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Trump Charged With New Crimes in Classified Documents Case, Accused of Trying to Get Mar-a-Lago Security Video Deleted; Court Docs: Trump Charged With Possessing Classified Documents Shown in Recorded Bedminster Meeting; Trump Charged With Retaining Doc He Bragged About on Tape; More Obstruction, Retention Charges Leveled Against Trump; 150+ under U.S. Heat alerts, coast to coast; Record heat damages Florida's Coral Reef system; Deadly heat wave expands, threatening Northeast; Researchers race to save dying coral off Florida coast; Scientists warn of mass Coral bleaching event; Feinstein gets confused, has to be told to vote at hearing. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired July 28, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Maybe more than the current Mega Millions Powerball jackpots. So, there you go, and he doesn't even have to buy a ticket. Andy Scholes, appreciate it, thank you.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Alright.

HILL: CNN This Morning continues right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're with us on what is a very busy Friday. So, happy to have Erica Hill by my side. Good morning.

HILL: Nice to be with you.

HARLOW: We have a lot to get to. Major developments overnight, so let's begin here. Former President Donald Trump charged with new crimes in the classified documents case. And he has a new codefendant who allegedly said the boss wanted security camera erased, footage erased after boxes with secret material were moved out of the storage room.

HILL: The indictment also offering new information about how the former president allegedly handled a classified war plan at his Bedminster home.

HARLOW: Donald Trump responding to these developments, calling it election interference and harassment. He says the new charges are quote, "ridiculous."

HILL: It's not the only case we're watching, though.

His attorneys on Thursday meeting with the special prosecutor's office in that federal January 6th investigation. This, as another potential indictment against the former president, looms large.

HARLOW: This all falls against a backdrop, of course, of 2024. Tonight, Trump and more than a dozen Republican presidential candidates are together in Iowa. A big question, how will his opponents respond to the frontrunner's legal troubles? CNN This Morning starts right now.

We're glad you're with us. And there is a superseding indictment this morning. And there is a new codefendant. This morning Donald Trump is facing serious new charges in the documents case. The special counsel is now accusing the former president of trying to get surveillance video deleted at Mar-a-Lago, notably after it was subpoenaed by the Justice Department.

Trump's long-time valet, Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago's property manager, Carlos de Oliveira, are accused of helping in this scheme. Investigators say Nauta abruptly changed his travel plans just hours after that subpoena for the video came down, and then secretly headed to Mar-a-Lago. According to the new indictment, Nauta met up there with De Oliveira, they went to the security guard booth where security video is displayed, and then, went around the property with a flashlight, through a tunnel, pointing out where cameras were located.

Just after that, investigators say De Oliveira brought the club's IT expert to a private room. And according to the indictment, this was their conversation. "De Oliveira told the IT expert that the conversation should remain between the two of them." And asked how long the server kept footage. The IT expert said he thought it was around 45 days.

De Olivera then said that, quote, "'the boss' wanted the server deleted," and when the IT expert pushed back on that request, De Oliveira have reiterated 'the boss' wanted it gone and then asked, "what are we going to do?" So, the timing here matters a lot, right? De Oliveira was told on June the 27th that the cameras caught not (ph) the last 45 days of footage.

And if you go back, that would include the time when Trump allegedly had Nauta move boxes of national security secrets around Mar-a-Lago to hide them from federal investigators. And notably from his own attorney.

HILL: The indictment contains an additional charge related to a top secret document about Iran attack plan.

So, we've talked a lot about this and the fact that Trump discussed the document with biographers during a taped meeting at his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey in July 2021. CNN, of course, obtained that audio exclusively. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: This was the defense department and him.

WRITER: Wow. TRUMP: We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff-pages long, look.

STAFFER: Mm.

TRUMP: Wait a minute, let's see here.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Oh, my gosh.

STAFFER: Yeah.

TRUMP: I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.

STAFFER: Mm-hmm.

TRUMP: Except it is like, highly confidential.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Joining us now, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. Good morning. Let's begin with what's new against a former president.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Poppy, so a bad situation for Donald Trump has now gotten worse.

