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DOJ Cites Evidence to Suggest Trump Lying About Mar-a-Lago Search; DOJ Releases Remarkable Details from FBI's Mar-a-Lago Search; No Water to Drink, Flush Toilets in Mississippi's Capital. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired August 31, 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]

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: They did the search warrant just three weeks ago than what Trump's team had given them pursuant to a subpoena.

And that's key here because the DOJ is saying they needed to execute this search warrant. And here is why. Here are the things that they learned. They believe that there was possible obstruction of justice here. They think that documents were likely removed.

Just to focus back on that classified number, that twice as many documents, here is what they say in their filing, that the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the diligent search that the former president's counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3rd certification and cast doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.

I mean, part of this document is to counter the narrative that Trump has put out that he has been cooperative, that they have done everything, that he has offered up everything. DOJ is saying, no, in fact, they found twice as many documents, that they believe that documents were likely concealed and removed from the storage room, that the FBI officials, when they went there in June pursuant to the subpoena, were not allowed to look in the storage records and then they find these three files, three classified documents, in Trump's desk drawer, so, certainly, laying out the case that this was justified.

They also on this issue -- because this is really about whether a special master and third party can review these documents, they're saying these aren't Trump's documents to review, they belong to the American people. There is no executive privilege. Trump never asserted executive privilege at any point along the process until the search warrant was executed. And they're saying that, you know, to permit a special master to get involved at this point could cause unnecessary significant harm because there's also a -- you have the intelligence agencies to see what was in these documents and whether there is any potential harm to sources and methods.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Kara Scannell, thank you for helping us to understand -- just begin to understand what's in here, a lot that we did not know yesterday at this time. Thank you so much. Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now is CNN Legal and National Security Analyst Carrie Cordero and CNN Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams.

All right, that detail that Kara just mentioned there, Elliot, three documents found in Donald Trump's desk, why would he have them in there?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You tell me. Look, all of it is alarming, and like we were talking about, there is a photograph that's listed as one of the attachments to the document that is itself alarming because there you see kind of for the first time the kinds of markings that were on the documents, like top secret, top secret SCI, secret compartmented information, these are all incredibly secure documents and we know that.

In the desk, there is no argument to be made that someone's desk is a secure facility in any sense. So, no, I don't have an answer for that, Brianna, because, simply, they just don't belong in somebody's desk even if you are a former president.

KEILAR: And, Carrie, what does it mean to see the photo -- there was this question of Donald Trump had made this argument or his team had that this was declassified. Now, we're seeing the cover sheets, you knew, would he have necessarily known that it was classified? Well, yes, here you have the colored cover sheets.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. So, there was the question of, well, who would have packed the boxes and who was actually involved in that process of seeing these. But when you see the cover sheets and those of us who work with classified information in the past know that it is nearly impossible to misplace a document that has a big square red or yellow or other colored cover that is on it. And so to have those out in open storage, whether they are in boxes that are not a secure place, a room that's not an approved facility or certainly in a desk drawer, it's just impossible to not know that that is inappropriate and illegal.

WILLIAMS: And to the point -- so having both of us been in skiffs, secured compartmented or secret compartmented facilities, right, there are some times desks in there but it's itself a secure facility. It's just it's -- because part of the issue isn't Donald Trump's access to these documents or having them in a desk, it's who else could have seen them, who had access to them or photographed them, and that's a significant national security risk.

KEILAR: More broadly, when we are looking at this filing, it's an argument against why Donald Trump should be able to have a special master, someone to kind of parse through all of these documents here. There were so many repeated smack downs of why he should not -- that executive privilege here just doesn't apply, that the filtration has been done of these documents. And also the DOJ argues this isn't the right jurisdiction for this. This was just like, over and over, they're smacking these things down. CORDERO: Right. So, I think it's really important that we remember that this filing by the Justice Department is done in response to the former president's arguments. And so what the Justice Department says is they go after the filing that the former president made and says that it was, quote, wide ranging, meritless accusations. That's from the Justice Department. That's about as harsh language as the Justice Department can use when it is countering arguments that another litigant is making.

Then the Justice Department throughout its document goes on to just dispute every single argument that the former president's team is making, whether it was his claims of privilege, whether it's his argument for a special master, which the government absolutely obliterates, as necessary, because they've already reviewed all the documents and, frankly, there is nothing special about this particular case and this scenario that would make the argument for the former president to be able to have a special master.

