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Trump and 18 Allies Indicted in Georgia Election Meddling Case; Trump Criminally Charged for the Fourth Time This Year; Trump Now Facing 91 Criminal Charges in Four Criminal Cases. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 15, 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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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're with us. It is Tuesday, August 15th. And we're following huge breaking news overnight. Donald Trump has been indicted again, this time by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. The former president is facing 13 felony charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And it's worth noting he is not alone this time. 18 co-defendants also charged in this indictment, including Rudy Giuliani and Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. They're all facing RICO, racketeering charges, which are traditionally used to prosecute mafia bosses and gang leaders. District Attorney Fani Willis has ordered Trump and his alleged co-conspirators to turn themselves in by next Friday.

HARLOW: Overnight, Trump slammed the indictment. He said it was politically inspired to disrupt his presidential run.

MATTINGLY: And this is Trump's fourth criminal indictment. He is now facing a total of 91, 91 charges in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington, D.C. We have a lot to get to. CNN This Morning's special live coverage starts right now.

Good morning, everyone. We're going to show you live Fulton County courthouse where a grand jury has indicted Donald Trump and 18 co- defendants for their alleged scheme to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. And here's a look at the newspaper headlines across the nation this morning, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's front page, a photo of Trump surrounded by all of his 18 alleged coconspirators.

HARLOW: We have team coverage this morning. Our Nick Valencia joins us live outside of that courthouse in Fulton County, Georgia. Our Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig is standing by the magic wall to break down all the new charge. We also have our political experts with us to weigh in.

Let's begin with Nick at the courthouse. Nick, good morning to you. So, now Trump has until next Friday, a week from this Friday to surrender, right? NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And he had called this a politically-motivated investigation. He tried to get his supporters here in the streets. We didn't see any of them yesterday. Security was taken very seriously in part because of that explosive rhetoric. At the end of the day, though, Fani Willis got what she wanted. Trump has been indicted yet again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: 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 co-defendants to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results, accusing them of, quote, unlawfully conspired and endeavored 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: The indictment also included an additional 30 unindicted co-conspirators 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. Ohio Representative 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, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: But it was a very intense meeting.

VALENCIA: 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: The indictments stemmed 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 U.S. PRESIDENT: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

[07:05:02]

VALENCIA: -- to the fake electors to 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: 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (on camera): the former president is facing a flurry of legal filings and legal issues. And for some, it's hard to keep up. But this is more than just about his so-called perfect phone call with Georgia secretary of state. This, according to Fani Willis, is about an orchestrated and organized effort to pressure Georgia lawmakers in Fulton County election workers to overturn legitimate results. Phil and Poppy, Trump and his co-defendants have until August 25th to turn themselves in.

MATTINGLY: Nick Valencia live outside the Fulton County courthouse, thank you. Poppy?

HARLOW: All right. Let's go through all of this with our Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. Good morning, Elie, great to have you. Walk us through first who got charged.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Poppy. The fourth indictment has now landed. And just to orient people because there's so many of these. Let's just take a moment. We have seen the New York State charge relating to hush money. That indictment came back in April. The two Jack Smith federal cases in D.C. and Mar-a-Lago, Florida, those have already been indicted. And now we have the indictment in Georgia state court for the attempt to interfere with the Georgia results of the 2020 election.

So, this indictment is a big one. There are 19 different people charged here in 41 counts. And, again, we're under Georgia State law here. So, let's look at who these 19 defendants are. Donald Trump, of course, the first defendant listed. He is front and center. Everything in this case, not surprisingly, revolves around him.

This one is a surprise. Mark meadows.

HARLOW: He's not in the federal indictment.

HONIG: Not in the federal indictment, not even listed as a co- conspirator in the federal indictment. Some people are wondering where is he in the federal indictment. He is charged in the Georgia indictment. A bit of history, too, second time we have ever seen a White House chief of staff criminally charged. The first, of course, was Mr. Haldeman back in the Watergate indictment. He is charged in this indictment.

