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Trump Indicted in Georgia for Attempting to Overturn Election Results. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 15, 2023 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Forty-fifth president of the United States indicted on state charges stemming from his and other's efforts to overturn Joe Biden's election win in the state of Georgia.

[06:00:22]

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I make decisions in this office based on the facts and the law. We look at the facts. We look at the law. And we bring charges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She didn't throw the book at him. She threw the library.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now having another indictment for him, questioning the integrity of this country's elections. That is what we're doing to a president that served this country?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The governor of Georgia, I guess, can't pardon him. I don't know how you get out of this.

WILLIS: Do I intend to try the 19 defendants in this indictment together? Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The calendar is getting quite crowded with all of the possible trials, both criminal and civil, that the former president is facing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This case has a couple of twists on advice of counsel. You see some of the lawyers, on whose advice he relied, indicted.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): This is disgraceful. It is an abuse of power by angry Democrats, who have decided the rule of law doesn't matter to them anymore.

JOHN DEAN, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: It's much bigger than Watergate. It goes to the very foundation of democracy. This is very different and much more serious and much more troubling.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: If you are just waking up this morning, we're glad you're with us. And you are waking up to significant, historic news. I know you've heard that a lot over the past four months, but it is true.

Donald Trump has been indicted again, this on felony charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state of Georgia. And he has 18 codefendants who have also been charged. They include some of the most prominent names in Trump world, like Rudy Giuliani; former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. They're all facing RICO, racketeering charges, charges that were typically used to prosecute Mafia bosses and gang leaders.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has ordered Trump and his alleged coconspirators to turn themselves in and surrender voluntarily by next Friday.

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WILLIS: Rather than bide -- abide by Georgia's legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's presidential election result.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Prosecutors laid out the sweeping conspiracy in a 98-page indictment. It included Trump pressuring state officials to find votes after he lost to Joe Biden; the creation of fake electors to falsely declare Trump the winner in Georgia; and the illegal breaching of voting equipment by Trump operatives to look for voter fraud.

Now, this is Trump's fourth criminal indictment in just a little more than four months. And when you add up all of the charges, from the special counsel's classified documents probe and January 6th investigation, plus the Stormy Daniels hush-money case in Manhattan, Trump is now facing 91 total charges as he is the Republican front- runner for 2024.

We have team coverage all morning long. Our Nick Valencia is live outside the Fulton County Courthouse; and CNN political commentator and former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, is standing by in Atlanta. He testified before the grand jury yesterday, just hours before the indictment came down.

HARLOW: We also have our legal and political experts standing by. But let's start this hour with our Nick Valencia. He is live at the courthouse. And Nick, Trump is claiming that this is all politically motivated.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And he has been, in the explosive rhetoric leading up to this indictment. He had said this was politically motivated. He went so far as to call Fani Willis a racist.

Now, Fani Willis charging him with 13 counts. Among a slew of charges he is facing, racketeering charge, which is more typically reserved for mob bosses and gangsters.

But now Fani Willis says Donald Trump and 18 codefendants must turn themselves in here in Atlanta by August 25.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIS: A Fulton County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment.

VALENCIA (voice-over): The 98-page indictment lists 41 felony counts against former President Trump and 18 codefendants to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results, accusing them of, quote, "unlawfully conspired and endeavor to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise."

Trump charged with 13 counts in the indictment.

WILLIS: Every individual charged in the indictment is charged with one count of violating Georgia's Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act through participation in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere to accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on January 20th, '21.

VALENCIA (voice-over): The indictment also included an additional 30 unindicted coconspirators, in addition to the charged defendants.

In a statement, Trump's attorneys calling the grand jury presentation, quote, "one-sided" and the events of Monday, quote, "shocking and absurd."

[06:05:08]

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a Trump ally, tweeting out, "He did nothing wrong." And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy saying, "Justice should be blind, but Biden has weaponized government against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election."