Let's talk about exactly what's new in this superseding, as we call it, Chapter 2 of the Indictment. So, first of all, Donald Trump is now charged with 32 counts of retention of national defense information. It was 31. There's now one additional document, and boy, is that--

HARLOW: Ivanka. (ph)

HONIG: An important document. This is the document that Donald Trump is talking about.

In that audio tape, he's not president anymore, he's at his golf club at Bedminster, he's showing this document to outsiders, to people with no security clearance, he's bragging about it, and he says, during that call, during that audio, not recall, during that meeting, Donald Trump says to them, "this is secret information, look at this." Now, Donald Trump since the first indictment has said, "there was no document," that's a direct quote Donald Trump said to Fox News, guess what, there was a document, DOJ has it, and now Donald Trump is charged with that.

The other new development is Donald Trump now faces eight counts related to obstruction and false statements. It was six. Now, he has two more accounts. Let's look at what that covers here.

[07:05:10]

HONIG: The general allegation is that Donald Trump and the other defendants requested that this Trump employee for delete security footage at the Mar-a-Lago club to prevent that footage from being provided to a federal grand jury. So, there's sort of two levels of obstruction now. One is the moving around of these boxes to keep them away from lawyers, investigators, the FBI, the grand jury. But now there's also this second level where the allegation is Donald Trump and the other codefendants got together, conspired, came up with a plan, let's get rid of this surveillance footage.

HARLOW: And telling them the 'why' is really key in this allegation.

HONIG: And they had just gotten a subpoena, which is really important.

HARLOW: Right, this came after that.

HONIG: Yes.

HARLOW: Let's talk about the new codefendant.

HONIG: Yup, we went from just two defendants, Donald Trump and Walt Nauta, now we have this third person, Carlos de Oliveira, we don't have a photo of him yet.

A couple of interesting things here, about the mechanics of what's going to happen. First of all, will they be tried all together? Or will the government or will the defendants try to split them into separate trials? That's going to be ultimately up to the judge. And let's remember Carlos de Oliveira. Now, he is faced with federal indictment, criminal charges, potential jail time.

Will he decide to cooperate against either of these other two? We shall see. We don't have a good indication. Either way. Now, the Olivera is charged with that conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was crucial in working with Trump employee for to delete that surveillance video. He's also charged with destroying or concealing an object.

The object there would be the surveillance video, and he made false statements to the FBI. He gave an interview to the FBI. They asked him straight up, "do you know anything about the boxes being moved anywhere?" And he just says, "no, no, I don't know anything." One thing that is important to note though when we talk about this conspiracy.

HARLOW: Yeah.

HONIG: It's based largely on testimony that's going to come from this Trump employee for --

HARLOW: Yeah.

HONIG: Which is based on what De Oliveira told him.

HARLOW: And who is Trump's employee for? What is his credibility? His or her credibility? Those are things the defense will dig into. Obviously, Elie, stay with us. Let's go back to the table. Erica.

HILL: Hi. We're also joining us here. CNN Political Commentator, former White House Communications Director, Alyssa Farrah Griffin and CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller.

Nice to see you both this morning. So, as we pick up this conversation here, there's been so much made and obviously Elie was just talking about it, about the timeline here, John. And when you look at what we know, the fact that in the indictment, they're saying when they're talking about the video, that De Oliveira and Nauta are going through the tunnel and they have flashlights and they're looking at the cameras, which would suggest that they perhaps have that footage.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Yeah, the timeline tells a story, which is, you know, they go down this tunnel that leads to the storage room with their flashlights. They're looking at the cameras, and then the next thing in the timeline is a conversation with the technology boss in the server room saying, "how can we delete, you know, parts or the whole server?"

The other question is, and this is going to be really interesting when we find out is, it is charged as attempting to delete the server. Now, does that mean they deleted it and thought it was gone, and the FBI went into those servers, as I've seen them do in prior cases, and went into the depths of the memories and recovered deleted material, or they just couldn't figure out how to execute it?

HILL: Mm-hmm.

Either way, the story is they were trying to get rid of the visual story of a, where the boxes moved and when, and b, they're searching for the cameras.

HILL: The other thing that really stood out is, is the list, and I hope you can speak to this, the relationships that have been laid out here. So, Walt Nauta is supposed to travel with the former president.

