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Reporting Reveals National Archives in Contact with Former President Trump over Missing Documents Months Earlier Than Previously Believed; Justice Department Facing Deadline to Turn Over Redacted Version of Affidavit for FBI Search of Former President Trump's Residence at Mar-a-Lago. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 25, 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]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The original "Pinocchio" also one of the few movies that has 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know how I like to keep my finger on the pulse, the vibe of what's going on out there. And on the Twitters, people are saying that this trailer is a little creepy.

JIMENEZ: I honestly think "Pinocchio," I don't want to ruin "Pinocchio," I think it's a little creepier than people think.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Do I need to stand up for "Pinocchio" here?

COLLINS: "Pinocchio" is fine.

JIMENEZ: It's a great movie. But I'm like, I think maybe I've seen too many horror movies, like, I feel like a doll coming to life --

BERMAN: These are harsh lessons, too harsh, maybe. Omar, thank you very much for that.

COLLINS: And NEW DAY continues right now.

BERMAN: It turns out the National Archives has been after Donald Trump to turn over documents since the waning days of his presidency. I'm John Berman. Brianna is off. CNN chief White House correspondent and "Pinocchio" fan Kaitlan Collins is here.

COLLINS: And I know a thing or two about Trump, so we've got a lot to talk about when it comes to that.

BERMAN: Not making any connections.

We begin with the new CNN reporting overnight involving a newly revealed email from the National Archives, an email that shows just how long Donald Trump has been holding sensitive documents that the archives did not think should be in his position at all. The email indicates that records were not returned despite a determination by a top White House lawyer that they had to be. According to a source throughout 2021, there are about a dozen emails and calls including a May 2021 email from the National Archives to Trump's lawyers that reads in part, "It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the White House over the course of President Trump's last year in office and have not been transferred to the archives despite a determination by Pat Cipollone," the White House counsel, "in the final days of the administration that they need to be." "The Washington Post" was the first to report on this email.

COLLINS: Also this morning, the Justice Department has got a clock that is now ticking as they are facing a noon deadline to turn over a redacted version of the affidavit that was behind that FBI search of Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago. A judge will then decide whether or not to release that version given him by the Justice Department, or keep it shielded from public view.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us now. And Katelyn, this judge had been very skeptical of not making any of this public given just how many people are interested in this case. So what do you think is going to happen in the next four hours or so?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Hard to predict. We might not even see anything today. This submission from the Justice Department regarding this affidavit is supposed to be happening under seal, so the Justice Department will make their proposals confidentially to the judge. The judge will look at it confidentially, may even make a ruling confidentially.

One of the things the Justice Department is really concerned about is they want to protect, in FBI speak, sources and methods. That means witnesses and their investigative techniques. So they really do want to protect what they learned that culminated in them going and doing this search at Mar-a-Lago.

But you mentioned, John was mentioning that "Washington Post" story last night, that really filled in some backstory about what happened before this became a criminal investigation after January of this year. So last year there was this message of concern that was radiating from the National Archives toward the Trump lawyers. Gary Stern, the general counsel at the Archives was essentially pleading with the Trump team, we know you have boxes, you know you have boxes, we think there are two dozen there. Please give them back, how can we get them. We are under the impression that there are reasons you need to give them back, that they are federal government records.

The Archives at the time also believed there were specific things that Trump had that should have been back in the possession after the presidency with the federal government, things like that hurricane map with the sharpie drawn on it, things like Kim Jong-un love letter and Obama to Trump letter.

And then ultimately, in January of this year, the boxes were given back to the archives, at least 15 out of those expected 24 were given back, and that's when things got really serious. That's when the Archives saw that there were classified markings on documents there. All of that becomes part of what happened in this case before the Justice Department took over, and then ultimately what the Justice Department would be using as they built this case to go to the judge to need to do that search at Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago.

COLLINS: Big questions about what we may or may not see. Katelyn Polantz, thank you for breaking it all down for us.

