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Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Attempting to have Georgia Indictments Related to 2020 Presidential Election Moved to Federal Court; Rudy Giuliani Indicted under RICO Statutes in Georgia Case; 106 Confirmed Dead as Anger in Hawaii Grows over Government's Response. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:01:14]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It's the top of the hour. We're glad you are with us on this Wednesday. Former President Trump vowing to hold a major news conference just days before his deadline to surrender in Georgia on felony charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: In Maui, genetic experts gathering DNA to help identify victims from the catastrophic wildfire as the death toll continues to soar, now at least 106 people. What we're learning about the power pole that seems to have defaulted second before the fire broke out.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

HARLOW: New overnight, we now know where Donald Trump will likely surrender in Fulton County, Georgia. The local sheriff says the former president is expected to be arrested and booked at the county jail on 13 felony charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state. There are just nine days left for Trump to turn himself in. The district attorney, Fani Willis, has given Trump and 18 co- defendants until noon next Friday to surrender. One of Trump's alleged co-conspirators, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fighting to move the case from state court to federal court. Maybe he can get it dismissed, then. Rudy Giuliani, another co-defendant, says he will be surrendering in Georgia sometime next week.

MATTINGLY: Now, we are learning Giuliani is apparently going broke at this point, facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election. And this is all coming as Trump has announced he is going to hold a, quote, major news conference Monday to totally exonerate himself and somehow prove the election results in Georgia were rigged. To be clear, once again, Georgia confirmed Joe Biden won after ballots were counted three times. That included a recount by hand of every ballot in every county. An audit of voter signatures on absentee ballots found zero fraud. Trump's lawyers brought at least a half-a-dozen cases to court to challenge the results. They lost or withdrew them all. Just putting that out there. HARLOW: Joining us now, CNN senior political analyst and anchor John

Avlon, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers, also our political commentators Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers at the table. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here.

Jennifer, to you. I am very interested in Mark Meadows and his move, first move to get this in federal court before Trump, independent of Trump, and the fact that he might prevail.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, it's really interesting that he moved so quickly and did it without Trump. You only have 30 days, so you have to move quickly. But Trump hasn't moved yet. To me the separation shows they are not on the same page, which we've known for a while. He's been under the radar.

But listen, this has been assigned to district judge now. The judge will have to decide whether to summarily remand back to the state court if there are no grounds, or hold a hearing and proceed in federal court --

HARLOW: There are grounds, aren't there?

RODGERS: So the statute says that if you are a federal officer and that the conduct that you are accused of doing is related to your federal duties, that it can be removed to federal court. So the argument for Meadows is, I was chief of staff. I was doing things that are chief of staff-like, like arranging meetings and doing what the president told me to do within my job responsibilities. And therefore, I fall under the statute.

The problem is, of course, that the prosecutors will argue that it was not part of his responsibilities to overturn the 2020 election. There was a point at which it switched between legal challenges and illegal pressures and so on, and that that is where it turned and that he can't make that claim. So we'll see what the judge says.

MATTINGLY: You are laughing adds if James Baker wasn't doing the exact same thing.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You're right. In the long history of the White House chiefs of staff, nowhere is it in the job description that you try to help your boss overturn American democracy. Actually, one could argue that would violate basic oaths that you take in such a position.

[08:05:06]

MATTINGLY: That's a good point. I hadn't thought through that.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: But there is the legal, and then I think the political, and then the norm. And this is, to some degree, the story of the last seven or eight years. And I think, Scott, to that point, if you are a Republican campaign now, because these things are all intertwined, we have seen how they responded. I think we talked at length about the numbers they are seeing and why they have responded it that way in a Republican primary.

When the former president talks about once again, not just talking about a rigged election that was not rigged, but now he is going to have a report. He is not just talking about it. He is going to throw it in and light that fire all over again, even as the conservative Republican governor in Georgia takes apart the argument again piece by piece, which is very important, what are you doing as a campaign? Are you going to follow town this rabbit hole?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If you were preparing for this debate, you were already preparing for the question of, if you had been Mike Pence on January 6th, would you have done what he did? If that doesn't get asked, that will be malpractice. But now I assume the question next will be, did you watch Donald Trump's news conference, and do you agree with him that the election in Georgia was stolen? And you're going to have to come up with an answer for that that sort of satisfies the vector that you have come up with for your campaign.

So his interjecting this prior to the debate will ensure that he is in the debate without actually being there probably and force all these campaigns to once again dance around. And as you pointed out, you're going to have the Republican Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, saying this just is fabricated. So as it has been for these campaigns, it's extremely complicated, and there are no great answers.

