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NY Attorney General Seeking Testimony of Trump, Don Jr., Ivanka Over Fraud; January 6th Committee Obtains Phone Records of Eric Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle; DeSantis Wants New Police Force to Monitor Florida Elections. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 19, 2022 - 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: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Wednesday, January 19th. I'm John Berman. Brianna is living the night life this week, and Kasie Hunt is here.

[06:00:04]

KASIE HUNT, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: The moonlight story (ph).

BERMAN: I decided to come down to visit you in Washington.

HUNT: I know. It's great to have you here. It's good to be back.

BERMAN: Look at all the beautiful buildings behind us.

HUNT: Indeed. Looks like a beautiful morning.

BERMAN: Here we are in Washington. We do have breaking news from overnight. Major development and new details in the civil investigation of the Trump Organization.

In a court filing, New York Attorney General Letitia James asserts they have uncovered significant evidence -- those are her words -- of what she called "misleading and fraudulent practices to obtain economic benefits."

This is a big escalation in her language. And the first time she has gone this deeply into specifics.

HUNT: The case also turning up the heat on Trump's children, who James says, quote, "have been closely involved" with the transactions in question. Investigators now taking legal action to compel Ivanka and Don Jr. to comply with subpoenas and appear for sworn testimony about the company's financial dealings.

Kara Scannell has the latest breaking details from New York -- Kara. KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.

Yes, these new details emerging overnight in the New York attorney general, Letitia James', effort to compel the testimony of the former president, Donald Trump; his adult son Don Jr.; and his daughter Ivanka.

Now, the attorney general's office alleging in these filings that there have been significant -- that there is significant evidence of misstatements and omissions in these financial statements. These statements were provided to lenders and to insurers.

Now, as part of this, they say that these statements have covered kind of the gamut across a number of properties, including golf courses in Scotland and Los Angeles, including Trump Tower, including the former president's own penthouse. They also say that it involves commercial buildings and the family's compound in Westchester, known as Seven Springs.

But they want to get the testimony of the former president because they're trying to understand what role he played, because his name is on these statements. A number of them, as we had previously discussed, say that he came up with these valuations.

So in this filing, they write, "Mr. Trump's actual knowledge of -- and intention to make -- the numerous misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are essential components to resolving the OAG's investigation in an appropriate and just manner. Likewise, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump worked as agents of Mr. Trump, acted on their own behalves, and supervised others in connection with the transactions at issue here. Their testimony is necessary for appropriate resolution of the OAG's investigation, as well."

Now, Ivanka Trump was one of the key liaisons with Deutsche Bank, which has loaned the Trump Organization more than $300 million.

Donald Trump Jr. was involved in one of these commercial buildings that's under scrutiny. He also took over the company after Donald Trump became president, along with his brother, Eric Trump.

Now, whether they will cooperate and testify remains to be seen. That will go to the judge who will decide this. But what we did learn from this filing is that when Eric Trump went in for testimony and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer, in 2020, they both asserted the Fifth Amendment and did not answer more than 500 questions each. That's according to the New York attorney general -- Kasie, John.

HUNT: All right. Kara Scannell, thanks very much for that.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, attorney and "Washington Post" contributing columnist and, I should note, one-time Trump Tower property owner, George Conway.

George, thank you for being with us.

This is the furthest that New York Attorney General Letitia James has gone, saying that she has significant evidence, in the civil case, of misleading statements and documents. What do you see as the significance here?

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY: Well, I think the significance that she's willing to go out and say this, as you pointed out, is -- is something. You don't go out and make these statements unless you have something to back it. But that's on one level.

On another level, it's not that surprising. This investigation has been going on a long time. The district attorney's office and the state attorney general both together have been investing a great deal effort. Lots of personnel, lots of investigators, lots of talking to witnesses that we've -- that have seeped out to the press over time. And hiring of very expensive expert accounting witnesses, potential witnesses or potential experts for trial, or at least to understand the documents.