KEILAR: And DOJ is also saying, look, early on, the Trump lawyers didn't claim that the documents were even declassified.

WILLIAMS: Well, there's that, and along those lines, there's a big line they put in there that we were able to find in a matter of hours the documents that they asserted -- that Trump's lawyers asserted that they had diligently searched for. That's a hint about a charge possibly for lying -- you know, 18 USC 1001, it's making a false statement. They declared on a document that they had diligently searched for something that obviously, or at least based on the Justice Department's claim, they seem that they didn't have done. So, in addition to these three crimes, it seems like they're hinting that they were lied to by President Trump's attorneys.

CORDERO: And I don't think they're hinting. I mean, they describe in the heading of the document that they're describing, quote, obstructive conduct.

WILLIAMS: I was being lawyerly and charitable here.

KEILAR: Lawyerly and charitable. Yes, not even a hint for sure there. Berman?

BERMAN: I want to bring in former deputy director of the FBI and CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe.

And if we can, I just want to put up on the screen so people can see it again the photo that was released as part of this file, again, in appendices where you can see laid out on the floor some of the documents that were taken from Mar-a-Lago. You can see in red those are marked secret SCI, which means sensitive compartmented information, and then the yellow ones top secret SCI.

Andy, as one who has had access to these types of documents before, to see all of this laid out like this taken from Mar-a-Lago, your initial reaction.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It's astounding, John. I was floored when I saw it for the first time last night. To see some of the nation's most highly classified secrets laid out on the ground like a stack of old newspapers, I mean, it's really remarkable.

I should say that taking photographs of the items that you seized pursuant to what's described in a search warrant is like the most standard practice for the FBI, it's kind of search warrant 101. Agents will typically take a photograph of an item in its place before it's moved or after kind of laying it out near where it was searched with other items that are relevant. They typically put that ruler in some place in the photograph so that there is a scale for size, a measurement of whatever you're photographing ever becomes an issue. And it becomes very powerful evidence later, and if there is a prosecution, you know, those photographs show you exactly what there was and where it was, you can see it in the place the person was holding it or securing it or hiding it. So, it's really startling evidence.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, it's our understanding that that's not exactly how it was found when the search was conducted. That is the FBI took it, laid it out, took the picture so people could see what was there.

MCCABE: That's right.

BERMAN: But just to see the markings on them is interesting in itself.

And then I just want to read you another part of this filing because it gets to the issue of law enforcement and how cooperative the Trump team was before this. The Trump team, just so people know, had asserted they were fully cooperative with the FBI and the search beforehand, before the search warrant, when there was subpoena. We gave them everything we asked for. We would have given them more.

As part of this filing, they say, though, critically 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. In other words, they wouldn't let us look in these boxes when we asked nicely, Andy.

MCCABE: That's absolutely right, John. And that's the thing that jumped out to me first from this. It really straightens out some of the kinks and questions that we had in the timeline before we saw this document. The first thing that I noticed was that meeting at Mar-a- Lago, which previously has been described to us by the Trump team as this wonderfully, you know, friendly interaction where the president stopped by and said hello and all this stuff, that wasn't just a friendly meeting that the two sides felt like they would get together and talk about it. That was the government coming to Mar-a-Lago to execute a subpoena, an official request, a demand for those documents.

And it sounds like when they got there, they were handed one kind of thick envelope, they refer to it as a red well full of documents and then very clearly told that's it, there's nothing else, we've done a diligent search to quote the document and this is all there is left for classified.

[07:10:00]

We do have some additional materials that the president took from his time in the White House. Here is where we store them. You're not allowed to look at them. You're not even allowed to go in the room.

And then, of course, following that meeting, they developed the document says multiple sources of evidence indicating that the response to that subpoena was incomplete and then documents had been taken to other places and were stored in other places. So, it really obliterates these claims of, oh, we've been negotiating in good faith.

BERMAN: Andrew McCabe, thank you very much. Carrie Cordero, Elliot Williams, all of you. Much more on this ahead including Liz Cheney's response to this.

