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Today, Ex-White House Counsel, His Ex-Deputy to Appear Before January 6 Grand Jury; U.S Economy Adds 315,000 Jobs in August, Unemployment Ticks Up to 3.7 Percent; Court Unseals Detailed Inventory From Mar-a-Lago Search. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 02, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour this Friday morning. I'm Jim Sciutto.

We are following new developments in multiple investigations targeting the former president, Donald Trump. Just minutes ago, former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone arrived at the U.S. District Court. There he is. He and his former deputy, Patrick Philbin, are expected to appear before a grand jury investigating the events surrounding the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Both men are key witnesses to Trump's actions in the last days of his presidency, including on January 6th.

And in Florida, a judge could rule at any time on the former president's request for a third party, a so-called special master, to review documents, including the classified ones seized from Mar-a- Lago. The judge also revealed she will release a more detailed inventory of documents taken during that search.

First, though, we do want to begin with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollon, his deputy, Patrick Philbin, appearing before a January 6 grand jury today.

CNN's Evan Perez is outside U.S. District Court in Washington, this, of course, separate from the investigation to the handling of classified documents. This relates to January 6th. How significant is the testimony of Cipollone and his deputy?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Jim, this is a very important testimony that we're going to get from the -- that the grand jury is going to get from Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin. These are obviously two men who are inside the White House counsel. They were in a lot of the meetings that the president was organizing, as he was trying to overturn the election. He was trying to find ways to remain in power.

And the importance of this grand jury is that this is the grand jury that is going beyond the 850 rioters who have been brought here and are facing charges for the violence that happened at the U.S. Capitol. This is the grand jury that is looking at -- directly at the higher level people, the people who are involved in organizing these so- called fake electors that were organizing in seven battleground states to try to find a way to keep Donald Trump in power by saying that he won those particular states. That's what this grand jury is overseeing.

A short while ago, we saw Tom Wondom, the prosecutor who is leading that team and that effort. So, this is the investigation that, you know, quietly, I think, has a lot of legal jeopardy -- presents a lot of legal jeopardy for the former president and some of his allies, Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question, big events in that courtroom behind you. Evan Perez, thanks so much.

Joining me now to discuss, Asha Rangappa, she's a former FBI special agent. Asha, good to have you back on.

ASHA RANGAPPA, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Yes. Good to be back.

SCIUTTO: So, let's begin with the DOJ investigation of January 6 here. And like the investigation into the handling of classified documents, you have the legal questions. Was a crime committed? Is there sufficient evidence of any of the political questions? Do you indict potentially a former sitting president to the country?

Regarding the DOJ criminal investigation, where does that stand in your view? And where does Cipollone's and Philbin's testimony fit into that broader probe?

RANGAPPA: Yes. So, these two lawyers are really critical for the January 6th probe because the way that Trump has been able to protect himself typically is by creating this cone of silence around him. And so it's very difficult to get to what he knew, when knew it, what he was doing. And we've seen that in a lot of the stone walling with the January 6th committee. So, Cipollone can really speak to that.

And we know from Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony that he was there. He was observing. And I'm sure we're going to talk about executive privilege several times in this segment, but there's a question of whether Cipollone might assert some claim of executive privilege. But in this context, it doesn't go very far. There is Supreme Court precedent in U.S. v. Nixon that the criminal justice process is able to pierce that veil particularly when the testimony or when the evidence will reveal criminal activity.

So, you know, we'll see how much -- I think this could really move the ball for the Department of Justice.

SCIUTTO: You bring up executive privilege there. That, of course, an issue of contention in the separate DOJ probe of the president's handling of highly classified information. And there was a notable moment that our reporter, Kara Scannell, from court yesterday, highlighted yesterday where the judge said in so many words, I'm not sure it is settled law that a former president does not have claims to executive privilege. How significant was that, in your view? RANGAPPA: I think it was really alarming given the context in which that claim is being made.

