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Steve Bannon Found Guilty of Contempt of Congress; Jan. 7 Video Outtake Shows Trump Wanted to Claim "99.9 Percent" of Supporters Who Stormed Capitol Acted "Peacefully"; The Trump vs. Pence Proxy War in Arizona Heats Up Today. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 22, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN BREAKING NEWS.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Victor Blackwell.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

BLACKWELL: Our breaking news this hour. A jury has just found Steve Bannon guilty on both counts of criminal contempt of Congress. Now, the former Trump strategist faces a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail.

CAMEROTA: CNN's Sara Murray joins us now from the courthouse. Sara - we're also joined by Elie Honig and Nick Ackerman here. Sara, tell us what's just happened in the courtroom?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Steve Bannon has been found guilty on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He smiled and smirked, my colleague Katelyn Polantz says when the verdict was read. She was in the courtroom as this was happening.

So think we can see this former White House chief strategist is just as defiant as ever. With this conviction, he faces 30 days behind bars at a minimum as well as potentially thousands of dollars of fines. This is not something that's going to happen immediately, though. The judge has said October 21 as the sentencing date, so it'll still be a few months before we know what sentence is actually going to be handed down.

It's also been clear from Bannon's attorneys kind of throughout this trial that they do intend to appeal. And because these are misdemeanor charges, it's very possible that we could see the judge delay any kind of - whether Bannon has to kind of serve any kind of sentence until after they go through that appeals process. We just don't know that yet.

What we do know is this is a big boost to the House Select Committee. This is a reaffirmation of their investigative power, of their subpoena power at a time when they're wrangling with a bunch of different witnesses. Peter Navarro comes to mind. He's another person who defied his subpoena and is poised to go to trial over that.

It's also a win for the Justice Department. They've kind of come under a lot of scrutiny, a lot of criticism in terms of how they're investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. I think people have wanted to see more from them in a number of cases. In this case, they got a very prominent conviction.

BLACKWELL: All right. Sara, stay with us. I want to go to Nick, just joining the panel. Your reaction to this guilty verdict?

NICK ACKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: I think it's extremely significant and the reason really is in light of what happened yesterday in the house, hearing. What we found there was on that day, on January 6, Donald Trump was begged, was asked repeatedly by people in the White House, everybody around him, including his family, to get up there and tell his supporters to go home, to stand down and to leave the Capitol.

And what you find here is who's actually the - who were the people that were egging him on, who were the people that really push this entire plan of violence. And obviously, Steve Bannon comes to light as the first person on the list.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ACKERMAN: I mean, he was in charge of the war room at the Warwick Hotel. This is where all of the people who were really not government employees, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, his chief investigator, all of these people were centered around there, none of them government employees, none of them were like, Matthew Pottinger who got up and said, I took my oath very seriously to defend the Constitution. None of these people took an oath.

These were all ne'er-do-wells, people who are just around Donald Trump and basically doing his bidding. So the fact that one of the chief architects of January 6 was convicted today on this these two charges, I think it's extremely significant.

BLACKWELL: And we've learned that there were those two calls between Steve Bannon and former President Trump just before on his War Room podcast, he said, "All hell will break loose tomorrow." And that's what the Committee wanted to know what he knew leading up to that statement.

ACKERMAN: But even further, we have the other little bits of detail that came out during the course of the hearings.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ACKERMAN: One; that there was a telephone call from the chief of staff of Donald Trump to Roger Stone. Now, what was that about? We don't know who is who was talking to whom, but we know Roger Stone was also at the Warwick Hotel. We also know that he was asked - the chief of staff was asked to actually go to the Warwick Hotel and it took someone like Cassidy Hutchinson to say, look, you shouldn't be going there, and he still went by phone. So we don't know what was said there. But there is a whole bunch of

tantalizing little details that came out in the course of that hearing ...

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ACKERMAN: ... that make you wonder what was going on at the Warwick Hotel.

CAMEROTA: But Elie, does this make it harder for the Committee to get the information that they were seeking from Steve Bannon or easier? I mean, the reason, just to remind everybody, that he was just found guilty is because he didn't hand over documents that he didn't show up, though, he was subpoenaed. So will they ever get to see the information that they wanted now that he's been convicted?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So it's important to know, this is about punishment. This is not about forcing somebody to testify.

