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Soon 4th Hearing To Focus On Trump's Intimidation Of State Officials; Filmmaker With Trump Footage Around Jan 6 Will Comply With Subpoena To Turn Over Material; Source: Trump Stewing Over Lack Of Mega Allis On Jan 6 Cmte; Trump Attacks Jan 6 Cmte Witness Ahead Of Today's Hearing. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 21, 2022 - 12:00   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 HOST: That is not really a record that we're going for, is it. Chad Myers, appreciate it. Stay cool my friend. Thank you. I am Erica. Thanks to all of you for joining us At This Hour. CNN special coverage of the January 6 insurrection hearing begins right now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: On Capitol Hill, Republican state officials are preparing to testify about being personally pressured by then President Trump to overturn the 2020 election. We expect new information about the threats they faced as they defied Trump's attack on democracy. Welcome to CNN's live coverage of the January 6 hearings. I'm Anderson Cooper in Washington.

And I'm Jake Tapper. House investigators say that today's hearing will reveal evidence of then President Trump's direct role in a bar to submit fraudulent electors, presumably designed to create so much confusion that Congress would kick the matter back to Republican led state legislatures, so as to overturn Joe Biden's win in those states.

The committee says the hearing will also explore Trump's broader pressure campaign aimed at subverting the will of the American people. The first witness we're told, will be the Arizona State House Speaker Republican Rusty Bowers. Aides to the select committee say the Bowers will share critical new details about Trump's demands and even harassment as the president sought to decertify Biden's legitimate and legal win and Republican led Arizona.

The Georgia Secretary of State Republican Brad Raffensperger will also testify live. He famously went public with a phone call from Trump, from asking Raffensperger to quote, find enough votes to take away Joe Biden's legal and legitimate win in Georgia and concoct an illegitimate Trump win.

Another Georgia election official Raffensperger's deputy Gabriel Sterling will appear before the committee. You might remember Sterling on December 1, 2020. He publicly pleaded with Trump to stop lying about the election, and "stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get killed." That was tragically crushing.

All three of those witnesses are conservative Republicans who supported Trump's election, but also support the constitution and would not help Trump subvert it.

There's a fourth witness we're going to hear from, a former Georgia election worker who has an emotional story to share, were told that Wandrea "Shaye" Moss will testify that she and her family were targeted with death threats after Trump and his allies falsely accused her and her mother a ballot fraud. In her prepared statement she says, "their lie was more important than my life."

Aid say the select committee will again seek to connect the dots between Trump's actions and the riot on January 6 at the Capitol, they will warn of the ongoing threat of violence. Heading into the next elections, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California will play a leading role in the hearing, which begins about an hour from now.

Let's go now to Pamela Brown, who's on Capitol Hill for us. And Pamela, Georgia officials are about to testify here in Washington. They're also cooperating with the active criminal investigation going on in their home state. What can you tell us about that?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. In fact, the two witnesses here from Georgia today, Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State and his deputy Gabriel Sterling. They have already met with the grand jury behind closed doors. And that investigation is scrutinizing Trump and the lies he told around the election and pressuring Raffensperger to find more votes than that infamous phone call that will likely be played today.

So, there's a lot of scrutiny on Trump. You're going to see that again today, but also on Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani. I'm told by a source familiar with that investigation that investigators they are looking at as false statements that Rudy Giuliani made to a Senate committee after the election, about the election being stolen.

So, it is interesting that that is coinciding with today's January 6 hearing. And as you pointed out, the first panel, Jake, are these are Republicans who supported Trump and the 2020 election. You have a Gabriel Sterling, Raffensperger and then Rusty Bowers, and then you have the Georgia election worker as well, who's going to be after that talking about just all the threats that she has faced because of the lies that were put out.

And I'm told that throughout, you're going to have the witness testimony in different elements brought in, such as Trump's speech and January 4 in Georgia, where he repeated the election lies, he said the election was rigged. You heard the crowd there chant, fight for Trump, fight for Trump. There's been so much focus on the January 6 speech that the committee is going to focus on that January 4 speech as well.

