Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Flips, Urges Republicans To Vote To Release Epstein Files; Interview With Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA); Interview With Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY); Family Of Virginia Roberts Giuffre On House Vote Hours Away On Releasing Epstein Files; Judge Temporarily Pauses Order That Would Allow Comey's Defense Team To Access Grand Jury Records; Trump Feuds With Greene As House Vote On Epstein Files Looms; DHS: At Least 130 Arrested In Charlottes Immigration Blitz, 44 With Criminal Records. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired November 17, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIVE MJINDI, PROJECT COORDINATOR, OUT LGBT WEILBEING: And well, now the reality is what it is.
TINY, SOUTH AFRICAN LIVING WITH HIV: My message to Donald Trump -- Mr. Trump, please you must have mercy, please help us. Please just give us medication. We still want to survive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Thanks so much to Donie O'Sullivan for that and don't miss Donie's full report on the whole story "MisinfoNation: White Genocide" now streaming on the CNN App. Thanks so much for joining us. "AC360" starts now.
[20:00:31]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, what's behind the President getting behind the bill to force his hand on the Epstein file? Something he could have done himself with no bill and no forcing. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, the bill's Democratic and Republican co- sponsors, join us live.
Also tonight, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose support for the bill, among other things, has made her a verbal target of the Presidents as well as a real target, she says, for violence.
And later, the Border Patrol descends on their latest target city.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
COOPER: We'll take you to Charlotte, North Carolina, where federal agents have started rounding people up. They broke the window of this man, and took him. He says he's an American citizen.
Good evening, thanks for joining us. Tonight, the President is now fully behind a bill, he says, to do what he could have already done without one. At any point in his administration, with just a memo or a phone call from the Oval Office for any reason or no reason at all. He could even do it tonight by ordering the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, which would be unconventional but what hasn't been lately.
Instead, in what's being billed as a total reversal, President Trump is now supporting house legislation to do the exact same thing, just not so simply or so quickly and perhaps that's significant.
He laid it out over the weekend in a post on his social network. In it, he writes, "As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the fake news media, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein Files because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this Democrat hoax perpetrated by radical left lunatics in order to deflect from the great success of the Republican Party, including our recent victory on the Democrat Shutdown."
Now further down, he adds, "And the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to. I don't care." Now, the President is urging Republicans to pass what he'd been urging them not to for months. And today, when asked, he also said he'll sign it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So, I'm for any -- I don't -- they can do whatever they want. We'll give them everything.
REPORTER: You would sign it --
TRUMP: Sure, I would. Let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it. But don't talk about it too much because honestly, I don't want to take it away from us. It's really a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them. And it's a hoax. The whole thing is a hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: He did not say whether by hoax. He meant that hundreds of girls and young women were not, in fact, recruited, groomed, trafficked and abused by Jeffrey Epstein. He did not mention them at all, even though the Justice Department back in July, his own Justice Department reaffirmed that Epstein harmed more than a thousand victims.
But looking at his words in context, he seems to be saying that any culpability lies only with Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have nothing to do with Epstein, the Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, keeping them honest, the blanket statement ignores a lot, including the fact that Donald Trump was friends at one point with Jeffrey Epstein, although he also wasn't a registered Republican back then. So, maybe he was a Democrat. But take a look at this "New York Magazine" report back in 2002, a now infamous piece headlined Jeffrey Epstein: International Man of Mystery. In it, businessman Donald Trump says, "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
Now, that sounds like one friend describing another. Now, the President's words today certainly gloss over that, as well as the fact that his account of how and when that friendship ended has varied over the years, something that last week's batch of e-mails only calls attention to.
In any case, whatever his motivations supporting this bill, which the Senate majority leader hasn't even said hell allow a vote on, it is a reversal. So much so that House Speaker Mike Johnson, who spent nearly two months blocking it on the President's behalf, must now have whiplash, but not so bad that he still can't say this on behalf of the boss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): He's never had anything to hide. He and I concern that we wanted to ensure that victims of these heinous crimes are completely protected from disclosure. Those who don't want their names to be out there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, keeping them honest, it's impossible to say whether the President or anyone else does or doesn't have something to hide. He's never been accused of or charged with any wrongdoing as far as Jeffrey Epstein is concerned.
As for the speakers implication, though, that Donald Trump is some model of transparency, facts indicate otherwise. What is fair to say is that at one point or another, he and other members of the administration have called for the release of the files.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "FOX AND FRIENDS" WEEKEND: Would you declassify the Epstein files?
TRUMP: Yes, yes, I would. I'd be inclined to do the Epstein I'd have no problem with it.
