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Feds Investigating Fake Electors in 7 Battleground States; Committee: 6 GOP Lawmakers Asked for Pardons After Attack. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired June 24, 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 Friday, June 24. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

[06:00:04]

"Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen." A sentence that rang across the halls of the Capitol and this morning might very well be ringing into the courtroom.

After a day of sworn testimony about how former President Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Even some former Trump administration officials and allies are acknowledging to CNN that the revelations were damaging. The most damaging yet. Even bleak.

So why? Why so damaging? And what now? That is the focus this morning.

Testimony about a relentless, almost daily effort to push officials to say things that were not true and do things that arguably were not legal. A scheme that seemed minutes from success to install a man named Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer, an election lie promoter, into the top job at the Justice Department.

Federal investigators raided Clark's home Wednesday, the day before he was to be the focus of this congressional hearing. Clark described the raid overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY CLARK, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: At one point, you know, 12 agents and two Fairfax County Police officers went into my house, searched it for three and a half hours. They even brought along something, Tucker, I've never seen before or heard of, an electronic sniffing dog. And they took all of the electronics from my house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, CNN has brand-new reporting that Georgia investigators are scrutinizing Rudy Giuliani's appearance before state lawmakers in 2020, where he peddled baseless claims of voter fraud and encouraged legislators to appoint a new slate of presidential electors. CNN has also learned federal investigators are pursuing information in

all seven battleground states that Trump lost, but where his campaign convened fake electors.

Let's bring in CNN's Sara Murray for a broader look at yesterday's hearing. There are so many things from this hearing that were rather ground-shaking.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I know. There really were. It was a lot to take in, because I feel like these witnesses really just brought to life how close the former president was to achieving his attempt at pulling off a coup.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY (voice-over): Stunning testimony from top Justice Department officials, detailing the repeated attempts by then-President Donald Trump to pressure the Department of Justice to subvert the 2020 election.

JEFFREY ROSEN, FORMER ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: So between December 23rd and January 3rd, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day with one or two exceptions, like Christmas day.

The common element of all of this was the president expressing his dissatisfaction that the Justice Department, in his view, had not done enough to investigate election fraud.

MURRAY (voice-over): During multiple meetings and phone calls in the weeks after the election, Trump instructed the officials to endorse his unfounded claims of voter fraud.

RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.

MURRAY (voice-over): In a conversation on December 27th with then- acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, Trump tried to pressure them to say the election was corrupt, according to handwritten contemporaneous notes taken by Donoghue.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Were any of the allegations he brought up credible? Did you find any of them credible?

DONOGHUE: No. Throughout all of these meetings and telephone conversations, he was adamant that he had won and that we were not doing our job, but it did escalate over time.

MURRAY (voice-over): The department did investigate numerous claims of voter fraud.

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The fact that I put myself in the position that I could say that we had looked at this and didn't think there was fraud was really important to moving things forward. And I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if the position of the department was we're not even looking at this until after Biden is in office. I'm not sure we would have had a transition at all.

MURRAY (voice-over): During a contentious meeting with DOJ officials and White House lawyers on January 3rd, Trump suggested appointing DOJ environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark as attorney general.

[06:05:05]

DONOGHUE: I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the attorney general. He's never been a criminal attorney. He's never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He's never been in front of any jury, much less a trial jury.

And he kind of retorted by saying, Well, I've done a lot of very complicated appeals in civil litigation and environmental litigation and things like that.

And I said, "That's right. You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."

MURRAY (voice-over): Clark was in attendance at that Oval Office meeting, and the White House logs even listed him as acting attorney general.

The environmental attorney had written a letter for the Department of Justice to send to officials in Georgia, falsely claiming prosecutors had, quote, "identified significant concerns with the vote there" and asking them to reconsider their slate of electors.

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: When he finished discussing what he planned on doing I said, "Good (EXPLETIVE DELETED)" -- excuse me, sorry -- "'F'-ing 'A'-hole, congratulations. You just admitted the first step or act you'd take as attorney general would be committing a felony in violating Rule 6C. You're clearly the right candidate for this job."

