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Federal Investigators Raid Giuliani's New York Apartment; Judge Rules Andrew Brown's Family Can View Body Cam Footage Of Shooting. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 28, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And so Jonathan come in on the politics and remind our viewers if they have either forgotten or, you know, trying to forget how important Rudy Giuliani was in the orbit of Donald Trump. And remember, this was --

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh my gosh.

KING: -- this was testimony during the impeachment case about how Giuliani and his associates were trying to get a very accomplished, credible, remarkable U.S. Ambassador run out of Ukraine, and so on and so forth, whether it's politics here at home or this alleged scheme abroad. Rudy Giuliani is central to protecting Trump.

MARTIN: His personal lawyer, his confidant, his longtime friend, his fellow New Yorker, and I think somebody who, John, as you mentioned it's kind of lost to history because of the second impeachment. But he was a key player in the first impeachment because of his active effort to try to find dirt on Hunter Biden in the Ukraine that would damage Joe Biden in the Democratic primary and potentially general election, because John, the Trump campaign and the Trump White House, they did not want to run against Joe Biden. They did not want to run against a more Liberal Democratic opponent.

And of course, we all know what happened. The President was impeached because of those efforts. And so yes, I mean, Rudy is central here. He was never in the Trump administration. But I think it's fair to say that sort of one of the most prominent influential figures who was not on the payroll, but close to then President Trump, John.

KING: And Paula Reid for more of the legal perspective, there's some we know and of course, then there are always things we don't know. And I say that in the context of we know, that Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two former Giuliani associates are already facing federal charges. And one of the questions was, what did they know about Giuliani's role? What evidence could they give maybe trying to cut a deal, maybe just trying to -- it's through the discovery of that case? What would investigators learn that might lead them to more?

But then there's the period close to the election where the Justice Department shuts down because the investigations of political people are viewed as off limits in the closing days of election. So there's some public knowledge on which we can base the idea, OK, we know that we're looking at this. But there's also a period of time where we're not sure. And so this search warrant could indeed include new materials of which we don't know about.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And at the heart of this investigation are questions about whether Mr. Giuliani was lobbying on behalf of Ukraine or officials in Ukraine. And here in the U.S., if you lobby government agencies on behalf of a foreign entity, you have to disclose that to the Justice Department.

And this is sort of a very specific, unique area of the law. But it came up again and again, during the Trump administration, specifically with many people in the President's inner circle, like, for example, his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, questions about whether some of these people were working on behalf of foreign governments and not disclosing it. And that really goes to the heart of this case.

And certainly one of the questions that his two former associates will likely be asked by federal investigators as they tried to get to the heart of this, and we also know there were questions about payments that Giuliani received hundreds of thousands of dollars, trying to figure out exactly why he was paid, what he was doing, and whether he made the proper disclosures.

KING: And Elie, help me walk through the legal parts of this. And then I want to bring David Chalian to our conversation with some of the politics. But I just want to read a line for the time to count, because I think it's important that you explain the conflict of interest is my polite term, I'm going to use here. We'll go after it.

The federal authorities have been largely focused on whether Mr. Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who at the same time were helping Mr. Giuliani search for dirt on Mr. Trump's political rivals, including President Biden, then a leading candidate for president. So there's a -- if true, right there, there's an obvious conflict of interest. What more?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, not only is there a conflict of interest, John, but there's a potential crime there. As Paula laid out, FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, requires anybody who's lobbying the U.S. government up to an including lobbying the president to register as an agent of that foreign country. And Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump have had their wires crossed through help Donald Trump's presidency.

As Jonathan said, Rudy was a key figure in really both of the impeachments involving Donald Trump. And let's also remember, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas are both under indictment by the Southern District of New York. And part of that case relates to money that they paid to Rudy Giuliani from this company called Fraud Guarantee, yes, that's actually the name of the company, for reasons that we don't yet quite know. So that also could be part of what the Southern District is investigating here. KING: And David, the political circle of life, if you will, here is quite remarkable. Many Americans know Rudy Giuliani from -- as being Donald Trump's personal lawyer. But if you step back a little bit, many Americans really met Rudy Giuliani as America's Mayor after 9/11. And the politics, the political springboard to that job as New York's mayor was a being a tough on crime, tough on the mob federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office in New York that just served a search warrant on him.

