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Piers Morgan Live

Ariel Castro Behind Bars; New Photos of Castro's Yard; Castro Brothers Speaking Out; Government Subpoenaed Reporters' Phone Records

Aired May 13, 2013 - 21:00   ET

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

PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: This is PIERS MORGAN LIVE. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Tonight, breaking news from Cleveland, disturbing new details of Ariel Castro's days and nights behind bars. He's still under what's called suicide prevention and is reportedly been walking around his cell naked. We also have a new audio recording of the arrest of Ariel Castro. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE: Adam 2-3, per a neighbor, he also rides motorcycles, he's got like three motorcycles that he personally owns. The suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE: So the male's in custody?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: And much more from a CNN exclusive, what Ariel Castro's brothers say now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ONIL CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S BROTHER: I hope he rots in that jail. I don't even want them to take his life like that. I want him to suffer in that jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Plus the White House under fire. It's not just the battle over Benghazi, it's not just charges that the IRS targeted the Tea Party. Now an unprecedented seizure of reporters' phone records. Does it have anything to do with the investigation of an al Qaeda bomb plot and does the national interest outweigh freedom of the press.

Also, our legal experts on law and disorder on the docket tonight, the Philadelphia abortion doctor, Ariel Castro, Jodi Arias and the return of O.J. Simpson to the courtroom. We'll break down all the biggest legal stories of the day.

But we begin tonight with the latest from Cleveland. Ed Gallek of WOIO is back with me now.

Ed, you've got a fascinating insight into Ariel Castro's life inside cells. Tell me about this.

ED GALLEK, WOIO, CLEVELAND: Well, since this guy is under suicide watch, jailers are logging everything he does, every 10 minutes, and look at all these logs just from the last couple of days. And what we're noticing, some real oddities. At one point, deputies noted they saw this guy walking around in his cell naked, and then another time, this is really bizarre, deputies saw him trying to floss his teeth with strings from a mat in his cell. Again, trying to floss his teeth with strings from a mat inside his cell.

So deputies went in there and they clipped the strings so we are seeing some real oddities here. In fact, this guy is also complaining at times about having a headache, it's cold, he wants a blanket. So he's all over the board. The psych doctor is also seeing him on a regular basis as well. Maybe you can see why.

MORGAN: Yes, we certainly can. Now the interesting thing about him is at the moment, there's no DNA evidence linking him to any other crimes of this nature, not only in his own state, but also now nationally, is that right?

GALLEK: That's right. The Ohio attorney general did a DNA sample through Ohio last week and then just today, the A.G. got back the results from the FBI, a nationwide search. This guy's DNA did not come up for any unsolved crimes anywhere in the country, and the A.G. also checked out the brothers. So the brothers are clear as far as any other unsolved crimes that we know about in the rest of the country.

MORGAN: And finally, Ed, court records have been revealed that show that Ariel testified in a court case against the stepfather of his children in 2005 in a rather interesting development there. Tell me about that.

GALLEK: This could be a problem for Ariel Castro. I pulled the transcript from when Ariel Castro testified back in 2005 in this old court case. What's interesting about that is he's asked under oath where do you live, 2207 Seymour. Do you live alone? Yes. Well, now we know police believe all three women had been kidnapped by then so here's this guy in court under oath saying, I live alone, and yet police believe at that time, the three women were right back here chained up, kidnapped.

MORGAN: Fascinating. Ed Gallek, thank you very much indeed.

Now I want to bring in CNN's Randi Kaye. She has an exclusive new photographs of Ariel Castro's backyard taken by a neighbor over the weekend. And what they show is disturbing.

Randi, tell me about these pictures. You've got dozens of them and they really are fascinating and disturbing.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are actually. They're just chilling, Piers, to look at. The photos as you said were taken over the weekend by this neighbor. He asked not to be identified. Now, in all, there were more than 70 photos. So let me just show you some of the highlights, some of the more interesting photos.

First we have this very wide shot of the backyard. If you take a look, you can see how messy it was. It's more like a junk yard. But you do see a little car on the right side there that a child would use, also a basketball net on the left side, and that's the garage in the distance. We also looked at these photos and saw there were spools and spools of barbed wire all over the yard, thick rolls of it, like you see in the photo there.

We don't know for sure, but this may have been used to keep his captives inside, perhaps, in case they made a run for it. And very likely, to keep anyone else on the outside from trying to get in, Piers. I mean, that stuff as you can see can do some real damage to anyone.

