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Soon: Zelenskyy Arrives at White House to Meet with Biden; January 6 Committee Begins Handing Over Evidence to DOJ; House Committee to Release Trump's Tax Returns Within Days. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 21, 2022 - 13:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Bankman-Fried is charged with eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy.

And Elon Musk says he will step down as Twitter's CEO, tweeting that he will resign, quote, as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job. Musk has said he would abide by the results of the Twitter poll he created. Some 17 million users voted and nearly 58 percent said he should quit.

Well, thanks for joining "INSIDE POLITICS."

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now.

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

One hour from now, a major show of support as President Biden welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House. The stakes, the symbolism of this wartime visit, you can't overstate it. This is Zelenskyy's first trip outside Ukraine since Russia invaded 300 days ago. Hours from now, he will also address Congress as lawmakers send billions more in aid to Ukraine.

President Biden has already promise a sophisticated new defense system for that country as Russia's assault enters a new critical winter phase.

Let's get right to CNN chief White House correspondent Phil Mattingly.

And, Phil, we're about to witness a big moment. Tell us more about the planning, the security that's in place and what to expect from this visit.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, things have been tightly held over the course of the last several days. It came together quickly. President Biden extending the invitation in ray phone call between the two presidents on December 11 at and ramping up over the course of the last seven or eight days to make this a possibly, the security concerns very obvious to everybody, the process as complicated as it can be. But as you noted President Zelenskyy is on the ground at joint Air

Force Base Andrews and in about an hour, we are going to see the symbolic. The president laying out the red carpet in a welcome for President Zelenskyy. About 30 minutes after that, it's the substance.

And I think there's no question about it when you talk to White House officials. The bilateral meeting and closed door meeting between the two presidents, between President Zelenskyy and U.S. top national security officials is extraordinarily important both for what it means and what that conversation entails about how things will progress going forward. But also about what President Biden will be announcing and that is a significant new expansion of the U.S. security assistance that would include a battery of Patriot missile defense systems plus munitions in total $1.8 billion in new security assistance.

This has been something they have pledged throughout the process. Today will underscore a commitment he has made clear is unequivocal and will not shift any time soon.

CABRERA: Okay, Phil Mattingly, thank you so much for that report.

And joining us now is former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, and chair of urban warfare studies at the Madison Policy Forum, retired Army Major John Spencer.

Great to have both of you here. Thank you.

Ambassador Volker, we are now 300 days into this war. President Zelenskyy will soon be walking the halls of the White House. Your thoughts on just the significance of this moment?

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, I think this is terrific. First off, if you remember back at the beginning of the phase of the conflict in February, people did not expect Ukraine to survive or to prevail. So for Zelenskyy to be here, to be visiting President Biden at the White House and to actually be pushing Russian forces out of his country is a terrific thing. Second it is important that Zelenskyy knows Ukraine is standing because of the help that the United States, the American people have given. He's grateful for that but also needs that to continue for Ukraine to prevail.

CABRERA: Major Spencer, what will you be watching for and listening for in the coming hours from both leaders?

MAJ. JOHN SPENCER (RET.0, URBAN WARFARE STUDIES CHAIR, MADISON POLICY FORUM: So I'm looking for what President Zelenskyy will actually say. I don't know if you saw him in Bakhmut, you know, in single digit, miles away from Russian mercenaries trying to kill him yesterday. I mean, he is a modern Winston Churchill with an iPhone. So, I'm interested in what he will say but also hoping that he will embolden our leadership to say and do bold things, to say that we will not allow Putin to be the architect of the 21st century and that we will help Ukraine win.

CABRERA: And so, I'll note, in Russia today, President Putin made a speech calling for Russia's improved readiness of nuclear units. Ambassador, what message is being sent to Russia through this visit and how do you expect Russia to react? Any concern about some kind of retaliation?

VOLKER: Well, first off I think it's an important message to Putin that Zelenskyy is able to travel, that he's welcome, that there is full U.S. support and backing for him and for Ukraine.

They will say the opposite. The Russians will say they're going to win. They have all the resources, they're in for the long haul but the reality is they're going to see with their own eyes that this is full U.S. and Western support for Ukraine, and there's no way they can prevail in the face of that.

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So that's the one thing. Now, you mentioned the nuclear weapon thing there. That is something we all need to keep an eye on. No one wants to see any nuclear use. I think the United States and several other countries have been very effective in warning Russia that a nuclear use would be a game changer and it would result in devastating consequences for the Russian military. So that's something I think they know and I think that we have to keep that warning on the table to make sure that the nuclear weapons are, in fact, never used.

