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DOJ: Trump Team Falsely Claimed All Sensitive Docs Returned; No Water to Drink, Flush Toilets in Mississippi's Capital; Biden Doubles Down on Rhetoric Against 'MAGA Republicans'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 31, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A stunning new photo released overnight, folders labeled "top secret", "secret", "sensitive." Officials say these were taken from Mar-a-Lago even after Donald Trump's team claimed they had handed over everything.

[06:00:12]

I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar. And while you were hopefully sleeping, the most comprehensive filing yet from the Department of Justice, explaining what they found at Mar-a-Lago, why they executed a search warrant.

The government says it developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation.

And when they searched, the government seized twice as many documents marked classified as the Trump team had given them when they claimed they handed over everything.

The filing included this photo: documents that had yellow tabs, red tabs -- you can see it right there -- marked "secret," "top secret," "sensitive." These were taken from containers, and they were spread out on the floor by the FBI. This is how the FBI chose to display them.

And you can see clearly the classified markings all over them right there: "secret," "SCI," "top secret SCI."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Now, this 36-page filing released overnight lays out how Trump failed to return dozens of classified documents, even after his lawyer claimed that he had.

The FBI seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified documents during its search earlier this month. Three of those classified documents were not found in boxes but in Trump's desk.

For all of those reasons, the Justice Department vehemently opposes Trump's request to appoint a special master to oversee the seized documents.

The Trump legal team has until tonight to respond to this latest DOJ filing. At a hearing on Thursday, a judge will hear arguments before making her final decision on a need for that special master.

BERMAN: All right. With me now, CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig and CNN reporter Kara Scannell. We were all up all night. These documents needed to be submitted just before midnight, and they were.

Kara, give us the low-down.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean, well, John, what we're really seeing in this document is DOJ presenting a counternarrative to the narrative that Trump has put out there.

They said that what he has said was inaccurate and misleading. And then they go meticulously through some of these details he went through, that, since they executed that search warrant, they recovered twice as many documents as they had received when Trump had -- and his legal team had responded to a subpoena.

They also said that it's likely that a number of these documents were concealed and removed from the storage room that the FBI initially was allowed to enter.

They say the FBI agents who were there were not allowed to open any boxes in the storage room. And then they say that they had learned some evidence and intel that prompted the search warrant. They go back in, and they find three documents in the desk of the former president, Donald Trump.

So they're saying that there's a lot of potential evidence here, that there were efforts undertaken to try to obstruct this investigation, this effort to obtain these documents, that they've been trying to get for more than a year because they are presidential records.

Now, also to the legal arguments here of, you know, should a special master be appointed. Prosecutors are saying these aren't Trump's records. These records belong to the U.S. government. The U.S. people and that there's not grounds to do that here.

I mean, it's -- it's a very detailed filing, and it gives us some new insights into the whole timeline in the process here that we normally wouldn't see in an argument over a special master.

BERMAN: This is really the first time that the Department of Justice has written extensively since the warrant was executed. Everything that's been released until this point has been the warrant itself, the redacted affidavit.

This is DOJ telling us now what they found. If we can put the picture up again, just so people see how the FBI laid out the documents on the floor so people can see, in this photo. This was an appendix to the filing right here.

Elie, first just give us your top line about this release.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It's DOJ strikes back. Clearly, DOJ had something on their minds, something was bugging them, and they used this filing to unload all of that.

We see now, by the way, why they asked for a double long filing. The first thing that I think you take out of this filing is that, forget about these questions about whether DOJ acted too rationally, too suddenly when they executed the search warrant. They had no choice.

I mean, Kara just laid out the extent of the timeline and how long they were misled and lied to by Trump's attorneys, how many chances they gave Trump's attorneys to just hand over the documents, to archives, by a subpoena. They had to do this search warrant. They really had no choice.

The other thing that comes through to me from this filing is you can see, we can start to see, the outlines of what charges may look like. I think it is vastly premature to declare that anybody is dead to rights based on this document, but you can start to get a sense of what some of the charges may be.

Kara laid out where an obstruction charge may lay. One of the important details is that three documents were found, not in the storage room that DOJ said, Hey, keep everything here. But in a desk in Donald Trump's office, I think that's really telling and gives us a sense of where they might go.

[06:05:06]

The other thing is knowledge and intent. We keep talking about prosecutors would have to show Donald Trump knew what was in these documents, had criminal intent.