And look at this next photo. This one's pretty chilling. It's a chain around a tree. Now Castro did have puppies, but our photographer who gave us these photos says that hundreds of chains, not just a couple, but hundreds were found in the yard, really thick heavy chains, and of course, remember the police report said that Ariel Castro had kept the girls, his victims, chained up in the basement originally and then chained up elsewhere in the house.

Also, you can see in the photo there's a pulley in this one photo, it's in the grass there, so he had some type of pulley system but it's unclear as to why -- Piers.

MORGAN: Also, interestingly, you found some children's bikes and the one that's of particular interest is one that has pink adornments to it suggesting it may be -- we don't know this, obviously, but it may belong or have been bought for the little 6-year-old girl that he bore with Amanda Berry.

KAYE: Right. I mean that girl was taken out of that house. We found red bikes there in the photos and also the pink bike, the Barbie bicycle, and as we said, you know, we don't know for sure, but if you look at that Barbie bike, I mean, it certainly caught our attention and it may have belonged to that little girl, Amanda Berry's daughter, who Ariel Castro has fathered. We don't know for sure, but certainly, it's a picture of innocence there in the backyard of what we can only call a house of horror.

I mean, it's so creepy. But if you continue to look at the photos, Piers, there was a mirror. This one really struck us. You look at this photo, and there is a mirror hanging at Castro's backdoor. You can see it there, that black piece in the frame. And it's now boarded up, that door, but this is critical because it allowed him to stand at his backdoor, see whoever was coming up his driveway, even though the driveway was completely out of view.

So maybe he used this to prevent any surprise visitors. In fact, one neighbor told us that -- the guy who took this photo, that when he would go visit Castro at his home before he could even get halfway up the driveway, Piers, Castro would pop out his front door as if he was expecting him and clearly, he knew he was coming, and now we know why. Also, the backyard, if you take a look at the next photo, it's all boarded up. He had apparently removed the windows from his home and they were scattered around. We saw them in other photos that we took a look at today. But you see the gray wood in the windows. Well, apparently he had removed the windows and boarded up his home with a lot of this gray wood to make sure that nobody could see what was going on inside that home and who might have been inside that home.

And the last photo that we want to show you is this blue tarp in the backyard. That is in the area of the garage. You see it there. Apparently he had covered his entire yard with tarp, covered up the whole thing. He used blue tarp, green tarp, gray tarp, according to our photographer, and there was also a lot of piping and rolls of tarp that were still on the ground in the backyard. So he may have been planning to do more work related to the tarp, even now, around his house -- Piers.

MORGAN: Extraordinary photographs. Randi Kaye, thank you very much. Terrific reporting.

I want to play you just a clip from Martin Savidge's exclusive interview with Ariel Castro's brothers, Pedro and Onil. Like so many friends and family, they apparently never suspected what was going on behind closed doors for nearly a decade. Now the brothers called him a monster and say they have nothing to do with the crimes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: What is your brother to you now?

O. CASTRO: Monster. Hateful. I hope he rots in that jail. I don't even want them to take his life like that. I want him to suffer in that jail. Until the last extent. I don't care if they even feed him, what he has done to my life and my family's.

PEDRO CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S BROTHER: I couldn't never think of doing anything like that. If I knew that my brother was doing this, I would not be -- I would not -- in a minute I would call the cops. Because that ain't right. But yes, it's going to haunt me down because people are going to think yes, Pedro got something to do with this. Pedro don't have nothing to do with this. If I knew, I would have reported him, brother or no brother.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Ariel Castro's brothers branding him a monster. Meanwhile, the three young women held prisoner face the challenge of trying to rebuild their lives after 10 years in captivity.

Joining me now is a man who knows all about this challenge, Xavier Amador is a psychologist at Leap Institute.

Javier, welcome back to you. And this is a really gripping, fascinating, disturbing, sickening case in many ways. From what you've seen there of the pictures in particular, around this house, are we dealing with a monster? You've dealt with monsters before. Is that what Ariel Castro is?

XAVIER AMADOR, PRESIDENT, LEAP INSTITUTE: What he did was monstrous but if we call him a monster, what we're doing is closing the book on understanding how this human being was able to create this prison in his own home and lock these three women up and the horrific acts and abuse that took place.