AVLON: It's not complicated. It's not complicated. There are facts. Tell the truth. It doesn't need to be complicated. It's just put it through the vector of their campaign strategy where it becomes complicated.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I kind of like having this battle of what Republicans are going to do, because I can just sit over here and watch the chaos. The fact is, I think it is a little bit more complicated on the debate table because they're going to -- let's say Tim Scott gives the answer and says it's unpatriotic and un- American, what Fani Willis is doing, right? Then he is going to get filleted by Chris Christie. Chris Christie is going to wait for him to say that and literally fillet him on stage.

HARLOW: Like Marco Rubio.

SELLERS: It will be like Marco Rubio. And he's going to -- if I were Chris Christie, I would look at Tim Scott when he says that and say, no, your answer is un-American. And what you are showing is you don't even have the fortitude to be a leader. And if you can't stand up to Donald Trump, how can you stand up to Kim Jong-un, how can you stand up to the dictators of China?

JENNINGS: The same will be true on the Pence issue. If they ask the rest of these people up there, would you have done what Pence did, there will be interplay on that. So on both fronts -- SELLERS: And I think Ron DeSantis -- I mean, this is the trap that they are going to set for Ron DeSantis and others. So when Ron DeSantis tries to -- and Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, they try to be edioferous (ph) -- do you like that? That's an SAT word.

(LAUGHTER)

SELLERS: When they try to fence it, right, when they don't really want to make a decision or they thread a needle, then that's what Chris Christie and others and Asa Hutchinson, who is a skilled prosecutor, are going to be able to fillet them on the stage. So I hear you. In the larger scheme of things, this ain't complicated. The election wasn't stolen, it's not rigged, right? And you should be able to say that out loud. But on the debate stage when they try to thread that needle, it's going to get complicated. Not to take Scott's side, but I am tired of you guys jumping up on my guy.

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: I hired an attorney.

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: He is pretty good. He has a decent win/loss record.

MATTINGLY: He has got a future.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: I am going to another great lawyer at the table. Jennifer, on this RICO claim that Rudy Giuliani, who really pioneered it and used it so successfully in New York against mob bosses, who says this is the wrong way to use it and Fani Willis doesn't know what she is doing, what would you say?

RODGERS: I am waiting for the details on that. It's the wrong way to use it? All right, tell me why. The Georgia RICO law is exceedingly broad. It's broader than the federal RICO law that Rudy is so familiar with. So when you look at the indictment and you put it up against the law in Georgia, it seems pretty on all fours to me. I'm anxious to see how he is actually going to fight this on the legal side. Obviously, he can make his claims about the facts and what he was doing and what he wasn't doing. But to say it's not a fit, the allegations with the law makes no sense to me.

MATTINGLY: John, I feel like irony has lost all meaning over the course of the last seven or eight years, but the idea of the man who revolutionized the modern use of RICO to literally take apart the most powerful mafia crime families in New York and launched his political career that made him America's mayor, and somehow ended up in this place, irony is not lost that RICO is being used against him now.

AVLON: We have just gone full circle. But you're right, it is a historic irony, of course. And one of the criticisms of Rudy in innovating that use of RICO against the mafia --

MATTINGLY: Too broad, not what it's for --

AVLON: Yes. And of course, there is this tragic twist in the Rudy tale, the tragic opera of his life. But there has got to be accountability for the things you do. And it's very clear from this that this was a multifaceted effort to try to overturn an American election. And there's just nothing more serious than that.

SELLERS: Just also the undertones of Rudy, and I believe he was on with Eric Bolling --

HARLOW: Yes.

SELLERS: Eric Bolling, and even Donald Trump in their attacks against Fani Willis, you have to address those as well. They are going out of their way and calling this come incompetent. They're saying that she is not a good lawyer. They're talking about crime. I read a tweet from Jim Jordan and he was talking about you should focus on crime in your own county. One thing Fani Willis is doing --

HARLOW: That's what they has been doing.

SELLERS: -- is cleaning up the streets of Atlanta. She and the mayor of Atlanta have -- they have literally dropped the crime rate, and they've taken on gangs, a lot like Rudy Giuliani used to do. They've taken on very well-known gangs in Atlanta. And so those normal arguments that they're trying to launch, they are more red herrings than anything. And they have an undertone of the way that a lot of individuals deal with women in politics and a lot of individuals on another level deal with women in the law, which you can speak to more, and particularly black women.

HARLOW: I do want to give you a moment to respond to that as a female attorney, how she has been attacked, the way in which Fani Willis has been attacked.

