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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  March 20, 2023 5:00pm-6:01pm PDT

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and finally tonight, police in riot gear squaring off with protestors in paris as fires are set across that city. this is the fifth night of demonstrations as people take to the streets outraged by the french president, emmanuel macron, to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. the that would still be less than what it is in the united states which is 67 for anyone born after 1960. ment many strikes on top of a walkout by sanitation workers which has left paris buried under 10,000 tons of garbage. thanks for joining us. "ac 360" begins right now. the twice impeached 45th president of the united states may become the first former president as well as first major presidential candidate indicted on a criminal charge. when that may happen, if it
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happens, is anybody's guess, and today's events only added to the drama. i'm pamela brown in for anderson tonight. the former president kicked off speculation that an indictment may be imminent with a social media post over the weekend stating that it may come tomorrow but he offered no proof of that and his own lawyer told cnn that they are merely repeating what they read in the media but they can't be because everyone is in the dark about what's going on behind the closed doors of the grand jury room and about when they could reach a decision. all we know is that if the former president is charged, it will be historic and not just for the reasons we cited, but also because of the nature of the crime being alleged. a payoff and coverup of an alleged relationship with an adult film actress, something trump has denied. any potential indictment can also be the first of more charges to come for former president trump. those would involve separate investigations out of the justice department and the state
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of georgia and to his actions surrounding election interference, the insurrection and mishandling of documents far graver to his status as a 2024 republican front-runner. here's what we do know tonight. the manhattan district attorney's office has signaled it is close to whether to indict and that fact plus trump's social media blast has kicked off anything from the justice department, special counsel or out in georgia and the prosecutor will rally around the former president and this weekend in that same social media post the president told the followers he expects to be arrested and called on them to, quote, protest, take our nation back. a lot of reporting in the hour head starting with cnn's paula reid. what are you learning about the potential indictment of the
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former president? >> reporter: pamela, if the former president is indicted, his attorneys will be notified and then they will have to negotiate a self-surrender and a time for an initial appearance. we're hearing from multi-tipping sources from law enforcement and the former president that that initial appearance and arrest will not happen until next week and it is still only if he is indicted. we've also learned that the former president's legal team is not expecting anything tomorrow. >> we'll stay on the edge of our seats to see if there arefully indictments. >> michael cohen testified before the manhattan grand jury. what did he have to say? >> reporter: that's right. this was really interesting because this was a witness k requested by former president trump's legal team.
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cohen is a central witness in this investigation and robert costello, who's an attorney, who at one time represented michael cohen. he says he told the grand jury back when he discussed the hutch money payments at the center of this investigation with cohen several years ago that cohen told him that he was doing that on his own. he also accused cohen of being on a, quote, revenge tour. michael cohen was at court and available to rebut the testimony but the grand jury did not hear from him. they have heard from him at least two times in the past. again, pamela, now the question is is there anyone else that's going to go before the grand jury and how long will this investigation continue to go on? it's been going on for five years. this is conduct that is seven years old. it is unclear why this is all coming to a head now. >> thank you so much. perspective from cnn chief political correspondent, dana bash and two cnn political
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commentators, van jones, and, dana, what do you make of the fact there are still so many unknowns at this point regarding such ab extremely consequential moment in american politics? >> that the da is working -- holding his cards very closely to his vest. that is such an important point that you made, it is an unknown. the words that you used at the beginning of the program, talking about the fact that, you know, the former president is saying -- and the attorneys are saying, we're repeating what we heard in the press. it's a little bit of a -- you know, they're doing this intentionally, the trump team, because the former president understands, in fact in the words of one of his -- somebody in his orbit today to me said, he was on political life