[15:05:00]

Steve Bannon will not testify unless he just has a unilateral change of heart. Now, this is a really important win for DOJ and for Congress, but it's a qualified within. And here's why, Steve Bannon is being punished now because he defied a congressional subpoena, DOJ charged him, they got their conviction, that's the win.

But there's still a bit of a mixed message here. Because remember, DOJ chose not to charge Mark Meadows, they chose not to charge Dan Scavino. So Steve Bannon is going to federal prison for at least 30 days unless he wins on appeal and I give him next to no chance of winning on appeal, while Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino did the same thing: They defied the subpoena. They provided no evidence. They left some of the gaps in the evidence that Nick was talking about and they are walking scot free, but better that somebody is held accountable than nobody.

BLACKWELL: Sara, let me come back out to you. It was a last-ditch effort, some viewed it as a way to avoid this trial by telling the Committee I will participate, I will cooperate. Does this conviction preclude any future participation with that committee now?

MURRAY: I think that one of the issues always around this case is that agreeing to testify was never going to solve his criminal contempt of Congress charges. We heard from the prosecution today, give me a break, why is he suddenly making this offer in the days leading right up to his trial. Prosecutor sort of cast this as an insincere effort and said he hasn't even started handing over documents, which is one of the things he's now been found guilty of, so they saw sort of saw it as a ploy.

If you're Steve Bannon at this point and you are now convicted of these two counts, you sort of wonder: What is the impetus at this point to be at all helpful to the Committee? The reality is, they may never get the information that they were seeking from Steve Bannon. And I think the Willard Hotel conversation you were just having is a good example of that.

The Committee made clear that one of the things that they wanted to hear from Steve Bannon is what was going on in this sort of war room that he and others were participating in at the Willard Hotel and we have heard very little of that in these public hearings from the January 6 Committee.

BLACKWELL: All right. Sara, stay with us, Nick Ackerman, Elie Honig as well.

CAMEROTA: Okay. So the war between former President Trump and former Vice President Pence is getting tested in Arizona today. Former allies are holding dueling events endorsing rival GOP candidates for governor. This is largely being seen as a potential preview of a 2024 presidential showdown.

BLACKWELL: Proxy battle is unfolding just as the hostility between these two former allies was broadcast in primetime for millions to watch. The January 6 Committee presented new testimony about the former president's deep grievances toward Mike Pence for performing his lawful constitutional duty and certifying the 2020 election.

We learned last night that Trump's last words on January 6, before heading into the White House residence were: "Mike Pence let me down." Last night, the January 6 Committee presented witness testimony describing how Trump watch TV for hours as the violent assault on the Capitol continued. The Committee's Republican vice chair said that the dam has begun to break as more pieces of the puzzle are falling into place and new witnesses are stepping forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Can a president who is willing to make the choices, Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th, ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay. With us now to discuss everything we learned is Juliette Kayyem, a CNN National Security Analyst. We also have Margaret Talev. She's our CNN Political Analyst and a Managing Editor for Axios. Nick Ackerman and Elie Honig are still with us.

Juliette, let me start with you. So what changed in our understanding after last night's hearing?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think the most significant takeaway, at least the new evidence was the audio tapes of the Secret Service with Vice President Pence. That was - we had never heard those and the fear that you could hear in the Secret Service agents in terms of what are you going to do to protect - what are we going to do to protect the vice president, where is the crowd, I think was reflective of a larger narrative that Cheney and the Committee were trying to show, which was this was very, very close and Donald Trump cannot get close again. In other words, this is how bad it was. And just one take away from that is the - how untenable the situation

was for the Secret Service on that day that Trump's failure to act meant that Vice President Pence was very, very vulnerable. And the Secret Service essentially didn't know what to do, it sounded like, because they know that the crowd is pro-Trump. And I think, it's just a reminder of just how scary that day was, which we tend to forget through all the legal and political analysis.

BLACKWELL: Margaret, Kaitlan Collins' reporting is that Republicans in Washington are shocked by what they learned during the hearing last night.

