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N.Y. Attorney General Announces 'Criminal Probe' into Trump Organization; McCarthy Rebuffs Insurrection Probes, But Liked Benghazi Probes; Israel Twice Tried Killing Hamas Commander in Past 10 Days. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 19, 2021 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar on this NEW DAY. Breaking overnight, a dramatic turn in the investigation into Donald Trump and his businesses. In a story first reported by CNN, the attorney general of New York declaring the probe is now a criminal one.

[05:59:44]

Plus today a key vote on the bipartisan investigation into the insurrection on January 6. We're now hearing why Kevin McCarthy is fighting this at every turn.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And just in: we're learning that Israel has twice tried killing the military commander of Hamas as the war intensifies.

And new evidence this morning that the coronavirus vaccine not only works but is keeping people alive.

BERMAN: All right. Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Wednesday, May 19.

Former President Trump's legal troubles just got worse. This is a story that CNN broke overnight.

The New York attorney general's office just announced that its investigation of the Trump Organization is no longer purely a civil matter. It is now a criminal case. The A.G. is working with the Manhattan district attorney now on the expanded probe.

KEILAR: Their office has been investigating whether Trump's business inflated the value of its assets for loans and for tax benefits, and separately the Manhattan D.A. has examined millions of pages of documents, including Trump's personal and business tax returns.

Trump's lawyers have not yet responded. The former president has in the past called the investigations politically motivated and a witch hunt.

CNN's Kara Scannell is joining us now with more. This is really a widening situation which former President Trump should certainly be concerned about. KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Brianna. That's right. I mean, the New York attorney general's office is now joining and teaming up with the Manhattan district attorney's office in its criminal investigation.

The A.G.'s office, which is led by Letitia James, has been conducting a civil investigation into the Trump Organization since 2019, and they've recently informed the Trump Organization that their investigation is now turning criminal.

In a statement that the A.G.'s office gave CNN last night, they said, "We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation is no longer purely civil in nature. We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan D.A."

Now, a source familiar with the investigation says that, in practice, this means that a couple of very well-informed, extremely knowledgeable attorneys from the A.G.'s office are now teaming up with the D.A.'s office, so leveraging the knowledge that they have in their ongoing investigation and working with the D.A.

This also, though, means that Letitia James's office is going to continue to conduct the civil investigation. So this investigation is still proceeding on two fronts.

Now, an attorney for the Trump Organization late last night declined to comment, but they have called this in the past a politically- motivated investigation -- John.

BERMAN: Kara Scannell, part of the team that broke this story overnight. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

Let's bring in CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Jennifer Rodgers.

Jen, what does this mean exactly? Before, it was the Manhattan D.A. that was doing the criminal investigation. Now the state's in this, too.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think, John, that it means that the A.G.'s office has found something new. There's no reason to team up unless during the civil investigation that the A.G. was conducting, they found something that's possibly criminal, brought it to the Manhattan D.A., realized it's something new, and they're going to join forces to work on it together. So that's what it suggests to me.

BERMAN: And the requirement -- Is there a requirement to inform the Trump Organization that this is now a criminal investigation?

RODGERS: In a case like this once, where they have made clear during discovery that it is only civil in nature, then yes, they would definitely let them know that, because now they have confrontation clause rights to withhold their own testimony and that sort of thing. So they would definitely want them to know that before moving forward criminally. BERMAN: Does this put them in any kind of different legal jeopardy

this morning?

RODGERS: Well, certainly. I mean, obviously, criminal charges bring a different sort of jeopardy and consequences than civil charges do. We don't know, of course, whether this will lead to anything criminally, and we don't know how serious it would be. There are plenty of misdemeanors in New York law for business record sorts of violations. So we don't know how serious it could be. But, of course, criminal jeopardy is always worse than civil jeopardy.

BERMAN: Based on what we know, what's the most glaring, important thing being investigated right now that could be the -- potentially the most treacherous for the Trump Organization?

RODGERS: You know, I think it's probably the tax fraud issues, because you know, that's where you get significant dollar amounts that bump up potential sentencing. So you know, I still think it's probably in that lane, and that's in line with what the A.G.'s office was investigating. So if they've done something in that capacity, it would make sense that they'd move it over.

BERMAN: We know a focus of this investigation has been Allen Weisselberg, who is this man who, you know, has got the keys to the kingdom in the Trump -- Trump Organization, worked for the Trumps since before Donald Trump. How important is getting to him for these investigators?

