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Trump Hours Away from His Third Arrest in Four Months; Washington on Alert Ahead of Trump's Arrest, Arraignment; Barr Says, Trump Shouldn't be Anywhere Near the Oval Office. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 03, 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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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: While military officials are claiming small advances in the southeast of the country, Russia continues its drone strikes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Kremlin is now acknowledging that they are arming civilians in the border areas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Moscow is waging a battle for a global catastrophe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A federal jury has decided that Robert Bowers will be sentenced to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We must hold accountable those who wished to commit such terrible acts of anti-Semitism, hate and violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're raising generations of traumatized Americans, and that concerns me as a faith leader.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning, everyone. It is the top of the hour. We're so glad you're with us here on CNN This Morning. There's a lot to get to, as you saw, but, really, another -- I know we say it so much, another historic day, a momentous day and a really important day for our democracy in court today.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's not just about an arraignment or the mundane process over the course of the next couple of hours. It is much bigger than that, and that's down in Washington. That's where we have all our eyes on right now.

Just hours from now, former President Donald Trump set to appear in a courtroom in Washington, D.C., on charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election and hold on to power. Security barriers, they went up overnight. We've also learned that Secret Service has done a walkthrough of the D.C. courthouse, and law enforcement is monitoring potential threats.

Now, Trump is expected to plead not guilty to four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. His fingerprints will be taken digitally. Mug shot will not be taken.

HARLOW: We're also getting a preview of what Trump's lawyers are preparing to argue as this case moves forward to trial, that, among those, that his claims of election fraud are protected by the First Amendment's free speech, that he was simply following the advice of his lawyers and that he truly believed the debunked fraud claims.

Our Kaitlin Collins spoke with former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr about all of these potential legal avenues. He doesn't think they're going to hold up. We'll hear why in moments.

Let's begin, though, with our colleague, Sara Murray. She is live outside the D.C. courthouse, where he will be arraigned today. Yesterday, we were talking on the program about is he going to go in person, is he going to go in Zoom, he's going to be there, usually a mundane process, but a critically important day for American democracy.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And, obviously, by the security perimeter you have shown, this is not going to be just about mundane day in federal court because of the defendant we're talking about, former President Donald Trump. He is due here at 4:00 P.M., the same federal courthouse here in Washington, D.C., where we have seen so many of the rioters who stormed U.S. Capitol on January 6th, prosecuted and sentenced.

So, Donald Trump will arrive here later this afternoon. He will enter the federal courthouse. He will be placed under arrest. We expect his actual appearance in court to be pretty brief. We've now seen this a couple of times before. He'll be advised of his rights. He'll be advised of the charges against him. He may have an opportunity to enter a plea today, which, of course, we would expect him to plead not guilty.

But we're going to be looking to see if Donald Trump does actually say anything in court, if he addresses the court at all. And we're also going to be looking for whether Special Counsel Jack Smith attends in person, as he did in Miami, when Donald Trump was charged in the classified documents case.

Again, a lot of this we are not going to see in real-time, we are not going to see on camera. Cameras are not allowed in the federal court. So, we're going to be relying on our reporters in the courtroom and these sketches to really get the scene of what it is like for Donald Trump again to be in there for his third arraignment after he's been charged for these four counts, guys.

HARLOW: Okay. Sara, we'll be watching very, very closely. Our special coverage begins this afternoon at 3:00 Eastern. We'll get back to you soon.

Quotes here, nauseating and despicable, this is how former Trump- appointed Attorney General Bill Barr is describing the former president's actions in his first public comments since Trump's latest indictment. He sat down with our Kaitlan Collins and he explained why he now believes that Trump knew he lost the election and shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office. Watch.

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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think he knew that he lost the election?

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Do I personally believe that? Yes. At first I wasn't sure but I have come to believe that he knew well that he had lost the election. And now, what I think is important government has assumed the burden of proving that. The government in their indictment takes the position that he had actual knowledge that he had lost the election and the election wasn't stolen through fraud. And they're going to have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.

COLLINS: Whish is high bar, of course.

BARR: That's a high bar. Now, that leads me to believe that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg on this.