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support. talking about politics now, not potential legal trouble he's in. in politics he was on life support and this whole situation has injected a political infusion for him. it is something he is creating and i think that's the important thing we need to keep repeating. he's the one who's putting out information about when he was alleged bely being arrested and all of the things that haven't happened yet. we have to keep that in very clear perspective. he believes this is a very big political plus for him which is why he is fanning the flames. >> how is this going to help me politically? the pr around it. that's an important context, dana. many republicans have been quick to come out and defend the president. >> i'm taken aback at the idea
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of indicting a former president of the united states. >> lawyer after lawyer after lawyer will tell you this is the weakest case out there. >> the fact that the manhattan d.a. thinks that indicting president trump is his top priority think -- just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left. >> this is a d.a., got more than a million dollars. >> the fros cuter in new york has done more to help donald trump get elected president that be any single person. >> it's a misdemeanor. it's not the crime of the century. >> what changed? president trump announced he was running for president. >> mr. bragg, you have helped donald trump amazingly. >> this is selective prosecution. if i were president trump i would take this all the way to the damn supreme court. >> there you go. david, trump is not like any president. he has shown repeated disregard for the law. if prosecutors give him a pass, what message does that send to
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future presidential candidates? >> you know, pam, i think that that's -- you heard kind of a cross section of republican voices there. i do think that the question that a lot of them pose is why now? why seven years later? why not cy vance when he took a look at it? why not southern district of new york when they took a look at it? why did they choose to pass? why is district attorney bragg bringing it up? that's a question to be answered. i don't think it sends the wrong message if a district attorney decides to pass ultimately. he's going to weigh the merits of the case and decide whether he can get a conviction. if you are going to indict the president, you better be able to convict the president. he better look deep in the mirror and ask that question. there may be more substantial indictments to come down. just like the two impeachments came and went and made trump
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arguably politically stronger amongst his base and supporters, if the district attorney swings and misses, any subsequent indictments on more serious crimes may kind of just be, you know, overlooked by the trump base. >> what do you say to that, van? because there has been some criticism that, look, the first charges against a former president, the historic nature of it, shouldn't come from a local prosecutor who ran as a democrat and was elected? the politics could overshadow the d.o.j. case? what do you say to that? >> if anybody is a republican and they had been afraid there is a well-organized conspiracy among progressives, they can relax now. you would not start with this charge. you would start with the charge in georgia where he was interfering with election sz. you would start with the charge that he was helping the insurrectionists with a coup. you wouldn't start with an
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8-year-old porn star payoff. this is proof, if nothing else, that the progressives are not very well organized. this is not the one you would start with. that said, i hear michael saying, they're being over charged. so aggressive. it's so terrible. welcome to my world, folks. prosecutors over charging, being over aggressive, being ridiculous with minor stuff turning into major stuff happens every single day in america, every courthouse in america. i think you want to be consistent now. if you are concerned this person named donald trump is being over charged and charged by a prosecutor, join the rest of us. the my view is i think the heat is on be this d.a. and i think he's going to make a very sober decision and i would not be surprised if he doesn't step back from the brink. >> i'm going to get to you, dana around david. i want to follow up with you, van. the trump camp has said, bragg is, quote, racist. they have called this unamerican. i want to get your reaction to
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that. >> that's not fair. you can disagree with the decision to charge or not charge. people will disagree no matter what he does. the idea that he's racist, a lot of white progressive voters in new york city that have been pushing him to do this. are they racist as well? i just think that the reality is he's got to make a sober decision now. i agree with david, a charge like this, a porn star payoff seven years ago somehow tied to the election but not really, it doesn't seem like the right way to go when you look at the history is not going to judge donald trump based on stormy daniels, it's going to judge him based on the election, going to judge him based on the coup attempt, the insurrection. if i were al vvin for georgia t go first. that seems to be the thing be to start with. we have trump's attorney in the georgia case later on in the
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show. be sure to stick around for that. speaker mccarthy defended the move to launch this investigation into the manhattan district attorney and demand his testimony before wrag's investigation has concluded. tell us more about the vibe going on on capitol hill right now. >> well, he defended it because he has publicly encouraged his committee chairs to do whatever they could to investigate it, look into it. what's interesting, pam, is somebody who understands and is a recent student of the law, the way that particularly the judiciary chair, jim jordan, is putting it is they're trying to figure out if there is any federal sort of oversight that is needed here. they don't know. they don't know if there is even any role for congress, but that, again, doesn't really matter when you're talking about what's really going on here is politics. they're using the gavel and they're using the megaphone that
