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Redacted Mar-a-Lago Affidavit to Be Released; Biden Slams MAGA Ideology as Moving Toward Semi-Fascism. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 26, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Used to justify the FBI's search of Mar-a- Lago. The department has until noon today to release it. The affidavit lays out why investigators believe there was probable cause that crimes had been committed.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In his order Judge Bruce Reinhart said the Justice Department made a good argument for why portions of this document behind this search should remain shielded saying, quote, "Disclosure would reveal the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents and uncharged parties. The investigation's strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods and grand jury information."

The judge agreeing with the Justice Department's requested cut as we are also learning new details about Trump's strategy or lack thereof, and the legal advice that he is getting from a prominent conservative activist. Sources also tell CNN that privately the former president and some of his allies have become concerned about the legal fallout.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

Document day, Elie. Bring us up to speed with what documents we have seen and haven't seen and the one today.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, John. By the time this is all over every person in the United States is going to be an expert on search warrants and how they work, I'm making that my goal. Now there are three primary documents involved in any search warrant. There is the search and seizure warrant itself. There is the receipt for property and then there is the big document that we're looking for today, the affidavit.

Let's just remind ourselves of what these are. First of all, the war itself. This is a fairly straightforward three-page document. It's already public, we've already seen it. The most important thing we've learned from this document is what crimes DOJ is investigating. We got the listing of the statutes. 793, mishandling of Defense information, part of the Espionage Act. 2071, concealment or destruction of official federal government documents, and 1519 that's obstruction.

Now, the second document, receipt for property, also a three-page document. We've also seen this already, it is public. The most important thing we learned here is generally that DOJ when they searched Mar-a-Lago seized various boxes of classified documents including the highest level of classification, top secret, SCI, which brings us to the affidavit. This is the document we're looking for today.

This is different in kind from these two documents. The affidavit is a written narrative. If I had to guess I would peg it may be 50 to 100 pages where DOJ lays out the probable cause for the judge. Now, ordinarily that document remains private, under seal, nobody sees it unless and until somebody gets charged with a crime or unless and until years later when a case is closed, but in this case a group of media organizations including CNN made a motion to the judge, they said because there's so much public interest in this case we want to see the affidavit.

Now DOJ initially said, oh, no, this is way too confidential, we cannot reveal it. But the judge, Judge Reinhart, said, DOJ, I do think we need to provide a little more to the public than usual. Propose some redactions for me and I'll let you know. DOJ submitted those redactions and the judge says, OK, I agree with these so today we're going to see a partially redacted version of that affidavit.

BERMAN: Look, I love in this document that we have it all blurred out here because the question is, how much of it will be unblurry by the end of the day. What do you think is likely to be revealed and not revealed?

HONIG: Yes. So we know pretty much for sure what will not be in there. Yes, there will be plenty of black redaction ink. The judge specified what does not need to be in there, that includes three things, first, the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents or uncharged parties. You wouldn't see the proper names anyway, it would say witness one, but DOJ, I believe, is going to take out any information that you could read into who it is.

Second of all, the investigation strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods. That's very broad. DOJ wants to guard that very carefully. They don't want to tip off the other side. And finally, grand jury information, that means anyone if there has been anyone who has testified in front of the grand jury or anything they've gotten through a subpoena. That said, there still are some really important things that we will learn I believe today that I'm going to be looking for.

First of all, more detailed descriptions of the statutes, the laws at play here. If you look at what we know already, all we have is these numbers, 793. You know, but when we get the document today I believe we will get some detail. For example, with the federal government documents piece of this, there are different crimes for concealing, for destroying, for hiding, for transmitting. We could learn more about that.

Second of all, we could learn more about the course of negotiation between the Archives and DOJ and the Trump lawyers. We're getting great reporting on this all week. We know that that negotiation went on for over a year but we could get the definitive detailed version of that from DOJ. Third, we could learn about what documents were recovered before the Mar-a-Lago search because, remember, Trump and his team sent documents to the Archives and there was a subpoena, DOJ subpoenaed some documents, so they got this other set of documents that we really know nothing about.

