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Assassination Investigation Continues in Japan; Rescue Efforts Continue in Ukraine Following Russian Attack; January 6 Committee Set For Next Hearing. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 11, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:05]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello, and thanks so much for joining us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

The former president promised the January 6 rally would be wild. And 24 hours from now, the committee investigating that deadly day plans to prove Trump's invite was a -- quote -- "siren call" for extremists. And not only that. The panel says it will show how Trump allies encouraged or even communicated with these far right extremists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): We are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who are trying in government circles to overturn the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: One witness we're expecting to hear from is a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers. That's the group that we now know brought explosives to the D.C. area ahead of January 6, according to the Justice Department.

One person we won't hear from tomorrow? Trump ally Steve Bannon. Days before he goes on trial for stonewalling the select committee, Bannon now says he will testify. But prosecutors say this last-minute 180 won't get him out of next week's trial. We will have the latest on that case in just a moment.

But, first, let's go to CNN's Ryan Nobles, who's on Capitol Hill.

And, Ryan, how is the committee planning to show links between Trump and his allies and these extremist groups tomorrow?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a great question, Ana. And it probably is going to come through much of this closed-door witness testimony that we have already seen the committee display over the past few weeks in these public hearings.

We know that the committee has spoken to a lot of people inside and outside the Trump White House who knew a lot about what was happening in the days leading up to January 6. And we know already that there are connections with some of these right-wing extremist groups and those connected to Donald Trump on different levels.

The question is, will the committee be able to show a through line, for instance, with someone like Roger Stone or the people that were meeting at the Willard Hotel on that day, and then members of the Trump White House? That could be part of what we will see tomorrow.

Of course, this has been a long focus of the January 6 Select Committee, that what happened here on that day was not just a peaceful protest that went wrong, there was an effort by people that came to Washington that date to specifically cause chaos. And as we have seen play out with some of the Department of Justice filings, many of these individuals came to Washington with a plan in place and also the equipment and weapons to make that a reality.

So, we do expect a lot of that to play out tomorrow. And then, of course, the question is, how much is it directly connected to the former president? As you point out, Ana, he was tweeting and the days leading up to January 6, telling his supporters to come to Washington because it was going to be wild.

That is something we could see the committee connecting all the dots with in this presentation that they're going to have tomorrow.

CABRERA: And that is the key tweet we just put up there.

Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, we know, testified behind closed doors. You were tracking this. It got into hour eight or nearly hour eight on Friday. Will we hear any clips from that interview?

NOBLES: So some of the committee members have already said publicly that we should expect to see some from Pat Cipollone on Tuesday.

But, Ana, what I'm told is that where Cipollone will really take a starring role is the next hearing that the committee has planned. There was some plan for that to happen on Thursday. They never formally advised the hearing, but we now have been told that they're going to push it back to a later date. And that's in part because they're trying to process this information from Cipollone.

He is someone that knows a lot about those 187 minutes, which committee members have just described as Trump's dereliction of duty. That's when we should see a lot of Pat Cipollone -- Ana.

CABRERA: Ryan Nobles, thank you very much.

As we look ahead to this hearing tomorrow, just how much planning did members of these extremist groups put into the Capitol attack? That's the big question.

And CNN's Whitney Wild has some new insight for us.

Whitney, explosives, a death list, these were part of these plans?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the details are just stunning. The Department of Justice says the members of the Oath Keepers planned

extensively before January 6. A group of nine Oath Keepers are charged with seditious conspiracy. All nine have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors say they found evidence that shows at least three chapters of the Oath Keepers held training camps prior to January 6 focused on military tactics, unconventional warfare, and hasty ambushes.

Prosecutors also allege investigators found a handwritten document with the words "Death List" that included the name of a 2020 Georgia election official and a family member of that official.

[13:05:02]

Another member of the Oath Keepers allegedly tried to have somebody build multiple rifles prior to Biden's inauguration on January 20. They also say that at least one Oath Keeper transported explosives to the D.C. area. Prosecutors say the group also brought firearms and a month's worth of food to the D.C. area leading up to January 6.

Through this investigation, law enforcement has seized two illegal short-barrel firearms, grenades and discovered bomb-making recipes. That was all found as they were conducting search warrants in the homes of several of these Oath Keepers -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK, so that was the Oath Keepers. Again, there's also the Proud Boys connection to all this and the link between both groups.

