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Prosecutors in Trump Classified Documents Trial Attempting to Call Attorney from Donald Trump's Defense Team as Witness; Vice President Kamala Harris to Give Speech in Arizona about Abortion Rights after State Supreme Court Upholds 1864 Law Banning Nearly All Abortions; Sentencing for Former Ambassador Accused of Spying for Cuba. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 12, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Arizona to say blame Donald Trump. You can still blame Donald Trump for this, and Donald Trump will still be bad for women's reproductive rights despite what he is saying today.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Very good points, ladies. Margaret Hoover, S.E. Cupp, I think it's very significant that you say, look, immigration was the big deal there in Arizona, and now you see topsy- turvy, that abortion could be the thing that moves that state. Thank you, appreciate you both. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, a Trump attorney who was a key witness for his classified documents case is now out of the fold. Why Evan Corcoran's exit is causing discomfort inside the Trump orbit.

Donald Trump is stoking fears that Christianity is under attack. Now, new pleas from pastors speaking out against Christian nationalism.

And a brand new survey of CEOs that shows a growing number think I should not even be here today, and you should be in bed snoring. Major developments in the push for a four-day workweek.

Kate is out. She's smart. I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner. This is a special Friday edition of CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

New overnight, a significant shakeup on Donald Trump's legal team, a key attorney in the classified documents case, Evan Corcoran, is no longer representing the former president. The departure could become a major headache for Trump. Prosecutors could call Corcoran as a key witness if the case goes to trial. Corcoran became a central figure in the indictment because of his meticulous notes and memos about his interactions with Trump. In one, Trump asked Corcoran if he has found classified documents and whether it is bad or good.

Word of Corcoran's departure comes just ahead of a hearing today for two of Trump's co-defendants in the classified documents case. Trump aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos de Oliveira both hope a judge will dismiss the obstruction charges against them. CNN's Katelyn Polantz with us this morning to explain the departure of

Evan Corcoran, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: John, it's a long time coming in a lot of ways. Evan Corcoran was the lead attorney for a long time in the investigations around Donald Trump, both the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation and the January 6th investigation. He developed all kinds of institutional knowledge about what the prosecutors were gathering. He was there and he was taking notes for his conversations with Donald Trump.

The split that eventually culminated now in Kaitlan Collins reporting that he has formally left the Trump team and that circle around the former president, that began when the Justice Department wanted his information to make him a witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. They pursued it in this extraordinary court fight, getting him ultimately to talk to a grand jury and to turn over his notes and records of his conversations with Trump.

Something that he shed light on was what Trump was saying as the Justice Department, the federal government were demanding that he returned classified records that were in his possession after the presidency. Corcoran remembered and wrote down, took notes of an interaction with Trump after he searched a storage room and found a significant number, dozens of classified records, put them in an envelope, and was ready to turn them back over to FBI agents who were visiting Mar-a-Lago in June of 2022. Trump said to him, "Did you find anything? Is it bad? Good?" And then Evan Corcoran made said that Trump made a plucking motion and said to him, "why don't you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there's anything really bad in there, you know, pluck it out."

Ultimately, Evan Corcoran was not privy to the full amount of records that were being kept at Mar-a-Lago at the resort. There were boxes moved out of that storage room he was sent into search. And ultimately, this became a key part of the obstruction case against former President Donald Trump. But John, there's going to be a big fight in court over whether Evan Corcoran will be able to testify and share what he knows from that episode in the Mar-a-Lago investigation if and when Donald Trump goes to trial in this case.

So now quite a marker to see him leaving this legal team finally, after hanging back after these issues were all, he was forced to provide them publicly.

BERMAN: Yes, quite a marker, as you say, because you can imagine what a compelling witness he could be potentially. Katelyn Polantz, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: It is a remarkable development in this case. Joining us now, CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant us attorney for the Southern District of New York, Elie Honig.

[08:05:3]

Thank you so much. I know you've been up late, getting up early. We really appreciate you. Can you just give us an idea of just how significant it is that one of Trump's key attorneys, Evan Corcoran, has now left the Trump team?

ELIE HONIG, SENIOR CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Sara, Evan Corcoran is now in a position to be a crucial witness for Jack Smith's prosecution team. And if you look at the indictment, essentially, he's the fulcrum of the obstruction of justice counts. Now, to be clear, Jack Smith's theory is not that Evan Corcoran is guilty or liable for obstruction, but rather that Donald Trump and others used him as a means to commit obstruction. For example, at one point, they gave him -- they put him in a storage room, and they said, OK, you're going to do the attorney search of this storage room in response to a subpoena. Evan Corcoran did that search and then he certified back to DOJ, OK, we only found so many classified documents.