MURRAY (voice-over): The DOJ officials in the room threatened to resign in protest and said there would be mass resignations at the department if Clark was instated.

DONOGHUE: Suppose I replace him, Jeff Rosen, with him, Jeff Clark. What would you do?

I said, "Mr. President, within 24, 48, 72 hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations of the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your actions. What's that going to say about you?"

MURRAY (voice-over): The Select Committee Investigating January 6th also named six Republican members who allegedly asked about pardons after the January 6th Capitol attack. Most have denied asking for one or not publicly admitted it.

Congressman Mo Brooks told CNN he spoke of pardons with Trump on more than one occasion. He says he was advocating for Republicans who voted against certifying the election in Arizona and Pennsylvania to receive pardons, claiming he was fearful Democrats would prosecute and jail them after President Joe Biden assumed office.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson says the committee has proof.

KINZINGER: The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you've committed a crime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Sara Murray, stick around. With me now, Laura Jarrett, "EARLY START" anchor who covered the Justice Department for years; and Ryan Goodman, professor at NYU School of Law and former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense.

Laura, that was a great overview of the totality of what we saw yesterday, the enormity, in some ways, of what we saw yesterday. And after it was done, Trump administration officials and allies told our Kaitlan Collins they thought it was the most damaging hearing yet, even bleak. Why?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN "EARLY START" ANCHOR: Because you had three Trump appointees -- not Democrats, lifelong Republicans -- going on the record, saying that the former -- former president of the United States instructed them to tell a lie, to tell a lie about election fraud that did not happen.

And the only reason that brought him back from the brink, the only reason that he didn't go through with it was that he was told the optics would be so bad, that the entire Justice Department top ranks would quit. That's the only reason he didn't go through with it.

And we have a peek behind the curtain into his intent directly now from Donoghue, the acting deputy attorney general, who was told to just say it was corrupt, which means just say -- just say a lie, just say it didn't happen. And that speaks to his intent, and I think that was a key part of what is so damaging in the eyes of even Trump allies.

BERMAN: "Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen." And to be clear, Donoghue, Rosen had repeatedly told him it wasn't corrupt. That the idea it was corrupt was a lie.

So Ryan, my question to you is, if everything we heard yesterday -- there was that sentence. There was a sentence which jumped out at me where -- where Donoghue testifies the president said to him, "You guys may not be following the Internet the way I do."

Of all of it, where's the greatest legal jeopardy for Donald Trump?

RYAN GOODMAN, PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF LAW: So I think we heard it in part from Eric Herschmann, White House lawyer. He actually says to Jeffrey Clark, If you go through with this, your very first act as acting attorney general will be to commit a felony." So there's a felony in trying to send this letter to Georgia and other

states on the basis of a falsehood and say you need to decertify on January 3rd, before January 6. That's interfering in an election.

And then the other is a political coercion act, which his you're not ever able to coerce a U.S. official to intervene on behalf of a candidate. They were obviously doing that. They were threatening Rosen with his very job if he didn't go through with their scheme.

BERMAN: Laura, the letter --

JARRETT: Yes.

BERMAN: -- which you are holding in your hand.

JARRETT: Yes.

BERMAN: Now, this letter was not sent.

JARRETT: No.

BERMAN: So explain to me exactly what's wrong with this letter, in your mind, and also why it could still be a legal issue, even though it was not sent?

[06:10:08]

JARRETT: Well, you don't have to have the conspiracy actually completed to actually have the intent to commit a crime here.

And we know that the president knew about this letter. We know this is how Jeffrey Clark curried favor with him, was he was trying to convince the top levels of the Justice Department, people who testified yesterday, people like Rosen and Donoghue, to sign onto it, which they thought was nuts.

And even Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel said, you go through with this, it's essentially a murder-suicide pact, I think was the amazing quote.

But the idea here is that they were going to tell Georgia something that wasn't true; tell them that they had identified significant concerns that would affect the state's election results.

