Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Special Counsel Files Revised Trump Indictment in Jan. 6 Case; New Jan. 6 Vide Reveals Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) Anger at Trump After Capitol Attack; Arlington National Cemetery Says, Incident Occurred With Trump's Team. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 28, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, you are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We begin this morning with a defiant special counsel and a furious former president. In a reworked January 6th indictment, federal prosecutors are making clear they are not backing down despite last month's Supreme Court ruling giving former presidents immunity from prosecution for official actions.

We will dig into the differences between this indictment and the original in moments, but the main points of the allegations remain, that Donald Trump attempted to defraud the government by obstructing the certification of the 2020 election and tried to strip voters of their rights. All four of the felony charges remain.

And in true Trump fashion, he took to Truth Social, his social media network to rant, calling the indictment an act of desperation and ridiculous and calling for the case to be immediately dismissed.

Joining me now, Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero and CNN Political Analyst Laura Barron-Lopez.

Katelyn, walk us through this because I mean it is slimmed down. There are some differences here and we should point them out. What do we know?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, so this is an indictment that still alleges Donald Trump committed four crimes, the same four crimes he was alleged to have committed year last year when they originally charged him. But in this version there's evidence that's removed so that it would not have to be presented to the jury, because the Justice Department has to follow what the Supreme Court said in protecting the presidency and giving some immunity.

So, the things that are cut out of these allegations, it's about 13 fewer pages, no more do we hear about Donald Trump talking to people in the Oval Office, hearing from intelligence officials and other officials that there wasn't fraud in the election that would allow him to win. That's not going to be able to be part of the case. And then the entirety of his conversations with Jeffrey Clark, who previously was a co-conspirator, no longer is here. He was a top Justice Department official.

All of that idea of trying to pressure the Justice Department, that's not there, but everything where Trump was a candidate and acting in the Justice Department's view as a personal entity and directing private lawyers around him to bring together fake electors to pressure for the vote, and even to pressure Mike Pence as president of the Senate. That's all still here.

ACOSTA: Yes. Carrie, what stands out to you in this new indictment? I mean, Katelyn points out that the Justice Department, it appears is trying very hard here to delineate. These are the personal investigations and I think that the political actions that the former president took that go outside of the actions of what would take place inside the office of the president.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right, the presidency, and that's what the immunity decision from the Supreme Court requires that it did. I think the key part is now this case is really whittled down to the pressure that was placed on the states, and so the indictment continues to go through state by state, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, state by state, all of the action that was directed there.

It does remove one unindicted co-conspirator, and so you just have these unindicted other lawyers who were assisting the former president in this area. And I continue to think, and I thought this from the beginning of the case, that one of the challenges in telling the story is that the special counsel chose not to indict the other individuals at the same time. A conspiracy has to be more than one person. He's got these unindicted co-conspirators. But I think it still does make the story harder to tell when you don't have the case that actually has those other conspirators named in the --

ACOSTA: So, Jeffrey Clark is not in this?

POLANTZ: No. But Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, those names, those are the unindicted co-conspirators that still exist here as private attorneys, as Carrie was saying.

ACOSTA: That's very important. And, Laura, Trump was on Truth Social going off on this, we can put this up on screen for our viewers, and the process appeared to accuse his own Department of Justice rigging this case against him. What do you make of what Trump is saying there?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's a pattern, right? This is Donald Trump's common line, which is whether or not he's in charge of the Justice Department, whether or not it's people that were appointed by him, which in that post he's saying that his own Justice Department that was run by people that he appointed rigged the 2020 election against him.

[10:05:10] ACOSTA: It's a little confusing.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes. But it's also what he has been saying even before the 2020 election, which was the whole thing was rigged.

And he's now laying the foundation again to say that the 2024 election is rigged. I mean, yesterday he was on Dr. Phil saying that he would win California, that he could totally win California. And the only reason he didn't win California in 2020 was because there were no fair counts of the vote. That's ludicrous.

ACOSTA: We're going to play some of that video in a little bit. Yes, and we should know, just the other day, Trump was acknowledging at a press event down by the border that he came up a little short in the 2020 election. But in this Truth Social post, he's continuing to say the election was rigged, which it wasn't.

But, Katelyn, what goes next?

