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Interview with Attorney for Steve Bannon and Trump's Lawyer in Second Impeachment Trial David Schoen; After Learning He's a Target of investigation, Trump Referred to January 6 Probe as "Election Interference"; Trump Plans to Attack January 6 Criminal Investigation with Help of Top Congressional Allies. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 19, 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]

DAVID SCHOEN, ATTORNEY FOR STEVE BANNON AND TRUMP'S LAWYER IN SECOND IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: I think, if you really parse his speech and other surrounding factors, that would not be a fair charge. The wildcard, of course, is the jury. And I think that's why, you know, D.C. is particularly attractive to the special prosecutor.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He needs some lawyers who drink constitutional questions for breakfast. David Schoen and Laura Coates, thank you both very much. And our coverage on CNN continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I didn't know practically what a subpoena was and grand jurors and all of this. Now, I'm like becoming an expert. I have no choice because we have to -- it's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, good morning, everyone. Two, potentially, three indictments will do that to you --

PHILLIP: It's been a huge --

MATTINGLY: -- on some level.

PHILLIP: -- huge 24 hours. I'm excited.

MATTINGLY: Indeed. And we've got new details emerging about potential charges that Donald Trump could be facing in the alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election. According to the "Wall Street Journal", they include witness tampering. Trump announcing, he expects to be arrested again. Former member of his legal team will join us live to weigh in in a matter of moments.

PHILLIP: And for the very first time, charges have been brought against fake electors who falsely claimed that Trump won the election. MATTINGLY: And a federal judge is now indicating she might push back Trump's criminal trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents. It was -- the Justice Department requested to start in December before the election. This hour of CNN starts right now.

Well, as we noted, the legal storm around Donald Trump, it's intensifying. We're learning more about the criminal charges he could be facing in the alleged scheme to overturn the election. The former president says he expects to be arrested and indicted for the third time after receiving a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith, notifying him that he was the target in his January 6th probe.

PHILLIP: And now, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that the letter cites at least three laws, including deprivation of rights, conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the United States, and tampering with a witness. Now, Trump was defiant in a Fox News town hall last night. He accused the Justice Department of being a political weapon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And they're in a rush because they want to interfere -- interference with the election. It's election interference. Never been done like this in the history of our country and it's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, we have full team coverage on all of the big developments. We're going to start there with CNN anchor of "The Source" Kaitlan Collins. We've also got Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz.

Katelyn, I want to start with you first, in terms of what we're learning in "The Wall Street Journal" and others about what this target letter actually entailed related to the specific statutes.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So, the target letter, we haven't seen it yet, but we would really love to see it because whenever the Justice Department sends this to someone, a target letter does tend to indicate exactly what the person may be charged with. The charges that the Justice Department has been investigating and is considering bringing against that person.

And reporting from a number of different news outlets, including "The Wall Street Journal" this morning, says that there are these three charges that the Justice Department has been looking at related to Donald Trump that he could be charged with. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, that is a charge that basically means that the Justice Department has evidence that two people would have agreed to somehow carry forward something that they believe is illegal. So, Trump and a -- potentially another person, not necessarily another person would be charged there, but it does mean two people.

And then another piece of it, that witness tampering possible charge. That actually may be obstructing Congress because witness tampering, that charge, it means a couple different things depending how you put it on the books. But the Justice Department has already indicated they were looking at obstructing the congressional proceeding on January 6th as one of the things they were investigating in this investigation of top administration officials during the Trump-era. We also know that they have used that charge against many different January 6th rioters.

And then the third piece that is out there is this deprivation of rights charge. A civil rights charge that would be fairly interesting to see how the Justice Department structures that. And also, just to see them try it in court. It's not the sort of thing that you see very often.

PHILLIP: And as our guests have pointed out, this could not be the full scope of it even. So, there is more to come on that. But Kaitlan Collins --

MATTINGLY: Hey, buddy.

PHILLIP: -- first of all, welcome back.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, THE SOURCE AND CNN CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys.

PHILLIP: You know, the Trump team, I wonder, how prepared were they for this target letter for a potential indictment in this particular case? And what are they doing now?

