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Trump to Appear in Court Tomorrow After Jan. 6 Indictment. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 02, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: For the first time in this country's history, a former president of the United States has been charged with felonies allegedly committed while he was president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This one is about the threat to our democracy.

JACK SMITH, SPECIAL COUNSEL: Lies by the defendant targeted and obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government.

JOHN LAURO, TRUMP ATTORNEY: The government has had three years to investigate this and now they want to rush this to trial in the middle of political season. What does that tell you?

FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): He oversaw or directed the activity of those involved.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution and protect our Constitution.

ASA HUTCHINSON, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This indictment goes to the heart of our democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Privately, behind the scenes, he's very angry. He is much more rattled than he is projecting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's politically motivated and it's election interference at its finest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In effect, would have pulled off a coup.

WILL HURD, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need to recognize that he needs to be held accountable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump failed the country and put his own interests over those of the United States.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: As you can see there's so much to get to this morning. We're glad you're with us on CNN This Morning.

And history was made in another indictment of the former president, but this one is different.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: No question. This is Asa Hutchinson, who may not often cite as the quote driving the day. You could see the heart of the republic and if there's any question about it regardless of how you land on what it entails.

HARLOW: That's exactly right. This is the story today, the historic third indictment of former President Trump, the news dominating really every headline across the country and the front page. We're covering all of the angles, all of the details of the indictment, the new defenses by Trump's team and where this does from here. When will we see a trial?

We have a team of reporters, experts all here to break it down. Let's begin with our Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, good morning to you. You were on reading this during the breaking news, as it was coming down last night, and now there is tomorrow. We look ahead to what happens tomorrow if Trump will appear in person, what this hearing will be like and where we go as a country from there.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, Poppy and Phil, it will be start of the case formally in court now that this indictment is unsealed and we have it. U.S. v. Trump in the U.S. District Court, but we are still waiting on some sort of detail about exactly how this is going to play out in court. Will Donald Trump be appearing in person? We believe that he very would because that is what happened in southern district of Florida where he was charged separately there in the unrelated case related to classified documents.

But in this situation, he does have a court appearance tomorrow. He is being summoned to court and he is going be appearing before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya. That is a judge that is only going to be listening to him and hearing from him for the initial process of this court case, and then the case gets into the heart of the proceedings as it leads up to trial. It goes to a different judge then, a judge named Tanya Chutkan, the federal district judge who will oversee this to trial out of D.C.

MATTINGLY: And, Katelyn, you were the first one to key on it that I saw yesterday of Tanya Chutkan, her importance and what she's done in the past on these specific issues related to the former president.

POLANTZ: Yes. Judge Chutkan is a very well-known, well-respected judge in D.C. But she's also a judge with a reputation as someone who has become a very harsh sentencer, specifically relating to January 6th rioters. The reason is that many judges in the D.C. District Court do believe that the rioters on January 6th deserve to face significant consequences and that there's a role that the judges play to prevent another attack, specifically looking forward to 2024. She's talked about 2024 and the threat that these rioters pose before and during sentences. And she also said to one rioter that she was sentencing recently, she said he didn't go to U.S. Capitol out of any love for our country, he went for one man, one man, in that sentence, would be Donald Trump.

And so Chutkan not only has handled these January 6th rioter cases, like all of the rest of the judges on the bench of D.C., she also has handled a case from Donald Trump before, whenever he was trying to stop his records from his White House going to House congressional investigators.

[07:05:10]

And he said he absolutely couldn't do that. She handed that drove of information, something that was upheld by appeals courts as well.

HARLOW: Yes, that's right. There are six co-conspirators, alleged co- conspirators in this indictment throughout, we know the identity of five of them because of you and your team's great reporting. We're also hearing from some. They spoke out to the media, some of them.

POLANTZ: They did. So, these six different individuals, we have identified five of them, and they are bold-faced names that you're very likely to recognize who were working with Donald Trump after the election to carry forward this disinformation campaign that he's now criminally charged with conspiring to do.

And those people are Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer, John Eastman, a lawyer, Sidney Powell, a lawyer, Kenneth Cheseboro, a lawyer, and then Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer, and also a Justice Department official. Those individuals not only were working to carry forward the disinformation, they also were taking on aspects of this approach that Donald Trump was alleging to use different aspects of his power, use the court system, the Justice Department, fake electors. They were all involved in different aspects of what Donald Trump was trying to do after the election.

