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Three Law Enforcement Officers Off Duty After Violent Arkansas Arrest; Car Bomb Kills Daughter of Putin Supporter Near Moscow; This Week, DOJ Deadline to Turn Over Redacted Mar-a-Lago Affidavit. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 22, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

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[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good news this morning for the injured little leaguer who fractured his skull after falling out of a bunk bed after another fall over the weekend.

Andy Scholes with more in the Bleacher Report. Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning. John. So, doctors say 12-year-old Easton Oliverson is expected to make a near full recovery after having emergency brain surgery to save his life. But he did have another big scare over the weekend as he fell and hit his head again. Easton was trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by himself, which he isn't supposed to do.

Doctors performed a C.T. scan following the fall to make sure there wasn't any swelling in his brain and, thankfully, the results came back normal. This happened just after Easton had thanked all his fans for the thoughts and prayers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EASTON OLIVERSON, INJURED IN BUNK BED FALL: Hey, this is Easton. Thank you for the prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You starting to feel better, bud?

OLIVERSON: Yes, I'm starting to feel better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Awesome. Team Easton, we love you, buddy.

OLIVERSON: Love you, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes. We all continue to pray for Easton in his recovery. His team from Utah was eliminated from the little league world series yesterday.

New Day continues right now. BERMAN: Alarming new video of a violent arrest in Arkansas. I'm John

Berman, Brianna is off. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is here. Let's get right to it.

Still so much unknown about the events surrounding the video, but what you see appears to show two deputies and a police officer punching a suspect in the head and kneeing him in the side and back several times.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: That man there underneath the police officers was eventually taken to jail. He is now facing several charges, including second-degree battery and resisting arrest. All three officers in the meantime have been taken off duty and they are now under investigation.

Let's get to CNN's Omar Jimenez. Omar, what is the latest that we have seen on this?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, at this point, of course, these officers aren't on active duty right now pending an investigation into this, but the main question on top of everybody's minds right now is was all of this necessary, especially with three law enforcement officers on the scene. And when you watch this video, you see them punching, kneeing this suspect repeatedly over and over again as someone nearby films on their cell phone.

Now, this started with a call from a nearby gas station. A gas station clerk called the police alleging that this man spit on her and that he was making threats. Then this person identified as 27-year-old Randall Worcester allegedly then rode his bike over to this convenience store and that's where this video occurred. He was eventually taken into custody where he's facing charges of second-degree assault, resisting arrest and more. But, of course, a lot of questions surrounding what led up to this and why officers felt that this was the response they needed to take.

BERMAN: So, Omar, what's the official reaction and fallout been like this Arkansas?

JIMENEZ: Well, of course. So, for these three law enforcement officers, two county deputies, one police officer, all three of them have been taken off duty, removed from duty, I should say, pending the outcome of this investigation. And this is an investigation that's now playing out at the state level. In fact, even the governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, put out a statement on Twitter saying that he would be -- that he has spoken, I should say, with Colonel Bill Bryant of the Arkansas State Police and the local arrest incident in Crawford County will be investigated pursuant to the video evidence and the request of the prosecuting attorney.

Now, it's also important to note that it can't get to any sort of potential charges until this state investigation plays out and, of course, that's what we're watching for. But in the meantime, this video is circulating across the internet, across many parts of the world and people are upset and they want answers.

BERMAN: We know you will stay on it. Omar Jimenez, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

COLLINS: Meanwhile, Russian authorities are now launching a murder investigation after the daughter of the nationalist philosopher, Alexander Dugin, was killed in an apparent car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow.

[07:05:05]

Russia's investigative committee believes that someone planted explosives and ordered the attack. 29-year-old Darya Dugina has died at the scene. She was a Russian T.V. commentator and outspoken supporter of Russia's actions in Ukraine. And her father, Alexander Dugin, owned the car and might have been the intended target. He is an influential writer in Russia. He advocates for an aggressive imperialist Russia and many believe that his ideas hold sway inside the Kremlin.

Some Russian officials are already blaming Ukraine for the deadly bombing, but a top adviser to President Zelenskyy says that Ukraine had nothing to do with it.

Joining us now is retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons. Obviously, still a lot unknown about this, but what is your sense of what you're seeing right now and what we do know?

MAJOR MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED): Yes. My take, this is a botched assassination attempt. If it was done by Russia, a Russian insider to try to take him out, the Russian state would have done a better job, would have made sure that they had that target.

