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First Hearing in Trump Election Interference Case since SCOTUS Immunity Ruling; Trump's Attorney Enters Not Guilty Plea, Continues to Fight for Protracted Schedule. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired September 05, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is CONNECT THE WORLD.
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just six days to go until America picks its next president and it's a juggling act yet again
for Donald Trump and his team while candidate Trump prepares to hit the campaign trail in New York to deliver what's being billed as a major
address on the economy.
Right now, his lawyers are hundreds of miles away representing him in a federal courtroom in Washington as a key hearing in Trump's election
interference case gets underway.
It is the first hearing since special counsel Jack Smith revised his indictment following the U.S. Supreme Court's historic ruling on
presidential immunity earlier this year. CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider is live in Washington for us.
Jessica, good to see you. I want you to do take us through this hearing and what we're expecting today.
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this case has been on pause for quite some time.
The last time we saw hearing this case was last October. Of course, all of this on pause while the Supreme Court sorted out whether or not Donald
Trump would be immune from some or all of the charges.
The Supreme Court in July said that he is immune from any prosecution as it regards official acts taken while he was president. But that really didn't
give a clear indication as to how this will proceed.
So Judge Tanya Chutkan at the federal court will be deciding either today or in the coming days how to move this case forward. So today's hearing
will allow Judge Chutkan to really hear arguments on both sides who -- how they'll propose this case proceeds.
So we saw the revised indictment that was filed by the special counsel in the case last week. Jack Smith's team actually left all four criminal
charges in place. But they adjusted the set of facts to take out certain interactions that could be considered official actions by the president.
And then late last week, we saw both sides lay out how they believe this case should proceed. It's really interesting, the divergence and how each
side wants to go. Jack Smith wants immediate briefing and then he left the bulk of the scheduling to the discretion of the judge.
Trump's team, though, saying they plan to challenge still every aspect of this case, including the validity of the special counsel's appointment. And
they really don't want much action in this case until well after the election, pinpointing the bulk of the action to start in early 2025.
So this could be a really contentious hearing that's just starting probably in the last minute or so. We're expecting it will last anywhere between one
and three hours. It's important to note Donald Trump is not in court today. He's not required to be.
And he has already entered a not guilty plea on this new indictment. And this hearing today will also serve as an arraignment, where his lawyers
will enter that not guilty plea. So it's a little bit of a technical, procedural hearing. Probably not a lot of fireworks.
But it's going to give us a good glimpse as to how this case is going to move forward. We will not see a trial in this case before the election. And
of course, if Donald Trump is reelected, it is quite possible this case is just wiped out by his Justice Department.
So we will see. There's a lot up in the air now, we'll see how the next few hours go.
GIOKOS: Yes, there's a lot of questions, Jessica. We know that there are no cameras inside of the courtroom.
I just I want to explain to our viewers that they will see a live feed of alerts from inside the court on the left of your screen. There are no
cameras. We are getting all the info. And you can check it out on cnn.com.
So Jessica, Donald Trump has multiple legal challenges hanging over him in the leadup to the election.
How important is this case or any of Trump's legal issues to the voters right now?
SCHNEIDER: I mean, I think these cases have been playing out for so long and voters have been so inundated with the details of these cases, I really
do think that these cases are sort of in the background as we move into the final stretch up until Election Day.
There's a lot more on voters' minds, being the economy, the stability of democracy, immigration. And really Donald Trump's cases have long played
out for the American public.
So I don't think it's at the forefront, especially because, the last action we saw of any significance was back in the spring when Donald Trump was
convicted of dozens of charges of the falsification of business records in the state court.
But all of these other cases that he's facing, whether it's this one or the classified documents case that Jack Smith is trying to revive or the
Georgia case.
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Those are all on indefinite pauses and we're not going to see any real action in those at all before Election Day.
GIOKOS: Yes.
All right, so we are seeing some of the live comments from the hearing that's underway. There's a bit of banter that's happening right now,
Jessica. But I want to just take a step back here and this is really important. And you mentioned some of the trials.
But how many trials for Donald Trump are still pending at this moment?
SCHNEIDER: I mean, there's this one that we're seeing, the -- trying to get restarted in the federal court here in Washington, D.C.
Then there's the one in Georgia, where Trump is just one of a number of defendants that were charged in this election interference scheme but that
one is on hold.
The appeals court in Georgia has to decide whether or not that case can proceed because of issues with the prosecutor there, Fani Willis, and
whether or not the challenges to her actually overseeing the case.
So that one's on a real pause while the appeals court even determines if we'll move forward. And then we had that classified documents case,
remember where Donald Trump allegedly took the classified documents after he was president, refused to give them back to the U.S. government.
