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Shadow War Intensifies Between Israel And Iran; Damning New Evidence Shows Trump And Loyalists Attempted Coup. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 06, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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


[07:30:00]

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He said all of those are fully combat-ready. And he also said that if the Israelis tried any moves that the Iranian response would be militarily and would not be a diplomatic response.

Now, you mentioned the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry. He also heard those words that Benny Gantz said and his response is as follows. I want to quote at least part of it.

He said, "In another brazen violation of international law, Israeli regime now blatantly threatens Iran with military action." He then later goes on to tweet, "We state this clearly: Any foolish act against Iran will be met with a decisive response. Don't test us."

So, obviously, the Iranians making very clear they would be ready for anything. They obviously say they have a lot of power not just down there in the Persian Gulf but in the entire Middle East.

And, of course, what they also have, since yesterday, is a new president who is a hardliner. And one of the things that president has said is that Iran is going to continue to be very active here in this region, both diplomatically but, of course, militarily as well -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Fred, thank you so much.

Coming up, a CNN special report. There's some new evidence of how close America saw a coup by its own president -- how close it came to seeing that. Donald Trump's assault on democracy and what it means for the future, next.

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[07:35:32]

KEILAR: For the next 30 minutes, we going to explore just how close America came to its president pulling off a coup of his own government based on lies and conspiracy theories in a brazen and dangerous attempt to overturn a just and fair election.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New and damning information about the final days of Trump's presidency shows an effort to subvert democracy with the help of the loyalists he had within the administration and Congress, and that includes new details of the days leading up to the January sixth insurrection.

KEILAR: We have CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider here with more. Tell us the news here, Jess.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, it is turning really into a mountain of evidence here about how Trump allies tried to overturn this election, even including one inside the Justice Department.

Now, all of these details and documents -- they're being turned over to the January sixth select committee with key interviews that are expected in the coming days. That includes from the acting attorney general at the time and his deputy, both of whom were forced to repeatedly push back on these false claims of election fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): New details paint a clearer picture of President Donald Trump's attempts to stage a coup in the final days of his presidency.

Shortly after the 2020 election, Trump is said to have pressured top officials at the Justice Department to support his baseless allegations of election fraud in the presidential election.

On December 27th, Trump spoke to acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donohue and reportedly said, "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R congressmen."

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And this is the Justice Department. And in America, the president isn't king, the law is king. So that's the first thing. He has an obligation to the law of the United States.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): In a draft letter from the very next day that was obtained by ABC News, an acting DOJ department head falsely wrote the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.

Jeffrey Clark was pushing for the Justice Department to step in and wanted to urge the governor of Georgia to call a special session to consider this important and urgent matter. But his bosses, Rosen and Donohue, refused to sign on, denying any evidence of fraud.

And just five days later on January second, Trump held the infamous phone call with Georgia's election officials.

DONALD TRUMP, THEN-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): On January third, Rosen met with Trump for hours at the White House. Rosen's chief of staff, Patrick Hovakimian, testified last month that he had drafted a resignation letter that day, fearing Trump would oust Rosen and replace him with Clark.

Around the same time, concerns were reportedly mounting among top military officials that Trump would attempt a coup. The book, "I Alone Can Fix It" by two "Washington Post" reporters, recounts that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and other top military officials had also planned to resign in the event Trump ordered them to do something illegal, dangerous, or ill-advised.

On January sixth, Trump urged Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results -- something that was no within his power to do. Then, Trump urged a crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol.

TRUMP: We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore. We're going to walk down -- and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down -- we're going to walk down to the Capitol.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: And the picture that is emerging is just how perilously close this country came to a crisis and how several top officials were steadfastly behind the scenes to fight back.

And, Brianna, we are likely to see even more of these damning details come out. That's because the Justice Department here has given the green light to former top officials to talk. They will be talking to the House committee -- the select committee. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin, has said that he wants to talk to Jeffrey Clark.

