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New Evidence Laid out by January 6th Committee; Trump Officials Testify about Election Fraud; Inflation Rises Fast. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 10, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

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[08:59:54]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

Today, the American people, that's you and me, have new evidence laid out in meticulous fashion of just how close we came in this country on January 6, 2021, to losing our democracy.

[09:00:08]

The evidence as presented showed the rioters and the leaders who egged them on attempting to violently overturn a free and fair election. For two hours a bipartisan House committee shared searing new images of the hand-to-hand combat officers faced from the mob, as well as interviews with former President Trump's inner circle that prove they knew claims of election fraud and a stolen election that mobilized and enraged that mob were false.

Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney alleged that Trump had a seven- point plan to overturn the election. And when faced with the chaos he had set in motion, he failed to act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, really angry at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more. And aware of the rioters' chants to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, quote, maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence, quote, deserves it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Mike Pence deserves it. That's one of several new findings revealed yesterday. You may hear there was nothing new, but that's not the truth. Cheney revealed that multiple Republican congressman, including GOP Representative Scott Perry, sought presidential pardons for their roles in trying to overturn the election. Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr, told him his claim the election was stolen was BS. Ivanka Trump testified she believed Barr when he said that.

And, overnight, a source close to former Vice President Pence told CNN that his team did not call the White House for help as the riots unfolded because they did not think the White House, that is the president, would help them. That's the vice president.

Capitol Hill police officers who were attacked and wounded by the rioters watched the proceedings in distress, some with tears in their eyes. I asked one of them last night how he described his feelings. He told me his answer in one word, betrayal.

The committee also previewed what is to come in the seven hearings they have planned this month, including testimony that the former president's team communicated directly with far right groups that have since been charged criminally with sedition.

We are covering this story with our team this morning.

Let's begin with CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider and CNN Capitol Hill reporter Melanie Zanona.

First, Jessica, to you. New evidence here. They had several new revelations. Tell us what the strategy is, but also detail what they showed last night.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, the video presentation was really twofold here. There was this new video and audio from depositions of numerous officials within the Trump administration who had this inside look on and around January 6th. And they talked about how Trump was repeatedly told that his election fraud claims were baseless.

And then there was brand-new video of the riot itself. It showed that enormous pro-Trump mob as it moved methodically toward the Capitol and then broke into the Capitol terrorizing Capitol and metropolitan police officers in the process.

So, here's a glimpse at some of this video. It shows the minute by minute as this mob was moving toward the Capitol. It shows the assault on the Capitol police officers who were trying to guard the Capitol. And then it showed them breaching the barricades, moving in closer and closer. This is some bird's-eye view that we've never seen before from the security camera from on top of the Capitol that showed just the movement, movement into the Capitol, and then eventually breaching the Capitol.

We heard the rioters actually announcing some of Trump's tweets from outside on the Capitol steps. So, this was all unfolding minute by minute. It was quite powerful video compilation here.

And all of this, these clips, some of the footage never seen before, it was coupled with testimony from a Capitol police officer who was attacked, who was attacked at those initial barricades. And it all served to show just how violent this all was. More than 140 police officers injured, several people died. So, let's listen to a clip here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get back!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get back, ladies!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get back!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get back, ladies!

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senate (ph) patrol (ph) (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CF21 (ph) priority. We just had protestors (INAUDIBLE) breach the line. We need backup.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) 50 (ph), we're going to give riot a warning. This is the (INAUDIBLE) here. We're going to give riot warnings. We're going to try and get compliance, but this is now officially a riot.

We are trying to hold the upper deck now.

We need hold the doors of the Capitol.

[09:05:07]

I need (INAUDIBLE) support.

We lost the line. We've lost the line! All (INAUDIBLE) PD pull back. All (INAUDIBLE PD pull back up to the upper deck. All (INAUDIBLE) PD pull back to the upper deck ASAP.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you ready to do whatever it takes. I'll lay my life down if it takes. Absolutely. That's why we showed up today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bring her out here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're coming in if you don't bring her out!

