Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Web Site Details Specific Information About Air Force One; Defense Attorneys Say DNA Tests Show No Link to Woman Who Claims She was Raped at Duke Lacrosse Team Party

Aired April 11, 2006 - 07:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also ahead, this:
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Air Force One, the president's plane, well, there's a Web site detailing specific information about that plane, that could possibly put the president in danger, you and you won't believe who put up the Web site. More details coming you way in 10 minutes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The voter's rights issue in Mississippi now focusing on white voters. They say they're being discriminated against this time around.

And NASA unveils a plan to hit the moon, literally, and at great speed. We're going to take a look at the Lunar Impacter, ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm Miles O'Brien We're glad you're with us.

A new light being shed on that Duke University lacrosse team rape story, allegations of rape by the team at a party. Defense attorneys are saying this, that DNA tests show no link to the woman who claims she was raped at a team party.

CNN's Jason Carroll joining us live now from Durham, North Carolina.

Jason, good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Miles.

You know, these are the test results that defense attorneys have been waiting for some time. They say these results confirm what they suspected all along.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): The defense attorneys representing 46 members of duke university's lacrosse team were very definitive.

WADE SMITH, ATTORNEY: No DNA material from any young man tested was present on the body of this complaining woman -- not present within her body, not present on the surface of her body, and not present on any of her belongings.

JOE CHESHIRE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: There is no evidence other than the word of this one complaining person that any rape or sexual assault took place in that house on that evening. It wasn't here two weeks ago. It's not here today. It won't be here tomorrow.

CARROLL: Durham's district attorney handed over the results after receiving them late Monday. He would not comment on them.

MICHAEL NIFONG, DURHAM DISTRICT ATTY.: It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any of the evidence at this point, and it would be inappropriate for me to appropriate on any of the things said by the defense counsel. I'm trying to prepare a case so that we can be in a position to do what we need to do under my statutory authority.

CARROLL: An exotic dancer that attends a nearby university by day has told police she was raped by three lacrosse team members after she performed at a party after this off-campus house rented by the players. The players have maintained nothing happened.

In addition to the DNA results, Bill Thomas, an attorney for one of the players, says he has time-stamped picture that is he says discounts some of the young woman's allegations.

BILL THOMAS, DEFENSE ATTY: These photographs corroborate the statement of all 46 of these young men. It's very clear that the victim in this case came to the house with injuries on her.

CARROLL: The father of one players expressed relief about the evidence, but concern about the impact on the team.

MARK KOESTERE, PARENT OF LACROSSE PLAYER: But they all are, as I said, cautiously optimistic. They know this is not over. They know that there's a lot of scrutiny on the program, on the school, and that probably lacrosse at Duke and life at Duke will never be the same. We hope it's better.

CARROLL: The case has already magnified racial tensions in the community. The young woman is black. She says the three white players who attacked her used racial slurs.

CHESHIRE: None of us standing up here are saying that there aren't proper social and moral issues that have come out of this whole discussion that aren't appropriate for discussion. There are. But unfortunately, people have meshed those things with this sexual assault.

CARROLL: The defense attorneys say their clients are relieved but not surprised by the DNA results. They also say it's time for the district attorney to drop the case, so Duke's players, the university, and the community can begin to heal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Even before the DNA test results came back, the district attorney here, Michael Nifong, told me he would not need a DNA match to pursue his case -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Jason, those of us who maybe have watched a little bit too much "CSI" would think the case is over at this point. What other evidence does he have, and do we know?

CARROLL: Well, at this point there is other evidence that the district attorney has. You'll remember, Miles, that the victim later on that evening did go to a hospital. So perhaps there is some evidence there. But we discussed this with the district attorney, and he basically said what this might come down to, this case, it might end up being her word against the word of some of the lacrosse players. So really her credibility, ultimately, will come in question if this ends up going to trial -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Jason Carroll in Durham, North Carolina, thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: CNN Security Watch now, the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. Today more emotional testimony from victims of 9/11. Yesterday's gripping court session brought a warning from the judge.

