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Committee: Attack on American Democracy; The January 6th Hearings; Attack on Democracy; Texas School Shooting; Guns in America; U.S. Gun Violence; January 6th investigation; Georgia Man Charged with Murder; Cheney: What Trump did was illegal; Capitol Hill pipe bomb suspect. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired June 10, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: Live from London. This is "CNN Newsroom with Max Foster".

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Max Foster in London. Coming up on CNN Newsroom, a bipartisan congressional committee is unveiling a trove of devastating new details about the January 6th U.S. Capitol riot.

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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY), JANUARY 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR: In our country, we don't swear an oath to an individual or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States constitution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a breach at the Capitol.

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS), JANUARY 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE CHAIR: Our work must do much more than just look backward. The cause of our democracy remains in danger. Conspiracy to fraught the will of the people is not over.

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FOSTER: It is Friday, June 10th, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 4:00 a.m. in Washington where the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot says January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup by Donald Trump and his supporters. Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney said Trump lit the flame for the attack and she explained how the former president and his aides knowingly spread lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Here is Trump's daughter, Ivanka.

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

IVANKA TRUMP, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So, I accepted what he said -- was saying.

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FOSTER: Committee Chair Bennie Thompson says despite his denials, Trump encouraged the Capitol rioters. And Thompson fears it could happen again.

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REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS), JANUARY 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE CHAIR: Our work must do much more than just look backwards. The cause of our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to fraught the will of the people is not over. There are those in this audience who thirst for power but have no love or respect for what makes America great. Devotion to the constitution. Allegiance to the rule of law. A shared journey to build a more perfect union.

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FRYER: Liz Cheney says Trump corrupted state officials to overturn the election and she delivered a message to those who still support him.

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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY), JANUARY 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR: In our country, we don't swear an oath to an individual or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible, there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone. But your dishonor will remain.

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FOSTER: The Committee also played a 12-minute video showing some of the most violent scenes from that day.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 101 Priority. We just had -- they breached the line. We need backup.

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FOSTER: More now on the groundbreaking hearing from CNN's Manu Raju.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Over the course of two hours in a primetime hearing, the January 6th Select Committee, for the first time, revealed some new details about their investigation that's been going on for the better half of the past year. More than 1,000 witnesses have been interviewed, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents have been obtained.

We got a glimpse of some of the things that they found and some of the witness interviews that they had including members of Donald Trump's inner circle. People such as the former president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as his Former Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr and Trump -- Barr and Ivanka Trump both indicating that the issues of fraud that Donald Trump continually claimed after the election simply were not true. In fact, Bill Barr called it B.S. Ivanka Trump said that she believed Bill Barr. Donald Trump was told repeatedly about that. According to the testimony that was shown in these video excerpts by Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

[04:05:00]

Now, at the same time, they also detailed some new revelations, including that there were some Republicans in the House who were concerned about their role on January 6th and actually asked Donald Trump for pardons of their actions. Now, she said that one of those was Congressman Scott Perry. He's a conservative from Pennsylvania. Others that -- others as well. But they would not detail -- members of the Committee did not say who those other members were.

Now, the Committee also showed new footage of just how harrowing of experience it was that day on January 6th. All the violence that occurred, the deadly massacre that occurred in the Capitol and heard testimony from a documentarian who was close to the Proud Boys. As well as one officer who was injured in responding to the deadly events of that day.

Now, this is the first of a number of hearings that will take place through the course of this month, including three next week. And ultimately the goal of this Committee, the members say, is to show that Donald Trump was at the center of what they call a conspiracy to overturn the elections, mount a coup of sorts, and try to stay in power despite what actually happened on November 2020. Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

FOSTER: Congresswoman Liz Cheney alleging Former President Donald Trump engaged in a, "Sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the election and stop the transition of power. The Committee's source laying out these seven-point to CNN, and here they are, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to the public claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him. Trump corruptly planned to replace the acting attorney general so that the DOJ would support his fake election claims. Trump pressured Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral votes. Trump pressured state election officials and State legislatures to change election results. And Trump's legal team and other Trump associates instructed Republicans in multiple States to create false electoral slates and transmit them to Congress in the national archive. Trump summoned and assembled a violent mob and directed them to march on the Capitol. And as the violence was underway, Trump ignored multiple pleas for assistance and failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave.

We spoke earlier with Michael Genovese. He's the president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University. And we asked him what stood out about the hearings.

MICHAEL GENOVESE, POLITICAL ANALYST, PRES. GLOBAL POLICY INST., LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR, "THE MODERN PRESIDENT": There are several takeaways that I think are important. One is the incredible power of Liz Cheney's commentary. She spoke for about 30 minutes. And she very carefully meticulously used team Trump players from Attorney General Barr to Ivanka Trump to eviscerate the president's case. And so, she took piece by piece the case against the president using the president's own team and their words to undermine the president. That was powerful.