The charges resulted but then the judge down there, a federal judge, dismissed those charges. Jack Smith is now appealing to the appeals court,
the 11th Circuit, to try to get those charges revived.
So really the only case that is moving forward here that's not at a standstill because of an appellate review is this one in D.C. And even this
one is riddled with technical glitches about how it's going to proceed. And Donald Trump's team promising they are also going to appeal every step of
this as well.
I mean, you got to -- you got to say about Trump's legal team, they have been very persistent and very, very, very lucky, very successful in
delaying all of these cases. And this is one of them.
GIOKOS: Yes, all right. Jessica Schneider. Great to have you with us. Thank you so much for that context. We'll catch up with you -- yes. Tell
me.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I was just going to --
GIOKOS: OK.
SCHNEIDER: I was just going to give you a little glimpse as, you know, the judge just said, she does not intend to finalize a schedule at this
hearing. So it does look like it'll be at least a day or so or more until we actually see how this case is going to move forward.
GIOKOS: Yes, a really important, important piece of information. Everyone's asking about timeline and how long this is going to take.
Jessica Schneider, we'll catch up with you soon. Thank you so much.
Look, I want to dig in deeper with Jackie Kucinich. She's a CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for the "Boston Globe."
And Michael Moore, a CNN legal analyst and former U.S. attorney.
Welcome to the show, both of you. A very good morning.
Michael, I want to start with you. After SCOTUS decision earlier this year, that the president can't be prosecuted for official acts taken while
president, what has changed?
Giving -- could you give me a sense of how different this indictment is?
MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, sure. Glad to be with both of you today. This indictment that the special prosecutor has now placed before
the court is just a pared-down version of his first indictment.
And what he did is he tried to remove references in the indictment to the former president Trump and he's now calling him candidate Trump. And he's
doing that in response to the Supreme Court's decision, which said essentially that a president has certain immunity and they have
protections.
And so he's tried to remove any type of lens that the court might view Trump as a president at the time these acts were committed. He's trying to
repeat, he's trying to fix that in this indictment.
Whether or not he's successful, I don't know. I think he's going to have some problems with the indictment. I think he's got some issues when it
comes to how he references the former vice president, Mike Pence, and the interactions between Trump and Pence.
But these are things that Judge Chutkan in the court that is having a hearing today will be weighing through and deciding whether or not in fact
that conduct was immune from federal prosecution.
And if so, did the fact that that conduct may have been placed before a grand jury for this indictment, this second indictment, did that in fact
spoil the entire indictment?
GIOKOS: All right, Michael, thank you for that.
I want to go to Jackie and I want to talk about a poll that came out this week, showing the percentage of people who are not committed is quite
substantial.
Will the undecided voter take into consideration these legal cases, if at all?
JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think Jessica is right. In a lot of voters' minds that it's kind of baked in. If you are repulsed by
the fact that Trump, his involvement of January 6 and that this case is going on, you're going to vote for Kamala Harris.
If you think it's all the government's going after him, he didn't do anything wrong, you're probably voting for Donald Trump. It's those voters
in the middle. It's the ones that anything could move the needle. Yes, the economy, immigration, a whole wealth of issues are going to drive most
voters for who they vote for.
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But when you know that Kamala Harris is making being a prosecutor a big part of her pitch to voters and she has -- former president Trump, his
conviction and these court cases still going on in the background.
She does have something to point to and any reminder of these negative aspects of the Trump era could end up helping her in that race, this very
quick race to Election Day. So any -- the margins are going to matter in this race more than I can remember in other presidential races in my
lifetime, covering presidentials.
GIOKOS: Michael, we're getting alerts from inside the courtroom right now and Judge Chutkan is saying that she's been reviewing what she's done since
she got the case last month.
What could she have done in the past month with this case?
Could you give me a sense since the SCOTUS decision?
MOORE: Yes, sure. The Supreme Court basically has told her and told the parties in the case that certain conduct of the former president cannot be
considered.
And so my belief is that she's probably gone through the indictment. She's compared the old indictment, that it was the first indictment and the new
indictment, the pared-down version, to see if some of that conduct or references to that conduct was removed.
I think she's also likely reviewing the law on the appointment of special counsel. Remember that if Trump and his team are known for one thing, it's
that, when the going gets tough, they attack the prosecutors.
Some of those attacks may or may not be justified but that's what they do. They go after the prosecutor. They've done it in Georgia is they've gone
after Fani Willis, saying she should come off the case.
They did it in Florida in the doc -- classified documents case, saying that Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed and he had no authority to bring the
indictment on those charges against the former president.
And they're doing it now. And that motion is actually pending before Judge Chutkan. But they will be attacking Jack Smith's appointment under the
constitutional provisions.
