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Special Counsel Defends Handling of Mar-a-Lago Documents; Protesters Breach Kenyan Parliament; Chinese Lunar Probe Returns. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired June 25, 2024 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Politically within Israel.
I think the critical issue here is that the military, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces have raised serious questions about his leadership, principally, what's the end game? You know, where are we going to go? We -- we cannot continue to simply combat individuals in Gaza. And I think he's failed to deliver that. And I think the military is being more and more insistent that they have an end state (ph), that there's some authority there, other than Hamas, to govern the area, and that they can get on with further protections in the state of Israel.
So, I think if you talk to the real soldiers, they would say -- they would chart a much different course. And I think they'd be more sympathetic to a ceasefire without giving up their ultimate goal of deterring and degrading immensely Hamas so it could never be a threat again to Israel.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Senator, one thing on your plate right now is the National Defense Authorization Act.
REED: Yes.
BOLDUAN: I mean this is for all who don't follow the NDAA, this is a massive bill that sets Pentagon policy, guiding funding for the year ahead.
REED: Right.
BOLDUAN: Included this time in various versions is proposal that would make registering for the draft automatic and also move in the Senate to expand it to women for the first time. What's going to happen with this?
REED: Well, I think it is an entirely sensible idea. It was recommended by a national bipartisan commission on national service. And we took that recommendation, and it was in 2016 and 2017 publicly supported by all our uniform chiefs of staff because it makes sense. Seventeen percent of the military today is composed of women. They're in every aspect of service, combat arms, technical services, et cetera. And we're in a situation where all we're trying to do is register. There's no draft in place today. It would take Congress to act, to pass legislation, to create a draft. And in that legislation, they could make distinctions, clarifications, whatever Congress thought.
But without this registration requirement, we are missing on a vast pool of talent. I mean it's interesting, we're talking about Israel. Their armed forces have been gender neutral for decades and decades and decades. And they're one of the most effective fighting forces in the country. In the world I should say. So, what we're talking about now is simply if we get into a crisis, if we need the -- to start drafting, that we want to be able to draft the most qualified individuals in the country. And to separate it by an arcane sense of gender is, to my mind, not in support of our national security.
BOLDUAN: Let's see where it goes. It's come up before. It's never -- it's always been scrapped before the NDA has gone forward and never become law. It's all on your plate now.
Senator, Chairman, thank you so much for your time.
REED: Thank you, Kate. Bye now.
BOLDUAN: Thank you.
John.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning new and never before seen evidence from the special counsel in Donald Trump's classified documents case. We are standing by as court is set to get underway shortly.
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[09:38:10]
BERMAN: This morning, we are standing by for court to start back up in Florida. Hearings in the classified documents case against Donald Trump. This morning the special counsel is defending how investigators handled the documents found at Mar-a-Lago, releasing never before seen photos of how the documents were found. This is an effort to push back on Trump's latest attempt to get the case tossed.
CNN's Evan Perez is outside the courthouse with the latest this morning.
Good morning to you, Evan.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John.
Look, part of what the former president is arguing in court today is that because the order of which these documents was changed after the FBI seize them back in August of 2022, that this is harming his ability to put on a defense. That is the argument the lawyers are making.
It's kind of a stretch. If you look at the pictures that the -- that the prosecutors filed in court last night, for instance, look at these pictures from Walt Nauta. These are pictures of the boxes and the way these boxes were being kept according to prosecutors. It looks like something out of the show "Hoarders." Not exactly a pristine filing system that Donald Trump was keeping back in Mar-a-Lago.
You also see some photos here showing, you know, a thank you letter that the former president had written to some Sandy Hook families and also pictures of some of the knick-knacks and news clippings that he kept alongside some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets, in these cardboard boxes.
What prosecutors say in response to the former president's position is that Trump's newly invented explanations are nothing more than another attempt to -- to make unfounded accusations against law enforcement.
[09:40:01]
That's what we're expecting to hear them say in court later today.
Now, this is, obviously, the third day of a -- of a three-day hearing. And, you know, this is the latest attempt, as you pointed out, John, to try to dismiss this case for various reasons.
BERMAN: Good to have you there, Evan. Please keep us posted on the events. Appreciate it.
Sara.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, to further talk about this, joining me now for more, Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York.
OK, so you just heard what Evan said, this idea the judge -- he's asking the judge to throw out the results of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. First of all, that would kill the case, right? That would just take away all the evidence.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
SIDNER: Do you think he has any chance of winning on this one?
HONIG: An absolute minimum of a chance. This is a real long shot.