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They were peaceful people. These were great people. The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love -- the love in the air, I've never seen anything like it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: And all of this rolled out just reminding us how violent this was. Notably also the committee also introduced new information about the two extremist groups that led that charge to storm the Capitol, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, how their two leaders actually met in a parking garage the night before, and all of this was caught on video by a British documentary filmmaker who cast some questions here about how preplanned this whole operation might have been.

Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK QUESTED, DOCUMENTARIAN WHO WAS EMBEDDED WITH THE PROUD BOYS: We met up with the Proud Boys somewhere around 10:30 a.m. And they were starting to walk down The Mall in an easterly direction towards the Capitol. There was a large contingent. More than I had expected. And I was confused to a certain extent why we were walking away from the president's speech because that's what I felt we were there to cover.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: And this is likely something the committee will expand on, you know, because, Jim, the committee's aiming to link Trump to these extremists, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. So that's probably a theme we'll see explained more in the upcoming hearings. Questions still to be answered.

SCIUTTO: That's the thread they intend to establish going forward.

Melanie, the committee chair, Bennie Thompson, said last night there will be witnesses that describe, in that vein, conversations between extremist groups, remember, ones that have since been criminally charged, and people in Trump's orbit. Who specifically do we know? What do we expect to hear?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: We don't know those exact details yet. But what I can tell you, Jim, is last night the select committee really wanted to lay out their opening salvo and present their central thesis, but also set the stage for future hearings. And committee members have said the goal over the next few weeks is to present how Trump carried out a seven-point sophisticated plan to try to stay in power. And that included a plot to pressure state level officials, a plot to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence, an effort to spread the big lie, even though Trump knew that it was a lie, and it wasn't -- didn't have any credibility, and then also show how they really wanted to, you know, keep some of these people around.

So, I mean, I think for the committee, they are really looking ahead to what is to come. But, that being said, there was a lot of new information that we learned last night, including Liz Cheney said that Congressman Scott Perry was one of several GOP lawmakers who sought a presidential pardon.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Representative Scott Perry, who was also involved in trying to get Clark appointed as attorney general, has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZANONA: So that is something we are go to be looking out for in the coming days is who sought those presidential pardons and why did they seek presidential pardons, Jim. So, a lot more to come and I would say buckle up.

SCIUTTO: Why did they think they had criminal exposure?

ZANONA: Right.

SCIUTTO: Jessica Schneider, Melanie Zanona, thanks so much.

Some of the most damning evidence last night was testimony from members of Trump's own inner circle, including his then Attorney General Bill Barr and his daughter, Ivanka Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Repeatedly told the president in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud and -- you know that would have affected the outcome of the election. And, frankly, a year and a half later, I haven't seen anything to change my mind on that.

[09:10:04]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement?

IVANKA TRUMP, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he said -- was saying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That is accepted that the election was not stolen.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN political commentator and former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, also CNN political commentator Van Jones, former special advisor to President Obama.

Good morning to both of you.

So much to get through here. I'm trying to do it one by one.

But one of the first questions here, Van, that the committee's trying to establish is that the president knew the election was not stolen. His attorney general told him that. His daughter was convinced of it. Even Trump's spokesman, Jason Miller, said the campaign data person told Trump he was going to lose. That gets to intent here, right?

Tell us the significance of that line of evidence.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's devastating to people who maybe tried to hang on to the idea that either Trump was honestly trying to, you know, make sure the election was fair, wasn't a part of some conspiracy.

Look, Barr and Trump are not friends, but Barr is no liberal. You know, certainly we have the president's own daughter saying, hey, look, we knew that this was all false. That's a big, devastating blow.

