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Judge Cannon Dismisses Trump Classified Documents Case; Trump to Make VP Choice Today. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: We've had special counsels before. We've had special counsel investigations before, and those judges in those cases didn't toss them out. What's going on here?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, Jim, this was part of the conversation that happened at the hearing that we were at just a few weeks ago. One of the things that Judge Cannon was asking was, you know, the Trump team is arguing that, you know, there's not been any special counsels that wasn't appointed by the Senate, that wasn't confirmed by the Senate under a Republican administration. And they cited Bill Barr.

And it was during that hearing that you saw the Justice Department team during a break came back and said, well, there is an example from when Bill Barr was a senior official before the Trump administration that he did appoint a special counsel that was not a Senate confirmed official.

So, you -- what you hear there is sort of like a long running dispute really that Judge Cannon has latched down to -- lash onto that pretty much most other judges have not. I mean, this is an argument that we've seen being raised in a number of cases, all the way -- you know, Paul Manafort raised this, of course, Hunter Biden brought it up in both of these cases -- both of his cases.

So, what this does set up is a -- obviously an appeal that we expect that the special counsel has no choice but to try to appeal this to the 11th Circuit, which has, you know, dealt pretty strongly with some of Judge Cannon's previous jurisprudence. So, we expect that that's going to happen. But the bottom line is, obviously, that takes a lot of time.

And the alternative here for the Justice Department is to just refile this case with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Miami -- for the Southern District of Florida, the Miami U.S. attorney, they could refile this case with his signature, and that would then be -- according to Judge Cannon's opinion, as far as we can read, that would be a valid case brought by someone who was Senate confirmed. So, that's the avenue she is laying out here for the prosecutors in this case.

ACOSTA: And Evan, I mean, one of the other questions that's been raised and forgive me for asking you to answer a speculative question.

PEREZ: Yes.

ACOSTA: But that once a challenge by Jack Smith's office goes to the 11th Circuit, that the 11th Circuit may say, you know what, we've had enough of Judge Cannon, you're out of here. We're going to give this case to somebody else. I know that usually only happens in extraordinary circumstances. Is -- could this be the catalyst for something like that happening here?

PEREZ: Well, look, I mean, we are -- you could say these are the most bonkers of times that we're living in. This is beyond extraordinary, right? So, you know, we don't know what the 11th Circuit will do. But almost certainly, what they will -- what they would look at is whether there's any pattern of misconduct by the judge here, and we don't know.

I mean, the first -- the Justice Department would have to ask the 11th Circuit to toss her. That's one of the things that would have to happen here, you would think. And, you know, again, there is not much of a record here for them to go with. You know, she is finally doing some rulings, that's one of their frustrations, is that she just hasn't ruled on things.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: But -- so, you know, once the 11th Circuit does get something like this, you know, they could take a look at everything. But again, they would have to make -- be acting on a request by prosecutors to remove her, which is an extraordinary circumstance because, at this point, there's not really much of a record to show misconduct or some kind of conflict that requires her removal. That is something that is usually up to the judges to recognize whether they have a conflict that requires them to step aside.

ACOSTA: Yes, Elie, I hate to put you in that position as well, but let me ask you that same question. Do you think it's possible that the 11th Circuit might say, we've had enough of Judge Aileen Cannon, or is that too far-fetched?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's important that people understand just how rare it is that that happens. That can happen that a district judge, a federal trial judge does get removed. Usually, that's precipitated by the prosecutor or one of the parties asking for it. Now, Jack Smith has not asked for that as of this point.

This might be the moment where he does ask for it, but I think we need to manage expectations here. It is really, really rare that that happens. And just being reversed doesn't do it. I mean, Judge Chutkan just got reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and there's no calls for her to be removed on that case at this point.

So, it's possible to me, Jim. But again, I think we need to expectation set here that that happens that a judge is forced to be removed from a case by an appellate court, that happens extraordinarily rarely.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Katelyn Polantz, just to go back to you. I mean, what is the next step here? Do we know? I mean, is it essentially just waiting to see what Jack Smith does next?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: It is indeed. And it may take a little bit of time to get to that point. This case in Washington, D.C. The January 6, 2020 election case that's paused until August 2nd.

[10:35:00]

So, there's a couple weeks left there until it kicks up. And with this, the special counsel's office is going to have to closely read this opinion and make their decisions on what their next steps will be and what their best moves would be. It is very likely that they would appeal something like this because it does cut away a power that the Justice Department has used. It's not just her saying these charges are not fair against Donald Trump.