The big question, though, remains how much information will we get from the White House? Will the Biden team assert the executive privilege for the Trump team's communications? So it all remains to be seen, but a lot more is likely to come out here, Brianna.

KEILAR: You really painted a very complete picture there with that story, Jess. Thank you so much for that.

[07:40:00]

Let's bring in now two election experts who foresaw this Trump coup attempt back in 2019 when they wrote a column for "USA Today" entitled "A Donald Trump coup if he loses in 2020? With all the norms he's busted, don't rule it out."

Jerry Goldfeder with us now. He's a veteran election lawyer who also teaches election law at Fordham Law School. And, Lincoln Mitchell, who teaches in the political science department at Columbia University. He also worked for years as a political consultant advising and managing domestic political campaigns.

And to you first, Jerry. I mean, this headline written in 2019 -- how do you reflect on that now considering the response you got at the time? JERRY GOLDFEDER, CO-WRITE USA TODAY STORY IN 2019 WARNING OF TRUMP-ERA COUP ATTEMPT: Well, unfortunately, we were right. We knew who we were dealing with -- an authoritarian personality in Trump -- and we knew that there were very multiple vulnerabilities in our electoral system.

Listen, none other than Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, testified to Congress in 2019 that if Trump were defeated that there would not be a peaceful transition.

We've had 59 presidential elections in this country. Ten incumbents have been defeated. They were not reelected. And they were not happy about the whole thing but they graciously or not so graciously turned over the keys to the White House and left.

We always had a feeling that Trump would not do that and so we put it out there, as did Michael Cohen.

KEILAR: Lincoln, what do you worry about now moving forward?

LINCOLN MITCHELL, CO-WRITE USA TODAY STORY IN 2019 WARNING OF TRUMP- ERA COUP ATTEMPT (via Skype): I worry that not much has changed. In 2018-2019, Jerry and I would ask people if Donald Trump loses, can you imagine him conceding gracefully. Can you imagine him saying this was a hard-fought campaign and (audio gap)? I couldn't imagine that happening.

And the same thing in 2024. Can you imagine Donald Trump, who if he runs will be the Republican nominee or any other Trump-like Republican who would be the nominee if he doesn't run, losing to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or someone else and not doing exactly what Trump has done?

The seeds within the constituency of the Republican Party that a defeat of a Republican is due to election fraud -- those seeds have grown more, not less, since 2019. So I don't think much has changed.

I would -- I would agree with everything Jerry said except I wouldn't put so much of this in the past tense. This problem remains very now and very present and this time we have no excuse for recognizing it -- for not recognizing it in advance.

KEILAR: You guys predicted --

GOLDFEDER: Right, and --

KEILAR: -- the big lie. You didn't call it that. But, Jerry?

GOLDFEDER: Yes, it's -- and it's not just about Trump anymore. We worry about legal issues as well as non-legal issues.

The legal issues is there are many Republican states -- Republican- controlled states that are changing the laws so that election administrators are being replaced by partisans. So if in the presidential election or even in the congressional elections, if partisan legislatures don't like the results they will have the authority to say I'm sorry, there was fraud. You guys didn't win -- we won. And that's legal because it's being -- those laws are being passed by the various legislatures.

Now, they're being challenged -- those laws -- but I'm not so sanguine that those laws won't hold up.

And then there's also the non-legal aspect. We saw that on January sixth. We saw how the insurrectionists invaded the Capitol to try to stop Mike Pence from confirming the Electoral College results.

Well, who's to say that when Electoral College votes are being counted in the 50 capitals in 2024 -- after the 2024 election, that we won't have invaders in those various capitals in battleground states trying to stop the Electoral College votes from being counted? And then, the legislatures in those Republican states can just say well, the Electoral College votes have not been counted. We are declaring that Trump or whoever the Republican candidate is won.

Now, I don't want to be professor doom here but we need to be cognizant. We need -- we need to be aware. We need to be alert as a citizenry that these legal and perhaps extra-legal violent actions might very well occur.