And especially given some of the comments and references made by certain members of the Supreme Court as it related to whether or not the special
counsel appointment was appropriate.
So I'm sure she's looking at the law, those things, to decide if she agrees with the Florida court or if she just takes a different view than the
Florida court. If she does, that makes an issue right for appeal. But these are things that she's probably digging into the law.
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GIOKOS: But is that argument likely to succeed?
Would you say?
Is that argument likely --
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MOORE: -- it's not likely, I don't think, to succeed in front of her. But it succeeded in front of the judge in Florida. And so if they get a case
where they take it down the Supreme Court, ultimately, they're going to have at least one judge, we know one justice, Justice Thomas, who seems to
be very sympathetic to that argument.
And if he starts bearing down on some of his conservative colleagues on the court, my guess is that you might see at least some tailoring of the
authority given to special counsel.
Remember the issue here is that the special counsel was not confirmed by the Senate in the case as you have in other special counsel situations.
Sometimes you have a former U.S. attorney or a former Department of Justice high-ranking official, who comes in and they've been confirmed by the
Senate in their role.
That's not the case with the special counsel here. So those are issues that she's going to have to grapple with. The fact that she may decide
differently simply means that now there is a diversion in opinions between two federal judges or two federal courts in different districts in the
country.
And so that's the kind of thing that appeals courts typically weigh in on. And certainly those are things that the Supreme Court might be interested.
GIOKOS: So Jackie, I want you to weigh in here. Look, the reality is for Donald Trump and his allies, there's hope that the revised court documents
will work in his favor.
So what is your assessment?
KUCINICH: I really think this is going -- I mean, there are a million things that are going to go into whether people cast a ballot for Kamala
Harris or former president Trump. So if things go well for him, it serves to bolster his case that this is all retaliatory.
If it doesn't, perhaps that will make a -- make a difference to voters as they're assessing whether they want another four years of former president
Trump. But I do think, as Jessica Schneider said, in the last segment, the economy and immigration and your pocketbook issues are what is going to
determine this election at the end of the day.
And everything else could be -- could sway one way or the other.
GIOKOS: OK.
Michael, a question to you. Look Trump is arguing the illegally appointed special counsel -- and this is what he said.
"Deranged Jack Smith has brought a ridiculous new indictment against me, which has all the problems of the old indictment and should be dismissed
immediately.
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"This is merely an attempt to interfere with the election."
The question is, isn't the DOJ breaking its own guideline of making any prosecutorial moves so close to an election?
It's got that 60 day rule.
Is it breaking that rule?
MOORE: It's not technically breaking its own policy because there was already a prosecution pending. So this indictment has been out there. This
case has been pending for much longer than the 60 days.
The fact that they're moving on at this expeditiously -- and I think so some of that is because of setting by the court report back dates for those
types of things -- you know, that's just the way the court system works.
I think the reality here is that there was this big push that somehow people believed that somehow this case was going to be tried before the
election. And so there was a self-imposed gas pedal that was pressed down to get the case moved.
And early on, there was no way this case was going to wrap itself through the justice system, through the court system, through the appeals process
and actually have any finality before the election.
So some of the things that they did, I think they could have avoided the criticism that there will be at the Justice Department by not trying to
make it look like they were rushing this up so that this could come and somehow have an impact on the election.
They could have held back. They did not do that. But as far as this policy, this 60 days, it is a policy. Basically what it does is it keeps federal
prosecutors from coming in by the dark of night and indicting a candidate right before an election and trying to sway the election one way or
another.
But remember this case has been pending for a long time in this court with this judge, has been through some appeals issues. This is simply a
continuation forward with a cleaned-up version of the indictment.
GIOKOS: Donald Trump lawyers, we're hearing, has officially put in the not guilty plea on Donald Trump's behalf.
I mean, the question now is, Michael, what happens next?
Will Judge Chutkan allow for filings of evidence and for the case to continue?
What is the sense?
MOORE: Well, the entry of the not guilty pleas reported because that really joins the issue, brings the matter to the breast of the court. And
so now she will listen to both sides. She's already had some briefing from both sides about how each side thinks the case should move forward.
Some people think it should move forward with a lot of briefing, a lot of appeals. That would be the Trump team. Jack Smith's team has said, no, we
can just write a brief. We can tell you what the evidence is and we can move forward at the Court's pleasure.
And so she'll find some balance there. But again, now that this sort of self imposed, expeditious process has been removed and is no longer
overhanging this trial, I think you'll see the schedule slowed down a little bit. And there won't be this urgency to get things moving.
You already see that. You already see it in some of Jack Smith's response. As the special counsel said, we're, you know, we don't -- we don't have to
have it.