RODGERS: Obviously, it's unfair and it's incorrect. But I will say this, that argument doesn't make it within the four corners of the courtroom. When you get in the courtroom, they will not be allowed to say anything about the prosecutor, what she should be doing instead of this case. All she gets to say is what is happening in this case, and that's what will matter to the jury.

MATTINGLY: All right, guys, Scott Jennings, Scott Jennings' attorney Bakari Sellers --

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: -- Jennifer Rodgers, John Avlon, thanks. Appreciate it.

So will Arizona be the next state to indict former President Donald Trump? The Georgia indictment mentions Arizona several times, and the state has been investigating Trump, his allies, and Arizona's fake electors. We're going to ask the Arizona secretary of state where things stand coming up next.

And we're getting one of our first looks on the ground at the worst of the devastation left behind by the Hawaii wildfires. Our next guest not only covered it for the Hawaiian news station but recently found out that he lost four family members in the fires. We'll have that coming up.

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HARLOW: Urgent new questions this morning about what caused the fires in Maui that are now being blamed for 106 deaths this morning. And that's the death count, we should note, with only about a quarter of the search done. So, it is likely to go higher, potentially much higher.

We don't know what started the first fire, but there is video that seems to show a power pole faulting seconds before we see flames. We should note this is not the blaze that destroyed Lahaina. This is from a different part of Maui.

MATTINGLY: Let's check out this video from last Monday. A few seconds in, you're going to see a big flash and the camera pan several different times.

By the time it refocuses, you'll see flames. Well, we're going to let this play out to the end. So see the fire. But at the same time of the first flash, our next guest says several sensors went off in the town where that fire started. And experts say that flash is likely an arc flash, something that happens when a powerline gets knocked down, releasing power.

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement, quote, "We know there is speculation about what started the fire and we, along with others, are working hard to figure out what happened."

Bob Marshall is the co-founder and chief executive of Whisker Labs, a private company that uses an advanced sensor network to monitor electrical grids across the country. He joins us now. Bob, in terms of the sensors themselves, can you explain to us what they showed here?

BOB MARSHALL, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, WHISKER LABS: Yeah, we've got an advanced sensor network all over the island of Maui and across the United States, and they measure the quality and the reliability of the power grid.

So, in the United States, voltage in our homes should be 120 voltage. Precisely at the same time as video shows that arc flash, we measured in ten different sensors a sharp drop in voltage, which is indicative of an arc flash. So, it's verification that indeed this was very likely caused by a fault on the utility grid.

HARLOW: So, we were also told, the public's been told by the CEO of Hawaii Electric, the state utility, that the electricity was needed for the water pumps to work. Right, and you need that to fight the fire. But there's been criticism that the power wasn't cut sooner. Would the power being cut sooner -- would a pole have faulted like this if the power were cut? MARSHALL: No, at the end of the day, if there is no energy in the power lines, then there will be no arc flash. So, the power has to be on for that to happen.

MATTINGLY: Can you explain or at least walk through the number of faults, kind of how this all actually played out?

MARSHALL: Yeah, so the network across Maui has an incredible amount of data, and unfortunately, it shows an increasingly stressed utility grid.

Starting Monday night into Tuesday morning and through the overnight hours when all the fires ignited, we measured 122 individual faults on the utility grid, any one of which could produce a similar result to what you see on that video.

HARLOW: Bob Marshall, thank you for joining us with your expertise, please keep us posted as you guys learn more.

MARSHALL: Appreciate the opportunity.

HARLOW: Of course.

MATTINGLY: Now, we're also getting a first look on the ground in the worst hit area of wildfire ravage Lahaina. You can see, just look at these pictures. The charred cars, the burned-out homes, the scope you can barely even get your head around it.

FEMA is on the ground looking for those who are still missing. Here's how the Hawaiian governor describes the process.

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GOV. JOSH GREEN (D-HI): We're beginning to heal, but we're also having our hearts broken day by day as we see loss of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Our next guest spent days reporting on the wildfires for Hawaii News Now. The whole time he was worried about his own family living on the island. And on Friday, he got the tragic news that four of his family members did not make it.

Hawaiian News Now Traffic Anchor Jonathan Masaki Sharoma joins us now. Jonathan, can't even put into words how sorry we are for your loss. Along those lines, tell us about the four members of your family and also how did you find out in the midst of this tragedy?

JONATHAN MASAKI SHAROMA, HNN TRAFFIC ANCHOR: Well, mahalo, first of all, for letting me spend some time with both of you, and it's my honor to be here.

How I found out, sadly, about my cousins in laws was by just talking with him on the phone Friday morning. I already had left the station overnight and was heading to California. But before I left, I wanted to at least check in to see what was the

latest. And unfortunately, when we talked, and pretty much, in graphic detail, what was discovered and how they discovered his in laws.