And finally non-sensitive aspects of the investigation, meaning any part of the investigation that falls outside of these three things could be very little, could be nothing, but these four things really could tell us quite a bit about the search.

[06:05:06]

BERMAN: Very quickly, the fact that they agreed to this pretty quickly, you know, DOJ submitted their redactions, the judge said, OK, let's release them, does it indicate they gave him something that he was OK with?

HONIG: Yes, I think the goal for DOJ here is let's give the judge enough so that he feels like we're putting something meaningful out in the public.

BERMAN: All right. That's not the only thing happening today in terms of legal matters surrounding the search of Mar-a-Lago.

HONIG: Yes. So earlier this week Donald Trump's lawyers submitted this motion to a different judge in Florida, basically asking for three things. First they said we want a special master, a neutral third party to come in, review the documents for any privilege. We want a more detailed receipt for property. We saw the receipt before and we want the government to give us back any inadvertently seized documents.

Not really too remarkable of an ask. I mean, all of these things there is precedent for. The problem is Trump's legal team just blew it. The filing is a mess. Procedurally, the lawyering was so bad it was hard to look at, it made my teeth hurt to read this because he blew it. And what did the judge say in Florida, she rejected it. She basically said why now, this motion is coming too early, why me, why not the other judge and what exactly do you want?

I actually think they were fairly clear about what they wanted. And so the judge said OK, lawyers, go back to the drawing board, do it right this time, file by Friday. So that's coming today as well.

BERMAN: File by today, decision today seems unlikely or impossible.

HONIG: Oh, no. Well, they've got to get it right first. But no, there won't be a decision today.

BERMAN: All right, Elie Honig, thank you for explaining this. You should be a teacher.

HONIG: I will give it a shot.

BERMAN: All right, thank you.

HONIG: Thanks.

COLLINS: While we wait to see what happens there, let's bring in attorney and contributing columnist at the "Washington Post," George Conway.

George, thanks for joining us this morning. I wonder if you were surprised by how quickly the judge moved here.

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY: No, not at all. I don't think -- I think the judge was going to show deference to the Justice Department's redactions no matter what and I think also the Justice Department as Elie just said was going to give the judge enough to feel -- so that the judge could feel that he was providing some information to the public. And if you think about it as Elie points out, there are a lot of things that can be put out there that wouldn't affect the investigation, generic information about how documents are classified, background information like that, and then the statutory language.

It will be interesting to see if they point to some of the statutory language in the affidavit and focus on particular words in it. That could tell us a lot exactly -- that could tell us a lot about what the nature of the thinking about what the potential crimes are here. And so, you know, and it may be that -- and there's correspondents with NARA as Elie points out and also it could be that they decide that they could release things that Trump already knows that we don't.

That might not jeopardize -- they may decide that may not jeopardize the investigation. So there might be some interesting things here but I think mostly we're going to see a very long document with lots of black marks through it. And I think one interesting part about it will be how long is this long? How long is it? How big?

BERMAN: We'll know. And we'll know pretty soon as the case is, noon is the deadline. Both you and Elie focused, George, on we may learn more about what statutes are at play here or exactly what parts of the language. Are you speaking specifically about the one that deals with concealment, destruction, obstruction? What would you look for there?

CONWAY: Yes. I mean, if they -- you know, when lawyers write documents like this sometimes they put italics on the particular words that they are focused on, and it could be there's language about concealment, there's language about destruction, there's language -- take note, if they decided to highlight those words or discuss those words in a little -- in a little detail, that might tell us what facts they might be seeing. But, again, you know, this is just speculation, we're really just going to have to wait it out and see what we find.

COLLINS: Well, George, as a reporter who has covered Trump for a while we have seen, you know, with the Mueller investigation, with other circumstances where they have taken things and used them to their advantage in a sense where maybe all of this information isn't known. I'm thinking of when Attorney General Barr came out to summarize the Mueller report before it was publicly available.