J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.
BENNY JOHNSON, "THE BENNY SHOW" HOST: Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederast? The largest scale pederast in human history?
KASH PATEL, DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Simple because of who's on that list. Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.
PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now. You're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office.
It's sitting on my desk right now to review. A truckload of evidence arrived, it's now in the possession of the FBI. It's a new day. It's a new administration and everything's going to come out to the public.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:46]
COOPER: Well, for a time, the administration made a show of releasing some Epstein related materials, complete with conservative influencers posing with those so-called Epstein binders, which, as it turned out, contained very little that was new.
Then the administration tried to clam up entirely with the Justice Department's two page memo stating, quote, "It is the determination of the Department of Justice and the federal bureau of investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted," which set off the now bipartisan storm that got us here and got Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans on the Presidential enemies list and triggered a Republican rebellion in support of this and some embarrassment for the President. All of which he could have avoided had he done what he's now letting himself do, namely, release the Epstein files, or at least saying he will if the Senate passes it.
Tonight, White House officials tell us that the President has not directed the Justice Department to stand in the way of turning over any of them to Congress should this bill pass.
Joining me now, two members of Congress behind the legislative push to release all the Epstein files, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie.
I appreciate both of you being with us. Congressman Massie what do you make of the President's reversal, how do you see it?
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Well, he got tired of us winning, and he decided to join us.
Look, they could have done this four months ago, and instead, they fought us every bit of the way. Now, they want to be on our side. We'll accept their support but we're, you know, a little bit suspicious of this sudden turn of events. So, we'll keep an eye on things. We're worried that maybe they'll try to muck it up in the Senate. But I do think we're going to get a straight up or down vote tomorrow on the language that Ro Khanna and I introduced and I think it's going to be a very big vote. I think we'll get at least a veto proof majority.
COOPER: And Congressman Khanna, what do you think is behind the President's decision to change course? REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): He can do math. I mean, Thomas Massie did a great job. We were working all weekend and had almost a hundred Republicans who were going to vote for a bill in defiance of Donald Trump.
This is Donald Trump calling in members to the Situation Room to try to get them off the petition. Having members of the Cabinet try to get them off the petition, threatening to endorse members as he did Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene to get them off the petition. But, you know, the survivors are going to be with us tomorrow. This is one of the most horrific, disgusting scandals in American history. Jeffrey Epstein had a rape island where rich and powerful men went and either trafficked in women or raped underage girls.
And it's going to shock the conscience when all of this comes out. And it's really a testament to their courage that despite the Speaker keeping shutting down Congress, they persisted and were now going to have this successful vote tomorrow.
Congressman Massie, couldn't the President just call up the Justice Department and say, release this? I mean, obviously, that would be unconventional. But, you know, he's an unconventional President.
MASSIE: He absolutely could. There's still time to do that. He could save the Senate a lot of work. He takes them forever to do anything in the Senate and he could just release the files himself. Now, some people have said, well, how will you know that he's released the files? We will know when rich and powerful men are implicated.
So, they're, you know, they've claimed that they've been releasing thousands, tens of thousands of documents to Congress already. But what we've discovered is there's not a single new name in those documents. We know because we have survivors through their lawyers who've told us that they have names. We know who is in -- they know who's in those files, and we'll know if he's given us a complete release, whether its compelled by Congress or whether he does it by on his own accord.
COOPER: Congressman Khanna, are you as confident that whatever the Justice Department releases will be the full files, if, in fact, the Senate votes and the President approves it?
KHANNA: Well, it'll only be the full files if people stay vigilant and active. The survivors' lawyers have seen the files. The survivors know what's in the files. The Epstein estate is providing documents. So there are other sources of corroborating the information and there career officials in the Justice Department and career officials from previous administrations who have seen those files.
So, I don't just trust the Trump administration to do it, but if the media stays on it, if people stay on it, and certainly Thomas Massie and I are going to stay on it, then I do think we can get these things out there.
[20:10:11] COOPER: Congressman Massie, is it clear to you why, you know, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, when they were podcasters, we're saying one thing and then when they got in power and in a position to actually see things and release things with the President's approval, they suddenly were singing a different tune. Do you know why?
MASSIE: Well, you know the Vice-President and the Attorney General made the same about face after they got into office. You know, I have always maintained that it's not because Trump is in these files that he doesn't want them released. I've thought that he's trying to protect rich and powerful friends of his who may not even be partisan.
