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DOJ Says, Sealed Trump Search Affidavit is Roadmap to Criminal Probe; Giuliani a Target in Georgia's Election Interference Probe; One Year Later, Nation Isolated, More Impoverished Under Taliban Rule. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:02]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The Justice Department's position was revealed in a court filing opposing to release of the affidavit that lays out the case for searching Mar-a-Lago.

Senators from both parties on the intelligence committee and media companies, including CNN, are pushing to see some of this information.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: According to The Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Merrick Garland took three weeks before approving the warrant application for the Mar-a-Lago search. There were frequent meetings, The Journal reports, during that time between top officials the Justice Department and the FBI.

Now, the attorney general is faced with the decision on whether to actually charge the former president or others.

Joining me now, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig.

Elie, this filing was to oppose the release of the affidavit, a filing made that was by media companies, including CNN, but what exactly is in this affidavit?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, John. So, we do not know what's in this affidavit. But I do know this, if this document comes out, it will change everything that we know about the search of Mar-a- Lago.

Now, there are three relevant documents here, the first two, the search warrant and the property receipt, those are already out in the public, we've seen those. But just for the sake of comparison, the search warrant, that is three pages. It's mostly a form that you fill out. IT tells us where the FBI wanted to search and it tells generally what the criminal laws DOJ is looking at.

The property receipt, that's also three pages. It's just the list of what they took out of Mar-a-Lago. Most of those entries just say, box of documents.

But the affidavit, the affidavit is a game-changer. This is a narrative document that the prosecutor has to write out. I have written more of these than I can even count. They are dozens of pages, wouldn't at all surprise me if this one is 50 to 100 pages. This is document prosecutors used to establish probable cause. You have to list your specific evidence. You bring it over to the judge. We know the judge in this case reviewed and approved it.

Just to make an analogy of the difference. If you remember back when we were kids in ye olden days, you go to the library. Remember, they would have those catalog cards, those index cards --

BERMAN: The duodecimal system?

HONIG: Yes, exactly, duodecimal. And each catalog card would say the title of the book, the author, the number of pages and what subject. Reading this is like reading those cards. Reading the affidavit is like reading the actual book.

Now, in the normal course of a criminal case, this affidavit would only come out if and when DOJ went to court, filed an indictment against Donald Trump -- we don't know if he's going to be indicted. But any person, at that point, the person gets the affidavit so they can challenge it in court. And what CNN and other media companies are asking the court to do now is unseal it, we want to see it now.

BERMAN: So, this is the normal course of events. Why would the DOJ be resistant to let it loose now?

HONIG: So, two big reasons. First one is to protect their strategy. Here is what DOJ wrote in their brief that they file last night. If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government's ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course in a matter that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps. This will lay out -- if there're witnesses, it won't say their names but it will give information that might allow someone to figure out who they are. They'll talk about whether or not they had surveillance video. It will lay open the playbook.

The second issue, the second reason DOJ opposes this is to protect the interests of people who are under suspicion. DOJ writes, quote, the release of this type of investigative material could have devastating consequences for the reputation and rights of individuals whose actions and statements are described. DOJ is basically saying, Donald Trump, you probably don't want us to reveal this.

BERMAN: So, this document, this filing from the DOJ, frankly, I was surprised to see it. And I was surprised to see how long it was. But you with your trained eyes, what have you learned from it?

HONIG: I put on my prosecutor decoder glasses and I found a couple of interesting nuggets, I think. First of all, DOJ writes, the information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high profile nature of this matter and the risk of the revelation of witness' identities impact their willingness to cooperate. Witnesses, right?

This confirms that they used at least one witness to get their search warrant.

BERMAN: Plural, yes.

HONIG: Plural, right.

You don't have to, by the way. You can do search warrants without a witness. You can do it based on other information. We know that they have a witness or witnesses who helped them get this search warrant. Also, DOJ wrote that disclosure of this search warrant affidavit would irreparably harm the government's ongoing criminal investigation.

Now, there has been some talk. What was the purpose here, because they have a criminal investigation, or was the purpose here because they just wanted to get the documents out of Mar-a-Lago?