But, you know, I think what the country is reeling from today is, democracy was hanging by a thread. That's what you saw with all this stuff yesterday. And, frankly, that thread is still fraying because you still don't have a response from the Republican Party saying, OK, now that we're seeing this for real, this is not acceptable. You have people doubling down on the big lie, even in the face of clear evidence that this was bogus from the beginning.

SCIUTTO: Charlie, that was some of my thinking tonight -- last night as I watched this unfold, the violence that day and the connections between that violence and other institutional efforts to overturn the election.

We have several Republicans now in positions of power that have been elected or they've won primaries and possibly on their way to positions of power who are election deniers. Is American democracy safer today or less safe than it was on January 6, 2021?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Jim, I'd like to think it's more safe, but I am concerned that there has been a lot of Democratic backsliding in our country. People's faith and confidence in our institutions, in our elections have been shaken by all of this. And what scares me even more is that around the country today there are many people trying to become state secretaries of state, (INAUDIBLE), county - in county election offices, who have a predetermined outcome in mind about how an election should go, which is very dangerous. So that's what scares me.

And in Pennsylvania, my party just nominated an individual who was one of the most aggressive pushers of this big lie and would clearly try to appoint a secretary of state who, you know, who might not honor the outcome of an election.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DENT: So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm worried about the future, but I'd like to think our institutions are strong and they're whole.

SCIUTTO: We'll see.

Van Jones, in another time perhaps dereliction of duty as opposed to a positive effort to overturn the election might be enough to soil a former president's reputation in his own party. But let's look at the evidence of dereliction here.

Pence, he was the one who called the National Guard, not President Trump. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley testified that Pence was very explicit, very direct, unambiguous to get the National Guard up to - on The Hill, whereas Trump wanted solely to, quote, kill the narrative that the vice president was making all the decisions. What's the significance beyond Trump's positive efforts to overturn

the election, the sort of sin of omission here if you want to call it that, not to act to protect the Capitol?

JONES: Well, I mean, I'd like to just put forward a counterfactual, to put this in clear perspective. What if it had been 10,000 Muslims that were doing that, 10,000 Muslims gathered and were attacking Congress in the middle of a joint session of Congress.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

JONES: This wasn't just some, you know, Saturday thing, this is a joint session of Congress to ratify a national election, and President Trump looks on television and there are 10,000 Muslims attacking the Capitol. What do you think Trump would have done?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

JONES: He would have called in the military immediately.

So, the fact that he didn't order -- maybe 10,000 Black Lives Matters protesters or 10,000 Mexicans, or 10,000 Smurfs, 10,000 anything attacking the Capitol, Trump is not somebody who's afraid to bring in force. He wanted to have Black Lives Matter protesters shot down in the streets of American based on Targets (ph) getting burned down in some cities.

And so the idea that he did literally nothing lets you know this is -- he was in on this.

[09:15:03]

This was not something he didn't want to happen, this is something that he did want to happen just by the fact of, as you said, what he didn't do.

SCIUTTO: It's a good point because I've often wondered, if you had a sitting president or others mimic the rhetoric of, say, Islamist terrorists, right, deliberately spread it, the disinformation, et cetera, the difference in reaction we have given that we have folks in positions of power mimicking the extremists rhetoric here.

Charlie Dent, another significant revelation from the vice chair, Liz Cheney, yesterday, is that several GOP lawmakers sought pardons from then President Trump after January 6th, presuming, it seems, that they had criminal exposure here.

What's your reaction -- you're a former sitting Republican member of Congress -- to hear that some of your former colleagues were looking for a pardon, felt they needed a pardon?

DENT: Well, it's clear to me that they have a guilty mind. That they think they may have done things that were illegal and potentially criminal and So that's why they sought a preemptive pardon. I mean that's simply astounding to me. One of the members' district was adjacent to mine, Scott Perry's, and

we all know that he had made many outreaches to Jeffrey Clark at the DOJ. And it's clear to me, again, that, you know, I just can't fathom that a member of Congress would ever seek a pardon. I mean it's just - I mean this - it's really a quite a stunning action. I mean it really speaks to the idea of criminality that -- those are the only people who seek pardons. And the fact that they -- that the actions that they took before or during the events of that day, they know that they -- they did something wrong. So wrong that they sought a pardon.

