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Trump Legal Team States They May Release Security Video Footage of FBI Executing Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago; Justice Department to Argue Before Judge for Continued Secrecy of Search Warrant for Mar-a- Lago; Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg Expected to Plead Guilty to Tax Fraud Scheme. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired August 18, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Papa Johns is now serving toppings, hold the pizza. Say what? The Papa Bowl has cheese sauce and toppings, but no crust. It's going to be available in three varieties, garden veggie, chicken alfredo, and Italian meats trio, and will roll out national next week. Thoughts?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yum, question mark?

KEILAR: Question mark.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

KEILAR: Could we soon see surveillance footage of the FBI conducting that search and seizure at Mar-a-Lago and the affidavit that led to it? Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. It is Thursday, August 18th. And today an extraordinary dispute is about to play out in a Florida federal courthouse that could determine what the American public will get to see involving the DOJ's investigation of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The Trump team has one more hour now to officially weigh in on unsealing the documents before a judge hears the case this afternoon. The DOJ is opposing their release. Various media organizations including CNN are requesting that they be unsealed.

Also happening this morning, the Trump Organization's former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to a 15-year tax fraud scheme.

BERMAN: "The New York Times" reports the Justice Department has subpoenaed White House records in its investigation into January 6th. That's separate from the Mar-a-Lago search. And in Georgia, Rudy Giuliani appeared before an Atlanta-area grand jury for roughly six hours as the target, a target of the probe into efforts to subvert the election there.

We want to circle back, though, to the case of the documents obtained at Mar-a-Lago. A short time ago I spoke with Donald Trump's former impeachment lawyer David Schoen. He talked about the search, he talked about the issues we're seeing today in terms of releasing the affidavit. This is part of that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BERMAN: You've got experience representing Donald Trump, so I'm curious. Have you been approached to work on this case, the classified documents case?

DAVID SCHOEN, TRUMP'S DEFENSE LAWYER DURING SECOND IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Well, I don't want to go into too many details, but I was approached a couple of months ago about being a liaison with the Justice Department. It wasn't for me. It doesn't suit my skill set.

BERMAN: A couple of months ago, that's interesting. So this is something they have been dealing with in a pretty serious way for at least a few months, it sounds like that's what you're saying.

SCHOEN: I think that's right. The issue has been out in the media. The Justice Department was looking into this, and so on. So I'm sure they took it seriously. It just wasn't for me.

BERMAN: What would your legal advice be to Donald Trump on the issue of releasing the affidavit be?

SCHOEN: Again, none of us really knows the underlying facts. I think, though, that Donald Trump has been very clear in saying he wants transparency here. I think speaking to the American people to the extent I can as an American citizen, I want to know what's in there. We have got a history here, unfortunately, a bit of a checkered history, between the Mueller investigation and FISA warrants and all that business. I think the country depends on information. We want to know what's in there.

BERMAN: What would the risks be for a possible defendant? What would the risks be for Donald Trump in making this public be?

SCHOEN: Well, the risks would be that information that -- negative information comes in. But that's going to have to come in one way or another, one day. And I think you're better off testing it now. Again, information is the key.

BERMAN: He had been pushed to return some of these documents by his representatives. And the former president repeated the resisted entreaties from his advisers. He said, quote, it's not theirs. It's mine, several advisers say Mr. Trump told them. It's not theirs, it's mine. By definition, does that not suggest he knew he had these?

SCHOEN: It may suggest he knew he had certain documents. It doesn't mean he had a guilty state of mind. To be perfectly clear, I don't believe Donald Trump thought he did anything wrong with any of these documents at any time. Now, was he naive, did other people pack up documents, did he get bad advice? I don't know. I don't think we know enough about those facts.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

KEILAR: Let's go live now to CNN's Katelyn Polantz, who is live outside of the courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida. Katelyn, lay out what we're expecting to see today.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, this afternoon we are going to be listening very closely to Justice Department lawyers we expect to show up today and argue for continued secrecy of this affidavit used in this case. Remember, the affidavit would be the narrative of this investigation so far, laying out to the judge under seal why this search and seizure was so necessary at Mar- a-Lago.

[08:05:00]

The Justice Department so far has given a little bit of information about why the secrecy is so needed to continue here. They have said there is an ongoing grand jury probe, they've said that there are witnesses both past and potentially in the future that they want to protect. They have also said that this investigation implicates highly classified materials, so really strong arguments from the Justice Department.

