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Trump Says He's January 6 Target, Expects Indictment; Michigan Attorney General Charges 16 in Fake Elector Plot. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 19, 2023 - 06:00   ET

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

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ROMANS: Tom Clancy's "Jack Ryan."

All right. Thanks for joining me. I'm Christine Romans. Have a great day, everybody. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everyone. Poppy is off this week. Abby Phillip is here. And we have significant news.

More criminal charges against former President Donald Trump appear to be imminent. It's been a dramatic and consequential 24 hours since we last saw you. We're going to have team coverage with the latest- breaking details all morning.

But first, here's what we know right now. The former president says he expects to be indicted and arrested for the third time, announcing himself the special counsel notified him he's a target of the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: And new developments in the classified documents case against former President Trump. A Florida judge says she will decide on a trial date soon. She did signal, though, that mid-December, the timeline the prosecutors requested, is too soon.

Plus, the first criminal charges in the 2020 fake electors scheme. The Michigan attorney general is charging 16 people with felonies, accusing them of signing certificates that falsely claimed Trump won the 2020 election there.

MATTINGLY: Trump's response to his mounting legal trouble, defiance. He attacked the Justice Department by calling the investigations themselves, quote, "election interference."

PHILLIP: And as for Trump's main GOP rival in the race for the White House, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he hopes that the former president does not face charges, telling CNN exclusively it would be bad for the country.

A lot to talk about this hour. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

MATTINGLY: And we are getting started with full team coverage, from Washington to Florida, to Michigan, here in New York. We're covering all the angles, all the big developments as the former president faces a potential third criminal indictment.

Senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz is in Washington, D.C. Jessica Schneider is in Michigan, where the so-called fake electors are now facing charges. Maggie Haberman; former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan; and former federal prosecutor Katie Cherkasky are standing by for expert analysis.

We're going to start with Paula Reid, live outside the federal courthouse in Ft. Pierce, Florida.

Paula, huge, almost head-spinning developments yesterday, given the scale of them, in both areas of Jack Smith's investigation.

PAULA REID, CNN LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Phil. Just hours before Trump's lawyers were expected to appear for a first time before the federal judge who will oversee the Mar-a-Lago documents case, the former president announced that he has also received a target letter in the special counsel's January 6th investigation.

Now, look, there are two different investigations, but it's likely that the defense strategy will be the same as it has been for decades when it comes to Trump. And that is to delay, delay, delay.

And yesterday, in court, it was clear that the judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case is open to likely delaying this case until next year and possibly even until after the election.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) REID (voice-over): Former President Trump defiant and railing against Special Counsel Jack Smith during a FOX News town hall in Iowa Tuesday.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I got the letter on Sunday night. Think of it. I don't think they've ever sent a letter on Sunday night. And they're in a rush, because they want to interfere. It's interference with the election. It's election interference. Never been done like this in the history of our country. And it's a disgrace.

REID (voice-over): Trump, fuming after announcing he had received a letter from the special counsel informing him that he is a target in the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump says he was given four days to report to the grand jury and indicated that he believes that means an arrest and indictment is imminent.

His legal team has not formally responded. And sources tell CNN that they were caught off-guard, because they were not anticipating charges against the former president.

TRUMP: These are evil people, deranged. I call them deranged.

REID (voice-over): CNN has learned in recent months, prosecutors have interviewed officials from all seven 2020 battleground states targeted by the former president and his allies in their efforts to overturn the election.

Trump's allies on Capitol Hill, rushing to his defense.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for re-election. So what do they do now? Weaponize government.

REID (voice-over): With the threat of yet another indictment looming, Trump's lawyers appeared in a South Florida courtroom Tuesday to discuss his indictment in the classified documents case, where he is facing 37 felony counts.

[06:05:12]

Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon signaling the Justice Department's desire to hold a trial in mid-December of this year may be too soon, given the highly-sensitive nature of the case and the evidence that it's based on.

She did not appear, though, willing to delay the trial indefinitely, saying she plans to rule, quote, "promptly."

A trial starting in 2024 could collide with the Republican presidential primary, where Trump is the current frontrunner. His rivals in the race now facing yet another round of questions in what could be yet another indictment. SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the DOJ

continues to try to find a way to weaponize its powers against the former president.

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REID (on camera): Yesterday in court, lawyers on both sides were really focused on Trump's status as a candidate.