CABRERA: At the top, Phil laid out for us some of what's included in the latest round of funding, this $2 billion in additional security assistance that will be provided to Ukraine and that includes the coveted Patriot missile systems, as well as precision bomb kits that convert the less sophisticated munitions into smart bombs to try to target those Russian defensive lines. Major Spencer, given the state of the war right now, how critical is this aid and is it enough?

SPENCER: So it's all critical, of course. And the Patriot is a state of the art air defense system but to be honest, it's about a month too late. Yes, it will be huge, it'll protect portions of Ukraine and the joint JDAM missiles will help.

But we really need to stop providing Ukraine just enough so that it doesn't lose and take this funding and the physical amounts are huge but it really matters on what we are giving, and we need to start giving Ukraine the things it's asking for to win, to reclaim its sovereign territory. Things like tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles like I commanded in combat. Planes, everything it needs to retake land that is occupied by Russia, Ukrainian land.

CABRERA: We know the Biden administration has been cautious in what it's provided to Ukraine so as to not escalate the conflict further, I do wonder, Major Spencer, this is Zelenskyy's first trip to anywhere outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded. How vulnerable is Ukraine right now without Zelenskyy there and how vulnerable is Zelenskyy given he's on the move?

SPENCER: Yeah, there's, of course, risk but that's one of the things why I'm in awe at president Zelenskyy's global leadership. He's accepting any risk to himself -- visiting the front line, coming to America.

Of course, Russia would love to take out that leader, that Winston Churchill level leader. But Ukraine's fight is more man Zelenskyy and killing Zelenskyy wouldn't change Ukraine's fight to be free. Ukraine is vulnerability right now. It is at a tipping point. It is struggling to push back Russia and the aid has been huge.

But you can't defeat Ukraine if it has the arsenal of democracy and that's what I'm looking for today. Send a signal that we will provide everything that it needs to defend and win. Putin can't be allowed to win or the entire world changes.

CABRERA: So far since the invasion, the U.S. has given nearly $20 billion in aid to Ukraine in the current spending bill on the table provides 45 billion more. Zelenskyy will address a joint meeting of Congress. Tonight, Republicans have signaled there's not going to be an open checkbook necessarily.

Ambassador Volker, are we closer to a semblance of an end to this war, do you think?

VOLKER: Well, first off, let's dive in on the money for a second because the administration's request was $38 billion to Congress for additional support for Ukraine and it was Congress on a bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats who increased that to $45 billion for Ukraine because they saw the rate at which we are using those resources already.

And I think it's appropriate that there not be a blank check for Ukraine and, in fact, there is not. There is a lot of accountability and transparency so I think that's the right role for Congress to provide oversight.

Now, as far as where we go, I think that we're in a phase right now that will last a few more months of Ukraine making incremental gains on the ground while it takes out Russian logistics and their ability to supply Russian forces in the field. That needs to be coupled with some additional equipment and our guest here mentioned that tanks, fighting vehicles and I would also longer range artillery shells, the full range of ATACMS artillery shells to knock out Russian supply chains. That will enable Ukraine to advance further on the ground and reclaim more of its territory.

And I think by the spring, you're going to see some very significant gains by Ukraine. While this happens, Russia is going to continue to pound Russian civilian infrastructure, trying to force the population into the dark and take away heat and water supplies.

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Ukrainians are incredibly resilient. They're going to suffer through this and they're going to continue to persist and push the Russians back militarily. Sometime next year I think that Russia is going to realize it cannot achieve its goals in Ukraine and that will cause some kind of reckoning inside Russia.

CABRERA: Final thought to you, Major Spencer, on what that end point may look like. How close we are?

SPENCER: Yeah, I mean, we can speed this up with our aid. This could go on for a long time if we continue to incrementally provide Ukraine arms. Putin will never change his mind. But Ukraine can take away his military capability in Ukraine by causing the Russian military to culminate in Ukraine and that has to be the known stated applauded goal.

CABRERA: Well, I appreciate both of you so much for your insights and expertise. Thanks for taking the time, Ambassador Kurt Volker and Major Kurt Spencer.

It's about to happen at the top of the hour. We will be guiding you throughout the visit as they're going to make a bilateral meeting followed by a press conference followed by the joint address to congress.