Thank you very much, Whitney Wild.

Let's get to former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon and his now apparent change of heart.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez picks up the story from here.

So, now Bannon wants to testify, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears to be so, Ana.

But, look, it appears from a Justice Department filing overnight, we might have a reason as to why Bannon has had a change of heart. According to the Justice Department, Justin Clark, who was a lawyer for the former president, he was interviewed by the FBI a couple of weeks ago. They turned over -- the prosecutors turned over the FBI record of that interview.

And in that interview, Clark told the FBI that he never told Bannon's lawyers that he was covered unilaterally by former President Trump's claim of privilege. So that calls into question, it blows a hole, really, in Steve Bannon's legal defense, which is that he is just covered broadly by former President Trump's claim that he is -- that he's under some kind of protection of executive privilege.

Now, keep in mind, he's charged with -- Bannon is charged with two counts. One of them is for failing to comply with a subpoena from the committee for testimony, which he now says he wants to do. But there's a second count, and that is producing documents. And there is no mention right now from Bannon that he plans to turn over documents that the committee is asking for.

So it appears, at least from prosecutors, they're not buying that Bannon really wants to testify, that he's really just doing this at the 11th hour because, obviously, he's headed for trial in the coming weeks -- Ana.

CABRERA: There's been so much drama around this in just the last 24 hours, it seems.

PEREZ: So much.

CABRERA: Because we talked about executive privilege, right? That was his excuse all along for not going before the committee. Trump then yesterday says, basically, I leave you to go forward and I will waive any kind of executive privilege.

But then the committee refuted this idea of executive privilege from the beginning.

PEREZ: Right.

CABRERA: But now we have learned Trump's attorney is also saying there was never any executive privilege here to begin with.

PEREZ: Right. No, that's really the biggest problem for Bannon as he is headed to this trial.

And, keep in mind, this claim that he was protected by executive privilege has not really stood up. There's a reason why he is on trial, he's about to go on trial, because a judge did not buy this claim that he was protected by executive privilege. Again, it's not a real thing.

So that's the reason why Bannon is now trying to push for what he says he wants to do, which is a public hearing. The committee right now is in conversations with him. But it's not clear that they're going to agree to do a public hearing, because that, of course, puts all of the leverage in the hands of Steve Bannon.

CABRERA: Possibly.

Evan Perez, thank you.

With us now to discuss all of this is CNN legal analyst and Democratic counsel during Trump's first impeachment trial Norm Eisen and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

Gentlemen, good to have both of you here.

First, I want to remind our viewers what Bannon said January 5, 2021.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen, OK? It's going to be quite extraordinarily different.

And all I can say is, strap in. The "War Room" posse, you have made this happen. And, tomorrow, it's game day. So, strap in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Norm, there are a lot of questions about what Bannon knew or what he was referring to when he said all hell's going to break loose tomorrow.

He refused to testify for months. And now, suddenly, he says he wants to testify publicly. What are we to make of all this?

NORMAN EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's another one of the ploys that Steve Bannon and his patron, Donald Trump, have been running for years now.

Clearly, it's not a good-faith desire to testify. Even if it were, it would not get him out from under his criminal penalty. I mean, the crimes happened long ago, so you can't -- the law doesn't allow that.

[13:10:03]

Most likely, what Bannon is trying to do is muddy the waters, argue to the public -- we know he's going to try to argue it to the court and the jury. I don't think the judge will let him, but at least to the public, hey, I wanted to cooperate. They wouldn't let me.

Of course, it's not his place to say public, private. You have to start with a private deposition. So, game playing.

CABRERA: OK.

So, Renato, we played the clip from the podcast. Even if he is playing the game here, bottom line, how critical is Bannon's testimony? He might know a lot.

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think it's potentially important if he was truthful.

I share Norm's skepticism regarding how truthful and forthcoming Mr. Bannon is going to be. But if I was counseling the committee, what I would tell them to do is call Bannon's bluff. He's got a trial in seven days, a criminal trial. I would demand that he produced all documents and come in for a private deposition before the trial and call his bluff.

If he doesn't comply, as he claims he now wants to cooperate, if he doesn't, that's going to -- that fact could potentially be used against him at trial. So they have some leverage here. And I think I would try to at the very least get him on the record, because Mr. Bannon will be in a situation where, if he isn't forthcoming, and if he isn't truthful, he could potentially create more problems for himself because lying to Congress is a federal crime.