Now, prosecutors insist that it doesn't matter if he's running for president again. He should be treated like, quote, "any other important, busy American facing criminal charges."

But his lawyers argue that it would be unfair to hold a trial before the election.

Interestingly, the judge wasn't interested in this at all. Instead, she wanted to focus on how long it was going to take the lawyers to do the work to get ready for trial. And she insinuated that once she gets that information, then she can put a date on the calendar.

PHILLIPS: All right, Paula, stay with us.

Let's bring in now senior -- CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz; CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman; and former federal prosecutor Katie Cherkasky.

Katelyn, I want to go to you here on this information that we are now getting about what was contained inside of this target letter. There are three potential statutes, it looks like, that may be used against Trump in this election interference case. Can you tell us about what we know now?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, Abby, whenever a subject gets a target letter, so the Justice Department basically is telling them you might be indicted.

Typically in the sample version of this letter -- and we haven't seen it yet, but there have been some reports in some other media outlets who have said this letter does identify some of the crimes that Donald Trump is very likely to be charged with, that the prosecutors are clearly looking at.

One of them, conspiracy to defraud the United States, that is a general conspiracy charge. But it's a pretty significant charge. It's used quite often. It essentially means that Donald Trump was making an agreement with other people to carry forward the acts that the Justice Department believes are illegal. It is a pretty significant thing to be charged with that.

On top of that, the tampering with a witness charge. That's something that we don't have a lot more detail of exactly what crime that could be. There's a couple different ones. But it might not actually be tampering with a witness in the classic sense. It might be the way that the Justice Department has known to be investigating here and has been using in these January 6th cases, where they're saying -- they're accusing people of obstructing the congressional proceeding.

And so that is something that we knew that they were looking at, at least related to some others.

And then this third potential charge that's listed here, according to multiple news outlets, is that there is a deprivation of rights, possibility of a charge. That's a civil rights charge.

And I've talked to some defense lawyers, some former prosecutors about it. It's actually not charged that often. But it is a charge used when someone who's in a public position uses their ability in some way that is wrong. Either it's outside of the bounds of what their role is, or they use their role in a way to deprive someone else of some sort of right.

It doesn't have to be civil rights that are classically protected, but it is a deprivation of rights charge that could potentially carry some pretty serious penalties if it does have to do with violence.

But you know, we don't know exactly what this case is going to be, how it's going to be laid out. In the Justice Department's own words, whenever they bring this indictment, there always could be other things that we see whenever the indictment is filed, if it is approved by the grand jury.

But those three things, that is a pretty significant case that does track with what we believe the Justice Department has been investigating here for some time.

MATTINGLY: All right. Katelyn, stay with us. Again, we have team coverage. We're going to keep following this as it moves along throughout the morning.

But Katie, I want to follow up with what Katelyn was describing there. From a lawyer perspective, from a legal perspective, as you look at the three potential charges, as they've been reported by the news outlets, what stands out to you?

KATIE CHERKASKY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, I think that we -- we obviously don't know what charges are going to be laid out. The other thing we don't know is whether Jack Smith has evidence that has not been disclosed to the public at this point.

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There's been ongoing interviews. And so there may be other charges that are outside of what is actually known to the public at this point.

But certainly I think on the facts, those are very obvious charges in terms of defrauding the government, conspiracies. There's a lot of interviews with other folks about conversations that Trump had with them. So, that seems clear.

I think the bigger question is really on kind of the jurisdictional side of things, in terms of his status as the president at the time. And that's something that will also have to be litigated if there is an indictment in this case.

But, again, these are all speculation, because we don't have the indictment that's been filed at that point.

PHILLIP: Do you think that the target letter that -- will be the scope of it, what is contained in that letter in terms of what charges he could possibly face?

CHERKASKY: It's possible. I mean, generally speaking, in a target letter, the -- the prosecutors are going to lay out what the -- the allegations are. But there's no final charging decision that's made at that point. And they're certainly not bound by that.

PHILLIP: Yes. So Paula, let's go to you. I mean, this is in the context here of an incredible amount of legal issues that Trump himself is facing. It's not just this.

You're in Florida because of that other case, the classified documents case. How is Trump's legal orbit handling all of this? And are you getting any indications that he's going to need more legal firepower to go into this next phase of things?

