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Harris Near Pipe Bomb at DNC Headquarters; Atlanta Area DA Asks for FBI Security Help; Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) is Interviewed about Russia and Ukraine; U.K. Releases Report on Party-Gate. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired January 31, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:22]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

This morning brand new details about just how close then Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris was to a pipe bomb planted outside DNC headquarters on January 6, 2021. Multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation say she drove within several yards of the explosive device, remarkably close. We're going to have more on that in just a moment.

GOLODRYGA: Plus, a Georgia district attorney is now asking the FBI for security help as former President Trump takes aim at prosecutors investigating him and his businesses. At a rally over the weekend, Trump also floating a possible presidential run in 2024, and potential pardons for January 6th insurrectionists.

We have a lot going on this busy Monday morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: We're going to begin with new details on how close then Vice President-Elect Harris was to that DNC pipe bomb on January 6th.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild is outside DNC headquarters here in Washington.

So, Whitney, first of all, Harris was inside the DNC much longer than we previously knew.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We didn't realize how long she was actually inside. And it's the timeline here that is really startling. Also when you come out here and see just how close she was to this pipe bomb, it is simply chilling.

But let me take you through chronological order so you can understand the impact here.

January 5th, sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., a suspect, who is still at large, planted a pipe bomb right here. Right in this corner. If you look at this garage, that is the location where, at 11:30 a.m. on January 6th, Kamala Harris pulled in with her security detail. Look how close these two locations are. She came within yards of that pipe bomb.

A law enforcement source tells CNN that the Secret Service, who was responsible for her protection that day, swept areas inside the building. They swept the driveway. They swept the entrances and exits. But clearly something was missed here, Jim.

And it's just one example of many security gaps that happened throughout Washington that day. The situation was so chaotic, the strains on law enforcement so immense, and the reality is that when you have a situation like that, there are so many gaps that bad actors could exploit them. And while there was no harm here, it is certainly an example of how much worse it could have been, just yards, Jim, just yards.

And when you consider that the FBI has insisted over and over that these pipe bombs, though they never detonated, were viable, it is another chilling reminder of these close calls, Jim and Bianna.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: And it does bear asking why we're just hearing about this now, over a year later.

Whitney Wild, I know you'll continue to follow this story for us. Thank you so much.

The other story we're following, the Georgia district attorney investigating former President Trump is now asking the FBI for security help after the former president urged his supporters to go after prosecutors looking into him and his businesses.

Listen to what he said at a rally over the weekend in Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have, in this country, the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt. They're corrupt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Well, there's no evidence of that.

Joining us now, CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider.

Jessica, what more do we know about this security request by the Fulton County DA. They believe the president's words put them in danger.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they believe that maybe he was using this as another call to action to his supporters possibly.

So this is a request that was sent to the FBI pretty much immediately after that rally from Trump on Saturday night where in it he did take aim at several of the officials both in Georgia and New York investigating him now and his allies.

And because of that rhetoric and the fact that the district attorney in Atlanta even disclosed she's already heard from people before that who were unhappy with her investigation into Trump and his allies for possible election interference. The DA down there in Atlanta, Fani Willis, she's now asking the FBI for two things.

So, here's what she said in the letter that she sent to the special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office. She wrote this, I am asking that you immediately conduct a risk assessment of the Fulton County Courthouse and Government Center and that you provide protective resources to include intelligence and federal agents. It is imperative that these resources are in place well in advance of the convening of the special purpose grand jury.

[09:05:01]

Because as we learned last week, that special grand jury will sit. It was approved. That will start May 2nd. They'll be able to subpoena people for testimony in the DA's probe, also compel discovery. So, obviously, the DA there, Fani Willis, very concerned about possible threats to anyone involved in that investigation, especially now that Trump is publicly promising more protests and DA Fani Willis, she expressed it in this letter, she's worried that there could potentially be a repeat of January 6th in Atlanta if his supporters interpret Trump's words as a possible call to action.

So, this letter requesting help, it was sent out last night. And our team -- we have reached out to the FBI in Atlanta to find out what will happen, if anything here, if they'll conduct that risk assessment of the government buildings, where the special grand jury will sit as the DA is requesting here, especially because this DA investigation, it is ongoing, guys. We know that the DA herself has said she expects possibly to decide on any charges by midyear.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SCHNEIDER: And that special grand jury will begin sitting May 2nd now.

