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Trump Picks Pam Bondi for Attorney General After Gaetz Drops Out; Sources Say, Trump Considering Shakeup to FBI Leadership; Trump Critics Seek Legal Counsel Ahead of His Second Term. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 22, 2024 - 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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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: This hour, President elect Donald Trump taps another loyalist for attorney general, but is the trouble just beginning for some of his other picks?

Plus, organized and skilled groups targeting pro athletes, the warning this morning from the NFL and NBA to players after a string of home break-ins.

And the flakes are falling early in parts of North Carolina. We are live on one of the areas hit hard by Tropical Storm Helene as local business owners try to recover from their losses.

I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. Jim has the morning of. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

Matt Gaetz is out, now Pam Bondi is in. What a busy 24 hours. President-elect Trump moving on quickly and his push again the attorney general confirmed. The news sparking early praise from several Republican senators, one of whom notably saying that Bondi is not, in his words, quote, problematic.

CNNs Lauren Fox and Alayna Treene are here with us now. Alayna, I want to bring you in first to start with this. Look, Trump allies are relieved by this choice, but I mean, yesterday, shortly after Gaetz announced that he was withdrawing, Trump didn't really have a plan of who to replace him. Then by last night, he announced Pam Bondi. How did this all come together?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right. So, a few things. One is that I was told very early on after Gaetz had announced that he was withdrawing that Donald Trump is going to push all of his other cabinet picks to the side. He wanted to fight, figure out who his attorney new attorney general would be. Very quickly, Pam Bondi's name started to circulate. And then, of course, over just the course of a few hours is when he ultimately landed on her.

I'm told he did that for a few reasons. One, of course, they have a good relationship. They've known each other for years. She was previously in his White House, helped on his first impeachment trial. She also knows Susie Wiles very well from her time in Florida, obviously. But that was an important part of this, I'm told, as well.

And I'm also told that, I mean, it was very clear, people were telling Donald Trump this, but Trump's transition knew for days that Matt Gaetz was going to have a very difficult time getting those confirmation votes. They feel a lot more strongly that Pam Bondi will have an easier time going through this, and that was one of the key requirements, really.

But I do want to walk through some of Pam Bondi's background, because I do think that's important to note here, as she now has to face her own kind of potential issues with senators who will be involved in her confirmation process. One, she's -- of course, she was a prosecutor for 18 years, the former first actual female attorney general in Florida. She fought to overturn Obamacare and preserve the Florida gay marriage ban while she was attorney general. She also most recently joined the amicus brief to federal appeals court in support of Donald Trump in the classified documents case.

But I think the big thing with him and what we know about him, thinking that attorney general is going to be the most important role, the one that he is the most kind of obsessed with behind the scenes, is that he wants someone who will be a legal attack dog for him, but also someone who will be very loyal to him. And he believes that that is something that he will find in Pam Bondi.

Now, I want you to take a listen to some of what we have. I believe we have a mash-up of some of the things that she has said, because she's also been someone, Pam, who has really kind of repeated the election -- the false claims of election fraud in 2020.

BROWN: Let's take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are still on the ground in Pennsylvania. I'm here right now and we are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania.

We know that ballots have been dumped. There were ballots that were found early on. We've heard that people were receiving ballots that were dead, you know, the thing that's happening all over the country.

It is about the integrity of this election. And every vote, as Mayor Giuliani said, in every state must be counted fairly. We need to fix this.

We need to remedy this now because we've won Pennsylvania and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, you have it. I mean, she's someone -- Donald Trump loves this. He wants -- he's seen in her as well that she's a good defender of him on television, that she's someone that will repeatedly come out and back him up. And that's exactly what he's looking for in a new pick. BROWN: We know loyalty and being good on television, key criteria for Donald Trump and his picks.

[10:05:02]

When it comes to Matt Gaetz, Lauren, it's interesting because he resigned from Congress, but he was reelected. So, what does that mean? Could he be sworn in?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He resigned from the 118th Congress. Obviously, he was reelected to the 119th Congress. If he had become the attorney general, obviously, he would not be returning to Capitol Hill. But I think that's still an open question.

One thing, if you're Matt Gaetz, that you might be weighing in this moment, is if you return to Capitol Hill, what does that mean for the ethics report that has been established against you? And I think one of the questions is, if you leave Congress and you're not running for attorney general, you're just looking to live in private life, then I think the Ethics Committee's report is likely not going to see the light of day.