The judge overseeing this case who will weigh whether to release this affidavit today, has already looked at this -- has looked at it under seal, has kept it under seal so far, did release the search warrant at the Justice Department's request previously.

We also are waiting to see whether the Trump team steps up and takes a position on transparency or not in this situation. They are just across the bridge, Mar-a-Lago is just across the bridge across town from where we are right now. So there is a question of will the Trump team show up in a brief, in court? Will they show up in person in court to make an argument today?

We do know that media organizations will be arguing, and I want to read something that was written in the media brief so far in this case, arguing for the public interest here, for transparency. The media organizations wrote, "Not since the Nixon administration has the federal government wielded its power to seize records from a former president in such a public fashion." So that really puts into perspective what we're going to be hearing today.

BERMAN: So, Katelyn, some of Donald Trump's allies are urging him to publicly release the surveillance footage of the FBI search. This came from Trump security cameras that were in the building. What is the rationale behind releasing this footage?

POLANTZ: Well, John, it has not been released yet, and surveillance footage is really crucial in the whole arc of this case so far. There are surveillance tapes that the Trump Organization would have, showing the FBI conducting this search and seizure within Mar-a-Lago. But there also were surveillance tapes that would have been used in this investigation that helped the FBI and the Justice Department determine they needed to go in and seize all of these boxes, all of these documents back from Mar-a-Lago. On the two sides for Donald Trump, as he's thinking about whether or

not he wants to release them, one, it could fire up his base, seeing FBI on the property of the former president's home, an unprecedented search, as we've said. On the other hand, it could be quite damaging. There was a lot of material moved from Mar-a-Lago, not just pieces of paper, boxes of materials. And so that is the debate that is being weighed inside the president's circles. The one thing that we have heard from a source in doing this reporting is that it is not a question of if Donald Trump decides to release these surveillance tapes. It is a question of when he decides to do it. Brianna and John?

BERMAN: And how he does it. You would expect only clips, not necessarily the full everything there. They control it. Katelyn, thank you so much for your reporting.

KEILAR: The organization representing thousands of retired FBI agents is pushing back against recent attacks on the agency following the search at Mar-a-Lago. CNN's Josh Campbell is joining us now with more on this. Josh, first, I want to ask you about this potential release, and maybe not potential, just sort of when is it going to be released, this surveillance video of the actual search and seizure at Mar-a- Lago. What would that mean for FBI agents who participated in the legal search?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the key point. Any other situation fine, release the video. I've done several searches in my FBI days. They're quite boring. You're looking through for items, you're taking photos, a lot of paperwork. The problem here is that the faces of those agents, that being shown to the public, could put them in danger, because we've already seen the president and his team come out blasting the FBI. I know based on my reporting that the two agents who were listed in court documents that were already released, they have faced unprecedented threats being investigated by the FBI. So, again, in any other situation, I think it would be fine. Here, there has to be a consideration for the security of these agents.

KEILAR: And more broadly, and this is really sort of the same thing, what are you hearing from these FBI agents that you've spoken with about their worries, concerns about what they're facing?

CAMPBELL: It's really striking hearing the security measures that FBI personnel are taking in the wake of this search. I'm hearing agents now carrying additional firepower, additional ammunition. Even the simple task of walking out of the field office to go to lunch now requires an extra layer of situational awareness. One agent telling me he leaves home for work each day early so that he can circle the field office, scanning for potential threats before he actually pulls into that parking space.

So you can imagine the psychological impact that these threats are having, but we also know it is not just rhetorical, it is actually physical. You look at the case one week ago in Ohio, the suspect who attacked an FBI field office, I've been reporting on that, looking through the suspect's social media, it is a torrent of lies and election conspiracy theories that this person appears to have bought into.

[08:10:02]

And that's causing widespread condemnation from federal law enforcement, including this group of retired and former FBI agents coming out with a strong statement yesterday, I'll read you part of that. They say that "Unfounded and reckless attacks on the men and women of the FBI as they pursue their mission is both dangerous and unacceptable." They say that "Recent threats to FBI personnel and facilities only serve to increase the potential for violence and must be denounced by this nation's leaders."

But sadly, Brianna, in talking to FBI personnel, they think that the worst may be yet to come. As this criminal case continues involving the former president, they don't expect these threats will actually go away.

KEILAR: They have fears like they haven't had before, and that is really saying something. Josh, thank you.