Now, the other major arrival in Washington today, the full January 6th committee report. The historic documents set to be released at any moment and hundreds of witness interview transcripts will follow according to the committee. It all adds up to a road map of at least four federal crimes where all roads lead to Donald Trump.

CNN's Sara Murray is at the Capitol. Also with us, legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers.

Good to have you here. What can we expect with this roll out?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we're obviously still waiting on the report to come out but expecting them to release this report today. It's eight chapters. There could be appendices that go along with it, and could start to see the transcripts. Hundreds of pages here we are going to be sifting through.

You know, the committee already made the big news about their criminal referrals but this lets us get into the meat of the underlying evidence and in particular lets us dig in a little bit more into some of the things the committee teased out, which is they believe there may have been obstruction of their investigation, some witness tampering when it came to their investigation so we're going to look for indications of that today -- Ana.

CABRERA: Jen, there has been debate over whether these reams of transcript also actually make things easier or harder for the DOJ, especially if there are discrepancies and witness testimony. How do you see it?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I don't know if it's going to be easy or harder but it's better for DOJ to have more information. I mean, listen, if there are challenges with some of the witnesses' inconsistent statements, inaccurate statements, DOJ needs to know that before they charge. So, more information is better for DOJ.

Now, defendants don't usually get to see all of the evidence at this stage before charging, so it could be a benefit to Trump and potential other defendants as they start to kind of craft how they're going to handle potential charges. But I think DOJ will be very happy to get all of this. They really do want to know what the committee has been working with these past months.

CABRERA: Do you think it'll expedite their investigation?

RODGERS: I do. I do. Because, you know, listen, they'll need to talk all of the potential witnesses themselves. They are getting to see witnesses that the committee didn't get to because of privileges that were asserted.

But, yes, more information is always better. I think that to the extent they can go and speak to a potential witness having seen a transcript of that witness' prior testimony, they can hone their questions and ask follow-ups so that's always going to be better.

CABRERA: Sara, this report will shed new light on new alleged obstruction we're learning from the committee's investigation including a story that CNN broke, which is Trump's former White House ethics lawyer allegedly instructed a witness to mislead the committee. What more are we learning?

MURRAY: That's right. The committee in their hearing and executive summary said that there was a witness who was instructed. We're learning that was Cassidy Hutchinson essentially to tell the committee she didn't recall things that she actually did. My colleagues learned the lawyer advising her was Stefan Passantino, who was a top ethics attorney in the Trump White House. This is obviously, you know, behavior that the committee views as potentially obstructive.

Passantino put out a statement saying he believes that he represented Hutchinson truthfully, ethically, honorably and she was truthful and cooperative with the committee. But we should note, you know, this is a lawyer she dropped before she appeared publicly and offered that bombshell testimony in that public hearing so obviously, Hutchinson had a lot of concerns about her representation in this process, Ana.

CABRERA: Is this witness tampering, jen, and what about these other obstruction accusations? Do they have legs?

RODGERS: Well, certainly DOJ will seriously consider any allegations from Congress that their investigation was obstructed.

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Those are the sorts of referrals DOJ takes seriously and look into. And sure, telling a witness to lie can definitely be obstruction of justice. It will just depend on what the proof is. You know, whether it's just a he said/she said, or if Cassidy Hutchinson memorialized this conversation somewhere, told people at the time what was said, that would strengthen the case and note for lawyers, of course, their ethical obligations not to tell your client to lie.

So, potentially, you could be talking about a criminal accusation but also a bar discipline matter. CABRERA: Jen Rogers and Sara Murray, thank you both very much. We'll

continue to wait for those documents to drop and report out as we learn new information from them, of course.

Bracing for another major document drop, I should say, or dump, I guess, Donald Trump's tax returns could be made public at any moment but we're already learning some key new details about how much he paid and didn't pay. We'll break it down for you.

And it officially starts today. Winter, a major want storm, life- threatening wind chills, nearly every state will feel it in some way. Things could get very ugly. Details ahead.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay right there.

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CABRERA: We're back.

In any moment now, six years' worth of Donald Trump's tax returns will be made public by Congress. A moment Trump has been trying to avoid for we know Trump paid zero in federal income tax in his final year as president.

We also know his income surged for two years when he was in office and know the required presidential audits of Trump's taxes didn't happen until 2019 after Democrats inquired about them.

Let's break this all done with CNN economics and political commentator, Catherine Rampell.

Catherine, based on what you've seen already, what big questions do you have as we wait to get our hands on all the returns?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that there are two main questions. One is, did Donald Trump cheat? And if so, how much? Some people might emphasize the how much piece of that question.