If Ukraine is involved, hard to think that that's the case that is correct they have people that far inside of Russia to do something like this. Car bomb, old school assassinate assassination attempt. Clearly, if he's the target, she gets in the wrong car, we know that those are facts. He really was not a Kremlin insider but, again, there could be organized crime, lots of things happening in Russia.

Now, Russia state might use this for their own propaganda against Ukraine. That's likely what they will do with this. But this is really, again, a botched assassination attempt using old school methods to try to get something done.

BERMAN: And that's the real question, what happens now, because it's not known who did this and the Ukrainians, of course, deny any connection to it, whatsoever. But we're already seeing -- we just saw a post right now a few seconds ago, Russian media personalities are calling on Russia to respond to this by bombing Kyiv. So, where do you see this going next?

LYONS: Yes. They could use that as an excuse to do that, this classic false flag for something that happens inside of Russia. But, again, so far inside the country, I just find it hard to believe that Ukraine had anything to do with it. There's not much more that can come out of this, but Russia will do it from a leverage perspective.

COLLINS: They are already using it to their advantage right now. We will see what that looks like going forward.

I do want to ask you about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is inside of Ukraine. It provides a fifth of their electricity. There are major concerns right now coming from a nuclear watchdog, a monitoring agency that is trying to get to the plant and their concern basically is that -- and the world's concern really is that this continued shelling could cause an insane meltdown if that goes on. What's your sense of the latest of what's happening?

LYONS: We have to be concerned, no question about it. It's a nuclear facility. It's been hardened though in the past few years. And while nuclear facilities are designed to withstand earthquakes, they are not really designed to withstand war zones. But there's a lot more concrete, there's a lot more to it.

I don't see more of a Chernobyl situation where an explosion takes place and fallout goes for hundreds of miles. If something did happen with targeting, if one of those reactors goes down, you will likely see potential nuclear waste put in the area there and destroy the local, let's say, or gets into the Dnipro River and goes downstream.

Nuclear power plants are built by rivers. They have that because you need the water for the cooling side of it. But the other issue is Russia wants this nuclear plant. They want to connect it to the Crimean. They want to take it off of the Ukraine grid. And by doing that, they're going to have to bring in other power. That's a real tricky maneuver from a nuclear facility perspective. They are going to have to come up with another power source and the generators that they have there likely won't do it long enough. That's the race against time for them to do it.

BERMAN: To what extent are they just trying to raise the stakes for the U.S. and the west in their assistance to Ukraine by saying, hey, if you guys are going to continue to send weapons into Ukraine we're sitting right here by this nuclear power plant?

LYONS: They're using it as protection. They're putting ammunition there. You see that the Ukraine military is going into Crimea now, going after ammunition dumps. If you are the Russian military, you are going to put military equipment by it knowing full well that Ukraine won't likely attack it, it's just too dangerous.

COLLINS: And the issue is that Russia wants the inspectors from this nuclear watchdog agency to come in through Russia. The Ukrainians don't want that because, basically, how do you think this gets resolved?

LYONS: Well, they want to control that narrative and eventually they want to demilitarize, but they're not going to do that. Russia is not going to give this up. They took it early in the conflict. They want it for their eventual end goals. And so Russia is going to, again, try to control the narrative. They will likely use it as a way not to have those inspectors show up.

BERMAN: All right. Major Mike Lyons, great to see you this morning, thank you so much for being with us. COLLINS: The Justice Department is facing a deadline this week and that might mean a heavily redacted version of the search warrant that was used -- the affidavit that was used for that search warrant and that was executed on Mar-a-Lago. So, we will see just how much could we see.

And also, will Democrats be able to sell voters on their latest legislative wins? We will tell you the key primary races ahead.

BERMAN: Plus, is two times the charm? Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck tying the knot again.

[07:10:02]

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BERMAN: This week, the Department of Justice will present which portions of the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit it thinks should be redacted and why. This has many people wondering what might be learned from the eventual release of the document. Some of Donald Trump's allies have pushed for the release of documents but the Department of Justice says it has concerns that the unredacted documents could compromise its investigation and reveal sensitive national security information.

With us now is former Deputy Attorney General under President H.W. Bush Donald Ayer. Thank you so much for being with us.

How much do you think the Department of Justice will try to redact here if they have their way?