RODGERS: Well, it certainly would be an incredible thing if they were able to turn him against the Trump Organization. He knows, as you say, where the bodies are buried, if you will.

The problem is it doesn't seem to be working, at least not so far. And they've seemed to try to leverage everything. So they may have to end up going without him, which, of course, they can do. It may not be as fulsome an investigation as they wanted, but they can still proceed.

BERMAN: So Eric Trump was interviewed as part of the civil -- this was just a civil investigation. They spoke to him. I -- I can't imagine he would have agreed to it, had it been criminal at that point.

[06:05:08]

What happens to his -- you know, his discussions with them?

RODGERS: Yes, so, you know, that's a really sticky issue. They're going to have to kind of separate out what they use that information for. He has a right against self-incrimination in terms of the criminal matters, so you know, they're going have to carefully see what they can use those statements for and what they're going to have to go with other evidence for.

BERMAN: Kara Scannell here with us also. Kara, this has been going on for some time. Right? How much longer at this point do we think this will continue? The only deadline I know is that Cy Vance isn't running for reelection in Manhattan County D.A.'s office. SCANNELL: Right. And that is an important deadline in that Vance has

taken a lot of pride in this investigation. He brought it up to the Supreme Court to get access to Trump's tax returns.

So I think that we could look to see this investigation -- I mean, it has been going on for a long time. It really picked up some of its momentum in the last few months. I think we could see a decision on whether to charge this before Cy Vance is out of office. And then, of course, it will have to proceed and likely be very much litigated.

BERMAN: Do you sense any increased anxiety on the part of the Trump Organization over the last days and weeks or particularly with this announcement, or is it hard to tell?

SCANNELL: You know, I think it's hard to sell. I think they're, you know, still kind of getting the incoming. They're getting document requests. They're responding to document requests. I think a lot of the pressure, though, is being personally felt on Allen Weisselberg, because there is just -- both the A.G. and the D.A.'s office are really digging into his finances, looking for something that they can potentially leverage to get him to cooperate.

BERMAN: All right. Kara Scannell, again, terrific work overnight. Jennifer Rodgers, thanks so much for being with us. Don't go far. I think we're going to need you again in just a second -- Brianna.

KEILAR: John, here in just a few hours, the House is expected to vote on establishing a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

This is expected to pass, despite opposition from Republican leaders.

This morning, though, we have some brand-new CNN reporting on why House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decided -- Kevin McCarthy decided to oppose the commission undercutting negotiations by one of his own conference members, a Republican, on a compromise deal with Democrats.

Sources tell CNN McCarthy was driven by fear over the scope of the investigation and his being subpoenaed potentially to testify about his communications on January 6 and after with former President Trump. Last night McCarthy went on FOX to say a new commission would be one probe too many.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): You have two investigations going on Senate committees. You also have the architect of the Capitol given $10 million to have a full review of the Capitol, ways to secure it. And now we want to put a political commission to go forward?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But there was a time not so long ago when McCarthy wasn't so concerned about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MCCARTHY: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now to break it all down is Chris Cillizza, who is our CNN politics reporter and editor at large.

OK, Chris, good morning.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR AT LARGE: Good morning.

KEILAR: Remind us again how many times Congress investigated the 2020 attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

CILLIZZA: OK. Here we go. Brace yourself, Brianna, because Kevin McCarthy is going to look like a little bit of a hypocrite here.

There were ten investigations of which the one he mentioned, the select committee investigation, was the big one. They had a select committee that they formed just to do that.

I want to just throw a few numbers about that select committee. Ten congressional committees, eight investigations. The one select committee, two years. Two years. Seven million dollars estimated budget.

Last one, this is important. I'm going to make it big. Zero evidence that Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state at the time of the Benghazi investigation, had done anything wrong.

Remember, that was about a 2012 attack during the early stages of the 2016 general election.

So Kevin McCarthy -- the idea that there were too many investigations now, there were a lot more investigations then. And this price tag and this amount of findings, blaming Hillary Clinton for wrongdoing, suggests he's being way hypocritical.

KEILAR: All right. I have a number for you, too. Two reasons --

CILLIZZA: Yes.

KEILAR: -- that you say McCarthy really is against this commission.

CILLIZZA: Yes, and you mentioned it, but I want to go through it here. OK. So there's basically two reasons. This is the big one.