CAMPBELL: Thanks.

BERMAN: So this morning, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to a 15-year tax fraud scheme. Let's go live to Kara Scannell who is outside the courthouse here in New York City. And as part of this plea agreement, he has agreed to some things, but not others, Kara.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Yes, good morning, John. That's right. So we're expecting Allen Weisselberg to arrive here shortly. He, of course, was the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization for 40 years. He is going to enter a plea to a 15-count indictment. These are tax fraud charges where prosecutors say he didn't pay taxes on corporate benefits he received, including company apartments, cars, and private school tuition for two of his children.

As part of this deal, Weisselberg will testify against the Trump Organization. They are set to go to trial on the same charges in October. So that's pitting Weisselberg against the company he has worked for, for most of his life. But under this deal, he is not going to be cooperating with the long running investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office into the Trump Organization's finances. That investigation under the previous district attorney was looking toward possibly bringing charges against former President Donald Trump. The new district attorney, Alvin Bragg had paused that investigation, saying he wanted to see if there was more evidence.

So Allen Weisselberg, who certainly knows a lot about how the Trump Organization works and is very close to the family, will not be testifying against them, will not be cooperating in that long running investigation.

Now, we will hear him speak today in court. He'll have to allocute to the crimes that he is going to plead guilty to. We do expect him to implicate the Trump organization in that, but not any of the family members. Now, under this deal, Weisselberg has agreed to a five-month jail term, which he will likely serve at New York's notorious Rikers Island prison, or jail, I should say. And under this agreement, he might get time off for good behavior, so he could serve about 100 days. John?

BERMAN: Kara Scannell, the twists and turns, they're so fascinating. Thank you very much.

KEILAR: Let's bring in Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and columnist for "New York Magazine," and Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. So Elliot, just put this into per perspective for us where this investigation is right now.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly an investigation into Trump himself isn't going anywhere, or probably isn't going very far because the person that probably would have been the one to testify against him isn't going to testify against him.

Now, look, pretend this isn't Allen Weisselberg. Most criminal defendants plead guilty. Something like 94 percent of people who are charged with crimes plead guilty. It's not that uncommon for someone, particularly in a relatively small in the grand scheme of financial crimes case, to plead guilty to something like this. But what people care about is, is he testifying against Donald Trump, and he's not.

BERMAN: Not exactly. Not against Donald Trump as part of this D.A. criminal investigation into Donald Trump the person. But he is going to testify in the trial against the Trump Organization, which does include that word "Trump," Errol. So it does have an impact on the family.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Certainly, it does. And we saw this with Trump university. This is a person who is a political figure is relying on his business acumen and his business reputation as his key point of credibility, at least prior to his first disastrous term. For this now to sort of be thrown into the category of places where they chisel, places where they cheat the government, places where unlike the rest of America, people don't pay their taxes, that's not going to work for him politically. Will he lose an election, will he lose a lot of votes? Maybe not. But it's an important piece of information.

WILLIAMS: I get the sense that they tried to bring this case thinking that they could flip him. The whole point here wasn't because they thought the $1.7 million in compensation that Allen Weisselberg got really needed to be prosecuted. No. They wanted to hang this over his head and then flip him as a cooperator, and they didn't get it.

LOUIS: There is still some possibility of that, because sentence won't really be pronounced until after everything is done with this portion of the investigation and the case against the Trump Organization. And so he'll have to be truthful all the way through. And what he does testify against the organization about, he better do thoroughly and completely before the sentence comes down.

[08:15:02] KEILAR: The Trump Organization, let's talk about how really in danger it may or may not be. The Trump Organization is such a key part of his identity, right? His identity as a businessman and some of the protections that he enjoys. If that's threatened, that's not nothing.

LOUIS: It's not. It's not. And we should keep in mind, what we call the Trump Organization is really hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of separate corporations that are all sort of under the umbrella. And it's Allen Weisselberg who sort of understands all of the flows and connections between all of these things.

But, yes, if it starts to unravel, if it is found over and over again that, you know this was done illegally or this one has been fined or that one has been dissolved or, you know, as in the case of Trump University, yeah, it starts to bite at some point and you -- we really don't know until we get through all of this, we won't know how much of his business empire may be compromised or even start to unravel.