So she'll listen to both sides and she'll make a decision on whether or not she needs to actually have a evidentiary hearing and receive evidence about
what the government expects to present at trial, what evidence was presented to this grand jury, how they fashioned the restructuring of the
allegations in this case.
And then she, at the same time, frankly, could just have them argue that in a brief. Federal judges are not known for having multiple hearings in these
types of matters. They rule typically on the pleadings and on briefings in a case.
This case is unique and everybody ought to just know this is a one-of-a- kind case. And so it would not surprise me at all for her to say, look, we're going to do this a little different. We're going to put your evidence
on because we've got to get a record before an appeals court. I want everything on the record.
I want to have testimony. I will have sworn testimony as opposed to just briefing about what you expect to say. That sort of makes it, I think while
it may drag the process a little bit, again, we don't have to rush to have it before the election.
So that type of tedious process and that type of tedious hearing, I think, had actually proved that official to an appeals court as they review
whether or not the indictment in fact addresses all the concerns with the recent Supreme Court immunity decision.
GIOKOS: So, Michael, we were continuing to get lines out of the hearing. As you can see, it's on your screen right now. The judge specifically
talking about the immunity issue.
She asked the prosecution something along the lines of, why should we depart from the normal course?
So Michael, what is the normal course?
MOORE: The normal course is a briefing. The normal course would be, in an indictment, that you -- the defendant can challenge an indictment and they
would brief it, raise issues of law about the sufficiency of an indictment or alleged illegalities of the indictment that a court would make a
decision based on the briefing.
As opposed to going through this elongated process that has been suggested by the Trump team.
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And that is to have a hearing and some briefing and a chance to appeal particular decisions on intermediate or an interlocutory basis.
And I think the judge is sort of saying, why do this differently?
Why in this case do it differently?
I think she'll find at the end of the day some hybrid approach. She's just not simply going to go on the papers as she can. But it would make sense to
me in the -- in these circumstances to do some type of hybrid approach, just like we're seeing sort of this hearing today.
Federal judges don't often ask for your opinion on how things should be done. They just do what they want to do. This is a little bit out of norm
for most criminal cases.
GIOKOS: All right.
Jackie, Michael, you're still with us. Stick with me. I want to bring in Jessica Schneider.
Jessica, you've been watching some of the lines coming out of the hearing.
Could you tell us what stood out for you and where we stand right now, around 20 minutes in?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
The judge established pretty early on that this hearing is really is twofold in nature. First of all, they're going to talk about the scheduling
in this case, how it should move forward.
But the bigger issue that they're addressing actually right now is the immunity issue, because the Supreme Court gave a road map, saying that
official acts by the president are immune from prosecution.
But then there are some that may be in a gray area that prosecutors might be able to charge that they can overcome some issues. So there's a lot to
be determined as to what in this even new indictment can be allowed to move forward, based on the Supreme Court's decision.
It is very muddy. It is very legal and technical and that is what they have to sort through.
So now they're proposing how exactly do they sort through that?
Prosecutors are saying, look, we want to go first, we want to file our brief, our papers and argue why we believe that everything that we put in
the indictment is within the parameters of the Supreme Court's decision.
We're going to hear next from Trump's legal team. And presumably, based on their previous filings, they're going to challenge even that initial course
of action. Donald Trump's team has said, no, no, we actually want to go first in filing our papers. We want to challenge this new indictment as a
whole.
We also want to bring up discovery issues, things we might be entitled to get from the government. So the Trump's team is going to challenge
everything prosecutors are saying. Right now, prosecutors are standing up before the judge.
Saying, Judge, it's simple. We want to -- we want to lay out our case as to why everything we've put in the indictment is sound under the Supreme
Court's ruling. And then we should be able to move forward with Trump's team challenging that.
They are sort of laying out a schedule in and of itself there. They're saying to the judge, we should be able to have our brief, prosecutors, in
about two to three weeks. Judge Chutkan saying, OK, that would put us the end of September.
So she's really got two things she has to worry about. She has to worry about how they're handling the immunity issue, which sort of things can
still be included in the charges in the indictment.
And then she has to figure out how do we even move this case forward?
Remember, Judge Tanya Chutkan, she's a -- she's an appointee of President Barack Obama. She has been running this case before it was halted on a very
tight ship. She wanted to keep things moving along.
She's been forwarded it in that for many months now. But she does keep things very tight, very on schedule. So she said she's not going to make
any decisions today. But now prosecutors are arguing, you know, what they want.
And actually now it looks like -- now it looks like Trump's team is up and they're proposing how they want things to move forward. So we're watching
as this plays out. But again, like I said, a bit technical, a bit procedural. And this is something that could play out for at least another
hour or two
GIOKOS: OK.