Now, we sort of knew the answer already. You can't get a search warrant unless you show probable cause that there's some ongoing crime, but this confirms this is an ongoing criminal investigation. And it's not as if they are taking the position of, well, we've rescued the documents, now we're done, this is ongoing. And, finally, John, DOJ writes that this investigation implicates highly classified materials.

Now, we kind of knew this, again, because the receipt shows this. But if you remember when Brianna, on this past weekend, interviewed Representative Mike Turner, he pushed back a bit.

[07:05:02]

He said, well, we know they're marked as classified. We don't know if they are classified. Guess what, they are classified.

BERMAN: Yes. And Katelyn Polantz, our reporter, says the length and the strenuousness of the language she read it as DOJ really means that, they really don't want this released.

One other issue I want to bring up here, which is that, overnight, the reporting that Trump Organization CFO -- former CFO Allen Weisselberg is apparently in some sort of a plea deal with New York prosecutors that might have only a few months jail time for the charges against him. And there are also reports that this will not involve this plea deal, cooperation and testimony against Donald Trump.

HONIG: Yes. So, that's the most important thing here. There're two types of plea deals. There's the cooperation plea, where you agree to testify about other people, and then there's what we call just the straight plea, where you just plead guilty, get a reduced sentence, go home and that's that. This appears to be the latter.

Let's remember, Allen Weisselberg is the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Pretty clearly, the effort here was to put a charge on Allen Weisselberg, try to flip him. I think that was the right strategy by the D.A. It hasn't worked, apparently. He's going to plead guilty, does not appear he's going to testify against Trump. And I think that really sort of eliminates the greatest remaining chance of Donald Trump being charged criminally in Manhattan.

BERMAN: The Trump Organization apparently not involved in this deal. They are charged separately. That's a whole other thing. We'll see what that means.

Elie, thank you very much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Rudy Giuliani has been informed he's the target of a criminal inquiry in Georgia into alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani, who is a personal lawyer, of course, for former President Trump, spearheaded efforts to dispute the outcome of the election and he helped spread widespread, baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP'S FORMER ATTORNEY: It looked they're passing out dope, not just ballots. It is quite clear they're stealing votes.

The people in Fulton County were instructed not to look at signatures. Not only do you have testimony to that effect, you have film that shows you them not looking at the signatures, doing this.

Do you have the courage to stand up to the obligation of the Constitution of the United States put on you to save our people from fraud?

Do you have the courage to put up with what's going to happen if you, in fact, change that certification and do the right thing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now, Political Reporter at The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, Patricia Murphy, and Contributing Editor at TheGrio Sophia Nelson. She's also the author of Be The One You Need.

Patricia, to you first. How does this change things, this development?

PATRICIA MURPHY, POLITICAL REPORTER, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: This changes things because we now know that one of the people closest to Donald Trump is a target of this inquiry of the special grand jury.

We have seen dozens of witnesses come before the special grand jury here in Fulton County, a few of them, 17, have been told that they are targets. Others are just here to provide information. Now we know that Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal lawyer, and, really, a leading face of the effort here in Georgia to overturn the 2020 election results, he's been informed that he is a target of this probe. That's hugely consequential, not just for him, but, of course, for Donald Trump as well.

KEILAR: Sophia, what does this mean for Trump's potential exposure here?

SOPHIA NELSON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THEGRIO: Well, I think you have two outcomes, right? Rudy Giuliani could take the Fifth Amendment, which I think he -- sounds from what his lawyers saying, that he might be leaning in the direction of not answering the questions. I'll say that. But if he decides to take a plea deal and if this becomes something that he feels is, you know, going to put him in legal jeopardy, maybe they can get him to flip. But I don't know.

It's just been an awful thing to watch, Brianna, to watch someone who was America's mayor turning to this. It's kind of surreal actually that you watch the big three, Trump, Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani in quite a bit of trouble there in Georgia. And I think that Giuliani has got to consider flipping if he wants to get out of trouble.

KEILAR: And to that point, Patricia, we just heard from Rudy Giuliani's former top aide who said he thinks that's the direction that Rudy Giuliani would go. He said he's a man up in years. I mean, you've been reporting on all of the health complaints from his lawyers, that he's a man up in years and he's not going to want to be in jail if he can avoid it.