They may be above Republican or Democrat because they're billionaires and they figure they can pay off whatever judge or whatever party is in power. But I wonder why Kash Patel and Dan Bongino had a change of heart. Maybe, and this is what I believe. It's because it implicates our own intelligence agencies and those abroad. Maybe they've been in a SCIF and they've heard things, and they've decided that this wouldn't be good for National Security. But if that's the case, we need to know.
COOPER: And, Congressman Massie, I mean, President Trump has been attacking you personally, obviously, on social media. He's supporting your primary opponent. What's your message to him and I mean, why are you so passionate about this?
MASSIE: My message to him, and I've told this to him personally, is if I lose my next election and go back to my farm and raise cattle and peaches, I probably have lower blood pressure and a longer life. So, I'm going to do what's the right thing is to do. And if that means working with people like Ro Khanna, who will do the right thing on his side of the aisle, then so be it. I don't care who I upset up here, as long as people back home are happy with the job and so far they are.
COOPER: Congressman Massie, Congressman Khanna, I appreciate your time tonight, thank you. Coming up next, we'll look closer at what could be motivating the President, what could happen when he gets -- what he now says he wants.
And later reaction to all of this from Epstein's survivor, the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre's brother and sister-in-law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SKY ROBERTS, BROTHER OF VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE: I think right now there's nothing holding him back from releasing them himself. It's certainly a switch in his narrative from what it was previously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:16:51]
COOPER: More now on the President's reversal of the Epstein files after months of resistance, he said today he would sign legislation compelling his Justice Department to release them just as long as, excuse me, the story doesn't distract from all of his administration's many accomplishments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We've already given, I believe the number is 50,000 pages, 50,000 pages, and it's just a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax as it pertains to the Republicans. What I just don't want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Perspective now, from former Trump administration official Matt Mowers, former special adviser to President Obama, Van Jones and former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin.
So, Van, what do you make of this reversal? I mean, he could, as Thomas Massie said, he could just call the Justice Department right now.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He could do it right now. He could just do it right now.
Look, I mean, it turns out that, you know, there is a limit to how far this kind of Trump cult is willing to go. And once you are talking about a massive conspiracy to protect pedophiles, even the Trump coalition cannot hold together. And I think he's actually probably shocked. He did all his usual tricks. He threw out the word hoax. He attacked this person. He attacked that person. He gave a nickname to Marjorie Taylor Greene. None of his tricks worked.
And I think he's probably sitting they're shocked that, yes, there is gravity. Yes, there is a sun in the sky and no, Republicans are not going to support you protecting a pedophile ring.
COOPER: Alyssa, is that how you see it? That's why.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, I think that the base was not going to move on this issue. Listen, Donald Trump's had very prominent folks around him like J.D. Vance and others who helped make this a really big issue that people care about.
And I've heard from people left, right and center. They care about this issue, it's not going away. The more you're hearing victim testimony, the more you're getting these releases from the Oversight Committee. It just makes the public more interested.
But one thing I'll say is this is, I take it at face value, that Trump truthed out that he wants this all released. But to Van's point, he could direct the DOJ to release it tomorrow. So, my question is, once this vote passes the House, is he going to be calling Leader Thune and saying the senate needs to take this up, whipping Republicans in the Senate to then vote it?
I'm a little more skeptical that he's actually going to go to that next step of trying to get this across the finish line and get transparency for the public, who really does care about this issue.
COOPER: Matt, do you think the President will do that or I guess the other question is, why wouldn't he just call the Justice Department right now and say, release the files?
MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, look, he's now calling on Congress to release the files, right? I think that's the important point. You know, there are some limitations to what the Justice Department traditionally would put out in circumstances like this. Certainly, they have more latitude to go further. If Congress says that they must do it. And then certainly if it has a Presidential pen on that Congressional action.
And so, look, I think what this comes down to, though, is the President's really proud of what he's accomplished this year, right. And whether it's the Big Beautiful Bill and protecting one of the largest tax cuts, whether it's the peace deal in the Mideast, whether it's, you know, he's very proud of the tariff and trade policies that he's put in place that's reorienting the trade economy.
He just doesn't want other issues to overshadow it. And so, you know, I think he's being truthful here -- truthful here, where he says, go ahead and vote for it. You know, put it out there. We should be transparent.
He just doesn't want another 24 to 48-hour news cycle where we're talking about things other than the great accomplishments he's had so far this year.
[20:20:27]
COOPER: Which is weird though, is it because it's been a long time that he's not wanted this stuff released and been aware of the damage. I mean, he is, if anything, highly attuned to any kind of -- how the winds are blowing. I mean, he must know and have known for months. This is doing him damage.
