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New York AG Seeks $10,000 a day of Fines; Navy Opens Probe After 7 Deaths among USS George Washington Sailors; U.S. Holds Off Sanctioning Putin's Rumored Girlfriend. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired April 25, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:33:02]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: In a hearing next hour New York Attorney General Letitia James will argue that former President Trump should be held in contempt and fined $10,000 a day for failing to comply with her subpoena. James is seeking documents from the Trump Organization as part of her civil tax fraud investigation. But Trump's attorneys say he doesn't have any documents.

Here with me now is Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Great to have you on set with me. So how do you think this ultimately will come down? Will he be held in contempt?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Donald Trump could well be held in contempt today. Let me explain sort of how we got here. The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, served a subpoena on Donald Trump seeking his testimony and documents. Donald Trump objected. It went to the judge and the judge ruled against Donald Trump, said you have to comply.

Now Trump has appealed the testimony part. So that's on hold. But he did not appeal the documents part. So his documents were due to the AG on March 31st. Come March 31st, a few weeks ago, did Donald Trump deliver boxes full of documents? No. He delivered a letter saying, number one, I don't have anything. And number two, I still object. Now Letitia James is saying, sorry, you've already lost, you owe us these documents. And if the judge agrees, then yes, Donald Trump will be held in contempt.

GOLODRYGA: And fined then $10,000 a day, right?

HONIG: Yes. The purpose of contempt is to force a party to comply. Actually, under New York law a judge could either impose a fine or jail. Now that's not in play here. That would be a bit much. Letitia James is not seeking it.

GOLODRYGA: Because this is a civil trial.

HONIG: It's a civil case that's happening here. And so if the -- Donald Trump is held in contempt, he will be fined $10,000 a day every day until he complies, even for a rich person, that gets expensive.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And clearly we know he doesn't like to part with money, so we'll see how long this could go on.

HONIG: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: But his lawyers, his defense argues that he's not in defiance at all here. He is complying with the subpoena.

HONIG: Right.

GOLODRYGA: He just doesn't have the financial documents. Is that plausible?

HONIG: It's tough to believe that Donald Trump would not have not a single piece of paper relating to his finances or taxes. And so what he'll have to show to the judge, if the judge is going to believe that, is, well, we've looked.

[09:35:03]

We've searched. Here's all the places we've searched. All the boxes of documents we searched, all the phones, computers, and we found nothing. If he can make a thorough showing and convince the judge, then he could avoid contempt. But he hasn't even attempted to do that. All he's done so far is say, I object to this and I have nothing.

GOLODRYGA: OK. For those folks at home who may be a little confused now at all of these cases out there. We mentioned that this is a civil case.

HONIG: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: There's also a criminal case, right, that is being overseen by the DA.

HONIG: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Explain the differences here.

HONIG: Vital distinction here. There's two things happening at once. There's a civil case, which the AG is running. That's where we are today. That could result in at most a lawsuit by the attorney general against the Trump Organization. We're talking money. We're not talking jail or arrests.

On the other side, there's a criminal case being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney along with the AG. That case appears to be mostly dead in the water. We know that because a few weeks ago the lead prosecutors on the criminal side resigned and basically said, we disagree with the decision not to charge. It's technically ongoing, but it appears that the criminal case is not going to happen.

GOLODRYGA: Elie Honig, always great to have you explain it for us.

HONIG: Thanks, Bianna. All right.

GOLODRYGA: We appreciate it. Good to see you.

And still ahead, the U.S. Navy is investigating after the deaths of seven sailors from the same crew in the last year. Four of them by suicide. We have a live report coming up.

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[09:40:59]

GOLODRYGA: The U.S. Navy is now investigating the command, climate and culture on board the USS George Washington after a series of deaths among the crew over the past year.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins me now for more.

And Barbara, what makes the situation on this aircraft carrier stand out to naval leadership?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the George Washington. It has been in port for long-term maintenance for some months now in Newport News, Virginia. And so the deaths among the crew are not at sea. Some of them were living off base, some were not.

When a ship is in maintenance, the quality of life is quite different for the crew. So they're going to look at what was the quality of life? What was the command climate? What was the culture aboard the ship? Can they find anything? They don't think there's any correlation between the deaths, but can they find anything that points to a concern that they might have missed along the way?

Seven deaths in the last year, four of them by suicide. Three in a period of several days. Now the Pentagon under orders from Congress has been looking at suicide across the military yet again. It's something that's concerned them, obviously, for years. The numbers just are not going down in any substantive long-term way. So Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has stood up an independent panel to review all this as ordered by Congress.

And when he did that, he said, in part, "It is imperative that we take care of all our teammates and continue to reinforce that mental health and suicide prevention remains a key priority. One death by suicide is one too many. And suicide rates among our service members are still too high."

Now, this independent review panel will not report back until next year. But one of the things that they have been told to do is visit nine installations across the services. And it's interesting to note, several of them are in Alaska, where also there suicide rates are high amongst the ranks -- Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: Clearly a very tragic pattern there. You'll be following this story for us. Barbara Starr, thank you.

Overseas French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen for a second time yesterday. The two also faced off in 2017. Macron is now the first French president to be re-elected in 20 years. He won decisively with 58 percent of the vote. But we should note that the far-right has not performed this strongly since World War II. Macron acknowledged that those who didn't vote for him in last night in a speech last night.

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PRES. EMMANUEL MACRON, FRANCE (through translator): A majority of us have chosen to trust me to lead our republic for the next five years. I know that for many of our compatriots who choose the extreme right today their anger and disagreement which led them to vote for this project must also find a response. And that will be my responsibility and that of those around me.