MURPHY: Yes. Giuliani's own words seem to contradict that a little bit. He said that this decision is evidence of fascism. He said he was just defending his client. But we know that, as the special grand jury has been gathering information, they've been very focused on two key pieces of the efforts to overturn the election that directly involve Giuliani. One was his trip to Georgia for the seven-hour wide ranging hearing before the state senate, just all of these conspiracy theories that he was laying out and pressuring lawmakers to overturn the election. The other was the effort to have a slate of fake electors. Those electors met. We understand that Giuliani was directly involved in that effort as well.

[07:10:01]

And so he has a lot of involvement and I think a lot of questions to answer. Whether he answers those questions, we really don't know what's going to happen.

KEILAR: Let's listen to how Giuliani responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIULIANI: When you start turning around lawyers with defendants when they're defending their clients, we're starting to live in a fascist state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He, Sophia, is saying, look, this is attorney/client privilege. To that, you say?

NELSON: There is no attorney/client privilege when criminal fraud is involved between clients and lawyers or criminal activity that kind of goes out the door, and Rudy Giuliani knows this well. So, yes, if you're talking classic attorney/client privilege and you're trying to get me to talk about what my client and I are talking about, yes, of course, but that's not it. But he's the subject of the investigation. He's not being brought in, Brianna and listeners, because they want him to tell them what Trump may have done or not. We're talking about Rudy Giuliani's actions and that's the difference.

KEILAR: Sophia, also addresses he's talking about this is fascism what he is facing.

NELSON: Come on. I mean, they say that every day it's fascism, right? Certain networks say that. Certain figures say that. Listen, when the raid went down or the FBI warned -- I should say, no raid. When the FBI served the warrant, a legal warrant, what did Trump do? He went on, they raided my house, they've stolen my passports, which turned out to be. So, yes, they're going to yell fascism because that's what they do for the base and it's how they're going to drive turnout for the midterms. I actually think it's probably worked for him a little bit.

KEILAR: Yes, I think it lands. I think you're right on that. Sophia, Patricia, thank you so much for sharing your reporting as well.

BERMAN: All right, primary day in Wyoming and also Alaska, high- profile elections on the ballot today in Alaska, Sarah Palin. The former Republican governor and vice presidential candidate is looking to make a comeback. She is vying for Alaska's lone seat in Congress.

Here now, CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. Give us the overview of this Alaska election.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Okay. So, this -- I feel like school is beginning and we're going to go back to school today because this can get quite confusing. But I like confusing things because confusing things, we can also learn something.

Okay. So, we have the Alaska at-large special House election. There's also primary seat for the November seat, but we're just going to talk about the special House election right now. Look, we've got three candidates who are on the same ballot. These three advance from a primary will all run on the same ballot regardless of party, Trump- backed Palin led that primary but just with 27 percent of the vote. So, this is -- I don't know who the heck is going to win today.

BERMAN: Right. And that's just the beginning because Alaska is using ranked-choice voting.

ENTEN: You're right, they're using ranked-choice voting. So, what is going on? So, look, the voters can rank up to four choices, including (INAUDIBLE). The candidate with the lowest vote total after a round is eliminated. Voter choices reallocate to the next highest preference if the current choice is eliminated, and a candidate only wins with 50 percent of the vote, plus one.

So, given that Palin only had 27 percent in the first round, I think that this is going to be something that goes on and we're going to do rounds and rounds.

BERMAN: Look, we saw it here in New York City, and the positioning can shift over time as the ranked choices change, and it can take time.

ENTEN: It can take time. So, I feel like we're back taking the time machine back to 2020. Patience is a virtue in Alaska elections, because only the first choice results will be available after the polls close. The reallocating of votes won't begin until all absentees are received. And the final absentee deadline for receipt is 15 days after election.

So, we'll get the first choice, at least the preliminary first choice without absentees tonight. But that reallocation that actually, ultimately, will probably determine the winner won't be available until weeks after the election.

BERMAN: Look, be patient, Alaska is huge. Absentee balloting is important there because people are voting in these far flung locations.

The House race is not the only one.

ENTEN: It is not the only one. So, look, we also have the top Senate primary, the top four Senate primary. This, of course, will be determined. The general election will be in the fall.