GRIFFIN: Yes, listen, I'm a little skeptical. If the President had wanted these documents released and whatever the Department of Justice does have grand jury testimony and so on, he would have said that back in January of being sworn into office. There has been this delay tactic from the White House. There's been a lot of pushing back. There's nothing to see here calling it a hoax and so on.
So, I'm a little skeptical that he's always been on the side of transparency here. I think he's reacting to his base, his supporters, and even those who don't support him that this has taken on sort of an outsized influence in the American consciousness and people do care about it. It deals with some of the most horrific crimes that can be committed.
And so, I think that, listen, he's going to have to put his money where his mouth is, most likely, unless the Senate doesn't ultimately take this up. And then the question becomes, is the Department of Justice going to just simply release what they have? But the issue won't go away and keep in mind, we've got the midterms about a year from today, and this is something that voters do care about in every vulnerable Republican in the House and the Senate is going to have to answer for were they for releasing these files or not.
And the easy way to help them be able to look their constituents in the eye is to give them a vote on it?
COOPER: Van, do you think it would pass in the Senate?
JONES: I think at this point, this is a freight train that is very, very hard to stop. And if Donald Trump is trying to figure out some way for this not to be a distraction, he has the worst possible strategy for not having it be a distraction. It's been a distraction the whole time.
I think that what you're going to see is -- and don't forget either it's going to come out and what's in there is so terrible that Donald Trump has been willing to have Congress not be in town for two months to keep it from being seen by anybody.
So that's going to be the news cycle, or it's not going to come out and it is going to be the news cycle. This is going to be the news cycle. And Donald Trump, if he didn't want to release this stuff, he shouldn't run on it.
COOPER: Matt, Congressman Massie is predicting that as many as a hundred House Republicans are going to vote to release the files. Do you think the President has been out of step with his base on this? I mean, to have, you know, so many people in Congress now switching on this.
MOWERS: I think you're going to have more than a hundred Republicans. You'll probably have nearly every Republican in the House vote for it. You know, you now have the President encouraging Republican members to actually go and vote for the release.
So, I'd imagine that between, you know, the folks who want to do it because they think it's the right thing to do, those who believe there's political pressure from the base or those who have encouragement from the President, that's going to be a lot of Republicans that vote for this. It will be very interesting, though, to see you know, what that partisan breakdown is.
I mean, as you know, there have been many high-profile Democrats named in the e-mails that have leaked so far. Actually, I think just before we came on, Larry Summers, you know, former advisor of President Clinton and President Obama, said he is stepping back from his public commitments because of some of the really atrocious e-mails, the communications we saw between him and Jeffrey Epstein.
And so, it will be interesting to see what the partisan breakdown is in Congress as a result of the fact that so many high profile Democrats are named in these e-mails as well.
COOPER: Van, what are you expecting to happen?
JONES: Look, I mean, I think it's kind of hot potato now, you know, people say, oh, it's going to be the Democrats who are upset. The Democrats are happy to have this come out. By the way, the Democrats are a hundred percent, people keep saying the Democrats are scared.
COOPER: I mean, this was always --
JONES: Democrats are not acting scared.
COOPER: This was always the wrap on it when it was when it was Republicans calling for this back in the day that this was a Democratic pedophile ring.
JONES: Exactly.
COOPER: And obviously now it seems like, you know, sides are switching. We'll see, hopefully it will all come out.
JONES: Democrats are not scared.
COOPER: Van Jones, Matt Mowers, thanks very much. Alyssa Farah Griffin always.
Coming up next, the family of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre on this moment. What they told me about the President's reversal.
And later the administration's case against former FBI Director James Comey and the questions the judge is now raising that could derail it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:29:23]
COOPER: Welcome back, before hearing from Sky and Amanda Roberts, the brother and sister-in-law of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, I want to play a clip from a public service announcement out today from the advocacy group "World Without Exploitation."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 14 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 16 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 16.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seventeen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fourteen years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me. When I met Jeffrey Epstein. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Some of the hundreds of women who survived abuse at the hands of Epstein, they won all the Epstein files made public, something the President now says he wants to. I spoke about it before airtime with Sky and Amanda Roberts.
Sky, when you heard the President saying that he will sign this bill to release the files if its passed by both Houses of Congress, I'm wondering what you think because he could just release the files, have them ordered to release them now.
S. ROBERTS: I think right now there's nothing holding him back from releasing them himself. It's certainly a switch in his narrative from what it was previously. I think he's been very opposing to this, calling it a hoax at many times, which is incredibly hurtful to us and so many survivors out there. And now he's reversing course in the sense that, you know, maybe it's the ploy of like, oh, you know what, there's nothing to see over here anyway. Let's just support it now, right?