They've been at this for a while. It's hard to imagine that there isn't something serious to look at there.

And there's been public reporting that's talked about the question of whether or not the Trump Organization and individuals at the Trump Organization were essentially keeping two sets of books. One set of books for purposes of persuading lenders to lend money. And that's where you want to say, oh, these properties are worth so much money, so much money.

And then you want -- and then for tax purposes, you may not want to say that -- that the buildings are worth, the properties are worth as much money.

And so basically, you're telling the truth to somebody, or not. I mean, you may be telling the truth to one person or not; you may be lying to both. It's a serious question. Why would you report two different values for the same property?

[06:05:07]

And that's the question, I think, that dogs the Trump Organization and Trump. And the question is, you know, was there a specific intent? Is there evidence in the documents? Is there evidence that some of the witnesses can provide, the ones who aren't taking the Fifth, as to why -- why were the two sets -- why are there two sets of numbers for things.

And that seems to be the scope of the investigation. And it seems to be, you know, if these charges were easily dismissed, they would have gone away long before now.

HUNT: So, George, let's talk a little bit about the political context of this. We've got the former president down at Mar-a-Lago with a circle of advisers.

You know, we've been reporting that they're doing more to organize, that they're potentially talking about what his role is going to be in 2022 but also what he's going to do in 2024. I guess my question for you is how much head space is this

investigation taking up in the former president's head? How much is he focused on it? How much does that distract from his political ambitions? And how much of a problem does he think this probe is?

CONWAY: I would not dare try to get inside, too much, of the mind of Donald Trump. OK? That's a scary place to be.

But it has to be taking some head space, obviously. I mean, these are -- you know, he's got several groups of prosecutors that are looking at his conduct.

He's got two sets of prosecutors in New York, as we've just discussed. He's got a potential grand jury investigation in Georgia that's been -- that's been ginning up for a while, because he asked for a specific number of votes for the secretary of state there.

And you've got the January 6th Committee and possibly a Department of Justice investigation into what happened between November 3 and January 6.

I mean, all of these things probably increase the level of paranoia and persecution that he naturally feels as someone who tends -- who has the personality that he has. And it's got to be distracting to some extent.

At the same time, he may feel that's -- that may be the thing that motivates him into running, because he may feel that it's the best protection against criminal charges and being held responsible for the -- for his potential -- his possible conduct would be to be president and, therefore, immune from prosecution again.

BERMAN: George, stick around. Because this is a perfect segue into the other major news from overnight.

So the civil action in New York just part of this. The other major development has to do with the January 6th investigation. The House Select Committee issued a subpoena to former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a central figure in that failed bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Two other lawyers who pushed lies and conspiracy theories for the former president, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, they also were subpoenaed, along with former Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn, who worked with Giuliani at the post-election command center at the Willard Hotel.

HUNT: In a CNN exclusive, we're also learning that the committee subpoenaed and obtained phone records from the ex-president's son, Eric Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who's engaged to Donald Trump Jr. This marks the first direct action that the committee has taken against a member of the Trump family.

And remember this promise from Guilfoyle at the 2020 Republican National Convention?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, FIANCEE OF DONALD TRUMP JR.: Leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream, the best is yet to come!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So I guess she did warn us. Evan Perez is in Washington with this top story -- Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kasie, look, I think this committee has a lot more to come. And this is only the beginning of --of what we think we're trying to get to the bottom of, which is trying to understand what Eric Trump, what Kimberly Guilfoyle and perhaps others in the Trump family knew about those plans to overturn the election results.

And what the committee has done is, has obtained the call logs belonging to the phones of Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

In the case of Eric Trump, he spoke at -- at the rally before the riot. And we know that Guilfoyle was a fund-raiser for some of those Stop the Steal activities that preceded all of that and then were part of what happened on January 6th.

And so you can see the number of people now that these were significant names that were part of this investigation.