Look, anyone who's subject to a search warrant brings a motion like this. They argue the government, the FBI, didn't have probable cause or mishandled the documents. And Trump's sort of arguing various different complaints here. He's saying, well, the FBI misled the judge when they got the search warrant. They didn't need to do the search warrant. They didn't execute it properly. As Evan just said, they didn't keep the documents in their proper numerical order. None of that is going to be up by the facts. None of that is enough to get this search warrant thrown out. I think the judge will probably reject this particular motion.
SIDNER: All right, so you have Trump's attorney, one of them, advocating at Monday's hearing for the judge to insist on more congressional oversight of the special counsel, and saying, hey, you should also rule this as unlawful --
HONIG: Right.
SIDNER: Because of how the special counsel is funding. The judge is clearly entertaining this argument, asking the prosecution about this. Would it be unusual, though, for her to rule in Trump's favor on this one.
HONIG: Here's how unusual it would be, Sara. It's never happened before. Other people have made similar arguments to try to disqualify other special counsels. The same argument was made to try to disqualify Robert Muller.
SIDNER: OK.
HONIG: The same argument was made to try to disqualify the special counsel in the Hunter Biden case, David Weiss. What Donald Trump's team is arguing is two things. First of all, the funding for the special counsel is not coming through DOJ, therefore that's some sort of structural flaw. And, second of all, if somebody is going to be given the powers of the federal prosecutor, as the special counsel is, he has to be presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, which the special counsel here has not, which Jack Smith has not been.
No special counsel has ever been disqualified on this basis. If the judge -- and, you're right, the judge did -- is entertaining this argument.
SIDNER: Yes. (INAUDIBLE).
HONIG: She's hearing extensive arguments about it. If she actually does make that ruling, that Jack Smith's disqualified, Jack Smith will appeal and I think well get a reverse.
SIDNER: I want to ask you about sort of this hostility that has been shown by the judge to prosecutors.
HONIG: Yes.
SIDNER: And then prosecutors, at least yesterday, seem to have returned that hostility in court yesterday during their arguments, I think it was over the gag order for Donald Trump. What does this signal for you? Her -- some of her language around the gag order.
HONIG: It happens. Sometimes things get a little messy in court. And, look, prosecutors are frustrated with this judge.
And as a prosecutor, that's part of the job. That's part of life. You don't get rulings that you like all the time. There's some judges that are infuriating to prosecutors. I might have had a couple in my day. You think they don't rule fairly. You think they don't rule quickly enough. And clearly some of that bubbled over. The prosecutor, David Harbach, who I used to work with --
SIDNER: Yes.
HONIG: Acknowledged that at times he had stepped over the line and the judge reprimanded him.
So, it's theatrical. But, you know, courts can be rough and tumble places. It happens. We move on. We're all pros.
SIDNER: OK. Trump's also going to sort of contest testimony from his attorney about him.
HONIG: Yes.
SIDNER: How could prosecutor sort of use this testimony from the attorney against a client? Does he have any chance that this will be ruled upon in his favor?
HONIG: I do think there's a chance Judge Cannon gives Trump some relief on this.
SIDNER: OK.
HONIG: So, if you look at the indictment, a big part of the obstruction section, the end of the indictment, has to do with testimony from Evan Corcoran, who was Trump's lawyer at the time.
SIDNER: Right.
HONIG: Now, ordinarily what a client and an attorney discuss is privileged. But DOJ went to a judge and the judge -- a different judge.
SIDNER: Right.
HONIG: Ruled that privilege does not apply because the discussion related to a crime. Corcoran was not participating in the crime, but Trump was discussing crimes sort of sort of through Corcoran. That's really rare to pierce that privilege.
And some of the things in the indictment I think may actually infringed on the privilege. For example, there's a point in the indictment where Trump -- where Trump sort of signals to Evan Corcoran --
SIDNER: Right, to pluck it. Yes, I remember that.
HONIG: Pluck -- right. Can you -- that, to me, crosses the line. But there's other parts where Trump's asking Evan Corcran questions. Well, do we have to comply with the subpoena? What if we didn't. That, to me, is the kind of question that, yes, it goes to Trump's state of mind, but a lot of criminal defendants ask their lawyers that, right? That, to me, may infringe on the privilege. So, it wouldn't shock me if Judge Cannon says some of those pieces of evidence are not useable in this case.
SIDNER: OK. That's really interesting, Elie Honig. She can pick and choose what it is that the jury will eventually see, of course.
HONIG: Yes. Exactly.
SIDNER: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
HONIG: Thanks, Sara. Great to see you.
SIDNER: All right, Kate.
BOLDUAN: We're following breaking news out of Kenya still this morning. Our reporters seeing dead bodies in the street. CNN crews on the ground as the chaos unfolds outside and inside the country's parliament.
[09:44:56]
And there's new footage this morning from the far side of the moon, and new details on this historic lunar mission.
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BERMAN: All right, there is breaking news.