She actually says, she's not weighing in on that at all. This is her saying, this prosecutor, Jack Smith, at the special counsel's office, he personally cannot be put into the Justice Department to bring a case like this. He should not have that authority. And so, the Justice Department is very likely going to want to maintain the power that they believe that they have had, given that this attorney general appointed Jack Smith, believing that that was something he was able to do.

So, that will continue on very likely, but it may take a little bit of time to work out. And I am told by some sources I've been talking to already in reaction to this, that there's a large expectation that Smith's team would appeal, even among Trump's defense universe. The other question, though, Jim, is, does the case stay with Judge Cannon? And how, if it changes, does that happen?

ACOSTA: Yes, that is a fascinating question. That's probably the question right now is whether or not the 11th Circuit says, OK, that's enough. We're going to hand this off to a different judge. We're all going to be monitoring that. I ask our legal experts to stand by for just a moment. I want to go to our political expert, Manu Raju, who's out in Milwaukee for us.

Manu, I mean, we've been talking about the legal implications of all of this, but obviously, I have to think, having covered a lot of Republican Conventions, that they are -- there's a spring in their step after hearing this ruling from Judge Cannon right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No question about it, and I got two great people to break it all down with me. That's Astead Herndon from "The New York Times," as well as Bryan Lanza, former Deputy Communications Director for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Gentlemen, nice to see you here.

OK. Bryan, we hear so much about two-tiered justice system. Here's Trump, just won this case, was dismissed. Trump wins the Supreme Court case, immunity decision, which essentially pushes aside the January 6th case. The Fulton County case, involving another election subversion case, has been pushed into the courts because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and all -- everything Fani Willis, it seems like the justice system is working fine and working to Trump's benefit.

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN: Well, I would say the challenge isn't necessarily justice system, it's the prosecution system. That's what's being shot back. You know, that's what's being reversed at Supreme Court. That's what you have with, you know, Special Counsel Smith being sort of challenged or being dismissed by the Florida judge.

I mean, there is a two-tiered system. You've seen it, we've all witnessed it. There's been a two-tier system in our judicious system for, I would say, you know, centuries at this point, right? But we saw it highlighted and targeted against an American president. And we've seen the courts come in and say, no, you know, speed kills. So, speed is not the point of a judicial prosecution. Speed is not the point. You need to do it right. You need to do it slow.

And you had Smith who has a history of being overturned by the Supreme court because he's chased the speed and he doesn't chase truth. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing the speed come up to against the truth. And people are saying, we want the truth. We don't want speed. And that's why Smith's getting reversed.

And I think we're going to see more of this because the whole point of this was to stop Trump from running again, was to stop Trump from being a viable candidate. And so, that's why they worked fast. They sort of sped up the entire process to gain that to their advantage. And now, the courts have said, slow down. That's what we want.

RAJU: But he clearly benefited by having a judge whom he appointed in this case, who took a lot of steps that were criticized early on. And then, this step also, she's getting a lot of criticism, mostly from the left, but legal experts as well who are down the middle.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Totally. I mean, I would say that Donald Trump has benefited from a lot of things along this path. Also, think about his behavior as a defendant in the New York case, which I think any other kind of defendant would have been sanctioned in the greater way. Every step of the way, we've seen Donald Trump benefit from basically being, like, the most lucky person alive on these cases.

When you talk to the Trump campaign -- you talked to the Trump campaign last year, they would have said they did not want -- that they wanted the New York case to go first. They did not want the January 6th case to be tried before November. That was the biggest win for them on this front politically.

LANZA: Well, I would say being indicted never is -- is never a winning formula. He --

HERNDON: I'm not saying that being indicted is a winning formula, but I'm saying if you're going to be indicted --

RAJU: I don't know if you're a Ron DeSantis, maybe he wanted to be.

HERNDON: If you're going to be indicted, make sure it's on the case that -- the public finds the least serious and make sure it's on the case that you have the clearest kind of political pushback for. So, I think that you're right to the spring of the step on the RNC front because every single step of the way, the -- it's broken in Trump's favor.

[10:40:00]

RAJU: Yes. I mean, it says the political impact, if you would, about the fact that this -- we're only going to probably -- we'll only see one Trump case. He -- yes, he was convicted on 34 felony counts in the New York case. That happened, though, a long time ago, and a lot has passed since then. So, given that that's the only case that is going to come to verdict before November -- oh, I'm going to, I'm going to actually just halt this discussion.

