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Trump and Biden Seizing on Immunity Ruling to Rally Base; Defense Vows to Keep Fighting After Judge Declares Mistrial; Deadly Cat 5 Hurricane Beryl Churns Towards Jamaica. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 02, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Erica Hill in New York.

The Supreme Court rules Donald Trump celebrates and President Biden issues a dire warning to a divided nation, and we have new reporting to start this hour. The court's conservative majority's historic decision granting Trump and other presidents criminal immunity for official acts while in office.

The case, of course, resolved -- or revolved rather around the federal charges accusing Donald Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election. President Biden warning Monday night decision has upended the rule of law and will have dire consequences if Trump returns to the White House.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law, not even the President of the United States. Today's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed for all, for all practical purposes. Today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: New this morning, Trump's legal team already looking to use the court's immunity ruling to challenge the former president's conviction in his hush money trial in New York, arguing that Trump's official acts, which are now immune, were used as evidence against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL SCHARF, TRUMP ATTORNEY: What we have in New York is a situation where a substantial number of official acts of the presidency, things that we believe are official acts, were used as evidence to support the charges in that New York trial. We believe that that corrupts that trial, that that indicates that that jury verdict needs to be overturned. And at the very least, we deserve a new trial where those immune acts will not come into evidence.

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HILL: Clearly, a lot to unpack this morning, CNN's Arlette Saenz is at the White House, and CNN's Senior Crime And Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz is in Washington as well.

Arlette, let's start with you. The president's remarks last night, they were a departure for him in terms of just how sharply he was criticizing the court and its ruling, and it was, of course, another chance, too, for the president to try to reset after a disastrous debate last week, Arlette.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erica. President Biden is really trying to use the Supreme Court ruling on immunity to try to turn the attention back to one of the central arguments of his campaign at a time when his team is still grappling with the fallout from last week's halting debate performance. Now, the president spoke here at the White House, his first speech here since the debate and since returning from Camp David, where he spent a few days with his family, who is encouraging him to stay in this race.

The president spoke for just under five minutes, using a teleprompter and taking no questions. But he did issue dire warnings about what this ruling means for the power of the presidency. He said that this ruling will simply embolden Trump to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants. And the president really tried to use this as a rallying moment for those who are opposing Donald Trump, saying that they should show their dissent at the ballot box in November.

But it comes at a time when the Biden campaign is also pushing back on Trump's legal team saying that they'll challenge that hush money verdict following this immunity ruling. A campaign spokesperson last night saying, quote, at the end of the day, Donald Trump is a convicted felon precisely because he believed he's above the law and was willing to do anything to gain power. That's why he's a threat and must be defeated.

Now, even as the president was out there speaking publicly on this last night, behind the scenes, his campaign has been fielding calls from Democratic lawmakers and anxious donors who are concerned about what Biden's performance at that debate could mean in November. There, Democrats are awaiting polling to Biden's own reelection chances, the chances of Democrats who are running in competitive House and Senate districts. That is something that one congressman, Mike Quigley, pointed to today, saying that the president would need to make this decision for himself, but also needs to think of the broader impact you could have on other Democrats running for Congress.

So, there are still many questions going forward for the Biden campaign about the path forward, but for now, they are insistent that President Biden plans to remain in this race, even as there is much Democratic angst within his party.

HILL: As we wait and watch what happens there on the Biden side of the screen, Katelyn, for his part, the former president's legal team already signaling to the Manhattan D.A. plans to challenge his conviction here in the state of New York.

[10:05:00]

And this, of course, is just days before he's set to be sentenced -- just a little over a week until he's set to be sentenced on those 34 counts. So, what evidence, Katelyn, do they now say they believe is out of bounds?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, the legal team for Donald Trump is already saying in this letter to the court in New York that the things that Donald Trump said and did while he was president, those shouldn't have been able to be part of the trial. They had said that, Erica, before the trial even began to the judge. And he said, no, we're going to take this piece by piece. And he ultimately let things into the trial, like tweets Donald Trump sent when he was president, testimony from his close adviser, Hope Hicks, for instance, who testified about statements Trump was making while he was in the White House. There was some other testimony about how Trump liked to sign checks whenever he was the president or looked at them.

But the case is really about the 2016 election before he was president. And so while the court may look at this, and there is always the possibility that an appeals court or another court could say, yes, cut out those pieces of evidence from this trial, they still would look at the whole record of that case. And it takes quite a lot for any court to throw out the conviction of a jury. So, we're just going to have to see how it plays out.