GEOFF DUNCAN, FORMER GEORGIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: But it was a very intense, you know, meeting.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Geoff Duncan, CNN contributor and former Georgia lieutenant governor, on his testimony before an Atlanta grand jury.

DUNCAN: I can tell you that there was the highest level of attention in that room from folks with the district attorney's office through the jurors. It was just an extremely intense period of time. And everybody was prepared.

VALENCIA (voice-over): The indictments stem from a 2.5-year criminal investigation into Trump's alleged interference in the 2020 Georgia presidential election, including his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via phone): I just want to find 11,780 votes.

VALENCIA (voice-over): To the fake electors who convened to cast illegitimate votes for Trump, the investigation also accuses multiple defendants of harassment of election workers and a voting systems breach in rural Coffee County.

WILLIS: I want to try him and be respectful for our sovereign states.

VALENCIA (voice-over): And while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says she intends to try the 19 defendants together, it's up to the judge on when the trial will proceed.

WILLIS: We do want to move this case along. And so we will be asking for a proposed order that occurs, a trial date within the next six months.

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VALENCIA (on camera): This was more than just the infamous call that Trump made to Georgia's secretary of state after he lost the 2020 election, in which he pressured him to find more votes.

This is about a slate of fake electors that tried to subvert the Electoral College and say that Trump won Georgia when he really lost to Joe Biden.

And this is really about an overall pressure campaign on Georgia lawmakers and Fulton County election workers to overturn the results here after the 2020 election.

Fani Willis, we were told, initially would take up to two days to present her case to the grand jury. Instead, they spent all day making their case to the grand jury, with the end result being Donald Trump indicted yet again -- Poppy, Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right. Nick Valencia, live for us in Atlanta, thanks so much.

And joining us now, you saw him in Nick's piece, someone who testified before that grand jury, just hours before the indictment was returned, CNN contributor and former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan.

Geoff, I appreciate your time this morning. First off, the 98-page indictment, it's now out. You've seen it. Was there anything in there that either surprised you or looked off-base from your personal experience throughout this process and this investigation?

DUNCAN: Yes. My early assessment is that there's really no names on there that surprised me, and there's no scenarios that surprised me. Right? And that might come in contrast to Republicans all over the country.

But this -- this was what we were talking against during the immediate days and months after the 2020 election cycle. This just -- the math just didn't add up, right? You couldn't take a tweet and turn it into a factual scenario.

And so, no, nothing really surprised me that jumped off the page.

HARLOW: I want our viewers to hear something you said last night -- I believe this is when you walked out of the courthouse -- about what you hope America takes from this. Here you were.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUNCAN: My hope is that Americans believe us. My hope is that Republicans believe us that this election was fair and legal. And I certainly think this is the tipping point for us. You know, as a Republican that cares about the future of this country, this is our moment to hit the reset button.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Your hope is not echoed by a vast majority of Republicans, who still say in polling that they believe that Biden didn't legitimately win the election. And it's not something shared by most of the people running against Trump. But you think this one changes things?

DUNCAN: Yes. This is -- certainly carries an even bigger weight than the other ones. I mean, as if a federal indictment doesn't carry weight or other states' indictments. But certainly, this added to it.

But you know, Poppy, I'm going to be critical of my party. I'm going to be critical of those that are running for president in my party. I'm going to be critical of governors and senators. They know the right thing to do here.

The right thing to do is to call Donald Trump out for lying, misleading us and taking our Republican Party straight to the ditch. That's what's happened here.

And until we all want to stand up and speak as loudly and clearly as we possibly can that the Republican Party needs to use this as a pivot point, to hit the reset button, to go to a GOP 2.0 that really gets us back to talking about the policies.

If 2024 is about the issues, if it's just strictly about the issues and not about Donald Trump, we will beat the brakes off Joe Biden. He's got no -- no positive record on the border, national security, public safety. These are issues that we can take him to the floor with.