Remember, January 6, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump talked. We know that from CNN reporting. We also know that phone call was very contentious. That's the phone call where Donald Trump says maybe these people rioting at the U.S. Capitol care more about the election than you do, Kevin. We know that that happened. That Kevin McCarthy, a week later, Brianna, figured out January 13 he goes on the House floor and says Donald -- this is Donald Trump's vote. He needs to deal with this. He needs to do something about it.

[06:10:03]

But of course, all that's changed now, because the Trump base obviously doesn't really care. So now Kevin McCarthy is saying, Well, this is -- I don't want to do anything. And the reason he's saying that is because he doesn't want to testify under oath in front of the congressional committee that would be for him about that phone call. Because he's trying to rewrite history as we watch it.

But remember, we have the clips. We have the receipts. We know what happened. He is trying to dodge it.

Now, there's one other thing. And this gets to the why of he's trying to dodge it.

OK, I call it McCarthy issue 2. It's a very creative title. OK. McCarthy wants to be House speaker. How do you get to be House speaker? Well, No. 1, Democrats have to lose six seats. Right? Republicans need to make these gains, which they may not make in 2022 if history holds. Midterm elections are usually not great for the party who controls the presidency.

If that happens, McCarthy would, in theory, be in line. How does he keep that role as sort of that top Republican? Simple. You stay on Donald Trump's good side. It's not terribly complicated.

And right now, the way you stay on Donald Trump's good side -- we had a statement last night about this -- is you say that January 6, this commission, it's all political. You rewrite the history of it.

So Kevin McCarthy is doing this for political reasons. He threw John Katko, the New York Republican who he had sort of said could negotiate on behalf of this.

Remember, this is a bipartisan deal that created this commission. A bipartisan deal. They threw him under a bus. Because he understood, well, political times have changed a little bit. I don't want to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump here, even if the wrong side is actually the side that says maybe we should look into the fact that there was an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Capitol was overrun and we saw multiple people lose their lives.

So that's what's going on here, no matter what Kevin McCarthy says publicly or on FOX -- Brianna.

KEILAR: I mean, look at that bipartisan effort. We deserve answers. We deserve an investigation by Congress into this. We've seen them do these kinds of things in the past, and they have been essential for history to see what they come up with.

Chris, thank you so much --

CILLIZZA: Thank you.

KEILAR: -- for walking us through that. Why should McCarthy be concerned about being called to testify?

Jennifer Rodgers back with us now.

Jennifer, what could be gained by having Kevin McCarthy testify under oath considering the unique position that he was in on the day of the insurrection?

RODGERS: Well, Brianna, one of the key questions here, whether or not you're talking about a truth commission for January 6 or a civil suit about what happened there by someone who was harmed, for example, is what did the president know and when did he know it? And what did he do afterwards to actually stop what was going on in the Capitol?

We know that there is a key conversation between Kevin McCarthy and the president. So the question is what did they say in that conversation to get that into the record for these cases?

McCarthy has not been very forthcoming about this conversation. He's been evasive when asked about what happened. We know a little bit from Congresswoman Herrera Beutler in her written testimony during the second impeachment trial, but we need to have McCarthy in that witness chair under oath, talking about what that conversation entailed.

KEILAR: So if you're questioning a Kevin McCarthy, you know, you're not expecting that he's going to be maybe as forthcoming as he could be. What would be an effective strategy as he might try to protect some information or talk around information that reflects poorly on him or Trump?

RODGERS: So there's certain things you want to do in a cross- examination like this. One, the first one, is you focus in on your key issues, your three or four key questions. You don't want to get involved in a fishing expedition. You want to keep it tight.

The second thing is you only ask yes or no questions, only leading questions. You want to structure the question for the witness and ask him to confirm or deny. So it's not why did you call Donald Trump on January 6? It's you called Donald Trump to ask for his help in stopping this insurrection, didn't you?

Third, you really only want to ask questions to which you know the answer. And you know those answers because you've done a lot of other investigations, talked to other witnesses, looked at other things McCarthy has said and looked at the phone records and so on. So that's going to be your focus, and you have to have all the evidence at the ready to hammer him on the impeachment side if he's not giving you what you know to be true about that conversation.

KEILAR: So that's the how. What's the what? What do you want to know specifically? What would the key specific questions be?

RODGERS: The four questions that I think are really the key ones here, and, of course, there's a whole bunch of lead-up with a rapid-fire set of questions to get there.