So, more than 170,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi, facing another day without clean water. That means no drinking, no brushing your teeth. The failure of the city's main water treatment plant has left people unable to flush toilets. Scores of people lined up to receive bottled water until the supply ran out. The National Guard has been called in to help. One Mississippi state senator tells CNN there is no quick fix.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE SEN. DAVID BLOUNT (R-MS): We are hopeful that we can avoid catastrophe this week. And by the end of the week, we are told that if the major pump is replaced, we can solve the pressure issue and get past the immediate crisis. Then the focus will be on whether we can get water that is safe to drink. We don't know the answer to that yet. The health department and the city and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency are there right now. That will be the next thing to make sure that we fix, but the immediate problem is pressure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Overnight, the White House approved a request by Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves for a federal emergency declaration in Jackson.

Here with me is now CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, it's great to see you because we're talking about people's health here. We are talking about the way people live and if it's healthy to do the fundamental things. First, how did they get to this point in Jackson?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, most acutely, you have these pump failures that he was talking about, that's been ongoing for some time. You have the flooding. I think what is most striking is that this is another example of this is a critical part of infrastructure that has no redundancy. Something like this happens, they don't have a lot of backup plans to sort of solve this, at least not immediately, which is why there is no end date in sight in terms of when they can get this fixed. You get about 2.5 million miles of underground pipes in this country, John, that make up our water supply. Many were put in the 19th century or just even after World War II. They had a life span of about 75 years and they're starting to break. They get these cracks in them. If you have enough pressure in the system, you can sort of obviate the concerns. But think of it like this, pressure sort of decreases, all of a sudden, things can start to leach into those pipes, couldn't before because the pressure was high enough. That is why pressure is so important not just for being able to do things in your home but preventing the contamination of that as well.

So, this is -- Mississippi is obviously an acute case, but what we are talking about here is probably happening in many places around the country. It's going to cost a lot of money to fix it but this is a life span event.

BERMAN: Talk to me about the health risks right now.

GUPTA: The biggest thing is really the disinfecting of the water is hard to do if you don't have the pumps working and also this leaching into the water, into the pipes because of the low pressure you can get things like E. Coli, cryptosporidium, giardia. We don't know that that's happening yet because I don't want to suggest that people are immediately develop those infections but that's the big concern. And that's why you have the boil water advisories and things like that, which can make a big difference for those sorts of pathogens.

By the way, you remember Flint, when you boil water, that doesn't help with big contaminants, like Flint, for example. In fact, you can make it worse because you're actually concentrating those contaminants into the water. Again, that's probably not happening here, hopefully not. This is not Flint, but there're these other concerns. So, the boil water and stuff like that for now getting as much bottled water, all of that, and avoiding any kind of contact with potentially infected water.

BERMAN: And, finally, on a separate subject, Sanjay, and this is something you and I have talked about for a long time, because it's a basic measurement of how a society is doing. We're talking about life expectancy.

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, John, it boggles my mind still. I've been working here 20 years, but we spend $4 trillion on health care in the United States and our life expectancy even before the pandemic was going down. There were these premature drivers of premature death, opioid overdose, suicide, liver cirrhosis. Something happened during the pandemic that is really important to point out.

If you look at the first year, 2020 to 2021, we had about a one-year drop in life expectancy in the United States. Okay. That maybe wasn't that surprising. The next year, though, a 2.5 year drop, and as you can see in that pie chart the vast majority of that driven by COVID, 50 percent of that drop driven by COVID. So, that's really, again, significant just to be going in the wrong direction.

[07:15:01] One thing I will share with you quickly, other similar countries also had a drop of about a half a year during that first year of COVID, but they have actually gone up over this past year, returning back to -- the United States continues to go down in terms of overall life expectancy, whereas other similar countries have started to rebound.

BERMAN: Look, I can't think of anything more important. If we're dying sooner than we were, you would think it's reason for alarm or at least concern. Sanjay, great to see you, thank you very much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

KEILAR: Another aggressive push by Goldman Sachs to get employees back in the office. The Wall Street Investment Bank is lifting its COVID vaccine and testing requirements for most of its offices.

Joining us now is CNN Business Correspondent Rahel Solomon. What can you tell us about this?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, as you rightly pointed out, Goldman Sachs has been certainly one of the more aggressive banks and American companies that has tried to get its workers back into the office.