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the republicans now have, that they have the chairmanships to do as much as they can and stir things as much as they can. you asked about the vibe on capitol hill. i would be remiss if i didn't talk about the democrats and i have heard from so many of them who are saying what you heard from van. maybe the first couple months, year trump was on the political scene, they would under estimate the power of everything being kind of backwards day, or opposite day. that is what they understand will go on here, that this most certainly will empower a former president and there's a lot of concern among democrats. >> we played that montage at the beginning here, david. someone who is notably absent from defending trump in this is, of course, governor ron
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desantis, right? he weighed in on all of this for the first time today. i want to play what he said for our viewers and then we'll chat. >> i don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. i can't be speak to that, but what i can speak to is if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, you know, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office. >> so what does it say desantis went out of his way to go after the district attorney and chose not to defend trump's acts and poke fun. >> it tells me he's running for president is what it tells me. look, i think his message
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probably resonates with lots of americans who are tuning in and watching. looking at shoplifting, crime, hearing about people being assaulted in the city and being let free in new york city and yet they see the district attorney going and drudging up these 7-year-old charges. that's the point that governor desantis is trying to make. that resonates with the republican voters, not the trump part but the pure nature of the entire prosecution. i think republicans view it as persecution, not prosecution. >> what bragg's office said they just released a statement tonight saying under dave bragg homicides down 32%, manhattan shootings down 14% and new york remains one of the safest big cities in the u.s. pointing out that is what bragg's office is saying tonight amid that criticism. dana bash, van jones, david urban, thank you. still to come, a former charge --
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a criminal charge against a former president, we'll take a look at what's underway to ensure safety up next. who is stormy daniels? we'll have an in depth look at the center of this grand jury investigation. ♪ ♪ ♪ cargurus. shop.buy.s.
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images from earlier today, a barricade for being arrested for the grand jury investigation into the charges. the fears of violence after trump wrote on social media to, quote, protest, take our nation back. there's also the question of how do you protect a former president from such an unprecedented moment in time? i'm joined by shim mon procupez. >> there are so many different dynamics at play here. you have a former president, we've never seen a situation like this. we have potential protestors. you have the fact that law enforcement is thinking about what happened on january 6th and what they may have missed back
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then. all of that is factoring into the decision making of what is going on here from federal law enforcement to the new york city police department, state and federal agencies who have all been in meetings for the last several days. one of the things that certainly is very concerning was the posting, social media posting by the former president sort of calling on his followers to take to the streets, to take action, that he was going to be arrested. tomorrow we're getting indications that is absolutely actually not true. the soonest we could see the president, if he was to be indicted, we don't know when that would be, if that would even happen would be next week. his initial court appearance would be next week. everything and all of that is playing into what law enforcement here is going to be doing in terms of increasing security around the courthouse, bringing in barricades, bringing in more cameras and of course bringing in the former president
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into the courthouse. that is the number one priority for the secret service to ensure his security and that -- and sort of his arrival here at the courthouse, which could happen next week. a lot still at play as law enforcement tries to figure out the logistics of all of this and protecting the former president and anybody who comes out here and the court staff and the people who live around here and work around here. >> stay with us, shimon. i want to bring in andrew mccabe, a former fbi deputy director. andrew, as we mentioned, over the weekend the former president called for protests ahead of a possible indictment. what is law enforcement bracing for if he is charged? >> well, pam, i think, you know, if you're a security professional, law enforcement professional, you have to begin by assuming that the president still has the same sort of sway and influence over his supporters that he did leading into january 6th. so they are taking all of the steps that many would argue
