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DOJ Files Memo on Why it Believes Judge Should Unseal Epstein Testimony; Rising Deaths from Starvation in Gaza; Seven People Starved to Death in Past Day in Gaza; U.S. and India Team Up to Launch Satellite. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 30, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We are following new developments this morning in the Jeffrey Epstein case. The U.S. Justice Department filing a new memo on why it believes a judge can unseal grand jury testimony from Epstein's longtime accomplice and convicted sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell. We're also learning that Maxwell has agreed to testify before Congress, but only if some major demands are met.

CNN's senior legal analyst and former state and federal prosecutor Elie Honig is joining us right now. Elie, let's start with this memo from the Justice Department. What's the argument here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER STATE AND FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, Wolf, it is extraordinarily unusual to see DOJ make a move that they made last week when they went and asked various judges, three different judges, to release grand jury testimony relating to the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The very purpose of the grand jury ordinarily is secrecy.

Now, the law says you can only unseal those secret records in certain very narrow circumstances, none of which really apply here. You can really only unseal if some other prosecutor or some other criminal defendant needs the case. There's really not some sort of catchall exception for there's huge public interest.

Now, because DOJ is sort of fighting an uphill climb here, they lost. The Florida judge already denied their motion. The other motions are still pending in New York with the two New York judges. And what this memo is trying to do is justify this very unusual action by DOJ by saying essentially there's a very high public interest. But again, important to remember, that's not specifically cited as an exception to the rule. We'll see whether the judges in New York are persuaded.

[10:35:00]

Ghislaine Maxwell, as you know, Elie, is demanding immunity along with a slew of other demands before she agrees to testify before Congress. It's something the House Oversight Committee is flatly rejecting, at least right now. How significant is this immunity demand?

HONIG: Well, some of Ghislaine Maxwell's demands are silly, and I think she's not entitled to, for example, being shown the questions in advance. That's fairly ridiculous. However, the reasonable part of Ghislaine Maxwell's response to the request for testimony is to take the fifth. She still has a pending case in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has not taken the case, but she's trying to get them to take it. And so, theoretically, she could -- it's unlikely, but she could win and end up with a new trial. So, she's right to take the fifth.

Now, immunity is Congress' tool. That's up to Congress. If they want Ghislaine Maxwell's testimony now that she's taken the fifth, they can grant her immunity. That would not release her, Wolf, from her prior conviction or her 20-year sentence. That would just mean that any testimony she gives to Congress cannot be used against her moving forward.

So, that sort of puts the ball over in Congress' court. And I think it's telling that so far Congress, as you said, Wolf, has said, we're not giving her immunity. That sort of begs the question to me, why would you have subpoenaed her in the first place if you're not willing to do what it takes to actually get that testimony?

BLITZER: Maxwell's lawyers are still angling for a possible pardon, something President Trump has yet to rule out. How could this impact possible testimony?

HONIG: Well, to me it raises questions about Ghislaine Maxwell's credibility. We did see, at the end of her letter yesterday, an open plea from Ghislaine Maxwell's defense lawyers to the president for a partner commutation. I guess you can do that. It's a little bit unbecoming. But the question that it raises is, here you have a person who's begging really for her life, for a partner commutation, yet the very person who can give that to her, of course, there's only one person, Donald Trump.

And so, it raises a question of, is she really going to be able to be fully truthful and credible and forthcoming about everything she knows about Donald Trump or might she be incentivized to try to soften any edges relating to that one person who has the power to give her what she wants here?

BLITZER: She's serving a 20-year sentence right now. It's a long sentence. Maxwell still has a petition, as you know, before the U.S. Supreme Court, which they -- the justices likely will not decide until they return in October. How does this factor into all of this?

HONIG: So, this is really Maxwell's other great hope to escape her 20-year sentence. I don't think she has all that high likelihood of getting the Supreme Court take the case, but it's possible. And her argument actually relates back to the plea deal that Florida gave Jeffrey Epstein in 2008, as a very unusual. I've never seen anything like this provision of that deal.