POLANTZ: Well, this has to go through the courts, and there are two things that are very likely to be fought about very harshly by both the Justice Department and Trump's side that the trial courts will need to determine and then very likely appellate courts, even the Supreme Court one is how much of the conversations between Donald Trump and Mike Pence will be part of this case. The jury could hear, will Pence ultimately be able to be a witness? DOJ wants it. Clearly, he's still in this indictment.

The other thing really interestingly, Trump tweets where the just from it says those are part of the inspiration of violence part of this conspiracy.

ACOSTA: Will be wild, January 6th,

POLANTZ: Right. And when those are being sent by Donald Trump on his official platform, they are going to have to make the case that these are personal or campaign tweets and not tweets of the president.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Carrie, one of the things that I found interesting on all of this, and I do want to ask you about the Justice Department's 60-day rule and how it plays into all of this, but the way that Jack Smith was almost responding to the Supreme Court and the immunity decision. I mean, he there's almost a response from the special -- there is kind of a response from the special counsel to the Supreme Court in this.

CORDERO: Sure. Well, he had to. I mean, they had the Supreme Court decision. He had to carve down the indictment in some way.

I think one of the most important things here is that he took it to a new the grand jury, so individuals sitting on that grand jury who had not considered the prior indictment. And so he has this new group of individuals who now have endorsed this case and sent it forward.

On the 60-day rule, so that's the Justice Department policy that says that investigators are not supposed to take investigative action that would impact the election, we're coming up close on that. A superseding indictment is a major investigative step in this case. I think this case has a long road ahead of it. And that is --

ACOSTA: Not likely to take place, obviously, before the election.

CORDERO: Not going to take place before the election.

ACOSTA: Could we see a hearing though?

POLANTZ: Well, there is a hearing actually. And we're going to start talking about the timeline, but how much happens before the election is still a question.

ACOSTA: Might we see some new evidence come out? Might we see some new facts come out that --

POLANTZ: It's possible, but it's going to be very much up to the judge.

CORDERO: I think actually one of the most important things that is relevant in the timeline leading up to the election, though, is the deterrent effect that this case could still have because it's directed at the actions of individuals who were out in the states engaging in this activity. That potentially could impact people's decisions as we lead up to 2024 to not do that same thing, to not be involved in some way, both lawyers and people down on the ground who are working in elections who might be serving as electors to be very wary of engaging in this type of activity.

ACOSTA: Especially, yes, if this case continues to move forward, obviously. That's going to be hanging over this election.

And, Laura, I do want to ask you about this. I thought this was fascinating. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke yesterday about the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, and she does not hold back. Let's take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You were concerned about broad immunity?

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I was concerned about a system that appeared to. Provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Well, I mean, I do think it's extraordinary. You don't typically see Supreme Court justices giving interviews. I mean, obviously she's promoting a book and so on, but talking about a very recent, very controversial decision almost takes you inside what must have been a battle that was going on inside the high court over this very contentious case.

BARRON-LOPEZ: You know, it's very frank comments from her talking about the fact that she didn't agree with the fact that they rule that on official acts, the president has immunity. Because, you know, coming out of that ruling, a lot of questions from Democrats was like so telling your Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who was removed from this superseding indictment as unindicted co-conspirator, asking him to then take over the Justice Department and to overturn the will of the electorate.

[10:10:06]

That is something that I think clearly Justice Brown Jackson, as well as a number of Democrats think that should not be, you know, covered under immunity. And that's why you saw President Biden, as well as Kamala Harris, say that they will try to push forward legislation that would mean a president is not immune from official acts.

ACOSTA: Carrie, just moving forward, I mean, it is a reminder of how controversial the Supreme Court immunity decision was.

CORDERO: Well, it is. And it is notable that she made these comments in the context of there could potentially be more issues related to this particular case coming back before the court. And so that I think does make it a little bit of an unusual public statement.

ACOSTA: All right, very good. Katelyn, Carrie, Laura, thanks to all of you, I really appreciate it.

Just ahead, CNN has newly obtained video of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the hours after the January 6th attack in On the Capitol,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're done with Donald Trump. How does it feel?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I just feel sick what he did to the capital and to the country. He's got to pay a price for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Why it's being released now.

Plus, an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery, what we're learning about the incident involving the Trump campaign that is now sparking outrage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

ACOSTA: This morning, we're getting a fresh look at the January 6th attack through the eyes of the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Newly released footage filmed by Pelosi's daughter and obtained by CNN shows the former speaker's fury at former President Donald Trump and her determination to hold him accountable.