Here's what's going on here. Lisa Murkowski, of course, voted to convict Donald Trump, Trump is backing Kelly Tshibaka. Again, just like in the special House primary, the Democrats and Republicans run in the same primary. The top-four finishers advance to general elections.

You'll notice that there are only three top candidates on this screen, then there are 16 others that are running. So, who the top four will be? I think three of the top four will be these three but I don't know who the top four will be.

BERMAN: You did a very good job explaining Alaska. As they say in G.I. Joe, now you know and knowing is half of the battle. So, thank you for that.

Okay. So, Alaska, not the only race, Wyoming has been getting so much of the attention here. A lot of G.I. Joe fans in the crew.

ENTEN: Apparently so. We got a lot of G.I. Joe fans. And my middle name is Joseph. So, there we go, bringing it all the way around.

Look, we've spent a lot of time on this, but the Wyoming at-large GOP House primary, Trump-backed Hageman, of course, Cheney voted to impeach Trump.

[07:15:06]

The good news here, if you like fast counts, is expect the fast projection here than Alaska because there is no ranked-choice voting and there is not going to be nearly as many votes that were cast by absentee. But, look, this is obviously the big primary of the day. We've spent so much time on it. We'll see what happens tonight. BERMAN: And remind us again, Liz Cheney, one of the ten Republicans who vote for impeachment in the House the second time. Remind us again of how they've done.

ENTEN: Yes. So, look, four retired, three lost the primary. We're waiting this primary. Only two have won their primary. If Cheney goes down tonight, there will only be two, two GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump returning to the House next year, most likely. Of course, we'll still have to see what happens in the general election from the fall.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, you'll be here for that. Thank you very much.

ENTEN: I hope so.

BERMAN: You will.

So, another Trump adviser subpoenaed by the federal grand jury investigating the insurrection. What do officials hope to get out of this White House lawyer.

KEILAR: And the State Department pushing back on a scathing report about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. CNN's Clarissa Ward will join us live next showing us the dire economic and human rights situation there one year after the Taliban takeover.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

KEILAR: The Biden administration is now responding to a report by House Republicans criticizing last year's U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The State Department says Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee overlooked and got wrong several facts.

CNN is back in Afghanistan, where after 365 days of Taliban rule, poverty, hunger and a lack of resources are plaguing the country. CNN's Clarissa Ward joins us live from Kabul. Clarissa?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, that's right. When you talk to people here, there are still so many questions that they have about the nature of the U.S. withdrawal and why so many people were left behind and when those who worked with the military might be able to potentially get their visas processed and get out of here. It's a very complicated situation, a number of bureaucratic issues that are really slowing that down.

But across the spectrum now, people here are not just concerned about fears of the Taliban but many of them just focus on the simple hurdle of trying to put food on the table for their children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice over): It's a three-hour journey from Shakila's (ph) home to the center of Kabul, but each morning, she and other women make this walk, driven by hunger and the need to feed their children. Their destination is this bakery, one of many across the capital, where crowds of women now sit patiently every day, quietly hoping for handouts.

So, all the women have been pressing pieces of paper with their phone numbers into our hands. They're desperately hoping that maybe we can help them. Shakila (ph) tells us on a good day they might get two or three pieces of bread and every morsel counts.

Were you doing this a year ago, or has the situation become worse in the last year.

There's no work this year, she says. My husband has a cart, but now he only earns 30 to 40 cents a day.

One year after the Taliban took power, Afghanistan is isolated and increasingly impoverished, largely cut off from the global banking system and the foreign aid that once funded almost 80 percent of this country's budget.

It is also unmistakably safer. One thing that the Taliban has been able to improve is security. Outside of Kabul's airport, shops her open and the streets are calm. A far cry from the chaotic scenes we witnessed last summer.

He told me to cover my face, but he doesn't want to comment on that truncheon he's carrying.

Tens of thousands risk life and limb to try to flee the country. Many feared for their lives. Others that the Taliban would take the country back to the middle ages.

For these girls, that fear has come true, they were just a year out from graduating when the Taliban announced a de facto ban on girls' secondary education after six grade. Now, they have improvised ways to defy the ban, setting up unofficial schools where they continue their studies. Nahid Sadat's (ph) reams of a diploma may have vanished but her drive has not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always say to myself that I'm so powerful, I'm strong and these things can't bring my aims and my dreams and what I want to do.