Prosecutors said, nobody around you, none of your co-conspirators will be prosecuted. And Ghislaine Maxwell now argues, well, that includes me. But the thing is, Ghislaine Maxwell was prosecuted by a different district, by my old office, the Southern District of New York. And so, so far, DOJ's argument, which has won at all lower levels of the courts, has been that deal they made in Florida is not binding on us up in New York.

It is a somewhat unresolved issue nationwide though, Wolf. So, ordinarily there's a very low chance the Supreme Court takes any case. I think it's still low here, but she's got a little bit of a better chance than an ordinary litigant to get the Supreme Court's attention on this one.

BLITZER: All right. Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig, thank you very, very much.

HONIG: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: And just ahead, deaths from starvation in Gaza clearly are rising, as agencies are warning that time is running out to get enough food and other assistance into the enclave. Up next, I'll speak to someone from UNICEF on the very dire situation.

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[10:40:00]

BLITZER: New this morning, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports another seven people have died of starvation in Gaza Over the last 24 hours. More aid is trickling in Jordan, as one of several countries now airdropping supplies into the enclave, but relief workers say it's tragically short of the amount needed to address this hunger crisis.

This morning, the U.N.'s World Food Programme says 39 percent of the people in Gaza go days at a time without eating. And about one in six children are now suffering levels of malnutrition. One mother in Gaza describes her family's desperation. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIHAN MURAD, GAZA RESIDENT (through translator): We only eat this one meal a day, and my children go to sleep hungry. They wake up in the morning hungry. I go out to get food and tell them I won't be long, and they wait for me starving. I came back without food because of the overcrowding at the community kitchen. I took this container and couldn't fill it. There are too many people. There is a famine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And joining us now, Tess Ingram, UNICEF's communications manager in the Middle East. Tess, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for all the important work that you and UNICEF does. It is absolutely heartbreaking to hear a mother like that describe how she can't feed her own kids. Are you hearing about any improvement at all in conditions in recent days?

TESS INGRAM, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, UNICED MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: We are hearing stories like that almost every day, Wolf, and it is incredibly heartbreaking. Parents are doing whatever they can to survive and try and keep their children alive because there is just not enough aid, and that is still the case today.

A little improvement is what we have seen since there was an announcement that there would be new measures put in place from Sunday. But they really have not made a substantial difference in terms of aid getting to the people that need it. And that's what we need to see now, is trucks really moving out of those crossings and getting all the way to mothers like that who are trying to feed their children.

[10:45:00]

BLITZER: One United Nations-backed relief group is saying this, and I'm quoting now, "The worst-case scenario of famine is playing out in Gaza," close quote. Do you agree with that?

INGRAM: We agree with that. They're an international body of experts backed by the United Nations that examine situations like this all the way around the world, and they are saying that their worst fears are unfolding. They've stopped short of declaring a famine specifically, they're looking for a little bit more data in order to do that. But regardless, we shouldn't wait for that declaration. Already, we know that children are dying related to malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, and we have to do everything we can to act now to prevent more children from dying rather than waiting for that last bit of data for a famine declaration.

BLITZER: Yesterday, I spoke with the Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and I asked him if the Israeli government is willing to admit that there is a hunger crisis unfolding in Gaza. This is what he told me. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YECHIEL LEITER, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: There is no large-scale starvation. There's a starvation. There certainly isn't a policy of starvation. I think there's a lot of confusion on that issue. Right now, as we speak, there's 636 trucks, semi-trailers waiting to enter Gaza and U.N. agencies are not picking them up because of their argument with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And this comes, Tess, on the heels of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, flatly saying there is no starvation, his words, no starvation in Gaza. Is the Israeli government being honest with the world? What do you think?

INGRAM: We have clear evidence that there is starvation in Gaza, from a number of aspects. We have the data that we've just spoken about from the IPC, which are the global experts on this issue. We have constant testimonies from families recorded and broadcast into people's living rooms around the world explaining how hungry they are. We are seeing rising deaths of children from malnutrition.