Instead, he shifts gears. He's going down to Mar-a-Lago. He's now talking to De Oliveira. He's helping to spread the messages. Just talk to us a little bit about what that relationship, based on your experience, is like with the former president. And the pressure that's potentially applied.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think what stood out to me in this was, you know, there's this 24-minute phone call by the former president where he's, that's an extremely long time for Donald Trump to talk to someone who's not a senior aide or a family member, someone close to him.

It's just very odd. There's a power discrepancy here. Walt, you know, was someone who he did serve in the White House. If Donald Trump's reelected, it wouldn't, you know, be shocking if he followed him there. But this, you know, kind of maintenance manager, this is a, let's call him, 'junior person', who works at Mar-a-Lago, that I can imagine felt some level of pressure.

I mean, I would guess if he has outside counsel, and is not having his counsel provided for by the former president, it would make a lot of sense for him to sever. Because there's going to be pressure there. I imagine that he felt like he needed to cooperate with what he, the former president, was instructing him to do.

This is Donald Trump's playbook. He pressures people around him. He clearly bypassed his lawyers and wanted to work directly with these two individuals to obstruct. And it, you know what? And these guys are in a very bad position now because of it.

HONIG: Alyssa hits on a really important point. And this is also right out of the Donald Trump playbook.

You know this, I think firsthand, he pays for lawyers for people around him. That's not illegal. It's actually, I think more common than people recognize happens a lot in corporate cases. When you have organized criminal activity, it happens a lot, but it naturally has the effect of making it really difficult to break away, a, because you don't know exactly where your lawyers loyalty sits, and b, it's expensive.

[07:10:17]

HONIG: If you got to go hire your own lawyer. So we'll see how that plays here.

MILLER: There's also a little bit of a scrum here, which is you have now three defendants being paid for legally their attorneys by Donald Trump, who have extraordinarily divergent legal interests in this case. The Donald Trump defense is going to be, I don't know what these guys were doing.

They took this on themselves and they did it. And their defense is going to be, we thought this was on the level because the boss told us it was okay and to go ahead and do it. This is the kind of case where any lawyer would say, I need a severance to have a separate trial with my defendant from this guy.

And that might apply to all three of them. When the first defendant is paying for all your attorneys, that becomes challenging.

GRIFFIN: And it reminds me, frankly, of the January 6th investigation where a lot of staffers around Donald Trump ended up getting him to cover their legal bills because many of them were young.

They were junior staffers. They couldn't afford the expense of retainers. But what it effectively did is keep them from sharing information that their attorneys potentially said, you know, you don't need to share that. You only need to share what you're asked. So, it's a very effective tool that Trump uses to try to keep information he doesn't remember--

HARLOW: When some of those (inaudible)--

MILLER: (inaudible) lawyers really representing.

HARLOW: And when some of those key witnesses got different attorneys, they came back with much different testimony. Trial date here, does it move because of this? HONIG: Yeah, I think I've said to you all before, write that in pencil. Now get out the eraser. I mean, there's no way this May 2024 trial date holds. Remember when the judge just a week ago set that trial date, she set 33 intermediate deadlines for discovery and motions.

Now, we're starting back at square one. This thing is going to get--

HARLOW: Why square one with--? I mean, there's--

HONIG: Well, not square one.

HARLOW: Significant initial charges but --

HONIG: But the problem is you have a new defendant now who is literally at square one, and you have these new charges against Donald Trump, there's going to be new discovery. He may have new motions.

I will say also, it's not great form by DOJ to go in front of the judge two weeks ago or so and beg for a trial date in December when they knew they were going to do this superseding that you don't have to say it. But usually you would signal to a judge and you wouldn't say, we need a--

HARLOW: That's interesting.

HONIG: Quick trial date when you knew you're about to bring a bigger, more complicated.

HILL: So, you think they definitely knew that this was happening? It's not that, because what's interesting, right? Is Jill Riveira is mentioned, but not by name in the original indictment, right? That changes now that has been replaced in the indictment with the--

HONIG: Right.

HILL: Superseding indictment. There's a name in there.

Could it be that, and I'm just guessing as the non-lawyer here, could it be that they thought maybe they were going to get him? When they went to the judge, they didn't, and now they're like, okay, we're going to charge you.

HONIG: It's possible that all of this came to their attention in the last 10, 12 days or so since they were last in front of the judge.

