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Jan. 6 Committee Refers Trump to DOJ on 4 Criminal Charges; Chief Justice Pauses Title 42 as Its About to Expire; Lawmakers Race to Pass $1.7 Trillion Government Funding Bill. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 20, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Nice voices from some of the guys. Didn't know they had it in them.

[06:00:04]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Very funny. OK. That's an interesting spot. Thanks so much. Andy -- Andy Scholes with the Christmas spirit this morning.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.

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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again.

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there you go. All roads lead to Donald Trump, but will the former president be charged with a crime? That is the question.

Good morning, everyone. You see Kaitlan here, but you don't see Poppy Harlow.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: She's off.

LEMON: She's off. Lucky her. Kaitlan had a late night flight back to New York City. We were in D.C. yesterday because of the January 6th panel delivering blistering speeches during its final public meeting. We're going to break down the key takeaways and what happens next for the former president.

COLLINS: Also, the border is in limbo this morning after Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily froze a Trump-era border restriction in place, just hours before it was set to expire. Now waiting for the next move from the White House.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The soldiers told us we need to follow in their footsteps exactly, and we need to be very careful where we step. This whole island is littered with land mines.

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LEMON: So you recognize him. That is CNN's Will Ripley. Will is the first journalist to visit the infamous Snake Island, where Ukrainians told Russians, "Go 'F' yourself."

What our cameras captured. We're going to show you that. We're live in Odessa with this exclusive for you.

But we're going to begin with January 6th, the committee, dropping the mic on its last public hearing and putting the ball in the DOJ's court. Now, the congressional panel making history by recommending criminal charges against former President Donald Trump. They called it a road map to justice for the Capitol insurrection.

The question now is, will the special counsel, Jack Smith, follow it, toss it or take another route? The answer could have broad implications for the 2024 presidential race.

Let's begin now. CNN's senior legal affairs correspondent is Paula Reid, and she joins us now from Washington.

Paula, hello to you. You have new reporting on the special counsel. What can you tell us?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Don.

Well, as you know, special counsel Jack Smith, he's been working remotely from Europe since he was appointed to oversee multiple investigations related to former President Trump.

And a sources familiar with his plans tells CNN the special counsel will be back in the U.S. by early January. And he'll be facing a pile of criminal referrals, just announced by the January 6th Committee.

And as you saw, yesterday in their final hearing, they were really focused squarely on why they believe Smith should hold the former president criminally responsible for what happened on January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MI): We are prepared to share our final findings with you.

REID (voice-over): In a historic hearing, lawmakers on the January 6th Committee laid out why they believe the Justice Department should pursue at least four criminal charges against former President Trump.

REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): President Trump lit the flame. He poured gasoline on the fire and sat by in the White House dining room for hours, watching the fire burn. And today, he still continues to fan -- to fan those flames.

REID (voice-over): Lawmakers concluded there is evidence of obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; false statements to the federal government; and inciting or assisting an insurrection.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): The president's actions could certainly trigger other criminal violations.

REID (voice-over): The committee also released a summary of its final report Monday, describing in extensive detail how Trump tried to pressure anyone who wasn't willing to help him overturn his election defeat while knowing that many of his claims were not true.

The committee played previously unseen clips from interviews with top White House aides like Hope Hicks, who shared what happened when she challenged Trump on his election lies.

HOPE HICKS, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: I was becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging -- we were damaging his legacy. He said something along the lines of, Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose. So that won't matter. The only thing that matters is -- is winning.

REID (voice-over): The committee vice chairwoman believes these legal recommendations should also have political consequences.

CHENEY: No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. He is unfit for any office.

JOHN EASTMAN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: You know the old way --

REID (voice-over): In addition to Trump, lawmakers recommended his election attorney, John Eastman, on two counts: impeding an official proceeding and conspiring to defraud the United States.

[06:05:07]

He was the author of a two-page memo outlining what he said was a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of a presidential electoral count.

REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): John Eastman admitted in advance of the 2020 election that Mike Pence could not lawfully refuse to count official electoral votes, but he nevertheless devised a meritless proposal.

REID (voice-over): In a statement, Eastman's lawyer dismissed the referral as the product of an "absurdly partisan process."

The committee also made ethics referrals against four GOP lawmakers who refused to comply with subpoenas for this investigation.

RASKIN: We are now referring four members of Congress for appropriate sanction by the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas.

(END VIDEOTAPE) REID (voice-over): Trump's attorneys believe prosecutors would face an uphill battle in proving that he did not believe the election was stolen.

