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The Situation Room

Federal Government Investigates Eric Swalwell; Interview With Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser; Prince Harry and Meghan to Move Back to U.K.; NFL Preseason Continues. Aired 10:30a-11a ET

Aired August 20, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now: At least 16 people are dead after a massive attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight. Massive fires lit up the night sky over the Ukrainian capital as officials say the city was targeted by Russian ballistic missiles. Authorities say strikes damaged a hospital, a school, residential buildings, and several warehouses across the city.

Plus, new reports say the DEA is joining the investigation in the death of the actress Hayden Panettiere. The 36-year-old was found unresponsive Sunday in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. Responding medics found her in cardiac arrest. No cause of death has been determined, not yet, pending additional testing.

And a royal return for the ages. The duke and duchess of Sussex are planning to move back to Britain. Prince Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal duties some six years ago and had a very public falling out with other members of the royal family.

Just last month, King Charles and Queen Camilla hosted the couple at the king's private country residence.

Let's go live right now to CNN anchor and royal correspondent Max Foster, who's live outside Buckingham Palace.

Max, first of all, do we know what's behind the change of heart?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don't.

The only thing I have been told by someone close to the couple is that they very much enjoyed their visit to the U.K. in July. The whole family came over. They had a meeting with the king and the queen. They enjoyed that visit. So that's the only indication I'm being given.

I'm also told that the children, Archie and Lilibet, who are 5 and 7, have been enrolled at a school here in the United Kingdom. So this isn't just a visit. This is a relocation. They may well keep their house in California, but during term time, they will be here, and term starts next month.

So, in a matter of days, they could be here. Extraordinary to think that they managed to keep all of this quiet. They were all over here last month. They had a meeting, as I say, with the king. He wasn't told at that time, although they would have had the plans in progress, we would assume.

And the king was only informed about this on Sunday as was Prince William, informed. It wasn't a discussion, so they have got somewhere to stay. We don't know where that is. We do know it's a private residence, not a royal residence. And the king has also made it very clear to us that, the couple won't be returning to their full-time royal roles.

So they will be coming here, but it's interesting, Wolf, because, as I have reported on their recent engagements, Harry and Meghan, they very much look like royal engagements. They're expected to carry that on in the United Kingdom. So, quite how this affects the monarchy will be interesting.

They will be operating outside the monarchy, but many people will see them as royals carrying out royal engagements, almost a shadow monarchy, if you like. And there is some concern that this would be a rival monarchy to some extent as well, a little bit "Games of Thrones."

But we will wait to see how it all plays out, because everyone here at Buckingham Palace is still digesting the news.

BLITZER: Our royal correspondent, Max Foster, on the scene for us, as always, thank you very, very much -- Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, Wolf, happening now: The legal battle over your ballot is escalating across the country with several states resisting the Justice Department's attempts to obtain access to their voter rolls in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

Here's what Attorney General Todd Blanche said about that this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: This administration knows and, of course, understands that states administer elections, and that will always be the case. But it doesn't mean the federal government should play no role.

And so the tension there is, of course, whether we should be playing the role that we're playing, and that's really what we're litigating.

KRISTEN WELKER, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": How far are you willing to take this fight? Because you have been ruled against now 22 times. Are you going to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, do you anticipate?

BLANCHE: We will see. We will see what happens. We're trying to work it out with states.

WELKER: It's a possibility?

BLANCHE: Of course. Yes, absolutely, it's a possibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Joining us now to discuss is CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig and Colorado's Democratic attorney General Phil Weiser.

Thank you both for coming on.

I just want to start with Elie first and lay out the basics. What is this debate between the federal government and the states all about right now?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Pam, first things first. The U.S. Constitution at times can be confusing or vague, but it is crystal clear when it comes to elections. The Constitution, Article I, tells us that the states get to run the time, place, and manner of their elections, or Congress can pass laws that would override the states.

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There is no role for the president or the executive branch, according to the Constitution. What the executive branch and DOJ have been doing, however, is demanding full voter rolls, including certain confidential data about voters, from dozens of states, including Colorado, which have resisted.

And as you heard in that clip before, the states have won every single one of these court challenges, over two dozen court challenges, rulings against the administration by judges put on the bench by Republicans and Democrats alike, by Donald Trump in some instances.

And so now this case apparently may be headed towards the Supreme Court.

BROWN: All right.

So, Mr. Attorney General, let's bring you in. Colorado is among the 30-plus states, plus the District of Columbia, that have been sued by the Justice Department over voter data. Explain why your state is resisting the Trump administration's efforts and how it's doing that.