So, the company put out an internal memo yesterday to its employees saying that, look, starting September 6, it is lifting its COVID policies, welcoming employees back regardless of vaccination status, it's lifting its testing requirements, face coverings will no longer be required. So, this is going to apply to all of Goldman offices in the Americas except New York City. The company saying in that internal memo with many tools including vaccination, improved treatments and testing now available, there is significantly less risk of severe illness.

Look, this comes as Goldman and others, like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan really pushed to have folks' butts back in the seats, employees back in their offices. And when I talked to Goldman folks yesterday about this story, they pushed back and said, look, we have been in the office full-time since about September of last year. So, this is an evolution of that. They also cited some CDC guidance in terms of relaxing these policies. But it comes as companies, certainly the investment banks but others, really pushed to have workers back and workers have resisted it.

And it comes also with demand for workers remaining red hot. We got some data this week that showed there are still more than 11 million jobs open broadly. So, investment banking, of course, it's competitive, it's lucrative, but, Brianna, some investment bankers have been pulled away by other industries, like tech, that are also lucrative, profitable, but a little less culturally formal. So, we will see how this flies because we know workers still feel like they have options.

KEILAR: Yes, they have leverage. And as long as they have leverage, it's pretty clear they're going to use it there, Rahel. Thank you so much for that. Mikhail Gorbachev the last leader of the Soviet Union, will be buried to next to his wife in a cemetery in Moscow. Gorbachev will be remembered as the man who tore down the iron curtain and ended the cold war. He introduced key reforms to the USSR and worked alongside President Reagan to end the nuclear arms race.

In 2012, he admitted to CNN's Christiane Amanpour that he was not sure how Russians would ultimately judge him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: To many people around the world, you are a hero, a once in a generation actor who ended up the cold war. How would you like your people to remember you?

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, FORMER SOVIET UNION PRESIDENT: History is a fickle lady and you can expect surprises from history, but I do know that I did what I did and that I can be proud of what I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Frederik Pleitgen joins us from Moscow. Fred, are we hearing anything from the Kremlin about Gorbachev's passing?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we certainly are, Brianna, and certainly a historic figure who has passed away. Not just being so pivotal in bringing down the iron curtain but especially doing all of it in a peaceful way. Because one of the things we have to keep in mind is that when the iron curtain came down, there were hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops stationed in Europe. And for all that to go down peacefully is certainly something that's remembered around the world as condolences pouring in from around the world.

But as we saw in that interview with Christiane, that very historic interview, it's a little bit of mixed bag here in Russia with some people viewing Mikhail Gorbachev as quite a controversial figure.

Vladimir Putin did come up with a condolence letter today. I want to read you part of it, he said, quote, he led our country during a period of complex dramatic changes, large scale foreign policy and economic and social challenges. He deeply understood that reforms were necessary. He strove to offer his own solutions to urgent problems. That doesn't really sound like a ringing endorsement of the historic legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev. And, again, there are some people who view him very critically here in this country.

One of the interesting things about all this is that the Russians say they have not yet decided on whether or not there's going to be a state funeral for Mikhail Gorbachev. The other thing we don't see very much in Russia here is any sort of public mourning for Mikhail Gorbachev. I myself in the years that I've covered Russia and been here, I've spoken to a lot of Russians, some of whom really loved Mikhail Gorbachev but some who were also very critical, who felt that Russia was humiliated in the wake of the Soviet Union falling apart economically in decline and, of course, militarily as well. [07:20:08]

And there were some, and I think this is something that's so important right now, and we also talk about the situation in Ukraine right now. There are some who draw direct parallels to what's going on in Ukraine who say that because Russia felt so humiliated back then might be one of the reasons why it's expansionist and has a very aggressive foreign policy now.

KEILAR: Fred Pleitgen live for us in Moscow, thank you for that report.

President Biden in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania forcefully condemning MAGA Republicans and warning of riots.

BERMAN: And it is being described as a monsoon on steroids, CNN on the ground in Pakistan as the country gets washed out by floods.

And this small device could turn a pistol into a machine gun and officials say it is pretty easy to access. A CNN exclusive ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: More on the blockbuster court filing from the Department of Justice.

[07:25:00]

The DOJ says government documents were likely concealed and removed from a storage area at Mar-a-Lago. They developed evidence that such was the case as part of an effort to, quote, obstruct the FBI's investigation. The Department of Justice shared this photo of documents, some of them highly classified, recovered from the search.