But yesterday, we saw lawmakers address that potential defense head-on by playing all those clips of top White House advisers telling Trump otherwise.

The lawmakers, they've made their case in the court of public opinion. And now it's up to the Justice Department whether it wants to bring this to a criminal court -- Don.

LEMON: Everybody's waiting to see what will happen next. Thank you, Paula Reid. Appreciate it.

COLLINS: And as Paula was noting there, one of the serious charges that the panel -- the committee recommended for Trump is insurrection. It might also, though, be the most difficult to prove.

The law itself says anyone who "incites, sets on foot, assists or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States, or the laws thereof, or aids in one," could face up to ten years in prison and, quote, "shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

But until now, in the Justice Department's 900-some criminal cases against U.S. Capitol rioters, not a single person has been brought up on insurrection charges. Instead, prosecutors have relied on laws related to violence, obstruction, and a few cases that you've seen of seditious conspiracy.

But with the committee set to release its full report in the coming days that could include tens of thousands of pages of transcripts, potentially hours of footage from the interviews with thousands of witnesses, it will obviously be up to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide what's next.

Joining us now to break down everything you saw yesterday is former assistant special Watergate special prosecutor Nick Akerman and chief CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller. Thank you both for being here.

Nick, I think you obviously have the historical perspective here, and I wonder what you thought of the final public hearing yesterday?

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: I thought it was an excellent summation of the evidence that they've come up with over the last year. They really dug into this deeply. They put together each of these schemes, all of the same object in the end, which was to stop the lawful transfer of power.

They showed through video clips. They showed through other testimony, basically, proof that Donald Trump was behind each and every one of those schemes.

This was not something that we saw with the Senate Select Committee in Watergate. I mean, that was really an investigation that started right from the get-go. They didn't really know what was there until they got testimony from witnesses. It was an investigation that unfolded in front of the public.

But here, you had a committee that was unified in terms of what it was doing. There were not any obstructionists on this committee. They put it together very succinctly. They put it together in an organized way.

And I think the public really knows what the proof is and what they have found over the course of time.

COLLINS: What about the Justice Department?

AKERMAN: Well, I think the Justice Department, we don't really know, because all of that is under the umbrella of grand jury secrecy.

I think it's pretty clear, though, that the Justice Department has a lot of this evidence. I mean, they had it before. And even the committee, in its summary report, acknowledges as much, that a lot of this, the Justice Department has learned either from them or through other sources.

And don't forget. The committee didn't uncover everything. I mean, there's some big gaping holes that they did not answer. One, you know, what was the connection between the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the White House?

I mean, we have some interesting tidbits that came up about Roger Stone, who was present at the time, Donald Trump's chief political ally. We have some interesting stuff about General Flynn, the former adviser to Donald Trump, who was present with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. But we don't know what the connection is. The committee didn't dig into that.

They didn't dig into what was going on at the war room, at the Willard Hotel, in terms of what were all of those miscreants and no-goodniks doing there.

LEMON: So then what are they waiting for -- so then that just won't be part of, officially, of -- if he is charged, none of that that you're saying?

[06:10:01

AKERMAN: Oh, of course it could be. Absolutely.

LEMON: OK.

AKERMAN: Because we don't know what the department knows.

We also -- they've got Pat Cipollone's testimony now. I mean, the committee was going up against the wall of executive privilege, but they've broken that wall, and so that's going to be very significant testimony.

LEMON: So you're saying that the American people, and we should not just rely on the information from yesterday, on the recommendation. There are other things that the president, that the DOJ will look at, other than what the committee may have?

AKERMAN: Absolutely.

LEMON: OK. Well, John, let's look at this. Obstruction of an official proceeding; defrauding the U.S. -- the United States; making false statements; assisting or aiding in insurrection.

Now, I am told -- I'm not a legal expert here -- that the one that is probably the most chargeable, if that's a thing, is obstructing an official proceeding and then the defrauding of the United States because of the fake elector scheme. Is that correct?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So the crux of the case is that they were trying to make the counting of the vote, the certification in Congress, not happen. That is purely obstructing, you know, in its purest sense --

LEMON: A proceeding, right.

MILLER: -- an official proceeding. So that's a solid charge.

But as Nick points out, you know, they're looking for, in this case, to compare it to -- I don't know -- an organized crime case. Who's that Sammy Gravano, who is the person who is high enough in the food chain within the White House, who can connect what the planning in the White House was, what the contacts with people outside were, and what led to the storming of the Capitol?