And joining us now is Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, and Abby Phillip, CNN's senior political correspondent and anchor of INSIDE POLITICS. Thank you both for being here. And Elliot, I want to start with you, because, what are we -- you heard Katelyn break that down of there is this line of what to show and what to not reveal.

[08:05:06]

And so I'm wondering what is happening behind closed doors at the Justice Department this morning.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right, well, whether it is this morning or over the last couple of weeks, what the Justice Department has been doing is determining how they could propose to the judge how they'd redact the document in a manner that would be useful for the public interest.

Now, of course, let's be clear, the Justice Department does not want to release this at all, but a judge told them to, so they're going to comply with that order, seeing what they could take out. My guess is that a lot of that document, to a point of being just 20 pages of black boxes, is going to end up being redacted. They're going to put those together, turn them over to the judge today, and at some point the judge will weigh what the Justice Department has done and decide whether this is worth releasing to the public.

Again, my guess is that it's going to be incredibly hard to redact this document in a manner that is useful for anyone. Other than anyone who just doesn't love seeing black lines on paper, it's just going to be really hard to find.

BERMAN: Abby, there are limitations, given the limitations, and we should be clear, we don't think we're necessarily going to see any of this today, but what's the potential impact if and when some of this does go public?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY: Well, it's unclear because we don't know what might be revealed, but you have to think that a lot of this has already come out in various forms. The Trump team has put out their version of events in a separate legal case that is full of all kinds of assertions. And you have to wonder if there is a corresponding side of this from the Justice Department that now ought to be revealed because the Trump team has already put out quite a lot of that out there.

So if that were the case, that would be interesting. But one of the things about this situation is that more disclosure in this case has not really helped Trump. The more we learn about what has gone on over the last year-and-a-half, the more we learned about communications between the Archives and the Trump team and the Justice Department and the Trump team, the worse this seems for Trump. And so I'm not sure that there is a whole lot that is in here that would be helpful to the Trump team, which is probably why they haven't been saying a whole lot about whether the affidavit ought to be released. But this is a case where the facts have not really been in their favor, and I don't really expect that to change, no matter how much of the affidavit is released.

COLLINS: Yes, they said publicly they would like for it to be released, but they haven't said that in court.

Elliot, when it comes to the reporting from "The Washington Post" that CNN has confirmed that these conversations between people who were representing Trump and the National Archives went way back further than we thought, when Abby is saying the more that comes out, the less it looks good for the legal team for Trump, you know, they have shifted lawyers, they have shifted representatives a few times, but what does it say to you that Pat Cipollone, according to this attorney for the National Archives, even acknowledged that, yes, this is not stuff that belongs to Donald J. Trump. It's stuff that belongs to the federal government?

WILLIAMS: Look, yes, the more that comes out, the more it looks bad. That is -- it looks bad to people if you believe in the rule of law and if you believe that truth and accuracy is what should guide the day. Now, of course, this is sort of political silly season and a lot of that isn't going to drive the legal process here.

Now, look, this goes back to, I believe, the first communication was 100 days after Trump left office. And if anything, what yesterday's letter showed is that the extended back and forth between the president's -- the former president's lawyers and lawyers either at the Justice Department or at the National Archives. This is in addition to a separate letter that was released the day before from the head of the National Archives to Trump's folks, also detailing a number of communications. It is -- all this is debunking this idea that was put out by the former president's team around the time of the search that the FBI just swept in out of nowhere and that this search was a total shock and a surprise.

What actually happened were months of communications between various government agencies and the president's own team and the White House counsel, the president's handpicked White House counsel, not some deep state hack that the president knew nothing about, all who were in agreement that these documents should have been handed over.

BERMAN: It is so interesting, and Abby, I think you really put it well, which is that the more that comes out, this increased disclosure hasn't necessarily painted a better picture for Donald Trump. I had a lawyer say to me yesterday, it is interesting, sort of the flipside of this, as you keep reading these documents that come out and you see this timeline and how far it extends back, what is actually notable is how nice the Archives were, maybe too nice, that they treated Trump with kid gloves for too long on all of this.