The sixth co-conspirator is not named at this time. We do not know the person's name. All of these people are not charged. However, Poppy and Phil, that doesn't mean that this investigation has ended. Here is what Jack Smith, the special counsel, said yesterday.

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SMITH: Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment. And our investigation of other individuals continues.

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POLANTZ: So, the investigation is ongoing, clearly a signal to some of these conspirators that they could face charges in the future, and even John Eastman sending out a statement through his lawyers, acknowledging that if he is indicted, he will go to trial. Poppy?

HARLOW: Katelyn, thank you for the reporting.

MATTINGLY: All right. So, let's go ahead and walk through the indictment with CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. He's also a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Let's start with charges. Four of them, walk us through.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, we have an indictment, Phil, and we've been calling this the January 6th case, sort of as shorthand. But, really, if you look at the way Jack Smith has charged this case it's so much more about what led up to January 6th, 2021.

Now, Jack Smith has charged this. There's really three separate conspiracies. Just basics here, conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to violate the law. The first one, a conspiracy to defraud the United States here of a free and fair election. This is actually the same law that prosecutors sometimes use to charge someone who has stolen money from the United States government, from social security, from the IRS. But it doesn't have to be money. In this case, it's the election.

Then we have this conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and then a non-conspiracy count, they actually attempted to obstruct an official proceeding here. That's the electoral vote count by Congress.

And, finally, there's this conspiracy against constitutional rights, as we've discussed, anticipated correctly on this show. That right was the right to cast your vote and to have it counted. So, this is really taking a very broad view and vast majority of this indictment, Phil, focuses on the lead-up to January 6th.

MATTINGLY: So, take us inside the indictment itself. What stood out to you if you read through it?

HONIG: Yes. The indictment breaks down into five chapters, and it all starts with the false claims of election fraud that the indictment alleges, that Trump disseminated his false claims of election fraud for months, despite the fact that he knew, that's so important, that he knew, and in many cases, had been informed that they were not true. The indictment, of course, puts Donald Trump at the head of that and cites two co-conspirators, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

Based on those false claims, chapter two, they launched this seven- state strategy to try to pressure state and local officials in these seven closely contested states. They put together these slates of fake electors, claiming they've been elected for Donald Trump. Of course, that was false.

Phase 3, they tried to weaponize the Justice Department. Here's another co-conspirator, Jeffrey Clark, a medium-high level official in DOJ who tried to use DOJ to open up phony investigations of bogus election fraud claims and to pressure states as well.

Chapter four, of course, they tried to pressure Mike Pence to unilaterally throw out electoral votes. And then, finally, and, really, only as a sort of capstone here, is the actual attack on the Capitol.

Important to note, the indictment does not allege Donald Trump caused that attack. The indictment said that Trump exploited the attack in order to redouble his efforts to try to pressure Congress. So, that's the way the indictment sort of tells the story and I think five very comprehensible neat chapters.

MATTINGLY: So, it's been about 17 hours. Please detail with specificity at the calendar.

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HONIG: I shall. We're going to be using this graphic a lot.

Look, November 2024, of course, is the presidential election. Let's look at what we already have on the books. The Manhattan D.A. case, the state level case for payment of hush money, is already scheduled for late March. That's going to carry us through to April. The other federal case, Mar-a-Lago, is scheduled for May. That's going to carry through June and likely into July. I don't see a lot of space for this trial to go unless one of these two moves. It's all going to be fluid and the stakes are going to be whether or not we hear about this before the election, very high-stakes.

MATTINGLY: No question about it. Elie, thank you.

HONIG: All right.

HARLOW: This morning new reporting on how conversations between Trump and Pence, his vice president at the time, provided really key evidence for prosecutors. You see it all through this indictment. When Pence opposed a lawsuit asking a judge to rule that the vice president had the authority to reject electoral votes, the indictment states, quote, the vice president responded that he thought that there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the defendant told the vice president, quote, you're too honest.