The other thing was to actually see Attorney General Barr, the tape of him, and what he said to the president that -- I won't use the words, but basically that there was no fraud. That it's concocted. That he didn't know what he was talking about. Those stood out to me as incredibly powerful moments.

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FOSTER: Political analyst, Michael Genovese from Loyola Marymount University. Now, the first witness to testify at Thursday's hearing was Caroline Edwards, a U.S. Capitol police officer with first responder units. And now, a video was played showing Edwards under attack. We'll show you part of it, but we have to warn you, it includes profanity and disturbing images.

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CROWD: USA, USA, USA.

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FOSTER: Edwards described what she called hours of hand-to-hand combat on January 6th. She was the first Capitol Hill officer injured that day and suffered a traumatic brain injury in the attack.

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OFFICER CAROLINE EDWARDS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: We started grappling over the bike racks. I felt the bike rack come on top of my head and I was pushed backwards. And my foot caught the stair behind me and I -- my chin hit the handrail and then I -- at that point, I had blacked out, but my -- the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me.

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FOSTER: Edwards testified she returned to the mayhem after she regained consciousness. She said she was pepper-sprayed and teargassed by rioters later that day. Now, a video shown by the Committee laid bare the ferocity of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Earlier, CCN spoke with Steve Moore. He's a retired supervisory special agent with the FBI. Moore said the videos reveal the magnitude of what happened on January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVE MOORE, RETIRED SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: It was pretty devastating the type of mob action that went in there. And I think people sometimes don't realize what goes on during these riots and who the victims are even if you don't see, you know, these big death tolls or something. If you have people who are wounded, if you lose police officers, there were deaths in this, and it's important to show the magnitude of it.

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FOSTER: Donald Trump quickly responded to the hearing with insults. He called the Committee members political hacks and he complained there were no positive testimonies. And he again repeated his big lie about election fraud and voting irregularities. He ended by saying, our country is in such trouble.

Now, President Biden is hosting the Summit of Americans in Los Angeles and said he hadn't had time to watch the State hearing. But before it started, he offered some thoughts about the events of January 6 and the hearing. And here he is.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think it was a clear flagrant violation of the constitution. I think these guys are the ones that broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election. And there's a lot of questions who's responsible, who's involved. I'm not going to make a judgment on that. But I just want you to know that probably a lot of Americans will be seeing for the first time some of the detail.

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FOSTER: Well, reaction to the hearing is coming in from across the political spectrum. Former Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney tweeted, the video was stunning and more powerful than anything Bennie or Liz said. And a Minnesota Democrat, Dean Phillips told CNN, he was furious and incredulous by what he saw. The congressman says it'll happen again if we don't do anything about it.

And Washington State Democrat Pramila Jayapal said, I thought it was powerful both because it put in the context of the struggles of the United States has been through since our earliest days, and people standing up for country over party. I don't think that this is going to change the minds of my colleagues. Unfortunately, I believe many of them know that the election wasn't stolen.

And then there was this, Donald Trump Jr. tweeting, Democrats hate America and they hate you. The former president's eldest son saying, Democrats want to distract you with their sham partisan B.S. Republican Elise Stefanik says, House Democrats are shamelessly trying to change the narrative with their sham political witch hunt. House Republicans are committed to the issues that matter to Americans. And the House Republican Twitter account posted this, Nancy Pelosi's sham political witch hunt has already been caught doctoring evidence and we're not even an hour into will this charade. These people are sick. The Select Committee is planning six more hearings throughout this month to lay out their case that Trump was to blame for the Capitol riots. The next one is on Monday. Another prime team hearing scheduled for Thursday, June 23rd.

Now, coming up, horrific new details on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. What police officers knew before confronting the gun man, when we come back.

Plus, yet another mass shooting in America. It happened in a factory in Maryland. Details after the break.

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[04:15:00]

January 6th Committee investigating the dirty attack on the U.S. Capitol has made the clearest most compelling case yet. But Former U.S. President Trump concocted a conspiracy to defy the will of the American people and overturn the election. The panel's chair told the public the violence was no accident. That it represented Trump's last stand in his most desperate attempt to hold the transfer of power. The Bipartisan Committee during its first primetime televised hearing compelling details not heard before. One of the big takeaways, this was not a peaceful protest. It spontaneously turned rowdy. It was a methodically planned event. The panel's vice chair explained the key members of Trump's inner circle tried to rein him in and that they knew the election was not stolen.

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CHENEY: The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the president needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone. At least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully. When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union, or worse, causes a constitutional crisis, we're in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.

