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Biden's Lawyers Say DOJ Reneged on Plea Deal; Graland Names Special Counsel; Keisha and Tasha Pagdilao are Interviewed about Hawaii Fires; Pennsylvania Home Explodes. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 14, 2023 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:32]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new overnight, Hunter Biden's lawyers are arguing a deal they made with prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge against him is still, quote, "valid and binding." That part of it at least. This comes in a new court filing just days after prosecutors had plea deal talks with the president's son had fallen apart. This move comes as Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated U.S. Attorney David Weiss to special counsel status.

Our Kara Scannell is with us to explain more.

The big question coming out of this news over the weekend was, OK - or Friday, was trial now?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean so they're - in this filing overnight -- arguing that the gun diversion -- remember there was the tax plea agreement that fell apart -

HARLOW: Yes.

SCANNELL: And this gun diversion, they're saying, hey, judge, that's a valid and binding agreement between both DOJ and us. Now, DOJ, in their filing on Friday, said that deal was done. So this is, obviously, a wrinkle that is going to continue to fester here.

HARLOW: Another wrinkle.

SCANNELL: And we might see some more filings over that. But, you know, under that agreement, it meant that Hunter Biden would avoid this serious felony gun charge if he abided by certain terms for 24 months. And the judge had a big issue with this, particularly saying she wasn't sure if it was constitutional because it had a role for her in there. Sort of, ironically, they put that role in there thinking that it would avoid the politics of the situation in case there was ever any question of if he broke that agreement.

You know, and also in this filing, over the weekend, Hunter Biden's lawyers saying, you know - they're kind of putting some blame on DOJ for mucking this up, saying that they have come to them to do plea talks and that they had written these agreements that the judge had questions with. And then, of course, now DOJ wanting to tear up. But one of Hunter Biden's attorneys, Abbe Lowell, was on CBS this weekend. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBE LOWELL, HUNTER BIDEN'S ATTORNEY: It's not inevitable and I think what I --

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS ANCHOR, "FACE THE NATION": And you're trying to avoid one?

LOWELL: Well, yes, we were trying to avoid one all along. And so were the prosecutor who came forward to us and were the ones to say, can there be a resolution short of a prosecution? So, they wanted it, and maybe they still do want it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: So there they're obviously still hopeful that they're able to work out some kind of plea deal. But obviously the timing here is now very different.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Kara, can I take a step back here because I have a ton of questions about what this means or what it doesn't mean, if it's jurisdictionally related. What does the special counsel designation actually mean for Hunter Biden and for David Weiss going forward?

SCANNELL: Well, what's interesting is that the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and David Weiss, have both said that had authority to bring - to decide whether, when and where to bring charges, right?

MATTINGLY: Right.

SCANNELL: That goes to this question of venue, right? If it's not in Delaware, could they bring it in Washington or California.

Now, the special counsel does make this now a formal arrangement versus him being told he had these powers, but it also gives the a budget so he could hire more staff if he wants to.

You know, it's also a big question of why now? What has changed? Is there different evidence? This investigation has been going on for five years. You know, so where -- why now is still the big question that we don't have an answer from the Justice Department on of what was it that made it important just now to do this.

But certainly means, for one thing, that this is not going to wrap up in a plea agreement in the next couple of weeks. This is clearly going to be a longer process.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question.

Kara Scannell, thank you.

Joining us now for our panel, national political reporter for the "Associated Press," Michelle Price, White House correspondent for "Reuters," Jeff Mason, and CNN senior legal analyst, and former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig.

Elie, I want to start with you.

Special counsel, no matter how narrow the scope seems to be at the start, have a long history, or - or some iteration, the special council has a long history of expanding and creating major headaches, both legally and politically.

What's your read on the intent behind this designation?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, they do have a history of sort of spinning out. And actually I was just looking at the actual document DOJ signed, Merrick Garland signed, appointing David Weiss, seeing, how limited is it? And it's not very limited. It basically says, anything to do with the Hunter Biden investigation, which is quite broad. And Kara's right, now that David Weiss has been named special counsel, he does have a bit more independence. It's not all that different from being a U.S. attorney, but he does have a bit more independence, separation from the attorney general.

My big question again is, why? Why now? Why in a case that's been going on for five years, three days -- four days ago there was no need for a special counsel. Now there is? And what DOJ said is the reason is, quote, extraordinary circumstances. Now that's pulled out of the law.