But the key questions are did McCarthy tell Trump what was going on at the Capitol? Did he tell him that they had breached the Capitol? That they were violent? That they were threatening his colleagues, that they were threatening him, that there was property damage? Did he explain what was going on, because we really want to know that at that time, as of that phone call, Donald Trump knew what was happening there?

No. 2, did he ask for help? Did he say, you need to help us. You need to send the military. You need to tell the police. You need to tell these people to back down, go home, and stop the violence. We want that to be on the record, too, that he was asked for help at that time.

Then you're going to contrast that with how much time actually went by and what Trump actually did.

[06:15:02]

Third, did McCarthy tell Trump that the people actually doing this violence, committing these crimes, were his people? We're told by Congresswoman Herrera Beutler that that was the case. Trump said, It's Antifa. McCarthy says, No, these are your people.

We want that on the record, that Trump knew that, because that shows he knew he had control over what was happening there.

And fourth, this unbelievable quote that we got about what Donald Trump said when he heard what was happening at the Capitol -- the violence, the damage, the threats to people's lives -- what did he say? "Well, I guess they care more about the election than you do, Kevin."

And that tells us that, in that moment, when he's being asked for help, people's lives are on the line, he's more concerned about who's loyal to him about the big lie. And that is something that needs to be on the record for sure, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. We will see if there is ever -- if there is ever an opportunity to have those questions asked and answered. Jennifer, thanks for walking us through it.

BERMAN: I'm hiring Jennifer Rodgers, my next court case.

Joining me now, former congresswoman and former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman. She is the author of the timely new book, "Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe."

Thank you so much for being with us this morning. You were a key member of Congress after September 11 when there was the 9/11 Commission. So the fact that there are Republicans in leadership standing in the way of a January 6 Commission, what do you make of it?

JANE HARMAN (D), FORMER HEAD OF HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: Well, I was thinking about that when the prior block was talking about Benghazi. I think the better comparison was the 911 Commission, which was a huge attack on the United States, as you could say was this insurrection that may be even bigger, because it was inside the United States, the attack that -- on January 6.

The 9/11 Commission was formed without a lot of fanfare. The key author was a conservative Republican Senate -- House member from Virginia, and it was truly bipartisan. The -- the two co-chairs were Lee Hamilton, who was a mentor and friend of mine and actually the president of the Wilson Center before I succeeded him on -- in 2011, and Tom Kean, who was a very well-respected governor, former governor from New Jersey.

And it functioned flawlessly. It did a huge investigation. It came up with a series of findings and recommendations, one of which was to establish an office of the director of national intelligence, which I worked on in 2004 with a bipartisan group that was enacted. The DNI still serves. There are some issues about whether the office is bigger than we intended and functions perfectly. Guess what? Not.

But anyway, the point was we reformed the intelligence community after two failures: one, 9/11, and the second, Iraq WMD. And we did it based on recommendations of a bipartisan commission. That's the kind of thing we need right now. And I've been in a group calling for this.

I understand that the problem solvers caucus, which is very interesting group getting traction has just come out and endorsed this, which is going to make it much harder to retain Republican support for this in-House, including by John Katko, who is the ranking member on the house Homeland Security Committee. He and Bennie Thompson introduced this. And I think it's going to be hard for Katko personally to walk back his support for this.

BERMAN: What does it tell you about Kevin McCarthy, that he's standing in the way of this now?

HARMAN: Well, I -- I think this is a really sad chapter for America. It's chapter 7 in my book. It's seven chapters. Is the incredible shrinking Congress. And what I talk about is the toxic partisanship in Congress. And even in the Republican caucus in the House, you can see all the fractures, the -- and this is just another example of.

And Kevin McCarthy, I think he would have to agree, has taken some contradictory positions since he's become the minority leader in the House, and this is just another one.

And the influence of the Trump support in -- in the Republican caucuses is enormous, and what you were reporting on in New York yesterday just adds to the anxiety, you would think, by the former president.

BERMAN: I think Kevin McCarthy probably both agrees and disagrees with your last statement, in true Kevin McCarthy form there.

I want to ask you about your book, which has a terrific title. I mean, "Insanity Defense" is important title, based on what you write about. You say the U.S. doesn't have foreign security strategy since the end of the Cold War. So what does the Biden administration do to avoid mistakes that you think have been made in the past? HARMAN: Well, the title was the idea of my youngest daughter, my

fourth child, so not mine, and I think it's a great title. And it describes what we've been doing. The same thing and expecting different results.

The point of it is that after the Cold War ended, we did not have a strategy, a foreign policy strategy. We thought we won, Russia lost. We've been paying for that ever since.