I can't imagine any -- most of my colleagues would ever have thought for a second to seek a pardon for anything.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DENT: So, it's clear to me that they know they're on the wrong side of this, and that's why they're trying not to participate in these hearings because they're exposed.

SCIUTTO: So, Van, let me ask a question. If those members of Congress, Republicans, thought they had criminal exposure in the days after January 6th, a year and a half ago, why has nobody yet been charged?

JONES: Well, look, one of the people that has to be watching this very closely is the attorney general. You know, there is a - it's hard to imagine how you're Merrick Garland looking at this stuff. It's very good that you finally have some seditious conspiracy charges against some low level people. But it doesn't make sense to charge low level people with a conspiracy when it becomes clearer and clearer, literally minute by minute, hour by hour, as these hearings goes on, that they weren't on their own. That the people at the very, very top were the puppeteers or at least the co-conspirators here. I don't understand how you stop with the little people when it was the biggest people in this country that were a part of this whole conspiracy.

SCIUTTO: Yes, many hundreds of the rioters charged since then. None of the ring leaders today.

Charlie Dent, Van Jones, thanks so much.

DENT: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Still to come, there is new data out in the last hour that shows inflation in this country rose at the fastest pace since 1981. How gas prices are one of the key drivers.

Plus, competing narratives of just what happened inside that elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The police chief speaking out saying he did not wait to go in. We're going to speak to a member of the Texas state house special committee investigating the attack. What's the truth there.

Please stay with us.

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[09:23:02]

SCIUTTO: New this morning, the latest consumer price index numbers show inflation rising to 8.6 percent for the 12 months ending in May. That's the fastest pace in this country since 1981. President Biden is set to address inflation this morning from the Port of Los Angeles.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now.

Christine, in the last couple of months you've heard administration officials and others, economists, non-partisans say, we might begin to see these numbers cool down a bit. That hasn't happened. So, what's behind this?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, fuel costs. $5 a gallon gas. I mean, and you look at jet fuel costs, that's raising the airplane fees and airplane fares. I mean it's all feeding into everything at this point.

Look at the chart of where we are, 8.6 percent. Jim, that's just such an ugly, ugly chart. And what that basically represents is what every American already knows, that just about everything costs more right now, and their purchasing power is shrinking.

Let's look at some of these categories. Gasoline prices up almost 50 percent over the past year. We all know that. We feel that. If you're driving a sedan, you're paying $25 more to fill up today than you were a year ago.

Used car prices, still a problem. So are new cars. Look, you've got this big, jumbled supply mess around the world, and I'm sure the president will address later today. But we still have supply problems that are really, really hurting the auto industry.

Go to the grocery store. Your bill is up 10 percent year over - I mean 10 percent. That's amazing to think of how much more you're paying just to feed your family. And these are not discretionary categories, these are things that you have to spend money on.

And shelter. This is important. That number is the hottest inflation there since 2004. Shelter up 5.5 percent. You've got record home prices and rising gas prices, rising fuel prices, rising food prices, all in this big mix here. And that's why you're seeing both the core inflation up 6 percent. Core is when we strip out food and energy.

[09:25:02]

That's even up 6 percent, you know. So these are just - it's just a cruel summer, really, for anybody with money in their pocket trying to buy something essentially.

SCIUTTO: No question. And a lot of the things pressing global oil prices, right. They're medium term issues at least, like the war in Ukraine.

Christine Romans, good to have you on.

ROMANS: Thank you.

In the next hour, I will speak to the chair of the White House Counsel of Economic Advisers, Cecilia Rouse.

Still ahead this hour, an officer who was seriously injured in the January 6th insurrection describes what it was like slipping in pools of blood that day as she fought to hold back the rioters.

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