What's extraordinary now that wasn't extraordinary five weeks ago when they were ready to go in court and wrap this up for a misdemeanor.

HARLOW: Yes.

HONIG: So, DOJ has botched this, in my view. Merrick Garland has botched this.

[06:35:01]

And, frankly, the way this has played out has actually lent credence to what the whistleblowers have said.

HARLOW: I was just going to say that. And that issue of what the whistleblowers said and did interviews on this network and elsewhere and testified before Congress isn't what came up in court when the plea deal fell apart, but it really seems to be more and more relevant right now.

HONIG: Yes.

HARLOW: I think it's also interesting, Jeff Mason, that if the attorney general overrules the special counsel, as Elie was informing over the weekend, you get transparency. You have to tell Congress why you did it. And that's really important right now is transparency.

I want to play something that President Biden said. This was back on May 5th. It's from MSNBC. It's days before this original plea deal came down about his son Hunter.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I my son has done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I know it's his son. He's also the president. It is Merrick Garland. It is this attorney general of this administration overseeing everything. So, there are a lot of questions now about whether the president should be talking about this at all.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "REUTERS": And he usually doesn't.

HARLOW: Yes.

MASON: And that's a comment that has not aged well given the fact that his son ended up agreeing to a plea deal that has now, of course, fallen apart.

The political ramifications of this are huge for President Biden. And it's certainly not what he wants to see, that this is going to be dragged out in the middle of the campaign now as he goes into the fall and into a general election next spring.

And it's -- it's a political weakness for him, not only because of the fact that it will be a story, but because of what was exemplified in that quote. He loves his son, and he has a little bit of a blind spot for him. And that has - is something that you can understand for a father and son, but politically it's -- it's tricky.

MATTINGLY: And my sense, correct me if I'm wrong here, there's some frustration behind the scenes in the West Wing. They're not going to talk about it, but frustration that it got to this point.

MASON: Yes.

MATTINGLY: It wasn't where they wanted to be. And they know that this is only going to prolong this issue.

MASON: I think so. And frustration within the campaign as well. I mean I think apropos what each side can say. The White House will want to say even less than potentially President Biden's campaign because, of course, President Biden has said from the very beginning, that DOJ is independent, whether it's on this, whether it's on President Trump. That was a big contrast he wanted to make to the - to the previous administration. But it's going to be hard certainly for reporters to cover him and others out there not to be asking him about something with - with relation to his son.

MATTINGLY: Michelle, obviously, we're also watching Georgia right now. The - the leading contender for the Republican nomination is facing his potential fourth indictment. At this point in time, do you, in your reporting, think voters actually care?

And I'm not trying to minimize anything. I'm just saying that like, people are - are -- can get numb to this. There's a lot of it. It's really hard to understand given how many there are.

MICHELLE PRICE, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": I mean the question is which voters. Is it changing any minds though?

MATTINGLY: Right.

PRICE: Probably not. You know, for Democratic voters, this just adds to the pile of what they already - how they already feel about Donald Trump. They have a long list of reasons they think he's unqualified to be president. Republican voters, I mean, you'll talk to them in early states. They'll tell you that - that they think Donald Trump was a great president, they think he did wonderful things. They think maybe he did something that wasn't quite on the up and up but it wasn't a crime in some of these cases. But they see all of these as a vast conspiracy against him. And that's the way he's presented this on the campaign trail.

HARLOW: I think you bring up such a good point. Elie, if you could answer this. I had someone over the weekend asked me, an independent voter, I don't understand why they're all coming now.

HONIG: That is a great question. And I have been sort of banging that drum for the last couple of years. I mean he will have a rhetorical point. Let's put aside - we don't know what the motivations. But even if you assume the best of motivation, by all these prosecutors, isn't it interesting that nobody charged anything until now. And four of them come in a, what, three, four-month stretch between April and now?

HARLOW: How do you explain that?

HONIG: I think it's partially - I think each one is its own story.

HARLOW: Yes.

HONIG: I mean Merrick Garland, I think, just -- had just inertia. I think he had no appetite to do this for the first year and a half. The political winds got strong enough. And I think the same thing, by the way, in appointment of special counsel. I think Merrick Garland, frankly, has shown himself to be a windsock. He just -- when the political pressure gets too much, he just goes whichever way the wind's blowing.