BERMAN: Errol, no one covers New York City politics like you do. And we have seen something rather unusual in the last 24 hours, which is Donald Trump, we're talking about him, issued these -- I'll do air quotes because I refuse to put air quotes, putting my hands down here, I'll do them right now, his endorsements of two Democrats running for Congress for seats here in New York City, Daniel Goldman who, of course, was part of the first impeachment of Donald Trump and Carolyn Maloney. I don't actually really feel like I want to read these endorsements because they're sham endorsements.

But what is going on here?

LOUIS: Well, he's trying to harm both of these people. These are candidates who are both locked in very close, very tight races. Donald Trump wants to intervene at the last minute. In fact, some of this came out hours before Daniel Goldman was supposed to did a televised debate. And he specifically -- he, Donald Trump, specifically is trying to crush both of their hopes by associating himself with them, giving them a warm hug in districts where he knows most New York Democratic voters do not like Donald Trump at all.

WILLIAMS: One thing to layer on top of that too, sometimes an endorsement isn't just an endorsement, he's not speaking to Democratic voters there, it is Republican ones as well and by saying the word impeachment, as he did in the context of talking about Dan Goldman, saying the word impeachment fires a lot of Republicans up and that's part of it too, I think.

KEILAR: It is kind of the equivalent of saying sic 'em. We should be clear, I know for people who don't live in New York City, you should read into this the drama of this is kind of unbelievable, especially in the Carolyn Maloney case. She is up against Gerald Nadler. This is her district normally district 12, he's gone from 10 after redistricting and he kind of got his home got redistricted out, he decided to go for district 12 in which he now lives.

Donald Trump, I mean, he doesn't like Carolyn Maloney, let's be clear about why he really does not like her and why this is sort of a sic 'em moment.

LOUIS: She is the chair of the Oversight Committee who has been going after Donald Trump. She is also the leader of the congressional district where Trump Tower is located, a congressional district which Donald Trump lost twice. So, there is no love lost here whatsoever.

And frankly, some of the strategy appears to have worked. He throws out these mock endorsements, and all of the people running against Daniel Goldman in New York ten, they seized on it, we can can't have this -- we can't have this person that Trump likes as the Democratic nominee for this district.

They took the bait. They ran with it as Donald Trump knew they would.

KEILAR: That's our next conversation. Democrats participating in the positives as they see it of this.

Errol, Elliot, thank you so much.

WILLIAMS: Of course.

KEILAR: In this Jekyll and Hyde economy right now, Jekyll seems to be winning. Did I get that right?

BERMAN: Yes.

KEILAR: So, we're going to break down --

BERMAN: Jekyll is the good one. Dr. Jekyll is the good one. People always have to remember, Mr. Hyde is the bad one.

KEILAR: Thank you. So, we're going to break down the components of the not so lousy economy as Christine Romans likes to call it.

And top White House economic adviser Brian Deese is going join us live to discuss. .

BERMAN: And watch this, a woman in the back of a police car escapes her handcuffs and grabs one of the officer's loaded guns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UIDENTIFIED MALE: What the heck? Did she get out of her cuffs?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:23:03]

KEILAR: After months of sky high inflation, record gas prices and talks of a looming recession, the economy is actually looking less lousy every day.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to explain. OK. You sort of coined that phrase less lousy. But let's start with

the lousy.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it is not very technical, less lousy. But people have been saying they feel so bad about the economy. Where are we?

A big problem here is inflation is still running too hot. We have seen some signs of peaking. We want to see that continue. But year over year, consumer prices, people when filling up their car, going out to eat, paying their rent, they're seeing these higher costs than last year and that's got them feeling pretty lousy.

There is also signs, recent signs that the housing market, which has been very strong, is starting to cool off and headed for signs of trouble. These are home construction numbers down 10 percent in June. That is a big decline from June to -- year over year as well.

I want to look at interest rates too because this is something you're feeling right now on your credit card bill. If you have debt that you're carrying over month to month, it is going to cost more to finance that. If you're getting a new car, you're going to -- auto loans financing is more, student loans, mortgage rates.

These are things that have so many people feeling like the economy just isn't working for them right now.

KEILAR: OK. I mean, I like the bad news and then the good news. Let's go there now. The less lousy.

ROMANS: OK. So, this week, things have been looking a little bit better. And, again and again we have seen numbers that are improving. Gas prices down 64, 65 days in a row now, $3.93. You got 20 states that are below $3.75 a gallon, seven or eight below $3.50. That's a positive development.

