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Trump Asks for Special Master to Review Seized Documents; Former Twitter Executive Turns Whistleblower; What to Watch in Today's Primaries in Florida and New York. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 23, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Attorneys for former President Trump taking their first legal action since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago.

I'm John Berman. Brianna is off. Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is here. Great to see you.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And we have no shortage of news this morning, John.

BERMAN: No. You come to anchor but you also come as part of the CNN reporting team on this news we have right now.

The Trump team is asking a federal judge to appoint a special master, this would be an independent lawyer, to review what the FBI has taken from Trump's Florida estate. Trump in the new filing asks for a more detailed receipt of what was removed from Mar-a-Lago and for the government to return any seized documents that were, quote, not within the scope of the search warrant.

COLLINS: Plus, we have a major CNN exclusive this morning. The Justice Department has issued a new grand jury subpoena to the National Archives for more documents as part of its investigation into the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

Joining us now are former Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense Ryan Goodman and former Prosecutor in the New York District Attorney's Office Rebecca Roiphe. Thank you both so much for being here on what we said was definitely no shortage of news this morning.

I wonder, what's your reaction to this first filing that we got from Trump's legal team yesterday. It took two weeks for them to get there. And they are now asking for this third party attorney. But I think some are wondering if it's too late?

RYAN GOODMAN, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL TO THE GENERAL COUNSEL OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: It does seem too late. It's two weeks after the search began. So, you'd actually think this should be filed hours after the search began. And it's a reasonable request in some sense to ask for something like this, a third party, to basically -- COLLINS: Why is it reasonable?

GOODMAN: Well, it's reasonable because they might just think -- we don't necessarily trust the way in which the FBI will conduct it. We want an objective third party institution that will review everything and then sort out what the government should have versus what they shouldn't have.

But the content of the request is also quite bizarre, because what they're saying the government shouldn't have is not ordinary at all.

BERMAN: Let's talk about that a little bit. The cork that I think you're pointing out is they're saying, we want this special master to remove documents that may be covered by executive privilege but this may be apples and oranges, Rebecca, because would executive privilege shield access to the investigation of the documents that the DOJ says it was after, which is documents that violate the Espionage Act, documents that could be classified, documents that could be top secret should be in the basement of the former president?

REBECCA ROIPHE, FORMER PROSECUTOR, NEW YORK DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: Right. I mean, you're exactly right. There are essentially two things that make the request bizarre. One is that they are asserting executive privilege against the executive branch. I mean, the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch. So, that's bizarre to start with.

And then second point is that, obviously, these sorts of documents belong in the National Archives. This is precisely why they are to be held by the government itself, not by somebody who is a former president or anybody else.

COLLINS: One part of the filing that stood out to me, as you read it, and really everyone should read it because it really is a lot of insight how the legal team has been thinking behind the scenes and what they've been saying, they say they're critical of the fact that this search warrant was signed off on by this judge on a Friday afternoon, about 15 minutes afternoon, but the search wasn't conducted until that following Monday. But that's pretty standard, isn't it?

GOODMAN: Highly standard, and especially because they seem to have anticipated it would take several hours. So, if you're going to get to the estate that afternoon, then when do you wrap up? So, it's just allowing the weekend to pass so that they can prepare for the search and then conduct it on the next business day.

BERMAN: We see the goal here as is this to win every legal point, which is actually pretty narrow request, or is this a delay, to slow things down, to muck up the works?

ROIPHE: I think it's a P.R. move. I mean, this was so bizarre. First of all, it was styled as a civil lawsuit but there's no defendant. There's no case, really. I mean, you can't just file this -- you know, I want this, kind of randomly. So, that combined with the kind of legal arguments in it makes me think that this was never really intended to get legal relief but rather as a kind of move to make a statement to the public.

COLLINS: Probably, the part that stood out the most to me, which is how they confirmed that Trump did try to get a message to Attorney General Garland. And he did so via counsel, his counsel, speaking Jay Bratt, who was the top Justice Department official leading in this investigation. And in the filing that Trump's team submitted, they said that what Trump wanted to relay to him was President Trump wants the attorney general to know that he has been hearing from the people all over the country about the raid. There was one word to describe it. It is angry. The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know. What did you make of that, Ryan?

GOODMAN: I thought it was really extraordinary that they confirmed it and they gave us the exact language.