With us now CNN Political Commentators S.E. Cupp, Scott Jennings and CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon.

Let's just put that photo back up again, because this was an appendices to the filing last night. And, John, when you see that, when you see the fruits of this search, what comes to mind?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This wasn't an oversight. This wasn't an accident. This was an attempt to hold on to classified documents. There's no other explanation. One of the big debates we've been having is one of intent. The fact that some of these documents were found in desk drawers to me is a particularly damning detail, the sheer volume of highly classified information. So, all the -- all the excuses that people have been trying to manufacture got blown up by the facts we just know to date as of last night.

BERMAN: And, S.E. Cupp, let me read you -- again, this has the photo here, but this is something that Liz Cheney put out this morning, Liz Cheney, obviously, part of the January 6 committee, which is separate from this whole thing.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: A whole other scandal. BERMAN: Liz Cheney tweeted out a copy of the photo that we just put out there and said, yet more indefensible conduct by Donald Trump revealed this morning.

CUPP: Well, yes. I think it's a real simple story in some ways. He had classified documents he wasn't allowed to have. And all of the excuses, well, I declassified them or they were from my memoires, all this stuff that people around him are trying to invent, doesn't matter, totally irrelevant. You had them, you weren't supposed to. And this latest memo from the DOJ really uncovers just how far he went allegedly to conceal the fact that he had them and then obstruct the DOJ from getting them back.

BERMAN: A lot of the arguments that have been made to this point, Scott, haven't been necessarily legal from the Trump team, they have been more political. And some of them have been, oh, we were cooperating or, you know, there really wasn't that much there or nothing there, we gave everything back.

Well, there are two quotes I want to read you from this filing. One, the DOJ says that the Trump people stopped us from getting stuff. They said, critically, however, 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 classified markings remained.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, I agree. I mean, it's obvious that he had things there. I'm trying to square what I read in the filing and all this reporting that we've -- all this time we've spent on this over the last two weeks with this sentence from The New York Times. But department officials are not expected to file charges eminently if they ever do.

When I read that this morning, I -- what I inferred was that people are now trying to walk back the idea that this was as serious as they initially made it out to be. And I'm one who thought it's quite possible that this was very serious. I want to know why that sentence is in the public domain this morning.

AVLON: I wouldn't -- I wouldn't try to put The New York Times on trial here right now.

JENNINGS: I want to know -- I want to know why.

CUPP: Saying he deeply believes The New York Times is refreshing.

AVLON: Good point, actually.

JENNINGS: I want to know why that sentence appears after everything we've heard, and you have been out here explaining why you think this is deadly serious, there are people who have been anonymously sourced in the press saying nuclear secrets, grave national security concerns. Well, if that's true, why is that out this morning?

AVLON: Well, I think because one thing is the DOJ is trying to -- first of all, I wouldn't parse too much in one line of The New York Times contrary to an entire document, 36 pages, that the DOJ put forward that makes it clear that this is serious and the president is under investigation.

One of the key questions, and this is, is will the ex-president be prosecuted, because that would be unprecedented, right? But that actually gets to a different question, Scott. That gets to a question that actually a lot of folks from your party have been pushing, which is this idea that, well, you know what, don't enforce the law, don't enforce the law when it comes to Donald Trump because if anyone else had done this, they would be in a world of hurt, just based on what we know. And there is a lot we don't know. But what we know is that all the Trump team's excuses and defenses and deflections to date have been the legal equivalent of spaghetti at the wall.

CUPP: Can I just -- all of this is true, but from a 30,000-foot point of view, I think sometimes we in the media don't effectively make the case of why stuff like this matters directly for viewers and voters.

AVLON: Great point.

CUPP: When, you know, the president takes home classified documents or makes a phone call to President Zelenskyy to try to get him to meddle in election, it's hard for people to know why that directly impacts them. It's hard to convince them.

The problem is, and I think what directly impacts people is always the what Donald Trump does in the after math, right? He loses an election, he convinces hundreds of thousands of people that he actually won it, to believe in conspiracy theories, many of them to march on the Capitol armed, and many of them were charged and went to jail.

[07:30:07]

Now, he's convincing many of his supporters.