KEILAR: Look, you're not the only one predicting doom here.

You know, Lincoln, we had on an election expert who says that he is -- and this is a quote -- "scared shitless" about Republicans changing votes. About what held last time --

GOLDFEDER: And he --

KEILAR: -- not holding this time.

What do you think, Lincoln?

GOLDFEDER: That's -- just by the way, that's Rick Hasen.

MITCHELL: I might not use that precise language --

GOLDFEDER: That's Rick Hasen, one of the best election lawyers in the country.

[07:45:02]

KEILAR: Yes. Lincoln?

MITCHELL: I might not use that -- I might not use that precise language -- wording -- but I would agree with that sentiment.

It is very important for all of us who believe in democracy to recognize the depths of this crisis, and we keep hearing this. Even one of your earlier guests -- we're approaching how close we were to a crisis. We are in the midst of a crisis.

It is a few -- had those insurrectionists turned right instead of left, at one point -- literally, right instead of left as they stormed the Capitol and run up the stairs and that brave police officer or guard helped -- you know, kind of got them of the way -- we could have had a very different outcome here.

Now, imagine that happening -- Jerry talked about in Republican- controlled state legislatures. Imagine that happening -- what happening if Kevin McCarthy, not Nancy Pelosi, is Speaker of the House?

And this goes to Jerry's point that this is not just Donald Trump. It is the official position -- and I don't say that with any exaggeration. It is the official position of the Republican Party, one, that the election was somehow fraudulent. Because very few -- I mean, there's the Liz Cheneys of the world, but very few prominent Republicans will come on your show -- you station or any other station and say look, Joe Biden is the real president for goodness sake.

And it is also the official position of the Republican Party that January sixth wasn't a big deal. Just think about that for a moment.

So as we end, we have these voter suppression laws and the laws that make it possible for state legislatures to not just -- not just to play with the Electoral College votes, but to simply decide we don't like this election outcome. We're going to put out -- we're going to change and give those votes to the Republicans in the Electoral College.

So we are in this crisis very, very deeply. And what almost -- what almost made Trump's coup possible was the insistence by so much of the punditry -- the kind of it can't happen here-ism. The kind of apple pie this is America, which is a dramatic misreading of American history.

KEILAR: Look, it's --

MITCHELL: American democracy --

KEILAR: It's -- it is a bit of a --

MITCHELL: There's always been --

KEILAR: What we saw on January sixth was a wake-up call to that.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for this discussion this morning. I really appreciate it. Lincoln and Jerry, thanks.

GOLDFEDER: Thank you.

BERMAN: So a draft letter reportedly circulated late last year by a Trump loyalist at the Justice Department shows the length that his allies and people in the government were willing to go to overturn the presidential election.

Jeffrey Clark was the acting assistant attorney general running the civil rights division at the time. And he wrote in a letter to Georgia officials a draft without any actual evidence. In fact, contrary to the evidence, he wrote that the Justice Department had "...identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia." And he was suggesting in this draft letter that the Georgia State Legislature throw out the electors and seat a new batch of Trump electors.

Joining me now is the former national security adviser to then- President Trump, John Bolton. He is the author of the book "The Room Where it Happened."

And Ambassador, I should note, as you undoubtedly will, you were long gone -- long gone before December and January of last year. You were in no way connected to this.

And what the professor just said -- we'd be hard-pressed to find a Republican who would say that Joe Biden is the fairly elected president. And I think you would agree Joe Biden is the fairly elected president, correct?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, AUTHOR, "THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED": Of course, he is.

BERMAN: So this letter from Jeffrey Clark -- what jumps out to me about this is he wrote it down. We're talking about the assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice. This is a high-level official directly engaged in overturning the election results.

What are the dangers there?

BOLTON: Could we just stop a second?

BERMAN: Sure.