[10:05:00]

So, remember that executive privilege is about protecting communications concerning the core functions of the presidency from intrusion by other branches. So, this is a separation of powers principle. And what you have -- so, you know, in the January 6th context, there have been skirmishes about whether Congress can get some of these communications, or with U.S. v. Nixon, it was about the power of judiciary to subpoena this information.

What's happening at Mar-a-Lago is the executive branch is the one that is looking to review these documents that have been covered, recovered, and so it can't intrude upon itself. You can't make claim against the same branch. And I'll add, Jim, that, again, different than January 6th, I don't think they're really interested in the content of the communications. This is about illegal possession, right? It's just really about their presence at Mar-a-Lago.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Simplest terms, there's only one president at a time who can claim that privilege.

Final question, if I can. In the pantheon of Trump public statements, this one stood out yesterday, him openly offering or saying that he would look very, very seriously at full pardons, his words there, for those involved in the violent attack on the Capitol, violent attack on law enforcement on January 6th.

I asked Jennifer Rodgers this question last hour. In her view, she said, it's hard to look at it as anything other than witness tampering. How do you view those comments?

RANGAPPA: Yes. I think it definitely invokes the spirit of prohibitions against witness tampering and obstruction. You know, I'm not sure if that could actually be investigated or charged in that way, but that's essentially what he's doing.

And we've seen this movie before. We saw this in the Mueller probe, the dangling of the pardons. And that's when he was a sitting president. I call this the pre-presidential pardon dangling, which is both to give him a political benefit. But I think we should also be alarmed that if he wins, I have no doubt that he would follow through on that promise.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

RANGAPPA: And all of this work the Department of Justice has done -- I mean, think about this, hundreds of people that they have prosecuted to hold them accountable and potentially could walk free.

SCIUTTO: 800 have been charged, I believe, today for their involvement. Asha Rangappa, thanks so much.

RANGAPPA: Thank you. SCIUTTO: Well, President Biden will speak next hour on the rollout of his American rescue plan. This speech coming just hours after he gave a fiery address at Philadelphia's Independence Hall, in which he rebuked former President Trump as well as so-called MAGA Republicans who still support him. He calls them a threat to democracy.

This is happening as Trump publicly dangled pardons, as we mentioned, for the rioters who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th, brutally attacking law enforcement, not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger at the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots. And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Making a point there about this being a threat going forward.

For more on all this, I want to speak to CNN's John Harwood, also Gabby Orr.

John, if I could begin with you, the White House, the president is standing by this message, despite criticism even from his own party, that it went too far, too political. What are they saying?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, they are standing by the message that President Biden offered. Of course, it was a political speech in a midterm reelection year. The issues that he's talking about are inherently political.

But I think it's also important to say that the core point he made in that political speech about a threat to democracy is true. Now, that's something that's not easy for us, as journalists, to say. We're brought up to believe there're two different political parties with different points of view and we don't take sides in honest disagreements between them. But that's not what we're talking about. These are not honest disagreements.

The Republican Party right now is led by a dishonest demagogue. Many, many Republicans are rallying behind his lies about the 2020 election and other things as well. And a significant portion, or a sufficient portion of the constituency that they're leading attacked the Capitol on January 6th violently. By offering pardons or suggesting people for those people who violently attacked the Capitol, which you've been pointing out numerous times this morning, Donald Trump made Joe Biden's point for him. [10:10:10]

SCIUTTO: Gabby Orr, let's focus on those comments from the former president yesterday. And keep in mind, as we discuss this, that it was lawmakers of both parties who were threatened that day, lawmakers of both parties who were making calls, including the Republican leader, to the White House, to get him to call off these attackers. What did the former president say exactly yesterday?

GABBY ORR, CNN REPORTER: Well, in an appearance on a conservative radio show, he did call in yesterday and say that he's actually, quote, very favorably looking at full pardons for January 6 defendants if he decides to run for president in 2024 and is elected once again.