Jim and Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Jessica Schneider, thank you so much.

Well, joining us now to discuss further is Laura Jarrett, she is the anchor, of course, of "EARLY START" and previously covered the Justice Department, and Errol Louis, a CNN political commentator and host of the "You Decide" podcast. Laura, let me begin with you.

What will the FBI be looking at in terms of how they will respond to this request from the Atlanta DA for more security following the president's words that his supporters should come out and protest massively in these three cities where, of course, he is being investigated?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Well, this weekend's rant certainly does him no favors from a legal point of view.

Look, guys, judges usually give criminal defendants a lot of latitude, a lot of rope when it comes to how they push back in cases. And, of course, Trump will say, I wasn't advocating for violence, I just called for big protests. But that's where the FBI is going to be looking at the context of his statements and all the attending circumstances.

And the context is, he's saying it in a statement where he's actually talking about floating pardons, dangling pardons for people who carried out violence on January 6th. And the DA there in Georgia, Fani Willis, is trying to draw a direct link from what happened on January 6th to today, saying, if he did it then, he can do it now.

And that's what the FBI is going to look at. The big question is, do they sit down with the former president, do they actually sit down and question him about what his mindset was, what his intent was over the weekend?

SCIUTTO: I mean are there legal consequences for any of this is the big question. Still an open question.

Errol Louis, it was notable that former President Trump claimed the three attorneys investigating him, who, we should note, happen to all be black, in his words, they're motivated by racism. He called them racist prosecutors. What's your reaction to that?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that is a Trump tactic that we've seen from way back, try and divide people using the easiest thing at hand, which, of course, in this case would be race. We should note for the record that the investigation of Donald Trump in New York, the Manhattan district attorney was Cy Vance, who's a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. He began the investigation and then his term ended and so the new black district attorney has been there for exactly 31 days at this point. Donald Trump doesn't care about any of that. What he wants to do is get people riled up and divided and in the streets to support him. It's kind of a gangster move in a lot of ways and it's what we have come to expect from Donald Trump.

GOLODRYGA: Listen, Laura Jarrett, this isn't the first time that the former president has said the quiet part out loud. And what we heard from him over the weekend was basically coming out and saying that Vice President Pence, at the time, should have overturned the election, right, the Electoral Count Act that is now being revised, right, by both bipartisan support from Congress is what he's pointing to as justification for why he is saying out loud now what he did want the vice president to do what he thought that he was capable of doing at the time and ultimately did not.

JARRETT: Well, so over a year into this, he's still wrong about what he says Pence could do. I mean, let's be clear, under the act, Pence has a purely ministerial role there, right? He's supposed to be opening envelopes, reading the ballots and saying goodbye. Trump still is saying that he could overturn the election when he was advised clearly that's not true.

And the question for investigators here is, what is his true intent? Does he actually know that he's wrong about this and, of course, he wanted to stay in power, he wanted to subvert the election and he knew it was wrong and he didn't care anyway, or does he genuinely believe that somehow Pence had the ability to overturn the election? Is he still operating under some misapprehension about the law?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

JARRETT: I think that's going to be a key question for prosecutors because if it is the former and that he knew all along he had lost, he was wrong about it, he was wrong on the law and he went ahead with all of this anyway, I think that that significantly increases his legal jeopardy.

SCIUTTO: Or perhaps he was willing to try anything and anything not caring what the law is, right?

JARRETT: Sure.

SCIUTTO: I mean he may -- he threw a lot of things at the wall there to see if they would stick.

Errol, I do want to ask you, here you have a former president, who may very well be running for president again, saying that if he's president he would pardon the January 6th rioters.

[09:10:10]

Is that obstruction of justice?

LOUIS: Not just obstruction of justice. It was actually one of the elements in the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. You know, you can get in a lot of trouble for doing this. It's not just regular political speech.

This, though, is the essence of Trumpism, Jim. I mean it's not enough that you put Donald Trump's interest ahead of your own. The essence of Trumpism is that you also disavow and deny and walk away from your previous commitments to your personal and professional ethics, to the rule of law, to the Constitution, if necessary. That's always been the invitation of Trumpism, sort of the dark invitation. Hey, throw aside everything you ever believed and let's go down this dark path. That's what he's asking people to do. That's what the campaign of -- for 2024 is starting on. That's the note that it's starting on. And it can only get worse from there.