If you return to Capitol Hill, that does reignite it because the job of the House Ethics Committee is to police its own. And so that is something that Matt Gaetz is going to have to be weighing. But we don't have a clear answer right now on what his plans are, obviously, watching very closely.

BROWN: We certainly are. A lot has been transpiring. Thank you so much, Lauren Fox, Alayna Treene, we appreciate it.

And joining us now is CNN Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero and CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe.

I want to start with you. Andy. You know, Bondi, as just laid out, has been a Trump loyalist for years. She also has had a lot of experience in Florida as an attorney, the A.G. there and, you know, she does have a lot of experience in that way, and she knows Trump very well. She's also faced scrutiny more than a decade ago over a $25,000 political donation she received from Trump just days after her office that it was reviewing allegations against Trump University. A former formal investigation was never opened and Bondi was cleared of wrongdoing, we should note, but Trump had to pay a fine.

So, does this history between Trump and his new A.G., does it cause any concern or not?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I mean, I think it should rightly cause concern in drive interest on the part of the committee that will ultimately have to confirm or deny her appointment. I think, you know, no question, she has the minimum kind of standards in terms of what you would look for in terms of experience to be attorney general, prosecutorial experience and leadership experience as A.G. for the state of Florida. The questions about her decisions around them whether or not to join the lawsuit targeting Trump University and whether or not that payment had anything to do with that decision, I think that's really good, you know, subject matter for the Senate to focus on when they question her about her fitness for this job.

My bigger and broader concern for her is the sort of prejudgment and preconceived notions about the department that she may bring to the job. She said a lot of really questionable things about the department, about its work and about its prosecutors, not to mention the thing she said about denying the results of the 2020 election.

You know, if she gets confirmed and goes into that job with a legitimate interest in learning about the department, what they do, what the people are like who work there, despite the fact that you may have plans to make changes and do things differently, you know, she could have a productive experience as A.G. and do a good job for the people of this country.

If she goes in with the preconceived notion that everyone there is a deep state operative out to get her, it's going to be a very rocky road for her, for the department and ultimately a disservice to the American people.

BROWN: Right. I'm going to bring Carrie in on that, because, as he laid out, there are those questions, and I think you do have to keep an open mind, right? I mean, we need to hear from her, she's going to obviously go before the Senate and so forth. And so I think it's really important to hear what she has to say when she talks about her intention for the Department of Justice.

But also, you know, the bottom line is no matter who leads the Department of Justice, it's really Trump who's going to be doing a lot of, you know, the guiding, right? Because, I mean, he's made it very clear whoever runs that, he wants a loyalist and he wants someone who is going to do his bidding, right? I mean --

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I think with the intent to nominate Pam Bondi, what this does is it takes us more into what is a normal situation in terms of the Senate evaluating her for advice and consent. It will enable the conversation on her conversation -- on her confirmation, excuse me, to shift moreover to what her priorities will be at the Justice Department, what types of focus she will have, whether that's going to be the focus of the Trump administration on immigration enforcement, drug trafficking, whether she will continue enforcement on national security matters and the complex cyber security prosecutions that have been brought on foreign influence. So, it will be an opportunity for the Senate to hear those things from her.

It also, I think, an important question senators will be able to ask of her is whether or not she intends to keep in place the policy limiting contacts between the White House and the Department of Justice.

[10:10:03] So, over different administrations, bipartisan, there have been policies in place that limit how different people in the White House beneath the president can communicate with leadership and people in the Justice Department. And what that does is it's supposed to insulate the department from political interference in an investigation, whether those are criminal prosecutions, whether that's civil rights enforcement, whether that's national security matters.

And so she has a close relationship with the president. And so that would enable her, if she's confirmed, to keep -- to basically protect the department. This is what you would want an attorney general to do, is protect the department from political interference.

And so questions in her confirmation hearing that focus on how she is going to manage the relationship with the president and the relationship with the White House will give the Senate an opportunity to hear from her on that.

BROWN: And I think those are really important, valid questions to be asking. You know, we just heard Carrie layout sort of why there should be some independence from the Department of Justice and so it can remain insular from politics and that kind of thing, Andy. And on that note, I want to talk about the FBI, because we know that Trump has been interviewing people to replace direct array of the FBI, including Kash Patel and Mike Rogers and others. He's considering a serious shakeup to leadership there.

And I just want to take a step back to recognize how unusual this is, that he is looking to fire the FBI director that he put in place after he fired the previous FBI director, and why this is so unusual. I'd love for you to hear your insight on why that's so unusual, and why the FBI director typically has a ten-year term.