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should have been taken before january 6th. i'm sure they're looking very closely at social media. they're trying to understand if there is chatter out there online in those places where the former president's most extreme ad adherents are going and i would assume the fbi is speaking to their informants to tap into what sort of interest there is in convening in new york or any other place around a potential arraignment and charges and new york is relying on their deep experience in crowd control. there's no place in the country that does it better than new york city. i'm confident that they'll be -- they'll be well prepared. they'll take whatever steps are necessary to avoid what we saw happen on january 6th. >> do you think though, andy, that he still has the influence to mobilize far right supporters like he did on january 6th? >> i think you have to assume that he does. this is a very different sort of
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event. i mean, the leadup to january 6th, the president and supporters had many days to talk about coming to d.c. there was a date certain that they needed to be there. that all facilitates organization and transportation and funding for people who want to come and attend. they also had the cover, if you will, of a legitimate permitted assembly at the ellipse. so those are all things that don't really add into the mix here, which i think puts law enforcement and security professionals in a little better position, but they have to plan for the worst. that's their job. >> there are so many questions, shimon, that we're asking for the first time because of the unprecedented nature at play here if this happens. is there any word in terms of logistics on how donald trump would appear in the courtroom if he is indicted? >> reporter: everyone expects him to appear here, like any other defendant, right? the manhattan d.a.'s office when there's an indictment, they notify the defense attorneys for
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the defendant, for the person who's going to be arrested. that person appears at the district attorney's office, which is just behind me where they are processed, fingerprinted, photographed. then they're brought over to the courthouse. usually the manhattan d.a.'s office, they walk the defendant through the halls of the courthouse into the courtroom for all of us to see handcuffed. we don't think that's going to happen here. you know, for many reasons, but we certainly do expect that he'll be here. i do just want to note one thing, pam, in terms of social media postings and threats. they're seeing things are quiet on social media, nothing like to the run up on january 6th. they've been running down things. they've been sort of questioning people who are posting suspicious things. there's not a lot of concern for them. the biggest concern is getting the former president here safely, that is something that they're certainly working on. >> shimon, andrew mccabe, thank
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you so much. something lost in the headlines is the story of the woman at the center of this alleged coverup. stephanie cliffords who goes by the name stormy daniels. >> reporter: he had a hit television show, she was in adult films. he was 60, she was 27 when they met at a golf tournament in 2006 where stormy daniels said donald trump shared photos of his wife, his new baby boy -- >> and you had sex with him? >> yes. >> reporter: and trump has denied it ever since. >> to be bringing up that kind of crap and to be bringing up witch hunts all the time, that's all you want to talk with him. >> born in louisiana, stephanie clifford got into adult entertainment in her teams taking the name stormy. by her account, she thought trump might help her get into tv. instead, her allegations of an affair took over the headlines, a key claim as trump's 2016
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campaign came to the wire she says she was paid $130,000 tore keep quiet about him. he denied any knowledge of that in the spring of 2018. >> did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> reporter: but that same summer -- >> did you know about the payments? >> later on i knew. >> her story had seemed at times confusing. for example, at one time she signed statements denying any affair took place. >> if it was untruthful, why did you sign it? >> because they made it sound like i had no choice. >> reporter: no one was putting a gun to your head? >> not physical violence, no. >> reporter: you thought there would be some sort of legal repercussions. >> in fact, the exact sentence used was, they can make your life hell in so many different ways. >> reporter: further complicating the legal case, did the alleged payoff come from
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campaign funds and was that a violation of campaign finance laws. michael cohen, who went to prison over that alleged money says, yes, and that trump knew about it, but others in trump's orbit said no way. >> that money was not campaign money. sorry. >> reporter: as for the former president, just days ago he leveled an insult at daniels as he insisted once again, i did nothing wrong be in the horse face case. never had an affair with her. witch hunt. the story has been unwinding for years, is now full of many twists and turns. it may be finally time for a court to sort it all out. >> tom foreman, thank you. up next, russian president vladimir putin and chinese president xi jinping meet in moscow. a look at how china is attempting to be a peace broker in ukraine. plus, a cnn exclusive. a ukrainian couple makes a wrong turn near the front lines and
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come under attack. a remarkable moment caught on tape by ukrainian drones. that's beingng investigated fof possible war crimes. next on cnn. has been such a hugt for our family. we're carvana we created a brand new way for you to sell your car go to carvana answer a few questions and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds we'll come to you pay you on the spot then pick up your car that's it at carvana