SCIUTTO: Most Republicans at this point support him. Laura Jarrett, Errol Louis, thanks so much to both of you.

JARRETT: Sure.

SCIUTTO: Coming up next hour, the U.N. Security Council holds an emergency meeting as the potential for conflict looms on the Russia/Ukraine border. We have new CNN reporting about who the U.S. might target with new sanctions.

GOLODRYGA: Plus, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now seen the much anticipated report about his parties during Covid lockdown. What we know about its contents and his political future.

And several musicians now pulling their music from Spotify in protest over the Covid misinformation on Joe Rogan's podcast. Now the company and Rogan are both responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:00]

SCIUTTO: In the next hour, the U.S., Russia and Ukraine set to meet for a U.N. Security Council emergency session as Russia continues to amass troops at Ukraine's border. CNN is learning who the Biden administration could sanction if Russia were to invade Ukraine further.

Joining me now to discuss, Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan. She's a member of the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committee. She actually just returned from a bipartisan congressional delegation to Ukraine.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN, (D-PA): Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: So you were on the ground there in Ukraine. You met Ukrainian officials. Is a Russian invasion imminent or not in your view?

HOULAHAN: I think a Russian invasion is very possible and possibly imminent. Reuters just reported this morning that blood is being moved towards the front line, and that's a really concerning indicator that something is, you know, afoot at this point in time. And 120,000, 130,000 troops are already amassed along the border and at the -- and in the Mediterranean as well. That's a huge number of troops. And when they move in, plasma, as an example, the Russians do, that's an interesting and alarming indicator that something is forthcoming.

SCIUTTO: There is, as you know, a very public disagreement now between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents, Biden and Zelensky, over just how urgent the threat of an invasion is. And I wonder, what do you believe is behind that public disagreement?

HOULAHAN: So, it's interesting. And I was able to start our trip in Brussels and meet with our EU partners and with our allies as well, NATO allies, and then to head down into Ukraine and to talk to Zelensky and many of his parliament and much of his administration. And you're right that there is somewhat of a disconnect between the messaging. But I do think that messaging disconnect is because of the audience that each group is speaking to.

I think President Zelensky is very much speaking to his people, to the Ukrainian people who, frankly, have been under siege since 2014 and trying to keep a sense of calm. I think he's also speaking to the financial, global markets as well to make sure that he's able to keep his economy afloat.

I think the people that we are speaking to are our allies and our -- American -- the American people, to make sure that they understand that we are in a very unique and different situation than we have been in modern history, in recent history with, as I mentioned, and hundred and something thousands troops aligned at a border. That is something that we should all be worried about as Americans and as allies because Ukraine is very much the tip of the Democratic spear, so to speak. As Ukraine goes, so do many of other fragile democracies.

SCIUTTO: CNN has new reporting that part of the U.S. and western plan, were Russia to invade further, is to sanction people close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Now, sanctions like this have been tried before. And, you know, the war has been going on in Ukraine for eight years. I wonder, do you believe that beyond expanding the list of sanctions and the targets of these sanctions, in your view, should those sanctions start today, that is preemptively before an invasion to deter, as opposed to after any increased military activity?

HOULAHAN: Certainly, that was part of the conversation of the delegation and all of the people who we met with. And there were differences of opinion on how that should best be executed. In -- in addition to sanctions, there would be other efforts, like humanitarian efforts and sending more military aid as an example.

They're -- you know, listen, good people can disagree on what the most effective way to do this is. I believe that the most effective way to sanction is in unison with our EU partners and with our NATO allies. And I think that we need to be organized and strategic amongst each other and don't need to go out one at a time. I think that will be less effective. So I would argue that we need to make sure want we do, that we do it in synchrony with our allies and with our partners.

SCIUTTO: An explicit goal of Vladimir Putin's today with this buildup, but for a number of years, is to split the NATO alliance, to get them on different pages, about not just the seriousness or urgency of the threat, but also the response to that threat.

Do you see NATO allies as united on this?