Also, Mark Meadows visit to Cobb County, Georgia. when the audit was going on there, they're going to be asking the Georgia state officials about that I'm told. So, really looking at Trump's pressure campaign against the state officials, but also the ripple effect from that with the death threats and just sowing distrust among the electorate over the election results.

TAPPER: All right, Pamela Brown on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much. As we await the start of today's hearing, we're learning about documentary footage, subpoenaed by the select committee. Manu Raju is on the Hill. With that Manu, tell us about this footage. A lot of people didn't know about this. And also tell us why it's so significant.

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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is Alex Holder. He's a British filmmaker. And he promises that he has never before seen footage of the events surrounding January 6. He says, he had unparalleled access to all the key players due from Jared Kushner, Eric Trump, others as well as interviews with Donald Trump himself and footage from both the White House at Mar-a-Lago, talking also with Vice President Mike Pence.

And we're learning that the January 6 select committee issued a subpoena, asking for him to come forward and talk to the committee. And he has agreed to do that. On Thursday, this will happen behind closed doors in a deposition. Now he released a statement about this news that broke this morning. He said, when we began this project in September 2020, we could have never predicted that our work would one day be subpoenaed by Congress.

As a British filmmaker, I had no agenda coming into this. We simply wanted to better understand who the Trumps were and what motivated them to hold on to power so desperately. We have dutifully handed over all the materials the committee has asked for and we are fully cooperating.

Now a bit more about today's hearing, one of the featured witnesses here, Rusty Bowers. The Arizona state speaker will contend that Donald Trump, he asked for Trump and his allies to turn over allegations of fraud. Those allegations of fraud, evidence of fraud never materialized.

And we are also learning that from multiple sources who tell both my colleague Ryan Nobles and me that the today's hearing will feature information about at least one Republican member of Congress who pressured a state to overturn its electoral results, showing how far this pressure campaign went. Jake?

TAPPER: Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much. The hearing begins less than an hour from now and you'll see it here live. Let's talk right now about what we're expecting from this hearing. And Dana, one of the things that the committee is promising, which will be big if they can actually provide it, is Trump's direct role in this scheme to send fraudulent slates of electors to the national archives and to Congress to create so much chaos that the Mike Pence or whomever threw it back to the states and then Trump won.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And Adam Schiff, who's going to be leading this hearing today, told me point blank on state of the union, that they will present evidence that shows that Donald Trump was involved in that effort. But I'm told by sources who are familiar with what we're going to see today, that obviously that would be a very big deal, but what they're going to do is present a more fulsome, multi layered example of how this went on. And there's a keyword I was told, coordination. We're going to hear about Donald Trump. We're going to hear about Rudy Giuliani, other lawyers in that orbit, Jenna Ellis and others who had a coordinated push going on to get misinformation to state legislators, never mind actually members of Congress who then you had to vote on January 6.

I'm told that we are going - they talked to some of the fake electors that were part of this misinformation campaign. And that we're going to see and hear some of the sound bites of them, their closed-door testimony during the live testimony today.

TAPPER: Interesting. And Jamie Gangel, obviously, we're going to hear the phone call, maybe not the entire thing, but excerpts from the phone call. The infamous call where Trump calls the secretary of state of Georgia and pressures him to "find the correct number of votes" so that as to overturn Biden's win and give it to him. And you have some reporting on the fact that at the same time that was going on, other people on the phone call were texting each other. Tell us about that?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. First, let's just say 11,780 is a very precise number for someone to come up with. So, we took a look at the Meadows' text, logs, the messages. On January 2, there is a call between Jordan Fuchs, who is the Deputy Secretary of State to Brad Raffensperger in Georgia. Remember, these are all Republicans.

And he's on the call and he's texting Mark Meadows in the middle of the call, and he says, need to end this call. I don't think this will be productive much longer. Meadows: OK. Jordan: let's save the relationship. Thank you. Wow. Wow, was right. They knew what was going on in that call. There was no question. That's in real time.

