Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Judge Says January 6 Lawsuits against Trump can Proceed; Daunte Wright's Parents Speak Out after Sentencing of Kim Potter Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired February 21, 2022 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These houses haven't been smashed by war. They've been destroyed by the poverty conflict brings. Torn down and sold as recycled bricks and tiles, locals tell us that these houses sell for about 70 bucks.

This is the end of the Slavyansk (ph) Street. Just down there is the checkpoint and beyond that is rebel-held territory. But in the last hour or so, we've heard at least eight explosions.

Lily (ph) is three. She's out amid the shelling with her mom lending a hand, playing with the family pup through a gate riddled with shrapnel holes from a shell that landed before she was born. Her parents tell her that the latest barrage is thunder, but it is something to worry about.

LIUDMILA PONOMARENKO, RESIDENT OF NEW YORK, UKRAINE (through translator): She does not understand. But very soon she will understand, because she is three. So we are now thinking about whether we stay here.

KILEY: Andrey is a rescue worker. He's acutely aware of the surge in recent shelling. According to Ukrainian authorities there were at least 70 strikes along the front line that Saturday.

So what kind of life do you think your daughter is going to have?

ANDREY PONOMARENKO, RESIDENT OF NEW YORK, UKRAINE (through translator): How could I know? There is no stability in the country. I'm doing my best to provide all that's needed. But I still can't change reality.

KILEY: The increased Russian-backed rebel shelling that killed two government soldiers on Saturday is being seen as a possible prelude to a Russian invasion, perhaps along this very street. Across the road, Maxim draws water from a well. This community is

sliding back into the 19th century, and fear bears down on everyone.

Is there much shelling?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): There, you hear it. Yes.

KILEY: You've had this for a long time. Are you feeling frightened now, though?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Yes, I'm scared, very scared.

KILEY: But many living in Ukraine's New York are trapped by these wartime blues.

MAXIM, RESIDENT OF NEW YORK, UKRAINE (through translator): Where should we go? Why? Nobody cares. And where should we get money to live and rent? So that is why we are staying in this house.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KILEY (on camera): John, the latest buildup that you referenced there in your introduction is just a little over 25 miles beyond the border here, very substantial forces now numbering about 190,000 according to U.S. analysts. Now, if that is the case and the decision has been taken as reported out of the United States by Vladimir Putin to invade, sophisticated cities like this, like Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people where it was center very much of the IT revolution here, this is a city of 40 universities, John, there is a real worry here that it, too, could be sent back into those very, very dark places, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It could be devastating. There is a real human toll that will happen here. Sam Kiley, thank you so much for being there for us.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us is Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He is currently leading the U.S. delegation at an emergency meeting of NATO's parliamentary assembly in Brussels. Sir, thank you so much for being with us from Belgium this morning. Can you just tell us what you're hearing from your Ukrainian counterparts?

REP. BRENDAN BOYLE, (D-PA): First, it's quite clear that Mr. Putin has done more to unite the NATO allies than any other person that I know of. I've never seen, in the years I've been affiliated with the NATO parliamentary assembly and with NATO, I've never seen such unity among our allies. Ukrainians who I speak to have a sort of, I would say, fatalistic view. This, after all, is not new for them. They've been dealing with this for eight years, and in a larger sense for centuries. And so I'm really impressed by just how calm the Ukrainians I know are approaching the current situation.

KEILAR: They're calm. What are they telling you? BOYLE: Depending on who you speak to, you get a variety of opinions

on whether or not Mr. Putin will invade. They're sort of -- it's not just a binary as well. There are some who believe that Putin will send in forces -- greater forces in the east and will continue to move westward, but wouldn't go into Kyiv. There are others who believe that that is naive and that this will be a full-scale invasion. So I'm just really struck by quite a variety of opinions. It's kind of hard to say there is one sort of mind among Ukrainians when it comes to what Putin will do.

[08:05:00]

KEILAR: So the president has agreed in principle to meet with Vladimir Putin, but that would take place after a meeting between Tony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov on Thursday and would only take place if Russia has not innovated Ukraine. Do you think that meeting will even happen?

BOYLE: Candidly, I'm skeptical. But let's be clear, there's been no shortage of diplomacy coming from the United States or coming from the west. In the end, if Vladimir Putin decides to do this, it will be entirely his fault and the fault of the corrupt kleptocratic regime that he leads. I am concerned that in some corners there is an effort to somehow blame NATO or blame the U.S. That is simply not the case. We are doing everything we can to avoid a war. But if a war happens, it will be entirely on the shoulders of Mr. Putin.