REID: Oh, yes, Abby. He is absolutely going to need additional lawyers, especially if he is charged in Washington, D.C., as well.

This actually came up yesterday in court. His lawyers talked about the burden that they're currently bearing, both in New York, where the former president faces criminal and civil cases. Of course, they have one special counsel, criminal prosecution. And they made a nod to the target letter, saying, look, another one is likely coming.

And they talked to the judge about how this was a lot of work, not just for them but also for their client in preparing their client for each of these cases.

Now, they were using this in court to try to delay this trial until at least next year, likely after the election. But it also just makes it crystal-clear. He absolutely needs additional lawyers. His two lawyers, Todd Blanche, Chris Kise, they're working with some other lawyers who are in his orbit.

But after the recent departures of at least three of his key attorneys, he's going to have to look for more lawyers. And Abby, as we know, that's been difficult for him over the past few years. Prospective lawyers have told us they're worried about getting paid, and they're also worried about the potential political blowback or alienating their current clients.

So it is likely he'll find additional lawyers, but it's taken a while here in Florida, and it could take a while in D.C., as well.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Maggie, I was struck yesterday, in calls and text messages with Republicans outside the Trump orbit. I think the frustration and concern related to a major January 6th case. A major election interference case, just because that issue, in their view, resonates with the American public politically, maybe not dramatically across the Republican electorate or in the primary. But certainly, more broadly in the country.

My question is, does Trump view these things differently, view these cases differently, view one as more of a threat than another?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So Trump views broadly all of these cases as a threat to him. If you put them collectively together, he is facing significant jail time if convicted, particularly in the federal cases.

Assuming -- again, he has not been charged yet. I think it's important to note a target letter does usually lead to charges. It doesn't always.

But, yes, he is looking at this broadly as a political threat. The documents case, in particular, had very much upset them for a variety of reasons, because it was an FBI search on his home. It was a different type of thing.

In this case, he is upset about it. I heard yesterday it was basically a typical plane ride to Iowa, but he was not in a great mood in portions of it.

I think you're going to hear that going forward. He is going to be upset, because this is, as you say, a dominant issue in the country, even if it's not the thing that voters say that they are voting on.

You are correct. That Republicans are aware that in 2022, candidates who espoused Trump's election lies ended up, basically, paying the price at the ballot box in November even if, as you note, this played well in Republican primaries where Trump's voice and vote really do matter.

But, at the moment, he is seeing this broadly as a -- as a threat to his freedom. And his advisers have been in private conversations pretty blunt that they see it as he has to win the election and that is how he guarantees that he does not face jail time.

Now, again, it only takes one juror in any of these cases. He has not been convicted of anything. But the fact that they're looking at an election to the highest office in the land as some kind of -- an insurance policy or an out for him really affects and, I think, colors the entire presidential race.

PHILLIP: Katie, as we go into this phase where we are, as you say, needing to look at the documents, the actual indictment when it comes out, a lot of this case has been tried publicly through an impeachment proceeding. Those -- that testimony has been made public. A lot of it is out there.

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From what you know, how much more does Jack Smith need to have in order to substantiate a criminal charge or criminal charges against a former president?

CHERKASKY: Well, it depends, really, what kind of charges you're talking about.

So when we're talking about, let's say, like inciting a riot or an insurrection type charge, I think you're going to need a lot more than what was in the speeches preceding that event.

For the defrauding and conspiracy-type charges, they may have enough with what they have.

But again, we're talking about the facts of the case and not necessarily about the jurisdiction and the unprecedented nature of indicting a former president for acts that occurred solely while he was in office.

And I think -- you know, I'm a criminal defense attorney on the federal side. And so we always want to look at just jurisdictionally, is this case going to survive appellate scrutiny?

And so certainly if an indictment is issued, then the case will proceed unless and until the charges are withdrawn or dismissed or a court says that they cannot proceed.

But I think that these are really bigger constitutional questions that do have to be analyzed by the prosecutor and, of course, by the defense team. That's going to be a big push from the very beginning, properly, from Trump's side.

MATTINGLY: It's a good reminder. There's no precedent here. We're in a very different world.

And Katelyn Polantz, to that point, since you're my Ask Jeeves on everything technical with all of these cases, to some degree, what's next?

Maggie makes a great point that we should reiterate all morning: no charges have been brought. This is a target letter. Generally or often ends up in charges. We obviously saw that in the documents case, as well. But no charges have been brought yet.