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a key demand of ukraine and the west. the talks come just days after putin was indicted for war crimes tying to alleged abduction of ukrainian children. u.s. secretary of state antony blinken said xi's visit shows china's intent to provide, quote, diplomatic cover for alleged russian atrocities. tonight for the first time you will see one attack by russia under investigation and the ukrainian city of aziem. the exclusive report now from cnn's ivan watson. >> reporter: from a battlefield in eastern ukraine, a desperate call for help as a ukrainian woman pleads for her wounded husband's life. footage from last june shows the moment when a ukrainian couple took a wrong turn towards an active front line. their car came under fire from nearby russian forces. badly wounding the driver, her
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husband. >> translator: i saw his head was injured and immediately began to bandage his head. >> reporter: the incident captured on video by a drone piloted by ukrainian soldiers and later compiled into a documentary by the ukrainian director. >> translator: i turned and yelled on my knees. i didn't know whose drone it was. >> reporter: the pilot taped a sign, follow me, and directed her to safety. she made the agonizing decision to leave her wounded husband behind as she followed the drone, russian soldiers emerged to approach her car. they took her husband and dumped him in a ditch. this is the intersection where that terrible shooting took place in june. the ukrainian military subsequently liberated the area allowing ukrainian police to come in and launch an
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investigation into an alleged russian war crime. ukrainian police investigators said he has gathered evidence to accuse a 26-year-old russian army officer of the war crime of attempted murder of a civilian. >> translator: he is a company commander with the second motorized rifle division, first tank army. we established his identity. >> reporter: for police to work here, they first had to clear the area of land mines. then police conducted forensic and ballistic analysis of the crime scene. >> ukrainian police say the russian troops were facing here on this side of this wall and the it's from here that they opened fire on the car. the inspector shows me what he says are incriminating telephone intercept of their chief suspect calling his wife .
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>> reporter: ukrainian police say it was a 30 millimeter cannon. police say they've also tracked down photos of the officer and his wife from their social media accounts. on that dark day she followed the drone to safety stepping around deadly land mines until ukrainian soldier met her. it was too dangerous for troops to retrieve her husband. >> is this where they brought
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the victim, the russian soldiers? >> reporter: but that's not the end of his story. miraculously he somehow survived after spending the night badly wounded in the ditch. >> i looked around and realized i was lying in some kind of a ditch. >> reporter: the next day he limped to safety. >> it took 30 or 40 minutes. i stopped because i was in a lot of pain. >> reporter: he is still in treatment for multiple shrapnel wounds to the head, chest and spine. the alleged attempted murder of ukrainian civilian at these crossroads, just one of potential war crime cases being investigated by police in ukraine's kharkiv region, but it's perhaps the only incident that has been so incredibly well-documented. >> incredible reporting. ivan watson joins us from ukraine. we know the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for the alleged
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war crime of kidnapping children. what other kinds of investigations are ukrainian police and prosecutors conducting? >> reporter: that's what was so remarkable about this interview with this police investigator. in the kharkiv region he is in charge of more than 900 other investigators and says that after every russian artillery or rocket strike on a ukrainian town or village, if it's safe, his investigators will go in. the they'll collect information, evidence, do the ballistic reports. do the damage to infrastructure and home. they'll find out about civilian casualties and collecting cases. more than half of their work is collecting cases for potential war crimes prosecution. so it's not just the ukrainian army that the russian military is fighting, it is police and prosecutors and the message they're sending with this report and this potential prosecution is that there is somebody taking names, there's somebody
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gathering evidence as we've seen from the ic c., they're issuing an arrest warrant all the way up to the russian president himself. you also have police and prosecutors who can figure out individual battalions and brigades and potentially name the officers behind some of these actions and attacks. it will potentially put psychological pressure on these people. we don't know how the final chapter of this war will be written, but somebody is taking note and it sends a powerful message, even if these individuals are for now beyond the reach of ukrainian law. >> ivan watson, thank you so much. up next, buster murdoch, son of convicted murderer alec murdoch, is breaking the silence on the death of his former classmate, stephen smith. this as the new legal team and his family promises to launch, quote, a fresh investigation into his death.
