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House to Create January 6th Committee; Golan Vach is Interviewed about the Search in Florida; Weisselberg Turns Himself In; Adams Holds Narrow Lead in NYC Race; Judge Denies Spears' Request. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 01, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Voted against creating a select committee to investigate the attack.

Now despite the largely party-line vote, the House did ultimately vote in favor of creating a select panel.

Joining us now is CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Dean.

So, Jessica, let's start with those two Republicans who did vote in favor of establishing the committee, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

Good morning to you, Erica.

Last time when they voted on that bipartisan committee, which was filibustered in the Senate, it was 35 House Republicans. This time, just two. And you see them right there. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who, of course, was pushed out, voted out of her leadership position earlier this year for her stance on former President Trump and his role on the insurrection. And also Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who has also been vocal about looking into the insurrection, how important it is to get to the bottom of exactly what happened that day.

Now, Congresswoman Cheney did release a statement. She talked about why she voted the way that she did. We can take a look at that now. She said, since January 6th, the courage of my party's leaders have fade but the threat to our republic has not. I believe this select committee is our only remaining option.

And, Erica, important there that Cheney said she believes it's their only remaining option. Both she and Kinzinger said this wasn't their first choice. They wanted the bipartisan committee. But they said, without that in place, without that moving forward, this is their only option. They believe it is the option that they need to take.

HILL: So now this is -- this is the option that was taken, right? So how will members be appointed?

DEAN: So this is all going to come down to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Again, this is a House select committee. So, in the end, Speaker Pelosi is going to have control.

But look at the numbers. You also see House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy gets five members that he can appoint. Pelosi getting eight members she can appoint. The big question right now, will she appoint a Republican? If she does, it will likely be Cheney or Kinzinger.

The question for McCarthy is, will he appoint anyone at all? How will he approach this? He's not answered our questions about that. He's been very vague. Yesterday he said it sounds pretty political but wouldn't say if he'll be appointing any Republican members himself.

And note here at the bottom that Pelosi does have veto power over who he appoints, if he chooses to do so. Again, Erica, would that be someone that voted to overturn the election? Would that be someone who's been spreading conspiracy theories? These are all questions we don't know the answer to just yet.

HILL: So the pushback we've heard from Republicans is that there are already investigations underway. So, give us a sense, what's different about this committee? What is this committee expected to investigate?

DEAN: Right. So there are these bipartisan committees that are looking into that. There are FBI investigations. But this select committee, it's specific. So let's take a look at exactly what they'll do.

So, first, they're going to look at the security failings of the January 6th attack. What happened? Why were -- why was that mob allowed to get in? What exactly transpired to allow those security failings? So that's number one.

Number two, though, circumstances leading up to the attack. And this is key. They want to broaden it out and look at why did this happen. What exactly led up to this? That could be Trump's role in spreading the election lies, some GOP lawmakers who supported the efforts to overturn the elections. We just talked about, could possibly one of them be appointed? Would Pelosi veto that?

And then, of course, House minority leaders, McCarthy's phone conversation with Trump. We know that they talked as the insurrection was happening. What happened? What did he say? What did those two men say to one another? They're going to be able to look at all of these different things. And, Erica, that's why's going to set this a little bit apart is that it's both looking at the security failings but also what led up to that moment.

HILL: Jessica Dean, appreciate it. Thank you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Next, we're going to speak with the commander of the Israeli search and rescue efforts who just wrapped up a shift digging through the debris looking for survivors in the condo collapses in Surfside, Florida.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:50]

BERMAN: In a matter of minutes, President Biden and the first lady will leave Washington for Surfside, Florida, to visit the site of the collapsed condo tower.

Overnight, new video surfaced showing water leaking into the bulling's garage just moments before the building came down.

The death toll this morning stands at 18, including two young children. And 145 people remain unaccounted for.

One of the victims has been identified as 92-year-old Hilda Noriega. A priest says she was found with rosaries on her body.

The search and rescue effort now entering day eight.

And joining me is Colonel Golan Vach, the Israeli Defense Force commander who's leading the Israeli rescue team in Surfside.

Colonel, I hope you can hear me.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

I know you came off an overnight shift a short time ago. Can you give us any updates on the search and rescue efforts?

COL. GOLAN VACH, SENIOR OFFICER, IDF'S HOMEFRONT COMMAND: Good morning. I wanted to say, again, and to say it every day, that we are keeping the scale up and the work with your fabulous firefighters. And each time that goes, we see a different situation that gives us with one hand the reality that there not many chances to find anybody alive, but on the other hand we see in other situations and other voids that we can enter and search after people. Unfortunately, as you all know, all the people that we found are not alive.