But what should we be watching for in this specific case going forward?

POLANTZ: Yes. Well, Phil, we're going to be watching the federal court. That's where the grand jury has been sitting. That's where they've been hearing this evidence.

We don't know exactly what stage the Justice Department is in. Clearly, they're in an end stage, and Donald Trump may very well be right that he may be arrested and indicted in very, very short order.

But we know that the grand jury, they will have to meet. So it's a secret panel of people who have been listening to this evidence. And they will have to sign off on the indictment.

They will do that in secret. All of their proceedings will remain secret. Their names will remain secret.

But, once that indictment is signed off, the judge also will approve it, and then it will be released, hopefully to the public, hopefully not under seal. We would imagine it to be made public, just like the indictment in Florida was.

And then we get to see what the Justice Department has in their case, and we move forward with having an arraignment, just like what happened in Miami. In the coming days after an indictment, a defendant comes in, enters their initial plea of not guilty. Very likely that Trump would do that, as well.

And so we're just going to have to keep watching the grand jury in Washington, but we already know that there is a witness, at least one witness scheduled for tomorrow to come in there. So, unclear exactly when or how this will play out in the coming days.

PHILLIP: Quite a lot ahead there, as you just laid out, Katelyn. And we'll be covering all of it.

Paula Reid, Katelyn Polantz, thank you, as well. Katie and Maggie, both of you stay with us. We have so much more to discuss in the coming hour.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Including this, Michigan's attorney general bringing felony charges against 16 fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump won the election. We're going to break down the alleged scheme and who these electors are, coming up next.

PHILLIP: And we're now learning that the U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea was facing disciplinary action, and he was set to leave the military. What his mother is saying now.

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DANA NESSEL, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: This plan, to reject the will of the voters and undermine democracy, was fraudulent and legally baseless.

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PHILLIP: And for the very first time, suspects have now been charged in a 2020 fake electors scheme. Here's a look at some of the 16 people now facing multiple felonies, accused of acting as fake electors and signing certificates falsely claiming that then-President Trump won Michigan in 2020. The group includes current and former Republican officials.

Joining us now is CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider. She is live in Lansing, Michigan, this morning. Jessica, this is really an extraordinary development. What are the charges that these individuals are facing? JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby. They are

facing multiple felonies, eight counts for each of these 16 defendants.

And this is all stemming from when these 16 Republicans allegedly tried to storm the Capitol just behind me here in Lansing on December 14, 2020. They were armed with these fake certificates, falsely proclaiming that Donald Trump had won the state of Michigan here in 2020, despite the fact that Joe Biden actually won this state by 154,000 votes.

Now, back in 2020, they were actually thwarted at the Capitol doors by police. But now, of course, they are being charged by the attorney general in this state, Dana Nessel.

They're facing these multiple felony counts, including election law forgery. And these weren't just any people. These were prominent Republicans in this state. They included current and former GOP officials, also a member of the Republican National Committee, even a sitting mayor, also a member of the school board here in Michigan.

So, many prominent Republicans, all of them Trump supporters. All of them trying to argue that Trump had won the election. They were trying to storm in to replace the Democratic electors that were inside.

You heard there from the attorney general, Dana Nessel, just saying that this plan to undermine democracy was fraudulent and legally baseless.

And Abby, she notably is the first state prosecutor to actually bring criminal charges on the state level. And we've been told that these 16 alleged fake electors, they do just have a number of days to turn themselves in on these multiple felony counts -- Abby.

PHILLIP: And this is obviously not the only place where we've seen these fake electors popping up. What are some of the other potential investigations at the state level that could involve these kinds of schemes?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. These fake elector plots unfolded in seven different states. So we've seen the action, the first criminal action here in Michigan.

But we know there are also investigations unfolding in Fulton County, Georgia. The D.A. there is looking into it, as well as authorities in Arizona.

Notably, Abby, the special counsel, Jack Smith, he's also been probing these fake elector plots as part of his probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. So there could be a lot more to come here, more charges against these alleged fake electors in other states -- Abby.

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PHILLIP: Jessica Schneider in Lansing, Michigan. Thank you very much. MATTINGLY: We're going to bring back our panel now: political analyst

Maggie Haberman, still with us; federal prosecutor Katie Cherkasky; and joining us is former lieutenant governor of Georgia and CNN political contributor, Jeff Duncan.