We don't know that. Superseding indictments take a while to put together. This adds, as we just talked about, substantial new charges and a whole new defendant. But yeah, this May trial date is not going to hold. I already had doubts now that they've added this. And listen, as much as this indictment is bad news for Trump, that one piece of good news for Donald Trump may swamp the bad news, because if he can get this thing kicked after the trial, that's the ultimate strategy for him.

HARLOW: Tell people why. GRIFFIN: Well, of course, his only legal defense, as far as I can see it, is winning the presidential election. He's not running on a forward looking message. He hasn't laid out a policy vision for the American public. He wants to get elected so that he can run the Department of Justice. He can do away with these charges.

That is why he's running for president.

HARLOW: Final thoughts, John?

MILLER: And, if you look at this in context, this isn't a new indictment. It's a superseder on an existing indictment and they're still, at least in the calendar of what prosecutors say they have coming, two more indictments in the oven. You've got Georgia and then you've got January 6th, so this is a bit of a justice juggernaut focused on Donald Trump, which is going to complicate his life.

The weird thing is, every time this happens, that message goes out, Donald Trump needs your help, money comes in--

HARLOW: Oh, yeah.

MILLER: Polls go up. Somewhere in a dark room, Ron DeSantis is trying to figure out, how can I get indicted? And, you know.

HARLOW: Not sure that's the new campaign shift he needs--

HONIG: This is why John doesn't do political (inaudible) all day.

HARLOW: But okay.

HILL: I mean, there is a reboot.

HARLOW: There is. Maybe it'll take a turn. Alyssa, thank you, John, Ellie, appreciate it.

HILL: Well, you are living through, you may not need us to tell you this, but we have the data to back it up this morning. Trust me, the hottest month ever recorded, and we're learning it is likely the hottest in 100, 000 years. That's according to some global weather authorities.

We're going to bring you the very latest on this relentless heat wave.

HARLOW: Also, water temps on Florida's coast, reaching record highs. Some as hot as a hot tub or Derek Van Dam takes a dive. Look at that. Underwater to see the extent of the damage to the state's reefs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:55]

HILL: Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. Just among a few of the very many places in this country bracing for temperatures that will feel like 100 degrees or even higher today. Forecasters are warning. Look at that map. They're warning of this deadly heat wave. We've been talking so much about it. It's been parked over the Southwestern U.S. for so long, expanding, of course, now into the Midwest across to Northeast. Nearly half the nation, this morning, is under some sort of heat alert.

And we are covering it as only CNN can. We have meteorologist Derek Van Dam in Miami Beach with a closer look at how this extreme heat is impacting sea life. And of course, the broader impact from there. CNN's Danny Freeman live for us in Philadelphia this morning at, a lot of folks waking up, it just feels like absolute steam outside and it feels sort of inescapable.

What are you seeing there?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think that is a good way of putting it and it's felt inescapable for at least 24 hours already. But I will say it's still at this point kind of feels like the calm before the heat storm because, you know, it's just after seven a. m. right now. And it still is only 78 degrees, feels in the low eighties.

But we know it was oppressively hot yesterday and we know it's going to get oppressively hotter today. And like you said, Erica, all across the East Coast.

[07:20:10]

FREEMAN: I'm going to read some of these temperatures that we're expecting, D.C. today, a high of 100 tomorrow, high of 98.

But a heat index of 110 and 107 over the course of the next two days. New York, high of 92 and 90 for today and tomorrow, heat index, 199. And here in Philly, a high of 98 and 95 for today and tomorrow, and a heat index today that could get up to 109 degrees. It could feel like 109 degrees in Philadelphia. That's why we're in this heat health emergency right now in this part of the city and really in our area as well.

In the city of Philadelphia, we're seeing cooling centers open up and folks are really recommending that you stay indoors and get access to libraries. Schools that are open with air conditioning to support some of those folks who may not have it in their homes. The other thing parks and rec.

They're also recommending get out, go to the splash pads, go to some of the community pools that are open today and will be open tomorrow as well. They say, ideally, don't jump in some of these fountains like this, but you know that may happen. It is Philadelphia, but that main message stay indoors and hydrate.

And I just want to illustrate something. I filled my water bottle here with just ice, maybe less than an hour ago. And you can see--

HILL: Oh.