TAPPER: And Abby, when Trump said before the election, bad things happen in Philadelphia. There was obviously a suggestion he was making about Philadelphia, where he actually ended up doing better in 2020 than he did in 2016. Then in the more predominantly white suburbs of Philadelphia, where he ended up doing worse.

And President Trump's critics and observers who have eyes, have also noted that he pointed out Trump specifically that the election fraud in Georgia that is bogus. It did not happen. He named names of black election workers. I want to play a little bit. This is from the conversation between Trump and Raffensperger.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S. PRESIDENT (voiceover): She's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler, Ruby Freeman been reported that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back Ruby Freeman and her daughter and a few people. There were no Republican poll watches. Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put them in three times.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE (voiceover): Mr. President, they did not put that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times. And I think it's extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: First of all, the language calling Ruby Freeman, a hustler. It's something at a 1970s all in the family. But second one, the daughter that they mentioned was Wandrea "Shaye" Moss. She'll be testifying. There is a racial overtone to this.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: 100 percent. The places that Trump was fixated on where he believed or wanted his supporters to believe with absolutely no evidence where there was fraud, were places where there were a lot of black and non-white voters. Urban areas, cities, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Fulton County, Georgia includes part of the Atlanta area, it is a county that is about 40 something percent black.

This is a place that Trump knew it would be easy to convince people in his camp, that there was something nefarious going on, even though there was no evidence. And there is a racial element to this. He not only named names, but they sent out the video showing, you know, Ruby Freeman and her daughter. And that video was not what Trump said it was, but the result were racist attacks, the death threats to these two women.

And the people who ended up at the Capitol on January 6, many of them white supremacists carrying confederate flags. They were also motivated by racism and all of this, too. So that I think is an undercurrent of the hearing today. Why Georgia? Well, Georgia was a place that Trump thought it was easy to convince people that there was something wrong going on, because how could it be that all of these black people would end up voting for Joe Biden.

TAPPER: And John King, again, the quote is, I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. It's incredible to me that so many Republicans are still sticking with a president who was shaking down a secretary of state for the state's electoral vote.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And that's why the testimony today from these loyal Republicans is so important. You're going to hear the Arizona House speaker saying, I followed my oath, and I followed the constitution. You're going to have Brad Raffensperger say, I followed my oath, and I followed the constitution. They followed math. They follow truth. They followed the process, which allowed recounts, which allowed audits, which allowed lawsuits. They did everything they could.

Brad Raffensperger voted for Trump. Rusty Bowers voted for Trump. And so, can you break through with the idea that Trump's allies say, oh, he was just venting? You know, he was upset that he might have lost the election. He's just venting. Know, what the committee is going to lay out and what they've done a pretty good job, a very good job so far laying out, and saying coordinated, consistent conspiracy. You lose in this front; you find another one.

They don't believe this information. You create some more. You splice a video, who committed the fraud. Who committed the fraud? It was not the voters. It was Trump and his team, splicing videos, spreading misinformation. And look - just look at this week. For those out there who say, this is in the rearview mirror. We don't need to think about this anymore. Look at what happened to the Texas Republican Party this week.

They passed a platform that says acting President Joe Biden, look what happened in Missouri. A candidate for the United States Senate, put out a video saying that it is acceptable, acceptable to shoot rhinos, to kill rhinos, Republicans in name only. So, the violence on January 6, the fraud from election day through January 6 is still a clear and present danger as Judge Luttig said last week in the Republican Party, it's just a fact.

TAPPER: The hearing begins less than an hour from now. You will see it here live. Coming up next, new details on gifts that Trump wanted to give election investigators. This is CNN's live coverage, attack on democracy the January 6 hearings. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: We're waiting the start of the fourth hearing this month, held by the January 6 select committee. We're going to hear testimony from Georgia and Arizona officials who resisted President Trump's pressure to interfere with the 2020 election results. We're going to go now to Sara Murray, new details on the lengths that President Trump went to in trying to influence election investigators. What are you learning, Sara?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You know, we had heard that Adam Schiff told the LA Times that they were election workers in Georgia were offered these make America great again hats. But I spoke to a source who said actually Meadows offered, the White House offered to give these challenge coins, you know these memorial coins that have this insignia either the White House or of the military, two election workers in Georgia.