Now, he also said, and this is something new that we haven't heard before from the former president, that he is financially supporting January 6 defendants.

Jim, we don't know exactly what that means, whether that's money that has come from his various political committees and is going towards the legal fees for these defendants. We don't know the scope of that financial support. But he did acknowledge publicly for the first time that he's offering it. And he said at one point, you know, these -- some of the people that he's supporting are incredible. He described them as police officers, firemen, former military members.

And I just want to point out that while some of them are, in fact, retired police officers, one of those individuals, Thomas Webster, just hour before, we learned the former president's comments yesterday, was sentenced to ten years for using a flag pole as a weapon against other police officers when he stormed the Capitol on January 6.

So, again, former President Donald Trump acknowledging that he has met with these individuals, saying that they were in his office earlier this week, that he views them as incredible, and that he is financially supporting them to some extent as they navigate the legal implications of what they did on January 6.

SCIUTTO: Well, to your part, yes, there were former soldiers and former police officers and firemen in the ranks there, and several were charged, among those, hundreds that have been charged with crimes.

John Harwood, turning back to the president's speech last night, he did use part of the time to emphasize his progress during his administration, as he described it.

HARWOOD: He did. He touted some of the things that they have gotten done in Congress, gun safety, veterans' burn pit legislation, the bipartisan infrastructure plan. He invoked those in the service of making the point that there are Republicans who are -- and a significant number of Republicans who do reject what Donald Trump is talking about, who do reject violence, who want to work through the political process. And the reason it made that point is that all of those pieces of legislation required Republican cooperation. So, you had a significant chunk of Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Biden administration to make those things happen. So, he was trying to do both things at the same time, warn about Trump and what he calls the MAGA Republicans, the extremist Republicans, warn about the danger that they pose while also saying most Republicans may not share that view, and I can work with those people.

SCIUTTO: John Harwood, Gabby Orr, thanks so much to both of you for joining this morning.

Still to come this hour, we will speak with the labor secretary, Marty Walsh, the administration's reaction to the August jobs report, and what the slowing growth in jobs says in their view about the possibility of recession. That's next.

Also later, growing concern about how much the pandemic affected academics for American students. New research shows that math and reading scores plummeted. There is some hope that the return to in- person learning can help correct the drop-off but it's severe.

Also, we'll go live to Jackson, Mississippi, to the city's unprecedented water crisis. What's happening? Any relief in sight?

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: In the next hour, we will hear from President Biden about the August jobs report, as the labor market still growing but showing some signs of cooling. The U.S. economy added 315,000 jobs in August, slightly above economists' expectations, the pace of hiring slowed from the previous month. Job market, however, does remain strong historically, this amid ongoing concerns of a looming recession.

Joining me now to discuss it all, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Mr. Secretary, thanks for coming back today.

MARTY WALSH, LABOR SECRETARY: Thanks for having me, Jim, today.

SCIUTTO: So, you look at this figure, 315,000 jobs added, slower than the 528,000 added the previous month. Unemployment rate ticks up a bit. Are you beginning to see the economy slowing somewhat here?

WALSH: No, I wouldn't say that. I mean, first of all, last month's number was off the chart, great. I mean, I don't think -- you don't get many 500,000-plus job additions in the course of a month in the history of doing this. But the one number in this report that I'm very encouraged by is labor participation went up. And we saw that number go up, which means more people are looking for jobs and getting into the work force.

I hope that number continues to go up. And if the unemployment rate goes up a little bit because of that, that's okay because there are still many job openings in the United States of America. And we need to get more people back into work, back on the job sites all across this country. And I think that's a good sign and that shows that we're going to have good, hopefully, progress as we move forward in the fall and winter months here.

[10:20:01]

SCIUTTO: I know that there are a number of folks in the administration that are watching the numbers very closely, yourself included, for any signs of a recession, particularly as interest rates go up. When you joined me last night, you, as you are doing now, pointed to strong job gains. Have you seen any new data or indicators to show you or give you any concern about the direction of the economy?