BERMAN: Any new discoveries overnight, Colonel?

VACH: There are new discoveries all the time. And families will be the first to know every time. So I will keep the updates to the families.

VACH: I appreciate that.

Look, one of the things we learned yesterday was that two of the most recent victims discovered were children.

[06:40:00]

How hard is that on those involved with the search operations?

VACH: It's hard to see children. I personally were there. And, as a father, I can be with the families in this very difficult moment. I was with your guys when they -- they -- we pulled them out. And all I can say to the families is we are trying to scale up, we are trying to do our work very, very professionally to reach them quickly, but delicately as with all the respect that we can give them in this very hard moment. BERMAN: And I know that does bring some level of solace to the

families here.

We also learned the names of one of the victims found over the last few days, Hilda Noriega, 92 years old. Her priest says she was found with rosaries. Does that indicate to you that maybe the victims of this tragedy had some warning, a few minutes as it was happening?

VACH: There are all kinds of information that we can read of them. We heard people that said many thing. Some of them are evidence. Some of them are rumors. We use every piece of information in order to operate and to speed up the work on site. So this is one of the pieces of information that we are over looking because in this stage we need to know exactly where the people were and it's not easy but that -- but I heard of that, yes.

BERMAN: The president, President Biden, is coming to Surfside today. Do you have any plans or do you know what the plans are for people involved in the search and rescue operations to meet with him?

VACH: Yes, we are all -- we are full coordinated. I think that you will hear from the commanders on site. We are working on day shifts and midnights. We will hear from the county mayor and from the fire department, the chiefs the plans and I think that their plans is exactly 100 percent what we think that should to be done right now. We are -- we are 100 percent cooperated and cohobated and work together. And I think that the plans right now are the best that could be in this moment.

BERMAN: Colonel, I know that there have been a lot of concerns about the stability of the remaining structure, the part of the building, the Champlain Tower South, that did not collapse. There are any new concerns about this and has that affected operations around the site?

VACH: As we all know, the main building is not 100 percent stable. We have here a group of special engineers, local engineers, we brought our engineers as well, and they giving us security and (INAUDIBLE) and we are talking about risk -- risk management. They are -- our profession (ph) is not 100 percent. And everything that they -- all measures that need to be taken to keep the firefighters safety I'll be doing right now, yesterday, the day before and it's updating every day.

BERMAN: Colonel Golan Vach, we appreciate you joining us this morning. Once again, thank you for all the work you're doing. Hope you get some rest today.

VACH: Thank you.

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news.

CNN just learned that long-time chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, he has just turned himself in. A grand jury issued an indictment for Weisselberg and the Trump Organization late last night.

Kara Scannell is live outside the courthouse. CNN's Laura Jarrett is also with us.

Kara, what can you tell us?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. So a lawyer for Allen Weisselberg, Donald Trump's long-time chief financial officer, surrendered to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office just a few moments ago, according to his lawyer.

Now, Weisselberg is going to be arraigned later this afternoon. He's facing charges that stem from this long investigation into tax fraud, tax crimes. We don't know yet exactly what the indictment will charge him with but this has to do with compensation he received, including school tuition for his grandchildren, a rent free apartment, a company car and bonuses.

[06:45:08]

That will all factor into this these charges today we're told.

Now, these charges will, you know, have to do with whether or not he paid the appropriate taxes on the various gifts and compensation that he received. And as a senior officer of the company, he is also, you know, tied into the charges that will be brought against the company. He's -- the company was also indicted by a Manhattan grand jury yesterday. Those charges will be unsealed later this afternoon.

We expect to see Weisselberg in court around 2:00 p.m., that's when the charges will be unsealed, as well as a representative from the Trump Organization, where they will be arraigned on those charges.

Now, a lawyer for the former president has said that a lawyer will enter a plea of not guilty for the company. Allen Weisselberg has been under immense pressure to cooperate in this investigation. He has so far not done so. We don't expect any change open that today. We are expecting a statement from his lawyer later this afternoon.

But this is really a dramatic moment. You know, one of Donald Trump's most loyal associates, Allen Weisselberg, has been with Trump Organization for about 40 years. When Donald Trump was elected president, he turned the keys of the company over to Allen Weisselberg and his two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. So this is really a major moment in the context of Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and his legacy as president.

John. Erica.