MCCABE: Sure. So, the ten-year term is really important. It's the thing that one of the things that makes the FBI totally different than every other government agency. There's only one political appointee in the FBI. It's the director. They're appointed to a ten-year term. And there are two reasons for that. One is it's thought to insulate the director from pressure from the White House.

Any director who serves ten years will quite naturally serve more than one presidential administration. So, it raises them up to a level of kind of neutrality that no other division head has. But it's also meant to protect the American people from the FBI director. In the aftermath of J. Edgar Hoover serving somewhat disgracefully for 40 years, you know, nobody wanted that to happen again.

So, that's where it comes from. Presidents of every stripe, Republican and Democrat, have acknowledged the importance of a consistent, stable, independent leadership in the FBI, and that -- really, that idea was shattered when Donald Trump fired James Comey. So, the idea that he's now going to come in and likely fire the person he replaced Jim Comey with is not surprising for Donald Trump, but it's quite surprising for the FBI. It's a sort of thing that really changes the nature of the organization and really changes the way that the employees think of themselves and their place in the Washington kind of bureaucracy and their independence. So, now we think about who he's going to put in that job.

And that question of independence is crucial. From my perspective, for instance, Mike Rogers is someone who would make a logical and reasonable FBI director, may not agree with him on everything, but he certainly has the background, the connection to the organization as a former FBI agent. He is someone deeply familiar with intelligence matters, has proven himself reliable and trustworthy in handling that material. So that's all good.

Kash Patel is kind of the polar opposite. He is someone who has little to no experience in an organization or a leadership position of any size, doesn't understand the organization, frequently says things that are maybe cute sound bites on podcasts but indicate that he doesn't really understand the mission and the organization and the people who work there. And someone who is by his own statements, professed himself to be interested in one thing, and that is tearing up and disrupting the current FBI, not a good thing for the people of this country to have that sort of chaos introduced into an organization that they depend up on for their safety.

BROWN: Quickly, Carrie, I'll give you --

CORDERO: Well, with respect to the deputy, typically, that position has gone to someone who has experience within the department is really managing the department on a day-to-day operational basis. So, there really -- you really need somebody in that deputy role who knows the organization, who understands investigations and actually is competent to lead the operational matters that the department has.

It's not a policy related role. It's not sort of a culture-forming role. It is focused on the operations of the department. It also -- first of all, Director Wray has served honorably. He has kept the FBI independent.

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He has focused on priority national security and criminal matters. So, there's no reason, given his ten-year term, that he should be removed from his position. There also potentially could be an opportunity for the president-elect to listen to whoever ends up his confirmed attorney general. There's no reason to think that a future Attorney General Pam Bondi wouldn't be able to work with Chris Wray in the FBI, and you want to have that functioning relationship between an FBI director and the attorney general.

BROWN: One thing that seems clear right now is that either Chris Wray will step aside himself before Trump has the opportunity to fire him or that he will be fired, I mean, the way that it's going right now. We're going to continue to watch this. But it's pretty extraordinary when you do that step back of how things are going.

Carrie Cordero, Andrew McCabe, thank you.

And coming up, many of Donald Trump's potential targets are lawyering up after Donald Trump promised retribution for his perceived enemies. We're going to speak to one attorney whose advice to those people is simple, time to take an international vacation. That's next.

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BROWN: President-elect Donald Trump made a lot of promises on the campaign trail, including revenge against his biggest critics. It's not quite clear what that will look like. And since his victory, he has been downplaying the threats. But several media figures, private sector professionals and even members of Congress say they are not taking any chances and are seeking out legal counsel to help prepare for Trump's second term in the White House.

Joining us now to discuss is national security attorney and co-founder of Whistleblower Aid, Mark Zaid. First of all, Mark, tell us about what you've been experiencing with people reaching out to your firm in the federal government and what their concerns are right now.

MARK ZAID, CO-FOUNDER, WHISTLEBLOWER AID: Sure. Good morning, Pamela. Thanks for having me. I've been receiving a lot of phone calls and messages from down in the weeds, federal employees who might've worked on Trump-related cases over the years, to senior officials within some of the federal agencies. And they're all concerned about the same thing, you know, the fulfillment of Donald Trump and his inner circle's promises, which he has said will be the sort of namesake of his second administration, the fulfillment of promises. And he's been doing it so far, right, from what we have seen from his tactics.

We don't know what that will look like come January 20th, but it would be foolish and irresponsible not to be prepared.