So do I think he's a monster? I think he's a human being who did monstrous things and we need to understand them, for many reasons.

MORGAN: Right. But what are the aspects to his character that you have read or seen about in the last week that tell you that really, what's behind it is some sort of personality flaw, I guess.

AMADOR: I wouldn't call it a personality flaw. I'm not going to -- I'm not going to diagnose him from this distance, as I always say, but let's talk about what's been revealed. This is somebody who has been abusing women since 1989. I mean, that's clear, that's in the record. He's been on probation, this is not the first time. This may very well be the escalation, the end point, of a long history, a 24- history of abusive behavior. And yes, probably the last 10 years --

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: How do you explain, though, Xavier, the number of friends, even family who say they didn't see --

AMADOR: Because we ignore abuse. We ignore abuse. There are people in your own life that you've run across, I bet, and the people that are listening to us, who know somebody who is an abuser but we ignore it because we stay ignorant to the warning signs are.

This is somebody in all the reports that CNN is reporting and other news agencies are reporting, we see the classic signs of abuse. A controlling guy loses his temper, he can't -- just on your show last Friday, he can't keep his job in a band because he's controlling, he's violent, he's aggressive. Really classic signs and a history of abuse, being on probation for abuse, and so I'm not surprised that he continued the abuse because the cycle of abuse never got broken.

MORGAN: Do you believe his brothers knew absolutely nothing?

AMADOR: Yes. Well, I think it's credible. Let me put it that way. Of course it's credible. It's exactly what I just said to you. I think most people want to -- we're afraid. I'm terrified when I see something like this. I've got kids, I've got a daughter. I'm terrified when I see something like this. And I want to label him a monster and push him away into the realm of mystery and you know, supernatural evil.

But it's not. He's a man, he's a man and like many men who do abuse, unfortunately, and we know a lot about it and we can -- we can find if we look for the warning signs, this probably could have been prevented.

MORGAN: He claimed in this note which we haven't had independently verified but police apparently found the note in which he made a sort of mea culpa in 2004-'05 in which he called himself a sex addict. Could that be at the center of all the depravity that followed?

AMADOR: In that same note he also said, I was abused as a child by an uncle, and I want to give my money to my victims. So there's --

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: What do you read into this?

AMADOR: What I read into that is this is somebody who may have very well have been abused. Just first and foremost, statistically, men who abuse in this manner tend to have been abused as children. That's not the abuse excuse. Understand, this is about understanding. This is about explaining, not explaining away what happened.

So that note says to me that there may be abuse in his history. Certainly he's an abusive person. And he's somebody who has insight into the fact that he's an abusive person, and alone writing a note, if indeed it's true, that says a lot to me that this is somebody who wanted help. Probably wanted help, never -- certainly never got it. Didn't want it enough.

MORGAN: He never sought it, though, did he?

AMADOR: No --

MORGAN: I mean, that's the other thing you're going to say about him. He never -- he seemed to have two completely separate lives.

AMADOR: Right.

MORGAN: One of this appalling depravity going on inside his house. The moment he left, with the odd flash of behavioral issues, very little would have been real alarm bells.

AMADOR: Don't mistake what I'm about to say. He is a garden variety abuser. Now there's nothing garden variety about kidnapping and holding three women for that long and causing abortions and giving -- and birthing this little girl that he's raised. Nothing garden variety about that. But what is garden variety is the way in which all the warning signs unfolded and all the ways in which he evidenced the signs of a classic abuser of women, someone who was very controlling, someone who people did see the warning signs, but they normalized it.

They just said well, that's who he is and he's a nice guy in every other way but in his private life alone with women, that's where the pathology comes out. That's where the abuse comes out.

MORGAN: And what about the three women? We know that two of them, Amanda and Gina, seem to have adapted pretty well to getting back to their families but they've been received very lovingly and there's clearly no issue there. With Michelle knight, the one we know least about, really, clearly a mother's desperate to see her again. She doesn't want to see her, particularly difficult situation there. How you would think that may remedy itself?

AMADOR: These three girls who -- young women and one of them a girl when she was kidnapped, have been through a horrific experience and they're all I'm sure suffering from trauma. Everybody handles trauma in different ways. One of the ways to handle trauma is to isolate, to slow the world down and focus on what's right in front of me. And I can't say what's going on with her. I think we should be really hesitant to read anything into it other than she has been through a tremendous amount and she needs time.