Eight lawyers, Poppy, are charged with crimes in this indictment, notable, Rudy Giuliani. Look, he's been in the news a lot. He has been subpoenaed. He has been sued. He has been investigated. But now, he's been criminally indicted. He's a former federal prosecutor.

These five lawyers are all listed as co-conspirators in Jack Smith's federal investigation, not charged but listed as co-conspirator. The lawyers are really the engines here. According to the indictment, so many of these schemes ran through, were created by or executed by these eight lawyers.

HARLOW: So, what does that mean for defense of counsel, an advice of counsel defense then?

HONIG: Yes. So, it complicates things. Because if Donald Trump wants to say, well, I relied on what these folks told me to do, well, the allegation is they were in on the crime with him. And if prosecutors can prove that, that will overcome the advice of counsel defense.

And then we have the other people who were indicted. Worth noting, three of these people were fake electors, three people who signed those fake elector certificates out of 16 total. So, Fani Willis is being selected here in who she is charging. She also charged a former Trump campaign official, a couple people who were involved in intimidation of some of those poll workers and trying to get them to shape their testimony. And then, finally, two people who were involved in that breach of the election system that we just learned about, we broke the news here on CNN a couple days ago. So, you add it all up, 19 defendants in this one indictment.

HARLOW: What are the other opponents of this story struck you reading through it?

HONIG: Yes. So, look, the lead charge, count one, all 19 defendants are charged with racketeering under Georgia state law. This is so important because it's such a powerful tool for prosecutors. This group is identified in the indictment as a, quote, criminal enterprise with Donald Trump at the head of it. And the indictment lays out 161 acts, conduct, that this enterprise engaged in.

Now, not all of them are crimes standing alone, but they're all part of the illegal conspiracy. Big thing we have to know, five-year mandatory minimum. Anyone who gets convicted --

HARLOW: In prison?

HONIG: In prison. No probation, judge can't do anything about it. Anyone who gets convicted of this will go away for five years. That is Georgia law.

HARLOW: Unless they're successful in appeal.

HONIG: Unless they went on appeal, exactly.

Now, the indictment has other counts of forgery, false statements, obstruction. They really break down into a few different chapters. First, false statements to the state legislature, we remember Rudy Giuliani lied to the Georgia State Assembly about election fraud.

HARLOW: Yes. We're going to be joined by one of the Georgia lawmakers who was there when he did this.

HONIG: Yes. Well, this is right in the indictment and you will have plenty of important questions to ask.

Solicitation of state officials, the most famous example, of course, the infamous phone call to Brad Raffensperger, need you to find 11,780 votes.

[07:10:00]

The fake electors scheme, 16 people signed. Again, 3 of these 16 folks have now been charged as indictments. The lawyers were instrumental in putting this together.

Harassment and intimidation of election workers and then lying about them in official documents and to the assembly, we remember Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman. They testified in the January 6th committee.

Solicitation of the United States Justice Department, Jeffrey Clark, the lawyer we saw before. And, remember, Donald Trump tried to get high-ranking officials, one official took a note that Trump said just say the election was corrupt. Leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman, solicitation of Mike Pence, breach of those voting machines which we talked about the other day and, finally, obstruction of justice and obstruction of governmental proceeding. There is your indictment.

HARLOW: Wow. Elie Honig, thank you. You'll be back at the table with more soon.

HONIG: Yes.

HARLOW: Phil?

MATTINGLY: Witch hunt, politically-motivated, these terms are probably pretty familiar. Former President Trump once again slamming an indictment against him. The playbook that you're familiar with and what he said overnight.

HARLOW: And only about a quarter of the Maui wildfire burned area has been searched. The death toll now stands at 99 people this morning. And officials say that number could double in the days ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH GREEN (D-HI): We are burdened by the circumstance of climate change and tragedy at the same time. That's why this fire occurred for the most part.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: Donald Trump reacting to the news of his fourth criminal indictment this year, calling it, quote, politically-motivated election interference. The former president and 18 co-defendants are now charged in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

In Fox News Digital last night, Trump slammed Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, saying, quote, it's a continuation of the greatest and long- running witch hunt in American history.