[15:10:02]

Any indication that there will be some names attached to that and if there will be any shift in affront to what the president has done and is continuing to do, former president?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Victor, I don't know. There's been so much shocking information so far. It's sort of shocking that the revelations would be shocking to some of the people who had some of that inside knowledge, but I do think that the revelations about some of those outtakes that we saw where the former president was not willing to use words like illegal or to say that the election had been one that this really do go to state of mind and we have some new reporting today, Axios' Jonathan Swan, about a profound plan that's in the works if Donald Trump were to be reelected and to become president again.

And I think when you look at that state of mind, the idea that he's saying in those outtakes, I'm not going to concede, that I haven't won, it gets to this - the potential that if he were to return to power, he would actually be thinking ahead with a number of plans that could be quickly implemented that go to these ideas like maximum executive power, the potential for revenge, the potential for politicization.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, I'm so glad you brought that up, because I found that reporting in Axios from Jonathan Swan important, very important for all voters to hear and chilling. And so I just want to read a portion of that right now for everyone.

"Former President Trump's top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is reelected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his 'America First' ideology. The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the EPA or the IRS. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department, including the FBI, and reaching into National Security, Intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon."

Nick, this is what is being planned right now. This is because the President Trump wants to run again and this is what it would look like in the country. I think it's important for people to know that.

ACKERMAN: Absolutely. I mean, this should be publicized. People should know what they're going to be getting if they nominate Donald Trump to the President and he wins, which is why I think it's all the more important to bring him to justice on the evidence that they have. I mean, it's pretty clear to me, at least on the federal side, that they have got the makings or the beginning of a case that has to be investigated and put before a grand jury.

One of the things that's not being said is that the Committee has not used its immunity power. And as far as we know, the Department of Justice hasn't used its immunity power. Somebody has got to make some judgments with respect to the people in that Warwick Hotel war room as to who is the most likely person who's going to sing if he's granted immunity.

BLACKWELL: Elie ...

ACKERMAN: There's tools out there that they can use to put more evidence together and put more pressure and to come up with a prosecutable case on Donald Trump.

BLACKWELL: Elie, what do you tell the people who watched both impeachment hearings, who learned about the Mueller report, watched the hearings, the long list of elements surrounding this former president who are skeptical that these hearings will be consequential for him?

HONIG: I think there is a deep feeling of a need for some consequences for the actions that we've been hearing about. This is at a minimum of wild abuse of power, traitorous acts by Donald Trump. And I think a lot of people are asking the question you just asked, Victor, what's going to come of this.

Because we went through the Mueller report, the Mueller investigation, which reached a prosecutorially (ph) unsatisfying conclusion, in part because Robert Mueller pulled these punches in part because Bill Barr and Donald Trump's DOJ fixed it for him. What is Merrick Garland going to do now, I think Nick raises a good question about the political impetus, but also just the legal and moral impetus that now sits with Merrick Garland.

So Victor, I think that's part of the reason people are so riveted by this because the story is so compelling, but what we don't yet have a satisfactory answer to is what are the consequences?

BLACKWELL: All right. Elie, Nick, Margaret, Juliette, thank you all.

CAMEROTA: Former President Donald Trump and his Vice President Mike Pence are holding dueling events in Arizona. What this means for the future of the GOP ahead.

BLACKWELL: And any moment now the White House will give you an update on how the President is doing on day two of his Coronavirus diagnosis. We'll bring that to you live when it happens.

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[15:19:01] CAMEROTA: Once allies, now potential 2024 rivals, former President

Trump and former Vice President Pence are holding dueling events in Arizona today. They are supporting rival candidates with opposing viewpoints, particularly when it comes to the 2020 election.

At this hour, Mike Pence is in Peoria with Karrin Taylor Robson, that's the GOP establishment favorite for government. Later today, Donald Trump will hold his second rally in Arizona this year. Tonight's will be in Prescott Valley. This is in support of Kari Lake and what he describes as the entire Arizona Trump ticket.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Michael Warren is following this for us today. Tell us more about these candidates and why the former president and former vice president in a split?

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: Sure. You mentioned the Trump ticket and Kari Lake really sits at the top of that slate. She has embraced Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election and has made them really a central part of her campaign for governor.

Now, that's a message that's going to appeal to some, maybe a lot, of Republican primary voters.

[15:20:01]

But other leaders in the party are backing Karrin Taylor Robson, including outgoing term-limited governor, Doug Ducey. These Republicans say that Kari Lake is too extreme. She's too focused on the 2020 election and nominating her would really put at risk this seat in Arizona, which of course is a state that has been trending against Republicans and toward Democrats in the last two years.