PHIL WEISER (D), COLORADO ATTORNEY GENERAL: Elie said this so well. The executive, the president, has no business doing what they're doing.

This administration continues to peddle conspiracy theories about elections. They're lies. Colorado has safe, secure, reliable elections. We don't need the federal government telling us how to manage our elections. It's our constitutional responsibility.

Their efforts to meddle to undermine how the post office delivers ballots, the president has said about Colorado's mail ballot elections that they're -- quote, unquote --- "automatically crooked." He just voted by mail. This whole thing is a charade. It's political games. It's against the law. That's why we're fighting back.

BROWN: What do you say to critics who are concerned about election security, right? I mean, we know that the election was not stolen in 2020, but Donald Trump continues to put that out there. And, for some, perception becomes reality.

So some critics might say, well, if you have nothing to hide, why not just put it out there?

WEISER: We don't have anything to hide. If people want to watch how we manage elections in Colorado, we're very transparent.

We have Democrats and Republicans who monitor the elections. We are critical in terms of how we have these ballots. They are paper ballots that are managed and counted appropriately. I'm really proud of how we make it easy, safe, and secure to vote. We have got among the highest voter participation rate in the nation.

Donald Trump should be praising our gold standard of elections, not attacking us. This administration's efforts, as you say, are part of some set of lies about the 2020 election. It is about targeting mail- in balloting, targeting blue states. It's un-American and it's illegal, and that's why we will fight back all the way to the Supreme Court.

BROWN: And, quickly, do you think it's about sowing doubt ahead of the midterms?

WEISER: It's hard to know what this administration's political games are, but it does appear that they have got a simple narrative. When they win elections, they're on the level. If they lose elections, they say it's because somehow they were crooked.

That's un-American. In America, we have elections that decide who governs, who doesn't. And up until the Trump administration, people, when they lost, they accepted the results. This administration needs to start recognizing in America we the people govern. Whoever in the White House, you have got to follow the rule of law, follow the will of the people.

BROWN: And, Elie, as you well know, none of this is happening in a vacuum.

In fact, you wrote in a recent piece for "New York Magazine" about what you call President Trump's -- quote -- "menacing but dumb plan to break the midterms." Share with our viewers what else is going on here when it comes to President Trump declining to rule out a national emergency to implement voting restrictions.

HONIG: So, that's why I wrote the piece, because it was after the president went on TV and told this guy named Wayne Allyn Root that he might, he's considering something along the lines of declaring an emergency and then seizing the elections.

That was a suggestion made to him, and then he said, well, hold on. Things happen. We will see what happens. I want to make clear., there is no emergency powers, there is no

emergency declaration that can give the president the right to take over the elections. First of all, you can't just declare an emergency into a vacuum and then do whatever you want. There are dozens of emergency statutes passed by Congress.

So you have to use one of those laws. You have to actually show there's an emergency, and then you could do the limited thing that that law allows you to do. There is no law that would allow the president to say, well, I see an emergency, therefore, I'm taking over the elections.

That is -- it's frightening that the president says that. It needs to be taken seriously, but he will lose in the courts if he tries to go that emergency route.

BROWN: You know, usually, past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, they say, and it certainly does seem like there are steps being taken ahead of the midterms to question results.

And if that did happen, if someone loses, but, clearly, it could be contested, what is the law? I believe it's the contested election law that would come into play. I think it's important for viewers to understand and be maybe right up on this law.

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HONIG: Yes, it's an obscure law. It's rarely used, but there is a law that says a person who believes they have lost an election for the House can contest it through certain procedures in the House.

But the legal burden there is really heavy. The person who's doing the contesting has to affirmatively prove that there was fraud or some problem with the process, and that that would have flipped the election over to them. People have tried it here and there. They have failed.

The last time it was actually used successfully was in the early 1980s. But you're right. It wouldn't surprise me if that happens. And, by the way, speaking of history being a guide, we know Donald Trump contested the 2020 election. He also contested the 2016 primary when he lost in Iowa to Ted Cruz, said his own party committed fraud against him, the Republican Party.

When Trump won the 2016 presidential election, he said there was fraud, and that he actually should have won the popular vote. He's even saying there's fraud over in the Democratic primaries now. When Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan primary, Trump said there was fraud in that. So, yes, there's a pretty clear pattern here.

BROWN: Yes.

And so, on that note, Mr. Attorney General, is Colorado prepared for the possibility of future elections being contested?

WEISER: Yes. We have had lots of situations where we do a recount. We have got the

ballots. We can look at them. We have got nothing to hide. We believe in transparency. That's why Colorado has such a -- gold standard elections, because it's easy to take a look, and we have got the records to prove it.