COLLINS: I don't think they thought it was -- it would happen this soon. I think they felt they had more time. But I think it became pretty clear that they were seeking information about Trump's mindset in and around that period, asking people if he had acknowledged that he had lost. Bringing in people like Hope Hicks. I actually think the signs were there that it was headed in this direction.

But Trump himself is quite bothered by this. I mean, he openly admitted that last night when Sean Hannity tried to say, you know, how are you so unbothered by all of these legal troubles that you're facing?

[08:05:00]

And Trump said, no, I am bothered by it. I mean, it's a lot that he's dealing with as he's on the campaign trail, and his legal troubles are only mounting.

And so, I think we'll see what they actually decide to pursue once we see what the charges are. I mean, Trump's team has the best indication of this because it's included on that target letter that they got on Sunday night. And so, I think what Trump is trying to do is control the political aspect of this. Of course, that is always what he's been -- he's tried to do when he's faced legal issues or impeachments on Capitol Hill.

He's calling his allies on the Hill. Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman, he called her yesterday and basically asked her to go on offense here and to, essentially make sure that they are using the right message that he wants them to be saying on Capitol Hill, going on offense against this.

MATTINGLY: Can I see -- the letter arriving on Sunday, which according to the former president is something that never happens, people don't send mail on Sunday, I think he said last night in Iowa. But him waiting until Tuesday to publicly break the own news of his potential indictment. Like, is it -- what happened in those two days?

COLLINS: So, there's some conspiracies over, you know, was he trying to upend the Ron DeSantis interview yesterday. What was he trying to do? There are questions about that. What we were told is actually another outlet was to about report that he had gotten this target letter. And so, that is why he went ahead and posted.

He does have this art of making people, kind of, wait. But he's the one often to break the news in these situations. He did it with the indictment when the documents case. He did it when the search warrant of Mar-a-Lago was executed.

MATTINGLY: Right.

COLLINS: He was the first one to actually confirm that after a reporter in Florida suspected that it was happening. And so, this is kind of his tactic here. They were preparing for it to happen. They were basically ready with the lengthy statement. The other thing that came from that statement though, not only announcing that he got a target letter, was a preview of his defense, which is saying he had a right to question the results of the election. Of course, we all know he was doing much more than just questioning the results.

MATTINGLY: Right.

PHILLIP: Yes, for sure. And the fact that he continues to say that is part of the problem here. Katelyn Polantz, the target letter here in the case of Trump is obviously not a guarantee. It's not the full scope of what he could be facing. But I wonder, would it be surprising if other players in this maybe did not receive a target letter as well?

POLANTZ: Yes. I mean, Abby, that is a huge question right now that we all have as reporters. Are there other people that would get target letters? That could get target letters here? Whenever you look back at the timing of the previous indictment that the special counsel's office brought, they notified Donald Trump a few days before they notified his co-defendant Walt Nauta. that Walt Nauta, too, would be facing very likely charges in that case. They, obviously, were both charged together a couple weeks after that. And so, there's a question there.

But then there's also a part of this that is hanging out there that we haven't -- we don't -- still don't really understand and that the investigation is clearly continuing. Donald Trump's getting this target letter but we know of at least one person, a close aide of his, who is going to the grand jury, has an appointment tomorrow to testify with them. A man named Will Russell, who was with Trump both at the White House, on his advance team, and then worked with him with afterwards after he left the White House. There are others we've heard about who are getting inquiries rather -- whether they're grand jury inquiries or inquiries for interviews. And, you know, Kaitlan Collins last night just had another lawyer in this circle, Tim Parlatore on TV, and he was saying that one of his clients, Bernie Kerik, a man really close to Rudy Giuliani. He was working on a lot of the election fraud efforts, had been getting inquiries from the special counsel's office, too, and that's not even scheduled yet.

So, where this investigation still goes and how an indictment would factor into that, now that a target letter has been sent to the former president, there's really a lot of different ways this could play out.

MATTINGLY: All right. Katelyn Polantz -- I'm sorry, this Kate -- this Kaitlan --

COLLINS: A lot of Katelyns necessary for reporting.

MATTINGLY: -- this Kaitlan Collins -- a lot of Katelyns. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much. Kaitlan Collins, thank you very much.