Joining us now is Alayna Treene from Washington. Alayna, we have been talking about your reporting this morning. What's going on behind the scenes there? We know the play book, to some degree. Is anything different with indictment number four?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: It's not Phil and Poppy. They have done this now three times before. And they think that playbook is working. And so they're going to continue to use it, his advisers tell me. They'll label these charges as a political persecution and argue that the district attorney is going after him as an effort to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.

Donald Trump himself has been arguing that they are attacking him because he is doing so well in the polls. And as we have seen with the previous indictments, Donald Trump personally is trying to speak about this. He gave that interview with Fox News and railed against these charges. He said, quote, this politically-inspired indictment, which could have been brought close to three years, was tailored for placement right smack in the middle of my political campaign where I am leading all Republicans by a lot and beating Joe Biden soundly in almost all polls.

Now, Phil and Poppy, I'm also told that Donald Trump's team was prepared for this indictment. And as they have done with the previous charges that he's faced throughout the past several months, they had been preparing his surrogates and allies, readying his defenders with pre-written statements and talking points so that they were immediately ready to respond to these charges.

And we did see his allies do just that last night. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the charges a desperate sham. Jim Jordan argued that Donald Trump did nothing wrong. And this is the kind of rhetoric they want and they want his allies to continue rallying around him and defending him at this time.

HARLOW: Do you think this indictment actually coming down in the way that it did changes what happens next week in terms of what Trump does? Does he go to the debate on Wednesday night, because by Friday, he has got to turn himself in?

TREENE: Right. No, it's a great question. I mean, from all indications that I have gotten from Donald Trump's team, I do think he'll be making a statement about the debate. I don't really see this changing his decision-making process, at least from my conversations I've had with his advisers yesterday and last night. It doesn't seem likely that he's really interested in debating at this point. That could change, of course.

But, again, we do know that they see the political advantages of these charges, at least in the short-term. They're going to fundraising off of this. They're going to continue talking about this. But at the same time, we do know that Donald Trump does not want to be indicted. He is very frustrated by the mounting legal troubles he faces.

And so I think you're going to continue to see that as well play out a little bit behind the scenes, Poppy and Phil.

HARLOW: Okay.

MATTINGLY: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you.

HARLOW: A lot of numbers to keep track of this morning. Former President Trump is now facing his fourth criminal case in four different jurisdictions, when you tally all the charges up, 91 of them against the former president.

MATTINGLY: And in Georgia, specifically, he is facing 13 counts. The indictment alleges Trump and 18 other defendants, quote, unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise after Trump lost the election in Georgia. In all, in Georgia, there are 41 criminal counts.

Joining us now CNN Political Commentator Bakari Sellers, CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings, and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

I keep -- don't give me that look, Scott. I think throughout the course of this morning, it's the pause and think, 91 charges over the course of four-plus months. There's no precedent for any of them for a former president. He's leading the Republican primary by 25 to 30 plus points. No one is attacking him that's anywhere close to him in polling on these indictments. Scott Jennings, why not?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, because more than half of the Republican Party, maybe 55 percent of the Republican Party sees this presidential campaign as a referendum on the treatment of Donald Trump.

[07:20:07]

And that's the primary electorate.

Now, the general election electorate will see it much differently. They'll see it as a referendum on how their lives are going and the economy and so on and so forth. But in this pool of people, they see it all as a referendum on the treatment of Donald Trump. And they're not asking themselves, do we want to have a general election about Joe Biden's job performance or about Donald Trump's persecution. They're just seeing this as a way to -- for him to be able to vindicate himself against all this Democratic persecution.

And the rest of these Republican candidates know it. They don't know what to do about it. None of them have figured out to do about it and I don't suspect any of them are going to figure out what to do about it. I mean, right now he's in the mid-50s in this thing. Even he were in the mid-40s, he would almost be unbeatable in a fragmented field.