MORGAN: And finally, is it likely, as seems to be the case at the moment, because of no DNA evidence to the contrary, that he didn't offend really until perhaps his 40s?

AMADOR: I think that it's likely that he offended somewhat and then it escalated. Actually, he did offend prior to his 40s.

MORGAN: What happened?

AMADOR: Remember, 1989, he abused his wife.

MORGAN: Right.

AMADOR: This has been going on for 20 years. And that's just the first time it came to the attention of law enforcement. So the -- it goes back to his 20s. So we know that there's the pattern. That's the thing that's so frustrating for me as a psychologist and someone who's worked on cases like this, and -- is that all the warning signs were there every step of the way, and it escalated.

Where it really escalated, again, and we've talked about this in other cases, is when he was permitted to isolate and by permitted, I don't mean -- I'm not pointing a finger at anybody. I'm just saying that he isolated, he literally boarded up, as you've shown us tonight.

MORGAN: Yes.

AMADOR: The windows, the doors.

MORGAN: Well, he created a kind of dungeon, didn't he? I mean, with all the secret mirrors and the cameras and the boarded up windows, he's creating his own little private world of hell.

AMADOR: Yes. And he stuck behind enemy lines which means he stuck behind his own ears and his own ears telling him these women are to blame for what I'm doing to them. I mean, that's the classic abuse psychology.

MORGAN: Right. Dr. Amador, fascinating as always. Thank you very much indeed.

When we come back the White House under fire. The IRS scandal, battle over Benghazi, now the Justice Department secretly collecting reporters' phone records. What happened to the president's pledge of transparency? I'll ask First Amendment advocate Floyd Abrams.

And later, law and disorder. Inside the biggest cases of the day from Ariel Castro to O.J. Simpson to Jodi Arias.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: When President Obama first took office he pledged to make transparency a hallmark of his White House. Listen to what he said in January of 2009, just one day into his first term.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to make government accountable, make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they're being made, and whether their interests are being well served.

Let me say it as simply as I can. Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: Now the Obama administration is caught in the middle of a First Amendment war between the Justice Department and the Associated Press. The A.P. says the government secretly collected phone records of reporters during a two-month period last year and it questions whether that was related to a probe into leaks of the details of a foiled terror plot last user.

And joining me is Constitutional and First Amendment attorney, Floyd Abrams, he's the author of "Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment."

Welcome to you, Mr. Abrams. I've got to say, this whole transparency thing with the president is crumbling, isn't it, because first of all we had -- well, in fact, let's just go back two weeks. The whole Guantanamo Bay issue rumbles on, a place he said he'd shut down but he didn't. Then we have Benghazi, where we have apparently 12 corrections in terms of talking points.

Then we have the IRS targeting Tea Partiers and people who use the word patriot or say they want to improve their country, and now we have this. We have the Justice Department targeting A.P., the Associated Press.

What do you make of all this? How transparent is this? Because it seems to me to be pretty nontransparent.

FLOYD ABRAMS, AUTHOR, "FRIEND OF THE COURT": Look, I don't think the one we learned about today is so much a matter of transparency as a violation or at least a danger to the First Amendment, to the notion of civil liberties and the like. Some of the others, though, obviously do raise serious questions of candor with the American public. There's just no denying it. MORGAN: In terms of the specific issue of the breaking story tonight involving the Associated Press.

ABRAMS: Yes.

MORGAN: Have they broken the law, the Justice Department, by doing this?

ABRAMS: It's possible. I doubt it, though. You know, the Department of Justice has internal regulations which govern their behavior. And as a general proposition, before they go after phone records or confidential sources, they're supposed to negotiate, supposed to talk to the journalists or the journalists' bosses.

Here, they didn't. Now there is an exception in this rule here if by even communicating to them, it would interfere with the integrity of the investigation. But it sure is hard to believe that an investigation which was really pretty well known around Washington and certainly to the A.P. could have been so frustrated by simply giving them a chance to go to court. I mean, that's the -- one of the real problems there.

If you don't tell them in advance, if you don't tell the journalists, if you don't tell the A.P., they have no recourse. They can't go to court and ask a judge to protect them because the secret is gone.

MORGAN: Yes. Nothing is completely outrageous. My First Amendment rights which obviously are extremely important in this particular case, but also the whole issue of protecting sources.