Trump's team wants it to potentially not only get rid of the conviction that he faces in New York State court. They are also potentially hoping that it could delay his sentencing date of next Thursday. We'll see how that plays out as well. We're probably going to see that coming in the coming days, what the court is going to say on that, on timing. Does he get sentenced on July 11th?

But, of course, it's not just the legal side of things that is playing out here for Donald Trump and all of his team. He also is sending out truths on the political points, another attack by crooked Joe Biden against his political opponent. This is really bad and incompetent guy, wanted to deflect from his horrible campaign performance. Erica?

HILL: Katelyn, Arlette, thank you both.

Well, of course, it is not just New York. The Supreme Court's ruling could potentially impact the classified documents case in Florida and perhaps most directly the criminal case against Donald Trump in Georgia, where he is accused of illegally trying to overturn that state's 2020 election result. Why is Georgia such a focus? Well, because, as Katelyn was just noting, some of the evidence there in that case could be thrown out.

Joining me now, former U.S. Attorney Michael Moore. So, you personally have some real concerns about this, what it could mean. How do you see it playing out in Georgia?

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I'm glad to be with you this morning. You know, I do think the ruling has broader implications that we're just talking about as it relates to Judge Chutkan's case in Washington, and that specifically deals with some of the facts that have been presented in the Georgia case, or at least that the indictment is charged. And one issue that has been all along is that the district attorney here charged the former president for conduct while he was president of the United States.

And that essentially drew this question, right? I mean, that's the, that's the reason the Supreme Court could put their teeth into it. It's not like she charged him as she could have with witness intimidation after he had left office or other acts after he left office, but rather for conduct surrounding that.

So, now, based on this immunity ruling, the court here is going to have to go through this process and really this ferreting out and the hearing and briefing about what conduct may or may not have been immune under the federal rules. And that's one problem when you have a state court trying to prosecute a federal officer or a sitting president, one of the reasons we have the removal statute in the federal law. So, you're going to have some evidence that's taken out. For instance, the Brad Raffensperger call, the secretary of state call that is so famous that we've heard.

You know, the question there is, does a president have a right to call an elections official in another state? The president is the chief federal law enforcement officer. And his purview, and hopefully one day her purview, but his purview is over that election. He oversees about 12 federal agencies that are involved in every federal election, and that's what this was here. So, is that one of those things that the Supreme Court is talking about on the outer perimeter of his role as president of the United States? And if so, then that evidence may be removed and taken out of the indictment. And so you start to chip away at this foundation that had been built in the state case in Georgia.

HILL: And, Michael, I do just want to play that call for people, just to remind them what that moment was. I think we have it ready to go. Take a listen.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11, 780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: And you see the date on that, January 2nd, as you point out. I mean, this is such a big part, I think, for many people of that case. So, if that is then thrown out and then, as you know, the sort of house of cards issue, as we look at this, I know you've also noted that the usual benefit of anti-racketeering and anti-racketeering charge is that each defendant can be held accountable for the bad acts of their co-defendants. But how could that then work or potentially change based on this ruling?

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MOORE: Yes, and that's going to be tough in Georgia. Because one of the benefits for prosecutors in a RICO violation, I've heard about is, in fact, it's a conspiracy. And it says that, you know, somebody in the group is doing something wrong that the other people can be charged or blamed with that, too. That's different here, where you now have a Supreme Court say, but wait a minute, this guy is the president was immune from certain things. So, you don't get to tag onto him. You don't get to blame him with everything, nor some of the things he may have been doing may not have been illegal as it relates to the criminal statutes because of immunity. So, do those things count against other people in the conspiracy?

And so when you overcharge, you know, as a prosecutor, you don't take a plate of spaghetti and throw it up against the wall and just see which noodles stick. I mean, that's a problem. These are issues they should have been thinking through from the outset of what they presented to the grand jury. And when you try to overcharge, sometimes you just get tangled up in your own web.

And that's kind of where I think we are now. And that is how do we unwind some of the things that have been set forth in the indictment? Does that mean that the district attorney is going to have to re- indict? Does that mean the court even lets it go forward? Does that mean Trump has to be severed off as a defendant and can't be in this big mass of people that were charged? And were there too many people at the beginning? So, these are questions that are going to have to be answered in the Supreme Court ruling. Yesterday really compounds the complications for the Georgia case we were already seeing.