[07:05:02]

When it was first reported in the news that Trump had reached out to Garland, that raised real concerns, like why is he doing this? That seems inappropriate. When President Clinton had met with the attorney general at the time that Hillary Clinton was under investigation, folks thought that shouldn't have even happened. And here we have them admitting to the exchange or the outreach.

And the outreach itself, the content of it is, itself, concerning because it does seem to suggest that he's hanging over the head of Garland and the Justice Department the threats that are coming now at law enforcement agents and the like, which are, in large part, coming from him in terms of the rhetoric that he's been using.

So, what an odd thing to actually admit, maybe it's to try to legitimize it in a certain sense, where I'm just putting it out there when you do it out in the open. It seems as though it's more legitimate. But also that was really a surprise to me to see it in that document.

COLLINS: You know what it reminded me of is when Trump was being impeached the second time when he tried to get in touch with House Speaker Pelosi. He'd gotten wind that she was going to try to take the steps to do that and he tried to call her to basically get her to stop.

BERMAN: You know, if you're Merrick Garland, how do you read that? I mean, we talked about this when we broke the story about this offer. But when Merrick Garland reads that, what do you think he thinks?

ROIPHE: I mean, the funny thing is that the former president doesn't understand that certain people in certain roles just don't respond in the same way that he does. Merrick Garland just rolls his eyes at that. He's doing his job. He has his head down following facts and thinking how they apply to the law. And this idea that some people might be feeling certain ways or that Trump knows certain people and feels the heat, that isn't actually going to affect him in any way.

So, he's reacting just as we're reacting, which is to think, this is bizarre, why is he doing that, and, if anything, it makes him look guilty.

BERMAN: I should note, Maggie Haberman broke that story of that outreach, that bizarre outreach from Trump. Maggie is actually part of a reporting team in The New York Times that has some new information well this morning as well about how the Justice Department has approached this for months, but more specifically now, including the DOJ is actually asking for a second round of security footage. We know they subpoenaed some security footage from Mar-a-Lago.

This is what The Times writes. While much of the footage showed hours of club employees walking through the busy corridor, some of it raise concerns for investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases appearing to change the containers some documents were held in. And seeking a second round of security footage, the Justice Department wants to review tapes for the weeks leading up to the August 8th search.

So, two thing here that are both interesting. Number one, appearing to change containers some documents were held in. Why would that raise alarms for an FBI that was already looking into this?

GOODMAN: So, it might depend on who exactly is changing those change containers and the fact that they're accessing the highly classified documents that shouldn't be like moved around in that sense. So, I think that's really important. And that seems to have influenced them in terms of when they decided to do the search because they were apparently alarmed by this and thought there's a real security breach at a minimum. And now it's really smart to get additional surveillance to see who is accessing the documents right up into the search itself. It would show a lot as to both the concerns that they have from a counterintelligence perspective but also potentially for criminality.

COLLINS: What did you make of that?

ROIPHE: So, I think the sheer number of documents involved here make it very hard to claim that this was accidental, by mistake, I just stuck a document in my briefcase. But then here, if you have the actual moving from one container to another, that also makes it looks like this was a very intentional move. This was something done by somebody who had instructed, you know, I want to take these, I want to move them, I want to hide them.

BERMAN: Rebecca, thank you both very much for being with us, Ryan, great to see you this morning.

Now, we have a CNN exclusive, security vulnerabilities at Twitter posing a threat to national security and democracy. That explicit whistleblower exposure was obtained by CNN and The Washington Post, and it comes from Twitter's former head of security. Peter Zatko's claims were sent last month to Congress and several federal agencies. Zatko paints a picture of a chaotic, reckless environment at Twitter, calling it a mismanaged company that allows too many of its staffers to access the platform's most sensitive information without adequate oversight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEITER MUDGE ZATKO, TWITTER WHISTLEBLOWER: One of the reasons people might have, you know, ubiquitous access is because an environment doesn't know what or where the data is. And they just want to start up a new service and just have it magically work. Bringing a person on and they'll have access to the document without having to go ask permission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan broke this story and he's back with us this morning with the details. And, Donie, just explain exactly why this is a threat to national security.

[07:10:01]

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's so much in this disclosure, and I've been trying to think how to break it down. Why should we care about this? Why should people who don't use Twitter give a damn about this?