MARINE LE PEN, FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (through translator): This result constitutes for our French leaders as well as for European leaders the sign of a great defiance from the French people towards them, which they can't ignore, and that of a widely shared aspiration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Both President Biden and President Vladimir Putin have congratulated Macron on his win. Macron met with Putin in Moscow in February to discuss Ukraine.

Well, still ahead with all the sanctions the U.S. has leveled against Russia and Vladimir Putin's cronies, so far at least one person in his inner circle, very inner circle, has reportedly been spared. Why the U.S. hasn't sanctioned Putin's rumored girlfriend? That's up next.

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[09:49:04]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Two months now into the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. and its allies have imposed sanctions on some of Russia's biggest companies as well as its richest oligarchs and some targeting Vladimir Putin himself. Now "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting the U.S. government has considered but then pulled back on sanctioning a woman long rumored to be Putin's girlfriend, the Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva.

The "Journal's" national security reporter Vivian Salama explained why it's holding off for now to CNN this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIVIAN SALAMA, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: This is something that was deemed so sensitive that they decided to hold off because they believed that Putin's response could be so irrational, so angry, that there would be some sort of backlash. And so they sort of weighed the impact that the potential action could have versus Vladimir Putin's reaction and any kind retaliation or whatever the cost would be for such an action and they decided that the best option was to hold off for the time being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:50:05]

SCIUTTO: So is that the right judgment? Joining me now to discuss the head of the Magnitsky Justice Campaign, Bill Browder, also the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, author of "Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath," which Mr. Browder has faced repeatedly.

Bill, good to have you on this morning. You've watched, you've encouraged sanctions against Russia and individuals right up to President Putin. Do you think this was the right call by the Treasury Department to stop short of targeting Kabaeva who not only is rumored to be his mistress but the mother of his children and also a store for some of -- his many billions in wealth?

BILL BROWDER, CEO, HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: So the U.S. should absolutely sanction Putin's mistress and the mother of his children, as they should also sanction various oligarchs like Roman Abramovich who've been sanctioned by other countries. It seems to me to be a strange situation where Putin is killing women and children all over Ukraine. We know -- we want to get to Putin personally. We know who he cares about.

She surely is holding some of his assets, and she's not been sanctioned. I don't really understand the logic. I think that it's an appeasement strategy, and to be honest, I've looked recently at the list of sanctioned individuals and compared it with the European Union, the U.K. and various other countries. And at this point, in terms of sanctioning high-value targets like oligarchs, the U.S. is seriously lagging the E.U., U.K. and other countries. And that's a new situation. It wasn't like this before.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a good point. I mean, a lot of sanctions that Europeans were dragging their feet on now seem to be ahead of the game. You have said and written that Putin went to war here in Ukraine in order to stay in power. I wonder, do you believe that today he is more or less likely to survive this politically?

BROWDER: Well, I think that if you look at the approval ratings, they've shot up dramatically. And in fact, every time he has started a war during his presidency, his approval ratings have shot up. In 2008 when he invaded Georgia, they shot up. In 2014 when they illegally took Crimea, they shot up. And now. So it definitely has put him in a more comfortable position right now but I would also argue that this thing could turn in all sorts of different directions for him.

It's like turning up the pressure cooker on the Russian people. The fact that these economic sanctions are hitting so hard, the fact that the Russian military is losing so many soldiers or so many mothers in Russia who have lost their sons, those types of things can come back to bite him in a bad way. And so on one hand he's kind of calmed things down for the moment but on the other hand he's created a very volatile situation which could explode on him if this Ukrainian invasion goes the wrong way, which it may very well go in the wrong way.

SCIUTTO: You have, just as you did just now, criticized the U.S. and the West for sometimes pulling its punches on things such as economic sanctions. It was interesting to hear Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, on leaving Ukraine just in the last 24 hours say very publicly that the U.S. intends to weaken Russia so that it can't do this again or sustain this invasion here but perhaps do it elsewhere.

Is that the right approach? To leave, as he said, Russia's military so depleted by this war that it can't come back and do it again?

BROWDER: Well, I mean, I think that's really an important objective, but first and foremost, I think that the objective should be to defeat Russia in Ukraine. They should be soundly defeated. And coming back to the first point about Putin's longevity, if we are able to help Ukraine win this war against Russia, to defeat them, to get them to force them out of Ukrainian territory, I don't think that the Russian people will allow Putin to be president anymore. They don't want to have a loser as president. And that would make him a loser.

SCIUTTO: As you know, Russia and Ukraine fought for eight years going back to 2014, including along the eastern front. A relatively low- grade war. Some 14,000 people died in that war but compared it to where we are now, a relatively low-grade war. You have an enormous force mounted on both sides, Ukrainians armed by the west and Russians adding more, including some that came from up north.

Should we, as we watch this, be preparing for a war that could be measured in years as opposed to months and weeks?

BROWDER: It's my feeling that this is going to go on and on and on. There's no way that Putin is going to back down, there's no way that he's going to compromise in any way.

[09:55:03]

And there's no way that Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian people are going to allow and concede territory of their country. And so in a situation like that, one side has to win or the other, and it may go on for a very long time. And I think we have to prepare ourselves for that, and we should do whatever we can to make sure that the Russians don't have the financial capability to carry on for a very long time at this level. And that's what all these sanctions are about.

SCIUTTO: A very bloody game of chicken on the battlefield right now. A deadly one. Bill Browder, always good to have you on.

Still ahead this hour, CNN live on the ground here in Ukraine as the U.S. secretaries of state and defense say that Russia is failing. CNN's team coverage continues just ahead.

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