[08:20:00]

Which was heartbreaking to say the least. And to remain composed, I won't really get into the details of what and how it all came about, but nonetheless, when we talked, sadly, the kind of confirmation that his mother-in-law and father-in-law and his sister-in-law and her son were lost due to the fires. I

have another cousin that remains missing right now. And I believe I heard you say earlier about the painstaking task of identifying is now what's going to be the focus. And another cousin did provide a DNA sample just so that when this sadly probably will be the inevitable conclusion of what's going on, to identify this other cousin that lost -- that we still have not heard from.

HARLOW: We are praying that you get good news about your missing cousin, of course. What I have been so struck by, beyond the resilience, by the way, of all of you on Maui, is that so many have continued the important work they do while trying to find and wait for word of loved ones. We had a firefighter on, on Monday who had lost her uncle and was fighting the flames at the same time.

For you, you've been continuing your work, reporting through all of this. How? How do you do it?

SHAROMA: And this is why I have to try to really watch what I say because I get so emotional when I think about it. But as you can recall the first day, before the fires got to -- before we realized how bad it was, I was on air and taking different advisories from Maui County officials about road closures and how the roads were shut down. And in the meantime, realizing as I looked at my traffic maps and talking with my producers, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that is the area -- first of all, Upcountry Maui was hit also not as bad as West Maui -- but first of all, seeing my childhood home city of Kula getting hit that way.

Then second, you know, getting to the worst part is reporting on, OK, guys, you're not allowed to get into West Maui because of this. And then seeing where the gist of where this was taking place at, realizing, oh my gosh, that's where my grandmother's family kind of had their roots in. And I remember as a child playing at the very house that sadly was lost.

So, as you both know, when you're giving news and something personal happens, you still have to maintain that composure and still report. But the minute the camera goes off and the mics are off, you're in the corner just regrouping and just getting the facts and information that you need to let the public know because, obviously we're thinking about their safety as well.

MATTINGLY: Jonathan, to that point, you were talking about the advisories and what you were learning in real time while at work as a reporter. As somebody who does this for a living, what questions are unanswered? We've heard a lot about the lack of warning about how people's cell phones weren't working so they couldn't get some messages.

Where do you think answers are needed, in terms of how this actually happened and the devastation didn't seem -- it seemed to creep up so fast on the entire community.

SHAROMA: Gosh, that's a hard question to answer, Phil. The bottom line up front is this, the people of Hawaii have always been rooted in the spirit of ohana, which is family. And I know how painstaking this is. I know the hurt. I know the -- just the deep void we all feel because losing Lahaina, losing our family members is something so personal.

And I strongly believe, because of our upbringing and the sense of family and the sense of aloha -- aloha is a word that I know is used -- overused, but for someone from the islands, you are deep rooted in aloha. And aloha for us is to just have that patience.

And the second word I want to bring up is malama. Malama in Oleo, Hawaii, the language of Hawaii is to take care. And I strongly believe as we try to make our way through all of this, those two words that are rooted in the Hawaiian culture are going to help the people get through this.

It's not going to be easy; I totally realize that. But again, I do see family members -- the one that just lost their in-laws, we talked yesterday and the extension of people bringing food to the house, which is so common in Hawaii, when something happens, you bring food, you bring water, you sit down and you just try to be there and malama each other to take care.

So, I don't know how to answer that question. I know there's people pointing blame at whatnot, but I just say the patience that we all need to have to wait for those answers and it's not easy to wait, but I strongly believe patience, aloha, and malama will be the way to get through this.

HARLOW: That's really beautiful, Jonathan. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. Our hearts are with you.

SHAROMA: Mahalo. Have a good day. Aloha.

MATTINGLY: Well, could Trump's latest indictment in Georgia affect his support in the peach state? We're going to break down some of those numbers. That's coming up next.

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HARLOW: A lot of news today. Here are five things to know. This Wednesday, August 16, with just nine days left to surrender, we know former President Trump is expected to be booked at the Fulton County Jail.

In a new court filing, his codefendant and former chief of staff Mark Meadows, is trying to get his case moved from state to federal court.

MATTINGLY: And this morning, at least 106 people killed in those wildfires in Hawaii and that number is likely to rise, maybe even double, that's according to Hawaii's governor. President Biden says he'll travel to Maui soon, once his visit will not disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts.

And Alec Baldwin, the actor, could once again face manslaughter charges. A forensic report released Tuesday found the revolver that fired the round that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the "Rust" movie set could only have happened if the trigger was pulled.

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