And let's remind everyone that when they were asked to hold the story, which involved this foiled terror plot, they did do that. So they behaved very responsibly.

ABRAMS: Very. Very.

MORGAN: And they have been rewarded for this responsible journalism by being kicked in the teeth, it seems to me.

ABRAMS: Yes. Now, look, that's -- I think that's absolutely right. Now from Justice's point of view, they don't care about that. They want to get their guy. They want to get the person who did the leaking. But in the course of that, look what they're doing. Twenty different telephones over two months from the Associated Press, all those calls recorded, that is to say, who spoke to whom via telephone number, all that is now in the hands of the Department of Justice.

I mean, that's not America at its best.

MORGAN: No. That's at its worst. And I'd like to know if they went further and actually bugged the journalists. Because that wouldn't surprise me either.

Let's read out two statements here, one from the A.P.'s president and CEO Gary Pruitt. He wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder and in part said, "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all the news gathering activities undertaken by the A.P. during a two-month period, provide a roadmap to A.P.'s news gathering operations and disclose information about A.P.'s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. We regard the action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with A.P.'s constitutional rights to gather and report the news."

Now the Justice Department responded by saying, "Regulations require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media. We must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

I mean, that's all very well, but the reality is that here you have a real attack on the freedom of the press, don't you?

ABRAMS: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, every word that you read, every word of the head of the Associated Press was accurate. I mean, what this -- what this does is to put in the hands of the government every indication of who spoke to whom on matters having nothing, nothing at all, to do with their investigation over a two- month period, and this is the sort of stuff, really, that if some foreign country did, the State Department would complain about on grounds of interference with human rights.

MORGAN: Absolutely. I think it's a total disgrace.

Floyd Abrams, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

ABRAMS: Thank you.

MORGAN: When we come back, more crises for the Obama administration. The battle over Benghazi and charges that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups. I'll ask a top Democrat what it all means for the White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORGAN: How many battles can the Obama administration fight at one time? The seizure of reporters' phone records, cover-up allegations over Benghazi, and the IRS allegedly targeting Tea Party groups. Today the president sounded defiant and angry and promised answers.

Well, joining me now is Maryland Democrat, Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Welcome to you, Congressman. Let me ask you straight away, are you as appalled by this A.P. story as I am?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Yes, it is very upsetting, but I think, Piers, that we're going to have to see what more there is to this story. I just read it a few minutes ago. I think we're going to have to look -- into it but it does concern me as it should concern all of us.

MORGAN: I mean, 20 phone lines, maybe 100 journalists, over a two-month period, every call they made logged and recorded. That is just outrageous.

CUMMINGS: Again, I want to see exactly, you know, a little bit more information. But I can tell you as a lawyer, it concerns me and it should concern all of us here on Capitol Hill, and like I said, everybody in the country.

MORGAN: And it comes at a time when the Obama administration's integrity, I think, is being seriously questioned for the first time in many ways. Let's turn to the IRS and this targeting of Tea Party supporters. Again, it seems to me pretty outrageous. They're supposed to be nonpolitical, nonpartisan. We now know that IRS operatives in Washington were involved in this, which makes you wonder how high up this food chain we're going to get. But that again is an outrageous abuse of their position, isn't it?

CUMMINGS: No doubt about it. I can tell you, I remember when these issues came up under President Nixon. It basically was chilling to hear of some of the abuses. And now when we see and hear about what's going on in the IRS and the things that they've already apologized for, I got to tell you, our society, our democracy has no room for that. And I think anybody who has been improperly addressing our taxpayers and the tax-exempt organizations, they need -- and doing it improperly, they need to be punished to the highest level possible, period.

Our society -- I often say, Piers, that we have to guard our democracy. This is our watch. We've got to guard it with regard to freedom of the press. We've got to guard it with regard to making sure that people are able to live under the Constitution that we -- that's over our country. And we cannot stand around and just let these things happen.

MORGAN: Let's turn to Benghazi, because this still rumbles on, although I personally think that these two latest things involving the IRS and the attack on A.P.'s reporters are arguably even more serious. But let's just go back to Benghazi, because it all comes down, in the end, to trust, trust in the government, trust in the White House, trust in the president.

When you change 12 different parts of the talking points on an incident like this and you remove all mention of al Qaeda or indeed of any kind of terrorist group, when you do that, people's trust is going to be badly damaged.