CABRERA: Norm, do you think he might have heard something during these six other hearings that made him change his mind?

EISEN: It's possible, but, Ana, I think the trigger here is, he's tried everything else for the criminal trial.

He knows that Justin Clark, a lawyer for Trump, is going to say, we never extended executive privilege to Bannon. He's reaching the bottom of the barrel. This is a desperation play to try to get out from under criminal penalties. It's not going to work.

CABRERA: And, Renato, Norm touched on this, this idea that you don't usually have somebody come and testify before the public first, because it could be hours of testimony to make sure that the committee gets a chance to ask every question and follow up and goes over notes, and so forth.

And so that would be the reason to do it in a behind-closed-doors deposition. We know tomorrow's hearing is going to be the first since former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone did just that, sat down with the committee behind closed doors for nearly eight hours on Friday.

Eight hours, that's a lot of talking. What does that signal to you?

MARIOTTI: Well, for Mr. Cipollone, I think it's signals that he provided a lot of useful information to the committee. If he was just shutting down their questions, I don't think they would have been questioning him for almost eight hours.

So, in my mind, what that suggests is that, even though Mr. Cipollone, by the way, was properly exercising privilege -- in other words, I may not agree and others may disagree with whether or not there was executive privilege over all those conversations. And I think there's good reason to believe there may not have been as to some of them.

He was nonetheless saying, OK, here is -- I -- can there's a lot that I can testify to, and let me answer those questions. And he was forthcoming. So that's what it tells me. And I think, as to Mr. Bannon, you're exactly right about why they wouldn't do it.

I think another reason is that he's a bomb thrower and may ultimately use that as an opportunity to advance his own agenda.

CABRERA: The committee's goal for tomorrow's hearing is to connect the dots between Trump's inner circle and the violent mob. Listen to what committee Chair Bennie Thompson told Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Are there going to be witnesses that describe actual conversations between these extremist groups and anyone in Trump's orbit?

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Yes. TAPPER: There will be?

THOMPSON: Yes. Obviously, you will have to go through the hearings. But we have a number of witnesses who have come forward that people have not talked to before that will document a lot of what was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So he just said there will be actual conversations that links these groups to Trump's orbit.

Norm, what will you be watching for at this hearing tomorrow?

EISEN: Well, we know that among the individuals in Trump's orbit, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, Michael Flynn, who showed up at this infamous December 18 meeting right before that tweet, Ana, the will be wild tweet, Sidney Powell and others, team crazy, as they're called.

Mark Meadows appears to have been a key conduit. So I'm looking for connections from team crazy directly to Donald Trump. And we're going to hear about that, I think, tomorrow in this December 18 meeting. Then it triggers that 19th signal. It's like a bad signal for the militias to turn out, and the way it goes from there leading to the violence. That's what I will be looking for.

[13:15:00]

CABRERA: Yes, committee members called it a siren -- like sort of a siren call to those mobs.

And what about you, Renato? What will you be watching for?

MARIOTTI: Well, I'm really interested to hear what the chairman just talked about, because I really think one thing that has been a missing piece so far, which it sounds like the committee has, are links between the violent insurrectionist groups and those in the Trump orbit.

I mean, we know that some of the folks in Trump's orbit have their own criminal liability, people like Giuliani or Clark or Eastman. But, for example, if you actually have coordination of the mob that was attacking the Capitol by those within Trump's orbit, I would have to think that would potentially generate exposure for them and potentially could move forward an investigation in a serious way.

CABRERA: Renato Mariotti, Norm Eisen, gentlemen, thank you both so much for offering your expertise and sharing it with us.

It all starts tomorrow at 11:00 a.m., our special coverage, to hear new details on what happened inside the White House on January 6. It all begins then.

And, on Sunday, don't forget to tune in to the premiere of the CNN special report "Steve Bannon: Divided We Fall," which airs right here at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Today, the search for the victims and survivors in Eastern Ukraine

after Russia unleashes on an apartment block, this as Ukraine is building a massive force to fight for the south. The latest on the ground there.

Plus, a growing wildfire is inching toward Yosemite's iconic sequoia trees. Now firefighters are hoping a special sprinkler system will protect these famous giants.

And the case count just doesn't tell the real story about COVID. The dominant variant right now the most transmissible yet -- what you should be doing now.

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CABRERA: At the same time Russia is destroying the homes of Ukrainians, Moscow today is making it easier for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship.