MATTINGLY: So, here is my question. A, can you tell me the other dozen-plus candidates would look at this and think, that's cool? These 98 pages with Trump and his team and the 18 co-conspirators, we're good with that.

JENNINGS: For themselves?

MATTINGLY: No, like in general.

HARLOW: Like maybe for a president of the United States.

MATTINGLY: Exactly. So, what should they do about it?

JENNINGS: I mean, look, they're all trapped. All the Republicans are trapped. They're trapped in a room with Donald Trump. He is not trapped in there with them. They're trapped in there with him. And -- but they're also trapped in there with his voters and the people who believe he has been unfairly treated. Those people are not going away and they're highly likely to turn out in this primary.

Not a single of them one has a strategy to deal with it other than this, maybe Republicans decide, look, I just don't want to deal with this anymore. Who else is out there? But that's out of your hands. I mean, you're waiting on people to make that decision. And right, now there's no evidence that they are. There are people, I think, running interesting campaigns and saying interesting things but that's different than actually convincing people to leave Trump by the wayside

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Those are tough questions at 7:00.

JENNINGS: I know, Phil.

SELLERS: He was like, what is he doing? It's 7:00.

HARLOW: But you gave him the look.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Look, you teed me up.

HARLOW: You gave Phil the side eye. This is what you get back. Weigh in here. Not about Phil's side.

SELLERS: Look, he did a good job. No, I think what we're seeing is the refusal -- and let's not put all the Republicans in the same category. Chris Christie has come out and been vocal, Asa Hutchinson has been vocal.

JENNINGS: 3 percent, 0 percent, who else?

SELLERS: Yes. I mean, I said combined, they get 5 percent of the electorate.

HARLOW: Well-known Republican former governors.

SELLERS: Well, decently well known. I think that the Republican Party has a problem. And this is what happens when you allow cancers like Donald Trump to metastasize. And this problem is going to be around long after Donald Trump is president of the United States. Not only is he indicted four times.

One of the things we don't talk about enough is he is indicted for different behavior in New York. It's paying Stormy Daniels hush money. In South Florida, it's classified documents. Now, this is January 6th. So, it's not as if there is this coordinated effort by these far left whackos to persecute the former president of the United States. No, this is a lot of smoke. And the question is where there is smoke, is there fire?

And what Fani did, which I would love to hear Elie's comments, but what Fani did was she went in detail. I mean, this is beyond a federal speaking indictment. This is very granular, talking about the bad behavior of the president of the United States trying to overthrow the election. And they're going to try to compare this to Bush-Gore and how Democrats stood up and said, we don't believe he should be president-elect, blah, blah, blah, but the overt acts. II mean, there are over 100 overt acts that this president coordinated with others, including a bail bondsman in Georgia, Rudy Giuliani and other people, to overthrow an election, break into facilities, steal data. I mean, this is a very, very serious charge.

HONIG: Bakari is right. I mean, the difference, I think, between the Jack Smith indictment and this indictment is the Jack Smith indict is a mile wide and an inch deep. That's not criticism, but he has to charge this conduct over seven states, federal government, dozens of people. Fani Willis gets to drill way, way, way down in Georgia to the level of granularity of Trump and others trying to interfere with common election workers and just civilians trying to do their job. So, it's a much narrower but much deeper look.

JENNINGS: There's a level of magical thinking with Trump because he got out of two impeachments, because he managed to win the White House while not winning the popular vote. He's always carried this, well, he'll figure out how to get out of it. These indictments look bad but there is this sense of magical thinking about him that, well, he'll find a way. Don't worry. He'll find a way to beat them in the end. He is not convicted yet. And he is innocent until proven guilty.

HARLOW: That's right. And an indictment is a set of allegations. We haven't seen the --

JENNINGS: And you look what's happened to him over the years and the things he's gotten out. The hardest core supporter, you're wondering why they're not finding other candidates?