Jim, we have some breaking news on the Trump campaign. Tell us what it is.

ACOSTA: Yes. Manu, I want to go out to Kristen Holmes right away and get the latest from her. She's there in Milwaukee as well. Kristen, what do you know? What's up?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Donald Trump just posted on Truth Social, this is his first reaction to the dismissal of the Cannon case. And as we had been told, he is celebrating. They are thrilled that this case was dismissed. Here's what he says. He says, as we move forward in uniting our nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the lawless indictment in Florida should be just the first step followed quickly by the dismissal of all of the witch hunts. He goes on to list the various case about cases against him, the Democrat Justice Department coordinated all of these political attacks, which are an election interference conspiracy against Joe Biden's political opponent, me.

Now, I want to read this last line. Let us come together and end all weaponization of our justice system and make America great again. There's a reason that I read that part about the weaponization, about Joe Biden, and that is because I have heard from a number of Trump allies in the last hour that they believe this solidifies their argument that this is political.

Now, again, just to reiterate, as we say every single time, there is no evidence that Joe Biden brought these cases against Donald Trump. And in fact, in the four cases that were pending against them, two of them were state brought cases, so not federal cases. And the two that were federal cases, there is no evidence linking President Joe Biden to him.

However, as we have heard time and time again, Donald Trump and his allies have sought to make this a political, not legal issues, saying that everyone in these various cases is politically biased against Trump. Now, obviously, notable they never said this about Judge Cannon who was appointed by Donald Trump and who they appreciated in some of the things that she did in that documents case, but they believe that this furthers their argument that this is political.

We saw this in the Supreme Court ruling as well when they came out and said, look, this shows that this was all political, that we do have immunity, that I am able to do these things as president. And the fact that one of the things that Cannon said in this ruling, essentially, was that it was unconstitutional to appoint this special counsel in Jack Smith, is something that Trump's team has been arguing.

So, whether or not this impacts him legally, I will focus just on the political, which they believe this solidifies this argument that he has been making since the beginning of these various legal obstacles, that all of this is some kind of political endeavor. Again, there is no evidence of any of that, and he was convicted in New York on felony charges. But this is their argument, and has been their argument, as he has faced these various legal challenges.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Kristen, they, they were finding documents in the bathroom. They were finding documents in the shower. When the feds came over to get the documents, there were efforts to hide the documents. I mean, there's a reason why this case was brought forward. It's not weaponization of the Justice Department. I mean, just -- that's just a part of this. Yes.

HOLMES: Of course. And, Jim, just to be, I mean, it's not just the fact that documents were found there, he was on tape, which was evidence, saying that he knew he had classified documents that he couldn't be sharing, but he was sharing. I mean, there was a lot of evidence in this case. And that's part of why you're seeing Donald Trump's team really celebrating right now. Because if you looked at the various cases brought against him, they actually believed that this was the most serious case with the most serious amount of evidence.

So, we really cannot stress enough how big of a deal this is for them, particularly if you just talk to legal advisers who, again, believe that this was one of the strongest, if not the strongest case against him. So, you hear them celebrating, talking about how they are very thrilled that this was dismissed. Take that into account as well.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, and Kristen, I mean, you know the political dimension of all this and you talk to the Trump folks all the time. I mean, the two cases that really did threaten to put Donald Trump behind bars, the January 6th case and the classified documents case, both of those cases are, I mean, almost certainly not going to go to trial before the November election. And in each of those cases, the public is just not going to get to the bottom of what Trump was doing, what he did, when he knew it and so on.

HOLMES: Well, that's true. And remember, this has been part of the strategy all along. They wanted these cases to be pushed for trial until after the November election. The hope there being that if Donald Trump is elected, he could dismiss those two serious cases that were brought by the Justice Department because the executive branch technically will have control over the Justice Department.

[10:45:00]

Now, obviously, in the four cases that they had all tried to delay, delay, delay, he actually went to trial and was convicted in New York. But also, look at that Georgia case. I mean, right now it seems to be on permanent hold. So, it seems unlikely that that case will also -- or that trial will also occur before Donald Trump before the election.

And the other part of that is that while that's not a Department of Justice case, the idea of bringing a sitting president, if Donald Trump was to win, to trial is something that is completely unprecedented and something that his team has said was unlikely to happen. So, that's why you're looking at the Georgia case a little bit differently, because if that is pushed past the election, it's not -- and he does win, that's not part of the Justice Department. But, again, bringing a sitting president to trial is a very huge hill to climb, and they believe that it's unlikely that that could happen.