What's really interesting and which got very little attention in this discussion, because we're all focused on who's going to lock up the president, is that going to happen? What kind of historic moment are we in the middle of? Is the issue of the intelligence failure.

The committee's report says they had the intel from the FBI, from DHS, from Secret Service, from Jack Donohue's intel team at the Capitol Police. And they all got most of it right.

What was interesting is, who's in the feedback loop of that intel? It was not just going to law enforcement, but it was also going to the White House.

The missing link was none of that intel did or could have predicted that the sitting president of the United States was going to go out on the Ellipse that day and tell them, you know, You've got to fight like hell to save the country, followed by other speakers saying things like "trial by combat."

It's just very interesting that the White House wasn't feeding that intel back, because, of course, they knew what the president was going to do.

LEMON: If you're looking at this, say you're in New York City. Your expertise here, and a very similar thing happened at city hall. What do you think the outcome would be? Do you think the people who are saying, "fight like hell" and you know, all of the things that you just mentioned, do you think there would be charges? Do you think that -- how do you think that New York City would handle it on a local level?

MILLER: Well, that's -- it requires the same connective tissue.

LEMON: That's why I'm asking.

MILLER: It would still have to go into a grand jury. Somebody would have to say this was the plan, and this was who was behind it, and that it was a legitimate conspiracy.

LEMON: The reason I'm asking is because everyone says, Well -- you know, not everyone. The president's supporters say it is unheard of. It would be unheard of to charge a sitting president, and they are just targeting the current, at least the ex-president Donald Trump, because he is who he is.

MILLER: It certainly would be historic. But remember, we have history here, which is Donald Trump has been investigated three times, once before by a special counsel, my old boss at the FBI, Bob Mueller.

The difference, one stark difference in these cases, was that the guidance from the Department of Justice at the time was that it is not legal to charge a sitting president of the United States with a --

LEMON: He's not any more.

MILLER: -- with -- he's not a sitting president. So the game is a little different on his side.

COLLINS: I'm interested in what you said about the security failures, because when I was reading the executive summary yesterday, talking about Tony Ornato, who is obviously at the center of what we heard from Cassidy Hutchinson when she testified.

And it talked about how he came in, and he said he couldn't recall things like what she said about the Secret Service's incident. He talked about getting the intelligence that, of course, we now know that there were warnings about it, but not being sure what happened once it was passed on to Mark Meadows.

MILLER: Not sure. Not sure, after he heard it, whether or not he told anybody.

COLLINS: Yes.

MILLER: You know, Tony Ornato is not just your deputy chief of staff. He's a former special agent of the Secret Service, the former head of the presidential detail. So that's not the kind of training you get to not remember things.

LEMON: Final word here. What do you think happens? That's what everyone wants to know. What do you think? Is there a charge?

AKERMAN: I think Donald Trump is going to be indicted. He's going to be indicted in Georgia, and I think he's going to be indicted by the feds.

LEMON: All right.

AKERMAN: I think they've got the evidence. We don't know exactly what a lot of these cooperating witnesses are saying. And I think that you've got someone like Mark Meadows, who's probably the weak link. And if you're looking for the one witness, the most likely to turn, I would vote him the most likely to turn, as the guy who might put it all together.

LEMON: All right.

[06:15:00]

COLLINS: Thank you both.

LEMON: Thank you.

MILLER: Thank you.

COLLINS: Ahead, the January 6 Committee member, Congressman Adam Schiff, who you saw yesterday, is going to join us to talk about the historic session yesterday and what he thinks will happen next.

LEMON: Well, this morning, the controversial Trump-era immigration policy Title 42 is still in place, for now. That's because the Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, granted an -- a last-minute, I should say, request by a group of Republican-led states to extend the pandemic border restrictions.

Now he's giving the Biden administration until today to respond.

CNN's Ariane de Vogue joins me now.

Ariane, good morning to you. This was quite a surprise coming yesterday evening. What is behind Justice Roberts' ruling?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT: Right. Supreme Court is under the spotlight again.

Remember that this district court in November struck down this policy and gave a deadline until tomorrow. The Biden administration was OK with that, but it infuriated these Republican-led states. They raced in. They said, We want to become a part of this lawsuit, and we want this program to remain in place, pending appeal.

So here's what Roberts did. He basically put a temporary pause on that deadline, but it's really not a ruling on the merits. He basically just wanted to preserve the status quo to give the justices a little bit of breathing room, a little bit of time to digest all of this before they issue this important order.