KEILAR: You said there hasn't been a shortage of diplomacy. Is there still a route for more diplomacy?

BOYLE: I don't give up hope. And certainly, many of us who are here at NATO headquarters are not giving up hope as well that we can find our way out of this, that we can impress upon Mr. Putin the real costs that he will face and his people will face if he does pursue this path of war.

KEILAR: Depending -- you said NATO is holding very well. Depending on what Putin decides to do, he could really try to exploit some divisions, even if they're small ones. Certainly, they're ripe to be exploited. What are your concerns there?

BOYLE: That's been a clear part of his strategy, attempting to pick off some of the 30 nation states that make up NATO. For years now, I think it's safe to say, the members of NATO who are, say, closer to Russia have been the ones that have been most concerned about Russia, while those in the west, such as France, have probably been less willing to go as far as some of my friends in the Baltic states would go in terms of combating Russia. All of those internal divisions, though, are kind of off to the side for the moment.

Again, I'm just really struck by how united this alliance is. I have never seen such unity. Regardless of whether the parliamentarians are from the Baltic states or from France or the U.K. or Germany or the U.S., we are all completed united in this.

KEILAR: I certainly appreciate you, Congressman, giving us a look, a vantage point into that. And we'll see here in the coming days with developments whether that unit holds. We appreciate it. Congressman Brendan Boyle, thanks.

BOYLE: Thank you.

BERMAN: Joining us now, former NATO -- OK well, we're waiting on Wesley Clark. He will be with us in a moment. In the meantime, joining us right now is the former European affairs director for the National Security Council, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. Colonel Vindman, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

One of the things that has been discussed over the last few hours with troops amassing on the border, our reporter Sam Kiley who had just been in the Donbas region there, is it possible of Vladimir Putin maybe taking off bites of Ukrainian, maybe not the full-scale invasion that the United States is most concerned about, but a piecemeal approach. What would that look like in Donbas? What would be the human toll if it was limited to that region?

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN, (RET) FORMER EUROPEAN AFFAIRS DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: First of all, I think it's unlikely because that doesn't achieve Vladimir Putin's objectives, which is a failed state in Ukraine and Ukraine folded back into Russia's sphere of influence. But of course, anywhere that Russia conducts its military operations with the forces it has assembled would be catastrophic.

And that's the part that puzzles me, that Vladimir Putin believes he will be remembered as a gatherer of lands, one of the great rulers of Russia that expanded Russian power, instead of what he's likely to be remembered as, which is a tyrant, a brutal tyrant in the vein of Ivan the terrible, in the vein of Joseph Stalin. And that's the part that puzzles me about his calculus, this idea of legacy building. There's a major disconnect there.

BERMAN: And joining us is Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. General Clark, we've gone from a Russian invasion expected in the coming days and weeks according to the U.S., to President Biden saying he feels that Vladimir Putin has made up his mind to invade, to over the weekend being told by U.S. officials that the Russian military has been given the order to invade. So what's keeping the invasion or further invasion from happening at this point?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, SENIOR FELLOW, UCLA'S BURKLE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: I think that we're still in the first phase of a three-phase Russian operation. In this phase, Putin increases the pressure, puts the torque on the west and the Ukrainian government to make concessions.

[08:10:02]

So he takes it step by step, and he draws out the diplomacy as long as he feels like he's still getting some advantage. He's weighing the costs and benefits of military action versus what he can do diplomatically. And this offer of a summit, that's more to his liking. He can squeeze more. Maybe France will come apart since they were the interlocuter. President Macron says he's looking for a new security architecture for Europe. That's exactly what NATO has said, it will not concede under pressure.

So maybe Mr. Putin thinks he's got a crack in NATO here. Maybe he's betting that he can hold his forces in the readiness foster longer than Ukraine can sustain itself economically with its forces deployed in the field and what is, in essence, an embargo of its shipping. So this is just a more subtle phase.

And now he's added to this the idea -- some people say, well, maybe he's insane. Maybe Putin is just no longer rational. And I just want to remind our viewers that this is an old ploy in diplomacy. President Richard Nixon used it against the Soviet Union in 1972 to accelerate the peace accords for Vietnam. He and Kissinger agreed to say that basically Nixon is uncontrollable, he's insane, he's going to do anything. This is exactly the image that Vladimir Putin probably wants to project.