Well, the documents that we saw in that photo were not splayed out on the floor, but they couldn't be any more clearly marked: the yellow and red, in all caps, "secret," "top secret."

BERMAN: Those are big, bold colors that can't be missed.

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: As an appendix here, they included a letter that was signed by a lawyer for Donald Trump, you know, verifying that previous to this, after the subpoena, that everything had been handed over to the best of their knowledge.

And I want to read not from that but a couple excerpts here, again, the idea that twice as much was taken from what the Trump people swore they had handed over. "The FBI in a matter of hours recovered twice as many documents with classifications marking as the," quote, "diligent search that the former president's counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls and to serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and cast doubt on the extent of cooperation in the matter."

So twice as many documents as the Trump people swore to. And then there's this, because the Trump people have said they cooperated from the beginning. We gave them everything they wanted. They could have just asked nicely. Critically, however, the DOJ writes, "The former president's counsel

explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained."

HONIG: There's an element of intentionality here because, remember, we've seen now for the first time, the letter, the certification that Trump's lawyers sent to DOJ, saying we did our diligence, we looked everywhere. We've given you everything.

DOJ goes in on the search warrant and immediately finds not a couple scattered documents, not one here, not one there, but twice that amount immediately.

So that tells you there -- this is -- this cannot have been some oversight, some sloppiness, some misplacement. There's an element of intentionality about the misstatements that they made to DOJ.

BERMAN: Kara, on the issue of obstruction, the government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation.

This included evidence indicating that boxes formerly in the storage room were not returned prior to counsel's review. That's strong language on the possibility of obstruction.

SCANNELL: It raises a lot of questions of who was moving these documents and why they were moved and where they were moved.

And the big issue here is if, as DOJ is saying, this was moved before the lawyers had a chance to look at it. That also seems to go to intent, because it suggests that someone was really trying to keep this away from the attorneys and trying to hide these records.

BERMAN: How is the picture that has been painted different this morning than it was yesterday morning, Kara? What do we know now that we didn't know before that DOJ released this giant filing?

SCANNELL: I mean, they're really telling us, you know, there was this narrative out there that Trump was cooperating, that they had, you know, certified this, that they had turned over everything. They welcomed the FBI in with open arms, that Trump came by and visited and said do whatever you need to do.

And now DOJ is saying, We've had obstacles all along the way in this search. We haven't gotten straight answers. And they're laying this out, because there is this public narrative that Trump has put out there and his legal team. And they're saying, you know, in the proper DOJ forum, in a court filing, laying out here's actually what was going on and here are -- here are the obstacles we encountered along the way. It's not as clear cut as it was being made to sound.

BERMAN: And then on the question of how secret or sensitive were these documents, there's this. "Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets, indicating their classification status. We've seen that in the picture. The classification levels ran from 'confidential' to 'top secret,' and certain documents included additional sensitive compartments that signify very limited distribution."

And then there's this: "In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents." That's a legal flourish there.

HONIG: Such a telling detail, though. I mean, FBI agents, in particular counter-intel agents, tend to have very high security clearances, you'll not be surprised to know. Yet, they had to go get more clearance before they could look at these documents.

And I think you couple that statement with the photo. And this photo to me is so important. I mean, it's the old cliche of a picture is worth a thousand words. I think that really holds true here.

Because to see these documents, yes, they were not spread across the floor. This was something the FBI did. But they were, in these documents, in these boxes, couldn't be more clearly marked. I think that is a visual that's going to really stick with people and drive home the importance of these documents and just sort of how carelessly, and maybe worse, they were being kept.

BERMAN: Again, just remember, all of what we just discussed is above and beyond what the actual legal argument here, which is DOJ says there should not be a special master; because one is not needed. They've already looked at all the documents. It doesn't apply to executive privilege. We'll see what the judge thinks of those arguments.

Elie Honig, Kara Scannell, great to have you both this morning. Thank you very much.

[06:10:00]

KEILAR: So right now, in an American capital city, it is not safe to drink, to bathe or to even brush your teeth. That is how dire the water crisis is in Jackson, Mississippi.

Flooding worsened long-standing problems with the main water system there, which failed, leaving the city without enough water to fight fires or flush toilets.

CNN's Amara Walker is live for us in Jackson with the very latest. Tell us how people are coping there, Amara.