There's smoke billowing out of the parliament building in Kenya's capital, and shots fired at protesters in the streets. This all started with a demonstration by people angry at the growing cost of living. They breached at least part of the parliament building.
CNN's Larry Madowo is in the middle of it all.
Larry, give us the latest.
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, we're outside Kanya's city hall. This is the office of the governor of Nairobi.
[09:50:01]
This is just a few hundred meters away from Kenya's national assembly. And it's on fire. This is one of the few buildings around here that we've seen smoke billowing out of. The parliament building was one of them. And this is the other one.
Before I get inside, I just want to show you over here. Police have been pushing back the protesters further and further away from Kenya's parliament after they breached the floor of the house. They got inside, sat in the speaker's chair and pulled out the mace from that building. Now they're getting pushed back away.
The anger here is over the high cost of living. These protests are part of what is called seven days of rage against over taxation in the country. The government of President William Ruto has recommended new tax proposals in what is known as the finance bill. And these protesters, many of them young people organizing on TikTok, this gen z revolutions so they're calling it, has been very vocal in trying to force the government to do something and to reduce the cost of living.
This is the scene inside where the government of Nairobi, of the city of Nairobi, the capital sits. And this is the scene in here.
You see writing on the wall here. "I was here. Reject finance bill." That's been the message of these people for the past few weeks.
But this momentum has built over the past few days as the government of President Ruto's essentially said that they would be listening to the concerns of these young people and trying to engage them, but they don't feel that the government has been paying enough attention to them. And it's all come to a head in these protests.
And today we saw an extraordinary seen with Auma Obama, the half- sister of former President Barack Obama, joining these young people here in the protests. And she was teargassed while live on CNN. And she said all the young people are saying is, listen to us, John, and the government does not seem to be paying attention.
BERMAN: And, Larry, I know you also saw people hurt, maybe -- maybe more than hurt on the streets. Describe some of what you saw.
MADOWO: We did see at least two bodies lying outside Kenya's parliament. In one most heartbreaking scene, it was a young man who had been shot by live rounds right in front of our eyes. His brains shattered on the floor outside Kenya's parliament. We saw his -- one of the young man who'd also been killed, after we saw police use live rounds outside Kenya's parliament to try and beat back protesters who had made their way to the wall and eventually inside Kenya's parliament.
CNN has reached out to the police to understand exactly what happened here and to get an updated number of casualties. We have not heard back from the Kenyan police yet.
But this is the scene leading to Kenya's parliament. You still see a huge security presence just around this national assembly area. I would say we have probably 300, 400 police officers. Water cannon trucks. We've had police choppers flying overhead. A huge, heavily militarized response to what has been largely peaceful protests against the high cost of living in Kenya.
BERMAN: Extraordinary images of Nairobi city hall on fire with you walking right in, and the parliament seized there for a moment as well.
Larry, please stay safe. Keep us posted as this continues to develop throughout the morning.
Kate.
BOLDUAN: It is an historic mission to the moon, and China's space program says it is now successfully wrapped. The Chinese lunar mission bringing back to earth the first ever samples of dust and rock from the far side of the moon. A major milestone for China's space program and a major moment for all space exploration. China's now hoping land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030.
CNN's Steven Jiang has much more on this.
Steven, that new footage of the mission is now in. What are you learning? STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: That's right. So, this marks
another milestones, as you mentioned, in this ambitious program they have. But also what generating a lot of excitement amount of scientists around the world because these lunar soil were collected from the moon's sprawling south pole, Ekin Basin.
That's an impact crater formed some 4 billion years ago on a side of the moon that's never visible to earth. That's important because on earth a lot of the evolutionary evidence has been destroyed by the movements of our plate tectonics. But on the moon's far side experts told us it's more like a frozen record of what it was like in the early days of our solar system. So now these precious samples will be studied by Chinese researchers first before the government here allows access to them by international scientists. And everybody will be looking very carefully at the results of these analysis, trying to gain better understand of the evolution of the moon, of the earth and of the solar system. And this also could potentially allow China to further explore, utilizing resources on the moon, not to mention every progress they have made in these sample return missions will help t hem get closer to putting -- to put their Chinese astronauts on the moon because these missions are not only scientific missions, but also opportunities for them to perfect their command and control aspects of their space program.
As you know, Kate, NASA is also planning to put Americans back on the moon around 2026.
[09:55:01]
So, the Chinese latest success could potentially give them a leg up in this increasingly heated space race.
Kate.
BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely, a heated space race. But, still, an amazing accomplishment for the Chinese space -- China space program today.
It's good to see you, Steven, thank you so much.
SIDNER: And that does it for us. Thank you for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
"CNN NEWSROOM" with Jim Acosta, up next.
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