ACOSTA: All right. Kristen Holmes, thanks very much. And, Manu, I'll go back to you because I know we so rudely interrupted you there a few moments ago, but we had to get that breaking news from Kristen Holmes. I mean, she lays it out, I think perfectly, and that is that this has been -- I mean, you and I saw this during the first half of this year, that the campaign became the courthouse, the courthouse became the campaign, and that the legal and political strategy on the part of the former president and his advisers all along was delay, delay, delay, and it seems as though they've executed this perfectly. These trials, these cases are not going to get a trial it seems before the November election, and that, of course, works to the benefit of the former president, Manu.

RAJU: Yes, rely on the court system, rely on some of the favorable rulings and the favorable judges, and all of a sudden, boom, delayed until after the election, and a huge, huge benefit for the former president.

So, if you're the current president, if you're Joe Biden right now, you see what happened here. What do you do? Do you just -- because there's a lot of concerns going to come from Democrats who are unhappy about how all this is playing out. They also don't want to see like that they're trying to taint this process in any way. So, how does the president play this?

HERNDON: Well, we should say that the core assumption a lot of Democrats had coming into this race has already been blown up. There was a belief among Democrats that the legal cases against Donald Trump were so serious that he will be somewhat invalidated by the time we get to the general election. That's the thing I heard consistently last year from national Democrats. And already that kind of wish has been kind of cast aside.

So, I think what you have to see Biden do now is engage in the substance of this campaign. I think it's a trap to see Donald Trump as this inevitably strong candidate. The numbers tell us that Americans don't like the fact that he's been indicted this many times. A lot of people do see him to be unfit to be president. The problem is they also have problems with Joe Biden. He needs to address the core concern of his age and he needs to bring the issues back to where he feels better.

Now, that's probably abortion rights, that's probably keeping the political system kind of intact, where people see Trump as a chaos agent, but I think if Trump starts to show a different side of himself, that becomes a little harder. If we see the Trump of the debate, if we see a Trump in the kind of tweets we've seen since Saturday, that's been toned down a little, that makes that -- Joe Biden's job a little more difficult because he wants to portray Donald Trump as someone who is unfit for the office.

RAJU: But do you think that Biden will even address this case and this ruling at all?

HERNDON: I think they've been slow to do so, but you've increasingly seen them talk about it. I don't know and -- they're slow to do kind of sharp attacks right now, but I think eventually we will get to them calling him out more directly.

RAJU: So, you know, as the Republican here looking at the political impacts, when we got into this season where he had four criminal cases against him, how did you rank them in terms of the concern about the political fallout? Obviously, folks most agreed on both sides of the New York case was viewed as probably the last politically toxic of the four. How did the Mar-a-Lago case just now dismissed in this hugely significant ruling by this Florida district judge, how did that rank and how would you characterize, you know, the rest of the cases in terms of the political impact specifically?

LANZA: Yes. Listen, I think the Florida one was the one that gave everybody the most concern because there's documents, there was tape, there's all the -- there's a mountain of evidence that sort of pointed to something -- some type of fire that I think Jack Smith was going to say, hey, here's the fire. Now, the problem that they had in Florida isn't the problem that Jack Smith has is -- you know, he is not entitled to a speedy trial. The defendant is in him trying to expedite the case. So, the verdict comes before November is where he got tripped up.

And they could, they -- their eagerness to try to get some type of criminal conviction before their number -- before November screwed up the calendar for them. It gave Trump many opportunities to do delays. So, I think going forward, I think Georgia is the least effective. I don't think we're going to see anything before November. And I do believe -- I believe this with the -- with knowing how our government works, that if Donald Trump is elected in November, the Georgia case will probably be pardoned. I think the governor of Georgia is going to say it hinders the American president to have this criminal conviction while he's president, and we need to pardon him, and he probably will.

The other cases would be dismissed, is my suspicion. I think Joe Biden should dismiss him if Trump were to win. It shouldn't -- we should look at opportunities to heal this country and to bring this country together. And if the American people have chosen Donald Trump in November, in spite of all these things, the best thing Joe Biden can do to heal this country is to have those charges dismissed or give President Trump the pardon.

[10:50:00]

Because if we go any further into this and Trump dismisses himself, we're going to have the same drama of, you know, he influenced the court, he shouldn't be here, he's illegitimate. We need to heal this country. We're headed to a November election that hopefully heals this country if both sides want to participate.