Let's bring in CNN Political Analyst, New York Times Senior Political Correspondent Maggie Haberman, who knows Trump world just about better than anyone. What is the feeling from the former president this morning and Trump world?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They're pretty angry, which should not surprise anyone. We have seen him get progressively angrier as these indictments have been coming. This is the third case in which he is indicted. But on this one in particular, there is a sense of indignance around it. You are hearing people close to the former president say they now feel like they can move to subpoena everybody who might have done something related to 2020. That does not mean a judge will actually allow them to do that, but that's what their plan is. They are looking at how they can maximize this politically, if nothing else.

MATTINGLY: Maggie, the biggest question I have out of all of this is Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, was not an unnamed co-conspirator. There are references to him, some new things tied to him in the 45 pages, but it's not clear whether or not he's cooperating, which has been the big question. What's your sense of where Mark Meadows sits in all this right now?

HABERMAN: So, look, Mark Meadows, as you say, has been a huge question, not just for us, but for people around Trump. And Trump has had a lot of questions about what is going on with Mark Meadows as well. You are correct. There are clearly shades of Mark Meadows in various pieces in this indictment, but there's cooperating, which is meeting your legal requirements, and then there's cooperating, which is being a full blown witness who is aiding the case in a certain way.

I have no reason to believe that Meadows is actually doing that. And, frankly, there isn't a ton in there that suggests that he actually was doing that. But, yes, the absence of him is certainly notable. There's also a lot from Mike Pence. You see him in various places. You see that there were notes provided by him. I'm told it was under subpoena.

So, I think that Meadows in particular is going to remain a big question. I suspect a lot of these questions will be answered as time goes on.

HARLOW: Can you speak a little bit more about the role that the former vice president, Mike Pence, played in this indictment? Because there's three, if not four, big chunks that stood out to me. And in the indictment, there's new stuff there about his interactions with the president and what the president said to him and what the president said other people, Maggie, about basically I got it, I'll handle Pence.

HABERMAN: That, to me, Poppy, was one of the most interesting pieces of this indictment, where you have Trump saying -- this was new information, Trump saying to someone else who said, should other people go talk to Mike Pence, while Trump was engaged in this pressure campaign, to get Pence to throw the election his way, essentially, when the Electoral College certification happened, and Trump said, no, I've got it. I'm paraphrasing, but it was, I've got it. I'm talking to the vice president. No one else should talk to the vice president. That was new and interesting that that was Trump's perspective.

Much of what we know from the Pence Trump conversations has actually been out either through the House select committee or media reports. But there were more details. There was more meat on the bone. There were notes that this was based on that Pence provided under subpoena. You have Pence saying to Trump that he doesn't -- in one conversation, that he doesn't have the authority to do what Trump wants. And Trump, as you noted, saying you're too honest. That actually wasn't Pence's book last year. But there is lots of detail about Trump calling Pence at various points, or Pence calling Trump to wish him a happy holiday and Trump taking these as opportunities to berate Pence.

MATTINGLY: Maggie, there's a default sense that this will automatically help the former president in the Republican primary. This will be a huge boon to his fundraising efforts. I'm not going to try and dispute either of those. But based on what we've seen over the course of the last several days, in particular, with the significant cost these indictments have brought in terms of legal fees and the fact he's going to have to run in a general election, how does the campaign feel about how sturdy they are at this point?

HABERMAN: Look, there is a concern about money around Trump. It's been going on for quite some time. It's part of why you're not seeing him do a lot of rallies.

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Among the reasons is they are incredibly expensive. They have been running a different kind of campaign this time. Now, he can't use campaign fees for lawyers, as far as I know. I believe that most campaign finance experts say you can't do that.

At the moment, they are starting a legal defense fund for people who are around Trump. His own legal fees are not expected to be paid by that. But you are right, this has been a huge drain on resources. Generally, there is concern about it. We are less than six months from the Iowa caucuses. If Trump is the nominee, they believe that they will be able to get the money they need. And, remember, everything with Trump is about surviving increments of time. But you are correct that this is a concern.

MATTINGLY: All right, Maggie, stay with us. We want to bring in the panel. Trump's legal and political calendars are filling up fast and are on a collision course. After the break, we'll bring in the panel.

Special counsel Jack Smith says he's looking for a speedy trial for Donald Trump. More on when that could take place. We're going to discuss with our group of experts. They're already here. I just wanted to talk to them right after the break. Stay with us.

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LAURO: Our focus is on the fact that this is an attack on free speech and political advocacy. And there's nothing that's more protected under the First Amendment than political speech.