What Evan Corcoran apparently did not know is that Trump had 30 some boxes moved out of that storage room before he had Evan Corcoran search the boxes. So Corcoran is going to be a crucial player here for the Justice Department's departments prosecution team. And he could be a really difficult witness for the defense of cross-examine because he doesn't want to testify for the prosecution. He's a defense witness. No defense lawyer is ever happy about becoming a witness against his own client.

SIDNER: Elie, can you just remind us of how corporate and became one of the key prosecution witnesses, because it was remarkable ruling, an unusual ruling to get us to this its place, correct?

HONIG: Yes. Ordinarily an attorney would not be testifying about communications that he had with his client. That is protected by the attorney-client privilege. But Jack Smith's team went through this extensive legal process to do what we call piercing the attorney- client privilege, meaning to break through it. And in order to do that, Jack Smith's team had to go to a judge, not the same judge who has the case now. This was a judge who was overseeing the grand jury part of it, but Jack Smith's team had to convince that judge that the communications Trump was making with his attorney were in furtherance of a crime. Again, not necessarily that Evan Corcoran was part of that crime, but that Trump's communications to him were part of a crime.

And we had a federal judge say, I find by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not, that yes, those communications were part of a crime, and therefore, you can break through that privilege. And Sara, that's exactly why it's so rare that you ever see a situation like this where a defense lawyer ends up taking the stand against his former client.

SIDNER: In the very case. It's just fascinating. Could there be any kind of privilege issue that prevents Corcoran from testifying?

HONIG: Well, so Donald Trump's defense team can try to reraise the appellate issue that -- excuse me, the communications issue that we just discussed because, like I said, the ruling breaking through the privilege was made by a different judge at a different phase of the proceeding. So I fully expect Donald Trump's defense team to now go in front of Judge Cannon, the district judge who is handling this case, and say that was a wrong ruling. The privilege never should have been broken. You need to put it back in place.

If they win on that, that's going to take Evan Corcoran out as a witness. But I don't think they will win and on that for the reasons we just discussed.

SIDNER: He would be -- that would be a huge blow to the prosecution as he is a key witness. Elie Honig, I really appreciate you coming in this morning. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: One of the biggest aftershocks yet, Vice President Harris is in Arizona today to talk about abortion after the state chose to uphold an abortion and banned from the 1800s.

One of the most brazen betrayals in us history, that is what prosecutors are saying about a former diplomat accused of being a spy. We are standing by to hear from that diplomat in court today.

Donald Trump leaning into the narrative that Christianity is under attack in the United States. Now some church leaders are fighting back on the threat of Christian nationalism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To use Christianity to control that. If you don't see Christianity and Christ the way we see, and then you are not truly Christian. And if you are not truly Christian, then you are not truly American.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America is country that has Christians a part of it. Christian nationalism is not Christian at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:13:46]

BERMAN: We've got new reporting this morning on the message that Vice President Kamala Harris will bring two Arizona today when she travels there to weigh in on the state supreme court case that reinstated a law from the 1800s that establishes a near-total ban on abortion. She will place the blame squarely on Donald Trump, calling him the, quote, "architect of this health care crisis." She will use the speech to warn voters about what she thinks a Trump second term could mean, or an additional term could mean for the fight for reproductive rights.

CNN's Camila Bernal is in Arizona this morning. What do you expect to hear Camila?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John. So look, what I'm seeing here in Arizona, and what I know the vice president is going to see here in Arizona, is people who are completely energized and motivated about this issue. I talked to a lot of people who say no matter where they fall, they're wanting to get involved, they're wanting to volunteer, to donate money, to sign petitions. And so it just depends exactly who you talk to, but the people that I

talked to in terms of proponents of abortion rights in this state are very focused on a ballot measure that would guarantee abortion rights in the state's constitution. And so what they're saying is that they're trying to collect as many signatures as possible to have this issue on the ballot in November.