Well, we saw in 2020 teenagers, teenagers hacked Twitter. And at the time, they had control of Obama's accounts and then Presidential Candidate Joe Biden's accounts, and then others, like Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk.

Think about how many government officials, how many presidents around the world use Twitter to make statements, to make declarations. Think about if it wasn't just teenagers who were doing a crypto scam but it was a foreign government that got that access, and that could potentially put those statements out there.

That is why these cybersecurity issues at Twitter matter. And we have heard, from this whistleblower, the former head of security. And I want to play a bit of sound for you now from both the whistleblower and his lawyer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZATKO: Your whole perception of the world is made from what you are seeing, reading and consuming online. And if you don't have an understanding of what's real, what's not, what data to trust, what not to, whether you're information that you're producing could be misused or could be accessed by the foreign agent to identify patterns may or may not even be there, yes, I think this is pretty scary.

JOHN TYE, FOUNDER, WHISTLEBLOWER AID: We think it's important that the law enforcement agencies investigate these allegations and do their job. They are charged with protecting investors and users so that no social media platform, whether it's this or others, can be abused.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And, look, in this disclosure, they quote from an article that says, if teenagers can hack Twitter in this way, just imagine what Vladimir Putin can do. And we've seen, by the way, I think we have a headline there, a former Twitter employee was accused of spying for Saudi Arabia and was convicted just a few weeks ago.

COLLINS: And you know what, Donie, it's not that they just have these vulnerabilities, what this also alleges is that senior executives at Twitter tried to cover it up. So, what is Twitter saying about that aspect of the disclosure?

O'SULLIVAN: Covering it up both from Twitter's own board but also regulators here in the U.S. and around the world. Twitter is pushing back quite strongly. It points out that Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter for poor performance and ineffective leadership over six months ago. Zatko, by the way, says he was pushed out for retaliation for speaking out.

And what Twitter says, what we've seen so far is a narrative about privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context. It also points out Mr. Zatko's allegations are opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter.

Just very quickly, that's an important line about opportunistic timing. There's a lot in this about bots. Bots is the issue that Elon Musk is clinging on to, to try and get out of his deal with Twitter. We have asked this whistleblower. We have asked his lawyer. Have they anything to do with bots? And they say, no.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, there are two, I think, major things coming out of this. There are many, but the two major ones are security risk, possible security risk, because too many people have access to the inner workings of the accounts and can they get in there, that's one big of it part. And then the other part, Donie, which you just highlighted is that this whistleblower does say there are more bots, which is these fake accounts than Twitter is reporting. And that's something that Elon Musk is hanging his hat on here to try to get out of the Twitter deal.

O'SULLIVAN: And Musk and Twitter go to court in October. And you can bet a lot of what is in this disclosure is going to come up in court.

COLLINS: I have a feeling that Elon is going to be going to be reading your reporting this morning, Donie.

O'SULLIVAN: We're waiting on his tweet.

BERMAN: Which speaks volumes in and of itself, wrap your head around all of that.

O'SULLIVAN: There you go.

BERMAN: Donie, thank you for this reporting.

COLLINS: Thank you, Donie.

BERMAN: So, Americans urged to leave Ukraine this morning as officials warn of intense attacks in the coming days. Dramatic new details on the moment Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer almost came face-to-face with a Proud Boy during the Capitol attack.

COLLINS: And it's primary day in Florida and New York. So, of course, Harry Enten is here to tell you which races to watch.

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[07:15:00]

BERMAN: So, it is primary day in Florida and right here in New York.

Here with a look at the key races, CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. Sir, it's very nice to see you.

Let's talk about Florida first. We're really talking about Democrats running a key primary.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, exactly. So, let's start in Florida, the Democratic gubernatorial primary. This, of course, is to take on Ron DeSantis. We've got an interesting race here. So, we got Charlie Crist, who, of course, is the former government. He is going up against Nikki Fried, who, right now, is the only Dem currently elected to statewide office. Keep in mind, no Democrat has won for governorship in the state of Florida despite it being a swing state since 1994. So, either these candidates win, it may face an uphill battle in the fall.

BERMAN: Obviously, it's big for Democrats. They would like to take on Ron DeSantis as best they can, might be difficult. I want to focus on New York for a second here.