DONALD AYER, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Well, I think they're quite reluctant to get into the substance of the grounds for the search. And the reason why is that it clearly rests on information that they got from a variety of sources.

[07:15:05]

And it's going to -- to the degree it's disclosed, it's going to give information about or at least the possibility of tipping people off as to who those sources are and also information about perhaps things that are relating to the ongoing investigation.

So, I think it's going to be quite a difficult process to do anything more than turn over the introductory material, the part at the beginning that describes, you know, the place to be searched and things like that. Of course, how hard it is depends on what's in it and none of us know at this point.

COLLINS: Yes. So, take us inside the Justice Department right now. You obviously spent a lot of time there. What is happening right now and what kind of conversations are they having ahead of this deadline Thursday? Because this is not -- the outcome they wanted was a judge saying this can stay completely sealed and the judge clearly would like to see something from the Justice Department on this matter. AYER: Right. Well, I think -- I think they -- they know that there's enormous public interest about it and there's a legitimate public interest in wanting to know what went on. But they are also focused primarily given what they understand about the case in protecting the sources that they have. And in this case, I think it's a very real concern to protect any -- any sources, confidential sources, against intimidation and Lord knows what might occur. Also we don't really know where this investigation may be headed and to what degree disclosures may be disruptive of that.

You know, one of the things that's hard to grasp because it's kind of abstract, but what's in the affidavit is significant not just by itself but in the context of what else people know. And what else people know is a function of an enormous amount of public information that most of us don't know anything about, but some people do. So, trying to figure out what you're going to tell people by giving them bits of information is a difficult thing.

So, they're kind of between a bit of a rock and a hard place. They want to make it seem that they're turning over some real information, but I think, for very legitimate reasons, they're very reluctant to get into that substance.

BERMAN: And part of it is the very nature of an affidavit used in a search warrant application is fundamentally in opposition with transparency to the public during an investigation. Explain why that is.

AYER: Well, that's right. Because an investigation, depending on its nature, is looking into things that are not generally known and, you know, again, a lot depends on how this fits into what else may be out there to be investigated, but you can't conduct a serious criminal investigation while you're putting up on billboards all the facts you have and all the information that you have and a roadmap as to where you may be going. I think it's traditional and widely recognized that that's true.

So, it's actually quite unusual that an affidavit and circumstance like this, leaving out the fact that Donald Trump is involved here, but just the idea that you would reveal it while an investigation is still going on is quite unusual, and yet this is such an unusual case because of who the subject is and the fact that it was the home of the former president.

So, as I say, they need to be responsive to the public interests and the public concerns, but they also have to look after their own investigation.

COLLINS: Yes. I think rock and a hard place is a good description of that.

Don, I also want to get your assessment of what's happening with Senator Lindsey Graham who, of course, got this -- now has this temporary reprieve in having to testify in the investigation that's happening in Georgia, and, of course, the major efforts there to overturn the election by former President Trump and his allies. He has this temporary reprieve. Do you think it's going to last, because he's kind of been arguing that he doesn't have to testify given he is a sitting lawmaker?

AYER: Yes. What Lindsey Graham argued in his motion to quash the subpoena, which was a subpoena to come and appear before the grand jury and answer questions about a number of things, which included but weren't limited to phone calls that he made to Georgia, apparently, on their face to try to influence the way they were counting the votes and where they would come out, he made an argument that he had a right to have the subpoena totally quashed, which is to say, basically gotten rid of. So, he would not even need to show up.

That argument on its face is -- is -- I would say, it's actually frivolous because there is a speech or debate clause privilege, and it's significant, and it protects a senator's legislative activities, but it doesn't protect a lot of other things, like public statements that he makes or public advocacy or communications with other people or certainly an effort to try to influence administrative processes in a state.

[07:20:28]

So, he doesn't have a leg to stand on when he says I shouldn't have to answer any questions.

What happened here was the district court recognized that he was wrong in his sweeping claim and said, okay, look, I'm sending this back to the state and you go and appear. And if you have objections, you can object. You can say, I'm not answering that question because of my speech or debate clause privilege and that would then be reviewed if he has a specific basis.

He then made a motion for a stay to the appellate court and the appellant court essentially qualified or it altered that outcome and said, okay, you don't have to appear, we're going to direct the district court to see if the court can enter an order that would carve out some areas, just some areas, where you don't have to answer any questions. So, that's where it's at now. It's back to the district court in the 11th Circuit said come back to us when you're done and see what the district court comes up with.