Here's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The jury heard gut- wrenching 911 calls from people trapped inside the burning World Trade Center. Melissa Doi was on the 83rd floor of the south tower, pleading with the operator to send help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA DOI: I'm going to die, aren't I?

OPERATOR: No, no, no, no, no.

DOI: I'm going to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Help never arrived. Tax lawyer Harry Wiser told jurors how he was riding the elevator up to the office at Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial securities firm, when the first plane struck. Flaming jet fuel burned his face, legs and arms, and damaged his lungs and throat. His story was as horrific as when he told it to the 9/11 Commission.

HARRY WAIZER, 9/11 SURVIVOR: The elevator was descending when suddenly I felt a drop by an explosion, and then felt it plummeting. Orange streaming sparks were apparent through the gaps in the doors at the side of the elevator. As the elevator scraped the walls of the shaft, the elevator burst into flame. I began to beat at the flames, burning my hands, arms and legs in the process.

ARENA: Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 staffers on 9/11. Yesterday, one by one, victim family members cried or fought back tears as they testified in the Zacarias Moussaoui death penalty trial. Lee Hanson described how his son, Peter, his daughter-in-law and their child, Christine (ph), died aboard united airlines flight 175. Christine, just 2 1/2, was the youngest victim on 9/11.

Peter had called his father from the plane. After hearing him whisper, oh my God three times, Lee Hanson watched on television as that plane struck the tower and burst into flames.

Incredibly, seven of the 15 witnesses lost two or more relatives. Most did not look at Moussaoui, except for one.

Sharif Chowdry (ph), a Muslim from Bangladesh, glared after Moussaoui after testifying that in Islam, a man is not allowed to kill another innocent man. Chowdry lost his daughter and his son-in-law.

(on camera): The judge warned prosecutors that too much emotional testimony could be grounds for an appeal, telling them, quote, "You may pay a price for that down the road."

Kelli Arena, CNN, Alexandria, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: You want to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: The battle over immigration spilled onto the streets of dozens of cities north of the border yesterday. This march in Phoenix was one of the big ones. About a million people in all took part across the country, cities large and small. The demonstrations took aim at that House bill on immigration. That's the one that would make many of the people you see in that picture felons just for being in the United States. And then, of course, the issue of the Senate, which was unable to come up with any sort of compromise legislation.

Joining me now from Washington is our senior political analyst Bill Schneider. He's going to weight in on this and how this may impact the midterm elections.

Good to have you with us, Bill.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POL. ANALYST: Sure.

M. O'BRIEN: First of all, do you think this is going -- this issue is front and center?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it will be one of many issues. I think Iraq will be front and center. But the immigration issue is a very big one, particularly in parts of the country that are deeply impacted, like Arizona, which is ground zero in the debate. It's really roiling the politics of that border state.

M. O'BRIEN: Arizona, eight-member congressional delegation. Are there seats that are already closely contested, and could immigration be the issue to turn them? SCHNEIDER: Oh, immigration is a hot issue everywhere in Arizona. There's an important Senate race in Arizona. Jon Kyl running for re- election. Interestingly, there are two Republican senators in Arizona, Kyl, who takes a very tough, hard line on immigration. And John McCain is the other Republican senator, who cosponsored with Ted Kennedy a bill that would allow illegal immigrants a path to citizenship after they fulfill certain conditions. There's also an open house seat that I visited right on the border, the eighth congressional district, which is very hotly contested there, too, with a Republican candidate who's running on a tough line for border control. So a lot of races there.

M. O'BRIEN: According to numbers I've seen, Jon Kyl has a comfortable margin of lead right now, has taken a pretty conservative stand on immigration. Do you think those numbers will narrow over this issue?

SCHNEIDER: Well, that's what he and probably a lot of people are worried about, namely to what extent are those demonstrators going to become -- become is they key word -- a political force? They have not been in the past. But this looks like a consciousness-raising moment, because so much of these demonstrations were really spontaneous. They weren't organized by politicians or professional activists; they were organized really at the grassroots. There were students text messaging each other in their schools, church leaders, union leaders, Spanish radio hosts were urging people to get out and demonstrate, and there were a lot of working families, not middle class people and just political activists. So there was a spontaneous quality that indicated that there's a new consciousness in the Hispanic community and a resentment over a lot of the issues and the fact that a lot of feel as if they're being turned into scapegoats.