Jessica, I know you're monitoring everything that's coming out of the hearing. You're with us, you're standing by as you read on that.
I just want to take a step back here, Jackie, and I want to bring you in. You know, Americans are watching this hearing and they are watching all the
commentary and this is so close to the election.
Jackie, from your perspective right now, this is unprecedented in terms of what we're seeing.
How is this affecting voter perception right now and just generally the sentiments in the United States?
KUCINICH: Generally, if you're reminding people about January 6th, that's not good for Team Trump. They actually postponed a fundraiser for January
6th defendants at Mar-a-Lago recently until after the election.
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They don't want to talk about this with your voters that are on the fence right now, because that was a very dark time in the history of this country
and also for Trump himself.
So the fact that this is back in the news, this is back, reminding people that this is very much unresolved. That might, again, around the margins,
around voters who have not decided, it could go into their thinking as how they're casting their votes in those critical swing states, Wisconsin,
Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, et cetera.
GIOKOS: Michael, the prosecution has said that they revealed in court that what is personal behavior and not presidential behavior.
Doesn't the judge needs to decide that soon at this stage?
So decide if this is in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling?
MOORE: She does need to decide that and that really was what this hearing in the scheduling process was to be about, was to give her a mechanism to
do that.
There's some real issues as it relates to the new indictment with Mike Pence, the vice president. And those deal with conversations that the
former president is allowed -- is alleged to have had with the former vice president, specifically dealing with the counting of the votes there in the
Senate.
And so that's going to be a real question. Whether or not they are certain, if you're having a conversation, the president, and you're having a
conversation with the vice president do you have to analyze the conversations sentence by sentence?
Do you have to say, well, I was speaking to him as the vice president here. But then on this side, I was speaking to him as the president of the Senate
under the Constitution.
Does the Constitution say that he's a member of the Senate or does it say that the vice president, in his role as vice president, which is in the
executive branch, also does something in the legislative branch?
But he's still always the vice president. I just don't know that you're going to have an appetite.
You may have, Judge Chutkan may find this but I'm not sure if the Supreme Court, that they're going to have an appetite for going through and
dissecting each sentence of a conversation that takes place in the same location.
About whether or not those comments were from a candidate, from a president or to a vice president or to a president of the Senate, how those things
work. It makes it sort of an unwieldy process and that may be a bridge too far.
That's a real issue.
In this case.
And then this new indictment on the back, that Jack Smith, who did those allegations -- remember, he pulled out of this new indictment some of the
discussions and allegations relating to Trump's conversations with Justice Department officials.
But he left in this indictment conversations that the former president is alleged to have had with his then vice president.
And so the question will be, under what circumstances, if any, can those conversations be deemed to be outside of the cloak of immunity?
And that's what Trump's team is going to be pressing. You've already seen in some of the feed that's going on on screen, that Trump's lawyer raised
this issue, like, look, the Supreme Court has decided this.
And Judge can said, no, they sent it back to me to talk about. But remember, she's not the ultimate decider because the Supreme Court's
already paved the road for this appeal and for a reconsideration or a consideration of any of her decisions later in the case.
GIOKOS: All right.
Michael Moore, you are staying with me for more analysis right after the break.
Jackie Kucinich, thank you so much for your analysis this morning.
We are going to a very short break, much more on this breaking story. Stay with us.
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GIOKOS: Welcome back to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Eleni Giokos. And as you've seen and been watching very closely, we've been following a hearing in
Washington, where a federal judge is considering how to move forward with the election interference case against Donald Trump.
It is the first hearing since the case was paused after the U.S. Supreme Court's historic decision granting Trump partial immunity. Trump himself is
not in court. Moments ago, his lawyers pleaded not guilty on his behalf. Let's get more on Trump's legal woes and the potential wider implications.
We've got Jessica Schneider back with us, as well as Michael Moore, CNN legal analyst and former U.S. attorney. And Corey Brettschneider is
professor of political science at Brown University, joining us from New York this morning.
Thank you to all of you for joining us.
Jessica, I want to start with you. You've been watching very closely since the hearing started.
What is standing out for you and what has just transpired in the last few minutes?
SCHNEIDER: There is really a core disagreement about how this case should even proceed in the immediate sense. I mean, Trump's lawyers are really
putting up a big stink about prosecutors just wanting to proceed with briefings on the immunity issue.
Trump's lawyers are saying, before we can even get to that immunity issue, we think that there have been issues with this new indictment. They say
that they believe that the grand jury was presented information regarding things that should be immune, like Donald Trump's interactions with his
vice president, Mike Pence.
And Trump's team is arguing to the judge, they want to go first.