BOLTON: You know, I'm not a shrink but a lot of people seem to want to be shrinks and analyzing what happened in the 2020 election. So I'll take my chance at it.

There's a level of hysteria from your prior guests in this discussion that I think is very unhelpful in understanding what the nature of the problem we face is -- and we do face a problem. I'd characterize it this way. It's Donald Trump who is a real aberration in American politics.

So before we draw sweeping conclusions from insufficient information, let's all take a deep breath.

Now, let me try and respond to your question, which is a fair question, and to say in the Reagan administration, I was an assistant attorney general in charge of the civil division. I know that job very well. It's probably the happiest job I ever had in the government. And I appreciate what you say about it being such a high-level job. I could no more have helped conduct a coup against the President of the United States than the chair you're sitting in.

I don't know this fellow, Jeff Clark. He's clearly got problems of some kind. But I think the chance of the assistant attorney general of the civil division leading a coup are somewhere close to zero.

[07:50:00]

So, did anything that Donald Trump had to say about the role of the Justice Department and trying to confuse people or contradict the 2020 election have any merit at all? Absolutely not. It was reprehensible from top to bottom. But it shows the level of incomprehensible behavior Trump was engaged in. He didn't have a coup plot. He couldn't think that comprehensibly to come up with a coup plot.

The idea of the Justice Department doing something was proposed to him by Rudy Giuliani, the pillow guy -- who knows? The odds of it actually happening were between slim and none. And, in fact, it didn't happen.

BERMAN: What I'm trying to do with this discussion with you is sort of bridge the gap between perhaps the last two people we had on and then the far extreme of people who say that Trump was justified here, and try and understand in your mind what the real dangers were.

We had David Laufman on yesterday, who was a former official in the George H.W. Bush Justice Department, who said it was the thinnest membrane of protection between what the former president was trying to do and others. It was the thinnest membrane that protected this country.

I get your point that others stepped in and stopped this Jeffrey Clark in the august position of assistant attorney general for civil rights. But it wasn't just him, right, Ambassador? Mark Meadows, who was the White House chief of staff -- you would agree that's an important position, yes?

BOLTON: Yes. Look, and that's why I favored having a full commission -- bipartisan commission to investigate what happened on January the sixth and what led up to it. I think that's important to do.

BERMAN: Sure.

BOLTON: I'm sorry it doesn't exist.

BERMAN: Agreed.

BOLTON: It puts a lot of responsibility on Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and I think they will perform.

But the point here is it's hard to imagine --

BERMAN: Can I just -- can I just ask one question. I just want to get one question in --

BOLTON: Sure.

BERMAN: -- on this because I -- because I --

BOLTON: Sure.

BERMAN: -- know where you're going with this --

BOLTON: Go ahead. BERMAN: -- and it's a point worth making.

But my point is that it wasn't just Trump, right? There were people even within the government who were willing to help him, correct?

BOLTON: There certainly were -- that's absolutely right -- and their roles should be explored.

But let's take the number-two official in the U.S. government. Donald Trump said to Mike Pence I want you to throw out the votes from -- the Electoral College votes from some of the key states -- and Mike Pence flat-out refused. That's how the system works.

And when people talk about how close we were to a coup, it vastly overstates the danger. And if you do that, you're going to prepare for the wrong threat the next time. I don't -- I don't, in any way, defend Donald Trump but let's understand clearly what exactly the threat was.

BERMAN: What is that, then? And for the next time, what is that threat, specifically, in your mind?

BOLTON: Well, I think Trump is an aberration. But if I had to point to the one thing I would not do, I would not follow some of the suggestions made by members of Congress to centralize the control of our elections in Washington.

One of the reasons Trump failed was the federalist system. He had Arizona to worry about, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia. He couldn't handle it all. You bring it closer to Washington -- you centralize more election authority in Washington, and if there is another Donald Trump it would be easier for that would-be coupster to manipulate that mechanism.