WALSH: No, I haven't. And since I was on with you last month, you know, I've had meetings at the White House about cyber security and the need for 700,000 people working in that industry over the next five years. I had meetings about teaching and the need for more teachers in the teaching field, nurses, more nurses. So, there are plenty of jobs coming in the United States of America.

What we need to do is now make sure we're making investments in the workforce development training and apprenticeships as we move forward here. I think that I'm not -- as I've seen here today, I'm not concerned about a slowing economy when it comes to job creation. But what I want to do is make sure we're getting people prepared to getting some better paying jobs.

SCIUTTO: Now, the fact is the Fed chair, Powell, I mean, he said publicly, as he discussed rising interest rates, that there will be some pain, his words, on the horizon. A recent analysts from economists at RSM, they estimate that the fed's efforts to get inflation under control could cost somewhere from 2 million to 5 million jobs. That's significant. Do you share that concern? Do you disagree with the Fed chair?

WALSH: Well, you know, I have a wait-and-see approach to see how we're moving forward. The interesting piece here is I don't know if the Fed takes this into account, but we have 11 million job openings in the United States of America. We have 5, 5.5, 6 million people eligible for those jobs, that go into those jobs, everyone came back to the workforce. So, we have more jobs than people. So, I'm not sure how that dynamic plays as we move forward here if these job openings stand.

I think the -- I'm assuming the Fed is making assumption that companies are going to be laying off and letting people go and downsizing, but there're other jobs that people can access. And that's why I think it's important for us to make sure the workforce is prepared for other jobs.

SCIUTTO: I ask you regularly as well when we have the pleasure of having you on this broadcast about direction of inflation, and these are figures watched very closely as well. Inflation is still historically quite high, and perhaps the curve has flattened a bit but it's still high. Are you -- is the administration, seeing any concrete signs that inflation is going to begin trending downward?

WALSH: I don't think I can answer that question yet because like you and when the numbers come out, we look at the numbers and dissect the numbers, just like the jobs report. And, you know, at least I can say over the last several months here -- last two months, we've seen gas prices come down. We've seen some relief on inflation coming down. But I think it's too early to say that, you know, we're going to see it continue to go in a downward trajectory. I hope it does, and I hope that we're able to move through this.

The one thing I will say, we're in a very interesting economy. And this is unlike any other time in the history of the United States of America. So, it's very hard to judge what's happening today as compared to what happened in past recessions or past downturns because it's different factors for this reason, for inflation happening here in the United States and global inflation.

SCIUTTO: Secretary Marty Walsh, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

WALSH: Happy Labor Day.

SCIUTTO: We do have breaking news just in to CNN. A Florida judge has just unsealed a more detailed inventory of the documents, many of them classified, taken from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. There's a great deal to go through. I've got the documents right here in front of me.

CNN Correspondent Kara Scannell, also former Federal Prosecutor and CNN Legal Analyst Jennifer Rodgers joins us now.

Kara, you've been following this closely. You've had a chance to look at this. What's new here?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. So, what we're learning from this, we've got first the investigative report, which tells us that, in addition to this investigation, which we've known based on previous court filings, is related to the possession of government documents and also possible obstruction. They also tell us in this that they are looking into how these items were seized, including but not limited to the nature and manner in which they were stored as well as any evidence with respect to particular documents arriving of interest, they say that one for the investigation. And so now, we've got this inventory of several pages.

What's interesting to look at this, you look at, as an example, one box container that they say, within this container, there are confidential documents, there are documents with secret classification markings, there's also articles of clothing, gift ideas, a book, and other documents that are not classified. So, it shows the mix and the kind of haphazardness that these documents were maintained, certainly not what is expected of classified documents.

SCIUTTO: Yes, no greater care taken with a magazine than with top secret information.

SCANNELL: Exactly. And I've just been doing a quick tally here. I mean, I'm counting more than 5,000 pages of U.S. government documents without classification markings. We've already known that there have been a number -- several hundred that were classified over -- I think it was 320 or so.