In addition to Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, you have Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, who were some of the lawyers that were pushing the lie that there was fraud in all these states. And of course, Boris Epshteyn, who was reportedly inside the -- the Willard Hotel war room.

Again, all of these people now being asked for testimony. The -- in the case of these four, the three lawyers and Epshteyn, they're being asked for testimony, to provide testimony to the January 6th Committee.

In the case of Eric Trump and Guilfoyle, we know that they've obtained their phone records. They haven't yet, as far as we know, asked for their testimony. But, you know, we've already seen a lot of activity from this committee -- John, Kasie.

BERMAN: Evan Perez, thank you very much for that.

George Conway is back with us. George, I want to start with the phone records for Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle. What would turn up -- what could turn up on those phone records that could be damaging?

CONWAY: Well, I think -- my guess would be -- and this is not based upon any specific knowledge, just based upon the subject matters that the committee is looking into and where these people were positioned, I think they're going to look at two things.

One is, they're going to look at the planning and organization for all the things that led up to January 6th. What did -- you know, what involvement did people around Trump have in the organization of January 6th? What contacts did they have with the people who were running the so-called Willard Hotel war -- war room, such as Giuliani and others?

And the question also is that -- what happened on January 6th when, you know, the things started to go awry on Capitol Hill? What was Donald Trump doing?

And that's all extremely important, because it goes to Donald Trump's state of mind. I mean, he -- his defense is going to be, I didn't incite these -- these rioters and these insurrectionists. I told them to go up there peacefully, although I did tell them to go up there.

Well, if that was really -- he used a lot of inflammatory language at the same time. If his intent was really innocent, well, why didn't he immediately go out on the front lawn in front of the cameras at 2:30 or 3 p.m. and say, "Everybody stop it. Go home"?

And it appears that family members, the chief of staff kept having to bring down Ivanka Trump to talk to the president, to try to say, please, to say something; please say something. People were calling the White House left and right. We know about the conversation, as you talked about a lot, that the president had with speaker -- I mean, with -- with Leader McCarthy.

And so, you know, why did he -- why was he just sitting there? And Stephanie Grisham has said on your air that he was watching gleefully. You know, it was people were fighting for him.

Well, that goes to his state of mind and into what he intended on January 6th with respect for the violence. And it goes to his state of mind generally, which is critically important when it comes to potential charges, on the question of whether he and others conspired to, and did try to obstruct what happened on January -- obstruct the congressional proceedings on January 6th.

A lot of these insurrectionists have been charged with a violation -- or violations of 18 USC 1512-C2, which prohibits the corrupt attempt -- corrupt attempts to interfere with or impede an official proceeding. And the statute defines an official proceeding to include proceedings of Congress.

And the courts here in the District of Columbia have held that an official proceeding of Congress includes the all-important joint session of Congress to count electoral votes. It's just plain language.

Well, OK. Did he try to impede and obstruct the January 6th counting of votes? He certainly did. He did it in a number of ways. He's -- he lied his ass off, excuse the language, for two months.

HUNT: Very early for that, George.

CONWAY: Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't even have my coffee. He lied his derriere off for two months. He -- he tried to persuade

his vice president into saying that -- into refusing to count the electoral votes, saying wouldn't you like to have that power to stop -- to stop that and basically so that the two of them could install themselves in office undemocratically.

There -- he was -- he was talking to these -- these lawyers such as John Eastman, who were pushing these theories about whether that Trump could -- I mean, Pence could stop the count and refuse to count votes. And doing -- they were doing that on the basis of fake electoral vote certificates that were submitted by certain people.

Well, what involvement did -- did Trump and others have in the submission of these fake electoral -- So the question is did they -- did they try to impede January 6th? They did.

[06:15:06]

And the question becomes, as a matter of law under the statute, did they do so corruptly? Well, lying is corrupt. Submitting false certificates is corrupt. Encouraging somebody like the vice president and bludgeoning them into -- trying to bludgeon them into failing to conduct their legal duties properly, that seems corrupt to me.