[08:10:07]

PHILLIP: Yes, that struck me too. When you look back at especially some of the earlier letters from the Archives to the Trump team, they're basically, like, we get it, it might have been a misunderstanding, we would like you to give these documents back. They belong in the Archives, we'll help facilitate this, so on and so forth.

But the problem is, and there is a sense, I think, in this -- when one of the letters that was released today that was dated this year in which the Archives was saying we need to send this over to the FBI so they can evaluate whether there has been damage to national security. In that letter, you see the tone changing, because it seems like the archives did not expect that within this tranche of documents there would be classified materials.

If it were just the hurricane map that he put sharpie on, or a memento that he didn't want to let go of, I think that the kind of cordial tone would have continued. But when you're in this area of classified materials, things start to change. And that's when it -- things shifted. And even after things shifted, the correspondences continued. And you see that Trump, as Katelyn reported, Trump came into the room when investigators appeared at Mar-a-Lago and he tried to be nice to them on its face, but the right thing for Trump to do at that moment would have been for him to hand everything over. And the fact that he didn't do that led to a search of his home, and that's why we are here today.

COLLINS: It is pretty remarkable. Correspondence with an attorney for the National Archives is what led to an FBI search of the former president's home.

BERMAN: You think?

COLLINS: But a lot of this is remarkable. Abby, Elliot, thank you so much for joining us and breaking it all down.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Soon this morning, the latest GDP numbers are going to be released. We'll let you know whether or not it is going to ramp down or ramp up the talk about a recession or tamp it down.

BERMAN: And what is Pat Tyan's win in New York signaling about possible Democratic momentum heading into the midterms? He spoke with CNN's Don Lemon, and Don will join us.

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[08:16:02]

BERMAN: A key victory in New York's 19th congressional district with Democrat Pat Ryan winning a very close race, a race that the Republicans had hoped to win, that would have been a pickup for them. The win has some people wondering, could this be a shift in momentum for Democrats?

The congressman-elect sat down with CNN's Don Lemon last night. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT RYAN (D), NEW YORK CONG.-ELECT: We centered this campaign on choice and freedom and standing up at an existential moment in our democracy, and we saw the results. And it is just like what we saw, very similar to what we saw in Kansas when these sort of guardrails of democracy are hit and fundamental rights are ripped away from people, folks stand up and they fight and they rallied to this cause and that -- it is powerful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now is the anchor and creator of "DON LEMON TONIGHT," Don Lemon. He's also the author of the book "This is The Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Race."

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: That is true actually, the creator.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And the best-dressed person on the set.

LEMON: It's summer. It's the last vestiges of summer. I'm trying to get it all in.

COLLINS: I really love your morning outfits. You dress well at night.

LEMON: You wake people, you guys are in the pink. You're not far off. You know?

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Okay. Let's talk about this interview.

COLLINS: Back to Pat Ryan.

BERMAN: With Pat Ryan last night, there was a big special election in New York, you had a chance to talk to him. It was interesting because he basically said, yes, abortion was the issue in this campaign.

LEMON: Yeah, he did. He said abortion was the issue. He centered his campaign around abortion. It's a referendum on what happened in the Dobbs decision. So, yes, that was what he centered around. But also what was important to him is what is important to -- what conservatives say was important to them during the pandemic, my body, my freedom, right, liberty and all those things. Well, that applies for everyone -- to everyone, that applies to Democrats as well.

I think inadvertently, he believes this as well, that Republicans have given Democrats something to, you know to use as a platform come November and come 2024. We'll see how long it lasts. But he believes that that was the cornerstone of his campaign. He was down by 14 points before Dobbs. And then he ended up winning.

He had the same expression, very similar expression, I teased him when he walked into the studio last night, I said you look somebody in 2016 who walked on the stage and had no idea, didn't think they were going to win and he laughed and said, yes, I had no idea, I didn't think I was going to win. My polling, he said, was two weeks behind. This was a complete surprise to him.