[12:35:06]

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, I don't know how many people who have served as the top prosecutor, a U.S. attorney who then later in life gets a search warrant executed in some investigation. But you are right to note the trajectory here. I mean, think about what we're talking about. And Rudy Giuliani was the image of law and order at the beginning of his political career.

As you said, that is what brought him to the mayor's office and then obviously 9/11 expanded his global recognition and national reach, of course. But, yes, it is this involvement with Donald Trump that is this chapter of Rudy Giuliani's career. And so when you look at that path, to go from the guy who was tough on criminals to be potentially being looked at here for having committed a crime as it relates to his work in the Trump administration or around the Trump administration. That's nothing short of an astonishing trajectory for any political figure.

KING: And Paula to you first, and then Elie for perspective on this, again, we have to be careful here. This is a search warrant executed. Every American has the presumption of innocence. But for a search warrant to be issued on such a high profile person normally tells you something about the trajectory and investigation in that prosecutors would do this A, only if they deemed it absolutely necessary and B, if they believe they could make the case not just to their bosses, but eventually to a judge and perhaps to public opinion in a trial down the road that they've built the foundation of evidence that says we have to do this.

REID: absolutely an extraordinary move to do this kind of thing to any attorney. But this is a former -- a personal attorney to a former president of the United States. So the big question is, what exactly were prosecutors looking for? What are they going to be trying to find on these devices that they allegedly sees? What were they looking for in the home? And what is the current focus of this investigation?

But the fact that the Biden Justice Department has given this green light signals that there is very likely significant evidence to support this move, because as we noted earlier in the conversation, this is delicate, this is delicate for an administration that would very much like to move on. So from a legal perspective, we're going to be asking our sources specifically, what are prosecutors looking for in those electronic devices in this home? And what is their focus of this investigation? That would give us a better sense of the legal jeopardy facing the former mayor. KING: And Elie walk us through, Paula notes electronic devices, walk us through what you can and cannot? A, find in these devices and B, for someone -- if someone who knows it, I'm not saying anything nefarious happened here, but for someone who knows for some time they're being watched, you can delete but you can't eliminate in many cases, correct?

HONIG: Exactly, John. So cellphones increasingly are keys to criminal cases, because anything that may be contained in your cell phone is usually fair play. When you do a search warrant like this, as a prosecutor, you are almost always going to ask the judge to do what we call to dump the phone, meaning to send it off to FBI forensics. They will find all the texts, all the e-mails, all the apps.

And yes, people think they can delete but it really is not gone. The FBI is very much able to resuscitate some of those communications. And one of the things that's really important to understand, it's not enough for a prosecutor to just say, hey, Judge, we think there may be evidence of a crime here, but they have to specifically articulate it. So there is a document. There is a piece of paper right now in the Southern District of New York courthouse. I'm sure it's under seal. These things always are, so it's secret.

But a Judge has and has signed a piece of paper where the SDNY, the office Rudy Giuliani used to run I worked at many decades later, has said here's why we think there's evidence of a specific crime and here's the crime we're looking at in Rudy Giuliani's residents.

KING: Probable cause warrant there and probable cause high for any American higher as we've noted for the President's personal attorney. I want everybody standby we're going to sneak in a quick break. But we're going to continue to follow this breaking news.

[12:38:57]

Federal authorities executing a search warrant today, on the upper east side apartment of the President's longtime personal friend and attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Stay with us.

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KING: Several major breaking news stories this hour. In a moment back to the story we just discussed, Fed search -- Feds executing a search warrant on the New York apartment of the former New York City Mayor and Trump confidant, Rudy Giuliani. First though, an important case in North Carolina, a judge in North Carolina just making a ruling over the question of whether to release the body cam footage from police, in the police officer assisted shooting, the fatal death of Andrew Brown, Jr. Let's get straight to CNN's Joe Johns. He is in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Joe, what do we know?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know there are five videos from four body cameras in that fateful day when Andrew Brown was killed. We know that the Judge just ruled minutes ago that this video can be disclosed to a member of the family and an attorney selected by the family to be reviewed apparently, but the video will not be released publicly to the news media.