We know people are taking that money, we saw this in the retail sales numbers yesterday. They're taking the savings from gas and they're spending smartly other places. We heard from the Walmart CEO, they're trading down, they're making good decisions, wise decisions, you know, not the pricey cuts of meat, but other cuts of meat, trying to save their money and economize and that's a good thing.

[08:25:04]

You look at retail earnings, you can see people aren't buying the big couches and the TVs and things they bought the past couple of years and they're focusing on necessities and that's pretty smart. And most -- the most important thing here, the unemployment rate, you guys, 3.5 percent.

This economy has added 3.3 million jobs this year. I mean, that is just remarkable, 3.3 million almost jobs added this year. The job market is still very, very strong.

That has economists after yesterday's retail sales, the backdrop here of the less lousy news I'm telling you about, recession what recession, some of them are saying, not seeing it in the numbers we have seen this week in the past couple of weeks.

KEILAR: All right. Thank you for that.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

KEILAR: Christine.

BERMAN: Joining us now is the director of the White House National Economic Council, Brian Deese.

Brian, you just heard Christine Romans describe this Jekyll and Hyde economy. Who do you see as winning now?

BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Well, I really appreciate the distinction between the two because I get them confused.

I think we're seeing important sides of resilience in this economy. You just talked about gas prices coming down. Today, the most common gas price in the United States is $3.49. Gas price is down 65 days in a row, down more than a dollar.

What that means for a typical family, two-car driving family, $120 a month in savings in their pockets.

And the labor market as you just discussed is -- continues to be very strong. We created 528,000 jobs in July.

So those are markers of resilience. There's no question we face serious global challenges right now with inflation, first and foremost. But it's also no question that the United States is better positioned than almost any major economy to weather those, and to do so without giving up all the economic gains that we made.

So that's certainly our goal. And we've taken some big steps on the policy side to try to further that this week.

BERMAN: You know, talk about inflation and gas prices for that matter, the Fed in its notes that were released yesterday, I'm going to paraphrase here, they basically said, we can't count on gas prices continuing to drop like this to continue to lower inflation. And they are still concerned that inflation is, quote, uncomfortably high.

How uncomfortable?

DEESE: Well, there is no question inflation still is too high and we need to continue to see prices come down. Gas prices is one element of that. It's a big component of what this number's headline inflation numbers, but it is also practically important to people in their daily lives.

But we need to make progress in other areas as well.

The Fed is operating on the monetary side on what the president and Congress can do. That's why you've seen the president do exactly what he's doing. This week, we announced a rule that will lower the cost of hearing aids, for example, almost $3,000 less, because we're going to allow people to go in and buy hearing aids over the counter rather than go and have to get a prescription from a doctor, which tens of millions of Americans who suffer from mild or moderate hearing loss -- that makes a difference.

The president signed a major piece of legislation that will lower the cost of healthcare, lower the cost of prescription drugs, lower the cost of energy bills as well.

So with the tools that we have working with Congress, we're doing what we can to continue to try to bring those prices down, but to do so without giving up all of the extraordinary economic gains that the United States made over the last 18 months.

BERMAN: It is worth noting. Inflation Reduction Act as you say does and could very well reduce prices along a different range of items, phased in over time. A lot of that stuff isn't phased in necessarily this year or right now when inflation is what it is.

One thing we keep on asking you this, and I just want the latest update -- student loans, student loan forgiveness, when and if will the decision be made on that?

DEESE: Well, the president has broken down that timeline, the announcement and the decision to him. But on the point you made about the timing of when people will start to see relief, there's some provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are going to help immediately. The provisions that give consumers tax rebates or tax credits for going out and buying more energy efficient heaters, more energy efficient appliances, those are enacted immediately.

The provisions that keep healthcare premiums low are going to affect 13 million Americans. Just in the coming months. Without this law, 13 million Americans would have gotten a letter in October that said their healthcare premiums were going to skyrocket. We're taking care of that and making sure that doesn't happen.

So, you're right. Some of the provisions will happen across time. We're fixing things that haven't been fixed in decades like having Medicare negotiate for better prescription drug prices.

But there are also things that will help immediately and people will start to be able to see and start to be able to rely on in their lives.

BERMAN: What's the consideration on student loans? I know you just keep saying the president is on his own timeline there, but what is right now holding that up?

DEESE: Well, there is -- you know, there is a set of considerations the president is taking into account and there's also the timeline of where we are. There is a question of the --

[08:30:00]