Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Former President Trump Appears in Court for Arraignment on Charges of Possessing Classified Documents; Former President Trump Criticizes Documents Charges as Election Interference; Judge Presiding over Trump Documents Case Also Trump Appointee; Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

REP. TIM BURCHETT, (R-TN): -- has a reckless disregard for the handling of classified documents.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're a military guy. He allegedly had national security information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very problematic. That's the reason I am not defending it.

RAJU: Would you be OK with that? A convicted felon as your nominee?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd have to read the conviction. But no. Honestly, on the surface, I wouldn't. It doesn't look good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Really telling answers there that Manu got on Capitol Hill.

Good morning, everyone. We're glad you're with us. It is 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, bright and early, 5:00 a.m. on the west. And Donald Trump is now in the legal fight of his political life after being arrested on federal charges for allegedly mishandling and hiding classified documents. We are going to break down what happens next in this historic criminal probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This is called election interference, and it's a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or a communist nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: We'll also be fact-checking the long list of misleading and sometimes outright false claims the former president made during his speech last night after his arraignment.

HARLOW: Also, the lead manager of Trump's first impeachment, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff will join us live this hour to weigh in on those charges against the former president.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

Here is where we begin. Former President Trump quickly turning this historic arrest and arraignment on federal charges into a campaign fundraiser last night just hours after he turned himself in and pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts in Miami. He delivered a defiant speech to a crowd of donors and supporters at his golf club in New Jersey. It was full of misleading claims, false claims, including Trump's dubious argument that presidents are allowed to keep whatever documents they want when they leave office.

MATTINGLY: Federal prosecutors say Trump illegally kept classified documents with some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets, including details about America's nuclear program. Then he hid them from the FBI. He allegedly stored them haphazardly in places like a bathroom next to a toilet at Mar-a-Lago and showed them off to people who didn't have security clearance. The current president, President Joe Biden, has refused to comment on Trump's indictment and, as you might expect, did so again yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Would you comment on the arrest of the former president, sir?

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House. Now we have team coverage on all of these angles. Katelyn Polantz was inside the courtroom for that historic arraignment. Daniel Dale fact check Trump's claims in last night's speech. We have Elie Honig, Laura Coates, and John Miller standing by for expert analysis.

But we want to start with Katelyn Polantz outside the courthouse in Miami. And Katelyn, you have done such a great job of giving us color about what was happening in a courtroom that we couldn't see or have access to. Walk people through what you were able to see.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: I was able to see Donald Trump. I was able to see Jack Smith. And I was able to see the room, this intense room, this silent room that for 50 minutes when the judge was presiding had to walk through a lot of procedural things. But it was quite tense. There were many, many security people around Donald Trump. There were some members of the public able to witness this, but not many. Just a handful. And then the press, 20 or so, maybe 30 members of the press that were able to be in that room as well to witness the proceedings.

And whenever Trump was there, he seemed to be not in a great mood, honestly. He was slumped over for some of the proceedings. He is a really tall man. He is taller than both of his lawyers. But when he was seated, he often was -- sat down lower than both of the lawyers on either of his sides. There were other times where he had his arms crossed, just listening to the judge. He looked at the prosecutor a few times, but not really. I don't believe there was any eye contact that Trump ever made with Jack Smith, the special counsel, in that room.

But this proceeding, it was procedural but it really marked an important start to that case. The former president of the United States being placed on under arrest for these charges. And the beginnings of the proceedings that will head towards a trial. There was a judge that was doing this yesterday, a judge named Jonathan Goodman. He's a magistrate here in the Southern District of Florida. At the end of the proceeding, he said this is the end for me. It will go to others in this case, and that is indeed what will happen next.

Donald Trump's codefendant who was in the courtroom tomorrow, he is expected to be entering a plea of not guilty just like Trump did yesterday but at a later date once he gets a lawyer in Florida to help him with his case. That will be before a different judge. And then it's in the hands of Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal district judge, the lifetime appointee by Donald Trump himself. And Judge Cannon will be shepherding this toward a trial.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn, one of the hallmarks of CNN's great justice team, you, Evan Perez, Paula, a wide range of people who do great work, we talk to Sara Murray repeatedly, is that it is a team effort.

[08:05:02]

But our sources tell us that you had some pretty special help yesterday. Would you care to fill us in on that?