And in terms of how we actually got here, well, CNN's Senior Legal Analyst -- sorry, Kaitlan, and former assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York Elie Honig is here. So, walk us through it. How did we get here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NY, AND FORMER FEDERAL AND NEW JERSEY STATE PROSECUTOR: So, Phil, we're starting to get a sense of what a potential Donald Trump indictment could look like. The new reporting is that the target letter listed three federal statutes.

MATTINGLY: Right.

HONIG: Now, important to note that the crimes that are listed in the target letter could end up in the indictment but that's not necessarily going to happen. First of all, deprivation of civil rights. Now, whose civil rights? I think the best theory here is the civil rights of all of us, to cast our ballots and to have a full and free election.

The second listed charges, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. Now, conspiracy is an important word because you have to have two or more agreeing to commit a conspiracy. That does not necessarily mean there will be a second person on the indictment with Donald Trump. We could see separate indictments. We could see an unindicted co-conspirator. But that's a very broad stroke here and it tells me Jack Smith is taking a world view on this.

And finally, there is this statute that covers tampering with a witness. Important to note though, there is a very broad federal statute that covers witness tampering, but also obstruction of justice and obstruction of Congress.

[08:10:00] So, we don't know which prong of that statute DOJ is referring to. But that gives us a sense if there is an indictment, which seems likely now, what could be in it.

MATTINGLY: You know, it has felt like every day over the last very several months, Kaitlan Collins, Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid, Evan Perez have been breaking news about who they have actually spoken to -- who the special counsel's team has spoken to. Who stands out in that list?

HONIG: Look, the number one guy on the list is the Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. I don't think there's any question about that. In fact, members of the January 6th committee said, he was their most important witness, and he only halfway cooperated with them.

MATTINGLY: Right.

HONIG: He started to cooperate and then he stopped. Well, there's no such thing as halfway cooperation with DOJ. We know that he has spoken to DOJ. We know he was literally by Donald Trump's side throughout the lead-up to January 6th. I think his testimony is going to be crucial. Part of the reason we know how important Mark Meadows was, was because almost exactly a year ago now, Cassidy Hutchinson, one of Meadows aides, she testified publicly in the January 6th Committee. We know DOJ has spoken to Cassidy Hutchinson.

We also know that they've gotten into Donald Trump's inner circle, his family members, his closest White House advisers, Jared Kushner, Hope Hicks, Dan Scavino. And we know that DOJ has also talked to secret service agents. I mean, who's going to be closer, physically closer, to the president -- the former president than the secret service? And DOJ has really not hesitated to go to the top rungs of power. They also have spoken with Mike Pence, of course, a crucial witness here because he was the subject of a pressure campaign from Donald Trump.

Finally, we know they've spoken with some, but not all, of the lawyers. The lawyers are really important part of this. We know they've spoken with Rudy Giuliani who was really a driving force behind this effort. As far as we know, they've not spoken with Sidney Powell and John Eastman. That might actually worry me if I represented them because typically you would not speak with somebody who is a target. We do know that they've also spoken with these three lawyers from the White House, Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, Eric Herschmann, all of whom advised against doing some of the things --

MATTINGLY: And all of whom testified to the January 6th Committee as well.

HONIG: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY: The state by state element of this, seven states, the fake electors --

HONIG: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- walk us through. HONIG: This was a coordinated nationwide strategy. They targeted these seven swing states. They all went for Joe Biden --

MATTINGLY: Right.

HONIG: -- but they were close. And as part of that pressure effort, Donald Trump and others, reached out to various state and local officials. Most infamously to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, that's the audio recorded phone call that we've heard -- all heard. Donald Trump asking him, please, find me 11,780 votes. And other state officials in Georgia, in Arizona. We just learned the other day that the governor -- Former Governor Doug Ducey has spoken with DOJ, that the former speaker of the House. And in fact, they've spoken with officials in all seven states.

We also know -- I remember these fake electors. These were the certificates that were put together in each state. People claim they were Trump electors when, of course, Trump had not win. We know the DOJ has spoken with some, we don't know who, but some of those electors as well.