So, at the end, our defense is going to be focusing on the fact that what we have now is an administration that has criminalized the free speech and advocacy of a prior administration during the time that there is a political election going on.

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HARLOW: That was Trump's current attorney in this case, John Lauro, slamming the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team of prosecutors over this latest indictment of President Trump. We know that President Trump is scheduled to appear in some form or fashion at the Washington, D.C. Federal Courthouse tomorrow for his initial hearing.

Let's talk about all that is ahead and all that is in here. With us is CNN Legal Analyst, former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams, CNN Senior Legal Analyst, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, we have Elie Honig here, CNN political commentator, former special assistant to President George W. Bush Scott Jennings and our political commentator, former special adviser to President Obama, Van Jones, also with us again, CNN political analyst and New York Times Senior Political correspondent Maggie Haberman.

[07:20:05]

Good morning. Welcome to the table.

Elliot, so, where this goes from here is a question also of timing, what it means for the election, but what stands out to you most from this indictment that you didn't know before?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's interesting. Okay, there's a lot that we knew before, and that's notable, because much of what's reported in here, or at least presented in here, is information that has been in the public record for quite some time. That's significant because it was always criminal, Poppy. The simple fact is it's now put in a legal document.

So, a few things. One, and to Mr. Lauro's point just a second ago, about how we are now criminalizing speech, if you think --

HARLOW: Which by the way is the defense suggests, but I'm anticipating because it's the first page of his indictment.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely, absolutely. Now, if you are thinking of this indictment as the January 6th indictment, this is all about criminalizing the events of that day. You could make an argument that it's about a speech that the president gave. But, no, this was a systematic effort stretching back months and stretching across seven states in which there was an effort to undermine an entire American election. That's not speech, that's a crime.

And it's a very easy argument to say that, well, now we're just being so weaponized and criminalizing the former president as a candidate. It's not that, and far more than that, it's laid out quite meticulously in this indictment.

HONIG: I think it's a really important point. The charge here is not that when Donald Trump stood on The Ellipse, he said, we're going to go down to the Capitol, we're going to fight --

HARLOW: Very little was about that.

HONIG: No. I mean, it's barely mentioned. In fact, it's only mentioned, to Elliot's point, as part of the fraud, as here he is continuing to spread the fraud.

So, this is not about incitement. And some of the Republican candidates, I should say, have tried to sort of use the, I think, misleading argument that they're trying to punish him for his speech on The Ellipse. That's not the case. It's not the way they've charged this. This is about a fraud and conspiracy. WILLIAMS: And to that point, they could have charged seditious conspiracy. They could have charged inciting a mob or any other things like that. Those would have been, number one, incredibly difficult to prove, and, number two, legally shaky. I think you'd have a very hard time saying that the president conspired with rioters to interrupt, to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of American law. So, this was a much tighter document than any they could have filed,

and probably the tightest thing, and quite good, I think.

MATTINGLY: Scott, I understand you don't work for him anymore, but the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who I think you remain close to, has not said anything, which is not a surprise to me, but is also not by accident. I'm pretty sure he has internet wherever he is, if you wanted to get something out.

But what I thought of throughout the day yesterday is his speech after the second impeachment, the president was not convicted in the United States Senate, where he made very clear that he didn't believe constitutionally it was possible to impeach or to convict a president that was out of office or a former president, but that that's what the justice system is for.

A lot of Republicans took that stance. A lot of those Republicans, not McConnell, have shifted on that stance. Why?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is interesting. There is an emerging argument on the right, even the anti-Trump right, Wall Street Journal, National Review, Eric Erickson, who a lot of Republicans follow. These are all people who have said, we want to move on from Trump. We should nominate someone else. Trump is bad. He shouldn't hold the presidency again. But there's this emerging idea that this indictment is not very strong, that this is dangerous.

MATTINGLY: Based on what?

JENNINGS: Their idea that it criminalizes speech, that, in other instances, either in the past or in the future, is this a blueprint for criminalizing the speech of people who say, I don't know, wanted to toss out the electors for George W. Bush, or who may want to have something to say about a future election.

I'm surprised to read it, to be honest, because a lot of these voices have been some of the most prominent conservative voices urging the Republican Party to move on. And so to see them come out against this indictment really was kind of stunning to me. And I don't know if it's indicative of just where most Republicans are or if they're seeing something in this that tells them that, according to their own principles and values, this is a step too far.