POLANTZ: Phil, your sources are correct. We had a team of high school students from the Miami area who actually were assisting with us getting the news out, because no one in the media by order of the judge was allowed to bring any electronics in. So we had no cellphones. We had no computers. And we were being held in a jury room for much of the day. And then when the proceedings began, I was able to physically go inside the courtroom itself, which there is no leaving. There is no talking to anyone. There is no electronics there. But the rest of our team, these high school students, Evan Perez, and then two of our additional reporters on the justice team, Tierney Sneed and Hannah Rabinowitz, they were in that room strategizing. Like "Settlers of Catan," they were trying to figure out how to get access to two working pay phones in that jury room to call the news out.

And so they designated one of the high school students to receive notes from them and call the only local number, one of the only local numbers they had because the phones only reached Miami numbers, to call into an editor who was able to then relay the news to the network, get news out as what was happening in the courtroom regularly as they were watching.

And another thing that was really wonderful about this was one of these high school students had a watch. No one else on the team had a watch inside the building. So we designated him father time.

HARLOW: Like a real -- like an old-school watch. Not one of the phone watches.

MATTINGLY: What I also love the effort you guys put in behind the scenes to actually make this stuff happen, get news out.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: I actually know that one of them spent the night before gathering quarters for the pay phone, only to find out that --

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: There's the rooster.

MATTINGLY: Also there is the rooster, which everybody had to contend with. It's not a fake sound effect. Kaitlan has been dealing with multiple roosters, rooster eye, over the course of the last couple of days. It doesn't take anything away from the significance or the history of the moment, but I think the dynamics and the logistics and the rooster underscore just how much the team put in, which we appreciate very much. This was the arraignment, and then we also had the speech.

HARLOW: Katelyn, thank you.

MATTINGLY: We appreciate it, and the team.

And we want do want to talk about what the former president is doing about the legal side but also and the political side, both of those. We want to bring in CNN reporter Daniel Dale to fact check some of the claims made by the former president last night when addressing the crowd at Bedminster. Daniel, Trump claimed that the Espionage Act shouldn't be applied in this case. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Charging a former president of the United States under the Espionage Act of 1917 wasn't meant for this.

(BOOS)

TRUMP: The Espionage Act has been used to go after traitors and spies. It has nothing to do with a former president legally keeping his own documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: All right, Daniel, there's the former president's contention. What are the facts?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Two big problems of fact here, Phil. First of all, these are not his own documents. They are the legal property of the federal government. Second of all, though, this idea that the Espionage Act is only meant for traitors and spies is just not true. Of course, there are provisions of the Espionage Act that target traitors and spies, but there's also the provision under which Trump and many people before him have been charged. It's known as 793-E, and it makes a crime to willfully retain national defense information and refuse to deliver it to the United States. Nothing in that provision requires you to be a spy, to do any classic espionage, to even deliver the information to anyone.

And as an example, you can go back and look at another indictment, the 2017 indictment of a former NSA contractor named Harold Martin. He was accused of taking a whole bunch of classified information and just keeping it in his car and his house. He was never accused in court of giving it to anyone, of being a spy. He was essentially portrayed as a kind of hoarder. He ended up pleading guilty. So not a spy. This provision was applied, and he was convicted and sentenced.

HARLOW: One other thing, Daniel, that is so interesting is that the former president made the point that instead of the Espionage Act, the law that should be applied here as a Presidential Records Act, which actually isn't part of the indictment. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in an American court of law.

As president, the law that applies to this case is not the Espionage Act, but very simply the Presidential Records Act, which is not even mentioned in this ridiculous 44-page indictment. Under the Presidential Records Act, which is civil, not criminal, I had every right to have these documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Putting aside the fact that that's not even in the indictment, if it were, does that -- does the theory absolve him of any of this?

[08:10:02]

DALE: It doesn't. The idea that the Presidential Records Act absolves Former President Trump here is upside down bizarro world stuff. That law, Poppy, is unequivocal. It says that all official records from a presidency are the property of the federal government, the National Archives, the moment that president leaves office. As one expert put it to me, the fact that former President Trump violated the Presidential Records Act does not prevent him from being charged for also allegedly violating another law.