I think it's pretty clear from the appellate court order in his favor that he's not going to win the sweeping argument that he simply doesn't have to appear. Now, the question is how long is all of this going to take. And I don't think we really know, but I think everyone knows it's something that needs to be expedited.

BERMAN: Right. But it's -- he is not testifying this week or next week, which was on the schedule. Donald Ayer, thank you so much for helping us understand.

AYER: Thank you.

BERMAN: Some key primary races tomorrow in New York. Harry Enten here with a preview. COLLINS: We will discuss those races and the others that decide the balance of the House with Congressman Don Beyer, who is going to be joining me live, next.

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[07:25:00]

BERMAN: Critical primary elections right here in New York tomorrow. CNN Senior Data Reporter and son of New York --

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: It's true.

BERMAN: -- Harry Enten joins us now.

One of the races because of redistricting pits two powerful Democratic incumbents against each other.

ENTEN: Yes, it does. And I will tell you, I live right in this district and I've seen literally Jerry Nadler's office right across the street from Carolyn Maloney's office. It's like the funniest darn thing. So, these are the betting odds of winning this House seat and at least the primary. It's a chance of winning.

And what I want you to notice is the trend line. Jerry Nadler, I think, has become well-known nationally because of his role in the House overseeing the Trump administration, is the heavy favorite to win with an 88 percent chance of winning. But look where that was at the beginning of the month on August 1. In fact, Carolyn Maloney, who is also a long-time rep from the city of New York, was at a 54 percent chance of winning.

There has been a lot of data that's come out that suggest that Nadler is the favorite. He has also got the endorsement from Chuck Schumer, he's got the endorsement from The New York Times and it does seem that the primary momentum it heading in his election.

BERMAN: And, again, these are two powerful Democratic chairs. Two will enter, one will leave, as they say in Thunder Dome.

Another district that people are looking at sort of this new district in New York City, which has some familiar faces.

ENTEN: Yes, it has some familiar faces. How about Dan Goldman, you've seen him in television plenty. He was a majority counsel during the Trump first impeachment. He entered this race as an underdog. And you can see at the beginning of the month. Again, this is the betting odds chance of winning. He was only at 18 percent chance of winning at the beginning of the month. He has spent so much money, my goodness gracious, you can't turn on the television without seeing an ad from Dan Goldman, he is spending his own money. And look at this, now he has a 60 percent chance of winning.

I should point out, look, that's not a guarantee by far, right? Niou is still at 19 percent, Carlina Rivera at 14 percent. Mondaire Jones, who actually moved from around your neighborhood down because of redistricting at only about a 4 percent chance.

BERMAN: This is a sitting congressman who had to move districts because of redistricting now in an uphill battle.

There is a special election to fill a seat. Now, this district is actually being sort of redrawn and sort of goes away so it's only temporary, but it's held by a Democrat now.

ENTEN: Correct, it's held by a Democrat rep, Antonio Delgado, left to become the lieutenant governor of New York. Look, Biden won this district by two points back in 2020. But look here, the betting odd chance of winning the Republican candidate, Marc Molinaro, with a 70 percent chance, Pat Ryan at 30 percent chance.

Again, we shouldn't be shocked if Ryan won, but Molinaro the favorite going in into tomorrow.

BERMAN: But, again, special elections are really interested to look at because it's real voters, you can see trends of people how they actually vote, not just the polls, and we've seen some interesting trends in turnout. People were wondering would the abortion decision drive Democrats to the polls. What are you seeing?

ENTEN: Yes. So, this is just going to look at primary turnout, the change 2022 from 2018. And what do we see here? Overall, this entire primary season, Democrats are down 5, Republicans are up 20 percent. But look here by the Dobbs decision. Since the Dobbs decision, Democratic turnout in states that have voted, the turnout is actually down 8 percent. Pre-June 24th, it was down 3 percent. That's basically within sort of a margin of error, right, but does not seem like Dobbs has been driving Democrats to the polls in the states where abortion isn't specifically on the ballot. You see Republican turnout still up. It does seem to be a little bit down after Dobbs but pretty much all of that is in the state of Tennessee.

BERMAN: What else are you seeing in terms of enthusiasm and the like?

ENTEN: Right. So, do what we see in real world look like the polls? And, here, this is absolutely almost certain to vote in the midterms, the poll since July 1st.

[07:30:02]

What do we see here?