And again, this is all part of this phony scheme to sort of disrupt the electors and to submit fake electors. And so if you had to send it back to the states, they could potentially send up new people.

But even though it wasn't completed, even though it wasn't sent, I think it does speak to questions surrounding the former president's intent. Now, what prosecutors do with it I don't know.

But I think it's interesting that the feds were at Clark's house for over three hours Wednesday morning. Something tells me they want to see the drafts of this letter. BERMAN: That's behind door No. 2 here. Behind door No. 1 in the

congressional hearings, behind door No. 2 -- or maybe door No. 1, depending on how you look at it, Ryan -- was this raid by federal investigators at the home of Jeffrey Clark Wednesday. What does this tell you about what they might be focused on?

GOODMAN: It's extraordinary. I mean, this is a breakthrough. Up until this point, we never knew whether or not the FBI was investigating this part of the scheme. Up until now, all we knew is that they were investigating the alternative slate of electors on the state level.

So this really does speak to what Attorney General Garland told the country on the anniversary of January 6th, which is that they will pursue accountability for anybody who was criminally responsible at any level.

And this is the person who was the head of the civil division of the Justice Department. That's pretty high up. And the scheme that he's involved in is directly tied to Donald Trump. It does speak to where this might go.

KEILAR: And what came into such clear view yesterday, Carrie Cordero, our CNN legal analyst, is just how many levers Donald Trump was pulling when it came to U.S. government departments and agencies. It wasn't just DOJ that he was pressuring relentlessly. DHS, DOD, trying to get them to track down these conspiracy theories.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. One of the most outrageous things that was confirmed yesterday that he did was try to pressure the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to actually seize voting machines.

He wanted to know if he could use the law enforcement capacity of the United States federal government to further his completely unfounded allegations that the election was invalid.

And if they would have done it, that's what he wanted. I mean, he really wanted them to actually go out, physically seize voting machines, and stop the count.

KEILAR: You had the defense secretary, Joe Walsh, who was calling up the American defense attache in Italy --

JOE WALSH (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nice (ph).

KEILAR: -- trying to track down this conspiracy theory, totally baseless, about satellites changing votes, this having to do, obviously, with the Italian satellites in this theory. What did you think, learning that?

WALSH: Nuts, but so dangerous and, Brianna, you said it, the president used all these levers of government to, as Carrie said, pressure everybody to lie.

Think about that. He was using the powers of his office to pressure almost every government department to lie. I went to bed last night thinking that prosecuting a former president

is difficult and risky, but prosecuting a former president who used the powers of his office to overturn an American election isn't. Isn't. And he pressured the top law enforcement officers in the country to lie.

KEILAR: Bill Barr talked about this a little bit in his interview. And this is how he explained why they were chasing some of these things for Trump; that actually this was important in the scheme of things, to make sure that there was a peaceful transition of power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARR: I think the fact that I put myself in the position that I could say that we had looked at this and didn't think there was fraud was really important to moving things forward. And I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if -- if the position of the department was we're not even looking at this until after Biden is in office. I'm not sure we would have had a transition at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's saying they had to placate Trump, right?

MURRAY: Yes, and in some ways that seems crazy because there was no evidence, but he still felt the need to look. But in other ways, I think Bill Barr, maybe, at this point thought he was still dealing with a rational individual, that he may be able to say, you know, We've looked into this. We've contacted a number of states, you know. This satellite thing has been investigated, and we haven't found anything. You know, it's time to accept you lost. It's time to move on.

[06:15:09]

I think what Bill Barr came to realize is he was no longer dealing with someone who was behaving like a rational individual.

KEILAR: Is Bill Barr right, do you think, Joe, in his assessment there? We had to do this? Or is it also convenient to explain why they were doing it?

WALSH: I think it's convenient. And I think, again, Bill Barr and so many of these people around the president, they all knew this was B.S., and they did placate him. And they're all covering their backs a little bit right now.

CORDERO: Yes, I don't think it's a story of heroism on Bill Barr's part.

WALSH: No.