There are two other problems of fact in that quote we just played. Number one, he is not actually being threatened with 400 years in prison. Federal sentencing does not work by adding up the maximum possible sentence for each crime. So that's not realistic. And second of all, it's just not true that just about every other president has done what he has done. No other president in the Presidential Records Act era, so starting with President Ronald Reagan, has done anything like take a trove of sensitive classified documents and refuse to give them back to the federal government when asked repeatedly to do so. HARLOW: Therein the willful retention allegation. Daniel Dale, thank

you. Your fact checks are gold. We appreciate them.

MATTINGLY: You can read more of Daniel Dale and Marshall Cohen's fact checks on CNN.com.

HARLOW: Let's being in our chief legal analyst Laura Coates, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, and CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

MATTINGLY: You may have seen John in the inception level before we introduced him jumping in on the rooster and the team thing. That was him.

HARLOW: That was John. The one and only.

MATTINGLY: He observes them. He knows who he is.

HARLOW: The one and only. So shall we start?

MILLER: We shall.

HARLOW: Where do you want to begin?

MILLER: I think we are at a very pivotal moment here because it's, -- it's an indictment, but it's the second indictment, and there is a third indictment that's supposed to be coming out of Georgia possibly if the grand jury so votes. But this is a pivotal moment because right now there is a player in here, which is Judge Cannon, who can exert a lot of control over this or a little control that can really influence it. If Judge Cannon decides to fast track this case, decisions on motions and so on, this is the kind of thing that can be defining in the series of cases. And that is interesting because of Judge Cannon's past with this case.

If -- and this has to happen at some point, which is the judge in Florida has to pick up the phone with the judge in New York state, and maybe later with a judge in Georgia and say, all right, we can't all proceed at once. So which is the case to go first? The difference between this case is, it comes with a possibility of significant jail time. The New York case, much less so. So, we're literally going to have to -- and I know he my colleagues are going to weigh in on Judge Cannon because she is actually not just a pivotal but controversial figure here.

HARLOW: Can you talk about why?

ELIE HONIG, SENIOR CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So Judge Cannon is going to have -- she's the judge. She is going to have a huge say. Here's why she's controversial, two things. One, she is a Trump nominee to the bench, 2020. She was actually approved 56-21 by the Senate with 12 Democrats supporting her.

MATTINGLY: Why does that make her controversial if she's a Trump nominee? HONIG: Because he is now the defendant in front of her. I don't think

that's a basis for disqualifying here. And by the way, I do think it's important not to just sort of dismiss Judge Cannon because she did rule in Trump's favor and she was overruled on the special master. But she is a serious, accomplished person. She worked at an elite law firm. She was a federal prosecutor in this district, Southern District of Florida, for seven years. And she has been on the bench. She is a newish federal judge. But I think there is a little bit too much willingness to just write her off because she was reversed on that one case. And by the way, federal judges, district court judges, find me a federal district court judge who has not been reversed many, many times. So that I don't think is a basis to remove her either.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I often hear from judges who are very critical of the media on this point, and so I want to vocalize this point. We often say things like this appointee or even the Supreme Court, we will talk about the so-called conservative versus liberal wing. We'll talk about these issues. And we can oftentimes be accused of, and I think rightfully so, contributing to a perception that they are not an apolitical branch.

They don't help themselves on a lot of issues as well. I'll put that out there. But on a good day, even without any of the perceptions of political bias or perceptions of who should be beholden, judges have an extraordinary impact on cases. They will tell you about the voir dire process, what type of questions are going to come in, how you determine impartiality, evidentiary motions of what's coming in or out, whether Evan Corcoran's testimony as the attorney whose client privilege was pierced is going to be able to actually say that in court, the idea of even the process of objections, overruling or sustaining them, directed verdicts. That's before you even talk about who nominated. So they have an extraordinary presence nonetheless, but the question of the schedule will be one of the most important things in the rocket docket, don't you think?

HONIG: Yes, I agree with everything that Laura just said, and the number one thing that Judge Cannon is going to decide is when do we do this case. That is really the judge's purview.

[08:15:00]

And if she wants to be aggressive, and if she feels it's important to get this in before the election, she can try to get it in early 2024. Keep in mind, we have that Manhattan date in March into April. And if not, if she doesn't care too, she can very easily let this slide till after the election, that to me is the most important thing that she'll get to decide.

HARLOW: Final thought?