ENTEN: I love those words.

BERMAN: It is right outside our window here. This is a race that pits two chair people in the House against each other. You never see this. Because of redistricting, two leaders of powerful committees are having to face off. In a way, this represents just a failure of redistricting for Democrats.

ENTEN: It absolutely does. Remember, Democrats drew the lines, and then essentially state court of appeals, which essentially would be the Supreme Court and the other state, basically said those lines are unconstitutional, so you had basically a special master drawing the lines.

And Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney basically got drawn into the same district. They are both 30-year incumbents. You basically never see this happen.

[07:20:00]

These two have been in office basically my entire life. And, look, this will be very interesting to see what happens tonight. But, of course, part of the reason why this is so interesting and why it's gotten press is, pretty much, every single national media outlet has a headquarters in this district. It's literally right here.

So, I've seen so many signs for both of these, as I mentioned yesterday, both have offices right across the street from each other on 72nd street. It's going to be a very interesting race.

BERMAN: If we're talking about -- if I can skip ahead and if you can talk about a failure of redistricting for Democrats, you have the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in a very competitive primary. This is not what Sean Patrick Maloney wanted.

ENTEN: This was not what Sean Patrick Maloney wanted. Sean Patrick Maloney runs the DCCC. And he lost most of his constituents in redistricting. His house is actually in the district he's running in. But a lot of progressives were upset that he decided to essentially run the 17th instead of his 18th district. Mondaire Jones basically had to leave the district because of Sean Patrick Maloney. So, Alessandra Biaggi is challenging Maloney from the left. A lot of progressives don't really like Maloney and especially don't like that he's running this district, but we'll see what happens tonight.

BERMAN: Okay. One other race, a House race -- or, actually, there are a few other House races that people are watching in New York, the New York 10th, Daniel Goldman, who was a lawyer on the impeachment hearing, he is running in that, as is Mondaire Jones, who you just mentioned from the other district.

ENTEN: Yes, Mondaire Jones is also running in this district. Oh, my gosh, it's like musical chairs right in this redistricting where people are running in districts you might not be necessarily expecting. Look, Goldman led the majority counsel in Trump's first impeachment. Progressives are fearing that there will be a lot vote splitting between Jones, Niou and Rivera. We'll see what happens here.

House polling very, very difficult, but Goldman spent a lot of money on this race. It would be interesting to see what happens.

BERMAN: So, we were talking primaries, Democrats v. Democrats, but there is a special elections today, and these are ones I know, Harry, that you watch very closely.

ENTEN: These are ones I watch very closely. So, this is in the 19th district. Biden won the district 50 percent to 48 percent in 2020.

This election, though, again, talk about musical chairs and redistricting and how confusing things might me, Pat Ryan, he will actually run in the 18th most likely under the new lines in the fall. This is under the old lines. This is under the old lines. And keep in mind too that there's also going to be a special in the much redder New York 23. But, again, this, I understand the viewers are confused by this, but this election is happening under the old lines while these primaries are happening under the new lines because of redistricting.

BERMAN: Yes. So, don't get too used to this. It's not sticking for terribly long.

ENTEN: These two could actually get in Congress together come 2023.

BERMAN: All right, that explains it. There have been some results we've seen, some special elections, Harry, some trends you've been seeing in the numbers?

ENTEN: Yes. So, part of the reason I love special elections is they're real elections casting real ballots. This isn't just polls. And we can compare it to the 2020 baseline to get an idea of, okay, where is the national environment currently. And pre-Dobbs, what we saw was the Democratic margins and House special elections, Democrats doing six points worse than Biden. In the two specials since Dobbs on average, the Democrats have been doing six points better than Biden on the margin. So, I'm going to be looking at both that New York 19th and that other special.

BERMAN: Dobbs, of course, the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, since then, Democrats have been doing better.

ENTEN: Correct, that's the idea here, whether or not the idea that abortion being on the ballot charges Democratic turnout and maybe changes some swing voters as well. We've seen then some of the specials so far, but there have only been two. That's why I'm looking forward to the two in New York tonight because that might give us a better idea of national environment.

I'm hoping we'll see you tomorrow. We have actual votes to talk about, Harry Enten?

ENTEN: I'm fairly sure you will.

BERMAN: Clear your calendar. Nice to see you.