BERMAN: What if it's the same Donald Trump. And I ask this because you know -- I know you have think (ph) and you have some poll numbers that suggest you believe his power may be waning. There are others who would disagree. And as of now, we have no reason to know whether or not he'll run again. But as of this moment, he still considers himself a possible candidate for president in 2024. And by all accounts, at this moment, he would be considered the frontrunner.

So how do you know that if he lost an election he wouldn't try to undermine the results again?

BOLTON: Well, there's a lot of speculation in there. Let's look at one important point.

If he runs in 2024, he will not be the incumbent President of the United States. He can cause trouble, but as a private citizen at that point, he becomes increasingly vulnerable to prosecution for what is clearly criminal activity.

So I just think when you magnify the threat and overstate the case and you turn people off you don't get a serious discussion. The conduct Trump engaged in is unacceptable and people should talk about it, but they should not exaggerate it. BERMAN: Again, when you say -- and you limit it to Trump sometimes

and I know you say that others' behavior was equally problematic. And that would be Jeffrey Clark and Mark Meadows. And you think all of that behavior should be investigated, correct?

BOLTON: That's exactly right.

BERMAN: Liz Cheney, who you referred to as being a member --

BOLTON: Just let me ask -- let me put it to you this way.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

BOLTON: If Mike Pence were president -- if Mike Pence were president in 2020 and had lost the election, do you think he would have done anything that Donald Trump did?

[07:55:03]

BERMAN: I don't, but Donald Trump did. I mean, the fact of the matter is he did it and it wasn't just Donald Trump. I mean, it was Jeffrey Clark. You had officials in the government. It was the White House chief of staff who's a very powerful person.

And yes, the guardrails held but there was also the matter of the -- you know, the riot -- the insurrection at the Capitol, correct? I mean, what --

BOLTON: Can I --

BERMAN: -- was the impact of what happened?

BOLTON: Of course, and that should be -- and that should be investigated, too. That should be investigated, too.

But you have to ask the question to prevent it next time -- what's the most important thing? And from the voters' perspective, it's look at the character of the people who are running for office. Ultimately, if the people don't reject people like Trump, constitutional barriers will be paper-thin. That's the real test.

BERMAN: I think Liz Cheney, who you spoke about before -- and she's speaking of her father here as well, and we'll play the sound for you -- I think she's worried that the Republican Party itself might not stand as the guardrail here going forward, or at least not right now. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): My dad is deeply troubled about where our party is. Deeply troubled about where the country is. And just a tremendous source of advice and guidance and wisdom for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Deeply troubled where the party is. Ambassador, how about you?

BOLTON: Sure, I'm troubled about where -- I'm deeply troubled about where parts of the party are and I think there is a struggle within the party for its future direction. But I am very confident about the outcome.

I think this is a small portion that followed Trump for reasons that I don't fully understand, but I think the effort now is to -- is to make sure --

BERMAN: It is a majority of the House caucus now, right? Isn't it a majority in the House caucus? Wouldn't you say it's a majority of the House caucus right now?

BOLTON: I think a lot of people are intimated by Trump. I think there's a media bubble about it.

What my polls are showing, though, is that out in the country when you ask real people who have real issues to confront them and not interested in going down the rabbit hole of the 2020 election again and again, they are looking for other people who are raising other policy issues to deal with the problems they see. And that's the direction I think that ultimately will cure Trump. That's what the polling shows.

People look forward. They're not -- Donald Trump may want to talk about the 2020 election and he probably will to the day he dies, but the number of people who are interested in talking to him about that diminishes every day.

BERMAN: Ambassador John Bolton, thanks so much for coming on this morning. I appreciate you being part of this.

BOLTON: Glad to be on with you.

BERMAN: So, will top officials who were pressured by Trump to overturn the election be called to testify in Congress?

KEILAR: And he's made a name for himself by selling pillows and pushing the big lie. See what happened when CNN investigated Mike Lindell's outlandish conspiracy theories.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We couldn't find a single person that said this is even possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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