[10:25:05]

But now we're seeing that he's had thousands of pages of government documents, and that's what this is about.

SCIUTTO: Okay, which could relate to government records separate from any government records that are classified, which still belong to the government.

SCANNELL: That's the exact point. And we were seeing now that this was not just like 300 pages of classified records he had but thousands of pages of government documents. And the whole issue here is the possession of these documents. The government saying he was not entitled to have any of this.

SCIUTTO: Jennifer -- and I'm going to let you, Kara, look, because there are a number of pages here that require attention. Jennifer, a couple of points there to highlight. First to that question, we're now learning that the investigation looks in not just retention of classified documents and U.S. defense information but the nature and manner in which they were stored, this on page two of the notice here. What potential law could be broken there?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jim, there are laws around how you properly keep classified documents. We've talked before about a SCIF, which is the proper way to keep them. And we've heard reporting about how they were kept at Mar-a-Lago, how when authorities went in there and they weren't allowed to actually look at the documents in the storage room but they said at least put an additional lock on it. So, you know, it's not just a matter of who has classified documents but how it's actually kept.

So, some of what the government is looking into is that issue, how these were kept. And anything kept at Mar-a-Lago would be improper if it's classified because there's no classified facility there. But the notion of this inventory explains how in a box would be unclassified information with different levels of classification, that's completely improper. Classified information as a whole has to be kept in specific ways. And then top secret has to be kept in a different way than just secret and so on. So, there're lots of protocols around this and all of it seems to have been broken.

SCIUTTO: No question. I had a top secret security clearance during my time in government. And in general practice, you never let those leave those secure rooms, known as SCIFs, let alone take them home and store them for a number of months.

I do want to ask you, Jennifer, about this other issue here because there is a law that governs presidential records or government records. It's the Presidential Records Act, which requires them to be handed over. They belong not to you, the president or former president, but the government.

What is the significance of learning not just the volume of classified material that the president held on after requests to return it, but also more than 5,000 page, by Kara's count, of other records without classified marking? In other words, do they have to be classified to be a legal problem under the Presidential Records Act?

RODGERS: The short answer is yes because there's no criminal enforcement mechanism for the Presidential Records Act. I mean, this is what NARA has been trying to do for a year-and-a-half, get these records back, but that doesn't mean that there's a chargeable criminal offense in relation to his improperly keeping them.

That all came about when NARA realized, upon obtaining those initial 15 or so boxes in January of this year, that there was a lot of classified information there, including national defense information, which, you know, doesn't necessarily have to be classified or vice versa. But that is what the criminal problem is, not the fact that he had records he wasn't entitled to.

Although that issue does go to things like, you know, is there jurisdiction for a special master? Is there any right to get these documents back from the government now? But as a criminal matter, it's not implicated if it's just a presidential record that's not in any way classified or a national defense information.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Okay. Jennifer, please stand by there because Kara and I have been going through this as best we can.

So, when you look at this full inventory here, you see 33 items. They're all boxes, basically. And in addition to the details here, the number of classified, confidential, top secret documents, how they're kept, right, along with articles of clothing, magazine covers, but where they were kept. Because I see that items one through -- I believe it's seven, were kept in an office. I think they're referring to the president's office there, and the other from storage rooms. It shows that this was in more than one location.

SCANNELL: Right. And which also gets to the heart of why the FBI executed this search warrant in the first place because they didn't get access to some of these areas. As Jennifer mentioned, they weren't able to look inside the storage boxes when they went in June.

So, we're really learning from this just kind of how haphazard these things were kept and just how -- the volume, really, the volume of boxes.

SCIUTTO: Just for folks at home and for myself as well, is this inventory of things that were collected in the search or the totality going back to things that were handed over in January?

[10:30:00]

SCANNELL: You know, that is a good question. I think that this is from the search because the full issue at play here is the special master.