CUMMINGS: Yes. I think you're absolutely right. But again, we're missing the point. I think we ought to deal with these talking points. I think they're very important. But Piers, we had four brave and wonderful diplomats to die. And the thing I guess I'm concerned about, OK, let's deal with the talking points, but let's make sure that our diplomatic corps and our embassies are properly guarded. I want to make sure that if we have emergencies like we had here in Benghazi, that our forces are where they need to be to address an emergency. Those are the kind of things that I'm most concerned about.

MORGAN: I agree with you. I agree with you on that. And everybody else agrees with you. But here's the thing, I also want to trust, though, the government when they say what happened. And it seems to me quite clear now that they deliberately fudged things because what they didn't want to tell the American people was, you know what, this could have been al Qaeda, because that would have meant the war on al Qaeda was suddenly in reverse again.

CUMMINGS: I think you had a situation where there was a dispute with regard to talking points between the CIA and the State Department. But certainly the American people deserve the truth. That's one of the reasons why, Piers, I wanted to -- our chairman, Chairman Issa, to allow folks to come forward who wrote the report, the Accountability Report, so they could come forth and tell us exactly what happened.

You know, Pickering and certainly Mullen, both of them are honorable people. They have done an extensive report. We welcomed, of course, the whistle blowers. They came forth. They -- you know, to say what they said. And then we had Chairman Issa the other day, on Sunday, making various accusations about the authors of the report. And now he said he's going to have them go and spend some time with some staffers in private and not allow them, for the moment, to come forth and make their presentation in public.

They've been -- he said that they have been untruthful and that they have done -- not done a complete job. Those are the kinds of allegations that are very, very serious. And they need to -- they need to have the same opportunity that our whistle blowers had to make their presentation. I think whenever you have a situation where you have accused somebody of those kinds of things, they need to have a forum to address them.

MORGAN: I would not disagree with you. Final question, briefly, if you don't mind, when you add the A.P. story, scandal, let's call it that -- the IRS scandal, the ongoing scandal of Benghazi, this has been the worst week the president's had, isn't it?

CUMMINGS: This is -- without a doubt, this has been a tough week. But again, Piers, I think we're going to have to look at the information as it comes in. Keep in mind that we're going to get the IRS report sometime this week. The A.P. story is just breaking. We have to see what's there.

And of course, I do believe that we're going to be able to hopefully, if we can do some things on a bipartisan basis, address this Benghazi situation. So yeah, it's been a tough week. But you know what, our country's been through tough times before. Again, this is our watch. And we've got to do everything in our power to make sure that we address the issues and address them in a way that's forthright and very transparent. MORGAN: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head with that word, transparent. There's not been much of that recently. Congressman, thank you very much for joining me.

CUMMINGS: Thank you.

MORGAN: Coming up next, former Senator Olympia Snowe is on the watchdog committee overlooking the IRS. Does she think President Obama is facing a presidential curse, of second term scandals?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The whole issue of this -- of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a side show.

The whole thing defies logic. And the fact that this keeps on getting turned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN: An angry President Obama today, calling the battle over Benghazi political. My next guest knows a lot about Washington's dysfunctional politics. Republican Olympia Snowe left the Senate after three terms when she became convinced that Congress is simply not doing its job. She's still dedicated to fixing the system and keeping America great.

She's the author of "Fighting for Common Ground." And she joins me now. Before we go any further, senator, I just want to read a Tweet. This from Rocky M, which says careful attacking the administration, Piers, you might get deported. We have been down this road, of course, earlier this year. And if they did try and deport me for this, it would be a breach of my First Amendment rights. I think I'm allowed to have an opinion.

So I'm relaxed on that. If you want to Tweet me, by the way, Tweet me using the hash tag #DearPiers, and I will use a few of those tomorrow night after we've been through the show.

Senator, you heard me talking earlier to a few people about what's been going on. This is a bad, bad week for Barack Obama, isn't it?

OLYMPIA SNOWE, FORMER SENATOR: It is, for the president. And I think the sooner that he can get ahead of it and the White House and to address all these issues and these concerns, the better off they will be and certainly the country.

MORGAN: This whole thing of transparency, this is about as far removed from transparency as you can get. Justice Department sneaking around with reporters' phone records, the IRS attacking the Tea Party for overt political reasons, Benghazi. You put it all together, it's a mess.

SNOWE: Well, it is, in the sense that also the American people, you know, are already losing confidence in their institutions. And now this just compounds their fears and their affirmations.