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tonight we have new developments from south carolina. the investigation into the 2015 death of steven smith. smith was a classmate of buster murdoch, son of murderer alec murdoch. they said they were reopening the investigation based on
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information they learned while investigating the murders of alec murdoch's wife and youngest son. now a new legal team is seeking to launch a fresh investigation into his death. his family has raised more than $70,000 and they plan to ask a judge to allow them to have his body exhumed for private autopsy. 360s randi kaye has been reporting on the saga. here's a report. >> heartbreaking. he was a human and he deserves justice. >> reporter: sandy smith one step closer to justice for her son. >> it's going to be hard to open an investigation after eight years but it has to start with an investigation of his body. >> it's important to me because i just love my son and since i couldn't protect him, i'm going to fight for him. >> reporter: stephen smith, a 19-year-old with dreams of becoming a doctor, was found dead about 4 a.m. july 8th,
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2015, on sandy run road in hampton county. >> in the road, a boy. he's been dumped. >> reporter: at the time it a peerpd stephen was the victim of a hit and run but the south carolina highway patrol's incident report noted they didn't find any debris or injuries consistent with being struck by a vehicle. according to the case notes stephen died from blunt force trauma to the head and stephen's loosely tied shoes remained on his feet. >> if he was hit by a vehicle that's going fast enough, it's going to project you. your shoes are just going to fall off. >> reporter: along with exhuming stephen's body, she hopes to gain access to his phone calls and text messages in the months and hours leading up to his death. a crime scene investigator is expected to take a fresh look at the forensics and determine if he was struck by a vehicle or something else. sandy told me last year she has
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never accepted her son was the victim of a hit and run. what do you believe happened be to your son? >> i believe he was beaten to death. >> reporter: the case file obtained by cnn shows even the lead investigator at the time didn't believe this was a hit and run. >> typically you don't see the highway patrol working a murder, and that's what this is. the there's no doubt. we're not classifying this as anything other than a murder. >> reporter: yet stephen's case went cold until june of 2021, that's when the south carolina law enforcement division known as s. le d. opened an investigation on stephen's death, based on information gathered while investigating the murders of paul and maggie murdoch. s. le d. has not said what was found. >> did your son know the murdoch family? >> he went to school with buster. they played little league ball together. >> reporter: during interviews released by highway patrol to cnn, the murdoch name is
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mentioned by both witnesses and investigators, including the name of alec murdoch's surviving son, buster. during one audio interview, todd proctor says this. >> buster was -- was on our radar. the murdochs know that. >> reporter: why exactly buster was on their radar is still unclear. neither he nor anyone else has been charged in the case and for the first time buster murdoch is commenting publicly about this case. he released this statement, these base lgs rumors of my involvement with stephen and his death are false. my heart goes out to the smith family. >> reporter: pam, years ago, sandy smith told investigators that her son stephen had been acting very secretive in the months before he died. she plans to find out why. they hope to look at who he was in contact with before he died, also where he was. they can look at the steps that
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were taken, and they're also hoping, of course, to bring in this accident reconstructionist who they will hope to be able to tell them whether stephen was killed in that roadway or perhaps he was killed elsewhere and laid in that roadway to make it look like it was a hit and run. that's what his mother believes happened. they will petition the judge within the next ten days and they will get an answer whether or not they can exhume his body and do the private autopsy as well. >> randi kaye, thank you very much. still ahead, with a possible indictment ahead, georgia prosecutors say they're weighing charges against him and the investigation there into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. one of his attorneys jiens us up next. let's tighten that. (fabric ripping) ooh. - wait, wh- whwh- what was tha? - huh? what, that? no, don't worrrry about that. here we go. - askiking the right question can greatly impactct your futur. - are, are y you qualified to do this? - what? - especially when it comes to your finances. - yeehaw! - do you have a question? - are you a certified financial planner™? - yes. i'm a cfp® professional.