WARD: Do you ever feel scared?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. It's a risk for us that we don't cover our face and we study our lessons (ph).

WARD: You're very brave.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I know.

WARD: Girls' education is one of the main reasons no country in the world has yet recognized the Taliban government, a point we put to Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi.

When will the Taliban allow teenage girls to go back to school?

ABDUL QAHAR BALKHI, SPOKESMAN, MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: From the perspective of the government, there's a range of issues that has led to the temporary suspension of secondary schools. The most important and significant part of this is, is that the policy of the government of Afghanistan is education for all citizens of Afghanistan.

[07:25:08]

WARD: And yet, all citizens of Afghanistan are not currently able to get an education. What is the holdup?

BALKHI: It seems that international actors are unfortunately weaponizing the issue of education. Instead of coming forward and interacting positively, they are trying to find moral justifications for some of the inhumane policies of sanctions, which is leading to the collective punishment of the entire people of Afghanistan.

WARD: Do you want to see girls going to school again?

BALKHI: The policy of the government of Afghanistan is very clear and that is education for all citizens of Afghanistan.

WARD: The Taliban says it wants to see peaceful and positive relations with all countries, including the U.S. But those prospects were dramatically diminished when head of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by a U.S. drone strike in a villa in downtown Kabul just over two weeks ago.

BALKHI: We've made it very clear that the government of Afghanistan was unaware of the arrival or presence of Mr. Zawahiri in Kabul. So far, we have been unable to establish as a fact, as a matter of fact, that Mr. Zawahiri was indeed present in Kabul.

WARD: Isn't that almost more frightening though, the idea that you're claiming potentially the leader of Al Qaeda was here in the center of the city and you didn't even know about it?

BALKHI: Again, we contend that notion that he was even present here. But even if he was, these types of incidents happen everywhere in the world.

WARD: But they really don't. I mean, how can the U.S. possibly trust the Taliban leadership, though, to stay true to its promise that it will not allow sanctuary to be granted to terrorist groups?

BALKHI: If we look at the Doha agreement, the articles that define the commitments of the government of Afghanistan, all of them have been fulfilled. And if we look at the commitment that the United States of America has made, sadly, they have not fulfilled a single article. But we're hopeful and we continue to urge the United States to adhere to that agreement.

WARD: It's a brazen position that complicates efforts to unfreeze funding to help the Afghan people, millions of whom remain hungry and reliant on the kindness of strangers. (END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on camera): CNN has spoken to the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Tom West, who essentially confirmed that in the light of the sheltering of Ayman al-Zawahiri, all prospects of recapitalizing Afghanistan Central Bank are, for the short term, at least off the table.

And I think what you're going to see going forward, John and Brianna, that as long as there is this deep mistrust between the Taliban and U.S. and until, really, you see some kind of a normalization of those relations, you are going to see protracted suffering of ordinary Afghan people who frankly are much less concerned with who's in power or what the sort of geopolitical dynamics are than making sure that they can feed their families.

BERMAN: So many different kinds of suffering you highlight in that piece, Clarissa. And you talked to so many different, fascinating people.

Your conversation with the Taliban official about girls' education, and he's dodging of your question about whether or not he actually wanted girls in school, is there any sign that you see that the Taliban is doing anything to get girls in school?

WARD: So, I think what's really interesting here, John, is that behind closed doors, talking to sources, it's clear that the majority of Taliban leadership actually does favor a return to school, or a return of secondary education for girls. But it's complicated because there are some hard-liner stalwarts who are still sort of entrenched in these antiquated ideas that are really more cultural than Islamic.

But the Taliban, as a movement, in general, is always wanting to show complete consensus. And so until they can make the maneuvers necessary to achieve that consensus from within, they are completely reluctant to make movements that would sort of upset some within the leadership.

And so you have this kind of protracted process which is painful to watch. And I think many recognize it's completely an own goal. It's very damaging to their cause. It's very damaging to their daughters. I mean, UNICEF has come out and said 2.5 percent of GDP could be lost as a result of stopping girls' education.

[07:30:04]