MILLER: Well, I think when you look at all of these investigations going on. This one face that other additional challenge, which is now the intelligence community has to step in and say, this is the balancing act. These documents were so sensitive, so secret, and the defense is going to say prove it. The jury is going to want to see it, and then if you can show it to the jury, where they actually that secret. So, they're going to have to go through this process of figuring out for each document --

HARLOW: And what exactly?

MILLER: What was the part of that document that made it so sensitive. And if you can redact that source, or that method, can you still use the rest of it to show the weight of it?

MATTINGLY: All right guys, great stuff. Stay around with us with many more questions to come. We're also House Republicans are moving to censure one of Trump's fiercest congressional critics ever something from 2016, that Congressman Adam Schiff will join us. Ahead of that vote coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: In just one day after Donald Trump's arraignment one of his fiercest congressional critics is facing censure vote from House Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): Representative Schiff contributed to the gross violations of the United States citizens' civil liberties. Thereby committing the very abuses HPSCI is tasked with identifying and thwarting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That's Florida Congresswoman and Donald Trump loyalist Anna Paulina Luna blasting former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, accusing him of lying about Trump's alleged ties to the Russia -- or to Russia in the run up to the 2016 election. Now, censure is essentially public scolding of a member of the House, it's read into the official record. The vote could come as early as today or tomorrow. Schiff says Luna's censure bid is nothing more than a distraction from Trump's indictment and arrest.

Republican Adam Schiff doesn't think they're going to have the votes to actually get this across the finish line even though they hold the majority. But we're going to ask Congressman himself. Democratic Congressman from California Adam Schiff, joins us now. He's also running for the Senate seat held by the retiring Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

[08:20:15]

I want to start with what happened yesterday before we talk about the censure effort. In that what the former president was saying about an absolute right to take documents that he wanted, no matter the document, that appears to be at odds with several different issues laid out in the indictment. How do you expect prosecutors to actually handle that defense if it's what his lawyer sprayed? REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I think it'll be handled pretty easily actually, because the law is clear. They are not his documents; they belong to the United States of America. Some of those documents involve highly classified data and information that could jeopardize our sources of intelligence collection. That's going to be a pretty easy case to make.

But of course, Trump is trying to make his case in the court of public opinion, and doing what he always does, which is playing the victim and misrepresenting the facts and hoping that he can at least persuade those that are part of the extreme MAGA base. But in the courtroom, it's going to be a different story. There are going to be rules of evidence, and prosecutors are going to be able to use these comments as evidence against them.

HARLOW: They -- are you saying, Congressman, that this will be an easy case to make? Do you think -- are you saying that this is a slam dunk for Jack Smith's team of prosecutors, especially given the jury pool that they're going to select from in South Florida and just what we've seen in terms of how South Florida has treated political defendants in the past?

SCHIFF: No, I'm saying that the case to make that these are not his documents is easy to make. Whether it's easy to get a conviction, when you're trying a former president and you're trying a candidate for president in the current election, that's a very different issue. And I don't underestimate the difficulty of that because, as the defense units need to try to peel off one juror. But nonetheless, the facts set out in the indictment, if proven, are devastating because, of course, they show such premeditation on Trump's part.

This wasn't an accident. They didn't just end up there by some inadvertence. This was deliberate, it was a deliberate effort to mislead investigators. He used his own attorneys to try to deceive the Federal, the FBI and those facts, presumably, Jack Smith will be able to establish in court. They're much worse, much more damning than I was expecting. And I think that's true for most former prosecutors are putting that hat on right now who read the indictment.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, most former prosecutors are very wary of questioning a judge or attacking a judge in a particular case.

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I'm interested that some of your Democratic colleagues have raised concerns about the judge that will be involved in this case, Aileen Cannon. Do you share those concerns, given some of the authority she'll have, particularly the early stages in this process?

SCHIFF: I do share those concerns. And I agree with the analysis that you all made that the fact that too she was appointed by Trump is not a basis in and of itself for disqualification, nor is the fact that she got overturned on appeal. But what concerns me is why she was overturned on appeal, was the extraordinary nature of the ruling that she made the appointment of a special master that the degree to which that was unprecedented. And you had even a conservative court reverser. So, it's not just that she was reversed, but the fact that she endeavored in such a unusual way to assist the Trump defense, that's what concerns me.