COLLINS: And what is interesting about how he -- you know, this has now changed the national landscape for the elections in November. He started running on this after the decision leaked. He didn't wait until the actual ruling came down. There were some criticism, maybe the White House wasn't prepared as they should be since they knew it was coming, he started running on it as soon as it was reported by "Politico" that this was likely coming from the Supreme Court.

LEMON: Yeah, and he said when it leaked, he had people who according to him who were crying because of this decision. He also said that it was -- he believes that to everyone, the electorate, to all stripes, political stripes, he believes it is a harbinger of things to come.

He talked about a shop owner, a business owner, a member of the LGBTQ community, in an interracial relationship, who said I'm concerned about my husband and I that we won't have the same rights that we have, that people we know who are part of the LGBTQ community are just at large won't be able to have the basic right of every American that is to freedom and that is to be married, liberty as we say.

So that helped him. It helped him. And he is hearing it from people. I did ask him, I said, do you think you, you know, gained the support of some Republicans and some independents? He said absolutely. That was the only way he won.

BERMAN: Democrats hope it is repeatable in 11 weeks or so. Let's talk about student loans.

LEMON: Yeah.

BERMAN: Who had student loans here?

LEMON: I did not have student loans.

BERMAN: I had student loans.

COLLINS: Still have student loans.

BERMAN: Yeah. It's a burden.

So, President Biden just announced this loan forgiveness, $10,000 for anyone making under $125,000, $20,000 for people under $125,000 of income who received Pell grants.

[08:20:07]

This will give relief to millions of Americans, but there are those who say it's unfair. There are also those who say it doesn't help certain people enough, Don.

LEMON: Look, when you think about people who have loans, look, I'm not -- I'm speaking from a privileged position. I did not have student loans. I worked my way through college. I was on the ten-year plan. It took me a while to get through college. There is a story behind that. But I'm speaking from a privileged position, someone who does not have debt, who is not saddled with student loan debt, but I just want to read part of the letter I got after last night, this woman who said she was a physician, and she talks about how tough it is for her.

She says: I may or may not be dramatically more consequential for those with lower incomes and with equal or lesser educational debt, but I cannot speak for that portion of the population. I would like to suggest it is not a poor investment in U.S. professionals.

And she said she would have had about $400,000, $400,000 in medical training that she got, she would have been saddled with that debt if it were not for an armed forces health professions scholarship that covered the vast majority of my professional medical education.

So it is not just people who are, you know, applying for, who are seeking sort of lower income professions. This runs the gamut.

And I think, look, again, as I say, I speak from a position of privilege, I think that people should abide by their commitment, if you have a loan, you should pay it back. We should also have that same energy for the people who are getting, you know, tax breaks, very wealthy people, the wealthy corporations and companies who got PPE loans and what have you.

So, I think there is a middle ground there somewhere, but I don't think, honestly, if you believe in this, I don't think $10,000 or $20,000 is really going to make that big of a dent. It is a start.

But when you think about what it costs to go to college now, some -- Columbia, one of my producers, her daughter is going to Columbia, $60,000 a year, that's a lot of dough. The big question, the thing we should be talking about is why is higher education so important? And why aren't Republicans and Democrats doing more to invest in higher education and to bring those costs down? That's the more important conversation.

COLLINS: It's bigger conversation because it is not just about this decision that Biden has made now, and how it affects people, I think it does a lot of help. I spoke to several people yesterday, family members of mine that this is going to be --

LEMON: It is going to help.

COLLINS: -- a huge relief to them.

LEMON: But it's not a ton of dough.

COLLINS: It's not a ton, but also the vicious cycle of debt that people get, it is continuing. College tuition is still going up.

BERMAN: I was surprised by the number of people for whom their total college debt is between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

LEMON: $10,000 and $20,000.

BERMAN: $10,000 and $20,000, this will wipe out the debt for a lot of people, a lot more people don't realize.

LEMON: That's good. It costs a lot of money to go to college now, and a lot more than $10,000 or $20,000 for some folks.