MORGAN: I get a sense everything is being done now, whether on the Republican side or the Democrat side -- everything is being done for pure political reasons. The national interest of America seems to be secondary to that.

SNOWE: It is. That's unfortunate, but you're right. That's exactly why I made the decision to leave the United States Senate, .Wondering whether or not it would be possible to change that dynamic from within the institution or outside. I took my fight outside the United States Senate, and encouraging people to place a premium on bipartisanship, you know, have political rewards for those politicians who engage in consensus and compromise and bipartisanship, and political penalties for those who don't.

We have to change it. We have to speak up and engage the public. And that's why I'm traveling around the country talking on political campuses. Young people understand the stake that they have in the future and they're deeply concerned. We're creating a link with the Bipartisan Policy Center that was cofounded by four former majority leaders, Senator Daschle, Senator Mitchell, Senator Baker and Senator dole. And we want to have people to have the means by which they can not only channel their frustrations, but do something about it, and demand results on Capitol Hill.

We need to have a government that's going to respond to the crucial issues. They're not dealing with the big issues anymore, Piers. That's the problem now.

MORGAN: Take the White House. Their reaction to Benghazi, it wasn't really anything to do with us. Their reaction to IRS, well, nothing to do with us. Reaction to the A.P. scandal, whoa, whoa, whoa, we knew nothing about any of this. It just stretches any kind of plausibility that nobody at the White House had any knowledge of any of these things.

MORGAN: Again, I think Congress needs to get to the bottom of it. And I think the White House has to provides those answers. But it has to be done on a bipartisan basis. Seeking the truth should be a bipartisan pursuit. Republicans can't be overly political about it. And the Democrats can't be overly dismissive. They've got to get together.

I mean, we've had crises, we've had scandals in the past. We have able to transcend them by virtue of working together, hand in glove, to get it done. That's what needs to be done in this instance. When you think about Benghazi, I mean, men and women's lives are at stake in the foreign service. I worked on these issues in the '80s, I co-authored the legislation that created the Diplomatic Security Bureau, the Regional Security Office and the Accountability Review Board. Now we're seeing examples, once again, that demonstrate that we haven't learned from the past events. And something went terribly wrong.

MORGAN: What's been the reaction to your book up on the Hill? Have you had a good reaction?

SNOWE: I haven't heard from my former colleagues. People have been positive.

MORGAN: Do they want to hear this message?

SNOWE: Well, I think so, because there are a number of people, both in the House and the Senate, that want to work together and get things done. They understand just what you said, is that it's being -- it's the politics over the policies, become a perpetual campaign. There used to be a time where the first year after the election, you sat down with the president and the Congress, you synchronized the agenda and you plowed through the issues. That didn't mean to say you --

MORGAN: Everyone is in permanent election mode.

SNOWE: They are.

MORGAN: At the moment, electioneering in American politics means attacking. So everyone is in permanent attack dog mode. It's like "Reservoir Dogs." And I think the national interest of America is not being served.

SNOWE: It isn't. It's to the detriment of this country. That's why I decided to write this book. I wasn't planning on writing a book when I made my announcement not to seek re-election, because I wanted to make the point to the American people, this is the time to change it. They have to change it. And there are ways to do it in real time, through the technology that you use so well.

Absolutely. People can do it. Just as those who fanned the flames of polarization, we ought to be able to do it together and seek bipartisanship and demand it. Otherwise say, you know what, you're out.

MORGAN: I totally agree.

SNOWE: We don't even have a budget.

MORGAN: You are speaking my language. Actually, you're not, really. But you sort of are. It's English, isn't it? It's a common language. "Fighting for Common Ground, How we Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress," terrific book. I urge everyone in Washington, never mind the viewers, Washington, go read this book. Wake up to what is happening. Thank you very much.

SNOWE: Thank you, Piers.

MORGAN: Coming up, law and disorder, the cases America can't get enough of, from Jodi Arias to the Cleveland Kidnappings to O.J. Simpson back in court. Gloria Allred joins me, along with Casey Anthony's former attorney, Jose Baez.

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MORGAN: A guilty verdict today in the shocking trial of an abortion provider who was charged with murdering three infants after they were born. Seventy two year old Dr. Kermit Gosnell (ph) was also convicted of a death of a patient, and now faces a possible death sentence. It's one of several cases making tabloid headlines. We'll cover them all in tonight's Law and Disorder.