With this, given there is going to be a lot of black on this affidavit, do you have a concern that they could potentially basically try to leverage this and each side is going to say this is what it is, this is what it means and it kind of leaves everyone else in the dark on what the actual facts are given they're redacted for the reasons that the Justice Department laid out?

CONWAY: Well, I think the Trump people are going to spin it however they're going to spin it and it's probably going to be in a misleading and untruthful way. That said, the problem that they have is they don't have even a semblance of a defense here. It's been almost three weeks here now since the search warrant was executed and they haven't articulated a single reason why he should be -- should have been allowed to take these documents, why he had them and what legal justification possibly could have had to have them, and what legal justification possibly could have had to retain the documents after they were repeatedly requested.

[06:10:06]

So I don't really think anything that they say is going to fly. I think all this affidavit can do is to add more heft and more substance to what we already know about Trump having stolen these documents, which is pretty damning.

COLLINS: And I think one thing that's important to point out is the Trump team hasn't seen this affidavit. The government is not required to show it to them so they haven't actually seen what's in it. They've publicly called for it to be released but not actually in court.

BERMAN: That's a great point. And the things that they have tried to lean into, the timeline, the thing that John Solomon, a Trump ally, released. Even when they think or posit that they help them it turns out that in some cases it has backfired a bit, George.

CONWAY: Yes, I mean, so I've said that they want to have this every which way. They want to pretend that there's something nefarious going on by the fact that the search warrant affidavit has not been disclosed and they're making a big deal out of what the mystery behind what's there, but they don't actually ask for it. They didn't actually stand up in court and ask for it because they know that if the whole thing were released it would contain a damning narrative, the narrative that justified the magistrate judge to determine that there was probable cause that crimes were committed.

And so what they're doing here is they're trying to have it both ways and they're trying to say it's terrible that we don't have the basis for this affidavit and at the same time they really don't want us to see it. And then the third thing they want to do is they would like to see it because they want to know who is squealing on him and it's mostly his people.

COLLINS: His attorneys have been very clear that they do want to know who the witnesses are. They say that they think it will come out eventually. It might not.

George, I want to ask you something else that is major development potentially that we found out about last night which is the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, where they are investigating these efforts to overturn the results of the election wants to hear from Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows and as soon as next month wants his testimony before a grand jury there.

What do you -- how is Mark Meadows feeling this morning after this became public?

CONWAY: Well, I don't think Mark Meadows has been feeling very well for a long time. I mean, he's been very, very quiet, as you know, and he's gotten these investigations on both the federal and the state front. I think what this most recent even in Fulton County shows is that the Fulton County investigation is significantly more advanced than the federal investigation. They are really, really, really closing in on people around the president.

You know, they have this legal dispute with Senator Graham and then now they are calling for Meadows to testify. They've had Giuliani in. This is a very, very serious investigation and a very, very -- it's reaching maybe not quite the end stages, but it's reaching the latter stages.

COLLINS: George Conway, thanks for bringing us all of that this morning.

CONWAY: Thank you.

COLLINS: In a forceful kickoff to the midterm elections President Biden was not pulling any punches last night, calling the MAGA Republicans a threat to democracy.

Plus, how his decision on student debt forgiveness came to be with one Democrat calling the process, quote, "tortured." We have new CNN reporting ahead.

BERMAN: And a critical morning for the U.S. economy. We see a key inflation report and this speech from the Fed chair that absolutely could move the markets. A lot of people waiting on the edge of their seats for this one. We're on all of it.