This is while, this post-election audit was still going on in December of 2020. And this offer came after Mark Meadows showed up in Cobb County at this audit say, he was denied entrance to the audit room. And at the same time, Trump was tweeting, saying how slow the election workers were going. It was, you know, bad for the morale of the election workers.

So, to try to sort of smooth all of this over. After this visit, an aide to Mark Meadows reached out to a Georgia official and essentially said, the White House would love to provide folks who are working on this audit with these memorial coins. The Georgia officials said that, you know, essentially, we don't think this is appropriate at this time. This audit is still ongoing. We should of course add that after that audit was done, still no evidence of fraud. Anderson?

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COOPER: Sara Murray, appreciate it. Thanks Sara. Murray also told the President Trump has been following the hearings, he is not happy. Kaitlan Collins has the latest from Trump world. What are you hearing from your sources, Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, it's kind of as the former president has been watching these hearings, he's becoming more frustrated with the fact that there are none of his Republican allies up there on the platform, defending him or pushing back as the committee is going through these hearings, dissecting his election lies, and he has become increasingly frustrated by that.

And I should note, there are two Republicans on this committee, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, and obviously, no one would describe Liz Cheney as some kind of liberal, but I think both Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney would likely agree that they are not allies of the former president. And so, he has become frustrated as he's been watching these, saying that there's nobody to represent us. We need Republicans on that committee.

And much of his frustration, Anderson, he's been focused privately on Kevin McCarthy because of course, when this committee was being formed, he had submitted five names of Republicans to House Speaker Pelosi. She rejected two of them, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, but agreed to the other three. But he was so upset by that, that he withdrew all of his selections.

And lately, President Trump had - former President Trump has been complaining about that, saying that it was a bad decision, a foolish decision that he believes is actually hurting him in the end, because he's frustrated not seeing his allies up there defending him, as so often saw in the impeachment hearings, of course. And so, that's been a source of frustration as he's been watching these.

We should note, he's already weighing in on the hearing today, because you are going to hear from Rusty Bowers, he is the Arizona State House speaker, someone who is going to testify about how he pushed back on pressure he was getting about certifying in this election - certifying the election.

And I should note, there's a bit of a veiled threat in the statement from former President Trump where he said, that during a conversation he had with Rusty Bowers in November of 2020, he says Bowers told him the election was rigged and that he, Trump had won Arizona. And he also says at the end that Bowers should hope there is not a tape of the conversation. Of course, Anderson, he does not say that he does have a tape of it. And we will see Bowers testifying today about this.

COOPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins, appreciate it. I'm here with the team in Washington. Chris Wallace, the interesting thing about what the president is now criticizing McCarthy for not having Republicans on the committee. This is a statement from the former president May 18, 2021, saying Republicans in the House and Senate should not approve the Democrat trap with the January 6 commission. He went on to say hopefully, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are listening.

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST OF WHO'S TALKING TO CHRIS WALLACE: So, you're suggesting, it's really surprising that Donald Trump has reversed him.

COOPER: Yes. Yet again. It's so surprised.

WALLACE: Well, I mean, here's the thing poor, poor Kevin McCarthy. He, in the immediate aftermath of January 6, he calls out Donald Trump and says that he was responsible for this. We know we had the phone call with Donald Trump, where he said to him on January 6, please call this off. And Trump supposedly is doing, you know, Kevin, there are a lot of people who seem to be take this more seriously than you do. Shortly thereafter.

McCarthy goes down to Mar-a-Lago to have a picture taken with him. I mean, he has been on this tightrope, where he has tried to do his Trump's bidding, perhaps at the expense of his manhood, and he can't satisfy. He gives Trump what he wants. And then Trump wants something different.