BERMAN: Yes, it is -- it is interesting to see, again, Allen Weisselberg turning himself in, surrendering moments ago.

And, Laura, we don't know the language of the indictments yet, as Kara reports.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Right.

BERMAN: We'll see that later today. We don't know if it will name or refer in any way to the former president. Nevertheless, this is the former president's family business being hauled before a criminal court. That in and of itself is historic. Your take?

JARRETT: It's huge, right? This is his namesake company. For so long we all focused on the Russia investigation, when in fact it was prosecutors in New York that had zeroed in on the president's company.

This is a closely held family company. This isn't some enormous public corporation. So, of course, Trump is going to be all over the documents here, even if he isn't named as a defendant.

Now, as you said, we haven't seen the charging documents. Thanks to Kara's great reporting and the rest of the team, we know a lot. We know that this has to do to some extent with tax payments -- taxes that weren't paid, but we need to see the dollar amounts because that could really affect the severity of the charges here and in terms of how much time he's potentially facing. You know, a lot of people have made the point that these aren't cases that you typically see people receive jail time for. Oftentimes it could just be a financial penalty. And so we need to see exactly what the charging documents say in this case.

But, as you said, it's a huge, huge moment. This company has been under investigation, under scrutiny for years but this is the first actual indictment that we are seeing against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg.

BERMAN: All right, Laura Jarrett, Kara Scannell, stand by. We're going to have much, much more on this breaking news coming up.

Plus, new this morning, just a week after her emotional testimony, a judge denies Britney Spears' request to remove her father as co- conservator. Where does this case go from here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:58]

HILL: This morning, Eric Adams holds a narrow lead in the Democratic primary for New York City's mayor. But the margins are tightening. New York City's Board of Elections issuing a new preliminary tally of votes after mistakenly counting more than 100,000 test ballots.

Joining me now is Harry Enten, CNN's senior data reporter.

So give us a sense now, in this latest round, how has the race shifted?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Sure.

So, remember, we're doing a rank choice election, right? So these were the initial preferences. The first choices for folks. And you see, look, Eric Adams still well ahead, 32 percent of the vote, Maya Wiley back with just a little bit more than 22 percent of the vote. Kathryn Garcia at just 19 percent of the vote.

Keep in mind these numbers. Now, remember, we have the rank choice voting system. So people's second, third, fourth choices can play a big role.

And let's jump ahead to round seven. That was round one. And we see Eric Adams still ahead here, 35 -- a little -- 35.5. Kathryn Garcia, look at that, 24 percent. Maya Wiley, 27 percent.

You may say, OK, why are these two flipped in the order? Now, look at what happens when Andrew Yang and his 14 percent of the vote gets eliminated in round eight. Look here. Now, Eric Adams is up to 41 percent. But, look, Kathryn Garcia jumps just ahead of Maya Wiley at 29.6 to her 29.5. That means bye to Maya Wiley in this latest round of counting.

And now we go to round nine. And look at this. A very, very tight election after Maya Wiley's voters get re-allocated. Most of them go to Kathryn Garcia. And we have a 51-49 percent election. Very, very tight at this point.

HILL: But we still have, what, 124,000 absentee ballots? And Kathryn Garcia was with us yesterday. She said -- she told me she's feeling really positive about that because a lot of them are coming from her district -- or districts she won I should say.

ENTEN: Yes. So none of this count includes absentee ballots. And that's something that's very key. It's all just in person voting. And right now Adams margin, look at this, is a little bit south of 15,000 votes. How many absentee ballots returned and uncounted. Look at this. Nearly 126,000.

Now the question is, can Kathryn Garcia catch Eric Adams? I believe it is very possible that she does. Why? Look at the top five assembly districts that have the most amount of absentee ballots returned and look at who is leading in the initial preferences on June 23rd in those districts. Look at that. They're all in Manhattan where Kathryn Garcia did very, very well and she's leading in all of those districts. So it's quite plausible that these absentee ballots that some in are disproportionately favoring Kathryn Garcia and she could close that margin, even overtake Eric Adams.

HILL: Now, here's the question everybody wants answered, when do we get the final results?

ENTEN: Yes, right. Oh, my God, this seems to be going on forever.

HILL: It's not today. We know that.

ENTEN: It's not Christmas one day, it's Hanukkah for someone like me in terms of election results. I love it. Look at this, the initial first choice came in on the 22nd. We got the initial rank choice results from in person voting on the 30th, which was yesterday. We will not include the absentee ballots until the 6th. Official results not expected until next week. But we'll have to wait a very long time.