CORDERO: There's a lot of reputation rehabilitation going on in his deposition, which he knew might be used in a public format. And, frankly, an FBI investigation or a Justice Department investigation is only supposed to be initiated when there are some factual basis or credible threat indicating that that investigation should be launched.

It shouldn't be launched on conspiracy theories. And so, frankly, the fact that he even launched some kind of investigation or was doing inquiries using the resources of the federal government, based on baseless, unfounded facts, is not actually a great story.

KEILAR: All right, you guys. Stick around for me. We have so much more to talk about here.

Some new fallout over the revelation that half a dozen Republican lawmakers requested presidential pardons following the insurrection.

Plus, what the January 6th Committee asked a documentary filmmaker who was embedded within Trump world for nearly six months, and why they're zeroing in on his interview with Ivanka Trump.

BERMAN: And overnight, a key step forward on the Senate's bipartisan gun safety bill, with 15 Senate Republicans voting yes.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:55]

KINZINGER: The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you've committed a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: New testimony from a Trump White House lawyer that at least six Republican members of Congress asked then-President Donald Trump to grant them pardons in connection to January 6th: Scott Perry, Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Let's talk about this a little bit, because we all remember from the first hearing, when Liz Cheney talked about members of Congress asking for pardons. I think all of our ears perked up and we wanted to know, OK, who are they and what do they actually have on them? They, Carrie Cordero, had the receipts yesterday.

CORDERO: Yes. So they brought an actual White House aide to the president, who testified in her deposition -- which is under oath and they have it on video, and they showed it in the hearing yesterday -- that specific members, and she named them -- Gaetz, Brooks, Biggs, Gohmert, Perry -- and then she said Marjorie Taylor Greene had asked Pat Philbin, another White House lawyer, for a pardon.

What I think is remarkable about -- about these was the scope of the pardons; that some of the testimony indicated they were asking for prospective, so a pardon based on crimes that haven't even been charged, that they didn't know necessarily were being investigated.

But it reflects what I think that here several of the hearings have drawn out, which is that so many people knew at the time that what they were doing was probably illegal and unconstitutional.

WALSH: And, Brianna, so many members of Congress, Republicans, knew at the time. That haunting line of Trump's, Leave it up to me and the rest of the Republican congressmen. We'll take care of it, they were in on it. Trump believed he had Republican members of Congress lined up to help him steal this election.

KEILAR: But Joe, what it seems they'll hide behind is what Mo Brooks put in that letter, requesting a pardon pursuant to Matt Gaetz's pardon, right, where he basically says, The left doesn't like us. They're going to come after us. They're going to use every lever of government against us.

He's not saying, We did something wrong and we need cover. We went out on a limb for the president.

He's saying, They're going to actually use the government in a way that they shouldn't to come after us.

WALSH: Yes, and then Mo Brooks wanted everybody -- every Republican who voted not to approve the election that night pardoned, as well. Gaetz wanted himself pardoned for everything he'd done since he'd been born.

MURRAY: I mean, that was breathtaking, the scope of the pardons, as you were saying. The scope of the Matt Gaetz pardon, it just makes you wonder, what -- what did he think he was going to be doing for the rest of his life, that he felt like he needed a pardon that was this extensive? It seems like a pretty convenient explanation to just say, you know, We believe the Democrats are going to come after us.

KEILAR: What did you think, Sara, about the fact that you have members of Congress who were asking for pardons, saying at the time, No, I wasn't. Or they're saying, actually, no, that didn't happen, and it is in text messages?

MURRAY: Yes, I mean, what was striking to me was Scott Perry yesterday after this hearing, he said he didn't seek a pardon. He said he was never pushing Jeffrey Clark to, you know, move up at DOJ.

And in this hearing, they are reading text messages between Scott Perry and Mark Meadows, where Perry is talking with Meadows about elevating Jeffrey Clark.

I mean, it just points to, one, how brazen they feel about this; and two, how convinced they are that there is just not going to be any accountability for their actions, that they're willing to just come out and say that thing that they presented evidence for in writing, no, we didn't do that.

KEILAR: Do you think there will be accountability, Joe?