And you know, the key for people who may not be following as closely as we, is a Kevin McCarthy thinks that the Republicans are going to win the House, and that he's going to end up as the House speaker. But of course, if Donald Trump were to throw shade on him, suddenly, maybe he couldn't - wouldn't be the speaker, which is what he has wanted to be for you.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think, even though Donald Trump is a complete hypocrite, of course, and all of this, because he didn't want this committee. The point is that he's got a point, which isn't, you know, nobody is saying, you know, really, Donald Trump did this, and he did that, it wasn't so bad, and he really wasn't a co-conspirator in any way. And it really wasn't coordinated as Dana was calling it. But he doesn't have anybody saying that for him. And what's worse, is the people who are criticizing him, by his own people.

ANDERSON: And today, we're going to hear more from Republicans themselves, Republican (Inaudible).

BORGER: And I would say that today, Mark Meadows is going to become a big part of this hearing, because everybody I talked to on the committee, and also people who work with Mark Meadows, in the White House, say that he was the enabler of all of this. And they use that phrase, and they say, if it weren't for Mark Meadows, allowing some of these crazy people into the Oval Office, the conspiracy theorists, et cetera, who egged the president on that, likely not much of this would have happened. I don't know if that's true.

WALLACE: Wasn't Mark Meadows supposed to be the adult in the room. Wasn't that his whole purpose in being the chief of staff?

GEORGE CONWAY, CONSERVATIVE LAWYER: Well, the chief of staff is supposed to be the adult in the room at all times, particularly when you need an adult in the room with Donald Trump. And yes, he really isn't I mean neck deep in this because he was, he played a leading role in these communications with the people in Georgia and setting now and he was on that January 2 phone call.

[12:25:00]

COOPER: So, Laura, there's the investigation going on in Georgia at the time that we are going to be hearing from Ben Roethlisberger and others from Georgia.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: In fact, what we're going to hear today, in part are things that a special grand jury will have already heard in Georgia from Brad Raffensperger. Not just a Republican, a lifelong conservative, who donated I believe, according to his book, to Donald Trump, who voted for him as well, who he says has been battling with the notion of a stolen election, ever since he believed that Stacey Abrams, and now governor's candidate has claimed several years before, this is somebody who is quite well versed, and this has already given testimony

But the notion of an enabler here, why it's so important. Donald Trump has been searching for yes men for a very long time to tell him what the emperor in fact, looks great. But in reality, he has no clothes on there is no there-there of the fraud. There is no - there, there - according to Bill Barr, according to Brad Raffensperger.

And he's put people in parallel, not just January 6, of course, we're talking about people today who will testify that because he replaced posts on his own Facebook page, a video that really was slice and dice was not accurate. He put people in parallel. In fact, gateway pundit is being sued the actual source that had this on there, buy someone will hear from today, because it endanger their lives by suggesting that they were involved in irregularities which again, there was no there-there.

CONWAY: And let's back up just a little bit, because what was really at stake here. I checked it out this morning, there were more than 3.3 million votes cast in Arizona, by Americans, more for Biden than Trump, but 3.3 million Americans participated. There were almost 5 million votes cast in Georgia. And basically, what Trump and his cohort were doing was they were basically saying, throw out all those votes. Forget about all the Americans who went to the polls or voted early or went to the polls on Election Day.

And let's leave it up to the, you know, to the Secretary of State in Georgia, find me 11,780 votes, or to the Speaker of the House in Arizona, find me the 11,000 votes. Forget about that. You guys can handle it, and we will turn a defeat into a victory. It was a naked grab for power. And one last thing. You had an audit in Maricopa County, the Phoenix area and an Arizona, which was the margin of difference between Biden and Trump and Arizona.

They ended up having to reorder after January 6. And one of the things they did was they actually were trying to see whether there were bamboo on the ballots because they the allegation was 40,000 ballots had somehow secretly been shipped in from Asia, and would have bamboos.

COOPER: This was the cyber ninja audit. It didn't have (Ph) anything.

CONWAY: Yes. And it turned up nothing. Again, there was no there- there.

COOPER: Yes. Coming up. We're going to set the stage for today's testimony by Georgia election officials who will be joined by the state's lieutenant governor, Republican Jeff Duncan. Stay right here for CNN's live coverage of the January 6 hearing.

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