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They want to file their arguments and they believe that the judge would then dismiss this whole indictment, this case would effectively be over,
barring any appellate challenge.
But prosecutors are saying, wait, wait, let us go first. Let us lay out our arguments why we believe if that this indictment is airtight, why we're
able to charge these things.
So I mean, really, we're seeing a lot of back-and-forth in the last half hour just about how to even move forward on these very sticky issues that
the Supreme Court laid out in a broad sense but that this judge is going to have the really difficult task of determining.
What is immune from prosecution, what isn't, what are official acts, where the line might be blurred, we're going to see this is just the first of
many back-and-forth legal challenges on this issue that's still not quite settled.
GIOKOS: Yes. I said earlier, there is a lot of gray area and the SCOTUS decision frankly, how that should be applied, this is, this is going to be
really interesting and a tough job.
But I want to pink -- pick up on the Mike Pence issue.
And Corey, I want to come to you. So Trump's lawyer has just argued in the last few minutes that the issue of Mike Pence needs to be decided right
away.
Do you agree with that?
COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER, BROWN UNIVERSITY: I think it would be good to get it over with and I think it will give the court the opportunity to clarify
that the Trump argument is that basically the attempt to influence Mike Pence as part of this conspiracy to really engage in a self-coup, to stop
the official proceedings of the election.
That that was an official act. So under the court's decision, the Supreme Court's decision, there's presumptive immunity for acts regard lobbying
Mike Pence to essentially not only break the law, let's just be clear here, but to engage in a self-coup.
And it's just so obviously false to claim that an attempt to really stay in power at all costs, to get the president to not -- that Trump's attempt to
get the vice president to act in anything but his official duty is somehow protected.
I think that's exactly the kind of thing the court has to clarify. It is an important part of the case that Trump really was, you know, at the point of
his supporters threatening to kill Mike Pence, trying to convince the vice president to really undermine our electoral process.
Getting that clearly as part of something that's relevant to the case, it's not an official act, it's something that can be prosecuted, that would be
terrific if we could get that clarified up front.
GIOKOS: Yes.
I mean, I know, Corey, you've been asking the question that we are seeing in real time, the importance of the immunity ruling, the SCOTUS ruling.
Give me a sense of how this ruling actually can be implemented in what were seeing in the hearing today and the task of Judge Chutkan and what she's
dealing with to try and ensure that the indictment, the papers, everything that she's hearing today is, in line with that SCOTUS ruling.
Well, she of course, has to comply with the ruling. But it is important to note how outrageous the ruling itself was. Never before has the Supreme
Court said that former, not sitting, former presidents are immune when it comes to their official actions.
So now the lower courts have the obligation to try to implement that. But any common sense, any legally sound implementation of the ruling has to
have a very narrow sense of what an official act is that constitutes immunity.
Almost by definition, when presidents are acting in a criminal way, they're not acting pursuant to their official duties. They're acting pursuant to
their self-interests in the narrowest, worst way. That's what a criminal violation is.
And so the task here, there is an argument that the Trump team has, which is anything, any attempt to lobby the vice president is an official act.
That's how they'll put it. And I think the response here is, no, not lobbying the vice president to violate his oath of office to undermine our
election system and to engage in a self-coup.
That's not an official act, that's the kind of crime that's certainly is not immune -- immunized even by this quite radical and dangerous Supreme
Court opinion.
GIOKOS: Michael, you know Trump's lawyers say that they think that the judge will dismiss this whole thing when she reads their filing.
How likely is that?
MOORE: I think it's unlikely with this judge. I think that she has already issued some rulings in the past that the first stage of the case has
already indicated she's not going to dismiss the whole indictment. The problem that she has, as I think, frankly, that the Supreme Court ruling
goes a little further.
The Supreme Court opinion as it relates to immunity, just like -- and I think Jack Smith's team has actually admitted they've pulled out
conversations that Trump is said to have had with Justice Department officials.
[10:40:06]
Because that could be seen somehow as an official act in talking to the Justice Department. That same rationale, if you apply it to the Mike Pence
-- and, frankly, remember those discussions were not to do legal acts.
They were dealing with some efforts to send letters and notices to the state of Georgia, sort of falsifying that there was even an election
interference investigation. So that was about conduct that was not totally above board.
The same argument could be applied to the Mike Pence thing and that is, you know, he's made -- he's having a discussion.
And is a discussion with the vice president part of an official act?
And can he do that?
And how do those two roles and the fact that Mike Pence may be the president of the Senate at the time versus the vice president, those are
things that I think you're going to get -- make this water even murkier as we go through.