Like, now, I can just say that I've supported this the entire time. That's not the reality. The reality is given so much pushback to this point. And like you said, Anderson, if he really wanted to do it, he could do it today. I mean, I would challenge him to say, why should we even go to a vote tomorrow if the reality is that you could just flip a switch if you truly supported it, then just then just release them now.
[20:31:04]
I think right now there's nothing holding him back from releasing them himself. It's certainly a switch in his narrative from what it was previously, right? I think he's been very opposing to this, calling it a hoax at many times, which is incredibly hurtful to us and so many survivors out there.
And now he's reversing course in the sense that, you know, maybe it's the ploy of like, oh, you know what, there's nothing to see over here anyway. Let's just support it now, right? Like, now I can just say that I've supported this the entire time. That's not the reality. Reality is he's given so much pushback to this point.
And like you said, Anderson, if he really wanted to do it, he could do it today. I mean, I would challenge him to say, why should we even go to a vote tomorrow if the reality is that you could just flip a switch? If you truly supported it, then just release it now.
COOPER: And Amanda, I understand -- I mean, obviously the House is expected to vote tomorrow, I understand you're going to go to Capitol Hill with survivors and others. What do you hope to -- what message do you hope to send?
AMANDA ROBERTS, SISTER-IN-LAW OF VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE: This moment is bigger than one singular event. This is a large thing for survivors everywhere. Not just of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but every single survivor of abuse, sexual abuse, trafficking. It is a moment to say that we see survivors. We believe them. We will stand with them.
And as people in power, we will look to change. And so that's what we really hope to accomplish, is to reach our elected officials on another level, on the human level. Remind them why they ran for office in the first place. And that is to represent us, their people.
And I think it is so globally large now that people are listening when they weren't listening before. And it's just -- it's a bittersweet moment because we wish that. So Virginia was here to see this. This was everything that she worked for --
COOPER: Yes.
A. ROBERTS: -- for decades. So it's just such a big ball of emotions. You know, we're happy in certain moments because it is coming to a vote. But there are moments where we just can't help the tears from coming because she should be here to see this.
COOPER: And Sky, I mean, I want to ask you about the e-mails which were released by the House Oversight Democrats last week through the Epstein estate. Some of them said that President Trump, quote, "knew about the girls," seemingly in reference to Trump's claim that he kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club for poaching young women who worked there.
One e-mail claims that Trump, quote, "spent hours" with a victim at Epstein's house whom House Republicans identified as your sister. When you read that and heard that that's who the victim was that was noted, I'm wondering what you thought, because I know that your sister never implicated the President of any wrongdoing in her book or public comments.
S. ROBERTS: I think it's very much twofold, Anderson, because like you had noted, no, she didn't. She always said that he was nice to her. But not necessarily like that he wasn't around Epstein, that he couldn't have been implicated in another way, shape or form. I think that'd be naive to say because it would take away from another survivor story potentially that would come forward. And they have their own experiences potentially with President Trump himself.
I think the biggest opportunity we have here now is that the fact that he is named in these files. The fact that his name is being brought up well over, I mean, almost to an extent of hundreds, if not thousands of times in these documents. Anybody who is in these files should be thoroughly investigated to the fullest extent.
The problem is -- and I think this is where the American people don't need to get confused, is because a lot of what they're getting is out of the estate right now. It's not necessarily out of the files that the DOJ has. It's out of the estate itself that they're summoning a lot of these documents.
And, Anderson, how careless is it for them to actually name and unredact her name when she's not here to speak for herself? I think it really did feel like a slap in the face. It felt like they were trying to vindicate President Trump in some way and say, oh, it's -- see, it's no longer a hoax because Virginia cleared my name. That's not the case here.
She can't be used as a political toy. I think no survivor should be used as political toys. And we need to start respecting them and make sure that we are being -- if they truly care, I mean, this is what they've ran their campaign on. They released the files, but also Speaker Mike Johnson has said, well, we have to make sure the names are redacted, that's why we haven't released the documents.
[20:35:13]
Well, why is the White House and the House Committee for the Republicans releasing my sister's name when she's not here? That's a contradiction to what they're saying. I think they should fully redact every name for the protection of survivors, including my sister.
COOPER: Sky, according to Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin, a whistleblower told him that Ghislaine Maxwell is not only receiving special treatment in prison, but also preparing to file an application for a commutation. Do you imagine that that might actually occur, that the President might actually do that? What would you think about that?