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[06:17:50]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every single Republican voted against lower prescription drug prices, against lower health care costs, against tackling the climate crisis, against lower energy costs, against creating good paying jobs, against fairer taxes. Every single one. That's not hyperbole. Every single American needs to return the favor when we vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was President Biden last night. Kaitlan Collins who has heard just about every word spoken by Joe Biden since he became president just said, he was pretty fired up last night. That was the type of speech you haven't heard all that much from Joe Biden during his presidency. A fiery speech, a campaign speech rebuking Republicans calling them extreme and touting his recent what is seen as a winning streak.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond live at the White House with this kind of kickoff to the midterm campaign season -- Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, John, this was President Biden's first campaign rally of this midterm season and he gave us a taste of what we're going to hear from him over the coming weeks on the campaign trail and certainly as you were saying he is not going to be pulling any punches. The president here painting Republicans as extreme, trying to tie them to President Trump and his MAGA slogan and warning of the consequences should Republicans take back control of Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIDEN: You got it.

DIAMON (voice-over): President Biden making a fiery return to the campaign trail, reminder voters of what's at stake.

BIDEN: Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. Your right to vote is on the ballot. Even the democracy. Are you ready to fight for these things now?

DIAMOND: And who Democrats are up against in November.

BIDEN: Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division, but we've chosen a different path, forward, the future, unity, hope and optimism. We must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are destroying America.

[06:20:00]

DIAMOND: Biden firing his opening salvo from a high school gymnasium in Maryland where Democrat Wes Moore is up against election denier Dan Cox, the Republican nominee in the race for governor.

BIDEN: Wes knows all about MAGA Republicans, he's running against one of them.

DIAMOND: But Biden saved his most serious warnings for the races to control Congress, arguing Republicans will put Social Security at risk and seek to outlaw abortion nationwide.

BIDEN: The MAGA Republicans want control of the Congress. It won't matter where you live, women won't have the right to choose anywhere. Anywhere. MAGA Republicans don't have a clue about the power of women. Let me tell you something, they are about to find out.

DIAMOND: During a private fundraiser ahead of the rally Biden even branding the, quote, "extreme MAGA philosophy like semi-fascism." The Republican National Committee calling Biden's comments despicable, writing, "Democrats don't care about suffering Americans. They never did." Even as the punches rolled, the president also touting his successes.

BIDEN: A record of big accomplishments, matched by few administrations in history. 10 million new jobs, more than we've ever created before at this point in anyone's presidency. 3.5 percent unemployment rate.

DIAMOND: And framing Democrats' passage of the Inflation Reduction Act as a blow to special interests.

BIDEN: For decades big pharma won, but not this year. We also had to take on the climate deniers, and guess what, we beat them.

DIAMOND: Biden also touting his plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans.

BIDEN: This is a game changer.

DIAMOND: But the decision wasn't an easy one for Biden. Sources telling CNN that it took Biden months to come to a final decision with one Democrat describing the process as, quote, "tortured." And after struggling for two days to answer how much the plan would cost the administration now estimating it could cost about $24 billion per year.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That is about 3 percent of what we spend on the military. That's just a tiny, tiny fraction. What the president is trying to do and wants to do, just to cut through this noise, he wants to make sure that we are delivering for millions and millions of Americans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND: And Democrats are certainly hoping that that student loan forgiveness plan will help energize younger voters heading into these midterm elections. The president's aides also believe that as he continues to tout his records of accomplishments in the coming weeks on the campaign trail that that could help him take up his own poll numbers and officials tell me that we can expect to see President Biden hit the campaign trail in earnest in the coming weeks -- John, Kaitlan.

BERMAN: All right. Jeremy Diamond for us at the White House.

Joining us now CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, Errol Louis.

I put words in your mouth in the intro, Kaitlan. I mean, that was --

COLLINS: I think I said that.

BERMAN: -- a more energized -- no.

COLLINS: Roll the tape.

BERMAN: But it is a more energized president than we're used to seeing.

COLLINS: It was and that was notable. I mean, he's in Montgomery County in Maryland, they voted 78 percent for Biden and Harris in 2020, so it's not exactly some kind of swing state but it was -- it did seem to be a preview of what we are going to see from him. And Jeremy was noting officials have said he's going to be on the campaign trail. They're hoping two to three times a week potentially as we're getting closer to these midterms.