MATTINGLY: And we know that now, Michigan, at least, on a state level has brought charges against all people on the --

HONIG: All 16 of these folks right here.

MATTINGLY: -- on that list.

HONIG: Yes.

MATTINGLY: All right. Elie Honig, thank you for walking us through.

HONIG: All right.

MATTINGLY: Back to Abby.

PHILLIP: All right. I feel like I got a semester in law school there from Elie.

Back at the table here, we've got CNN Political Commentators, Van Jones and Alyssa Farah Griffin. Also, Kailan Collins is still with us. Van, I want to start with you on this. I mean, the big question about this case I think from political perspective is how potent is it really. How understandable is what Trump could be facing?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER SPECIAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it's pretty understandable since everybody saw January 6th. And we're finally getting to a case that normal people can understand. The porn star stuff sound like, weird and more about his family and anything else. Stealing documents and, kind of, showing them to your friends is wrong. And somebody working in the White House, I'd be in jail for doing that.

But that -- all that stuff is kind of feels not that important to a normal person. But if you are going to disrespect democracy, attack the Capitol, do all kind of horrible stuff that would actually, you know, from most people's point of view result in, maybe, a treason charge, if that's not what we're talking about here, that's real stuff. We're finally down to business. We are finally down to the stuff that's going to have Donald Trump in the history books as being, probably, the most dangerous president ever.

And so, I do think it translates. Now, whether it's going to affect voter behavior, that remains to be seen. But this is -- I think, of all the stuff we talked about, this is the indictment that's the most important if it comes.

MATTINGLY: Alyssa, the Republican response -- we've talked about this all morning, it's very predictable. It tracks the same exact -- almost the same exact response, especially amongst House Republicans as we've seen repeatedly over the course of these several amendment -- indictments and more. Does this and the January 6th element of it, take us behind the scenes for Republicans right now, because I've heard from plenty of Republicans who hate the January 6th issue being elevated once again. Does that ever spill up publicly, I guess?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: It might. So, listen, House Republicans even ones who were there on January 6th, they know what they saw. They may have had statements that condemned it at the time. They're in a position now where so many of them are in deep red districts, they will stick with Donald Trump no matter what.

You hear a little bit more reality from the Senate. It's just that the nature of the beast, you know, John Thune came out with a statement. Mitch McConnell has yet to weigh in on a major way.

[08:15:00]

But I would expect that he's certainly not going. I just speculate it, he just --

MATTINGLY: Were not break the news for you. I got one, he's not going to.

GRIFFIN: -- answer the question. But listen, I mean, I think what ultimately matters is the sentiment of the voters. I think Republican politicians have made it easier for Donald Trump to dismiss the significance of what happened that day. But we saw after the midterms, after the January 6 hearings, people rejected extremism, and they rejected election denialism. I think that could end up being a major factor in the general election, just having January 6, front of mind.

PHILLIP: It is not popular to have an insurrection on the Capitol. Is that -- is that a shocking thing to say? I mean, it seems part of the problem in our politics right now is that this is viewed so differently on both sides of the aisle. Republicans are in a completely different world on this. And the Trump campaign is notorious for really only seeing those -- in those five inches right in front of them. Are they understanding that this scope of the problem here for the President -- former President?

COLLINS: I think, Alyssa, laid it out well last night saying essentially, you cannot win the general election if you're talking about January 6, and talking about claiming the election was stolen. That's something that Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp just said to me the other day.

He says, whoever -- if you're talking about 2020 in the election, being stolen those claims, which he himself doesn't believe, he said, you can't win Georgia. And if you can't win Georgia, you can't go to the White House and --

MATTINGLY: So, what's the plan then? Because like being plus 30 in the primary, fine but there's another part that comes after that.

COLLINS: I mean Trump has --

MATTINGLY: The general election.

COLLINS: Trump has never seen eye to eye with reality on what January 6 was. Even that day, and he was denying it and ignoring pleas from his top aides, people including his own daughter to come out and call off the violence. And so, he's never seen it the way that other people saw it.

And he's tapped into the Republican base in the sense of I mean, you saw the Republican voter in -- I believe, it's Iowa confront Mike Pence saying you're the reason that Joe Biden is in office, and he said, I'm not. But that is the reality of Republican base, the Republican base voters and what they're confronting on the campaign trail.