[08:15:00]

Everyone has their eyes in November here in Arizona. The group sort of running this effort is called Arizona for Abortion Access, and they say that after Tuesday's State Supreme Court ruling, they saw an increase in court ruling, they saw an increase in the number of people that were wanting to sign this petition, that were wanting to get involved, to go out and motivate other people. Take a listen to what the spokesperson for the group told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAWN PENICH, ARIZONA FOR ABORTION ACCESS SPOKESPERSON: People are going door-to-door in their neighborhood. People are tabling outside of their favorite local coffee shops. This is not something that appeals to only Democrats, Republicans, Independents, women, and their loved ones believe in this and want to see this on the ballot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: Now I also talked to the group, It Goes Too Far and they're saying exactly that this ballot measure goes too far, that they don't believe voters are being educated on the language of this ballot measure.

But overall, this is a community that really is looking forward to November because they believe that this is an issue that will be on the ballot.

In the meantime, you have abortion providers here who are already struggling, who say this is a huge issue for them. I spoke to one of the providers who told me she is one of eight people who perform abortions here in Arizona. She says she was angry and frustrated and look, this ban actually calls for a prison time for abortion providers. So they would be directly impacted by this.

The provider that I talked to told me, "I know I am not going to go to jail because that is not what I am going to be doing over the next couple of months, but I will continue to fight."

She wants to stay here in Arizona and says this is a fight that will exceed past November -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a very real issue for a lot of people on the ground there now.

Camila Bernal, thank you so much for being there. Appreciate it.

Prosecutors call it one of the most brazen betrayals in the history of the US foreign service. Today, the former US diplomat accused of being a spy will enter a plea in court.

And we've got new reporting on the funeral arrangements for O.J. Simpson.

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[08:21:36]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: It is one of the most brazen betrayals in the history of the United States foreign service. That is how prosecutors are portraying it, and this morning, former US ambassador accused of spying for Cuba returns to court to finalize his plea deal and be sentenced.

Manuel Rocha is expected to plead guilty today for conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government. The US attorney general says, this case was one of the "highest reaching and longest lasting" infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is in Miami outside of the courthouse for us. We are expecting a plea deal today.

What can you tell us?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ola, Sara. Good morning. That is exactly right.

So, we expect the 73-year-old in federal court here with his attorneys later this afternoon where he is expected to tell the court that he is changing his plea from not guilty to guilty and in exchange, we expect that federal prosecutors will drop several of the charges against Manuel Rocha.

He was facing seeing a number of charges, including being an agent -- an illegal agent of a foreign government, wire fraud, and lying to investigators.

Now the details of the plea agreement are still not known, and it is still a mystery at this hour exactly just how Russia helped the Cuban government while he worked at the state department for over two decades.

The details really were not laid out in the indictment against him, though prosecutors did stress that Rocha held a top level high security clearance and that he had access to top secret information as the US ambassador to Bolivia in the early 2000s, as well as when he worked at the US Interests Section in Havana, Cuba back in the early 1990s.

Prosecutors believed that Rocha acted on behalf of the Cuban government since at least 1981, though it is important to note here that he was not charged, he has not been charged with espionage.

All of this really came to a head in December when he was arrested after undercover FBI employees posed as members of the Cuban intelligence services, and they messaged -- allegedly messaged Rocha on WhatsApp, trying to make contact with him. The two sides met here in Miami where they had a number of conversations where Rocha, according to prosecutors explained how he was this career service diplomat and also held this cover as apparently an agent of the Cuban government throughout their conversations here in Miami, Rocha at several times has said that the work that he had done strengthened the revolution.

He referred to the US as the enemy, and he had some words of praise for former leader, Fidel Castro. Again, we expect this plea change to take place this afternoon and that he will be sentenced shortly right after -- Sara.

SIDNER: And you could guess that there will have to be major cooperation on his part to get that plea agreement through. It is 20 years of a diplomat and now this. Wow.

Carlos Suarez, thank you so much for that story.

All right, just ahead, I've got a question for you: Raise your hand if you want to work one less day a week. Everyone in here has their hands up and I am going to put my hand up, too.

That is actually a serious consideration for some major US employers. The reason why coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:29:25]

SIDNER: This morning, residents of Western Pennsylvania are dealing with flooded roads after Pittsburgh saw its rainiest April day on record on Thursday.

The rain will continue today as a flood threat looms across parts of New England now.

And later today, the former interpreter for baseball superstar, Shohei Ohtani will surrender to federal authorities. He faces a federal charge of bank fraud after allegedly stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani.

Prosecutors say he impersonated the star player to get a bank to approve large wire transfers to a bookmaker. And they claim they have text where Mizuhara admitted to the scam. The US Attorney's Office said he will not be asked to enter a plea however, this afternoon.

[08:30:13]