BERMAN: It's the madman theory of international diplomacy.

Colonel Vindman, who can maintain this posture for longer, Vladimir Putin or NATO and, frankly, Ukraine, who sometimes gets lost in the middle? If an invasion doesn't happen, if Russia doesn't move its troops and it just stays like this, who can last longer?

VINDMAN: No question that it's going to be Ukraine and NATO that outlast this current buildup. The fact is that it is simply militarily unsustainable to keep that kind of force posture on the border indefinitely. That's why I will breathe a deep sigh of relief if we start to get certainly deeper into March, because all those helicopters, planes, need and require maintenance. Those personnel that are ready have low morale based on the reporting of drinking and carousing and COVID running rampant in the camps. Those forces can't be kept in the field forever.

And I think the fact is that, again, if we don't see this turn within the next several days into a violent military confrontation -- which is I think where we are. I think we're, frankly, past the diplomacy stage, and I don't see Vladimir Putin really biting on anything, because the west and Ukrainian won't bend. They won't bend on the fundamentally demands. Therefore, I think Vladimir Putin will resort to force. And if we don't see that happening in the next several days and certainly going into March, I think we will be in a much, much better place than we are now.

But we are also in this acute phase where I think more U.S. action is required. I've been advocating for what are called graduated response options, some sanctions right now to signal more is coming, not being on the back heels waiting for a reaction, and also testing this theory of resolve around NATO, this idea that NATO cannot activate the NATO response force and determine whether places like Hungary, which have a proclivity to support Vladimir Putin, are actually on board. And those are the things I think we can still try to do in order to keep ratcheting up the pressure and seeing if there's a way to pressure our way as well as negotiate our way out of this situation. BERMAN: Colonel Vindman, I appreciate you being with us. General

Clark, thank you so much for sticking around until we could get your feed, appreciate seeing you this morning as well.

So this morning, the former president in new legal trouble. A federal judge allowing lawsuits seeking to hold him responsible for the January 6th insurrection to proceed.

KEILAR: And a postgame handshake turning into utter chaos on the court. What started the mess, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:45]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: A Federal Judge says that civil lawsuits aimed at holding Donald Trump accountable for the January 6 insurrection can go forward.

In his opinion, Judge Amit Mehta writes, "To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The Court well understands the gravity of its decision, but the alleged facts of this case are without precedent."

One of the plaintiffs suing Donald Trump for his involvement in the January 6th insurrection -- and there are several -- is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell and his attorney Phil Andonian, is joining me now.

Phil, do you think this means you will be deposing the former President?

PHIL ANDONIAN, ATTORNEY FOR REP. ERIC SWALWELL: Well, we certainly have the greenlight to do that right now. I mean, we expect there will be a challenge to the ruling. But as of right now, we have the right to depose him and others and request documents and get information about what actually happened that day and what Donald Trump's full role was in that violence.

KEILAR: So as you said, a challenge to the ruling is expected of course. So this is going to have a couple more steps, but ultimately would end up, it could end up at the Supreme Court.

What is your expectation of what the Court would decide knowing that there is a conservative majority?

ANDONIAN: Well, we really -- the Judge's opinion was incredibly well- reasoned and methodical. And he did exactly what you would want, which is a very careful analysis of exactly what is before him and looking at that, he focused only on what Donald Trump said and did. And he, you know, analyzed that within the legal framework.

And we think that it's a solid, reasoned opinion in the sense that what we are claiming is that Donald Trump did exactly what he showed everyone he was doing, which was fomenting violence and anger and then ultimately unleashing that mob on the Capitol. So we think that if you look at it on appeal, that the opinion that

Judge Mehta wrote is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It is addressing the issues in this case and in this case only, and in this case, the claims are solid, and so we've had hoped that this will be untouched on appeal.

KEILAR: So you're saying and obviously, look, I would imagine in the argument that Donald Trump's lawyers would make, they would say, now any President is being open to being sued for stuff that they did while they were in office and you say that's not the case.

[08:20:10]

ANDONIAN: No, right. It's not the case. And as the Judge said in the order, you know, it's no small thing to deny the President an absolute immunity for X, you know, that he undertook while he was in office.