COLLINS: Do you think Jack Smith has more?

BARR: Oh, yes, I would believe he has a lot more. And that's one of the things that impressed me about the indictment, and it was very spare. And there were a lot of things he could have said in there and I think there's a lot more to come and I think they have a lot more evidence as to President Trump's state of mind.

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COLLINS: You said you've come around the idea that you do think he knew that he lost. Why have you come around to that?

BARR: Number one, comments from people like Bannon and Stone before the election, saying that he was going to claim it was stolen if he was falling behind on election night, and that that was the plan of action. I find those statements very troubling. And then you see that he does that on election night and then the evidence that has come out since that the press reports and the indictment.

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MATTINGLY: With us now is CNN Political Commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig and CNN Political Commentator Van Jones.

Elie, I actually want to start with the interview from last night because it was so methodical and concise in terms of almost taking apart what we've heard from the president's lawyers up to this point. They have not presented a case. We've only seen the prosecutor's version of events in the 45-page indictment up to this point, but specifically something that Barr said on the existence of fraud. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARR: Here we are two and a half years and still they haven't come forward with any evidence. And, in fact, as the indictment puts forward, you have Giuliani saying, yes, we have a lot of theories, but we don't have any evidence.

That's a pretty big admission, no evidence. They wanted to overturn the election and they had no evidence of outcome determinative fraud.

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MATTINGLY: Elie, you keyed on that. Why?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, first of all, Phil, this was a fantastic interview. I stayed up way past my bedtime watching it. And I found myself actually agreeing with quite a bit of what Bill Barr said.

However, if prosecutors are relying on Bill Barr as a witness, as some sort of divine messenger of truth on the issue of was there election fraud, they're going to have a big problem. Because, yes, Bill Barr, weeks after the election, December of 2020, did come forward publicly and say there's no evidence of fraud and he has said that consistently since.

The problem is that for months leading up to the election, he was Donald Trump's biggest cheerleader when it came to the issue of fake allegations of election fraud. He went on NPR. He said there's massive risk of election fraud here. NPR had to run it back and say, we allowed the attorney general to tell a falsehood on our air.

Bill Barr went in front of Congress in the summer of 2020, said, huge risk of fraud in voting, nothing we can do to police it. He was asked, do you have any proof of that? He said, no, but I just know it as commonsense.

He came on our air on CNN in September of 2020, and Wolf Blitzer, rightly, knowing that Bill Barr was pushing the election fraud lie, asked him, how many cases has your DOJ actually prosecuted of election fraud? And Barr hemmed and hawed.

And then Barr said, well, there's one case involving 1,700, 1,700 false ballots, which sounded remarkable until the next day when it came out that that case involved one ballot, one instance of election fraud. DOJ had to run a correction there.

So, Bill Barr has changed his tune quite a bit. He is not going to be an effective witness for prosecutors on this issue. He's trying to whitewash history, but that won't wash in court. He was behind this. Why? He helped spread it during those key months leading up to the election.

HARLOW: Van, taking aside the issues, the real issues that I think Elie rightly brings up about Bill Barr and what he didn't said before versus now. I was so struck by the fact that he really believes that Jack Smith has, quote, a lot more that's not in the indictment specifically on Trump's state of mind, because that's the key that's going to be hardest to prove. And Bill Barr believes that there is a lot more that's not in this indictment.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, Bill Barr was a top cop. He's a prosecutor's prosecutor. So, it makes sense that he would say that that is the whole key. If Trump is really that dumb, then he gets a chance to walk. But if he's actually smart and he knew what he was doing, then it's a very different story.

What's going on now is that you have these two narratives in the country that are basically the same narrative. The Democrats are saying the president misused his office, used the power of his office to hold on to power. That's what we're saying about Trump. But what the Republicans are saying about the Democrats, the same thing. This president is misusing his office, the Department of Justice, to knock out Donald Trump to stay in power. So, we're literally in mirror world right now, where both sides have the same accusations against each other.