BLACKWELL: Let's go Steve Bannon.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: ... working citizens of Washington, D.C. that had to take an entire week off to go through this, so they're thanks, well respect their decision. We may have lost the battle here today, but we're not going to lose this war, okay? David Schoen is going to talk here in a second about exactly what the jury heard, they came to their conclusion, right, about what was put on in the - in that courtroom.

David Schoen is going to talk to you about our appeals process. But listen, in the closing argument, the prosecutor missed one very important phrase, right. I stand with Trump and the Constitution, and I will never back off that ever.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This didn't seem like a misdemeanor from hell, Mr. Bannon, what happened?

BANNON: I thought it was pretty good hell.

DAVID SCHOEN, BANNON DEFENSE ATTORNEY: This is round one, that's what happened.

BANNON: Yes, stay tuned. SCHOEN: This is a bullet proof appeal. I - have you ever in another

case seen a judge six times say in the case that he thinks the standard for willfulness is wrong. He said it doesn't comport with modern jurisprudence. He said it doesn't comport with the standard or the traditional definition, but he said he feels his hands were bound by the - by a 1961 decision.

You will see this case reversed on appeal. You will see all of these resources, three federal prosecutors for FBI agents for misdemeanor are being wasted. You cannot find another crime in which misdemeanor or felony, in which a person is convicted without believing or knowing or having reason to believe he or she did anything wrong, that's the standard that was applied in this case.

The government said from the start, the standard they were urging on the court was Bannon subpoenaed and did Bannon show up, it doesn't matter his reasons. They won the case maybe in closing today. They lost their appeal in closing today. The overreaching by the government in this case has been extraordinary on every level.

But shame on this office of the United States Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice for how far it went in this case. They put forward an argument today that completely tears asunder constitutional principle of separation of powers. They argued to the jury today that when a person gets a subpoena and executive privilege is invoked, it's for Congress to decide whether the executive privilege is valid, and how broad it is. That's absolutely false.

The courts have - there's a question, whether the question is judicial in court. But if it is, only the courts can be the arbiter. They likened today Congress to a referee on a playground field with children and Mr. Bannon didn't want to listen to the referee. That's not how our constitutional structure works.

Whether one believes executive privilege was properly invoked here, was valid, how broad it was, et cetera, when a former president or a current president invokes executive privilege, it's presumptively valid, period. It's not for Congress to decide that is not valid.

Secondly, from the willfulness standard that the judge felt compelled to apply in this case, in which he said he's inclined to think is wrong, again, all they had to prove was that he didn't show up. That can't be the standard in a case, especially in a case that holds the potential for a jail sentence, so think about it.

Any citizen gets a subpoena from Congress hires an experienced lawyer, the lawyer tells that citizen, you may not comply, not we ought to think about it. Former President invoked executive privilege, you may not comply. Again, you can debate whether he could have complied, in part or in full. He listened to his lawyer. It's not an intuitive process.

His lawyer directed him he may not apply. The Justice Department decisions, as we've said in the past, their official position has been in the past that former and current executive branch employees when they're served with a subpoena, and executive privilege is invoked cannot be compelled to appear and in any event that this statute cannot be applied against them. There are issues for appeal in this case that are astounding.

BANNON: By the way, by the way, by the way, the only ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You argued (inaudible) ...

BANNON: ... hang on, I want to thank the jury for what the effort they did, the judge, particularly the court administration here, everybody. I only have one disappointment and that is the gutless members of that show trial committee, the J6 committee didn't have the guts to come down here and testify in open court. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does this embolden the member - Mr. Bannon, does this emboldened the Committee?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your understanding of where the two-motion is?

CAMEROTA: All right. You've been watching Steve Bannon there after his guilty verdict. He was there with his defense attorney who laid out the case for why they are going to appeal. Back with us is Sara Murray and Elie Honig. Elie, your take on everything you just heard from David Schoen, the defense attorney there.

[15:25:04]

HONIG: Well, first of all, I was surprised for a while that Steve Bannon didn't seem to do that much damage to himself with those statements. I mean, he thanked the jury, he thanked the judge, he thanked the court administration, that's all smart thing to do. Because remember, he's going to get sentenced three months from now and the judge is looking at and thinking about these kinds of things. His little tantrum at the end about the show trial on the January 6 Committee and they didn't have the guts, that's not going to help him. That's not the kind of thing that will help him when it comes time for sentencing.