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, it's been a major struggle for the more than 150,000 residents here in Jackson, Mississippi. Just think about it, people are going to be waking up this morning using a water bottle, if they have one, to brush their teeth and wash their face. Many are not going to be able to take a shower.

And also, there's a lot of facilities that don't have air conditioning, because the water pressure is too low to feed the chillers.

A lot of schools and businesses also have been forced to close because of the water crisis. In fact, we're here at Forest Hill High School in Jackson. It had to switch to virtual learning as a result. All Jackson public schools had to do so starting on Tuesday.

So this high school will serve as a water distribution site. We were told that by a local councilman, who said the distribution will begin at 6 a.m., local time. You can see a water tanker truck here behind me and in place for that.

The Biden administration overnight did approve the federal emergency declaration, which means that federal resources will be freed up to supplement the state and local response here. And of course, FEMA will also be helping with the disaster relief response.

Look, it's just been so surreal to see the images and the people out here waiting in long lines for more than two hours just to get a case of bottled water.

And as you'd imagine, you know, a lot of people telling us that they're frustrated, they're angry. And of course, they are worried about the future. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very frustrating. It's very frustrating to have to fight for some water. Do you know what I'm saying? You have to mess around, buy five cases of water just to stay hydrated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just kind of scary, because we don't know if anything is going to get done or when it's going to get done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After work, I get off late, and you come in the store, and it's empty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: And the mayor of Jackson, also local officials have been stressing this point: that this water crisis, people struggling for the most basic human need, it didn't happen overnight. This has been decades in the making.

In fact, you heard the mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, saying that the city has felt alone in these infrastructure problems for many years. And it's now that the state is actually stepping up to -- to respond to this crisis.

So when you're asking why we're seeing this, well, it has to do with decades of neglected maintenance of the main water treatment facility here in Jackson; short staffing, as well. And of course, the flooding that we saw recently only made things worse -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Any idea, Amara, when this can be fixed?

WALKER: That's the question everyone is asking, right? No. Not even the governor knows when things will actually get better. He's saying that they don't have a timeline.

Right now it's kind of day to day, and we know that over the next few days, more than 100 semi-trucks carrying water will be coming in. Also, seven mega-distribution sites will be set up, starting on Thursday. So that's all we know right now -- Brianna.

KEILAR: So frustrating and difficult for people there. Amara, thank you for being there to cover this story.

And Jackson, Mississippi, mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba is going to be joining us later on today to talk about what his city is going through there.

Ahead, an angry President Biden calling out MAGA Republicans again.

Plus, a potential disaster unfolding at a Russian-occupied nuclear plant in Ukraine. New reporting suggesting Vladimir Putin is creating the crisis to intimidate the world.

BERMAN: And why the last surviving member of the '60s rock band The Monkees is suing the FBI.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICKEY DOLENZ, LAST SURVIVING MEMBER OF THE MONKEES (singing): Then I saw her face. Now I'm a believer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:21]

KEILAR: President Biden taking to the road to promote a new proposal to shore up law enforcement and reduce crime and taking the opportunity to slam, again, those he called MAGA Republicans while talking about law enforcement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress. Don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th. Don't tell me.

You're either on the side of a mob, or the side of the police. You can't be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. You can't be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th patriots. You can't do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now, CNN national politics reporter Eva McKend; and CNN chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny.

Really interesting, right, to hear these remarks from Joe Biden yesterday. What really stood out to you, Eva?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that he -- he also called in the -- talked about January 6 and called in to question America's reputation on the national stage. I think -- or the international stage, rather.

KEILAR: That's right, yes.

And I think that that was compelling for many reasons and really sort of flew in the face of the argument that January 6 didn't matter. He talked about talking to foreign leaders and how sort of, if this would have happened in any other country the way that America would have characterized the episode, as uncivilized.

So that was particularly sort of, I think, found it moving to me and something that stuck out to me.

KEILAR: Yes. He said people were watching around the world.

[06:20:05]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Sure. And I think, look, I mean, we are now ten weeks from the midterm elections, and clearly, he is trying to essentially have a replay of Biden versus Trump.

I've been so struck over the last year and a half. President Biden has really tried to not become overshadowed and overcome by Donald Trump.

Now everything is -- is out there, so he's really taking -- or trying to seize upon this moment and try and make it not an election about Joe Biden versus Joe Biden, if you will, about the economy, about inflation. He's trying to make it a choice between Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, if you will, and Joe Biden.