But the key to the opinion is that the Judge looked at all of the acts that we've alleged in the complaint and in the other complaints that we're proceeding with, and found that all of the acts that we allege were not official acts. They had no core relationship to an official duty of the Office of the President.

Instead, what they were, were purely personal, unofficial acts aimed at Donald Trump, perpetuating his incumbency, which is precisely the opposite of both the Constitution and the statutory framework, you know, hold out as an important goal of the Office of the President.

And so, if there's another person that comes along and does what Donald Trump did, and I certainly hope that is not the case, then that person would be properly, you can scrutinize in the same way.

But the Court is doing nothing more than looking at what Donald Trump did here, as we allege and that is where the finding comes.

KEILAR: If this is upheld, then presumably you would be able to depose and have discovery when it comes not just to Donald Trump, but also to his allies, all of whom are very clearly not cooperating with other legal efforts.

What do you do if they don't cooperate?

ANDONIAN: Well, at some point, this turns into -- it is a regular civil litigation, right? I mean, parties are entitled to propound discovery, to notice depositions, to request documents, and the other the part -- especially the parties, in this case, Donald Trump is a defendant in the case, he's not just a third party, you know, in the periphery, he has an obligation to respond, and if he doesn't, there are consequences.

There are judgments that can be entered against him, adverse inferences can be drawn. So this is not something Donald Trump is going to be able to sit by and hide from, you know, when we get going in earnest.

KEILAR: What damages will your client be seeking? ANDONIAN: You know, the damages, I think are -- there are two ways to

look at it. I mean, there's accountability generally. Right? I mean, we're seeking vindication, not only of Congressman Swalwell's -- the harm that he suffered, but the harm to everyone that he was with, and the damage that was done and the injuries that were inflicted, and you know, pursued --

KEILAR: What is the monetary value on that?

ANDONIAN: You know, we don't know, right. We've asked for punitive damages and I don't know that there's a really good framework for kind of quantifying punitive damages for something on the scale that we saw on January 6th.

To be clear, Congressman Swalwell is not looking to get a money judgment for himself at all in this case, and if any money judgment comes, you know, that would be something that he would want to dedicate to victims' families and to other people, but, you know, we're pursuing them, certainly, as the justice system allows us to, to redress harm, to deter future actions in the same vein.

KEILAR: Phil, thank you so much. I feel like I see you with each incremental step. But I will tell you, this one is closer to there being some kind of resolution or day in court.

ANDONIAN: It's a big -- it was a big decision. It was a big, big moment for justice.

KEILAR: Phil, thanks for coming in this morning.

ANDONIAN: Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Outrage over the sentencing of the Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, grabbing her gun instead of her Taser. Why Wright's mother says the justice system killed her son all over again, next.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And then sources tell CNN that the U.S. has Intelligence indicating orders were sent to Russian Commanders to proceed with an attack on Ukraine.

We'll be joined by Pentagon spokesperson, John Kirby, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:04]

KEILAR: Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who claimed to mistakenly draw a gun instead of her Taser before fatally shooting Daunte Wright during a traffic stop sentenced to two years in prison. Prosecutors had requested seven years.

Potter was convicted in December of first degree and second degree manslaughter for killing Wright on April 11th of last year. Potter will be required to serve 16 months of her sentence in prison and with good behavior, she will be eligible for supervised release for the remaining time.

The Judge Chu saying this while handing out the sentence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE REGINA CHU, HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA: Officer Potter made a mistake that ended tragically. She never intended to hurt anyone.

Her conduct cries out for a sentence significantly below the guidelines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: With me now are Daunte's mother and father, Katie and Aubrey Wright along with their attorney Jeff Storms. Katie, can you just tell us how you're feeling? How you're feeling about this sentencing and about what you heard from the Judge there?

KATIE WRIGHT, MOTHER OF DAUNTE WRIGHT: We are angry, disappointed. We left sentencing feeling like our son, his life didn't matter. I feel like the Judge was very sympathetic and we walked out of the courtroom feeling like we were the ones on trial, we were the ones that were the ones that committed manslaughter.

KEILAR: Aubrey, I know this doesn't feel like justice to you guys. Can you tell us how you're feeling?

AUBREY WRIGHT, FATHER OF DAUNTE WRIGHT: I just -- I feel hurt. You know I honestly thought that we were going to give some form of justice and I just I've kind of -- I'm just upset.

[08:30:09]