[06:10:01]

But if we just make it about Donald Trump, we're going to continue to be embarrassed, and our campaign speeches in the Republican Party are going to be from courthouse steps every single day.

HARLOW: True.

DUNCAN: We can do better. We should do better. And this needs to be the wakeup call.

And I've certainly been vocal about this. We need to have everybody running for president stand up together, not because their consultants tell them it makes sense today, not because it doesn't feel like a short-term sugar high, but to get up there and tell Donald Trump to get out of this race for the good of the party and for the good of the country.

MATTINGLY: Geoff, I think to that point, and credit for consistency, you've said that after -- I think this is now at least the third indictment that you've said very similar things about it's time to turn the page. It's time to get away from this. It's time to not always be defending or rallying around somebody who's been consistently indicted.

And yet, the former president's poll numbers continually seem to go up in moments like this. He's able to frame, particularly in a primary electorate, these as political attacks by Democrats.

To that point, did you get any sense that Fani Willis, in your interactions with her during this process or her team, was politically motivated? I think the former president called her a rabid partisan. Or that the grand jury itself was out to intentionally get the former president?

DUNCAN: Look, that's Donald Trump's game. Every time he gets put in a corner, he fights like -- like a kid, right? He just -- he calls names. There's no merits behind it.

I certainly didn't encounter any of that. It was a very professional process, a very well-informed district attorney's office, a very well- informed jury that asked very intellectual questions throughout the process.

But look, when leaders of your party are telling you that something is true, I guess it's just inherently natural to believe them. And so as long as our party leaders, as long as Kevin McCarthy and others and these candidates for president -- I mean, you look at Ron DeSantis. He's literally fired almost everybody in his campaign.

If he wants to really turn the tide on where this thing is headed, just tell Donald Trump that he's wrong. He lied. And he needs to get out of the race. Let's watch the deflection in the numbers at that point.

HARLOW: So, because this -- as long as this proceeds as a state case and doesn't move to be federal, which I don't think they're going to have success in trying to move it, if they do, in Georgia the governor can't pardon someone. Right? So if Trump were convicted, the governor couldn't. It would have to go to a Board of Parole that has that power.

Some conservatives in your state and outside the state are pushing for the law to be changed. It would give the governor, Brian Kemp, the ability to pardon.

Do you think that that would be successful at all? And should Kemp have that power? Could you even see him utilizing it in that way? I mean, he is someone who upheld the results in Georgia.

DUNCAN: Look, I think our most important duty right now as Georgians is to let the judicial system play out as it -- as it sees fit, as the process is supposed to work, not to create all kinds of workarounds. I mean, look, that's really where we got with this whole mess to start

with, with the election debacle. Right? It was solutions in search of problems. Every minute of every day.

Let's let the judicial system play out. If Donald Trump did nothing wrong, if these coconspirators did nothing wrong, then great. They're going to have the opportunity to share their story, and it should be abundantly clear that they deserve to just be scot-free.

My -- my instincts tell me that there's going to be a different outcome.

MATTINGLY: Geoff, for people who are waking up this morning and seeing this, and saying, all right, 91 charges at this point. This is the fourth indictment. I don't know why I need to necessarily pay attention to this.

Can you tell them what your personal experience was like, both in testifying but also being attacked, albeit with the misspelled first name by the former president of the United States.

DUNCAN: Yes. I found out yesterday when I walked into the kitchen in the morning and one of my sons said that, Dad, the former president misspelled your name. Which I thought was funny. It's "Geoff" with a "G," right?

Look, my personal experience, this has been going on for 2.5 years for me and my family. We didn't get into politics because we wanted power. We wanted to put policy over politics. That was our campaign motto when I ran for lieutenant governor, and that's certainly how I govern.

If you put the policy over the politics here, I think we're going to have a much better outcome. It's -- it's tough that we have to go through these growing pains. But look, we're either going to learn from this or we're going to lose from this.

I hope we're one of those at that point in time for the Republican Party where we learn from this.