PHILLIP: And just real quick Elie, are you surprised that Fani Willis got beat to charges by the Michigan Attorney General?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I am surprised. I do wonder whether there's been coordination, we've seen no proof of coordination. But look, it makes sense for DOJ to go first. I actually think Fani Willis needs to think hard now about whether it makes sense to bring her case. It will be subsumed within whatever Jack Smith is going to do. It will be duplicative of that. And I think there's some serious problems with the way she has injected politics in her case. She ought to think about it before she brings that charge.

MATTINGLY: All right. Kaitlan, Elie, Van, Alyssa. Thank you, guys very much. We're going to try and get some of you to stick with us for as long as possible, Kaitlan. You're working too hard --

PHILLIP: You'll never get to leave.

MATTINGLY: Abby, we'll be speaking with somebody Kaitlan spoke with last night. We're trying to follow up on a lot of her questions. They're -- they were very good templaratory (PH) about all of this, coming up next.

PHILIP: Plus, we have new details about that U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea. How his mother just responded? CNN is live this morning near the DMZ, coming up.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, they can cheat on an election but if somebody wants to question the cheating, they want to call you a conspiracy theorist and all these other things. These people are sick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, that's former President Trump last night, alluding to potential criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The remark came as Trump denounced the Target letter, he received from Special Counsel Jack Smith. That letter informing him to target in that investigation.

Joining us now is former attorney for Trump, Tim Parlatore. Tim, thanks for your time. I want to start with you -- kind of alluded to this last night, when you're talking to Kaitlan. We've gotten a better sense of the three statutes cited in this Target letter, based on what the -- what the reporting has been on those. What's your read on the potential charges that may be brought?

TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Well, they're interesting because particularly the deprivation of civil rights charge, that does seem to be something that they're going to try and apply in a novel fashion. Which is not something you would generally want to do in such a politically charged case, because it is susceptible toward power attack.

But that would actually open up a significant amount of discovery, in my opinion. Because if they are going to charge that as Elie, mentioned a few minutes ago, with the rights of the voters. They potentially open it up to where he can get discovery and look into just about everything. All of the claims of election fraud that they raised back then, can all be relitigated here. So, I kind of wonder, that was not something I was expecting them to try and get into that much depth on.

So, I don't know if that one is something that they will actually include. You know, certainly conspiracy to defraud is something that we had looked at. You know, when I was on the team, and then that the obstruction or witness tampering or whatever section they are going to use that's also consistent with what I kind of was looking at the time.

MATTINGLY: So, from a planning and obviously you haven't been on the team for a bit. But the idea of deprivation of civil rights was not something that you guys while you were there, had been considering or working through?

PARLATORE: No, because, you know, we were looking at it from the perspective in an obstruction or fraud count. Where they would have to show the corrupt intent that he knew that there was no fraud, that he knew that the election results were accurate. And what were they going to have to do to prove that.

But going a civil rights route, I think gets them into a lot more granular detail of kind of reexamining every single little claim of potential fraud. And really relitigating, you know, the results of the election, you know, within this trial. So, that's a lot more extensive than I would have expected.

MATTINGLY: As you mentioned, kind of the things that you guys had been preparing for talking about, you know, when you see people like Jared Kushner, or Hope Hicks close members of the inner circle come in and clearly questions having been asked about the former President's mindset. What does that tell you about the targets of these investigations right now?

PARLATORE: Well, this investigation always would hinge on the mental state of the defendants. You know, did they know that he had lost the election? Did they believe that he had lost the election? And so, talking to all the people around them to see what he said at the time certainly makes sense to me.

But even there, they're going to have to go with a timeline of, did he initially say as I think he spoke to Alyssa Farah one -- at one time and say, I can't believe that I lost but then after that was briefed by Rudy Giuliani and others. And at that point he said, well, wait a minute, there might be fraud here. And changed his mind really kind of goes down to on January 5th.

[08:25:10]

Did he believe at that point that he had lost the election? Or did he believe at that point that there was fraud? So, --

MATTINGLY: Look, I mean.