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FOSTER: New details are emerging about the timeline of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas and how law enforcement responded. The man at the center of the controversy and battled Uvalde's school's Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

In an interview with "Texas Tribune", Arredondo defends the delay in confronting the gunman. He said that he left his radio silent outside the school because he believed carrying them would slow him down. Without those radios, Arredondo said he was not aware of 911 calls being made about the shooting. He told the paper, he never considered himself the scene's incident commander but he says he is proud of his response. Meanwhile, the "New York Times" is reporting what officials discussed before they finally confronted the gunman. CNN's Omar Jimenez has details from Uvalde.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement was aware there were injured individuals alive inside this classroom before deciding to breach, that is according to a "New York Times" review of investigative documents and videos. I want to read you some of the high points again according to the "Times".

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One, people are going to ask why we're taking so long. A law enforcement official on the scene of the shooting could be heard saying according to a "Times" review of body camera transcripts. Separately, we're trying to preserve the rest of the life, part of the transcript reads.

Now, by our timeline, it's around 11:44 in the morning that day that officers first asked for backup. Then 20 minutes later, as many as 19 officers were in that hallway. Around 12:30, again, few minutes later after that, Chief Arredondo -- Pete Arredondo, the school chief here is heard saying, according to the "Times," we're ready to breach but that door is locked. Separately, one officer is heard saying, if there's kids in there, we need to go in there, according to the "Times."

It wasn't until 20 minutes after that, at 12:50 p.m., that officers used a key from a janitor to breach this room and shoot this suspect. But again, officers were aware that there were injured individuals, and a law enforcement official said according to the "Times", people are going to be asking why we're taking so long. And now multiple overlapping investigations later, that remains the central question. Omar Jimenez, CNN, Uvalde, Texas.

FOSTER: Yet, another mass shooting in the U.S. on Thursday. The 254th this year. Police say a gunman opened fire at co-workers at this manufacturing plant in Smithsburg, Maryland killing three people. Two other people were wounded including a state trooper. When police arrived, a shoot-out ensued which was heard on cellphone footage.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Holy --

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FOSTER: The wounded trooper was treated at the hospital and released. The police say the shooter was also wounded. A motive for the shooting isn't yet known.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, next week she'll bring a Senate- approved bill boosting security for Supreme Court justices up for a vote. This comes after a man was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home on Wednesday. He was armed with a Glock pistol, tactical knife, pepper spray, and zip ties. The man told authorities that he had traveled from California. He's been charged with attempting to kidnap or murder a U.S. judge. House Republicans have slammed Democrats for not voting on the Senate bill earlier. But Democrats say that they want a broader bill that includes enhanced security for clerks and other staff.

Now, the FBI has arrested a Michigan Republican candidate for governor in connection with the January 6th attack. Ryan Kelley is facing misdemeanor charges related to his actions at the U.S. Capitol that day. Prosecutors say he spent over an hour on Capitol grounds allegedly filming the mob as they assaulted offices and taking a photo of blood in the building. Kelly appeared in federal court in Michigan on Thursday and was later released on bond. His campaign has not responded to CNN's request for comment.

A man in Georgia has been charged with the murder of a U.S. postal worker. Federal prosecutors say that Larry Grogan shot Asa Woods Jr. as he was delivering mail in rural Georgia in August of last year. Woods died in his postal vehicle. He had been a mail carrier for more than 20 years. There's been no word of a possible motive.

Much more on the investigation into the January 6th Capitol riot just ahead. Coming up, the leading Republican on the Select Committee makes the case that Trump's actions on that day were criminal.

Plus, more than a year since the Capitol riots, the FBI is still looking for a suspect who put pipe bombs around the Democratic and Republican committee offices. Details ahead.

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[04:25:00]

The congressional investigation into the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol is putting that day in much sharper focus as U.S. lawmakers begin laying out the facts that they've uncovered. Many of those riveting details have not been publicly disclosed before. The U.S. House Select Committee is arguing that the insurrection was not simply a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters that got out of hand. Rather, it was an attempted coup by Donald Trump's most militant supporters planned in advance and orchestrated by Trump as he stubbornly refused to concede the 2020 election. Yet even some of Trump's closest associates testified they knew his claims of a rigged election were simply untrue.

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WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. 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.

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

TRUMP: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So, I accepted what he said -- was saying.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOSTER: The Committee plans to present its preliminary findings in a series of hearings this month. They outline what the Committee's leading Republican calls Trump's seven-part plan to overturn the election. And she said some of his actions that day were criminal. Take a listen.

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CHENEY: What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn't just wrong. It was illegal and it was unconstitutional. Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former vice president and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal.

The judge evaluated the facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump's efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes likely violated two federal criminal statutes.

In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them illegally to march on the United States Capitol.

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FOSTER: Comments like that or any of the evidence that we've been hearing so far be heard to move the needle in a legal sense. Well, earlier we asked a former U.S. attorney about the strength of the Committee's case against Donald Trump.

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