MATTINGLY: That is a surreal breakfast kitchen conversation with your child, I have to be honest with you.

DUNCAN: Just an average day at the Duncans' house, right?

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Honestly, over the last two years, not necessarily wrong. Former lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, appreciate your time, as always, sir. Thank you.

HARLOW: Thanks so much, Geoff. All right.

DUNCAN: And congrats, Phil, on -- on the permanent role.

HARLOW: Right?

MATTINGLY: Thanks, Geoff. I appreciate it. Thank you.

HARLOW: I'm so happy to have him here.

All right. There are some other big names in this indictment, 18 people listed in this outside of Trump. Some of the names you'll know: Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani. We've got more on the charges, including the RICO law being used, when our special live coverage continues. Stay with us.

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[06:18:38]

HARLOW: Welcome back. You're looking at a full list of charges against former President Donald Trump from all four of his indictments over the last four months. These are four different cases in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington, D.C.

The 13 counts against him in Georgia, this indictment brought last night, bring his total to 91. Ninety-one counts against the former president and current front-runner, we should note, for the Republican presidential nomination.

With us, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin back with us.

Michael, let me just begin with your reaction to what we just heard there from -- from Geoff Duncan, who was lieutenant governor during the time that all of this was going on, all these shenanigans. He obviously presided over the Senate when there were all these efforts to get, you know, through the fake elector scheme. And now a witness to Fani Willis, who praised -- a Republican who praised the entire process that he was a part of here. Your thoughts?

MICHAEL ZELDIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, he's standing up for what he believes to be the truth of the matter, which is that there was an organized group of people, an enterprise, as charged in the indictment, who were trying to illegally upset the results of the election. And he feels that truth matters more than party.

And therefore, he's going to say, This is what I saw. This is what I was asked to do or heard others being asked to do. And it's just not acceptable. It's not acceptable sort of in the constitutional sense. It's also, at a very partisan level, not acceptable for the Republican Party to tolerate this sort of behavior.

[06:20:18]

So he really is, in some sense, exercising a profile in courage within the Republican Party, because you really are punished within the Republican Party for not toeing the Trump line.

And so good for him. You know, I think that more people like him are needed in politics. And I'm happy to have him. We don't agree on very much politically, but we do agree on the importance of truth telling and integrity. MATTINGLY: Joey, to some degree, you almost want to pause for a

minute. And we showed the 91 charges. That's since April 1st of 2023.

On April 1, Donald Trump and no president in the history of the United States had been charged with a felony. A little more than four months later, he's now charged 91 times in four different places by different entities, three different entities. The special counsel, the New York D.A., and the Fulton County D.A.

This case specifically, part of the issue I feel, given the scale, is people just shut it out. Right? I can't follow all this. It's such a mess. We're rolling the screen. Could probably take the next 30 minutes to go through these cases.

This case, these 98 pages, why does it matter? Does it carry weight?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, so Phil, it's breathtaking. Right? Because we went from an historic place to an even more historic place. First indictment, Manhattan. Even more historic place, classified documents. Even more historic place, you know, as it relates to the January 6th issue. And now, here we are again. Here we go again.

You know, I think first of all, in response to your question, Phil, you know, sort of like people have stripes. If you're Republican, this is all nonsense. It's political. It's our system coming after us.

You know, I think it's time to call it for what it is, right. And I think the -- what I'm reading is an indictment which is very specific, which has allegations, which are really just essentially horrifying.

You look at this issue of a criminal enterprise as we talked about. You look at the pattern acts. which talk about that criminal enterprise with respect to really just overturning this election. Soliciting people to violate their oaths of office, breaking into computer systems, intimidating witnesses, the list goes on and on.

And then you look, because we've gotten to this free speech issue. And the issue is, it's free speech. I can say whatever you want. But one of the interesting things the indictment talks about many times are these overt acts.