BERMAN: Dude, I got two 15-year-olds, believe me, believe me, that's why I sweat half the time I'm on the set.

LEMON: I was speaking to someone, a professional who makes good money yesterday on the phone, she said, Don, I just have come to the conclusion that I'm not going to ever pay off my student loans. That's just the reality.

COLLINS: Okay.

LEMON: Yeah.

COLLINS: We have something else to talk about.

LEMON: What do you want to talk about?

COLLINS: Not as serious as student debt or abortion. That is doppelgangers, because there is some new science on this, John. Would you like to share with us?

BERMAN: You're going to make me explain this science. There is this study which looked at people who look exactly alike but aren't related, and they tried to figure out what the connection was. And, Don, you actually -- you did a segment on this last night.

COLLINS: I did a segment on it last night. I spoke to two people in this "New York Times" article and part of the study for these doppelgangers, and I spoke with the doctor who helped to conduct the study, and it is people who have not the same DNA, but very similar DNA.

Look, I'm not a scientist or physiologist or whatever it is, it's people who studied genomes and all of that, I don't know. But they said there are only so many faces in the world. You notice that, I said for years, I see people all the time and I think it is other people and I said there are only so many faces in the world.

And basically he's confirming that. He said there are so many people in the world that the system is just sort of re-creating itself. Repeating itself, I should say.

COLLINS: I think the question that everyone watching has is there another Don Lemon?

LEMON: Yes. Here is my doppelganger. Can I -- can we bring my -- come on.

COLLINS: It's a live doppelganger.

LEMON: Come on. Come on. Come on.

BERMAN: This is a nine-minute windup for this. LEMON: So, I brought my doppelganger.

COLLINS: Your doppelganger's name is Boomer.

BERMAN: You came with the white suit. You can do that in a white suit?

LEMON: It's all right. This is okay. This is my doppelganger Boomer. And, boomer, look, we look exactly -- wow, right in the --

BERMAN: You have a lot of the same characteristics. I noticed that move before.

[08:25:00]

COLLINS: You guys look a lot alike.

LEMON: Boomer, say hi, you're a famous dog.

I also have two other -- I have your doppelganger at home and I have yours, but I couldn't bring all three of them because they fight. I have one that is a pandemic puppy, 13 years old. And he reminds me of you. He's a middle aged grumpy man.

And then I have a cute fluffy white dog named Barkley who is a little sharp around the edges, but a sweetheart, and I couldn't bring, because Barkley and Gus, Gus, Gus don't get along that well.

COLLINS: I much prefer my doppelgangers to be a dog.

LEMON: Boomer and I --

BERMAN: Gus is the grumpy middle aged white man.

LEMON: Yeah, we often separate by race in our home two. Why do we separate by race? Both the white dogs are with me in the living room and Boomer is with you in the bedroom. It is because he's my doppelganger.

COLLINS: John, who is your doppelganger actually? Besides --

BERMAN: George Clooney. George Clooney.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: I'm telling you what people say. What people say is George Clooney. I don't know.

LEMON: You look exactly like George Clooney.

BERMAN: Yeah, that's what I say.

COLLINS: It's uncanny the resemblance.

LEMON: You better look out. George Clooney is my hall pass, by the way. (LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: This is veering off the rails for 8:25 in the morning. People are on their second cup of coffee still, maybe. There is a dog on set.

LEMON: Okay, Boomer.

COLLINS: All right. Boomer can stay. Don Lemon, we'll see you later tonight on CNN at 10:00 p.m.

BERMAN: It is great to see you.

LEMON: You as well.

BERMAN: Have an awesome day.

LEMON: See you.

COLLINS: Chaos.

BERMAN: Okay.

LEMON: Okay, Boomer.

BERMAN: A teacher in Oklahoma resigned because of a state law requiring teachers to sensor books in classroom libraries. What is driving this trend? We have a reality check next.

COLLINS: We also have new fallout this morning after a whistleblower called Twitter a threat, not just to national security, but also to democracy.

BERMAN: You're calling me grumpy on live TV.

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[08:30:00]