WALSH: I hope so. And the other thing is they've learned -- these Republicans have learned from Trump just lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Don't stop lying. That's what -- I mean, that's what Perry was doing yesterday. CORDERO: And the only reason that some of this is coming out to begin

with is because there are certain White House officials who are willing to go under oath.

I mean, these are people who didn't want to not cooperate and be referred to for criminal contempt and potentially expose themselves. And so you see a difference between people's public statements, in which they don't necessarily tell the truth. And the difference in people who are under oath and understand the gravity of the situation, the power that the committee holds, and the potential out there, Justice Department risks that they might face.

[06:25:16]

BERMAN: So Brianna mentioned the Mo Brooks possible defense going forward on the pardon issue. I want to explore for a second as we look forward about what next how Donald Trump and his allies might defend themselves against some of the things that have come out.

And our Evan Perez did reporting on Donoghue and Rosen, who testified yesterday, for everything they said and for as upset as they seem to be about the norms being upended, Evan reports that, if asked, they would say that they didn't believe that they were asked to do anything that would break the law. That Donald Trump wasn't asking them to break the law is their opinion.

The documentary filmmaker told our Don Lemon that he came to believe that Donald Trump really did think the election was stolen. So is that a defense?

GOODMAN: It's not a defense against multiple federal crimes. So take one example.

Even if Donald Trump truly believed he won, he can't pressure Mike Pence to violate his duties. That's understood in the D.C. Circus as corruptly obstructing congressional proceedings.

Example No. 2, which I think is quite likely, Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney, the law there is you can't threaten the secretary of state to find the votes, even if you think in your heart of hearts you won. It's just not even a part of the argument that a defense could raise for that: "We threatened him but I really thought I won, that's why I threatened him with criminal sanction and put his life in jeopardy," which he in his book says that's how he felt.

JARRETT: You also have to look at the reasonableness of it. Right? I mean, everybody and their mother is telling you you are wrong; this is a violation of the law. The -- the acting attorney general says this would violate the Constitution. He's been told by Pat Cipollone this would violate the law. He's been told by Donoghue this would violate the law.

I mean, at a certain point, when you've been told over and over again the plan that you want to go through with is -- is problematic, even if you're somehow with your head in the sand and your -- and your hands over your ears, at a certain point it's no longer reasonable to carry that belief.

So whether he did or he didn't, at some point, I think is going to become not the question anymore.

BERMAN: Yes, again, you have the acting attorney general. You have your White House counsel telling you it's crazy and against the law, but Donald Trump leaned on the Internet.

Donald Trump says, "You guys may not be following the Internet the way that I do." Again, that may carry legal significance.

And then I go back to this question, though, and this is something that took place in the whole Mueller investigation also. None of this ended up happening to its fruition. Jeffrey Clark did not become the acting attorney general.

JARRETT: Even though they had listed him that way on the call --

BERMAN: I know.

JARRETT: Even though he had clearly been given that job.

BERMAN: Well, that is interesting, too. But does it matter in any legal way that, ultimately, Trump did not push out the DOJ apparatus there?

GOODMAN: So it doesn't in the sense that the Political Coercion Act actually says an attempt to coerce. So kind of done at that level.

And then also conspiracy. As long as an individual in the conspiracy took an affirmative act. I do think, actually, having appointed him as acting attorney general is an affirmative act. Trump did it and, in fact, you know, even Clark says to Rosen, He gave me the offer, and I accepted it.

JARRETT: Or even the attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. Just because January 6 didn't work out and Mike Pence actually certified the votes doesn't mean they didn't try, they didn't try to stop the certification, just because it didn't go forward.

BERMAN: Counselor, Counselor, thank you. And thank you everyone in Washington, as well. I mean, a very interesting discussion about where we are now this morning.

Also, we do have brand-new reporting this morning on Rudy Giuliani as Georgia investigators close in on his efforts to overthrow the election results in that state.

KEILAR: This as Georgia governor Brian Kemp is set to provide testimony to the special purpose grand jury investigating former President Trump. We'll discuss the significance of that ahead.

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