The question you have to ask is this. If you're a parent or a grandparent, and you had a kid that was accused of cheating, and the teacher says, we have evidence that this kid was conspiring to cheat, and you say, well, Johnny, what's the truth? Well, the truth is the teacher hates me, the students are against me, the principal is an idiot, the entire Department of Education is corrupt. Who do you believe?

I mean, it's a lot harder to believe -- it's a lot easier to believe that Donald Trump just didn't want to leave office and was conspiring with his friends.

[07:10:00]

It's a lot harder to believe what the Republicans are saying, which is the entire system, local prosecutors, state prosecutors, federal prosecutors are all conspiring against poor little Johnny.

MATTINGLY: It's also a situation of show your work, right? Like there's an indictment. There are three indictments. That's the thing that always gets me. It's not apples to apples, not because it's one side or the other. It's because one side has facts and evidence. And if you want to challenge that in court and defeat it in court, by all means, that's why the system is there. The other side just throws the allegation.

HARLOW: But we don't know what Trump's lawyers are going to do yet.

MATTINGLY: I know. But, I mean, more about is Biden ordering the Justice Department based on what? I would happily, happily have and break that story if it existed. I'm telling you right now, call me immediately. I would love to write the story. We just don't have evidence where there is evidence in terms of what the foreign president did.

I want to ask you -- actually, I want to start with this. You might have some idea of what evidence they may have in terms of what the president's mindset was because you testified to this issue specifically. We've shown the video a number of times from it. What's your sense to Poppy's point of what more they may have?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and I do agree with the attorney general. I think that there's more here because I think the shakiest part of this indictment and following case is going to be the mindset and whether or not he actually believed the election.

This free speech argument I actually think is a very shallow and weak argument, because you can say just about anything in this country, but it's when it gets into fraudulent behavior and conspiracy, that's actions, that's conduct, that's not about a matter of speech.

But I know that Donald Trump knew that he lost the election. And what this -- to Van's point, what this argument is going to rely on is despite the overwhelming evidence, demonstrable evidence that he lost and that every reasonable person around him knew he did, he still intellectually just didn't have the capacity to understand it.

This is basically going to be that Donald Trump was too stupid to know he lost argument. I think he's going to hate it when his lawyers start having to make this case. And I would keep my eye on that because there's not going to be -- there might be some fanfare of re- litigating, like we want to go to these seven states and, for the 20th time, see if there was fraud and if those election results could have been different. But it's ultimately going to come down to, he truly believed this, even though it was untrue.

HARLOW: Elie, can you also explain why the argument that I just had relied on my lawyers is going to be dicey to make in court? Because then if you got to put Trump on the stand, then you pierce attorney/client privilege, explain that to folks.

HONIG: Yes. So, there is such a defense that a defendant can raise in court called advice of counsel, which is essentially my lawyers blessed this. My lawyers told me it was okay to do this. What am I to know better than them? There is risk in making this argument, high risk.

First of all, you waive, you give up the attorney client privilege. So, if Donald Trump actually makes that claim in court, all of his communications with all of his lawyers about anything become fair game for cross-examination.

Donald Trump would almost certainly have to take the stand to make that defense. We can only imagine what a cross-examination of Donald Trump would look like. And it's not a free-for-all. You can't show that your lawyers gave you advice that was patently ridiculous, that nobody would have reasonably believed.

So, it is there as a defense avenue, but it's a really tough road to go down.

HARLOW: I think, you've put up all those then administration lawyers, by the way, who the indictment lists out, who told him the exact opposite.

MATTINGLY: Alyssa, can I ask you? Your former boss, Vice President Mike, one of your former bosses was indicted, the other one was the vice president is at the center of that indictment. He spoke about it. He was asked about it on the campaign trail. I want to listen to this.

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MIKE PENCE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president into the United States.

It wasn't just that they asked for a pause. The president specifically asked me and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes, essentially to overturn the election.

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GRIFFIN: Well, I love Mike Pence unleashed. Listen --

MATTINGLY: I know. That's what it did. I was like, wow, that's (INAUDIBLE) Mike Pence.

GRIFFIN: I think he's going to turn out to be the most important witness in this case. I think it's very likely that he's going to take the stand. He knows better than most people because there were conversations, to the best of my knowledge, that were directly between just him and the president. No former president, no staff around. He did keep contemporaneous notes.