S. ROBERTS: It feels icky, Anderson. I mean, to put in a very simple term, I think the fact that our President of the United States are we -- meanwhile, let's just state it the obvious, we have the king in the U.K. who literally took away his brother's titles and privileges as the prince. But our own President of the United States can't pardon or can't rule out a pardon for a convicted sex trafficking, I just have a really hard time with that.
And I'm even disturbed just about her accommodations at this point. I mean, she's sitting in prison playing with puppies and eating meals that are being delivered to her. I mean, the guards are saying, I'm sick of having to do this. And so I think we need to ask our President at this point.
I mean, he clearly -- I mean, he's saying now that he supports the files within. Can we ask him one other question and say, well, then let's just, yes or no, are you going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell or not? Because it, honestly, is a slap in the face to my sister and to us and to all the survivors, the service to them.
And I just -- you know, I put it in simple terms, it feels really, really icky and yucky at this point thinking about her being back on the streets with other children out there. I mean, yours, my kids could be next.
COOPER: Sky and Amanda Roberts, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
A. ROBERTS: Thank you.
S. ROBERTS: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: Still ahead tonight, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's break with the President and the threat. She says these verbal attacks from him are drawing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Marjorie Traitor Greene, I don't think her life is in danger. I don't think -- frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go there! Go there! Go there! Go there!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: More than 100 people arrested as federal agents expand their immigration enforcement operation to Charlotte. We'll take you there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:42:16]
COOPER: There are serious questions tonight about whether the Justice Department's indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is actually viable. A federal judge suggested in a stinging ruling that the indictment may have been tainted by what he calls a, quote, "disturbing pattern" of profound investigative missteps, which he says, quote, "may rise the level of government misconduct."
Now, the judge also called out Lindsey Halligan, this woman, the inexperienced prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury. He says she may have potentially undermined the integrity of the grand jury proceeding. The judge also ruled that Comey's defense team should have access to the grand jury records, but then temporarily paused his order, allowing prosecutors to file a challenge to that ruling.
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor, joins me now. What stands out to you in the ruling?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Anderson, I cannot believe what the prosecutor did in this case. I'm genuinely stunned by it. This is core stuff. This is not just some administrative thing that can be papered over.
So two things jumped out at me from the judge's ruling. First of all, the judge said that the prosecutor made, quote, "a fundamental and highly prejudicial misstatement of the law." The prosecutor stood in front of the grand jury and suggested that Jim Comey would have to take the stand at his trial. No, he does not. That's the Fifth Amendment.
The other thing the prosecutor did that's even more astonishing is stood in front of the grand jury and said, I've shown you certain evidence, grand jurors, but we also have other stuff which I haven't shown you, which may be even better. And you can consider that as well. That violates, I couldn't even name which amendments, every amendment in the book.
COOPER: Why would she say that Jim Comey would have to take the stand? I mean, like -- HONIG: Because she --
COOPER: -- anybody who knows anything about the law, who's even watched Law & Order, wouldn't know that.
HONIG: Because rookie prosecutors make rookie mistakes. Let's remember, this was Lindsey Halligan's fourth day ever as a prosecutor. She started on Monday. That was on Thursday. She had never been in front of a grand jury before. And she was clueless. And that's how you get in trouble like this.
The other thing she did, the judge found that she had made procedural and substantive irregularities which may rise to the level of government misconduct. So what she did there is she went and took old e-mails that DOJ had obtained back in 2019 and 2020 between Jim Comey and Daniel Richman, who's a key player in this case, showed them to the grand jury.
The problem is, first of all, those e-mails were obtained in a different case for a different crime. You can't just go find something five years ago that you got in a search warrant and use it five years later for something else. And what's going to be in there? Attorney- client communications. Again, core Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment stuff. It's astonishing. It's a stinging ruling.
COOPER: Wouldn't she have had some, like, advice from somebody at the Department of Justice? Like, hey --
HONIG: Yes.
COOPER: -- you can't use this material?
HONIG: Well, what she should have done is gone in there with another prosecutor from her office who knew what he or she was doing. But nobody was willing. She went in there herself in front of a grand jury. You are asking for trouble.
[20:45:07]
I mean, look, I'm not slagging her. If I went into a grand jury on a complicated case like this, my fourth day as a prosecutor --
COOPER: Right.
HONIG: -- many years ago, I promise you I would have made just as bad errors. But that's the problem. Remember, she came into this case not because she's a qualified prosecutor, but because she's a political loyalist. And now they're paying the price for this.