COLLINS: And so the court asked the administration to respond by 5 p.m. today. Do you have an anticipation of what their response to be? Because we saw what Karine Jean-Pierre was saying yesterday during that briefing at the White House. DE VOGUE: Right. Well, the thing is, is that's a really quick

deadline. The Supreme Court knows it's got to move quickly.

But the Biden administration is likely to come in and say, Look, you cannot allow these states, that were never a part of this lawsuit in the first place, to come in at the -- at the last minute and ask to put everything on hold. They'll really appeal to the procedural aspect of that.

Because look, some of the justices, they may think, OK, this policy is all right. But they may really wonder if they should allow the states to come in at the last minute. That's what to look for, and we'll see it in briefs. They're due today at 5.

COLLINS: All right. Ariane de Vogue, we'll be watching closely. Thank you so much.

DE VOGUE: Thanks.

COLLINS: All right. CNN's Rosa Flores is live at the Southern border in Brownsville, Texas.

Rosa, what are you hearing from officials there who have been, you know, basically were bracing for this to lift. Now they've got this temporary freeze. What are they saying?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, officials here on the U.S. Southern border are breathing a sigh of relief, because they were, of course, very concerned about a potential spike and a very quick spike in migration.

But I also talked to migrants on the other side of the border, Kaitlan. And we have drone video of the camps that have gone up just yards from where I am on the other side of the border.

And I talked to three migrants who are there. And they say that they were joyous, that they were happy, that the reaction from these camps was one of joy.

Now, that sounds counterintuitive, of course, because Title 42 allows Border Patrol agents to swiftly return migrants to Mexico. But they say that the U.S. government has issued so many exceptions to Title 42. That's a humanitarian-type parole that allows migrants to go to ports of entry, a handful of them, like the ones you see behind me, and actually get processed.

And so they'd rather wait in line, wait in these camps to get one of those exceptions to Title 42.

And Kaitlan and Don, I've covered this before. I can tell you, the U.S. government has issued thousands of those exceptions to Title 42. And you can't have exceptions to Title 42 without Title 42.

LEMON: Interesting. You have been reporting, Rosa, that the changing demographics down at the border still complicate the Title 42 issue. What do you mean by that? FLORES: You know, Don, you're absolutely right. Because earlier this

year you just look at the data. The number of migrants, the surge was being driven by migrants from Central America, from Mexico.

And so Title 42 was a very effective tool for the U.S. government, because they were able to apply it and swiftly return those migrants back to Mexico.

Well, late in the summer, if you look at the data, the numbers show you this. The surge was driven by migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. And so those countries, Mexico wasn't taking them back; and the U.S. government has very frosty relationships with those countries, so they couldn't take them back.

And so that's why we saw back in October an extension to Title 42 to include Venezuelans. And that's when we started to see the camps built in Mexico, because Venezuelans knew that if they crossed the border, they could be returned very swiftly under Title 42.

COLLINS: Yes, Don. We're seeing the tension it's caused between the United States and Mexico.

Rosa Flores, thank you.

Ahead, we are going to be joined by Judge Richard Cortez of Hidalgo County, Texas. He asked President Biden to visit the border twice, something that Biden has not done. He'll tell us what he's seeing on the ground.

LEMON: Well, this morning, there is a race against the clock on Capitol Hill for lawmakers to pass a massive $1.7 trillion government funding bill.

[06:20:03]

The expectation is that a catastrophic shutdown will be avoided. But there is little room for error as government funding expires Friday at midnight.

CNN's Lauren Fox, live for us on Capitol Hill with more this morning.

Lauren, good morning. What is in the bill?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, this bill dropped in the middle of the night. This is, of course, an 11th-hour negotiation that yielded this result, $1.7 trillion in government spending.

This will keep the government funded through September of next year, and it includes some key provisions that lawmakers were fighting for, including the Electoral Count Act. That would really shore up the vice president's role as just a ceremonial one on a day like January 6th that we saw two years ago.

We also expect that this bill will include $45 billion in Ukraine aid, as well as $40 billion in supplemental funding for floods, fires and other natural disasters across the country.

There's really something in here for everyone, which is why leadership is very confident that they are going to be able to move this bill forward before the Christmas holiday, Don.

LEMON: So the list of states banning TikTok is growing. Now a ban is being included in the appropriations bill. Why are elected officials targeting TikTok?