The one thing I can say for certain, people were very enthusiastic about this system. The highest turnout, even with just the in-person ballots for a non-incumbent Democratic mayoral primary, this century, this could go over 900,000 ballots. [06:55:09]

The voters really liked rank choice voting, even if the counters messed it up to start off.

HILL: Luckily you're here to help clean it up so we can all understand it.

ENTEN: I'm trying my best.

HILL: Doing a fine job.

ENTEN: Thank you.

HILL: Thank you, my friend.

John.

BERMAN: Interesting to see that apples to apples comparison. The voters did seem to like this new system.

New this morning, a new legal setback for Britney Spears. A Los Angeles judge has denied a request made by the singer last November to remove her father from her conservatorship. This comes one week after Spears' bombshell testimony calling the conservatorship abusive.

Joining us now, Laura Jarrett and CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas.

Laura, to be clear, while this decision comes a week after Spears' testimony, it was not as a result of that hearing. Explain that to me.

JARRETT: That's right. So it might be a little confusing on first glance. But, as you said, this has to do with a November request to have her father taken off this conservatorship arrangement, which, of course, is for people who are incapacitated, right? The idea is that you can't take care of your financial affairs, your life and so somebody else is supposed to have the reins here. And so it's her dad and also a trust that have this sort of co-conservatorship arrangement and she wants her father removed. And so her attorney last fall tried to get that to happen. And the judge said last night, no dice on that.

But here's the thing, the judge is saying that the decision is without prejudice, which means she can get a second bite at the apple here. And thanks to Chloe's reporting, we know that her attorney is planning to file court papers to have him permanently removed from this conservatorship deal because as we heard in Britney's own words, she thinks it's abusive. She's talked about how she's been forced to take certain drugs against her will, how she's been committed to certain rehabilitation places against her will. And so she wants her dad out of the deal.

But she will get another shot at this. The judge is just saying, for right now, the father stays on.

And I should mention that there's actually a new judge on this case. So she's been at this for a while. And now that she has a new judge taking a look at it, there might be a different result.

BERMAN: And this next legal matter could be pivotal, could be the decisive moment in this entire case.

JARRETT: Right.

BERMAN: Chloe, we talked about your terrific reporting on this. And Laura mentioned that Spears alleged her father forced her to take lithium against her will and that she's been prevented from removing her IUD birth control.

You've got new reporting on how the father is responding.

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Yes. Good morning to both of you.

I mean, yes, the last two hours have been incredibly confusing for so many people. So thank you, Laura, for breaking that down for everybody, that this is not as a result of last week's hearing.

But petition after petition and court filing after court filing has been happening over the last few hours. So Jamie Spears, Britney's father, who oversees just part of her $60 million estate, has filed two things. He wants the judge to launch an investigation into all of the allegations that Britney made last week, whether good, whether bad, he wants to know, is it true, is it not true.

He also and -- and, again, many of those allegations had to do with him. He also is opposing Jody Montgomery (ph) becoming the temporary -- I mean the permanent conservator of the person. So there's the conservator of the estate, there's a conservator of the person. A conservator of the person oversees Britney's day-to-day affairs, her medical decisions.

Jamie Spears held that role up until 2019 and he had some health issues so he temporarily stepped aside. Well now, based on Britney saying, well, I'm forced into therapy, I'm forced into take lithium, I'm forced to take -- not allowed to take my IUD out, and I can't start a family, and the list goes on and on and on, her father is saying -- not saying bravo to the dad that he, you know, that he's doing something right here, but his team is saying, look, you all need to not appoint Jody Montgomery as the permanent conservator. That was about to happen.

Now, sources close to Britney Spears tell me that she has been on the phone begging her attorney, Samuel D. Ingham, to file the petition to terminate the conservatorship. He has not done that in 13 years. Perhaps imminent any time today or the next few days.

BERMAN: Chloe, thank you so much for your reporting on this. You've been pushing this forward for the last several weeks.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you to you as well.

JARRETT: Sure.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, July 1st.

And we do have breaking news.

Just moments ago Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg surrendered to prosecutors to face criminal tax charges. A grand jury in Manhattan indicted the longtime corporate money man along with the Trump Organization itself. Weisselberg is expected to appear in court this afternoon when the indictments are unsealed.

[07:00:00]

HILL: Now, these are the first charges in a year's long investigation by prosecutors in New York. At this time, there's no indication Donald Trump or members of his family have been charged.

CNN's Kara Scannell is outside.