Now, let's talk about that just for one minute. When you have a conspiracy, which are a number of people enter into agreement, two or more, right, to break the law, what happens is, it's not only the speech. We can talk about anything. It's the action which translates the speech into conduct.

And there are, what, 160-something acts that it lists that move it from, Hey, let's just talk about this, to let's get it done.

And so it's hard to argue with regard to the specificity of this indictment, with regard to what the district attorney did in matching the facts to the laws that were broken, to say this is just a political enterprise, particularly when you had a special grand jury of 75 witnesses that met from May of '22 to January of 2023. And then you had an actual grand jury, who could issue an indictment, issue the indictments.

It's part of our process that's really a sad thing to see. But this is our reality.

HARLOW: You know, people often can forget you don't even need to carry out all of the acts for a conspiracy. It just is the conspiring that is -- that is the crime.

Let's listen to Sara Murray, our colleague, questioning Fani Willis last night.

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SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Have you had any contact with the special counsel about overlap between these cases? And do you intend to try all of these defendants together?

WILLIS: Do I intend to try the 19 defendants in this indictment together?

MURRAY: Yes.

WILLIS: Yes.

MURRAY: And have you had any contact with the special counsel about the overlap between this indictment and the federal indictment?

WILLIS: I'm not going to discuss our investigation at this time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: That's interesting, Michael Zeldin. Also, what makes this case different is that RICO has a mandatory minimum. Prison. Mandatory minimum prison time, if there's a conviction. That's not the case in the other probes.

ZELDIN: Exactly right. There is a mandatory minimum. It's a five-year mandatory minimum with a maximum of 20 years.

And talking about pardons, you have to serve your term and be completing all of your probationary obligations before you're even eligible to request a pardon.

So, not only does the president of the United States have nothing to do with this, nor the governor of Georgia have anything to do with this. It's an independent board. But you've got to wait five years after the completion of your sentence before you can even apply.

So the consequences here for anyone who's convicted of RICO is very, very serious. And which is why I believe that there will be a lot of people running into Fani Willis's office, once they get lawyers and they read this indictment, to try to work out deals to something less than a RICO charge, something that doesn't carry a mandatory minimum.

[06:25:05] And it may require some testimony on their part, but they've got to get out from under this RICO charge and the mandatory minimum requirements.

MATTINGLY: Joey, that's a great point. Because you know, the -- Sara Murray's question -- by the way, she'd done our show at 6 a.m. yesterday and was still coherent at that hour with those two very important questions, which is remarkable to me.

But bringing 19 together, trying to try them together, when you use RICO, people automatically think of the Mafia. People automatically think of gangs. People automatically think of people flipping on other people. Is that the goal here? Is that the plan? Is that what the former president needs to be worried about?

JACKSON: So you know what, Phil? They may or may not need it. I mean, the evidence that I'm reading -- and again these are allegations, this is an indictment. It's important to note that a grand jury assesses this information. They establish not proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether there's reasonable cause to believe a crime is committed, and the subject of the indictment committed it. Different standard.

But as I read it, Phil, I mean, there's some pretty specific information in here with respect to what people have done in terms of perjury, in terms of, again, soliciting people to violate their oaths of office and breaking into computer systems.

Why is that relevant? Because generally, when you're looking for people to flip, you're looking as a prosecutor, right, to garner the evidence you need to move forward successfully in your prosecution. And so you lose leverage when the prosecution already has the information.

What's important to me, really, because of the consequences here -- we know about the whole issue of the pardon. Right? We just spoke to that issue -- is whether this goes first in time. Maybe they speak with each other, all the prosecutors, and this is a prosecution that takes somewhat a priority.

MATTINGLY: Yes. To take a national security term, deconfliction, I think, to some degree is going to be important here, given 91 charges, four different entities.

Joey Jackson, Michael Zeldin. Guys, thanks so much.

Witch hunt, politically motivated. Former President Trump, very familiar reactions to his now fourth indictment. A look inside the Trump team's strategy. That's ahead.

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