Jeff, I want to start with you, because one of the seven states is Georgia, where you were lieutenant governor when this was all happening right now.

What do you think -- extrapolate out what yesterday's state felony charges mean for the other states here, based on your understanding of where things are.

JEFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Looking at the profiles of these folks in Michigan, it's very similar to what we see in Georgia, right? These are teachers. These are party activists. These are retirees. Just a kind of a broad swath of -- of folks in Georgia.

This is probably an indication of where Fulton County is probably going to go, too. That would just be my guess.

And I think this is one of the biggest liabilities. These faux electors that showed -- this is one of the biggest areas of liability, potential liability for Donald Trump and his supporting cast. Right?

This is where there was a lot of coordination. There was a lot of conversations. There was a lot of structure coming from the White House or from Donald Trump's campaign as to how to structure these.

Because these folks had no idea how to set up a faux electorate slate. The hard part to -- these are really good people, probably, right? I don't necessarily know them, you know, personally.

But these are really good folks that are having to lose their life savings to -- to pay for attorneys to cover all -- to cover their legal charges. These are folks that are just having to completely train wreck their profiles in the community, all because a sitting president and his supporting cast told them that this was the right thing to do. They believed him.

MATTINGLY: So you don't think -- you don't feel like this was free will on their part? This was purely doing what they were told?

DUNCAN: I think there was confusion. I think there's a whole bunch of different scenarios that are arrived here. I think some folks showed up because they just literally thought the president of the United States told them it was OK to do it, or his supporting attorneys, and so he did it.

There are some that showed up there with, you know, maybe mal intent to think that they're going to subvert democracy and try to run this fellow electorate all the way up to the halls of Congress.

PHILLIP: Well, you raise an interesting point about who's really responsible for both the January 6th insurrection but also some of this stuff that came before it, the fake electors plot. Maggie, I want to bring you in on this, because I think this is going

to become a central question as we look at what Jack Smith is looking at here.

To what extent was -- were some of these schemes, especially the fake electors scheme, directed by Trump, by his attorneys, by his associates? And what is your sense of the concern in Trump's orbit that there are others who have real legal exposure here?

HABERMAN: Look, a key, Abby, in terms of this investigation with Jack Smith has been this issue of fake electors in recent weeks. We know this. There have been two tracks that Jack Smith has been focused on, at least, and there may be others. But two that we know of, with witnesses who have come in either just to be interviewed by prosecutors or to appear before the grand jury.

But one has been Trump's mindset, which is obvious. And I think we all understand why they'd be looking at that, whether he actually, you know, realized that he had not lost or whether he was under the impression that he had and genuinely believed it. And they've been asking a lot of people that question.

And the other is about fake electors. And we know that people who were involved in the so-called fake electors effort have been in to Smith's office to talk to his investigators. I believe some have also gone before the grand jury.

There were basically two camps within Trump's campaign. There was the camp arguing, Let's move on. And there was the camp that was arguing, Let's install these electors, in ways that even people who were connected to it raised questions about.

Now you may end up seeing that in, say, Arizona, where my colleague, Luke Broadwater, and I had some reporting last year that there were internal emails within the campaign, where one of the lawyers working with them literally described these electors as fake and then corrected himself and said, Alternate is a better word, with a smiley face in the email.

Kelly Ward, a party official out there, had apparently raised questions about whether this was actually legal. So I think you're going to hear a lot more of that going forward. And there is going to be this split about who was involved with what.

MATTINGLY: Katie, you know, Norm Eisen, is often talking publicly about these issues but also worked on some of the investigations on Capitol Hill, a long-time attorney on these issues, had a piece where -- where he hit at an interesting element of this.

When I saw this all play out yesterday I was trying to figure out. He says in this op-ed, "By focusing solely on the figures who undertook their acts in Michigan, Ms. Nestle is wisely insulating her case against charges that she overreached, exceeding her jurisdiction. It also leaves a clear lane for Mr. Smith, Jack Smith. If Ms. Nestle can move against these individuals in Michigan, Mr. Smith can and should do the same against the ring leaders."

And I think what I was trying to figure out yesterday is, this is all connected, right? I think it's easy to view these things in isolation or view them in a vacuum.

All of these things are connected to some degree.

[06:30:00]