As you know, John, news organizations including CNN petitioned the court for the public release of that video. But the court held here that the media does not have standing to go into court and request the release of the video. So as we understand that the court has given the authorities 10 days to disclose this media, this video to a member of the family and not for public release.

[12:45:15]

The reason why is pretty simple. The law doesn't allow for the news media to go into court and request the release of this video. Also, there are concerns here, according to the judge, according to the attorneys who argue the case that there could be a question of fair trial for the individuals who were on the video, if in fact, a trial is ordered. So that's the case here from Pasquotank in North Carolina, back to you John.

KING: Joe Johns, appreciate the hustle and up breaking news. Let's get some quick legal perspective. Elie Honig is still with us. Elie, North Carolina does have a rather unique law. What do you make of this ruling?

HONIG: Yes, John, indeed they do. Often this is up to prosecutors and police officers to decide whether they want to put out the body cam footage. North Carolina says it has to be up to a Judge if this is going to go out to the public. The Judge has to balance a lot of factors. The Judge has a lot of discretion. One thing that I think is important to note, though, is if members of the public disagree with this, there can be an appeal of this decision. So given the stakes here, I do expect to see this ruling appealed.

KING: Right. Given the very important stakes, very important interest in the community, we will continue to track and I promise you that. Elie, appreciate the hustle on the ruling there.

Let's turn back now to the other major breaking news this hour. CNN has now confirmed developments that were first reported earlier this hour by the New York Times and they are huge. Federal investigators served a search warrant today. At former Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani's New York City apartment and potentially seized electronic devices belonging to the former New York City Mayor and Trump confidant. Let's bring in our justice correspondent Evan Perez for more details. Evan, what more do we know?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, this is a decision that obviously would have had to get approval by the highest levels of the Justice Department. Lisa Monaco is now the deputy attorney general as of as of last week. And she would have had to approve of taking this step under a memo that was issued at the end of December by then deputy attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.

Rosen had been wrangling with this issue in the closing months of the Trump administration, John, there. This is a request that the Southern District of New York, the prosecutors there had made to headquarters, the Justice Department to get approval to get this very intrusive, very unusual, obviously, warrant against the President, the sitting President's personal lawyer.

And so this is something that got the attention of everybody at the highest levels of the Justice Department at the time. And at that time, they decided that there was not enough evidence. They believed that the prosecutors needed more before trying to get this warrant. Again, they wanted to get electronic devices. They wanted to get documents. They wanted to go to his residence to his office, again, very, very unusual steps.

And it required a lot more approvals at the Justice Department at the time. Jeffrey Rosen and some of the leadership of the Justice Department decided that there wasn't enough evidence clearly, that was -- that has been revisited by the new Biden administration leadership, and they decided that it was OK to do this raid today.

And so it's obviously, you know, a big step because, you know, not only is the president, the former president's personal lawyer, John, but just getting to, as you know, just getting into a lawyer's office means that you're going to get sensitive documents, attorney-client privileged documents, that they're going to have to set up a separate team to review before some of the prosecutors, the investigators can even take a look at it. There's a lot of steps involved in taking a very unusual step like this.

KING: Right, no question. And that will be fought, as we've seen in other cases, fought through the courts --

PEREZ: Absolutely.

KING: -- so what is acceptable to hand over what is viewed as privileged. And just help our viewers understand that, you know, this case, the investigation of Rudy Giuliani, as you note, dates back to the Trump administration, either they came up with new evidence, or Lisa Monaco decided to apply a different standard than her predecessor from the Trump administration. Our reporting will tell us that in the days and hours ahead, as we see what's filed in the Court or what's under seal in the court and do some reporting.

But remind us of the questions at stake here. Two of Rudy Giuliani's associates already under federal indictment --

PEREZ: Right.

KING: -- the question that was on the table was, was his work with these Ukrainians did somehow lien -- lead him into conflicts and violations of federal law?

PEREZ: Right, exactly. And the law in question is the Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA. It's a law that has been problematic for the Justice Department. They've had some trouble getting convictions on them. And the -- frankly just you know, in the Mueller investigation kind of came back in vogue. The Justice Department now has an entire unit set up to do these types of cases, to go after people who are representing foreign governments and aren't registering as they should with the Justice Department.