[06:20:10]

But also, everybody wanted to be us. China wanted to be us. There was no terrorism in the world. Well, oops.

In the '90s we focused on other things. That's when I was elected, in the first post-Cold War class. And we missed China's rise. China didn't want to be like us, spoiler alert. And we missed the rise of terrorism, basically missed it.

Then comes 9/11. And we overmilitarized our response after a brief effective response almost -- unanimously supported by Congress to go after those who hit us on 9/11. We did that very effectively.

But we stayed in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and we have had these endless wars. Because we didn't ask ourself the question that General David Petraeus always asked, which is how will this end?

And so now, after many mistakes, we're in the fourth decade and the fifth presidency. And I think Joe Biden has made a good start. He has a national security strategy, interim national security strategy, to make foreign policy relevant to Americans, to focus on climate, domestic terrorism, the pandemic. That's going fairly well, I would say.

And the Middle East is crowding him a little bit. Somebody said it's like the "Hotel California." You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave. But I think he's doing pretty well. And I hope this horror in Israel, Palestine ends soon.

BERMAN: Jane Harman, a pleasure to have you on this morning. Thank you so much for all of your insight.

HARMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Congratulations on the new book --

HARMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: -- "Insanity Defense," available now -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Just in, major news out of Israel as the war is intensifying, including an Israeli target. Who did they try to kill?

Plus, the bogus Arizona audit. Is it a sign of what's to come over and over when Republicans lose elections?

And the Capitol riot suspect under house arrest over a dead mountain lion. We'll explain that situation, ahead.

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[06:26:11]

BERMAN: New overnight, CNN has confirmed that the Israeli Defense Forces tried twice to kill the military leader of Hamas during the current conflict and failed twice. The IDF says it successfully struck the Hamas tunnel system for a fifth straight night, as well as Islamic Jihad terror targets.

CNN's Hadas Gold is live in Jerusalem with more on this new reporting. Hadas, what have you learned?

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, Muhammad Deif is the elusive head of the Hamas military, and he's been on the U.S. list of designated terrorists since 2015. He's been on Israel's most wanted list for 25 years, being accused of planning and helping to execute several large terror attacks within Israel.

And as you said, the military tried to target him twice during this latest conflict, but so far, he's managed to escape.

But this is one of Israel's main goals of this military campaign, is try to degrade the Hamas leadership, try to target and degrade their rocket launchers, their capabilities, their tunnel system, which they say they have hundreds of kilometers of tunnels underneath Gaza.

Because for them, every target, every day of this operation, the Israelis believe, buys them more time of quiet, less rockets fired into Israel.

And they continue this campaign despite the international pressure that is going because, in their minds, they believe that they still have time. The U.S. is not yet demanding the ceasefire. The U.S. is not yet pressuring them as hard as maybe they could to try and bring back this military campaign.

Also, important information we're just getting in the last few minutes regarding that building that was destroyed that housed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera offices in Gaza.

Of course, that received a lot of condemnation and attention. The Israeli military warning the building's occupants to leave that building before they destroyed it.

Now, the Israelis had said that they -- that the Hamas was using that building, that they had shared that information with the Americans. But we didn't know what they were accusing Hamas of using that building for.

Now, a senior IDF officer telling us that the Hamas military wing was using that building for research and development of high-end capabilities for the most sensitive of attacks against Israel.

We still don't know what the Americans' interpretation of that -- of that justification for bringing that building down was. We know that the Americans had received that information.

But as we continue to experience now the second week of this conflict, the civilians continue to be caught in the crossfire. We're learning this morning, getting reports of more civilians, four civilians killed in Gaza, including a journalist for a radio station. The Israeli military has not yet commentated on the situation, but they often say that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure and hides behind civilians.

In Israel yesterday, two more people were killed when a mortar was launched from Gaza, hitting an agriculture packing facility in the south of Israel. And as we speak now, more red-alert sirens are going off in the south of Israel, more military strikes are continuing in Gaza, all while diplomatic efforts continues to try and find some sort of cessation to this violence -- John.

BERMAN: Hadas Gold in Jerusalem. Please keep us posted, Hadas. Thank you so much for your reporting.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been highly critical of the Capitol riot. But now his tune appears to be changing some. New clues about his position on the insurrection investigation coming up.

KEILAR: Plus, Marjorie Taylor Greene is now defending the Capitol rioters, alleging that they're being abused. We'll have that next.

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