Here's Pelosi in the moments after President's President Biden's victory was certified in January 2021. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're done with Donald Trump. How does it feel?

PELOSI: I just feel sick what he did to the capital and to the country today. He's got to pay a price for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And later in a meeting with her staff, where she was blunt when describing the threat she felt Trump posed to the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: There's a domestic enemy in the White House. And let's not mince words about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: You see the smashed mirror in the office as she was speaking there.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty. Sunlen, this was a very candid look at Pelosi at a critical time in this country's history.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a raw, unfiltered moments, really showing the real time reaction of Speaker Pelosi in that moment while the Capitol was being attacked, and certainly a very striking moment was when she was weaving through the halls of the capital as she was being evacuated. She's talking to some of her staff. She's talking to some of the security officials around her, and she's really expressing a lot of anger and frustration about this moment questioning why security officials did not anticipate this moment of violence more and wondering why the National Guard was not being brought in.

Here's that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there, and we should have. This is ridiculous.

Why weren't the National Guard there to begin with?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They thought that they had sufficient resources.

PELOSI: No. It's not a question if -- they don't know. They clearly didn't know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more. Because it's stupid that we should be in a situation like this because they thought they had what? They thought these people would act civilized? They thought these people gave a damn?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And she went on to say shame on us.

Now, this was footage, Jim, that was shot by her daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, who was by her side during the insurrection. And we are seeing this now because HBO released the unaired footage to the House Committee Administration. Now, notably HBO, which is owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, a parent company of CNN, I should say, they released that because the committee requested it. This is not something they have seen before. And this committee, Republican-led now, they're looking into more of the what happened on January 6th and potentially trying to undermine what the January 6th Committee found in their final report.

ACOSTA: Very just dramatic and extraordinary footage. And what's amazing, Sunlen, is we're even though we're here three or four years later, almost, still learning new details about what took place that day.

Sunlen Serfaty, thank you very much.

A lot to discuss now with our panel, joining us now as former Obama campaign manager and CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina, and CNN Political Commentator and Republican Strategist Shermichael Singleton.

Jim, let me go to you first. What was your Take away from that footage that we saw from the former House speaker? It's just amazing footage.

JIM MESSINA, FORMER OBAMA 2012 CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Jim, it really is. And my reaction was kind of yours. I can't believe four years later, we're still talking about this and we're still learning new facts. And, you know, you have a GOP-led investigation, trying to downplay the president's role and what happened on January 6th and, you know, we just got to put politics aside here, learn the lessons.

There are lessons that everyone can learn on how to keep the capital safe and stop playing politics with January 6th.

ACOSTA: Yes. And Shermichael, I do want to shift gears a little bit and play some footage from an interview Trump did with Dr. Phil last night.

[10:20:01]

I mean, it has some relationship to what we were just talking about when it comes to January 6th. Let's talk about this on the other side. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I guarantee if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay? In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter, I do great with the Hispanics, great. I mean, at a level that no Republican has ever done.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: Yes, Shermichael. I mean, I guess the question that I have in all of this is, I mean, obviously that's ludicrous what he said there, but this notion that you can't trust the vote counters, that you can't trust election returns, you know, just the other day down at the border, he was acknowledging that he came up short in the 2020 election. Why can't he just stay away from this stuff that undermines the confidence in our elections? I mean, American elections are secure. As his own cyber security director said back in 2020, it was the most secure election in American history, but yet he keeps going on about this. And this idea that he somehow would win California, that just -- what world are we talking about here?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, I don't know the last Republican to have won the state of California. It's a pretty liberal-leaning state, Democratic bastion, if you will. And that's okay. Republicans don't need to win California in order to win the Electoral College.

ACOSTA: Reagan, I think.

SINGLETON: I think that's sort of a moot point. Yes, Reagan, yes, so what is that? I'm 34 now, so 30-plus years ago.

But with that said, Jim, I think it's important for the former president to focus on the messaging of the economy and immigration, to focus on drawing that contrast between himself and Vice President Harris. When you look at the polling data on January 6th, most American voters, Republicans, Democrats alike, do believe that individuals who participated should have been prosecuted, and they believe that justice should have been brought against those individuals. And so there's not really a lot of disagreement on that, with the exception of a small faction of the American people.

And so I think it's more important to focus on what's going to ultimately get this race across the finish line, what's going to be beneficial to those Republicans in those down ballot races.