FOX: Well, there's a lot of concern right now, Don, on Capitol Hill about the way that TikTok is being used on federal devices, and that is what this ban that is included in this appropriations bill will be.

This was pushed by Josh Hawley but also supported by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. These two lawmakers obviously don't usually see eye-to- eye, but it just shows you the diverse voices up here on Capitol Hill that were supportive of this.

And of course, this is the last vehicle, this huge funding bill, to move through Capitol Hill. So it's very, very important that anything that lawmakers want to include gets put in this bill. Because next year the dynamic on Capitol Hill is going to be very different, with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives.

LEMON: All right. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill this morning, thank you very much for that.

So he was the voice of the Oath Keepers and later a witness before the January 6th Committee. He's going to join us live on what he thinks about the referral for criminal charges against Trump.

Plus this --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Russian warship, go (BLEEP) yourself.

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COLLINS: It was one of the most iconic moments from Russia's invasion. Ahead, CNN's exclusive look at Snake Island. It's the first time journalists have actually been able to go there since that infamous radio exchange.

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COLLINS: A year and a half long investigation. The January 6th Committee is going to release its full report. Obviously, we got a look at it yesterday during that final public session on Capitol Hill.

The entire report is based on more than 1,000 interviews with witnesses. One person that they spoke to is a former spokesperson for the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers. Jason Van Tatenhove testified before the committee back in July. This is what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON VAN TATENHOVE, FORMER SPOKESMAN FOR OATH KEEPERS: I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths, and what it was going to be was an armed revolution. I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol.

This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: And Jason joins us now. Jason, thanks so much for being here this morning.

You had said that you wanted accountability here. Do you think you got it yesterday?

VAN TATENHOVE: I think we're certainly a -- a step forward in that. It still remains to be seen what the DOJ will do with the referrals, but I think, more than anything, we had a victory for -- for America. Even just within the public perception realm.

You know, with all the evidence laid out in such an easy-to-digest way, I think it's becoming harder and harder to keep perpetrating these lies.

COLLINS: Do you think, if the Justice Department doesn't heed what the committee has referred to them and doesn't actually charge Trump, does that still look like accountability to you?

VAN TATENHOVE: I mean, again, I think we're dealing in the realm of public perception, because that public perception goes on to inform voting, and it also goes on to inform policy. So I think it's a win either way.

COLLINS: You were a spokesman for the Oath Keepers. And we were just speaking with Nick Akerman about this, talking about how he doesn't feel that there was a sufficient connection drawn between the extremist groups and what happened that day and circling it back to former President Trump himself.

Do you think that that could have been a connection that was made in a stronger way to signify what that actually looked like?

VAN TATENHOVE: I don't know if they had the evidence to really connect that in a sound way.

Now, I personally believe that the Trump administration had been reaching out to right-wing militias, even back during his campaign days. But I don't know if it was done, necessarily, in a direct way. So I don't know how much evidence they would have been able to uncover that drew a clear line from "A" To "B" on that.

COLLINS: What does it signify. You talked about the -- what it signifies for -- for public perception of Trump himself. What does the summary of this report, the volumes of evidence we're expected to get when they release the full report, what does that mean for groups like the Oath Keepers? What kind of signal does it send to them, you think?

VAN TATENHOVE: I think it sends a signal that there will be accountability, because largely before this, this happening, there was no accountability.

You know, the Bundy ranch on, the leadership of these organizations had never been held to real legal account. They'd always gotten off fairly scot-free.

And it was, you know, the lower-level pawns, I would say, that -- that really paid any price, if any. That and the victims of -- of their actions.

So, you know, having leadership actually have to pay a debt to society based on their actions and their leadership, I think is -- is definitely a win. And I think it will have a -- a quieting effect to a certain degree. I think it will splinter things.

It remains to be seen kind of what will rise up in that power vacuum after people like Stewart Rhodes have been put into prison. But we'll just have to see how that goes.

COLLINS: Jason van Tatenhove, thank you for joining us this morning.

VAN TATENHOVE: Thank you.

COLLINS: Coming up --

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RIPLEY: -- off before the waves get too big and before the Russians know we're here.

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COLLINS: You're going to want to see this. CNN is getting the first visit to that infamous, that famous Black Sea island, Snake Island, where defiant Ukraine defenders stood up to the Russians. We'll tell you what Will Ripley saw. That's ahead.

LEMON: Plus, Republican Congressman-elect George Santos under fire following a report that's very interesting, questioning whether he lied to voters about his background and other things. The gaps in his resumes. We're going to talk about that next.

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