President Putin signed a decree that would fast-track that process, this as Moscow is unleashing on residential areas in the Donetsk region. In the city of Kharkiv, one missile destroyed a school. Another hit a six-story apartment building, as you can see there. The rocket attacks have killed at least six people and injured 31 in this latest round.

I want to get to CNN Scott McLean in Kyiv for us.

Scott, the assaults on cities and towns in Eastern Ukraine, they seem to be almost constant. What is the Russian objective there?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, the Russians are making no secret of the fact that they would like to control the entire Donetsk region.

But it is slow going for them. The front lines have shifted only ever so slightly. The Russians say that they have taken control of one village on the Ukrainian side of the Severodonetsk River. That is significant only because that river has really hampered their ability to move forward. There's also been heavy shelling reported in the northern part of that region, but also much further south in Chasiv Yar, this is the same place where they are digging out from that missile strike, that series of missile strikes on that apartment building that absolutely obliterated part of it, leaving at least 29 dead, at last count.

Remarkably, though, nine people were able to be pulled out from that rubble alive. They're hoping to find more.

CABRERA: It is a different situation to the south, right, where Ukrainians are making some gains. What's happening there?

MCLEAN: Yes, so the bulk of the fighting, Ana, is really happening between Mykolaiv -- this is a Ukrainian stronghold, has been for a long time -- and Kherson, which has been under Russian occupation since the early days of war, when they essentially walked in and took it without really much of a fight at all.

And so the Russians have been shelling Mykolaiv, but the Ukrainians say that, look, they have managed to fire long behind enemy lines at military positions. They're really trying to hamper to cut off the supply lines. They also claimed to have taken a village very close to Kherson, as they sort of inch forward closer to that city.

In an interview with a British newspaper "The Times" as well, the Ukrainian defense minister says that, look, manpower not the issue. They have about 100 -- or about a million troops when you combine the regular force with the police, the border, the territorial defense.

Their issue, they say, is that Western weapons, though plenty had been pledged, are simply not getting to the front lines quickly enough.

CABRERA: All right, Scott McLean, thanks so much for staying on top of all of it.

There's a new development on efforts to secure the release of two Americans held in Russia, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner. Former New Mexico Governor and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. bill Richardson is expected to travel to Moscow next month. And you will recall Richardson played a key role in securing the release of Trevor Reed from Russian detention back in April.

Just last week, Griner, who plays for the WNBA, pleaded guilty to drug smuggling charges in a Russian court. She's due back in court this week. Meantime, Whelan was arrested in December of 2018 on espionage charges, which he denies. Both Whelan and Griner are considered wrongfully detained by the U.S. government.

In Japan, as the country prepares to bury former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tomorrow, new details are emerging about his suspected killer.

CNN's Kyung Lah is in Tokyo with the latest -- Kyung.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the mourning for the former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe continues at the temple behind me.

The wake took place today. Tomorrow will be a funeral. It will be reserved for family and close friends. But there is a place here at that temple for the public to pay their respects. And we saw a steady stream of people begin to do this today, people coming with flowers, with notes.

[13:25:10]

They pause, and they said a prayer. It was a steady stream of people really trying to understand and begin to process the shock and horror of this murder in a country that gun crime is almost nonexistent.

Meanwhile, the investigation continues into the exact motivation and the timeline of 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami as far as exactly what happened. Police say they're starting to understand what led up to this crime, saying that he had built these handmade pistols, these guns by watching videos on YouTube, putting them together out of pipe and adhesive tape, and that he had even planned this, that he knew when the former premier was going to be there, and that he had practice firing off those homemade guns in remote areas near his home.

As far as a motive, police say that he was angry at a particular group that he thought that Abe had associated with. Well, in a news conference today, the Japan branch of the Unification Church said that they believe that they are that group, that the suspect's mother was a member.

But they struggle to understand how that connection would lead to Abe's murder, since Abe had no connection to the church, according to that news conference, and neither did the suspect directly -- Ana.

CABRERA: Kyung Lah, thank you.

It's 2,700 years old and at last check weighed in at two million pounds. Now Yosemite's famous Grizzly Giant sequoia tree is in trouble.

CNN's Nick Watt is close by, where a wildfire is a growing threat -- Nick.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we will bring you the latest from Yosemite, where they are battling, 500 firefighters battling to save 500 giant sequoia trees.

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