[09:20:05]

HOULAHAN: Yes. And that was what was so fascinating, intriguing and heartening about our trip is that we very much saw NATO and the EU unified and aligned. And importantly, as you mentioned, this CODEL was a bipartisan CODEL, a congressional delegation, that went to these communities and countries and to these meetings. Putin has done one thing remarkably well. He's unified the EU, he's unified NATO, he's unified the Congress. And it's my responsibility to make sure that we, as a Congress, are able to unify the American people to understand why it's important to care about Ukraine, even though it's really, really far away and we, obviously, have our own domestic issues. It's critical that we are actively engaged in defense of democracies around the world.

SCIUTTO: Do you worry about a scenario here, because the U.S. administration has made it clear that if Putin were to invade further, Nord Stream 2 is finished. It's done. And Germany appears to be on board for that. There is a scenario where Putin does not explicitly invade, you know, roll tanks across the border, but keeps up pressure, keeps the troops around the border, carries out cyberattacks, perhaps reinforces existing Russian positions inside Ukrainian territory, so gets the pressure but keeps the pipeline.

Are you concerned about that outcome? And how does the U.S., how does the west avoid that?

HOULAHAN: There were a lot of conversations about that. You know, what kind of incursions could happen on the part of the Russians that didn't look like conventional warfare and how would we respond to them as an alliance and as a group of people who love democracy and freedom.

I think that we -- we need to work again collectively and collaboratively in our response. Every day is a different set of scenarios and a different set of decisions that we need to go through. But I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to go on this trip and to be able to see just how unified we are in understanding the gravity of the situation that we are all experiencing right now.

I served in the Air Force as a program manager and ballistic missile defense during the Cold War. This is something that wouldn't be unremarkable back then, but it's something that we need to be very, very concerned with now.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a shame to be back in that environment again, isn't it?

Well, Congresswoman, we appreciate you taking the time. We also appreciate you going over there and seeing the situation for all of us firsthand.

HOULAHAN: Thank you. Appreciate it.

GOLODRYGA: Really important, Jim, to have that perspective of her actually being on the ground there with a bipartisan delegation, getting word from what Ukrainians are feeling right now and perhaps explaining why there seems to be this disconnect between the Ukrainian government and the west.

SCIUTTO: And also someone like the representative with a history of military service during, you know, a Cold War environment, right, to see a similar dynamic today, that's -- it's disturbing, sadly, to see that that's a new reality.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, it is.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: And we'll continue to cover this story throughout the morning.

Also, this morning, the U.K. government set to release a new report on Boris Johnson's parties during the country's strict Covid lockdown. This saga continues. Could it impact his political future? We're live on Downing Street straight ahead.

And we are moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Futures are mixed this morning after last week's relatively rocky week for markets. Today is the final day of trading for the month of January. And the S&P 500 is on track to have its worst monthly performance since March of 2020. The upcoming week will have some big economic data with top tech companies releasing earnings reports and the December jobs report on Friday.

We're watching all of this. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:28:30]

GOLODRYGA: And we're following breaking news just in to CNN. The report into British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's so-called party- gate scandal has just been released. Johnson is set to address a controversy next hour, addressing the alleged parties he held at Downing Street during Covid lockdown.

SCIUTTO: All right, so what did this crucial report find?

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins us now from London.

Salma, what's contained in the report?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, Jim and Bianna, please be patient with me because this report literally just dropped a few minutes ago. And sorry for explaining it this way, but it sounds like a child being scolded. So damning is this report.

I'm just going to read you sections here. It says that the government's behavior in terms of the parties, the gatherings that occurred over a 20-month period are difficult to justify. It says that there was a failure to observe the high standards that the British public expected. It describes a failure of leadership at 10 Downing Street, just behind me here. It goes on to say, the excessive consumption of alcohol at the workplace is not appropriate.

Jim and Bianna, apparently a senior civil servant needs to remind the government that the excessive consumption of alcohol at the workplace is not important (ph). And yet I don't know how Prime Minister Boris Johnson can absolutely twist this in any way. This is really harmful. It paints a picture of a government that wantonly did not observe Covid restrictions, that brazenly violated the trust of the public, that failed to show leadership at a time of pandemic and a prime minister who apparently oversaw all of this, Jim and Bianna.

[09:30:06]