BROWN: When you say he's been doing it so far with his tactics, what do you mean by that?

ZAID: Well, the notion of everything you guys have been talking about who he's proposing for his cabinet. He's proposing those loyalists who are expected to follow along with what they have said over time. In your last segment, you just talked about who may come in as the FBI director, the deputy FBI director. Certainly, the deputy potential has been very explicit on promised retaliation against his enemies, including me, as a matter of fact,

BROWN: So, his allies, Trump and his allies, have been downplaying the rhetoric about, you know, this idea of retribution. Why don't you believe that? Why do you think that those are -- that's empty?

ZAID: Look, you know, who knows, right, when it comes to the Trump administration. I have to go by what they have promised, even if they're downplaying it now, to prepare properly for what might be coming. Will my clients, will you and your colleagues at CNN be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for disclosing national defense/classified information?

So, we're arranging for pro bono legal representation, lawyers who are willing to volunteer their time, both in the criminal sector, in the civil sector, in those who deal with the IRS for tax audits, for nonprofit organizations who may be facing loss of their nonprofit status under 501(c)(3), all of these things just for preparation.

Look, if they're downplaying is what manifests itself in the sense that nothing happens and they can rise above this retaliatory, you know, threats, fantastic, great. You know, it'll be -- another day is normal. But does anyone really expect that?

BROWN: What are you advising your clients who are concerned right now who are in the government?

ZAID: Well, most of them, there's not much we can do in advance, right? We have to see if he'll issue his Schedule F, which will make it easier for the executive branch to fire federal officials. There are, and I know this has been broadcast so much by the media, there's a small number of people who I have said, you know, if you can take time and go on vacation, go out of the country. Because he said that he wants to prosecute certain people.

Will that come to fruition? I don't know, but you know, better safe than sorry. But for the majority of people, we really just have to wait and see. Will he require loyalty oaths? How will he treat whistleblowers who will come to my organization at Whistleblower Aid? Will they be fired? Will they have their security clearances revoked, like he has threatened and J.D. Vance and others the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter in October 2020?

They have made it clear, including members of Congress, that they want those individuals' security clearances stripped away. The reality is most of them don't have clearances.

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But to say from a political standpoint that the exercise of a First Amendment right will lead to retaliation is a new and novel concept that we have not seen probably since the 1950s during the Red Scare.

BROWN: Have you heard from former service members who are concerned about being brought back in court-marshaled. I know that Trump has talked about that with General Milley. Steve Bannon said it recently just last week that's what he's pushing for for General Milley. And there's been, you know, stuff out there about others. What are you hearing?

ZAID: It is a serious concern. I know a number of the organizations that I work with, we have been looking at the use of the military for immigration enforcement, for law enforcement, bringing back individuals for court-martial or possible reduction in rank. That is an option to that can be exercised.

I've worked on cases over the years, usually because there was some significant, you know, criminal charges against these individuals, and there is a process to reduce and rank. I think that is a serious threat. You know, there is talk of creating a panel, a civilian panel, to assess at the three and four star level, whether or not those individuals should be terminated. It is, of course, the prerogative of the president of the United States as the commander-in-chief, Article 2 of the Constitution, to really exercise an amazing amount of power just hasn't been done before.

But the biggest concerns I have with this incoming administration is not the abuse of the law, in the sense of distorting it to something it never was intended to be, but it's the use of the existing law to a point beyond the norms of policy and practices that we've ever seen, such as prosecuting journalists under the Espionage Act. The law absolutely allows for it. The policy has always been not to pursue it.

BROWN: But he didn't --

ZAID: Come January 20th, we'll see.

BROWN: Just really quickly, because I know we have to go soon, but, you know, Trump allies would argue, look, all these threats, I mean, he didn't do this in his first term, right, a lot of what the concern is now. He didn't do it before. Why do you think he's going to do it now?

ZAID: Well, so in his first term, I represented several of his cabinet officers, many of the individuals who ended up writing books. And there were people in the first White House who would take documents off his desk so that he wouldn't see them and couldn't sign them. In this next administration, like some of the individuals you've talked about in your last segment and else other times, those individuals we expect will be bringing documents to his desk for him to sign, whether he reads them or not. It's the people who will be surrounding him that we have the biggest concern about, not just the cabinet members, who will be the deputies, the chiefs of staff, the general counsels. That will determine the fears or level of fear anyone should have come January 20th.

BROWN: Mark Zaid, thank you so much.

And coming up, pro athletes targeted in a string of home break-ins. Now, the FBI is getting involved.

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