For a year and a half he didn't want any part of Donald Trump on January 6th, until the pressure built because of the January 6th Committee. And then what does he do a few months later, he appoints Jack Smith. Same thing here. He was hoping the Hunter Biden case would go away with a quick plea. Political pressure built, and then he goes, well, special counsel. It's not a - it's not a strong way to be as an attorney general.

MATTINGLY: Kara, based on your reporting, windsock aside -

HARLOW: Haven't heard that word in forever (ph).

MATTINGLY: It's -

HONIG: You know what they are, right?

HARLOW: Yes. Yes. Multi-colored, flying in the wind, yes.

MATTINGLY: It's going - it's going to stick with me.

HONIG: OK. OK.

MATTINGLY: Inside - inside the Justice Department on the fourth and fifth floor, what is their read on why it got to this point, from your sources?

SCANNELL: I mean they're not saying anything publicly about this. But I think, you know, Elie raises a good point that, you know, the performance in the court with the plea agreement, it just all started to go off the rails, right? I mean the prosecutors and Hunter Biden's team were not on the same page about the immunity deal. And then, of course, the judge just scotched it all.

[06:40:02]

I mean there are these questions from these whistleblowers. They do make some points. And it seems, I think, that they're probably, even though DOJ is not saying anything, they have to be responding to the political pressure because that seems to be the only thing that's different -

MATTINGLY: Right.

SCANNELL: In the course of the past couple of months that's changed.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's -- windsock. Windsock.

HONIG: (INAUDIBLE).

MATTINGLY: That's going to - that's literally going to rattle around in my brain for the next six to ten hours.

HARLOW: Word of the morning.

MATTINGLY: All right, Kara, Elie, Michelle, Jeff, thanks, guys, we appreciate it.

HARLOW: New reports out of Maui that say fire hydrants were running dry as firefighters were trying to battle the wildfire there.

MATTINGLY: We're going to speak to a firefighter about her experience battling the blaze that destroyed her neighborhood, burned her parent's home. That's coming up next.

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MATTINGLY: Well, overnight, the number of people killed in last week's deadly wildfires in Hawaii climb to 96. It's expected to go even higher. Crews are still searching through burnt down homes and landmarks looking for victims. The community, Lahaina, now has to rebuild.

The Pagdilao family is among those facing that daunting task.

Joining us now is Keisha and Tasha Pagdilao. Their parents lost their home in the wildfire and their uncle died in the blaze. Tasha is also a firefighter in Maui and helped battle the blaze.

Guys, thank you so much. I'm so sorry for what you have been through.

[06:45:01]

Keisha, I want to start with you. You know, we were showing pictures of your family's home. Can you talk about the experience over the course of the last several days?

KEISHA PAGDILAO, PARENTS LOST THEIR HOME IN LAHAINA FIRES: So, the last several days has been devastating, to say the least, for myself and my family. But really relieving. We have gone through searching and worrying where my family, where my loved ones are. And then finding them. Not all are found, but my mom and dad and my sister are safe. And that's the most important thing for me.

HARLOW: I know you've lost your uncle in all of this. And the human toll has gone up dramatically over the weekend. And, sadly, is expected to continue to rise.

Tasha, for you, batting the flames of this, as you're also trying to cope with your personal tragedy of losing your loved ones, how do you even do it?

TASHA PAGDILAO, HER PARENTS LOST THEIR HOME IN HAWAII WILDFIRE: Support from each other, support from the Lahaina firefighters and first responders because we're all in this together. And we've all lost something. But staying focused and looking ahead and staying busy.

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Keisha, you mentioned that there a some in your family that you have not gotten into contact with yet. Can you talk about the process right now of trying to reach people given the scale of the devastation. We've heard from so many families that are in the same exact position. What does it entail?

K. PAGDILAO: So, from August 8th, from the first day of the start of this horrendous -

HARLOW: Oh, don't worry about it.

K. PAGDILAO: So sorry.

MATTINGLY: No, you're fine. You're fine.

HARLOW: It's all right.

K. PAGDILAO: From this fire - we - we went from no contact to finding them. And so we -- luckily, the Lahaina community came together to help with that. And social media really, really pulled through.