And I applaud him for being unequivocal and telling the truth about this. When you look at the GOP field, there's really only a few who are telling the truth about what we all saw with our own eyes on January 6th and the weeks leading up to it.

HARLOW: Van?

JONES: Look, I think that guy sounds like a leader. He sounds like he's got conviction. He sounds like the guy who did stand up to Donald Trump and who did refuse to cave in. Where has he been?

GRIFFIN: More of that Mike.

JONES: More of that. Up until now, what you've mainly seen it's like -- is this kind of hemming and hawing. It could be the fact that he doesn't have that much left to lose. He may not even make the debate stage. And I think if you're going to take a stand, today is the time to make that stand. People are paying attention now in a different way.

[07:15:00]

You have these other cases up until now that maybe weren't as much a threat to the country. This is the big, big deal, and he's taking a big stand, and I think it's a good thing. MATTINGLY: Yes. It will be fascinating to watch and not just the hours ahead, the days, weeks ahead. Van Jones, Alyssa, Elie, thanks, guys, we appreciate it.

HARLOW: Coming up, so we're going to be joined by someone who conducted a years-long investigation Into Trump before his successor filed charges in New York. We're talking about former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. He's our guest.

MATTINGLY: And pop star Lizzo facing an explosive lawsuit from three of her former dancers, she's accused of harassment body shaming and fueling a, quote, hostile work environment. Those dancers will join us live, ahead.

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HARLOW: So, just a few hours from now, Donald Trump will be appearing in a courtroom in D.C., where he is expected to plead not guilty to four counts. Those include conspiracy to defraud the United States of America.

This is Trump's third arrest in four months. The two previous indictments were related to falsifying business records and the alleged mishandling of classified documents. But if you add them up, Trump is facing 78 criminal charges in three different cases right now, as he is the Republican frontrunner for the White House.

[07:20:08]

Just think about that. Our next guest conducted a years-long investigation into Trump before his successor filed charges, former Manhattan District Attorney and partner at Baker McKenzie Cy Vance joins us now. It's really nice to have you. Good morning.

CY VANCE, FORMER MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Good morning.

HARLOW: So, gosh, 78, three different cases, but this one is different. Do you believe that this case that Jack Smith has just brought, this indictment, is more perilous for Trump or Mar-a-Lago or Bragg's case? You're a former office --

VANCE: Well, I think the former president faces real risk in every case that's presented to him and is now public. In the Manhattan case, I think it is unlikely the president faces jail if he's convicted. So, I think that is less likely outcome in the Manhattan case.

These two federal indictments, I think, are, on their face, quite, quite strong. And I think that's the purpose of how the indictments were crafted to let the president and the public know exactly why these charges were brought.

HARLOW: One thing I keep thinking about when we put them all together, and we'll wait and see if there's an indictment brought in Georgia, if Trump -- if this doesn't go to trial before the general election, if Trump becomes president, he can essentially get rid of all the federal stuff. But state, Bragg, he can't. VANCE: No, he can't. And he can't, and thank goodness for a system of justice that gives the president certain powers in the federal system, but not over the states.

So, the reality is that if the president, by some stroke of luck, is able to quash the federal indictments, he will face, presumably, an indictment in Georgia, which appears aligned to many of the same factual elements we're going to see today, and we saw in Smith's second indictment.

MATTINGLY: Can you help me from a technical and logistical perspective? I'm very stuck on -- there are so many, three, potentially four. There is such a compressed time window before the election. Is there communication right now? Should there be communication right now between New York, Georgia, the special counsel's team in terms of who goes first, who goes second? How do you structure this if you want to get this done in a quick manner?

VANCE: Well, I think there's two different groups -- or actually three. One is defense counsel and their view on --

MATTINGLY: And they have a say.

VANCE: They have a say.

HARLOW: They have a bigger say.

VANCE: And, frankly, the court will have a necessity to make sure that the appearance isn't that somehow the constitutional rights of the defendant are being set aside. Then you have the prosecutors and whether or not they should be communicating about priorities and timing. And then you have the judges.