[07:25:00]

Because that's one of the things they like about him the most, is that no matter what they throw at him, he finds a way to beat it. And they probably believe that about this. MATTINGLY: Yes. That's actually a very good point, particularly on the support. You often come in and you probably get attacked for explaining why base voters --

HONIG: Probably.

MATTINGLY: but it's accurate and I think it's important for people to understand that. I would note that the second impeachment, he got out in large part because people said, don't worry about it. The judicial process will take care of this to some degree.

HARLOW: Like people like Mitch McConnell.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

JENNINGS: That was the argument of most Senate Republicans, was that we can't do this now. The courts will deal with it. And here we are.

SELLERS: Can we also -- I'm sorry.

MATTINGLY: I just want to ask you about something, because I actually think this is a really important and to some degree underappreciated element of this case over the course of the last two-plus years. And that is Ruby Freeman, the election workers, what happened there, what Rudy Giuliani said, what Donald Trump said to Brad Raffensperger on the call. Everybody talks about the 11,000-plus votes. He also said something specific about Ruby Freeman. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We had at least 18,000 that's on tape. We had them counted very painstakingly, 18,000 voters having to do with Ruby Freeman. She's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: You know, we saw Ruby Freeman testify in front of the January 6th committee. It's very powerful, it's very emotional. You realize the very real human toll here. Actually, can we play that?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBY FREEMAN, 2020 GEORGIA POLL WORKER: There is nowhere I feel safe, nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not to target one. But he targeted me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: She testified publicly in front of the January 6th committee as well, which was very powerful. And I think what's striking is, one, that is a central piece of this indictment, the intimidation and all of the people Trump down that participated in it, but also the very real human toll and effect. And there's going to be cameras in the courtroom for this trial. SELLERS: This case is going to be very different for a couple of reasons. The first is when you look at the classified documents case, when you look at Jack Smith's January 6th case, you don't have real victim -- human victims involved. Now, there is -- the system is victimized. Processes are victimized. You know, democracy is victimized. But here, you have very tangible, real victims.

And something that Scott said last night and he echoes all the time, when we go around the country and do this work of politics, you meet very, very good human beings. I refer to Ruby as one of those old black women who sit in the front row of the church and she wears the big hat. And like when you hug her, you smell like Chanel number 5 the rest of the day. She like cooks sweet potato pies and uses a whole stick of butter, like she is the core principle of our democracy. She is the person who makes democracy work. And she is articulate about the fact that she is going through this pain because of the president of the United States.

It also highlights something else about Donald Trump and it's something we have to talk about. It's the way that he goes after black women when they are on the other side of him. We have seen it with Yamiche. We've seen it with April Ryan. We've seen it with our own Abby Phillip. And now, we're seeing it with Fani Willis. Fani is the daughter of a Black Panther, a criminal defense attorney. Fani's name is Swahili, it means prosperous. I mean, she is the prototype of what Donald Trump has as disdainful.

So, between Donald Trump and Ruby and Fani and all of these other subplots, not only is it going to make for good T.V. but it's going to have people realize that there are real victims in this case in Georgia, in comparison, where, of course, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen are victims. But they are less sympathetic than the people who make democracy run. And, by the way, I love Stormy and Michael.

HARLOW: Not just -- I hear you on good T.V., but it's about transparency for the American people, to be able to see --

SELLERS: No, it's about good T.V.

HARLOW: T.V. executive over here? I will argue --

SELLERS: No, it's about good T.V.

HARLOW: I would argue it's about transparency for the American people. They're not going to get in any of these federal -- they're not going to get any of these federal cases. But you combine the human element of the witnesses that are going to be testifying and the cameras, this could be powerful.

HONIG: It's such an important point here, because Bakari is right, we almost certainly will have T.V. cameras if and-- well, when this case is tried. But I think there's very little chance this one gets tried before the election.

JENNINGS: And, by the way, there's already broad dissatisfaction in the American electorate that we're even going to have this rematch, if we have it. Throw on top of that these wild charges.

[07:30:02]

I mean, this is crazy, I mean, unprecedented. And we're not going to have a resolution to it before we cast our ballots?