With regard to the appeal, the lawyer is, of course, correct. He absolutely has the right to appeal. He will appeal. Virtually every defendant who gets convicted does appeal. People do win appeal sometimes, defendants. It's rare. It's hard to put in (inaudible) ...

CAMEROTA: But their argument that executive - when executive privilege is invoked, it is presumptively in place.

HONIG: Yes. So the judge rejected that, the judge essentially kept the executive privilege out of this case, relying on precedent from the D.C. Circuit. Now, cases that are spot on point here are so rare and I'll tell you how rare they are. The last time we had a criminal contempt of Congress trial in the United States was 39 years ago, 1983. And by the way, that one ended in a not guilty verdict, so we didn't even have an appeal.

So yes, look, the lawyer Mr. Schoen was wrong when he said this is a bullet proof appeal for him. I mean, that is a vast overstatement. But we don't have this enormous body of law here. I think the judge - and by the way, I should note that the judge who presided over this trial was a 2019 nominee of Donald Trump, who clerked early in his career for Clarence Thomas. So he's not some 'liberal judge'. I think the judge's rulings were well founded and I think they will hold up on appeal, but we shall see.

BLACKWELL: Sara, back out to you, Mr. Schoen said that the prosecutor likely won this case on the closing argument, is it clear what he's talking about there?

MURRAY: They had a really distinct closing argument. They basically said this is a really simple case that Bannon needed to show up, he didn't show up. He acted like the rules didn't apply to him and then he made this last ditch effort to offer to testify, and they said, don't buy it, just don't buy it.

That was their closing argument. And the reason it was so simple is part of what is shown is complaining about there, there were a lot of defenses that Steve Bannon wanted to put forward that the court did not allow, that legal precedent does not allow you to use in these cases, that's part of what we have seen his attorney complaining about in the month leading up to that case, and I think that's what they're hoping is going to lay the groundwork for their appeal going forward.

CAMEROTA: Sara, we heard one reporter say, Mr. Bannon, this doesn't seem like the misdemeanor from hell case that you promised, what happened and referring to - I mean, which was funny, because obviously that was Steve Bannon on his podcast was full of bluster and swashbuckling and then we didn't hear - he didn't speak at his own trial.

MURRAY: Well, yes, I mean, it's kind of amazing how far from that it was. He said, we're going to go medieval on our enemies. This will be the misdemeanor from hell for Nancy Pelosi and Merrick Garland. This is actually probably a pretty good day for Nancy Pelosi and Merrick Garland to have him convicted on both counts. And yeah, he ultimately did not put forward a defense. He did not take the stand on his own behalf. They did not call any witnesses.

Their whole argument when the jury was not in the room was, we would like to put out a defense but the court won't let us argue the things that we want to argue. What we want is House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson in this room. We want him to testify and the court's not allowing that.

So there was, as always with Steve Bannon, a whole lot of bluster going into this. Certainly, it certainly was not the misdemeanor from hell at this point for Nancy Pelosi. I think that's fair to say.

BLACKWELL: All right. Sara Murray there at the courthouse. Elie Honig here with us, thank you very much.

Let's go back now to those dueling campaign events being held by Mike Pence and Donald Trump in Arizona. Mike Pence is speaking now. Let's now speak with the Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates. Thank you for being with me. So you've got Donald Trump who's endorsed Kari Lake and we've seen she's promoted that, it's been valuable for her. Does a Pence endorsement move votes for Karrin Taylor Robson.

BILL GATES, MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ SUPERVISOR: I think it's a very important endorsement in this race. Obviously, the former vice president has a lot of support within the Republican Party. And so I think it's going to - I think it's going to make a difference. But what's important here is we see a true sort of battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party that's going on right now in this governor's race and I'm happy to see that it's happening.

BLACKWELL: How tight is the fight there?

GATES: Very close. The polling is showing this is very close. Kari Lake has been in the lead. But now Karrin Robson is catching up.

[15:30:00]

And I think the endorsement of Gov. Ducey, the endorsement of Vice President Pence are making it even closer.