COOPER: Elie Honig, thanks very much.
HONIG: Thanks, Anderson.
COOPER: In what may be surprising to some, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia appears to be changing her approach to her job. She's obviously got a reputation on Capitol Hill for being confrontational. Now she's apologizing for some of her past behavior. Greene has also been on -- one of President Trump's staunchest supporters. But recently, she's openly clashing with him and drawing his anger.
More tonight from CNN's Sunlen Serfaty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R), GEORGIA: We're going to reelect our favorite President, the greatest President in United States history --
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From loyal allies --
TRUMP: This one, I never, ever want to have her as my enemy, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
SERFATY (voice-over): -- to fierce political rivals.
TRUMP: Marjorie Traitor Greene.
SERFATY (voice-over): For President Trump and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, this is not just a breakup, it is a shattering.
TRUMP: Frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her.
SERFATY (voice-over): Greene, once one of Trump's most vocal supporters in MAGA world, is now in full-on rebellion mode.
GREENE: He called me a traitor, and that is so extremely wrong. And those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.
SERFATY (voice-over): Pushed to a boiling point, with Trump pulling his endorsement of her, calling for her to be primaried.
TRUMP: I have people calling me. They want to challenge her to a race in her district in Georgia.
SERFATY (voice-over): And dubbed her a ranting lunatic, wacky, traitor.
TRUMP: I don't know what happened to Marjorie. She's lost her way, I think.
SERFATY (voice-over): And giving her a new nickname, "Wacky Marjorie Traitor Brown. Remember, Greene turns to Brown when there is ROT involved." The war of words unfolding swiftly as Greene has become one of the most prominent Republican voices fighting to release the Epstein files.
GREENE: It has all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking. And, you know, I stand with these women.
SERFATY (voice-over): And Greene taking aim at the very core of Trump, questioning his own alignment with the MAGA movement he started. GREENE: Promoting H-1B visas to replace American jobs, bringing in 600,000 Chinese students to replace American students, those are not America's first positions.
SERFATY (voice-over): Trump saying all she does is complain, complain, complain.
GREENE: I really don't respect what our government has become.
SERFATY (voice-over): Since being elected to Congress in 2020, the Republican firebrand has captured national attention.
GREENE: You can't allow it to just transfer power peacefully like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our president because he did not win this election.
SERFATY (voice-over): With her bombastic behavior --
GREENE: You're being tricked into having your Second Amendment slowly chipped away.
SERFATY (voice-over): -- antisemitic conspiracy theories --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tell us about Jewish space lasers --
GREENE: No, why don't you go talk about Jewish space lasers.
SERFATY (voice-over): -- once claiming that the deadly wildfires in California in 2018 were caused by a laser from space, possibly controlled by the Rothschild Investment Bank. All of this has made her recent about face.
GREENE: I would like to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. I am committed and I've been working on this a lot lately to put down the knives in politics.
SERFATY (voice-over): Even more jarring.
GREENE: I'm leading the way with my own example, and I hope that President Trump can do the same.
SERFATY (voice-over): Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Joining us now, CNN Senior Political Commentator, Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger. He served in the House with Congresswoman Greene from 2021 to early 2023. I mean, did you ever think you'd see a fracture like this between President Trump and Congresswoman Greene?
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. But, but, Anderson, I think we need to be very careful here. I think there's -- I'd love if Marjorie Taylor Greene has like, you know, found proverbial Jesus here and really has changed her mind, but she's got a lot to talk about. I mean, somebody has got to ask her what her opinion on January 6th is. Like, you know, has she come around on January 6th to now publicly say what it is? You know, the Parkland false flag. She claimed Parkland shooting was a false flag. 9/11 was a false flag.
She claimed in 2024 that the government controls the weather. She called, you know, Muslim members of the House the Jihad squad. She went after another member's transgender daughter, yelled at the State of the Union address, calls Zelenskyy a criminal.
So that's a lot of stuff that if she really is having to change her heart, and I pray and hope she is, she needs to address that and backtrack on. Right now what it feels like to me, Anderson, is it's just she's in a little bit of a tiff with Donald Trump because he wasn't going to support her governor's run or whatever. And she's, you know, ticked about that.
[20:50:09]
But I don't know. I hope this is a new leaf. That would be great to see.
COOPER: I've talked to others who said, well, look, maybe she's looking beyond, you know, that there is an end to President Trump's time in office theoretically and, you know, legally. And she's looking to that post-Trump time and kind of reading tea leaves.