HILL: Michael, we're out of time, but maybe you could just give me a yes or no. Does this mean that the case is against his co-defendants, though, specifically those guilty pleas, those move forward?

MOORE: I think they stay. They don't enjoy the same immunity. So, yes, I think so.

HILL: Yes. Michael Moore, I always appreciate your insight, your expertise. Thank you.

Still ahead here this hour, terrifying turbulence, 30 people injured after yet another flight hits rough air. What we know about this latest incident.

And next, murder mystery now a mistrial, a case that has sparked interest from social media sleuths and conspiracy theorists. What is next for accused cop killer Karen Read?

You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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HILL: Lawyers for the accused cop killer Karen Read are vowing this morning to keep fighting this after a judge in Massachusetts declared a mistrial. Read is charged with second-degree murder after allegedly hitting her police officer boyfriend with her car while drunk and then leaving the scene, leaving him to die out in the cold. This happened back in 2022. Well, the defense insists this never happened and that, in fact, Read is the victim of a vast police cover up.

Prosecutors say they do plan to retry the case. Read's attorneys are vowing never quit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN JACKSON, ATTORNEY FOR KAREN READ: This is what it looks like when you bring false charges against an innocent person. The commonwealth did their worst. They brought the weight of the state based on spurious charges, based on compromised investigation and investigators and compromised witnesses. This is what it looks like. And guess what? They failed. They failed miserably and they'll continue to fail.

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HILL: Well, CNN is now learning the state trooper who led the prosecution's investigation was actually relieved of duty following that mistrial.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been following the case and is live in Dedham, Mass, this morning. So, Jean, that lead investigator let go. Why?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He was removed from duty, transferred to another district attorney's office. It is the Massachusetts State Police Michael Proctor. You know, it's interesting because here in Massachusetts, if there is a homicide anywhere, it is the Massachusetts State Police that do the investigation, so he became the lead of the investigation.

We also know that there has been an internal investigation on him for quite a while because of private text messages he sent while he was doing this investigation was on his personal phone to old high school friends but he said terrible, vile things about Karen Read.

Now, we also know that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts is engaged right now in an investigation on the arrest and the investigation itself. But nonetheless, this went to trial. The prosecution had a lot of evidence. But yesterday, a pivotal moment, we want to take you in that courtroom when the judge got the final note from the jury and said this is a hung jury. Take a listen.

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JUDGE BERVERLY J. CANNONE, NORFOLK SUPERIOR COURT: The deep division is not due to a lack of effort or diligence, but rather a sincere adherence to our individual principles and moral convictions. To continue to deliberate would be futile and only serve to force us to compromise these deeply held beliefs. I'm not going to do that to you folks. Your service is complete. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case.

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CASAREZ: Now, one of the things that makes this trial so unique was the support for Karen Read outside of this courthouse. You're looking right now at all of the supporters. They were standing there when the mistrial was declared. You hear them. There they are. They are cheering. There are families there. There are children there. Every time she would come out to go into the courthouse, she's on bond, they would cheer. They had T-shirts with her picture on them. She would take pictures with some of them.

But the prosecution had a case with direct evidence that showed that when the initial responders came at 6:00 in the morning after a blizzard that night and John O'Keefe, we cannot forget the victim here, he was in the snow face up. There'd been a blizzard that night. Karen Read was there. She kept telling them, according to their testimony, I hit him. I hit him. I hit him. And that formed the basis of the prosecution, expert testimony said, she when she dropped him off at this house for an after party, she put the car in reverse, went 62.5 miles an hour -- 62.5 feet backwards, she went 24 miles an hour, but she hit him and he went down, and that's where he died.

Now, the defense is saying he went into that house. He went to the after party with all of his friends, it was families, off-duty police officers, but there became an alteration, and that altercation actually resulted in his death. And somebody or people threw him out on the front lawn to die.

And then there's the altercation actually resulted in his death, and somebody or people threw him out on the front lawn to die.

[10:20:07]

But every single person in the house that testified at the trial said he never came into the house. We never saw him that night. And there are many questions of fact, but this jury could not determine and it sounds like they were pretty much divided from what that foreperson said.

HILL: Yes, it certainly does. Jean, so what's next here? What's the timeline?

CASAREZ: There's a hearing July 22nd in this courthouse behind me. It's a status hearing. All parties will be there. Most likely they'll look at scheduling for the retrial. Big question is, with the saturization of this jury pool, will they ask for a venue change?