So I don't think it's likely that she's going to dismiss the whole indictment. The problem that the prosecution has is, if there were things
that should not have been presented to a grand jury, because a criminal defendant has a right to have their case indicted by a grand jury in this
type of case, a felony charge.
If the evidence was presented to them, that which is ultimately deemed to be covered by the immunity decision, then it could taint the entire
indictment. And that's the balance that we are walking here.
Trump's team wants to argue about it first, as would be normal. They would file a motion to quash the indictment but here the government wants to come
in and try to take the first shot at surviving a scrutiny of their effort to revamp the charges.
GIOKOS: Yes.
OK, Jessica, you've been watching some of the lines that we're getting out of the courtroom. Bring us up to date.
What are we hearing?
SCHNEIDER: Well, one of the most interesting exchanges involved Trump's attorney and the judge bringing up, once again, this issue of the election.
Of course, that's the thing looming over this case. And the election has been looming over this case ever since it first went into the courtroom
more than a year ago.
I'll read you some of the exchange you saw on the side of your screen. But Trump's lawyer basically saying it is incredibly unfair that they were able
to put -- they being prosecutors -- a lot of this evidence into the public record, meaning the superseding indictment.
And then Mr. Lauro, the attorney, said, it's too close to the election and the judge said, ah. Because repeatedly, Trump's team has come back to this
idea of Donald Trump being unfairly prejudiced with this case as we lead up to the election.
And the judge said, I understand there's an election in pending. But she said quite clearly, this court is not concerned with an electoral schedule.
And again, Eleni, this is something that we've seen Judge Chutkan repeatedly return to.
It was about a year ago back in October at the last in-person hearing that we saw in this case, that Judge Chutkan said, this trial would not yield to
the election cycle. That was back when they had actually tried to set a trial date of March of this year, which has long since passed.
Obviously, with the challenges and waiting for the Supreme Court but Donald Trump's lawyers not missing an opportunity to get that mention of the
election into this hearing within the first hour of this hearing and making sure that the judge is aware that they are still -- they still believe that
this could unfairly prejudice Donald Trump.
GIOKOS: And just in minutes ago, the judge doesn't agree that she can dismiss the superseding indictment out of hand.
We're going to go to a very short break. Jessica Schneider, Michael Moore as well as Corey Brettschneider will be joining us right after this on this
breaking news story. stay with CNN.
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[10:45:00]
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GIOKOS: Breaking news this hour. We are following the election immunity hearing. We've got Jessica Schneider back with us, as well as Michael
Moore, a CNN analyst and former U.S. attorney.
Corey Brettschneider is professor of political science at Brown University, joining us now from New York.
Great to see you all again. Thanks for sticking with us. It's quite a big day and a lot happening in the courtroom right now. We are starting to see
a lot of things coming to the fore. And as Jessica was telling us earlier, a lot of gray area. It's very technical.
Jessica, tell us what we've heard in the last few minutes.
SCHNEIDER: Well, it looks like prosecutors are now back up to argue before the judge. Donald Trump's lawyers were very stern in recommending that they
need to deal with the legality of this indictment first.
They don't want to deal with some of the immunity issues right off the bat that the prosecution wants to deal with. I mean, there's a real clash here
as to how to proceed. Donald Trump's team essentially saying that they believe that the grand jury process was flawed.
Because remember, there was another grand jury that was seated and heard this evidence that led to this new indictment that was issued last week.
Trump's team is saying that that grand jury heard evidence of things that would be immune from prosecution.
Namely, these communications with vice president Mike Pence. So they're saying because of that, because the grand jury heard this evidence that
should be immune, that the whole indictment should be dismissed.
Because under the Supreme Court's ruling, the grand jury should have never heard that that evidence in the first place. So that is the broad argument
from Donald Trump's team.
Whereas prosecutors are saying, let us lay out to you first, Judge, in a brief, in papers to be filed in the next few weeks, why we believe that,
under the Supreme Court's ruling, everything we presented, everything we've laid out in this new indictment, it falls within the parameters of the
Supreme Court's decision.
That none of, this none of the actions that we've laid out are immune from prosecution. So there's a real clash at the bottom of this case as to the
foundation of this case. Trump's team still believes it should be dismissed outright, whereas Judge Chutkan even seems to say, wait a second.
If the case was to be dismissed outright, don't you think the Supreme Court would have said that rather than laying out this sort of road map as to how
I, as a federal court judge at the trial level, should be proceeding here?
So again, there's this core clash of how this case should move forward. And it's still something we're dealing with, nearly an hour into this hearing.
The prosecutors now back up to argue their stance yet again, Eleni.
GIOKOS: Such a good point, the Supreme Court's basically laid out some rules but didn't throw out the case as a whole.
Corey, I want you to jump in here for me.