Trying to coerce the Justice Department into announcing, you know, a fake investigation and making -- drawing fake conclusions about the propriety of the elections, as conducted in the states, and just saying, Hey, you know, just say this. Just go out there and say this. You don't actually have to go and bring a lawsuit or do anything. Trump basically just said, "Leave it to us."

Purely -- you know, purely a political and fraudulent act, because there wasn't any enforcement that the Justice Department was willing to do, and he was threatening to fire people.

There's so many things here to investigate.

And -- and the thing about it is, it may be -- maybe at the end of the day, there wouldn't be enough to prove for a jury in the District of Columbia beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump had criminal intent. That's possible.

But when you look at all of these things, they didn't all happen by accident. They were all designed to benefit one person. And, you know, all prompted by Trump's behavior.

And if there's one thing that we expect the president of the United States to do, we require him to do, it's to adhere to his oath of office, which is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And a critical element of the Constitution of the United States is that -- involves the peaceful transfer of power under the 12th and 20th amendments and under the Electoral County Act of 1887.

And if you basically, you know, Trump used to talk about how he could shoot someone in Fifth Avenue, and no one would care. HUNT: Right.

CONWAY: I mean, basically, he was trying to shoot the Constitution here.

HUNT: So George --

CONWAY: So if the Justice Department doesn't look into this, it would be a great travesty.

HUNT: So George, I mean, I remember sitting there on January 6th inside the Capitol complex and wondering about all of these things. Who was talking to the president? What were they saying? Was he going to come out and call off the people that were invading the building?

I guess when I look at these subpoenas and what we've learned about this investigation this morning, it seems like they're circling in, right? These are potentially two of the people that were a little bit farther away. I mean, we've learned that Don Jr. was texting Mark Meadows. We don't see a subpoena here yet for him.

Ivanka Trump, of course, in and out of the room, per Stephanie Grisham's reporting. We're not seeing a subpoena yet for her.

So you're an attorney, obviously. I'm very impressed with your exact knowledge of all of those statutes and the numbers. When you conduct an investigation like this, do you get that sense that they're working here from the outside in, as they try to build the cases that you say should be brought?

CONWAY: Well, yes. I mean I think both the January 6th Committee and the Justice Department, that's -- I mean, that's the classic way you investigate a lot of things that involve, you know, possibly giant, very large criminal conspiracies, is you kind of start at the bottom. It's one -- and you work your way up. And then you try to get evidence from the people who you can just say, Hey, OK, we don't think -- you know, we understand you were just a pawn. That's actually a word that one of the federal judges used in sentencing someone to January 6th. And, you know, they want to work their way up at the same time the pawns point the fingers at the rooks, and you know, the bishops and the knights, and then all the way up to the king and to the queen.

And that's how they -- that's how they work their way in. And that does seem to be what the January 6th Committee has been doing. And, you know, it's a bigger question of what the Justice Department is doing, because you really don't have the same level of -- of ability to see into a grand jury investigation that you do a congressional proceeding.

But there, I mean, there was a report in "The Washington Post" over the weekend that, you know, late in the story points out that some of the insurrectionists' lawyers, the Proud Boys' lawyers, or what the Oath Keepers' lawyers are saying, that their clients, to the extent they're cooperating with the Department of Justice, are being asked specifically about Rudy Giuliani's involvement and Roger Stone's involvement in -- in their activities and their conversations with them. And that's one step away from President Trump.

HUNT: Indeed it is. All right. George Conway, stick around for us. Want to keep talking to you about what we've got coming up next. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants a special policy agency to monitor state elections. Why this first-of-its-kind proposal is sparking concerns of voter intimidation.

Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ukraine this morning, amid Russia invasion fears. What is the Biden administration's diplomatic path forward?