Right now we are - I come from a very large family. The Pagdilao Ohana back in Lahaina. And we have one uncle not accounted for. And from the story from his wife, when -- what she saw firsthand, we're still looking. And, thankfully, cellphone towers are going - are help - are going back up. We're getting more communication with family and friends. But it's still hard.

HARLOW: Tasha, our viewers can see on your shirt that you're a firefighter. And you have been out battling this blaze while trying to cope and be there for your family.

Can you speak to what it was like on the ground battling these flames that at times were moving more than a mile a minute because of the high winds.

T. PAGDILAO: It seems surreal. It seemed like an apocalypse. And everything seemed to be on fire. And - yes, I'm not going to lie, it was really hard to focus at times. But we had a job to do and stood by people that watched their houses burn. And they kept continuing to fight. And, yes, it's -- it's still surreal. And I think no matter how many times we see it every day going back to help clean up and help put spot fires out or - it just -- it still seems like a nightmare that we're trying to wake up from.

HARLOW: Yes.

T. PAGDILAO: But every day, every hour seems to get better. So --

MATTINGLY: Tasha, can you tell people, what do you need right now, given you're on the ground, you're helping people, you're still putting out spot fires. For people who are watching and have only seen the pictures, what do you need, what does the community need right now?

T. PAGDILAO: I think the community right now is - is healing. They're stable with resources that everyone - we've had an outpouring of support from our island, from the continent, from our island, from our community. And I think supplies wise, I think we're stable.

[06:50:02]

Give our time - give us time to heal and let this place -- people get set. And then we're going to need a lot more.

But right now we all - we just need time. I know a lot of people is eager to get back into Lahaina and see - see what's left. But give - give our first responders time. Let the - let people clean up the area and keep -- make sure it's safe before coming back. I think that's - I think that's what we need right now is some time, patience and, yes, time and patience. MATTINGLY: Well, we know you guys are working on the resource side as

well. You've set up a GoFundMe to help assist your parents rebuild. So far you've raised more than half of your $100,000 goal. Viewers can see it there on the screen right now.

Keisha and Tasha Pagdilao, guys, can't express our condolences enough. Thank you very much for sharing your stories.

T. PAGDILAO: Thank you.

K. PAGDILAO: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: And for more information about how else you can help the Hawaii wildfire victims, go to cnn.com/impact or text "Hawaii" to 707070 to donate.

HARLOW: Well, this morning, an investigation is underway into why a house in Pennsylvania exploded. It killed five people, including a child. Those details, ahead.

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HARLOW: A sad sorry to tell you about this morning. A home explosion in Pennsylvania has killed five people, including a child. Three others hurt in this blast over the weekend. County officials in Plum, a Pittsburgh suburb, say it happened Saturday morning. The blast left this neighborhood covered in debris. Officials still don't know what caused it.

Polo Sandoval is here.

I always worry about things like this. How did this happen?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, guys, the explosion was absolutely ferocious. The pictures are really telling.

As you mentioned, this actually happened over the weekend on Saturday morning just north of the city of Pittsburgh.

[06:55:01]

It's a suburb there of Plum Borough. Plum Borough, Pennsylvania. And all five people dead. You mentioned a child among those.

We do understand that the search is over for any additional missing.

Those pictures, again, they are extremely telling, including a Ring camera from - from a neighbor's house. I want you to see and hear the explosion yourself. Keep in mind, this explosion is actually off camera. It's very hard to miss.

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SANDOVAL: So, that -- there's that vantage point. But just the ariel pictures alone, it almost looks like a tornado sort of carved a path through here. You see a total of three homes that were destroyed in all of this. The gas crew company was dispatched to the scene immediately. They were able to determine that at this point that the system was operating as expected, though a final conclusion could take months.

And we did learn overnight there had been at least two previous incidents. One house explosion last year that is still under investigation and then a deadly one that happened in 2008. I pulled up the final NTSB report. There turned out to be a excavation team that actually damaged a natural gas line outside of the home. That eventually led to the explosion.

And when they say that it may take months to find out, it's not an estimation. It took about eight months for them to find out that one.

HARLOW: That was scary.

Polo, thank you.

SANDOVAL: Yes.

HARLOW: Thinking of all those and their family members.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Well, two people ejected from a jet during an air show in Michigan. We're going to have that remarkable video just ahead.

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