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as we await a possible indictment of the former president in georgia, a source tells cnn prosecutors are considering racketeering and conspiracy charges against the former president. this in connection with his efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results. meanwhile, the former president's legal team is seeking to throw out the special grand jury report. they've also asked that the
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fulton county d.a.'s office be disqualified from overseeing the investigation. joining us now is the former pres president's defense attorney. thanks for where are time tonight. before we get to the specifics of the georgia investigation, i want to ask you about a possible indictment of the former president in new york. do you think that could or should impact the time line of the investigation in fulton county, and are you coordinating with the attorneys representing him in manhattan? >> pamela, i'm exclusively doing the case with my team in fulton county, we have total effort laser focused on this case. you can see by the massive motion we filed today. this is all we are thinking about right now. i certainly would hope there would not be political gamesmanship as to who could present a case first, but then again, if you look at our motion and you see some of the political motivations, that is the attempts to get twitter account and raise funds off of this case, you might think that it might become political gamesmanship, but let's hope
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not. >> and let's talk a little bit about that motion. you're asking for the special grand jury report to be thrown out, but what does that actually do? what does that actually accomplish? this is not a criminal grand jury. it is a special grand jury of a criminal proceeding. >> yeah, so pamela, let's be frank with one another. before this you and your viewers never heard of a special purpose grand jury, and in georgia, most of our citizens have never heard it because it's rarely ever used. however, the district attorney's office wanted to use it in this case, and for eight months we sat back, we were never incited to testify or subpoenaed to testify, but we saw very strange things taking place. we saw this grand jury, which is being used by the district attorney to give them a recommendation as to whether or not to tindict. but while they were doing that, they were -- the district attorney was giving commentary constantly, at the same time understanding that this special purpose grand jury, this is really weird, was allowed to
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watch tv about this case, was allowed to go online about this case, was allowed to read newspapers about this case. so we knew that something wasn't right here, and then of course a few weeks ago when the foreperson came out and gave her statements, we realized all of our suspicions about a really bizarre and unconstitutional process were corroborated. we were right. it was a bizarre circus, and that's what we've witnessed. >> and as i know you know, the judge has said what she did, what the grand jury did, the forewoman did was allowed. she said that special grand jury members are allowed to speak publicly about nearly everything aside from their deliberations. what i want to talk to you about is at the center of this case. the phone call. here's one, i want to play a part of a phone call from then president trump to georgia secretary of state raffensperger, that is part of the evidence in this case. let's listen. >> so look, all i want to do is this, i just want to find 11,780
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votes, which is one more than we have. because we won the state. >> are you worried the facts in this case are not favorable to your client given what we just heard there and other calls? >> so what i'm worried about is people just listen to eight or nine seconds and don't really look at evidence. we look at 62 minute. we look at all the evidence. looking at all the evidence, we understand and we know that our client did not break any laws whatsoever. but i don't want to dismiss what you said about the judge saying everything's cool, because most people would say to themselves when does a judge go around giving a tour to the press and give six or seven interviews? that never happens. at the same time, you never see a foreperson giving interviews. >> right, but that's what the judge said. . but hold on, i do want to focus on this because you said essentially that, you know, that it was taken out of context. i mean, we've read through the
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whole transcript again today. he said all i want to do is this, i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we had because we won the state. leading up to that point, he laid out several conspiracy theories that have been disproven to support his claim that he wanted raffensperger to overturn the election in georgia. he also went on to say i have to find 12,000 votes and i have them times a lot. how is that okay? what is an innocent explanation for that if you're saying that that is okay? >> so when i'm going to say, pamela, is i'm not going to try the case with you or anybody else on tv or in the media. that's something you deal with in ucourt. i'm here to talk about a motion that we filed looking at unconstitutional behavior in a special purpose grand jury. we see violations of the fifth amendment take place over eight months and we see an insatiable st desire to go after one person
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and result in people compromise their constitutional integrity. we're not going to do that. we're district attorneys. we believe in the constitution. we're committed to being criminal defense attorneys. my greater concern is three miles from here this fulton county district attorney's office is ignoring the fact that we have a jail overflowing with souls, people that can't get their cases to court, pamela, for years to come while this case is going on, and we think they deserve justice, and this is a broken legal system here, so i get everybody's concern, while they sit a thousand miles away, but the families of these loved ones right down the road in this jail that can't get to court for three, four, even five years they want their cases to go to court. >> thank you. >> that's what we're concerned about. thank you. >> we appreciate your time tonight, thank you very much. we'll be right back. hwab. i love to help people understand the world througugh their lens and invest accordingly. you can call us
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