HARLOW: In terms of blocking which of those documents taken from Mar- a-Lago could be -- could be viewed by the team at that time. And it was the 11th circuit unanimously, I believe, including two Trump appointees, who did come down and reverse her holding. But do you believe that she should recuse herself given your concern because Dick Durbin, who chair the Judiciary Committee says he's concerned but not to the point of recusal?

SCHIFF: Well, I think ultimately, that's a decision the judge is going to have to make, but the standard ought to be this. Will the public have confidence in her rulings? Or will the public believe that if again, as she did in the appointment of the special master, she is going too far to support the Trump defense? Essentially ignoring precedent doing things that are unsupported by law. Will she have credibility? And if the answer is no, then maybe she should recuse herself.

MATTINGLY: You know, Congressman, a number of your Republican counterparts are saying this is representative of a double standard. And I think there's elements of that where you'd say this is not an apples-to-apples comparison whatsoever. However, it is true that the investigation into the current president's son has been going on for years now. Do you think the Justice Department is dragging its feet on that investigation? I asked, because addressing that on its merits would seem to be important when it comes to trying to rebut that criticism, if you think it should be rebutted.

[80:25:11]

SCHIFF: Well, you know, of course, I don't have any insight into what the Justice Department is doing or the phase of what they're doing vis-a-vis the president's son. But you could, of course, make the same argument. And I have, frankly, the same concern regarding the investigation into January 6. Those events are now more than two years in the rearview mirror, the January 6 committee that I served on, we investigated that, and we're in many respects way out ahead of the Justice Department in our interviewing of witnesses, in our gathering of documents, that should not have been the case.

So, I don't know that you can judge based on the pace of investigation. The Mar-a-Lago case is very discreet, it has a very discreet set of facts, it was more capable, investigating more rapidly. And they got to the point where they could make a decision, I would hope and expect they'll make a decision on these other cases with do speed as well.

HARLOW: Congressman, let's talk about the center effort by a Republican colleague that could go to a vote today. The focus of it is what you said about alleged collusion between Trump and Russia over the years. Let's just play a reminder for viewers of some of the things you said and then I want your reaction to the center effort on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: Collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It's either an extraordinary, extraordinary coincidence, or it's what collusion looks like. You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence. The Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump. Multiple offers of Russian help to the Trump campaign. The campaign's acceptance of that help, and overt acts in furtherance of Russian help. To most Americans that is the very definition of collusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Have you seen the text of what she has put forth that will be voted on and what is your reaction just in general to this call?

SCHIFF: Well, first of all, those, all those statements are exactly right. I have seen the text of the resolution. It's kind of a grab bag of Fox attacks, it goes to Russia and Ukraine is essentially a censure resolution based on the fact I investigated. And led the first impeachment of Donald Trump to a bipartisan vote to convict, that's really the gravamen of their complaint. But this is really an effort at the end of the day to distract from Donald Trump's legal problems, to gratify Donald Trump by going after someone they feel was his most effective adversary. I'm flattered by it. But the fact that Speaker McCarthy would take up this MAGA resolution when we have so many pressing challenges before the country is really a terrible abuse of House resources.

MATTINGLY: My understanding and talking to Republican aides is that they don't think it will pass despite them having the majority. Is that your understanding, you've been whipping this vote or you just letting it play out?

SCHIFF: I'm not whipping it. I don't know where the votes are, frankly, you know, I think that who is whipping it is people like Steve Bannon. The president's MAGA advocates are really championing this thing. How many Republicans, if any, will stand up to the Bannons and the Trumps and the MAGA-World? I really don't know. But I can't say this, you know, the speaker is the one who decides to bring this before the House.

And the fact that we have so many pressing challenges in California in our home state, with opioids, with college debt, with homelessness, and this is how Kevin McCarthy wants to spend the time of the House, it just goes to show where his priorities are. And right now, his priorities are distracting from the dysfunction of his own House membership and distracting from the pressing legal problems of his party leader Donald Trump.

MATTINGLY: All right, Congressman Adam Schiff. Appreciate your time, sir. Thanks.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: All right, new inflation data is about to be released ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming decision on rate hikes. We'll bring you those numbers coming up next.

HARLOW: And new this morning, we're learning that the armorer on the Rust movie set was allegedly quote, drinking heavily during filming. The state of mind prosecutor say when she was, when the loaded gun was used in the shooting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]