HILL: Yes, that is one of the questions I have too. So, it'll be interesting to see what they say there on the 22nd. Jean, I appreciate it. Thank you.

To dig in a little more into the case, I'm joined now by Defense Attorney Misty Marris. Misty, always good to have you with us. So, I was struck by the question that was posed in closing arguments, quote, is Karen Read a rage-filled cop killer or the convenient patsy of a vast police cover up? Those are two very different scenarios and yet this jury, right, really couldn't find that either one was accurate. Were you surprised at all?

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Completely different scenarios. And you know what? When this case first began, I thought the defense theory, it's called a third party culprit defense, meaning somebody else did it. And that defense also included this elaborate cover-up. So, when the case began, I thought to myself, that just sounds too farfetched. That's going to be really, really hard to sell to the jury.

But then there was a turning point in this trial, Erica, and it was the testimony of Michael Proctor. Not only did text messages come out that were just completely inappropriate and unprofessional, that's one piece of it, but the other piece is that his text messages and his testimony put the whole investigation in a light that it just did not have -- it was filled with impropriety.

And what the defense needed to do was sell a couple of jurors that on the fact that the prosecution did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, and they were really successful with that focus on law enforcement and the investigation and just some inconsistencies with respect to that issue.

HILL: And the burden, of course, is on the prosecution.

MARRIS: Right, exactly. The burden is on the prosecution. So, my sense is the jurors couldn't agree on the one critical element of the case. Did Karen Read hit the O'Keefe? That is the one common element to the three charges. And if the jurors can't agree on that, then the level of intent becomes irrelevant and you end up with a hung jury.

HILL: So, then to that point, right, if they couldn't agree on that, if the prosecution wasn't proving that key element of their case, is there anything that you saw in round one that makes you think the prosecution can change this or do something differently moving into a new trial?

MARRIS: I do think that they could have a strategic look back at this case and look at it from the lens of what went wrong. And one thing that they did in this trial was charge Karen Read with an intentional murder. So, their case was that she had an acrimonious relationship with O'Keefe and she intended to hit him that night. With that, there were lesser included offenses, which means it's a reckless state of mind. And then there's leaving the scene of an accident, causing injury or death, which is a negligent state of mind.

I think the prosecutors, they may drop that intentional murder charge because then they can focus on the issue of recklessness. Remember, there was significant evidence that she was intoxicated at the time that her blood alcohol level was way over the legal limit. So, focusing the case on that aspect and maybe thinking this intentional theory, she was overcharged.

The other piece of this that's going to be very relevant to what happens moving forward, exactly as Jean said, Proctor is under internal investigation. What has yielded from that? What with respect to the investigation comes out of that? And also the DOJ is investigating how this case unfolded. So, is there going to be some clarity from that respect? And is the investigation going to be impugned? All of that is going to be what prosecutors think about if they go back into the courtroom on this one.

HILL: All that is coming into a play. As Jean noted, there's a hearing set for the 22nd, for July 22nd. If this does move forward, right, we're talking about a new trial, change of venue, do you think that would get granted?

MARRIS: I think they have to at least ask for it from the perspective. Look at that crowd, Erica. Look at both the supporters and the people that are convinced that Karen Read is guilty and got away with it. That community is saturated with this case. That being said, it picked up steam and it's now a national news story. So, the counterargument is, there is no jurisdiction in this country that that hasn't heard of this case and hasn't formulated opinions. So, this jurisdiction, where it's the most meaningful, is the correct place to go.

[10:25:02]

So, it would be interesting to hear those arguments. But I think there is a pretty decent argument to get this case moved.

HILL: Misty Marris, great to have you as always. Thank you.

MARRIS: Thank you.

HILL: Coming up, an ominous start to hurricane season, a Category 5 storm now barreling toward Jamaica. You can see some of what it has already done. A path of destruction already left behind. That's next.

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HILL: Hurricane Beryl now making its way to Jamaica as a Category 5 storm. That makes it the earliest ever recorded Cat 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. Life threatening winds, the storm surge, they're all expected to hit Jamaica shoreline tomorrow. You see the path there.

Take a look at some of this video from inside the eye of the storm, the hurricane's winds now reaching speeds of up to 165 miles per hour. Since making landfall on Monday, Beryl has left a trail of widespread destruction across the Caribbean. Take a look at this. This is a fishing port in Barbados. As you can see there, the boats -- some boats flipped piles of debris floating amongst them, high water there.

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