What did you make of the argument that he made?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, the words themselves I thought were compelling, unity, hope, optimism. He just laid it out there for every Democrat who's going to be running in the next few weeks. This is something that has worked for Democrats over the years, right. We remember Bill Clinton, the man from hope. We remember hope and change coming from Obama.

This works for Democrats when they can get it together. And so he is sounding the notes, he's acting like the head of the party, he's acting like somebody who is rising as far as his own popularity, 40 percent approval, which is the highest that it's been in a number of weeks. There's been a wave of fundraising for Democrats. They're firing on all cylinders and to the extent that Democrats want to fall in line behind the president, I think they will do better in the next few weeks than they would have done otherwise.

BERMAN: It would seem to be a roadmap what you're hitting on right there with Joe Biden saying to Democrats if you want to run with me this is the way you can run with me and on me heading into the midterm.

LOUIS: No. That's exactly right. I mean, and even to put democracy itself on the agenda. First of all, it has the advantage of being true, right. We had January 6th, we've had some real threats, we've had, you know, well, officers of the FBI coming under attack and so forth. For the president to put it out there and to say, yes, you can run on this, too, you can run on some really important issues, abortion, you know, the economy.

You can run on democracy itself. This is -- this is what you expect from a president. You know, and then by contrast, by going after Donald Trump, saying his name, which he doesn't normally do and saying this is what's at stake and this is who we have to defeat, he really kind of tees it up for Democrats. And here again, you know, if they take advantage of it, not just in swing states, I think they'll have a compelling argument.

[06:25:06]

They're trying to stave off the weight of history because Democrats normally do -- the president's party normally does very poorly in the midterms. They're going to see if they can change it. And you have to go deep, you have to hit, you know, this sort of seismic issues if you want to try and buck that history. And here again President Trump is saying I think we can do it. COLLINS: And with his polling at about 41 percent he is running lower

than a lot of Democrats. What did you make of the very targeted comments on Republicans? It's not exactly a surprise when he talks about MAGA Republicans and he called them a threat to democracy. He said they don't believe in democracy and basically was trying to make that argument. Is that a more successful argument, do you think, for Democrats in November than talking about what they're going to do when it comes to inflation, when it comes to the economy and that picture that voters are also concerned about?

LOUIS: Sure. I mean, you know, Kaitlan, it undercuts one of the central things that's holding the Republican Party together right now which is this conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was somehow stolen. So in addition to, you know, sort of conveniently dispensing with this attack on the validity of his own presidency what Biden is doing is saying that like, it's not just about, you know, sort of elections being administered fairly, it's about democracy itself.

You know, because the Fair Administration of Elections which has been litigated over and over again both in court and in the streets what he's saying is they're not just attacking the way we run elections. They're attacking the fact that we have elections. So it's a really potent, very provocative kind of a way to attack a problem that has really been bedeviling Democrats.

BERMAN: We got to run. But very quickly, semi-fascism, which he said in a private speech, it wasn't on tape, saying that some MAGA Republicans dubbed as semi-fascism, risky to use those words?

LOUIS: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Because, I mean, if you look at the extreme rhetoric that's been coming from the right, from Republicans on the floor of the House, and all kinds of other places they're attacking the word democracy itself in Arizona and some other places. We've seen, you know, sort of physical attacks, we saw January 6th and on and on and on. If you were in that kind of a fight and you don't ramp up your defenses and your counterattacks to meet that moment, you're going to get -- you're going to get walked over. Joe Biden is saying he's not going to get walked over.

BERMAN: Errol Louis, great to see you. Have a terrific weekend, my friend.

LOUIS: You too.

COLLINS: Happy Friday.

BERMAN: Financial markets bracing for a speech by Fed chair Jerome Powell today, what he could say about inflation and interest rates and the possibility of a recession.

COLLINS: And home mortgage rates jumping again. What you need to know if you were in the market for a new house.

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