I don't believe there's much risk of Colorado in terms of the standard of our elections, because they're so resilient. People get their ballots early. They have got time to vote by mail, to hand them in, in person. I do worry about other states that have fewer days when people can vote.

The idea now that the Civil Rights Division is talking about all these poll monitors, it's a scary thing that, when the Civil Rights Division, the Justice Department wants to monitor elections, the first thing that comes to mind for me is, they're going to try to bully and intimidate and take away people's civil rights.

BROWN: All right, Elie Honig and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, thank you both.

We will be right back.

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BROWN: A major development in a story we have been following since the beginning.

Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell at the San Francisco Airport on Saturday, and then raided his Washington, D.C., home the next day. My colleague Allison Gordon and I learned this as part of an ongoing probe into sexual assault allegations. It's connected to that.

This is an investigation that's been going on for several months. As you may recall, Swalwell resigned from Congress in April after we reported, as well as "San Francisco Chronicle" detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, including a former staffer I interviewed who said he raped her, which he denies.

The Manhattan district attorney's office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department opened criminal investigations into Swalwell in the wake of the reporting. The raids this past weekend are part of a previously unreported federal investigation. Two women who we have spoken with about sexual misconduct against Swalwell in our reporting also told CNN they have spoken with the FBI.

Joining us now is CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig and CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe.

Andrew, first to you.

Just how big of a development is this previously unreported federal investigation and how does that differ from the other two investigations we know of?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, Pam, it's a huge development, and it's, I'm sure, a very concerning one for the former congressman and his family.

To be facing a DA's investigation in New York and a sheriff's investigation in L.A., that's pretty serious to begin with, but now you have a third very big agency kind of behind that, FBI and DOJ. I guess the curious thing to me is what they're actually doing in this case.

We know, because they executed search warrants over the weekend on him personally for his devices and then also at his residence, we know they have been able to convince a federal judge that there is probable cause to believe that there is evidence of a crime, a federal crime, on those devices or in his residence.

That's the standard for getting those search warrants. But we also know, as I'm sure my friend Elie could tell you as well, this is not the sort of thing that the FBI typically investigates. Claims of sexual misconduct, sexual assault, things like that are usually investigated by the jurisdiction in which that conduct took place at the state level or county level.

So it's not perfectly clear to me why the FBI has stepped into an investigation of sexual misconduct at this point.

BROWN: And according to our reporting, Elie, there were several alleged victims in multiple states. Could that be part of this? What is your understanding of why the FBI would be brought in on a sex assault investigation like this?

As Andy noted, typically, the FBI doesn't.

HONIG: Yes, I had the same reaction.

So sexual assault on its own is always going to be a state crime, but, on its own, it's not a federal crime. You need some federal hook. And the fact that a person or the allegation that a person may have committed multiple sexual assaults in multiple states, that still is not going to give you federal jurisdiction. That's just going to mean you might have multiple state-level charges.

And so you have to ask, what could have been the federal jurisdictional hook here? It could be -- we don't know, but if some of this conduct happened on federal property or in a federal building, that would then give you federal jurisdiction.

But, as Andy said, the thing we know for sure is prosecutors were able to convince it sounds like two judges, if we have two warrants, that there's probable cause, A, that a federal crime was committed, and, B, that they will find evidence of that crime in the phones and the locations to be searched.

And I will tell you, having gone through that process of bringing the that paperwork to judges, they don't rubber-stamp that. They look very carefully, especially in a high-profile case like this. Now, probable cause is a lower standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it's something and it's substantial. So this is a big development.

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BROWN: Right. And, as we noted, Swalwell has denied the allegations of rape, sexual assault, but this is certainly a big new development that the FBI is involved.

Still more to learn here, but I want to play one of Swalwell's accusers and what she said about her interaction with him at a press conference earlier this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LONNA DREWES, SWALWELL ACCUSER: I believe he drugged my drink. I only had one glass of wine. When I arrived at his hotel room, I was already incapacitated and I couldn't move my arms or my body. He raped me. And he choked me.

And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness and I thought I died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So taking into -- all of this into account, the reporting that we have already done as a team, what we heard publicly from an alleged victim, what could Swalwell be facing here, Elie?

HONIG: So, if those allegations are proven, he certainly would be looking at sexual assault, rape charges in various states, right, in whatever states they actually occurred in. Could be assault, just physical assault as well.

Federally, it is a federal crime to commit any state crime on federal property in a federal building. So if that can be proven as well, you could be looking at federal charges.