ENTEN: I have.

COLLINS: We have new details on the heated primary race that's happening here in New York between two longtime colleagues who have worked side by side for 30 years, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Congressman Jerry Nadler. It's a race that has turned ugly in the final days as Nadler and Maloney's fight has really become one of the most extraordinary showdowns, member versus member, that we have seen.

So, for more on this, I want to bring in CNN's Isaac Dovere. Basically, what happens here, these are not how either of these colleagues wanted to go out. And what happens at the end of tonight is that it's a career finisher for one of them.

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: For one or maybe both. There is a third candidate in the race. These two have served alongside each other for 30 years in Congress. They were both first elected in 1992. They worked together. They were political allies. And they're both in their mid-70s now, were drawn into a district together, and neither of them wanted to be the one to leave. They both thought the other should quit and neither one went for it.

So, here we are on primary night, the two of them, we haven't seen a showdown like this. Really, in the last case I that could find, 1932, when two committee chairs were going up against each other. So, this is really unusual. And whatever happens is going to change the way the Democratic power is aligned in New York and in Washington.

COLLINS: And that's the big aspect. It's not just here, it's relevant but in Washington, because Jerry Nadler is the chair of the Judiciary Committee and Carolyn Maloney is the chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee. So, regardless at the end of tonight, what does this mean for Democrats back in Washington?

[07:25:04]

DOVERE: Well, look, Nadler said to me yesterday, I was talking to him on the phone, and he said if we lose one committee chair, which we're going to no matter, it would be bad for New York and losing clout in Washington. And he said, if we lose two, and the other candidate, Suraj Patel, wins, that he said it would be catastrophic.

So, there is this power that amasses in Congress. You know it's about seniority. And these committee chairs are important committee chairs. Judiciary, that's what handles impeachment, everything that goes on with the Justice Department. Oversight is over everything. They're looking into, for example, what happened to those text messages that have disappeared from the Secret Service. All of those things are within their purview in Washington.

But in New York, it's gotten really bitter in these last couple of days, Maloney telling people that she thinks Nadler is half dead. She's quoting things, saying he's senile. And I tracked her down. They wouldn't tell me where she was campaign yesterday. I tracked her down and I tried to ask her about it. She literally went running down the street away from me with her daughter standing like this in the way to stop a sitting member of Congress from answering questions --

COLLINS: Because she didn't want to answer your questions.

DOVERE: Yes. I don't think I'm that scary. But --

COLLINS: I don't think you're scary. You're here answering my questions. It is remarkable and it will be remarkable to see how it plays out. So, hopefully, no one else runs away from you today and they do take your questions. Isaac, thank you so much.

DOVERE: Thank you.

BERMAN: We are not scared by Isaac. We welcome him here. This is a safe place.

New court filings reveal a dramatic close call on January 6th. A member of the Proud Boys was near seconds from coming face-to-face with Senate Majority Chuck Schumer during the Capitol attack.

CNN's Joe Johns is live on Capitol Hill with details. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, this new information is about how close that member of the Proud Boys identified as Joshua Pruitt came to having a close encounter with Senator Schumer and his security detail. There is every indication they came very close.

Schumer on January 6th was in the basement of the Capitol complex with his security detail trying to escape when at that time a member of the detail, identified in the court records as K.F., said he made eye contact with Pruitt and yelled to the other members of the security detail and the senator to evacuate. He said, at that point, he felt like they were being chased. And he heard Pruitt getting louder and louder behind them.

Now, another member of the security detail identified by his initials as M.L. told investigators he believed Pruitt was only four to five seconds away from Senator Schumer. He also wrote a letter to the judge, I'll read you part of it, he said every day I enter the beacon of our country, the U.S. Capitol, I relive the memories of that day. None are more impactful as the moment I saw Mr. Pruitt approaching us with the intent to inflict harm on the majority leader of the United States Senate. Pruitt has pleaded guilty and is expected to be sentenced on Friday. Back to you.

BERMAN: You know, as bad as it was that day, we're constantly reminded the thin margin for it to be even worse. Joe Johns, thank you very much.

So, closer than it was two weeks ago, new details this morning on the Iran nuclear deal possibly being salvaged.

COLLINS: And Pfizer is now seeking authorization for an updated COVID-19 booster. We'll tell you how soon those might roll out.

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