M. O'BRIEN: Interesting. Perhaps a sleeping giant has been awakened here.

Bill Schneider, thank you for your time -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: President Bush has an explanation for declassifying intelligence regarding the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Here's what he said in an appearance before some graduate students.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches. And I felt I could do so without jeopardizing, you know, ongoing intelligence matters, and so I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Mr. Bush approved the release of selected portions of a National Intelligence Estimate in July of 2003. At that time, the White House was being criticized by former ambassador Joe Wilson over a key argument in the reasons for going to war.

A jail sentence for the head of New York City's Transit Union. The ruling against Roger Touissant follows the three-day transit strike that happens back in December, you'll remember. A judge ruled that Toussaint, s union president, broke a state law and a court order that banned the strike. He faces a year in jail, $1,000 fine. The judge is giving him 30 days to appeal that ruling.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: The Alice mission, as you called it -- going to the moon, Alice! NASA is sending a spacecraft. They just announced it yesterday, a little add-on to a mission they had already planned. They made it a little bigger, bigger launcher, and so, what are they going to put in there? An SUV-sized thingy that's going to just crash into the moon.

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: A Suburban.

M. O'BRIEN: A Suburban. Yes, basically. Actually, I've got a Yukon XL I'd like send along if they'd give me a few bucks for it. But anyway, the idea -- you know, why would you want to do this, would be a logical question on many peoples' minds here this morning, right?

MYERS: Because you need to find out what's below the surface, not just what's on top.

M. O'BRIEN: Excellent, excellent answer, Chad Myers. Plus, it's a cool boom, you know. And let's face it, rocket scientists like big booms. The idea is to kick up a cloud of dust, see what's in the dust. The other vehicle still in orbit will be able to capture it, do some mass spectometry on it, which essentially identifies how the light hits the particles, and see, hey, maybe there's some ice there.

MYERS: And, Miles...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, sir.

MYERS: CNN.com, the second most popular story is that story. Log on.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

MYERS: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Excellent work, Chad Myers.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm not surprised. It's cool.

M. O'BRIEN: How's the weather on the moon? Same every day, right? Same every day.

MYERS: And pretty dark on one side, yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.

Ahead this morning, details about Air Force One exposed on the Internet. Just wait until you hear just who put that information online. Also, the New York City gossip wars heating up. Could it get any hotter? We'll look at how one paper's scandal is another paper's dream come true.

S. O'BRIEN: And a Super Bowl MVP gets a hero's welcome in South Korea. We'll tell you why his story is offering new hope to Korean children, some shunned because of the way they look.

Those stories are all ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. A look at the runners taking a little exercise through Central Park this morning, a beautiful day here in New York. An Air Force-based Web site just may have put the president's safety at risk.

Carol Costello is live for us in the newsroom with an explanation of that story.

Hey, Carol.

COSTELLO: Hello, Soledad. And hello to all of you.

We're all familiar with Air Force One. That's the president's plane. But we're not too familiar, and that is a good thing, until maybe now. Now we may be too familiar with it. The "San Francisco Chronicle" had a story about a Web site that went into specific details about the president's plane. Take a look at the Web site. This details the location of the president's suite aboard the plane, the location of oxygen tanks, which of course could be targeted by whomever. It also details anti-missile capabilities.

The Web site has become quite the subject of the blogs. No surprise there. One comment Huggintonpost.com (ph): Air Force one, one blogger said, is now Conair. Everybody knows everything about it. It even came up at the White House press briefing. Listen to the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan as he dances.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: "San Francisco Chronicle" has story over the weekend saying an Air Force Web site listed details about Air Force one, including specific information about the anti-missile defenses...

SCOTT MCCELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY.: I'm not going to have any comment on it.

QUESTION: Are they...

MCCLELLAN: I'm not going to talk about security measures.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: No, he did not say one other word about it after that. Now perhaps the strangest thing about this story, as Soledad said, the detailed plans of the interior and exterior of Air Force came for a Web site at Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia. "The San Francisco Chronicle" later called the Secret Service to tell them about this, because they didn't really think it was a good idea.