KINZINGER: Yes, I mean, that's possible. And -- but again, for me, it's like when somebody is in a position like she is, anybody who's a member of Congress represents 700,000 people. And you throw stuff out there like the Parkland shooting was a false flag. You know, 9/11 was fake.
You know, regardless of whether you decide you want to change your tune because you want to run for President or something else, that's really corrosive stuff that you've said that hurt people. And particularly, like nobody should threaten her life, obviously.
I'm glad Dana asked her the question because my family has been going through death threats for four or five years. And she's never spoken out about that until it came after her. And I hope, you know, this all needs to stop. But I think that was an important question. Other important questions like, what do you think about January 6th again?
COOPER: Right.
KINZINGER: I'm hoping she's turning a leaf. It'd be great. But she's got some questions to answer.
COOPER: Yes. I mean, everything is so transactional it seems like in this day and age that, you know, we've seen President Trump go after people and then welcome them back into the fold when, you know, the circumstances require.
KINZINGER: Yes.
COOPER: Congressman, thank you.
Coming up next, Immigration Enforcement's latest target city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: What happened when federal agents descend on Charlotte? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:56:35]
COOPER: Well, that's what happened near Charlotte, North Carolina over the weekend as federal agents carried out immigration raids, except the driver of that vehicle says he's lawfully in the country. CNN's Dianne Gallagher has more on that incident and the new operation that has many in the city on edge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: ICE out of Charlotte now.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Protests in Charlotte as tensions escalate in North Carolina's largest city. At least 130 people arrested so far by Border Patrol agents and Homeland Security's latest immigration crackdown, dubbed Charlotte's Web.
Over the weekend, federal agents smashed a car window and yanked a man out of his vehicle and onto the ground. The man says he's been an American citizen for six years and showed officers he had a real ID. He was briefly detained and released.
In a statement, DHS said, "During an enforcement operation in Charlotte, this individual became erratic, refused lawful commands and had to be removed from his vehicle. DHS law enforcement followed their training to remove him."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get the hell out of my yard.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Surveillance video from Reba Hamilton's (ph) home shows a minivan quickly driving up early Saturday. Then masked Border Patrol officers get out to confront the two men hanging Christmas lights in her yard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's where they were. That's how far they got.
GALLAGHER: So they were up here just sort of wrapping the tree, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, just wrapping the tree.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): The East Charlotte grandmother says she didn't know what to do, so she recorded the officers. When asked by Fox News Monday about the now viral video, Gregory Bovino, Trump's top border official on the ground in Charlotte and Chicago, defended the actions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you say to people when they look at that and say that falls outside of this purview of getting criminals out? What do you say to them?
GREGORY BOVINO, LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Martha, do we know the criminal records of those so-called landscapers?
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Video shows the interaction lasted just 90 seconds and they left without detaining the two men. Hamilton believes they were profiled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were looking for brown people and they found some.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead!
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Homeland Security releasing this wild video, claiming the driver of a white van, a U.S. citizen, tried to ram into law enforcement, quote, "While they were conducting an operation on Sunday." After a high-speed chase, the driver was eventually arrested. DHS says firearms were found inside the vehicle and one officer was injured in the incident.
GOV. JOSH STEIN (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Everyone wants to be safe in their communities, but the actions of too many federal agents are doing the exact opposite.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Many businesses have closed up shop like this popular Colombian bakery, which shut its doors for only the second time in 28 years after federal agents were seen chasing down community members.
MANUEL "MANOLO" BETANCUR, OWNER, MANOLO'S BAKERY: I decided not to risk my customers, not to risk my employees, and not risk myself or my family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Dianne Gallagher is in Charlotte. You've been in anti-ICE protest, what have you been seeing?
GALLAGHER (on-camera): Yes, Anderson. I want you to kind of take a little bit of a look behind me here. You can see we're in front of that same bakery, Manolo's Bakery. You can see the flags, the Mexican flag, the Honduran flag, and lots of people just sort of shouting, asking people to honk if they support them.
We're seeing a lot of this type of almost joyous protest from people here in Charlotte over the past couple of days looking for this support from their community. And we've seen other individuals who've been outside protecting these particular places like Manolo's Bakery, like schools, in case parents needed to pick up their kids or drop them off.
I will say the Department of Homeland Security sent out a release, Anderson, this evening that said of the 130 undocumented people they arrested over the weekend, they said 44 of them had criminal records that included assault and driving under the influence. They also said that two of the members, people they arrested, were known gang members, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Dianne Gallagher, thanks very much.
That's it for us. The news continues. I'll see you tomorrow. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.
