plumlee was in Afghanistan when the base he was at came under attack from multiple suicide bombers. He was armed with only a pistol.

Yet, he moved towards them, engaging them first with his pistol, retreating as necessary. But always advancing once again until the attack had stopped.

I spoke with him yesterday. He said it felt like it lasted 45 minutes until they reviewed the tape and found out it was all of seven minutes.

He, too, was at first awarded the Silver Star. But upon review, he'll receive his Medal of Honor in just a few moments here.

And finally, in July of 2018, it was Sergeant First Class Christopher Celiz who was also in Afghanistan when he and his men went to attack an enemy position.

They came under heavy fire when one of the soldiers he was serving with was injured.

The medevac helicopter came in to get that critically wounded soldier out of there. Celiz put himself in the way to defend the helicopter himself and the men who were on it, as well as his fellow servicemember being evacuated.

When he had the chance to get on the helicopter, he realized it would put the helicopter in danger if he took the time to climb on. He signaled them to fly away. And he, too, succumbed to the wounds he suffered that day.

I had a chance to speak with his wife. She said she always told him, "Come home, do not be a hero." And he said it was not a promise he could keep.

CABRERA: Wow. That is heartbreaking, it's chilling, it's inspirational. It's just incredible the bravery and the sacrifice of all of them.

[13:59:51]

General Marks, talk to us a bit more about the significance of this particular honor, the Medal of Honor. MAJOR GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's

quite significant. Just look at the image we have in front of us. Look at who are up close to the stage where the president is about to conduct the ceremony.