Joining me now is Jose Baez, Casey Anthony's former attorney and author of "Presumed Guilty." Also here, my old friend attorney Gloria Allred. Welcome to you both.

Let's start with this case of Dr. Gosnell. Should he get the death penalty, do you think?

GLORIA ALLRED, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, he's certainly eligible for it. My real concern, though, is the political nature of all of this, in the sense that the anti-choice, the anti-abortion groups are going to try to use this case --already are trying to use this case, Piers, as a way to get new laws which will restrict abortions even further, and which will then cause women to have to seek back-alley doctors, such as Dr. Gosnell, which will be dangerous to their health.

MORGAN: Right. Because Jose Baez, the reality is that he fragrantly breeched existing laws, didn't he? That's what we're dealing with.

JOSE BAEZ, AUTHOR, "PRESUMED GUILTY": Yes, absolutely. And then you have various other factors as to his intent. You know, common sense will tell you that if you're delivering a live baby, that that's absolute and complete murder. But I think there's going to be a lot of gray here in the area of the sentencing phase, as to what his actual intent was, and whether it was easily provable that he had specific intent to murder.

ALLRED: And I think we're going to have to condemn the Department of Health in Pennsylvania. After all, they are the ones who should have been at that clinic and monitoring the practices to make sure that they were safe and not dangerous to a woman's health and to her life. But they weren't there, haven't been there apparently since 1983.

MORGAN: Yes, I completely agree with that. Let's move onto O.J. Simpson, because he's appearing in court on Wednesday, appealing against his conviction. Jose Baez, this may be the time we get to hear O.J. testify.

BAEZ: I think you're definitely going to hear from him. The key issue here is whether the plea was actually conveyed by Mr. Galanter to O.J. Now, if Mr. Simpson claims that it wasn't delivered and Mr. Galanter says that it was, I think the court will err on the side of caution and actually deny his petition. But if there's some other type of evidence that actually lends credence to his argument that he was not given that plea, that's a very, very serious thing.

As a defense lawyer, you must convey all pleas and all plea overtures to your client.

MORGAN: Right. Just to remind viewers who don't know about it, this obviously goes back to when O.J. was convicted of orchestrating the gun point seizure of memorabilia he claimed was stolen from him. He's now claiming, Gloria, there was a plea he didn't know about.

ALLRED: Well, he is. But in addition, he's saying that his lawyer, Yale Galanter, gave him advice that -- apparently that he could do what obviously he cannot do because it's illegal, to go in and take what he says is his property, as long as he didn't use physical force or trespass. Now, Mr. Galanter denies that advice. But if, in fact, the judge would believe that bad advice was given, than Yale Galanter would have a conflict in even representing him, because he would have a conflict in advising him whether to testify at the trial or not, because that might affect the attorney's reputation if he gave that advice.

And that is very serious. So the ineffective assistance of counsel argument is an uphill battle always for any defendant to make, but the argument, if believed, that his client -- that Yale had a conflict of interest and shouldn't have represented him would go to Simpson not having criminal intent and could result in that judgment or verdict being set aside.

MORGAN: Could be crucial. And O.J. will be testifying probably on Wednesday. And that could a big day in the courts because Jodi Arias, Jose Baez, could also be literally fighting for her life, trying to ward off a death penalty sentence. What do you think will happen there?

BAEZ: Well, in this case, I initially thought that she had a great shot at getting life in prison. After this interview, which I know the prosecutor is going to use against her -- I think he's going to play it. He's going to harp on it. He's going to bring it and put it in their face, just like he did with the no jury will ever convict me statement. So right now, it's anybody's guess as to whether she's going to get life or not.

MORGAN: It's going to be a fascinating day on Wednesday. O.J. Simpson and Jodi Arias both on the stand. Who knows what will happen.

Jose Baez and Gloria Allred, thank you both very much. And we'll be right back after this short break.

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MORGAN: I will leave you with some breaking news. A suspect has just been identified in the New Orleans Mother's Day Parade shooting that left 19 people shot and injured. Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said that authorities are looking for a 19-year-old man called Aiken Scott. That's all for us tonight. Send us your Tweets about the show to @PiersMorgan, using the hash tag #DearPiers. And I may read them in tomorrow's show if they're not too rude.

That's all for us tonight. Anderson Cooper starts right now.