BERMAN: The Post Office under pressure to deliver 500 million free at- home COVID tests. So is this going to delay your Valentines?

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[06:24:15]

BERMAN: New this morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing to create a new police force to investigate election crimes. The unprecedented agency would be tasked with arresting anyone who allegedly violates election laws.

The proposal is sparking concern among voting rights advocates who fear it could be used to intimidate voters.

Back with us, attorney and "Washington Post" contributing columnist George Conway.

Hey, you know, George, the irony here is that DeSantis has bragged about how clean the Florida election was. Yet, he still wants to create this unprecedented police force to police something that, by his account, doesn't require policing.

CONWAY: Yes, and Trump won Florida. I don't -- I don't know what the beef is there. It is all just play-acting. It's performance art. It's designed to -- for DeSantis to protect himself from the Republican base so that nobody can accuse him of being soft on the great election fraud -- the fraudulent, fake election fraud -- of 2020.

And it's just pathetic. I don't know what other word to say about it. But it's just -- it's just performance art.

HUNT: Is it legal?

CONWAY: And -- and it's -- it's so corrosive of -- of our democracy to -- I mean, this election was actually just a -- a remarkable feat of democracy. It should have been celebrated.

Because, you know, we were in the middle of a global pandemic, and yet, we had the greatest turnout we've had in -- I don't know -- decades, of people coming out to vote to express their will about what -- how the country should be governed.

And I know Republicans are disappointed that they didn't get -- that they didn't do as well -- although they did better in Congress. They didn't do -- they didn't win -- retain the White House. But that's just the way it works. That's life in a democracy. The pendulum goes one way, and the pendulum goes the other.

And -- and what keeps us -- what keeps us going is that people accept -- accept, you know, the results of a fair fight, and this was a fair fight. And for the Republicans to keep stoking these lies is -- is just so incredibly coerce [SIC] -- so incredibly corrupt and undermining of -- of the rule of law of it, it just really has to stop. And people need to take a step back and -- and look at their own conduct here and basically stop this. But I just don't fear that they don't really want to do that.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, George, it does seem as if this is going farther. And this is not the first state where we've seen a commission created or some task force to look into fraud. Even -- we've seen it in Texas, which is another state that went for the former president. But this obviously goes a step further in this policing idea.

I mean, based on what you know here, is it legal for DeSantis to do something like this? I mean, do you think it really just was politics?

CONWAY: You know, I'd have to know the specific -- I'd have to know the specific statutory basis that he's using to do this.

Obviously, there are -- in every state, there are offenses against the election law that people could commit. It might be submitting a false voter registration application. It might be registering more than once and voting more than once.

It might be doing what Donald Trump actually told people to do to test the system back in 2020, which was vote by mail and then vote in person. I mean, he said people should do that.

You know, there are all sorts of -- and faking the results, which arguably, Donald Trump tried to get Secretary of State Raffensperger to do in -- in Georgia when Trump made his infamous phone call asking for 11,000, however many hundreds of votes.

There are all sorts of things that violate election laws. And yes, I mean, the states have the power to -- and should enforce those laws when people are committing fraud.

The question is, are you -- is he doing it here just to create the impression that he's doing something about a fraud that didn't occur in a state that Donald Trump won?

Again, it just strikes me as performance art. Nothing wrong with enforcing the election laws, legitimately, for the purposes of making sure that our elections are clean. But to do so to further a lie and a fantasy that -- that the results of a presidential election were not as reported is just atrocious.

BERMAN: George Conway, great to see you this morning, potty language and all. Appreciate it.

CONWAY: Thanks for having me. HUNT: Thanks for being here.

BERMAN: Go get that coffee.

All right. Happening now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken meeting with the Ukrainian President Zelensky. What is the status of the incredibly dangerous tensions on the Ukrainian border?

HUNT: And your 5G phone, it's raising safety concerns for major airlines. Why the service is causing widespread flight disruptions.

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