Now, I think each judge, for example, Judge Merchan in New York, is not going to want to be given short shrift in terms of the timing of his court. The indictment came down first. But I think it's also true that, as a practical matter, the severity and complexity of the federal indictments are more severe, more complex. And at the end of the day, push comes to shove, I could see the federal case and the state cases being delayed and put behind the federal cases.

That's just a prediction, but not a guarantee.

HARLOW: But given what you just told us before, that the state cases would remain if Trump becomes president again and quashes the federal probes, if you were Alvin Bragg and your colleagues in the Justice Department came to you and Jack Smith said, we got to get ours in before yours, can you delay? Would you delay? I'm asking what you would do in your former job.

VANCE: Well, I would listen to them and take into consideration their points.

So, in our own investigation of the former president and his company, which resulted in the indictments of his company for tax and other fraud, I was asked by the Southern District to stand down for a period of time because they indicated to me that they --

HARLOW: Which was remarkable that that happened, by the way.

VANCE: Well, I think it was -- and my response was, yes, I will, because I felt that was the right thing to do.

So, it's not as if conversations don't happen. It's not as if the state prosecutor can't acknowledge what he thinks about the priority. And in my case, I did. Ultimately, we ended up going twice to the Supreme Court, and it all sort of worked out in the end. But I would certainly take into account Jack Smith's requests, but I'm not guaranteeing that I would agree with him.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask real quick?

VANCE: Yes.

MATTINGLY: The president had a huge fundraising burst after the New York indictment.

[07:25:00]

Democrats that I talked to are frustrated with the New York indictment. Republicans point to the New York indictment, Bill Barr did last night with Kaitlan Collins, as a boon to them, politically. Do you think that's the case?

VANCE: Well, I think, as a practical matter, it turned out that the state indictment did generate attention and fundraising capacity for the president.

HARLOW: And his polling went up right after it.

VANCE: And his polling. That said, Mr. Bragg thought he had a case that needed to be brought, and for him to walk away from that case was something he was not prepared to do. So, I think Mr. Bragg is going to be criticized perhaps for indicting the president on what people believe are perhaps less serious charges, but he was the Manhattan D.A. And he had to make a call, and he made his call.

HARLOW: Now, that you've seen what Bragg brought, do you think it needed to be brought? Would you have brought it that way?

VANCE: Well, I really don't want to comment because I don't know all the facts Bragg --

HARLOW: What you read. You read the indictment?

VANCE: Sure, I've read the indictment. I think the indictment -- the challenge for that case, I think, is ultimately may be a challenge on whether or not evidentiarily you can use federal law to bump up a state law from a misdemeanor to a felony. I think that was one of the reasons that I felt that I was cautious about bringing that case. We'll see what happens.

But, look, right now -- HARLOW: but is that a probably not?

VANCE: No, it's not a probably not. It's -- we didn't bring that case. And the answer isn't why did Cy Vance not bring it? The answer is why did Alvin Bragg decide to bring it? I think he believes that they have a case, a strong case, and they can prove it.

And it's not a case that we brought. We were focusing on the pattern of larger fraud in terms of his business affairs and sort of divergent investigations.

MATTINGLY: Still 78 charges --

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- over the course of three, potentially soon to be four indictments. It's a remarkable time in history, Cy Vance.

VANCE: It's remarkable that one person can be indicted three times in four months and maybe four times in four months. That's a hard thing to get done. So, the president has real challenges in front of him. Obviously, he thinks that he can sort of bluff his way out of this. And the courts, I think -- what's going happen in court, I think, is the most important. What happens in the public now, you'll have divergent opinions. But once the judges get their hands on the case, a lot of the nonsense stops when it gets into the courtroom.

MATTINGLY: All right. Cy Vance, very important and fascinating moment in history, a little scary to some degree as well. I appreciate your time, sir.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, U. S. markets taking a tumble after credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the U.S. debt for the first time in more than 11 years. Now, they just announced another major downgrade.

HARLOW: Also, a second human body recovered in the Rio Grande river that is near that barrier of buoys set up to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S., the one that the government is suing Texas over. We'll take you live to the state, ahead.

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