And the second question is why did the IRS seem to drop the ball on monitoring whether Donald Trump cheated age the answer to the first question whether the former president might have shirked on his tax obligation, there are a lot of red flags in these reports that have already been released by the two committees, including some suspicious charitable deductions, some loans to his children, might have been an attempt to disguise gift, things like that.

On the second set of questions about why did the IRS drop the ball, we don't know yet. The IRS policy is to audit the sitting president every year and there were plenty of red flags to audit this particular president. We don't know why then they decided to sit on their hands.

Was there -- were they just too intimidated? Was there some sort of political intervention? Was it disorganization? We just don't know. But those are the questions.

CABRERA: Should there be an investigation into why presidential audits weren't done in Trump's first two years in office?

RAMPELL: Yes, I think there should be. Again, the IRS' own manual says every year they will audit the president's tax returns. The president and actually the vice president's tax returns. This has been the case for many years. It has been a norm. It's not a law but it is their manual, within their manual because in part about suspicions about former President Nixon's own tax returns.

And so, as a result, the public has the right to know that the president is not acting as if he's above the law and that there's dysfunction in place that is supposed to make sure that the president is abiding by the law. The question is why wasn't it enforced? Again, the IRS' own policy and had plenty of reasons to enforce this policy, particularly strictly given the person who was sitting in the highest office.

CABRERA: Here's the bigger picture we're getting of Trump's finances in recent years from the initial report this committee gave us. He reports years of multimillion dollar losses and then his income jumps into 2018 and 2019 and he also paid over a million in federal income taxes those two years then in 2020 losses again and zero in taxes. What's the storytelling you?

RAMPELL: Well, I would love to know if those are real losses. If he actually lost money or if this was either an abuse of the tax code or maybe it's a legal use of the tax code, in fact, as there are many loopholes that apply specifically to real estate that maybe should be remedied, but it would be interesting to know what his actual finances look like.

I would love to know whenever these returns themselves come out some other details, for example, about where he's getting that money from. Whom does he owe money to? We may not have those details in the tax returns but possible that the IRS requested some documentation as part of their audit, their belated audit to figure out -- well, when he's deducting interest, for example, what are those loans for? What is that interest for? Who does he owe money to?

So, there's a lot of information I would love to see. Again, I don't know that we'll all be answered by the materials released. Some of it will be and some of it may give some insight into his business practices, some of it may give insight into what might have been influencing him while he was the leader of the free world.

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Where was he getting money from?

CABRERA: Right.

RAMPELL: Who was he in hock to?

Those are big questions we still don't know the answer to. CABRERA: And to that point, Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett indicated, even with all these tax information -- we saw those carts of documents that were taken in and out of that room, the picture of Trump's finances are still murky, and here's what Congressman Doggett said. Many questions about foreign entanglements and conflicts remain unanswered and unknown.

If that information isn't apparent in these, there they are in the boxes, where would that info be?

RAMPELL: Well, again, some of this the IRS would be trying to request from Trump or his tax representatives in the process of conducting these audits. So, for example, in the summary information that has been released so far, we see that Trump had some taxable income abroad. We don't know where that income was, you know, what it's from, for example, we don't know who -- we don't know what was generating this money for him.

That may not itself be in the tax documents. They may not be in the tax return but if the IRS in the process of auditing all of this requested documentation saying, where did you get this money from? What property was it based on or what other corporate endeavor did this come from? It might be in the IRS' own files.

But we also know, unfortunately, from this report that Trump's tax representatives were extremely difficult to deal with in the process of this audit such as it was and didn't hand over a lot of this material.

So you could imagine that if and when these audits are completed and they haven't been completed yet, IRS may be doing more of its due diligence to find out again where the money came from particularly if we're talking about foreign entanglements or whom he owes money to. Again, that would be the kind of things IRS could request. We don't know if they have or will be released, et cetera.

But there are still a lot of puzzles here about how this man's complicated financial, you know, endeavors worked and who he was getting money from and who he owed money to.

And, again, very basic questions that I wish we had known the answer to while he was in office and, unfortunately, we still don't know the answer to.

CABRERA: Well, it's important to have those answers for transparency and to understand how the system perhaps failed in this case or could do better moving forward.

Catherine Rampell, I appreciate all your time. Thank you. You really help to explain it when it's complicated, when we talk about tax issues.

Now to the monstrous storm that isn't just threatening holiday plans, it's threatening lives. When and where it's hitting, next.

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