ACOSTA: Yes. Jim, your thoughts on this? Because I do think as we're heading towards the November election that there is a danger and continuing to whip up these feelings about our elections. We're Americans. We do elections just fine in this country. And it keeps talking about this, to me, just in light of everything that's taken place, we're still learning about January 6th, it just strikes me as playing with fire.

MESSINA: Well, Jim, you got bipartisanship on your show right now, because I totally agree with Shermichael. Like if Donald Trump could make this a race of contrast, if he could talk about the issues, he'd be doing much better, but he can't. He just can't get off of this because he knows he lost. And in his world, loser is the biggest thing.

And it absolutely does rip our country apart. We cannot have 45 percent of Americans who believe their votes don't count. Like that's not unity. That's not democracy. And going forward, after Trump's gone, after all of this is gone, we need a country that's unified and believes in its systems. And the big damage Donald Trump is doing is not to himself, it's to the country and to the, it's a belief that this stuff is not real, because it really is, to your point, his own cybersecurity director said it was clear. Every one of the -- the courts who looked at these elections said they were fair.

But he continues to hammer away at this on the same Dr. Phil interview yesterday. He said mail-in balloting was a terrible idea and not safe. That's not true either. It's a damaging to his party because he does really well with mail-in balloting, but he continues to wail away on it because he can't just admit the truth, which is he lost that election and he is a loser.

ACOSTA: And, Shermichael, there are accusations this morning of a physical altercation at Arlington National Cemetery during Trump's visit there on Monday involving his team's use of photography. The Trump campaign says the families of the fallen soldiers approved this, but federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities at the military cemetery. Arlington has confirmed there was an incident and a report was filed.

I mean, I don't know if you've been to Arlington. I suppose you probably have. I've been to Arlington. I've relatives buried there. I mean, it is clear you just -- you follow the rules at Arlington because it is a sacred place. No ifs, ands or buts about it. But your thoughts on this?

SINGLETON: Yes. Look, it is a sacred place, but I wanted to look at the data to figure out where do veterans lie as it pertains to the former president. Where is that support number, if you will? And the most recent survey metrics I could find was some Pew Research studies that came out in 2019 that suggested 57 percent of all veterans thought that the former president at that time was doing an exceptional job as commander-in-chief.

[10:25:09]

And so while we talk about these things, Jim, what that number, at least suggest to me is that there is some level of a disconnect. Even when you look at his support with law enforcement, we talk about January 6, and yet the former president has overwhelming support from LEOs (ph). And so, again, I think the way we talk about this in the media context is a bit disconnected from individuals who fit into those two groups and their overall support for the former president.

I think by every metric that this is potentially his race to lose, Republicans are expected to regain the Senate, according to a RearClearPolitics average that just came out earlier this morning. And so I think the objective and the focus for most Republicans would be to advise the former president to stick to the things that are ultimately going to continue to shift this race in the favor of Republicans in the House and the Senate and obviously at the executive level.

ACOSTA: Jim, your thoughts?

MESSINA: Well, I thought it was a great way to dance around the point. Having been the White House deputy chief of staff, Arlington Cemetery, Jim, is as sacred place as you can get in the United States. No one, no party, no person should campaign there, full stop. It doesn't matter who supports you or who doesn't support you? Don't use our hollow grounds for politics, and that's what Donald Trump did yesterday, and it's wrong.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, if you were to allow campaigns to do politics at Arlington National Cemetery, it would be happening all the time. And when would it stop? And how do you control something like that? It just dishonors the wonderful people who are buried there. Jim --

SINGLETON: Jim --

ACOSTA: Yes, go ahead, Shermichael.

SINGLETON: Yes. I want to say quickly, like I don't necessarily disagree with Jim in terms of how sacred that hallowed ground is. The point that I was attempting to make for our viewers is the people who would be most offended by this are veterans, and yet a substantial number of them support the former president. And I think that's an important metric to put in context, as we have these sorts of conversations.

ACOSTA: All right. Jim and Shermichael, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. And make sure to tune in tomorrow night. CNN has the first sit- down interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz since launching their campaign. My colleague, Dana Bash, has that exclusive. It's coming up at 9:00 P.M. Eastern. Don't miss that tomorrow night here on CNN.

Coming up, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights organization wants the Justice Department to step in after raids across Texas for alleged voter fraud. The group's former president joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]