And lo and behold, in today's "San Francisco Chronicle" appears this article. I'll read you the first photograph. Air Force and Pentagon officials scrambled Monday to remove highly sensitive security details about two Air Force One jetliners after the chronicle reported that the information had been posted on a public Web site.

It goes on to quote an Air Force spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Katherine Reardon (ph). She says, "We can't even justify how the technical order got out there. It should have been password protected. We regret it happened. We removed it, and we will look more closely in the future. So I guess case closed for now -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Strange story. All right, thanks you very much, Carol -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Plan on taking your car for your summer vacation?

S. O'BRIEN: yes, actually.

M. O'BRIEN: You have a big one, too, big vehicle. I do, too.

S. O'BRIEN: I know. I know. Gas guzzler. I've got too many kids, you know, got to sit somewhere.

M. O'BRIEN: You can't get the compact. It's difficult. You'd have to have two, and then you might as well just have one big one.

Anyway, coming up in "Minding Your Business," Andy will tell us how fast the money will be siphoned out of our wallets as we head off on our merry way.

Then there's this, a Mississippi politician facing charges under a law meant to protect minority voters. What's the catch? Well, he's African-American. Little bit of an ironic twist. That story is ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: A landmark federal lawsuit launched over voting rights in Mississippi. Some are claiming reverse discrimination.

AMERICAN MORNING's Bob Franken has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If Ike Brown had been here in 1965, before the Voting Rights Act was passed, he would have been shut out of the political process. But more than 40 years later, a lot has changed. Ike is Democratic chairman in Noxubee County, Mississippi. And now he's about to make history, as the first person charged under the Voting Rights Act for discrimination against white voters, white candidates, and those voters who have supported white candidates. The allegations include putting up obstacles to voting, shutting white Democrats out of public meetings, recruiting unqualified candidates to run against white Democrats, Democrats like county prosecutor Ricky Walker.

RICKY WALKER, NOXUBEE COUNTY PROSECUTOR: I believe it to be true from my own personal experience, because he did the same thing -- he did exactly what they're saying, at least in part to me.

FRANKEN: Brown adamantly rejects the discrimination charge.

IKE BROWN, NOXUBEE COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN: It's bogus. The only thing that I discriminate against have been Republicans.

FRANKEN (on camera): This town, this county, like much of the rural south, is still struggling to find a balance between a history of slavery, and intense discrimination and modern times. This monument, for instance, to the Confederate war dead is on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive.

(voice-over): More than 70 percent of the Noxubee County's 12,000 residents are African-American, which means political clout.

BROWN: If you're going run as a Democrat, then you need to act like a Democrat.

FRANKEN: Perhaps like the mayor of Macon, Mississippi.

MYR. BOB BOYKIN, MACON, MISSISSIPPI: I'm white and a Democrat, and this past year's election, Mr. Brown offered me his support.

FRANKEN: The mayor's opponent, by the way, was also white. Legal experts are divided over the impact of this lawsuit on the Voting Rights Act.

ROBERT DRISCOLL, FMR. DEP. ASST. ATTY. GEN.: It strengthens it, and lets the country know that everybody is protected by the Voter Rights Act.

JON GREENBAUM, LAWYERS CMTE. FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: I would like to see them do their job and bring meritorious cases on behalf of minority voters.

FRANKEN: Brown says the lawsuit has nothing to do with reverse discrimination. Rather, fear from Republicans.

BROWN: If I can get the Democratic voter (INAUDIBLE) up in east Mississippi, then Mississippi will turn blue.

FRANKEN: A blue Mississippi would be another first, like the lawsuit against Ike Brown.

Bob Franken, CNN, Macon, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(MARKET REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, "The New York Post," we were talking about this yesterday, "The New York Post" pretty much ignoring all the scandal over its Page Six gossip column. As you might guess, though, the biggest rival has not. Coming up, a look at how New York City's gossip wars are heating up.

Plus, this:

PAULA NEWTOWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Newton in London. What does the queen really think of Prince William's girlfriend? I'll have that story coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com