FREEMAN: This is how fast it is--

HILL: Yeah. FREEMAN: Melting right now. I'm sure by the next live shot, it'll just be water and then I'll be happily drinking it to stay hydrated--

HILL: Yeah.

FREEMAN: Myself out here.

HILL: It may be boiling by that point.

FREEMAN: (inaudible)

HILL: You never know. Danny, appreciate it.

FREEMAN: You're right. Exactly. Exactly.

HILL: Stay out of the fountain, please. Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, researchers are racing to save dying coral off Florida's coast. This extreme heat is causing what some scientists are calling the worst coral bleaching the state has ever seen. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam live in Miami and you literally saw it with your own eyes.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it's all about how this heat wave on land has transpired into our oceans directly behind us. Yesterday, we went on a scientific expedition with the University of Miami Rosenstiel School. And we went to go determine how the delicate ecosystem of coral reefs here in southern Florida are handling these unprecedented ocean temperatures, this marine heat wave.

And if anyone can tackle this problem, it's these guys because they are inspired. They're motivated and they are on the front lines of this climate emergency every single day studying this coral. I remember coral reefs provide this natural protection, this barrier from storm surge, from hurricanes here in southern Florida.

So, we desperately need them. Also, for the tourism as well. And when we went underwater, we wanted to determine just how severe the bleaching was occurring. We know that there's been reports of 100% mortality of the coral in the southern Florida Keys. We went out to Biscayne Bay in the middle of the bay, specifically the southern sections, and we took samples with these scientists and that helped them determine and also in report back to NOAA, the level of this, ocean bleaching that is moving from the south to the north as these temperatures continue to stay warm. You know, 90% of excess greenhouse warming is literally stored and absorbed within our oceans and it's been apparent this week with temperatures over 100 degrees in some of those buoys on the southern side of Florida.

Now, when we surfaced from under the water, we were about 30 feet deep taking these samples. This is the reaction from the scientists, again, these are top coral scientists have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEMALE SCIENTIST: It's pretty horrifying. You know, I'm really heartened that some of those corals are still hanging on. I'm heartened that they're all alive. But I'm very worried about their next few months.

MALE SCIENTIST: And I think what's really saddening to hear is that this is one of the few reefs in Miami Dade County where you can still see really big, old colonies. And they're clearly bleaching pretty badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN DAM: So, Poppy and Erica, this is a coral cliffhanger. It's not the end of the story. We are bracing ourselves for the warmest months ahead. That's what scientists were so concerned about. It's middle of July, and we still have August and September to go. So, will these ocean temperatures continue to rise?

Time will tell.

HARLOW: We're seeing--

VAN DAM: Thank you.

HARLOW: We're seeing the deadly impact of humans actions in climate change. Derek, thank you for that fascinating look. Well, ahead (ph) President Trump's defense lawyer for a second impeachment told us last month that he doesn't believe Trump knew or believed he was doing anything wrong or illegal in the documents case.

David Schoen is joining us next to see if he still thinks that's true. Plus, Senator Dianne Feinstein appearing confused during a committee vote, the incident spotlighting concerns about the capabilities of some of the nation's most senior lawmakers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:28:55]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WIL HURD, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is running for president in order for him to stay out of jail. These are serious crimes. These are serious accusations. Donald Trump is a national security risk. This is a level of criminality that I don't think we've seen before. Maybe, maybe Richard Nixon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That was former Congressman, Republican I should say, and former CIA officer Will Hurd, who is also running for the GOP nomination for president.

The former president railing against the latest charges in this superseding indictment, calling them quote, "election interference at the highest level and prosecutorial misconduct." So, what does the former defense attorney for Trump during his second impeachment think? Happy to be joined this morning by David Schoen. David, it's good to have you. Your words to me, to us on June 8th. Before this, you did not believe in any way that Trump knew or believed he was doing anything wrong or illegal. You've read the superseding indictment. Do you still believe that?

DAVID SCHOEN, ATTORNEY OF STEVE BANNON: Yes, I do. 100%. And I hope that Mr. Hurd is not a lawyer because he seems to have forgotten about the presumption of innocence. It's very important that we keep that in mind. These are just allegations and it's very easy to get a witness to say anything, quite frankly.

HARLOW: We don't know Trump's defense.