So Trump's lawyers say that there's something unseemly about how fast this case is going.
Is that true in your opinion?
BRETTSCHNEIDER: I think it's exactly the opposite.
I mean, let's just face facts about what's going on here, that the president of the United States and his lawyers are helping him do this, is
trying to delay, delay, delay until, in his view, hopefully he wins the election.
Now certainly, I think under this ruling and other material support this, if Trump were to win and were to be a sitting president, he almost
certainly would be immune.
And certainly he would try to fire Jack Smith because, after all, under our flawed system, now, the person charged with investigating the president of
the United States is housed within the Department of Justice. And Trump would have control over that.
[10:50:00]
We saw that with Nixon, the Saturday night massacre, the firing of Cox. He would certainly try a similar thing. So it's a question of speed here. If
you could delay, delay, delay, maybe all of this will go away.
Now we do have an immunity decision and it's a matter of law whether or not this indictment, the superseding indictment, is compliant with it. And to
my mind, that's the first question that should be handled now and we should have an answer.
The answer I predict, the only sensible understanding of the Court's immunity ruling, is a very narrow one that would allow certainly an
insurrection, an attempt at a self-coup, a clear accusation of not just a crime but a crime against democracy to proceed and to proceed as justice
requires and that's swiftly.
GIOKOS: Yes.
Michael, look, the judge also saying that she's not going to be factoring in the election into her decision as the Trump team argues about the timing
here.
So tell me a little bit about the timing and her statement saying she's not factoring that in.
MOORE: Everybody who's written a brief on this case as a friend of the court has been saying that the American people have a right to hear this
before the election. So it's in this case. And just -- that's just the reality of it.
To suggest somehow that the election is not playing a role in this case is -- would mean that you have blinders on. This case has moved quickly,
frankly, and lay the blame, if there is to be blame laid at the timing of the prosecution, this case could have been brought two years ago, could
have been brought immediately after January the 6th.
It could have been brought just like other people were charged at that time. But instead, there was a delay in the deployment (ph) of the special
counsel and ultimately the case was brought here just a year or so before the election.
And that, in a complex case, that period of time of 12 to 18 months to 24 months in a complex case is nothing in the federal system. And it's not
unusual for those time periods to be extended.
The courts typically do it so that there's not a rush and the defendant's right to a speedy trial is typically waived. So this case has moved at a
pretty quick clip, frankly. But it could have been brought and we could have been having these discussions about appeals and looking at second
indictments a year or so back, had the case been brought earlier.
Now that may have just been a factor of getting evidence, I don't know what that reason was. And frankly, you know, at this point, it's kind of crying
over spilled milk. But it seems to me that there's no reason, at 60 days out from the election, to keep trying to play this game o trying to get a
hearing again or rush something in.
The easiest thing the judge can do is she says -- I saw on one of your little notes that popped up on the screen to the public, was that the judge
said, I'm not going to be dragged into the election.
You know, the easiest way to do that is wait 60 days and call everybody back to court. A federal judge can wait 60 days and, frankly, in a federal
system, that's no time at all.
So that would remove this cloud and these continued efforts and arguments about rush, rush, rush, frankly play into the defense's hand and to Trump's
hand by making it appear as if there's some motivation, some political motivation as opposed to simply getting to the facts of the case, getting
to a sound basis to analyze the Supreme Court decision.
You know, this argument that the judge has said about, look, the Supreme Court could have thrown the indictment out, that's not the Supreme Court's
typical role. They needed to be a fact-finding. There has to be some basis to look at and to review by a trial judge to say these acts are in and
these acts are out.
And so that's why they sent it back to the court, to have that happen.
So the fact that the only indictment wasn't dismissed, I think, misses the point a little bit at this -- at this stage.
GIOKOS: All right. There's so much to talk about and so many questions still pending. Michael Moore, Corey Brettschneider and Jessica Schneider,
great to have you with us. Thank you for your analysis.
We continue to have this conversation, of course, as this hearing still gets underway. I'll see you right after this short break. Don't go
anywhere.
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[10:55:00]
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GIOKOS: Well, as you seen and you've been closely following a hearing in Washington, where a federal judge is considering how to move forward with
the election interference case against Donald Trump.
It is the first hearing since the case was its paused after the U.S. Supreme Court's historic decision granting Trump partial immunity. Trump
himself is not in court. Earlier this hour, his lawyers pleaded not guilty on his behalf.
It's also worth pointing out that Trump's lawyers just underscored that the decisions here don't just impact this case; they will impact the entire
future of the republic. Now that is a fair point. And CNN will continue to cover this breaking story throughout the day.
Well, that's it for CONNECT THE WORLD. Stay with CNN. "NEWSROOM" is up next.
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