Our teams are recording the rising cases of malnutrition in clinics that we work in day in and day out. So, it is very clear to us that there is a problem in the Gaza Strip, and it is a result of engineered scarcity. This is a manmade problem. The trucks can come in and we need to bring them in with urgency in order to address this.

BLITZER: As we just heard, Tess, the Israeli ambassador, also told me yesterday that aid is being held up because U.N. agencies are feuding with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the controversial aid group backed by Israel, of course, and by the United States. How do you respond to that claim?

INGRAM: That's not true. The issue that we have at the moment is, yes, we have trucks sitting inside the crossings, but those crossings will -- are not like a drive through. We can't simply go there whenever we like and collect the aid and take it out. I wish it were that simple. But we have to get authorization to go there. And then, even if we do get the authorization, we have to manage a number of different circumstances on the ground, not least the constant bombardments, which threaten our teams, but of course, desperate people trying to take the aid from the trucks.

This is a really complicated situation. And we are doing everything that we can in our power to collect those trucks, but we need more cooperation from the Israeli authorities. We need to be denied for those requests to go and collect the aid less often. We need more access to the crossing. And then we need them to help us create the conditions on the ground to take the aid to the families that need it. Their obligations do not stop at the gate. Their obligations go right to the child that we are trying to reach.

BLITZER: And very -- one very, very personal final question, Tess, before I let you go. We're almost out of time. When I was a little boy growing up in Buffalo, New York, we would go trick and treating in Hollywood -- on Halloween, I should say. And we had a UNICEF can to raise money for UNICEF. Does UNICEF still promote that?

INGRAM: It is something that's so fond to so many Americans. I have so many people tell me about exactly that, walking around with that can. And of course, we still do encourage people to engage in fundraising for UNICEF because it helps the work like what we do in Gaza.

BLITZER: All right. Tess Ingram, thanks very much for joining us.

INGRAM: Thanks Wolf.

BLITZER: And coming up, it's the most advanced radar system ever, and it just launched into space. How it could help the response to natural disasters here on earth, like the one that unfolded overnight.

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[10:50:00]

BLITZER: New this morning, the U.S. and India have teamed up for a new venture in space that could potentially save lives. This morning, NASA and India's space program launched an earth mapping satellite to help predict earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. This technology comes after an enormous earthquake off the Russian coast that sends tsunami waves across the Pacific all the way here to the United States.

CNN's Tom Foreman is with me in the Situation Room right now. Tom, how can this new satellite potentially help the situations like what we're seeing right now?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, what this can do, because of this mapping that they can do with this dual radar systems they put up there, they're going to be able to map land masses, the polar caps, the coastlines down to fractions of an inch, and the dual system will actually be able to read not only through clouds, but also through vegetation.

So, we'll have perhaps the most picture -- accurate picture we've ever had of the land masses of this Earth and exactly where everything is when it begins moving, when it is encroached upon by water, when polar caps start degrading. Look at that right there, that was the image of everything flying around there. It gives you an idea. This is going to map almost all of the ice and land surfaces on Earth twice every 12 days.

[10:55:00]

So, it will just give us a picture of not necessarily that a tsunami wave is coming, but what is vulnerable to it. We'll have a much better idea of what is at -- which level in the ground, which houses are exposed, which towns are exposed, and that will apply to other things as well, including, it's possible, that through some of these measurements, we will get a better sense of when a volcano is going to erupt, when an earthquake is going to occur, because there'll be able to see that tension building up in the land ahead of it is. This is really -- it's actually a huge story today amid all the other stories.

BLITZER: Yes.

FOREMAN: And a little hard for people to follow sometimes.

BLITZER: So, timely as well and so critically important.

FOREMAN: Yes.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Tom, for that update.

FOREMAN: You're welcome.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much. There's more news coming up here in the Situation Room. The EPA is now looking to reverse a long health study that could have unprecedented climate impact. We're taking a closer look at that. That's next.

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