[12:50:10]

The question here, John, will be, and I think one of the reasons why some of the leaders of the Justice Department had some trouble with this is was Rudy Giuliani acting on behalf of the Russian government or the Ukrainian officials at the time that he was doing some of the stuff that he was doing? Or was he acting as the President's lawyer, Giuliani and his defenders and the President's team would -- the former president's team would argue that Giuliani was acting as the President's personal lawyer.

And it was within, you know, his political work to try to go get this evidence, which was really intended to tar and to attack Joe Biden and his family for, you know, as part of his political work on behalf of the President, the then President. You know, the issue here is whether that qualifies as a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, whether the lobbying that he was doing work would qualify as a violation of those laws.

And so, you know, I think, again, there's not a slam dunk case. I think there's been a reason why investigators have been working on this. And, you know, you still see that the case has not been brought, because this is, it's going to be a tough case to bring. And you can expect, you brought it up, you know, the President, the former president, his legal team are likely to go to court and say, well, you can't get this, you can't get that, because they know that there could be some exposure on the part of the former president.

KING: Right. And so this will end up before a federal judge. But it's the Biden Justice Department playing at least initial referee at the moment instead of the Trump Justice Department.

PEREZ: Right.

KING: That is a big change there. Evans, stay with us. I just want to remind people remember one of the questions late in the Trump administration, David Chalian, was should the former president issue blanket pardons to a whole bunch of people who had ethical questions raised about them, including Rudy Giuliani, his attorney. That was not done in the end. But I just want to remind people, again, and this is the day of the insurrection. This is the rally before the pro Trump mob marched up to the Capitol. Rudy Giuliani was with this president on issues that raised a whole lot of ethical questions, including the big lie, listen to the very end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP ATTORNEY: So over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked a lot. So let's have trial by combat. I'm willing to stake, I'm willing to stake my reputation. The President is willing to stake his reputation on the fact that we're going to find criminality there. If Joe Biden willing to stake his reputation, that there is no crime there, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Rather rich and irony there, David Chalian, in the sense that Rudy Giuliani and his legal team were made fools of in more than 70 courts across America were judges, even judges appointed by Donald Trump said leave, you have no evidence, stop coming back, this is ridiculous. So now you see him making their mocking, mocking Joe Biden there but the tables have turned with the service of this warrant on his upper east side apartment.

CHALIAN: Yes. I think Giuliani was probably right there that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani's reputations were on the line with going forward with the big lie. And I think their reputations suffered because of it. Remember, John, you know this well from talking inside -- to Trump sources and those around the Trump orbit. Rudy Giuliani, especially towards the end, once we were in the election and election challenging season, he was a very divisive figure, even inside the Trump orbit.

There were people that thought, you know, that press conference he held at the Republican Party headquarters pursuing some of this big lie stuff. And then that bizarre press conference in Philadelphia, there were not a lot of established Republican election lawyers who were rallying around to the President's call, that there was this totally illegitimate election that somehow had occurred because there was no evidence.

You've cited the actual results in court. And there were many folks inside Trump's world who thought Giuliani was perhaps a bit too far off in the way in which he was trying to stick with the President and pursue the manner in which he was trying to pursue this notion of the big lie.

KING: Quick to sign on to conspiracy theories. And Evan Perez, come back to the conversation. That is one of the questions about the work in Ukraine as well, quick to believe people who had sorted reputations in this case, reputations with Russia. Walk me through, this is a new Justice Department, as you just noted, how do they handle? What are the rules in place about handling an investigation of such enormous political sensitivity?

PEREZ: Look, I think this is a very cautious Justice Department. Merrick Garland is a former judge and we've already seen, you know, we've already seen some of the impact of having a Judge who takes its time to make decisions.

[12:55:17]

And look, that's not a bad thing. And it's not a criticism. Certainly Bill Barr was known to come into meetings sometimes already had his made, mind made up sometimes, you know, on bad information. He would make decisions very quickly. This attorney general is somebody who is a lot more careful and so you have to believe that there was a lot more that went into this before this was approved.

KING: Right. Given that caution, it tells you something that the warrant was served. Evan Perez, David Chalian, grateful for your hustle on this important breaking news today, a day in which the President of the United States has a big speech tonight, now dominated by an investigation of the former president's personal attorney. Thanks for joining us so much on Inside Politics. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage after a quick break. Have a good afternoon.

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