RAJU: But it's interesting here -- Bryan, here, there -- it says that the Florida case was seen as the most significant in terms of the problematic for Republicans. I mean, it had a lot in there, alleged obstruction charges, it had moving boxes, his conduct, mishandling of documents, allegedly. There was a lot that could have been politically toxic for the former president.

HERNDON: Absolutely. Which is why when those photos came out outside -- at Mar-a-Lago, there was such concern among Republicans. They certainly benefited from the judge in this case. I'm surprised to hear Florida because I heard so much about the January 6th case and that being a kind of fear, not necessarily because of the substance of it, but because it's the day that Americans hold against Donald Trump most clearly. I hear even Trump supporters say that they don't like some of the actions that happened on that day.

And so, I think that for -- you know, for all the talk about the delay, delay that we have seen, there was a lot of Democrats who wanted Merrick Garland and Jack Smith to act faster on the January 6th case and was hoping that that was going to be the one that was tried before November, and we saw when Congress kind of put focus on that ahead of the midterms, we saw some reaction from the public.

So, in my opinion, that case being shifted from being going earlier in the calendar to later has been the biggest political impact of the legal process.

RAJU: That's such a good point because that was something that a lot of Democrats were saying publicly, privately, they want to check -- they wanted the special counsel to move quicker, they wanted Merrick Garland to move quicker, they put a lot of pressure on him and --

LANZA: They wanted the courts to do their job. They wanted the courts to disqualify Donald Trump because they knew Joe Biden's record was going to disqualify himself. His record on inflation, his record on immigration, his record on reforms.

HERNDON: I don't think that's wrong. Yes, yes.

LANZA: You know, those were not winning issues. And so, they were looking for something to disqualify him. And what we learned through today at the Supreme Court, you know, in sports, speed kills, but in the judicial system, speed kills the prosecution. And that's what happened today. RAJU: Well, yes. Well, we'll see as we assess all this, the reasons for the decision for the dismissal, what the special counsel decides to do in terms of an appeal, but just a hugely significant moment. Jim, I'll toss it back to you in Washington.

ACOSTA: It is a very big moment to kick off this Republican National Convention. Manu, thank you very much. More on the breaking news in just a few moments. Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing the classified documents case against Donald Trump down in Florida. We'll have more on this breaking story after a short break. Be right back.

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[10:55:00]

ACOSTA: Welcome back to the breaking news down in Florida. The judge in the classified documents case, Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed that case. We want to bring in a CNN Presidential Historian Tim Naftali to talk about this. We're also hearing just in the last several minutes that Donald Trump said on Fox that he probably will announce his vice-presidential pick today.

Tim Naftali, if you're with me, let me get you first to respond. I know you were the -- once the director of the Nixon Presidential Library, and there have been all of these questions that have been raised in -- obviously, in recent weeks about what the federal government can do, what the Justice Department to do -- can do, what the Congress can do to keep a president out of -- who is out of control in check. These questions were raised during the Nixon administration. Obviously, they're coming up again as it -- as they pertain to Former President Donald Trump.

What is your reaction to what we saw out of Florida today with this judge dismissing this classified documents case?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: First, before I mention my reaction, let me remind our viewers that, one, Richard Nixon never sought presidential immunity for his actions. That was never an argument that he had his legal team make at the time. And number two, Richard Nixon disliked the special prosecutor of his time, fired the special prosecutor, and then had the Justice Department appoint another one.

So, the idea that somehow the appointment of a special prosecutor was unconstitutional never crossed Richard Nixon's mind. Today's decision is stunning. I'd like to put my former National Archives hat back on and remind viewers that the reason this case happened was that your documents, your presidential records were missing and archivists in Washington found they were not where they should be in the Trump collection. They sought the return of those documents. The former president denied having them. The National Archives asked for months for these materials, and only after the stonewalling of Mar-a-Lago did the National Archives seek the assistance of the Justice Department, and then you had a series of subpoenas.

So, this process is a story of your archivists trying to get your materials in a safe and secure place in Washington. This wasn't a weaponization of the Justice Department, this was an attack on our archival system, which makes it a peculiar talking point. But I understand why it has become one. Today's decision was very unfortunate for the security of our presidential record.

ACOSTA: And, Tim, I'm sure you perhaps heard in just the last several minutes, we had a Trump supporting a pundit on our air saying -- talking about the weaponization of the Justice Department. I mean, this is a common refrain. We are probably going to hear it this week at the Republican Convention. Any thoughts on that?

NAFTALI: Yes. Today --

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