They all still argue Donald Trump shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office. It's just this particular indictment struck a very negative chord with them. And I suspect some of the politicians you referenced would say the same.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It struck a positive chord with me. I just want to say it struck a positive chord with me and a lot of people, and mainly because of count four. Count four says it's about rights, a conspiracy to violate rights, and the rights that he's talking about, it's the right to vote, the right to have your vote count.

African-Americans stand in very long lines to vote. We put more martyrs in the ground in this country for the right to vote than I think any community.

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So, the idea that somebody is just going to throw our votes away, which is what Trump was trying to do, because he didn't want to lose office or lose face, it was an offense, it's an affront. And the fact that somebody finally stood up on that point and said, you know, your votes matter in America, your votes count, and somebody conspiring to do this is wrong, is important.

Now, this mix that they're trying to do on the right to say, well, you know, you're punishing somebody for speaking. Well, listen, speaking is an element, it's a part of any crime, right? Go kill my neighbor. I'm just speaking. All I'm doing is speaking. No, what you're doing is speaking into existence acts that are criminal.

And so you're going to know everybody's not got to go to the citizen's class, you got to get a law degree, all this stuff. Why? Because Donald Trump is carrying us in the territory that the founders and framers never expected us to be regarding our elections.

HARLOW: I'm glad he brought up the statute, by the way, written in this country after the civil war for these reasons.

Maggie, John Lauro knows, and Kaitlan pointed this out to him in her excellent interview last night, there are limits to the First Amendment. This is the public argument they're making in the media. Is it going to be the same argument in court?

HABERMAN: I think that that is going to be part of the argument. I think there's also going to be an argument and there were a few that Lauro laid out, one of which is he said something to the effect to Kaitlan of I would be interested to see a jury prove beyond a reasonable doubt, be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump didn't believe there was widespread fraud. I think you are going to hear that as well.

I do think all of this is going to be laid out in court. I'm not sure, to Van's point, how compelling an argument saying this is free speech is going to be because there have always been limits on free speech. I think the issue about mindset is going to be, one, you're going to see them lean into pretty heavily. And that's going to depend on what other evidence the Justice Department has. Do they have lots of people telling them Trump said some version of yes, I know this isn't true? We have no idea. We don't know what evidence they have. But I think you're going to hear a lot more about that going forward.

I think publicly and politically you're going to hear this free speech argument because, as Scott noted, it is something that excites the base and it is something that a lot of Republicans feel like they can come and defend. A lot of this for Republicans has been bluntly contorting themselves -- I'm talking about elected officials and some pundits, to contort themselves to explain why something they condemned in real-time as truly terrible is not actually criminal.

MATTINGLY: Elliot to Maggie's point about intent. I control F to the heck out of this document to find 36 mentions of knowingly. But I also heard from people last night who said we didn't necessarily see anything brand new that gets to that point in terms of evidence or what the prosecutors had collected.

WILLIAMS: So, a couple things. One, I'm a paper guy, so I couldn't control F, but another word that appears in there quite a bit is --

MATTINGLY: You have it a computer with you.

WILLIAMS: I do. I do. I do. And I got to pads.

I'll show you how to do it at the break.

WILLIAMS: Thank you. But also the word, deceit, is another one, where the allegation that he's using now is to trick other people. There's a few things in here. Number one, page 30 in the indictments references the point at which Donald Trump says, I think we have to hand this over to the next guys, in effect, saying the guys who won the election. So he's acknowledged that he lost. There's other evidence, so, for instance, our colleague, Alyssa Farah Griffin, has testified before Congress saying that the president said to her at one point, I can't believe I lost the election to this f'ing guy.

So, there's any number of instances of the president being on notice that he lost. If you notice, they walk through in the indictment every single individual, including the attorney general, the head of the director of national security, all of whom make the president -- put the president on notice that he lost. And what you start building is a case of reckless disregard of the truth, which can count as a form of knowledge.

MATTINGLY: All right. It's going to be a key point to watch going forward. Guys, stay with us. We have a lot more to come.

HARLOW: New this morning, we're getting the first look at Trump's legal defenses, right, we talked about a little bit there, as he heads to court for his first appearance tomorrow. One of his former attorneys will be with us.

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