So I think that is clearly -- you can just see the levers. And when you talk to people at the White House they're trying to change the subject, for one, change it back to Donald Trump.

And that is what has some Republicans worried, because they did not want Donald Trump to be front and center in this midterm election. Midterm elections are supposed to be about the president's party in power. That's why they often lose so many seats.

So we'll see if it works in terms of flipping the script like that, but that is what Joe Biden is trying to do.

KEILAR: Yes, he also referred to comments that Senator Lindsey Graham made recently, where he was saying that, if Donald Trump is charged, that there is going to be rioting in the streets. Here's what Biden said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: No one expects politics to be a patty-cake. It sometimes gets mean as hell. But the idea you turn on a television and see senior citizens and congressmen saying if such-and-such happens, there will be blood in the street. Where in the hell are we?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's painting the whole, Eva, of the Republican Party with this brush, linking them to January 6th, to this idea of normalizing political violence.

MCKEND: And it could be a risky strategy, especially because he has characterized himself as a long-time -- maybe to his downfall sometimes -- as a bridge builder. And now he is going after Republicans directly.

But, you know, I don't think he would keep repeating this MAGA Republicans strategy if he didn't think that it was working. So there is some Democratic strategist somewhere that has polled this issue or has focus grouped this issue and is, I think, telling the president to continue with this message, that it is appealing to Democrats.

KEILAR: Why do they think -- why does the president's campaign team think this is -- or Democrats sort of in the campaign sphere, why do they think this is going to work, Jeff? Is this about him being a fighter? Is this about the referendum? Is this just about distracting away from inflation and other issues ahead of the midterms?

ZELENY: I think a bit of all of the three. But I think it is, more than anything else, trying to make this midterm election not about Joe Biden. Trying to make this midterm election not about inflation.

And look, he has some other things working in his favor. They have some big legislative successes. Gas prices have been going down throughout the entire summer. Inflation is still high, but it's not front and center like it was.

So I think changing the subject or sort of redirecting focus is the point.

But to Eva's point -- I think it's a good one -- there are some risks here, because Joe Biden has always been the person who is going to rise above politics to be the president for all people. Calling -- essentially calling people fascists or semi-fascists.

That risks, you know, sort of branding people and turning people off. But I think when you talk to White House officials and Democratic strategists, they do believe the overall point is a strong one, that people do not want the Trumpism -- I mean, look at the midterms of 2018. They were decimating for the Republican Party. So I think that that is what they're trying to recreate.

We should be clear. This is not going to be a sense where Democrats are suddenly in the driver's seat of midterm elections, that is not what we see out there.

Republicans are still, at this point, projected to take back the House if you look race by race but not by as big of a margin. But what he's trying to is sort of, essentially (ph), refire up the Biden versus Trump, which is why he did that speech in Pennsylvania. He's going back to Pennsylvania tomorrow. He's going back to Pennsylvania on Monday. That is ground zero for all of this.

MCKEND: I think that President Biden, though, and Democrats have to weigh how much they want to center this law-and-order message. I get it. They want to be on offense on this issue and not constantly being beat up on the issue on the right.

But at the same time, they run the risk of alienating some of their voters. Right? They are not going to get the, you know, so-called "back the blue" folks. They're just not going to get those voters. And I think speeches like this are an appeal to try to call in that group.

But at the same time, there is a reform-minded wing of the Democratic Party. And so he has to strike the right balance, I think, in these speeches and not doing too much to distance himself from those folks, as well.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a very good point. Eva, Jeff, great to have you here this morning. Thank you so much.

So with nuclear inspectors on their way to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, there are new questions about whether Russia is actually using this as a bit of a weapon, a nuclear weapon against Ukraine and the West.

[06:25:0]

BERMAN: New research shows the global rise in extreme heat is taking a toll on our physical and emotional well-being.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: This morning, U.N. nuclear inspectors are making their way to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will inspect the plant's condition. That is the plan, as fears mount over a potential nuclear accident amid renewed shelling.

"The New York Times'" David Sanger says that these inspectors face a situation that few had ever envisioned: a vast nuclear power plant that could be deliberately turned into a potential dirty bomb, with Russia using it to intimidate its enemy and the world.

CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger joining us now to talk about this. He's also "The New York Times'" White House and national security correspondent.

It's such an interesting and important point.