BROWN: What about crossing state lines?

HONIG: Yes, crossing state lines in itself is not going to give you federal jurisdiction here unless it's tied to some -- I mean, it would be a stretch, but there is such thing as a -- you could charge it as a racketeering crime, if you say this was his mode of committing crimes, multiple connected crimes related to one another.

I don't know that I have seen it applied to a case like this. So we will have to see. But, again, they were able to convince a federal judge that there could be not just a state crime, not just a state sexual assault crime, but some federal crime here.

To me, that's one of the big unknowns here that we will have to watch and see for.

BROWN: So, Andy, what would the FBI be looking for in the search and seizure? We know, again, it seized his electronics. He landed at the San Francisco airport Saturday. That is when he was confronted by FBI agents as electronics were seized, and then his home was raided the next day in D.C.

Tell us more about what the FBI would be looking for specifically.

MCCABE: Yes, so that's -- it's a little bit hard to do without knowing for sure what violation they're actually investigating, which is what we have been talking about.

But, typically, when you seize electronics devices, you are looking obviously for evidence of that violation, evidence that the person engaged -- that has possession of those devices engaged in that violation of federal criminal law.

And that would primarily be communication, so records of text messages, e-mails, phone calls, whatever that might be, maybe the transmission of photographs. We do know that some of the women who have made allegations against the former congressman alleged that he had inappropriately sent them images, pictures of himself that were sexual and inappropriate, so could be looking for things like that.

In the residence, you would expect they'd be looking for the similar sorts of things, evidence of communications, evidence of connections between people. As Elie said, if it is a -- sort of a RICO-style case, you would be looking for association evidence, meaning proof that two people are connected with each other, they know each other, they engaged in some sort of activity together.

I should say also the only other crime that I can think of that's a really a long shot here would be potentially a Mann Act violation, which makes it a federal crime to transport someone across state lines for immoral purposes. But that's typically used to target people who are human traffickers or people who are taking advantage of women for -- in prostitution kind of sort of situation.

So, again, really not clear yet. We haven't seen the warrant. We don't know what they claim to be investigating, and there's a lot more we need to know about that.

BROWN: Yes, and we will continue to report it out.

Elie Honig, Andrew McCabe, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Quick question before I let you go, Elie.

Since he is a federal official, a member of Congress at the time, isn't that enough for federal law enforcement to get involved in investigating?

HONIG: It's actually not. It's not the case that just because someone's a federal official, if they commit a crime, then there's federal jurisdiction. But if he did it on federal property, using federal resources, absolutely.

One other possibility, people sometimes delete e-mails, delete texts. You can tell that a lot of times as an FBI agent, as Andy McCabe would certainly know. And so if there is proof that he destroyed evidence, deleted evidence, that could certainly be a federal crime as well.

[10:55:01]

BLITZER: Interesting.

BROWN: All right. Again, busy day of reporting.

HONIG: For sure.

BROWN: We're trying to get some more facts.

And we will be right back.

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BLITZER: Happening now: from the NFL back, yes, back to college.

A new court order could have rookies who made it to the pros eligible for a shot to returning to college sports.

CNN sports anchor Andy Scholes is joining us right now.

Andy, is every rookie in the NFL now eligible to return to college? How would this work?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, I mean, Wolf, they'd have to filed a lawsuit first, but history is showing us that that works, but, I mean it's getting pretty ridiculous. We now have players that are on NFL rosters as we speak that may end up going back to college to play and end up making huge impact this season.

You got 16 football players who are part of a lawsuit seeking a fifth year of eligibility. They were granted a temporary restraining order by a Louisiana judge to return to play. So this means a few of these guys who are on NFL rosters that don't make that final cut on August 30 could then just pivot and go back to college.

The NCAA is appealing this ruling, and they say these athletes don't appreciate the destabilizing effect that these rulings are having on college sports.

All right, the NFL preseason is back tonight for week two. You got two games on the schedule. Raiders at Texans, 49ers at Chargers. And the NBA -- or NFL, I should say, and NBC releasing a fun commercial to remind people when their regular season kicks off. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE TIRICO, NBC SPORTS: This will be a good game.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH, NBC SPORTS: Definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-Oh. Guess what day NFL kickoff is? Huh? Anybody?

COLLINSWORTH: This guy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, what day is NFL

kickoff?

COLLINSWORTH: It's a day early. We know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, thanks, Cris. I'm asking Mike.

Come on, Mike. It's another name for Wednesday. Just say it.

TIRICO: Hump day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hump day. Hump day kickoff. Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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