PARLATORE: -- they're going answer really zero in on that point of the timeline.

MATTINGLY: Right. And I understand that. You said something to Kaitlan, last night. Kaitlan Collins, last night, about how his intelligence could be interpreted in multiple different ways at various points, and this gets into that as well. I mean, I guess my question on that issue specifically is, like, listen to the call with Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, actually, let's just play it right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And I get that you can try and take that last clause and say that's proving that he thinks, he won the state, like, but he's saying we need to go find votes need to find me one more vote than I'm currently losing by. I feel like that's a pretty clear state of mind. PARLATORE: If you cut it down to just that one sentence, I think that you can make that conclusion. If you broaden it out to the entire tape, another possible interpretation of that is he's talking about the scope of work. If he's saying in there, yes, look, we won by hundreds of thousands of votes, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal votes.

Given the timeline Brad, you don't have to find them all. You know, just find the 11,000 and then, you can decertify. Yes, have somebody else go find the other 100,000 afterwards to criminally prosecute them. But it certainly, and to some of the witnesses I've spoken to it certainly, struck them as this was more of a scope of work within the shortened time period, then a directive of, you know, must find this many votes.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask you before I let you go? The Trump legal operation as it currently stands, they are facing a lot right now and potentially a lot more, depending on where this Target letter ends up taking things. Are they situated to deal with this based on who's currently there? Do they need to expand significantly? What's your sense of things, given the departures that we've seen just since the Mar-a-Lago indictments?

PARLATORE: I know that the team when I was there, was prepared to handle it. As to what the current makeup of the team is I don't really have any visibility into it.

MATTINGLY: All right, Tim Parlatore, appreciate your time, sir, thanks.

PARLATORE: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And still with us as Kaitlan, Elie and Van. Elie, I want your instant replay reaction to what you just heard from Tim Parlatore. I was struck there by what he said at the end, explaining away that audio tape of his call with Brad Raffensperger.

HONIG: I think that's an interesting tape. And also, I think we need to be careful when we talk about that tape because it's a 62-minute transcript. And, of course, we've heard that clip of, I need you to find 11,000 votes countless times. But there are Trump is all over the map. And that tape, there's actually another point in the tape when he says all I want you to do is fine, as count the votes as they were cast.

So, there is going to be some wiggle room there. That tape is not a smoking gun. I don't believe anything's a smoking gun. You're always going to have talented lawyers like Tim and others trying to pick it apart. The other thing I think that he said that it's really interesting is, as we've sort of talked about, it looks like Donald Trump is going to make some version of what we call an advice of counsel defense.

Meaning, my lawyers, my advisors, they told me, I had won, some of them at least. They told me there had been massive fraud and I'm entitled to pursue that now. You're not entitled to do absolutely anything. You're not entitled to break the law in the course of pursuing that but count on that being a main defense that we hear.

COLLINS: I think that's why one of the key things that the Special Counsel seems to be getting at when it comes to January 6 is, Trump and those around him were they told what they were doing was illegal, but they said essentially do it anyway. I think that is intent has been a big part of this. We know, they talked to Jared Kushner, they've talked to Hope Hicks they looked at that.

And so, I think that is something we'll see what Jack Smith has. I mean, he had a lot more in the indictment of the documents investigation than we knew previously. We'll see if that's the same. If we do get charges on January 6.

MATTINGLY: Then, I think what's striking in this moment is there was so many complaints over the course of the first couple of years, post Trump, post January 6. Where's the Justice Department? Where's the prosecution? Where's everything right now? And it just seems like in the last couple of weeks, boom, boom, boom. And then particularly the last couple of days on this issue. I mean, how do you think that resonates in terms of people?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think that on our side of the aisle, there is a 2/3 justice system and Trump is benefiting from it. Can you imagine if Ilhan Omar had given a big speech and rally 10,000 Muslims to attack a joint session of Congress?

She had been in jail within three minutes, not three years. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had gotten Black Lives Matter to come and attack a joint session of Congress? He would be under Guantanamo by now. So, you talked about these two different realities. I think the Republicans say they're being too hard on our guy, and we're saying --

[08:30:00]